The modern mix-tape

As you know if you've been reading this blog, I've been doing some research on Berlin School music and the impact that networking has had on the fan base. I put out a survey to some fans, and got back a lot of interesting material, including information on web services I'd never heard of. My favorite is 8track.com, which gives you a place on the web to create and host a mix-tape of your favorite tracks.

One of the respondents pointed me to his new-school Berlin School music mix tape, and I've been enjoying it all evening. You can check it out here. This gives you a sense of where my head is at right now...

[ddg]

Reputation Management - What do you want from me?

Last year, a really smart guy (Rafael Fajardo, one of my professors) lit into a discussion about reputation management. The idea is that you, alone, are responsible for getting and maintaining your reputation online. I've been thinking about this ever since, and have developed some ideas about the process.

It seems to me that this breaks down into a few different issues:
1. You have to get ahold of anything that might refer to your name or chosen moniker.
2. You have to develop a site that represents your view of the world, art or whatever.
3. You have to maintain this information in perpetuity.
4. Once you start developing a base of followers, you have to feed them.

So I've started the process, and have dealt with #1. Luckily, with a name like Darwin Grosse, it's pretty much unsoiled territory. I'm not sure what Mr. John Smith might do, but maybe that's why there are people that call themselves buttmunch2000.

I'm working on #2, but I'm falling apart at the seams to put useful stuff up there that doesn't conflict with my other online crap. I suspect that at some point I'll have all of my music, videos and other goo linked from there, but I can't deal right now. I've got a lit review to write.

The hardest, though, is #4. I have a few, deeply disturbed, followers right now (you know who you are), and I'm not doing a good job of keeping them fed. So this is what I need. People - what do you want? Tweets? Smart blog talk? Links to kitties doing chin-ups?

[ddg]

Darwin and Steve, secretly videotaped...

... although I don't think we'll be buying into Intel's Turbo Boost software quite as quickly as Space Invaders.

[ddg]

(Yeah, this was post-game show fodder, but was still one of my favorite commercials for the game.)

OK, so I'm a dummy...

I've got to admit that I've never found a 3-D software program that made sense to me. I spent about a month trying to come to grips with Blender and I failed miserably. I could only do things that the tutorials said for me to do, and I could only do them exactly as the tutorials did them. For making my own work, I was useless.

Finally, I decided to spend time (for about the fourth time) with Google Sketchup, and I decided to get a book to walk me through it. I like books, and I like using books to learn something new. I went to the local B&N and started diving into the books that were available. It took about 30 minutes to come to a horrifying conclusion: I needed the "Google SketchUp 7 for Dummies" book in order to make sense of this software.

I've always thought that the "For Dummies" series of books were for people self-selecting themselves as idiots, and that getting one of these books meant that you would never actually become a useful user. This one book made me rethink the entire thing. Author Aidan Chopra does an excellent job of holding my hand through the learning process, but also provides a lot of tips and ideas that made me anxious (and able) to launch off into my own.

I've got a school project that's going to have some pervasive 3D work, and I'm glad I finally found a way to wrap my head around the problem. Now, if I can just figure out how to get these models imported into Max/Jitter, I'll be cooking!

[ddg]

Here I Come, Oh Ye Berlin Schoolers

Alright, so here we go with some Media Studies craziness. This weekend was Berlin School weekend. I spent almost 4 hours interviewing Mike Metlay about the early days of the Berlin School and the cassette cultuer that it bred. Then I pounded the Big Four Tangerine Dream CD's (Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet and Stratosfear) while programming step sequencers in Max for Live. More of the same today (except I was programming cellblock changes) - all in the name of science.

Social science, that is.

I'm in the process of writing up a mini-thesis about the Berlin School music fans that developed their own music, tradition, authenticity signifiers and communities as an alternative to typical "niche community" studies. I've found that most studies of niche culture either considers the group a bunch of pathological nitwits or a quaint but unsophisticated grouping ripe for TARGETED INTERNET MARKETING.

Sigh.

The deeper I dig into the Berlin School world, the more interesting I find both the community and the people in it. This is very different from, say, American Idol fan-nuts; the Berlin Schoolers took the music into their own hands and have developed it into a (sorta) living and (kinda) breathing form of expression. I'll have more details to post soon, but let's just say there is a lot of information here that will contradict most niche community study that's gone on to date.

I'm sure I'll be crucified for going this direction, but at least it is fun.

[ddg]