busybee fluffy rambles

I figure it’s been a little while since my last random-updates update thing, so here’s what’s going on in my life. Because I guess some folks like knowing this stuff? Weird. Anyway.

My new roof is finally getting installed. It sure is loud and poundy. Supposedly this is a two-day project so theoretically they are around halfway done. Unlike most home renovation stuff I can’t easily take photos showing the progress. Oh well.

Also after trying to work on some music in my newly-rearranged basement I was finding that having the computer desk in the center of the back “wall” with keyboard way off to the left looked cool but it made actually working on music a major drag, since I couldn’t just turn and start recording, I’d have to get up and take a few steps over, and that made my workflow really frustrating. So since I couldn’t work on music today anyway (because noise) I reoriented stuff to be a bit more like how it used to be, with the desk on the left and the keyboard to the right of it, and now it’s way more comfortable to work on things.

After years of constantly lowering my prices, trying to get a vanishingly-small amount of sales on things I care about, I’ve decided to raise everything and make it uniform, across all of my music storefronts, namely:

• Bandcamp
• itch
• Gumroad
• Ko-Fi

Here’s my pricing strategy and rationale.

I feel like I need to come up for air, after some protracted busy-ness (not to be confused with business, which I have none of at the moment).

Do people ever read these things? Or do people just like knowing that I’m still alive? Either way here’s a “I’m still alive” post.

Caught up on my collections of:

• Posy
• Nicky Flowers

Added the discographies of:

• James Hastings
• our dear friend, the medic

So, hey, Bandcamp is a great service that a lot of musicians and fans rely upon for fair distribution and sales of music. It is a really great thing.

Unfortunately, Bandcamp’s owners decided that having a sustainably profitable business wasn’t Enough for them and sold it to Epic Games a year ago, with the idea that it’d become a money-printing factory that does All The Licensing.

And that didn’t pan out, so a week ago Epic re-sold Bandcamp to Songtradr, which is basically an A&R pay-for-play scam with the trappings of respectability. Here’s a video Benn Jordan did on the topic (focusing on a site called Taxi but Songtradr is the same basic thing):

Now Songtradr is blocking the Bandcamp union from actually being, y'know, a union. They aren’t honoring the union terms, have locked workers out of critical systems, are completely ignoring the collective bargaining power of Bandcamp as a company and are doing all sorts of heinous shit.

However! This is not a time to boycott Bandcamp! All that does is make Bandcamp less valuable and gives Songtradr more sway over them, while disproportionately impacting the musicians who rely on it. Please look to see what the union is requesting in terms of support and solidarity. There’s a lot you can do to show your support.

Independent musicians thank you.