So Mp3.net wanted El, and when they emailed him, he replied with a CC to me, bc that’s how we play. By which I mean, we work together on pretty much all projects, and we’ve formulated that relationship as a consulting partnership under the banner of Touchbasic.com. I guess they were kind of stoked to find a tech savy (ish) writer girl who might be interested in helping out. Since then we’ve had some really interesting back and forth with their founders, talking about how and whether we can get involved in the volunteer effort that is building their social network/music marketplace site behind the scenes of Mp3.net.

It’s been a tricky thing, trying to get a feel for a group of people who are doing something so similar, in some ways, to what we’re doing with Indyish. There were things right away that had my eyebrows raised- for example- in some of their copy they claimed they’d be the world biggest open source project, but when I asked about it (as you’ll see below) I was told that by “the strictest of definitions” the project is not actually open source which made me squirmy, I did my thesis on open source software after all; I’m kind of into it. But I do understand that when you’re building a website with the free labour of worldwide and independently motivated contributors there are bound to be a variety of feelings about whether the code written can be given away. And it’s bound to take a while to come to agreement on questions this big.

I’ll talk more about that over the next little while. First, some context- here’s the first set of questions I sent them, and their answers:

1. how does one become a producer vs an artist?

Mp3.Net is made up of three types of Individuals, Members, Artists and Producers. Actually one can be both or all 3. In our model a producer is an individual and is no different from the member except that they have chosen to contribute in some way to make MP3.Net better. An artist is a separate entity within the system that can publish and sell music through the network. One must be a member to be an artist but an artist can also be a Producer. A producer however is a member with extended privileges, abilities and responsibilities within the social network. The more responsibility the producer has the higher the ranking and privileges. 3 Types of producers Producer defined above, Exec Producer and Founding Producer. To put a future statistical face on what we believe we will have as numbers go. Would be 1 million Producers, 10,000 Exec Producers, 1000 Founding Producers.

2. If music is sold, what is the rights policy? does mp3.net affect artists rights in any way?

All music sold will be under end user agreements with no extended rights for resale but we have chosen not to implement any DRM (digital rights management) at this time. MySpace and many other current players in this arena have decided not to implement any DRM at this time so we are going to govern ourselves accordingly.

Can they sell the same tracks elsewhere? Absolutely! We take the view that MP3.Net is one route to market and although we can only hope to become the route of choice we believe that an independent artist should use any means at their disposal to market their work. We feel the restrictive agreements used by the industry and some other sites do not serve either the artists or their audience.

Will you actively defend artist’s rights if their intellectual property gets stolen because they’re on your site?

Like a bear protects her Cubs. We have already recruited a couple lawyers to help with this but we intend to defend our artists and more importantly help them to defend themselves.

3. Do you pick artists to promote above others? do you have any interest in ‘quality control’?

Publishing artists, those who have posted music and made it available for sale or listening will always have priority over non publishing artists of course but that is only natural. Quality control however will be done through ratings. Members will rate music as will the Artists, giving us a two tier rating system allowing us to truly know who the network loves or thinks is great music. Keep in mind No Shareholders caring about profit allows to truly see who the people choose to be the best. We have however also discussed having a bottom 100 as well as a top 100. The fact of the matter is one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.

Quality is a hard distinction in art. One of the founding concepts in MP3.Net is that there is a market for everything… no matter how small a market. We are sure that if there is someone out there producing “atonal bluegrass electronica” there is also someone out there willing to listen to it.

4. How can you help indyish.com? or touchbasic.com? I’m into being involved, as el says, in mutually beneficial ways, so I’m interested in hearing the benefit to indyish if I spend time on mp3.net.

Great Question and probably the hardest to put words too, this is one hoping you will be able to communicate to the world better then I am or have to date. The attached doc touches base on this. The important thing to grasp in this answer is that Mp3.Net is made up of Individuals and not corporations. These Individuals called Producers get to showcase who they are and what they do professionally at their Producer Profile, which is housed at Production.Mp3.Net – 1/3 of what makes mp3.net what it is and the Freelance site where Members Hire Mp3.Net Producers.

One of the things we set out to do is to create a virtual market place for all the talent needed by artists to produce and market their music. Programmers, designers, writers, administration, models, videographers, sound engineers and many more are all necessary parts of the community.

5. You say that 400 people are participating for the exposure- how are they getting exposure?

400 Producers, 60 Executive Producers, and a Dozen Founding Producers, all will be exposed as entities that have come together to truly build a Peoples Company. But it doesn’t mean producers only get clients and exposure they also get to benefit from the most fair and transparent Affiliate package that we call VC – Vouched Commissions that generate you 10% of any money ever spent on Mp3.Net by any member you refer.

How can a new person help?

You can help by just doing what you do best, and improving things that could be better. Regarding Elrun we can use his talent coding and working with our teams move this project along. As well I see him helping in recruitment of good and down to earth talent. In your case it could be in many areas. Your writing and communications background could be invaluable.

6. How many developers are currently working on it, and what’s the hierarchy like? and how open is it to change/critique- if there’s stuff I don’t think is good, will I get flame mail from 400 angry producers?

The developers are currently divided into 4 groups with a number of additional programmers around. Oversight is done in a loose hierarchy according to responsibility. Jeff sets out most of the project parameters and general structures. Panos sets out technical parameters and leads development. Paulo oversees all ecommerce related functions. Shabee oversees the team in India which covers many different functions

Flamed? NEVER! There is the highest of respect between all Producers and even higher as the rankings go up. So with you and Elrun coming on board as Exec Producers you wouldn’t have to worry about any of that negativity that exists in other communities. This is a best idea wins environment

7. What system(s) do you use to communicate between ‘teams’?

Actually we are a little old school here. Mainly we use a message board, email and chats. We looked at project boards but we found that they were too rigid for our purposes.

8 .How is it open source? is the code on sourceforge or something like that where other potential contributors can access and use it for their own projects?

By the strictest definitions it’s not open source. We are using mostly open source software where we can, except in the area of ecommerce, but a lot of it is custom development. We have no plans to make the code available in part or otherwise available to the public at large. Amongst MP3.Net Producers it would depend on the project and the level of contribution by the producer in question. Such applications would be reviewed on a case by case basis by the council.

9. Can anyone work directly on improving the site? How do developers get committer status?

Working directly on a project of this scope is an intricate thing. For now our core people oversee the integration of code. This is done for a multitude of reasons ranging from quality control to security.

10. What are the technical benefits that will attract artists?

The benefits to the artist is that we are building an entity that will allow them a better internet presence and hopefully access to a better market for both CDs and digital music. Plans are also to provide them with the tools needed to interact with their fans and allow them to manage their online presence easily, book venues, and market themselves and their events effectively. The key is the social network structure that underpins the project. It allows for an individual to express many aspects of who they are and what they do, and grow as the site grows. The framework allows for a single point of reference to the activities of an individual which allows them market all that they do.

11. How much funding do you have for development, and where is it coming from?

And here it is, the most magical part of mp3.net since 2004 the web site has been self maintained with no investment needed with our launch date around the corner we are expecting tons of advertising revenues that will make funding unnecessary. Mp3.Net has been built 100% by contribution making us the best story online. If anyone was to Invest it would make them a share holder of some type crashing our concept that we are truly No ones company but our Members.

Following this, I had more questions, and we traded more emails.. here’s some more key highlights:

I admire the size of the idea. I dislike your claim that you’ll be the world’s largest open source project when what you are doing is not in fact open source. If you are going by some alternative interpretation of os then I think that needs to be defined up front really explicitly, otherwise you look either like you’re lying or like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
(that’s me being a bit prickly about some of the bold open source claims in the copy they sent me)

MP3.net : I fully agree with you, its just that you need to take in concideration the organic evolution Mp3.net has taken 3 years. We only now are starting to grow at a pace that is attracting great talent and things are moving faster then we can catch up. This is one of the last debated issues regarding our experiment. I am a big fan of making everything other then our Ecommerce/wallet/accounting software Open Source. Others disagree time will tell. Hoping you come on board and help me out on making Proper Open Source. I am only the guy who is supposedly good with people with the rolodex of some of the most influential people in entertainment industry, that I cant wait to show Mp3.Net too. I Was never great with words and programming skills are non existent. Some tell me its also the reason I couldn’t hold a note if life depended on it (I use the wrong side of my brain)J So before you use a strong word like “Dislike” around remember so far it seems all the stuff you like is the stuff written in mp3.net stone. J.

me: Another key thing is transparency, which you clearly recognize, but it means your internal communications need to be public as well. Where on the site will you publish your stats, revenue, emails logs, chat logs, etc? How are decisions made, especially regarding how the group’s money is spent? Do you have plans for a voting mechansim? What are the right and wrong ways to spend fund money?

mp3.net: Stats will be specific section built at – Stats.Mp3.net showing any and every stat to know to the online world Revenue will be – RDM.Mp3.Net – 100% transparent and will look like that rdm Spreadsheet.

Emails and chats will be dumped in an archive to be used for the Diary Board to use to write latest Diary. Karena who was one of the first producers has documented us for the last 3 years. Voting will be done by the multiple Boards and Councils that will be housed by Executive Producers and Founding Podcuers. A little bit of this can be seen at http://myproduction.mp3.net (you must be logged in) you will see in Prodcuer Appliction Council a Voting mechanism in place.

Regarding spending the money in The Fund it simply comes down to the 3 trusts that will each house 1/3 of the Fund monies

Trusts Named after the 3 type of individuals that make up mp3.net

Member Trust

Artist Trust

Producer Trust

Looking forward to responding to how each trust spends the money, and how the members producers and artists are involved in the process…

—-

Risa: Hey James, sounds good
I reread this stuff you sent back-

i still wonder how the councils you mentionned fit into this. Don’t members at each level need to participate in decisions about how to spend their fund money? are there regular or ongoing council discussions? does this happen on the forum? maybe we could just add “to participate in conversations on the mp3.net governance forum about how our site can continue to be better”

MP3: Exec Producers Sit on Boards

And

Founding Producers Sit on Councils

Boards are used for for specific sections that are mainly content oriented. Example Blog.Mp3.Net would be maintained and run by a group of Executive Producers who come together and house a Board called The Blog Board, who’s purpose is to have best possible blog that documents the growth of Mp3.Net. all the Admin functions for those Exec producers will be found at MyProduction.Mp3.Net

An example of a Council would be the Prodcuer application Council, you see this council is has every Founder on this council. So every Founding producer can be one of the 3 votes necessary for a applying producer to become full fledged Producer. Another example of a council will be Music Council, group of of Founding producers who have the music at heart will house it and see that Music.Mp3.Net is best Music site online. Or Prodcution Council in charge of making and seeing Prodcution.Mp3.Net to be one of the best freelance sites online and compete against the www.kasamba.com and www.elance.com and www.odesk.com of the world

Most of this stuff is being done on the board for now, but our coders are looking into a way of integrating something in our code. I just feel our producers need to step up and use any and all tools to better communicate. So board for now I guess

SO regarding the money The Fund is split in 3 trusts

So there would be 3 Councils that will be used to come up with multiple choices for The Members to Vote on I can, but first I would have to get into what each trust will use its funds for.

and for producers- maybe we could add something about the specific areas that producers work on?

there are 10 categories of Producers

Writer

Lawyer

Developer

Admin

Designer

Talent

Marketer

Model

Photographer

Film

But more specifcs will be worked into our freelance site found at http://infoseeksoftwaresystems.com/freelance/ that will become our http://production.mp3.net hopefully clearly documenting what producers have done and are doing, at the same time showcasing their work to the world. Not only in what they can do but actually what they have done for the network so all contribution will get documented, just need help to get it done J

Risa: and is there a way for producers to make money (or something) other than by refering?

MP3.NET: A producer makes money from clients that we refer to them on Production.Mp3.Net as I rambled above.

Risa: also- if you could jot down how people become members at each level that would be good. (i mean specifically, technically- obviously artists pay to join, but others? are producers voted in or something?)

To become a producer its as simple as opening yourself up to applying to a simple application form *attached and also can be found online form when logging in at mp3.net/comingsoon and clicking on MyProduction link

Risa: on that note- about paying i mean- maybe you could charge a sliding scale for users in developing countries. it would speed international adoption and just generally be more fair. a little tricky to organize, obviously, but fully doable.
ok..

Mp3.net: Hard to get done first time around, but you do need to know We have great fully branded wallet and invoice solution, because of 2 of our Founding Producers Paulo@ and Henry@, so yes it is doable but not right away.

—-

Hrmm, eh?

So many questions… so much that’s interesting, inspiring, exciting, heartening, potentially problematic, and soooo much that needs to be done for it to work.

For myself, for now, involvement is relatively limited, not least because I continue to give the vast majority of my labour, love and focus to Indyish.com. I’ve snuck into Mp3.net once or twice using James’ password, which he emailed to me after about two email conversations (the man is in many ways a shockingly open palm) and just fixed typos, or cleaned up a bit of prose. Aside from the positively galvanizing effect of being trusted like that, I have a writing instinct that makes this hard to resist. Aside from text edits, the contribution I am interested in making is one of naming areas of potential difficulty, of helping to talk through what exactly they are attempting; pushing in whatever small ways I can for them to follow through on their commitments to transparency and you know, the whole better world thing.

It’s in that spirit that I’ve gathered together these notes to share with you. I have many more which I’ll be posting soon. I will continue to think publicly about the project in this way, and I hope you’ll join me in casting critical light on it as it progresses- in the hope that a “true people’s company” can be all that it promises to be, and in awareness of the fact that it won’t be if people like us don’t help make it so.

Le libre est-il prêt pour l’audio professionnel ?

Dans le cadre des présentations mensuelles, le 20 juillet 2006 à
partir de 18h, Éric Devost fera un exposé sur le libre en audio
professionnel.

Expérience concrète de l’enregistrement d’un album complet avec le
groupe Mojoy (Rythm and Blues) avec batterie, basse, guitare, voix,
saxophone et Trompette au Studio Cadence à Québec. Lancement de
l’album à l’automne.

* Courte description du studio, de l’équipement et de la
philosophie derrière ce projet.
* Présentation détaillée de l’enregistrement, du mixage et du
mastering de l’album avec les logiciels Jack, Ardour et Jamin sur
plate forme Ubuntu.
* Feedback des musiciens et du réalisateur de l’album qui en est à
sa septième réalisation.
* Conclusion de l’expérience et statut de l’audio-libre en général.
* Réponse à la question posée ci-dessus.

Une présentation d’Éric Devost du Studio Cadence.

La présentation sera suivie comme d’habitude de la rencontre
informelle du Facil, au café l’Étranger (680 Sainte-Catherine Ouest,
coin University). Exceptionnellement ce mois-ci, la réunion aura lieu
conjointement avec la toute première rencontre de Creative Commons
Montréal, à partir de 19h30, voir

http://creativecommons.ca/blog/?p=185

À propos des présentations mensuelles de Facil

Ces présentation portent sur des sujets techniques ou
sociaux-économiques associés à l’informatique libre.

Elles ont lieu les 3ième jeudi de chaque mois au Centre de recherche
informatique de Montréal, 550 rue Sherbrooke ouest, bureau 100, à
Montréal (près du métro McGill). Elles sont suivies par les rencontres
mensuelles informelles. Pour plus d’information, consultez le
calendrier de Facil.

FACIL est une association à but non lucratif qui fait la promotion de
l’informatique libre au Québec. FACIL organise la Semaine québécoise
de l’informatique libre, des présentations mensuelles au sujet de
l’informatique libre, et organise ou participe à plusieurs autres
activités au sujet des logiciels libres et des standards ouverts.

Référence :

http://facil.qc.ca/Pr%c3%a9sentationsMensuelles/2006-07-20

Of course, I can’t claim to know whether either lady would have said they liked Neil Young or Bob Dylan. But those guys’ greatest songs are definitely hard to listen to- they tell the truth and there’s always something in it that’s hard to hear, and they sing with a voice that sometimes sounds as though it’s being pressed out through the edges of the skull, or from between chords and vertebrae, and personally I like that, love it even.

DOn’t get me wrong, I got nothing against some easy listening, but I think, maybe, that I like the hard singing better because it’s like being willing and able to tell the truth, even though the truth is difficult, dying, heartbroken, dirty, funny; even if the truth is that you’re flawed.

The interesting thing is that I sometimes think Dan has the same kind of potential in his voice and songs, especially on the new things he was playing me the other day- recordings of songs he wrote that’ll be on the new album. He’ll be pushed even further in his singing in the coming little while, and I’m kind of excited to see what happens.

1: Shinichiro Watanabe directed and storyboarded Samurai Champloo. This is the show we are currently watching. Before this we watched seasons 1 and 2 of NYPD Blue. Samurai Champloo is glowingly, astonishingly beautiful. It’s about hiphop-flavoured and brazenly anachronistic Samurai rebels, traveling with a funny and tough girl to find the Samurai who smells of Sunflowers. In each episode of Samurai Champloo there are scenes that I’d like to hang across my wall, and out my window, and across my front and back.

A few days ago I interviewed Barbara Layne, an artist-researcher in the Fibres program at Concordia University and director of Hexagram about wearable technology. She showed me a huge Mimaki printer that she uses to print photographs of storm clouds and lightening onto huge stretches of cloth, which she and her grad assistants then electrify with their bioluminescent thread. The wearable technology article and the interview with Barbara Layne will appear in the next issue of Worn, but I bring it up here because all I could think about yesterday was using that printer to print scenes from Samurai Champloo. I also thought about scenes from Nausicaa, and Spirited Away- (remember the train running through the water and the reflections of the white clouds?) But in these films, by Miyazaki, the moments of beauty are more intense, religious almost, less funky. Today, I want to hang out with funky.

2: In Samurai Champloo episode 11, Gamblers and Gallantry, one of the main characters spins off from the group into a mini plotline with a woman who is forced into prostitution to pay off her husband’s debt. The law has her trapped- she gets sold to her husband by her parents and now gets mauled by perverts because women aren’t allowed to get divorced. The system does not treat men and women equally, and our soft-spoken Samurai hero rebels. I never get tired of seeing good guys (or ethical badasses) defending human rights. Warms the cockles of my heart it does, and fuels my desire to hang out with Watanabe.

3: The music is so genius in Samurai Champloo: the long musical segments between episodes are actually increasingly pleasurable. Tsutchi, a hip hop artist who worked with Watanabe on Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop, says :

“There are similarities between some aspects of a director’s work and a DJ’s work, you know? Choosing which song to use in which scene is similar in feeling to how a DJ selects a record by watching the reaction of the audience. (…) During some magazine interview some time ago, he said: “I re-did the editing because the music was distorted. I decided to do that only by listening with my ears” (…) Rather then saying he did something because it was OK according to the meter, he valued the point at which he felt thoroughly good. That is an extremely important thing. That part of about him that creates while valuing that kind of a sense is musician-like or music-like, and I feel that’s what’s different from regular filmmakers.”
(from the liner notes for DVD volume 4.)

I don’t know much about dj’ing or editing film, but I know that feeling when something is good. And I also know it’s hard to stop and recognize that feeling when you’re in the midst of creating. Once you get a ball rolling, it’s hard to stay objective- or maybe what’s hard is staying quietly inside yourself (extra subjective?) so you can really feel the feeling of a good thing when it comes- either way, Watanabe knows something about it, and I want to meet him.

My next door neighbor’s dogs, little rabbit sized things, are always barking. Footsteps in the hallway or quiet talking, any hardly perceptible sound can set off the yapping. But I don’t mind the barking so much as the man bellowing “QUIET!” every time they do. Despite their size, they’re fully grown and I would guess they’re past the ability to absorb that kind of mild behavioral training. If I drop a fork in my kitchen, the dogs will bark, but the man snapping at his dogs is more unpleasant to hear. The strange old man’s bite is much worse than their dogs’ barks; in the end, dim sounds set off the man.

Joanna Newsom’s relatively recent song “Bridges and Balloons” recognizes this nicely.

The sight of bridges and balloons
makes calm canaries irritable;
they caw and claw all afternoon:
“Catenaries and dirigibles
brace and buoy the living-room –
a loom of metal, warp – woof – wimble.”
And a thimbles worth of milky moon
can touch hearts larger than a thimble.

Needless to say, when you’re on a boat, you tend to notice things that populate your field of vision, that break up the monotony. Especially bridges, to say nothing of balloons. So it’s not only or primarily the canaries who caw and claw at the sight of bridges and balloons. The mariners are just as excited: the song squeaks and chirps as much as the birds do. And of course, that is precisely what this verse is — the human way of telling the same story.

Here’s a more agitated version of the same thing. The dogs are irritated by the sounds of trains, planes, and automobiles, but it’s really the human — and his/her “birdie brain”:

I hate the steam train that whistles woozy my bird brain,
That sends my spaniel insane…

I hate the livery cars that have my bird brain seeing stars,
That drive my Doberman to drink in bars.

It’s fairly common to often turn to others to mark a moment: it’s helpful to round up a bunch of impressed surrogates to emphasize your accomplishment, for instance. One might think of Keats’s famous sonnet —

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

But it’s especially true of animals, who often perform this job of certifying what we sense in the first place. Dog-whistles and ghosts: surely some things set off the animal and not us. But more often than not, we call on animals and pets to confirm what we already know.

To end, here’s a short poem from the opposite perspective: James Tate’s “The Promotion”

Life is all about contrasts. You need to take it all in. I truly believe that.

Last Wednesday was the end of Ramadan. After a busy day visiting people all over the city, and an evening sharing a few drinks with some friends, I headed home. Before getting too far though, I got a call from a Malian buddy of mine. He was at The Starlight (which I just happened to be passing by). He and some Malian friends had bought a bottle of liquor and there was room for one more. I should definitely meet them as I would not need to pay the cover charge.

The scene in that night club was unlike anything I have ever experienced. The place was absolutely packed. I had been to The Starlight before, but that night there were twice the number of people that one would normally find. In addition, usually there are several Lebanese and Tooboboos (white people), but that night I seemed to be alone in a sea of Africans. It was epic. Every single person was dolled up in their best African dress. Every man in his brilliantly shiny and flamboyant Booboo. Every woman in her hand-tailored, perfectly fitted African dress, made entirely out of Basin with vibrant African colours.

The men had cigars in their hands, and bottles of scotch or vodka on their tables (yes I’m talking about celebrating the end of Ramadan – Mali is a Muslim country, but it is in no way a DRY Muslim country. Malians drink, they just do it in the dark). The women were sipping on their pineapple juice, unless they were too busy shaking it on the dance floor.

West African Club music pounding away, with its repetitive drums forcing your body to vibrate. All of a sudden Snoop-Dog gets mixed in and the crowd of dancers do not miss a single step. More Ivoirian and Senegalese dance music and then the euro-summer hit Looba-Looba-Ley chimes in. 50-cent. James Brown. A little techno for good measure. It all gets mixed into a juxtapositioned world dance scene and the crowd keeps on moving, all the while sporting their unique African threads.

Africans can dance. Let me tell you. I have spoken of this already, but let me reiterate. There are street parties next to my house where you see 12 year old boys dancing better than any North American Hip-Hop artist, little 4 year olds – I am not exaggerating – shaking their asses to the beat, beautiful 10 year old girls dancing more seductively than Jennifer Lopez or Britney Spears. They learn young, and they only get better. You can imagine the scene in that club.

These people were having the time of their lives. Some clearly with lots of money, others hanging off of their sugar daddies. For a few, this would be their one big night of the year. For many others clubbing is a relatively regular affair. Many young girls in West Africa live off of finances from well-to-do men. The more fun you are, the better looking you are, and the better you dance, the better chance you have of living a slightly higher lifestyle. Call it prostitution, call it inequality, call it survival, that is the sad reality (Mali ranks as the 4th worst country in the world on the UNDP’s gender-related development index – probably due in large part to the 98% of girls in this country that still undergo female circumcision).

Regardless, that night everyone was in their element, and clearly having an amazing time. They weren’t thinking of poverty. They weren’t thinking about colonialism. They weren’t thinking about development. They weren’t thinking about HIV. They weren’t thinking of the near hopelessness of much of this continent’s current situation. They were thinking: Dammit, I’m going to live. I’m going to have a good time. Just watch me.

I left the club at 4am with my ears ringing, my head spinning, and my thoughts whirling. A child put out an emptied and cleaned out tomato can in front of me with a couple of 25 franc coins in it, and mechanically said: donne moi 100 franc. An artisan tried to sell me a letter opener, a prostitute sent me kisses from across the street. A late night tea session was interrupted as I walked by so that brief, yet mandatory, salutations could be shared. I passed the Grand Mosque in my neighborhood and was convinced I heard dance music coming out of the Islamic speakers, from which I am so accustomed to hearing prayer calls. I smiled to myself when I realized the music was coming from a late night party and was merely bouncing off the walls of this large religious structure.

I went up to my roof, got under my mosquito netting and into my Mountain Equipment Co-op sleeping bag. The crescent moon shinning in the sky, illuminating this diverse city.

It’s all about contrasts.

Live and love life,

Michael

BENOIT MAUBREY (Berlin)

The Audio Gruppe creates mobile and multi-acoustic sculptures in public spaces.

Benoît Maubrey is the director of DIE AUDIO GRUPPE a Berlin-based art
group that build and perform with electronic clothes (past examples:
AUDIO BALLERINAS, AUDIO GEISHAS, AUDIO STEELWORKERS, BONG BOYS,
VIDEO PEACOCKS…). Basically these are electro-acoustic clothes and
dresses (equipped with amplifiers and loudspeakers) that create
sounds by interacting with their environment. For example the AUDIO
BALLERINAS use — among other electronic instruments– light sensors
that enable them to produce sounds through the interaction of their
movements and the surrounding light (PEEPER choreography). Via
movement sensors they can also trigger electronic sounds that are
subsequently choreographed –or “orchestrated”– into musical
compositions as an “audio ballet ” (YAMAHA choreography). A variety
of other electronic instruments (mini-computers, samplers, contact
microphones, cassette and CD players, and radio receivers) allow them
to work with the sounds, surfaces, and topographies of the space
around them in a variety of solo or group choreographies. Rechargeable
batteries allow them to operate both in- and outdoors.

The Audio Gruppe’s work is essentially site-specific. Often the
electronics is adapted into entirely new “Audio Uniforms” or “sonic
costumes” that reflect local customs, themes, or traditions (AUDIO
GEISHA/Japan, AUDIO CYCLISTS/France, AUDIO HANBOK/Korea)..

http://www.snafu.de/~maubrey/

http://www.audioballerinas.com

Monday, Nov. 14st, 2005
7:30pm – 9:30pm
York Amphitheatre, Concordia University
Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Complex EV 1-615
1515 rue St Catherine W.

For further information please contact Selena Liss

Email: slis@videotron.ca

Phone: 514-848-2424 ext 5645

The day after, on Tuesday November 15, Benoit Maubrey will do a
demonstration at the Topological Media Lab. Please contact Prof. Sha
Xin Wei beforehand if you would like to
attend.

I recently re-listened to Elliott Smith‘s earlier, demo version of his song “Speed Trials.” Though the demo is poorly recorded, it has some noteworthy lyric moments that are, I think, more interesting than the later version’s.

Placing the original, demo lyrics in the margins in bold, the chrous of finished version of “Speed Trials” (as it appears on Either/Or) is,

It’s just a brief smile [crossing your face,] got stuck on your face,
running speed trials [still standing in place.] all over the place.

To the ear, it seems as if the earlier lyrics have been improved. “Crossing your face” is softer than the harsher and germanic “ got stuck on your face.” Yet, there is a subtle indeterminacy in the original line that isn’t preserved in the song’s final form. “It’s just a brief smile got stuck on your face,” immediately branches into two possibilities that are, wonderfully, left open. Is it “It’s just a brief smile, [that] got stuck on your face,” or “It’s just a brief smile, [I] got stuck on your face”? Both potential lines flicker in the empty space between “smile” and “got”. Even better, while the images are alternating (one a frozen smile, the other that first moment of attraction), they are at the same time forging — from that flickering — a combined image: an unstable, moving one that is both the stuck smile and getting stuck on it.

I prefer the earlier chorus then, but there is something rewarding in juxtaposing the two versions. As editors of manuscripts or theorists of textuality or bibliography remind us, texts are unstable, but examining that instability uncovers what would be lost in any single version. It’s a banal premise now, reflected in how common the practice is: Wordsworth’s Prelude comes in an edition including the 1799, 1805, and 1850 forms. Norton Anthologies of poetry reproduce (in appendices) canonical poems in various versions, with crossings-out and revision marks intact.

Thus, only from seeing both versions of “Speed Trials,” does it become clear that the smile is — to complicate matters — from the start, somewhat fragile and always on the verge of tumbling downward into its less joyous version, a frown. In version 2, the brief smile negates itself with “crossing,” a cross look. Just as it’s counterintuitive to think that a smile can cross (or dampen) a face, version 1 similarly undermines the smile in it’s own way, by grabbing its brevity and fleetingness by the collar to make it stick around — turning it into a forced smile (the kind one pastes on in job inteviews). Still, none of this to simply say that smiling is unhappy. Smith sings in another song,

“You see me smiling you think it’s a frown / turned upside down,” (“St. Ides Heaven”)

and there as here, the point seems to be that smiling is all the more valuable precisely because it can become a cross look in the short time it takes cross the face, or its honest spontaneity can get stuck into an insincere, meaningless smile — that smiling can turn upside down in an instant or else be virtually the same thing.

The whole song is below and there is more to unconvered.

————————————————
Speed Trials

He’s pleased to meet you underneath the horse,
in the cathedral with the glass stained black,
singing sweet high notes that echo back,
to destroy their master.

May be a long time till you get the call-up,
but it’s sure as fate and hard as your luck.
No one’ll know where you are.

It’s just a brief smile [crossing your face,] got stuck on your face,
running speed trials [still standing in place.] all over the place.

When the socket’s not a shock enough,
[you little child what makes] you think you’re tough, You’re a child because
[when all the people you think you're above,] You can’t remember what you were thinking of.
[they all know what's the matter.] Don’t ask what’s the matter.
[You're such] a pinball yeah you know it’s true. ‘Cuz he’s
[there's always something you come back running to,] He’s gonna keep on running back to you,
to follow the path of no resistance.

It’s just a brief smile crossing your face,
running speed trials standing in place.

It’s just a brief smile crossing your face,
running speed trials all over the place

With a little more effort I can imagine a patron with his or her own nightmare history, and decades of burrowing beneath business, family, and donations to a local cultural center, who does not just want to shape the world with patronage, but who fears an image’s power to erase complexity. Fearing the way an icon can obliterate the grey places of history, the sorrow and goodness and mistakes of all the lives on both sides that remain outside the photos frames.

This sentiment, if it actually is a part of the tangled narratives overlapping around this event, would be understandable but still, I think, misguided. I think for peace to be possible all kinds of truth would need to be told. So much truth that it is in excess of the simplified and sticky stories deployed by power to justify violence. We need heaps of pictures and personal stories to wash over the edges of the isolated, apocalyptic ideologies that stand like towers on either side of this strange old Muslim / Judeo divide.

Hopefully, people with all kinds of memories of the stories that have been lost, and the pictures that go unseen from Israel, Canada, Iran and Palestine will come out into Montreal’s nightlife on November 2nd to communicate, and then to maybe have a free drink with me and listen to the furniture sing.

UPGRADE! :: NOVEMBER ::

This month the Upgrade! ushers in the Fall with the Montréal
launch of FUSE magazine. FUSE is one of Canada’s longest-running
English-language arts and politics publications.
Montréal artist and activist Freda Guttman will discuss her work in the arts as well as its
intersection with activism and technology surrounding the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In particular, drawn from the upcoming
FUSE issue which will be available at the Upgrade, the topic of the
gathering will be the censorship, at the Côte St-Luc Library, of
murdered Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi‘s photographs of Palestine.

In this capacity the Upgrade welcomes Kazemi’s son Stephan Hashemi,
who will speak on the issue. We welcome discussion and debate, and
will present an intimate and open atmosphere to pursue dialogue. The
free event begins promptly at 7pm, followed by an open bar after the
presentations with electronic furniture music from curator and dj
tobias c. van Veen.

WEDNESDAY, the 02nd of November, 2005
La Société des arts et technologiques (SAT) – 1195 St. Laurent
19h00 – 22h30 / 7pm – 10:30pm
GRATUIT / FREE
http://theupgrade.sat.qc.ca | http://www.fusemagazine.org

Also this month, the Upgrade, as part of an international and
ever-expanding network, is pleased to present three new additions to
its curatorial team: Anik Fournier, Ruth Burns and Sophie Le-Phat Ho,
three active members and organisers of Montréal’s arts and academic
communities. Stay tuned as the Upgrade gears up for 2006.

- tobias, Sophie, Anik & Ruth
November 2005

== HORAIRE ==

19h00 – doors open / ouverture des portes
19h15 – Introduction à Upgrade & FUSE
19h25 – Stephan Hashemi: Zahra Kazemi exhibit @ Côte St-Luc Library
19h50 – Freda Guttman
20h15 – table-ronde / discussion
musique avec dj tobias c. van Veen
22h30 : Finito

=========

tobias c. van Veen
Concept Engineer, The Upgrade! Montréal
tobias @ sat . qc . ca

Sophie Le-Phat Ho
artivistic @ yahoo . ca

Ruth Burns
ruth . burns @ elf . mcgill . ca.

Detroit, Detroit,
You got a hell of a hockey team
You’ve got a left-handed way
of making a man sign up on that automotive dream.

Paul Simon: Papa Hobo.