my friends call me 5 @sj5@witches.live

was people watching in Bellingham, WA, earlier, & pondering some of what I was seeing, when a voice in my head suggested:

"'Musician' is a gender."

😶

haven't ORGANIZED this mess in a while,
but in case anyone's after new music,
here's our collected bandcamp purchases to sort through—

https://bandcamp.com/trashpandaeargoggles

#Bandcamp

been reading this excellent work of modern philosophy... it's intense so breaks for musician biographies & mystery novels but... well worth a look!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/arguing-for-a-better-world-how-philosophy-can-help-us-fight-for-social-justice-arianne-shahvisi/18427045

#Books #Bookstodon #BooksOfMastodon

it's a little thing, maybe, but hearing Boots Riley talking briefly about "collectively-owned studios" as a way fwd for the movie/tv industry post-strike really got my brain fired up.

Would love to see musicians talk about similar—
studios, venues, digital platforms, etc?

most obvious (if financially unattainable?) option would be for a group of musicians to purchase bandcamp—

but‚
TIDAL is technically musician run isn't it?
so it has to be INDEPENDENT musicians—
historically not a group with tons of excess cash.

& there's the question of what "collectively owned & run" looks like.

There ARE maps for this,
tho I haven't studied them myself.

#Bandcamp

...

so idk if I have it in me—

maybe—

but there's an article to be written about:

"Leon Russell the autistic NB who fought the music industry to a draw over roughly 70 years of being a total freaking musical genius who refused to take any shit."

#Music #MusicIndustry #Neurodiversity #Gender

...
there's ALSO (& it's a reach but imo only slight) a gender-non-conformity subtext.*

this only comes up once, obliquely, in the penultimate paragraph,—
but I feel qualified to say I've felt it in his music all along.

* (where dude behavior outside strict masculinity = gender-non-conforming... & there's a LOT that can be said about those strict limits)

3/x

#Music #Gender

...

there's ALSO an important "neurodivergence" subtext to Leon's story which unfortunately isn't made explicit til the last third—in favor of the more common bipolar/"mental illness" narrative.

While chronologically accurate, of course I'd love to see this frame things early on....

... thus dispensing w/ the "Leon was crazy" narrative in favor of a "the music biz is corrupt & Leon saw through it & it DROVE him crazy" narrative, if anything.

2/x

#Music #MusicIndustry

(ok 1st thoughts on Janovitz' Leon Russell bio, which I'd say 98% of it was better than anyone could have expected or hoped—)

Not what I expected (or the author intended) to take from the Leon bio, but,

you *can* read his story as one musician's prolonged & semi-successful attempt to seize the means of production.

(in which case file w/ Zappa, The Dead, others?)

1/x

#Music

"We do, doodly do, doodly do, doodly do
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust."

~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

I've had this probably-just-a-cold thing about half a dozen times in the last two years & every time the solution turns out to be "eat a whole lot of food all day for maybe two days & sleep a lot"

haven't smoked any weed in a few days
because we have been busy
& I am tired
& fighting off what I sincerely hope is
Just A Little Cold (tm)
& wow
I would really like to smoke a little weed

am receiving word that cats have never before in their life had snacks

crucial tech.

https://thehardtimes.net/blog/how-to-tell-your-white-friend-you-dont-like-wilco/

#Music

so I gotta say,

even tho he's someone I've known for a long time

(& even tho we haven't spoken since I um cut him out of my life back in 2015)

having a city councilperson call my wife to ask her to tell me to stop talking about him on the internet

is a new experience for me!!!

#Seattle #CityCouncil

@PlayAllTheThings

yay so glad!