The Life and Times of AGMB

Well, it was born under a bad star, with the number 13 tattoo’d on it’s neck and the mark of the beast upon its soul. And the only boy who could ever reach it, was the son of a preacher man. And it was beautiful while it lasted, but the bell tolls for us all sooner or later and the winding down of Another Goddamn Music Blog has begun. Soon(ish) this blog will fade away to be replaced with the glorious and venerable new Emperor of the internet, The Creative Uncommons, which’ll be alot like a bigger, sexier, prettier version of this place only, hopefuly, a lot more successful and with a lot more people on board.

The new site will hold all of the archives from here and this blog’ll stay standing in the wings, out of use but not forgotten, largely because a few artists and sites link here referencing stuff. And there’s still one update to come when I launch the new site, so stay tuned for that.

And that’s the end of this particular public service anouncement.

e2a: If anyone is interested in contributing to/helping with the new site then e-mail me.

On a lack of updates and other great matters of our time…

Those who’ve noticed may have noticed that of late this blog has suffered from a grim paucity of actual, real, review shaped updates, those fine things which make a blog worth reading and validate my existence by granting some use to it. Well I have a great many excuses but none of them are particularly good and, normally, I wouldn’t note them at all but for the fact that they accompany news of something rather more interesting…

At the moment my main project is the creating of a Creative Commons music site, think AGMB but far, far bigger and with a shed load more writers and contributors along with a host of features which go beyond the boundaries of simple reviews. In part this is just because I like doing stuff (or avoiding doing it rather) but on a more community minded note it’s an attempt to fill that gap which very few sites seem to be trying to deal with on the ’scene’, I want the site to provide a sense of self and a sense of continuity to the CC world as opposed to the infinite number of drifting islands which currently make it up. Pretentious as a roomful of IDM producers I know but still, I have a dream, comrades.

What I don’t really have at the moment is a timeline on all this, although the end of September is a theoretical possibility for launching it, despite the myriad problems which seem to have a habit of occuring. So if you’re interested in having anything to do with my grand, world conquering scheme then don’t hesitate to get in touch, even if you’re just idly curious about it all.

And as for this blog, some proper updates will resume soon, once I work out what my excuses are and find a way to deal with them. Don’t panic, I’m in control.

When Good Blogs Go Bad, Spring Break Edition

You’ll have to forgive this updates stench of self indulgence I’m afraid but, like the red nosed old drunk lounging in the corner of your local Wetherspoons* I find myself staring into the watery abyss of my cheap, fizzy lager and contemplating the nature of the universe in which I find myself this week. ‘What’s bought this about?’, I hear no one in particular ask. Well now, it’s about the state of this glorious Creative Commons nation of ours, both in the present, in the future and in what will soon be the past. Vague enough? I certainly hope so.

Another Goddamn Music Forum (Sticky Post)

Go here, sign up, post, enjoy, feel that your life is validated and your transcendence to a higher plain of existence guaranteed. Arguably the worlds greatest Creative Commons music forum…

Spotify

Chances are I’m lagging behind the times on this one but a nifty little thing nonetheless. Spotify is a fairly clean and simple program which hooks you up a vast collection of streamable music, not CC music but commercially licensed stuff. The price? Sporadic ads which are only mildly irritating. It’s basically a clever idea from the creator to tap into the terrified, money hungry desires of some commercial labels who see all of their chances to make a buck disappearing with the proliferation of music piracy and, to a lesser extent, CC lovin’ musos. It’s not going to be their salvation of course, you can’t download anything without paying for starters but the ability to build playlists and selectively pick out tracks without waiting for the computer to decide it’s time (a la Last.fm) makes it a fun thing to have around anyway. Even if you download all of your music this is perfect for exploration, which is why I’ve spent the last 12 hours listening to 1920s Jazz, not a genre I’d ever paid attention to before but this is fast and easy enough to give it a try without any real thought.

Anyway, worth a download, because it is a small one and the install is lightening fast too. Now if only Spotify would start covering CC music, that’d be a glorious thing but I’m assuming that they only sign deals with commercial labels at the moment and I can’t see any opening for user submissions.

On a side note though ANOTHER GODDAMN MUSIC FORUM, get over there and sign up so you can bathe in the collective wisdom of me and the other guy.

Atomic Suplex distort the universe…

A few free tracks from Atomic Suplex, masters of ‘ROCK’ of the sort that was always meant to be. If you can get through the insane amount of distortion and start playing air guitar it’s not too bad at all. Plus their lead singer wears a helmet, which is always good.

Downloads…

Happy New Year…

… folks. Normal service will resume before long, just gimme a little time to recover from the last couple of weeks inaction, amazing how tiring doing nothing is eh?

A stab at sanity…

Over the last week I’ve found myself completely and utterly obsessed with the world of free music, to the point where people won’t even drink with me any more because I keep rambling on about Catalan Dub, Russian Hip Hop and generally insulting people for not being as in the know as I am, which has been fun. Anyway, this has left me updating this thing every day in the first burst of enthusiasm, something which I’m far far too lazy to manage with any consistency so from here on out I’ll be posting new stuff twice a week, with news updates whenever I find anything worth noting.

So, Friday and Tuesday, mark ‘em off in your diaries as the highlight of your online week, or at the very least the highlight of your free-music-blog-reading week. And for now I’ll get back to my nuclear bunker deep in the wastelands of South London to dig through the 300 or so albums I haven’t actually listened to yet. And I might watch a bit of TV too.

Merry Christmas folks and thanks for reading.

Entertainment for the Braindead Remixes released…

Just a bit of lazy promotion for the deserving today, look here for a selection of the aforementioned remixes, which I’m still listening to myself so I won’t pass judgement on them.

Aren’t we amazing and other questions of our time…

No review today, although I’ll be back with them before long, just felt like a change. Very long article I know but hey, you don’t have anything better to do, do you? Or is it just me who doesn’t..?

We’re awesome. Really, we are. I wake up every day and take pride in just how amazingly great we really are, in fact, taken as a whole, I’d say we’re probably the best people who ever lived. And there’s lots of us. And even if some of the individuals amongst us are shite they still become, by virtue of connection, really amazingly excellent. Who comprises of this elusive ‘We’? Is it just a reflection of my often rampant egomania and a vain affectation of using the royal ‘We’ when refering to myself? For once, no. ‘We’ are the thousands of people hovering around the world of free music and we should all be fucking proud of ourselves for being so much better than most of the universe.