life stuff – Don’t Eat the Felafel

We live in the streaming age. We don’t own anything, and big tech corporations who rake in the millions.

Spotify’s Daniel Ek put his foot in it by flippantly saying that creating content costs “close to zero” back in June (sure Dan, tell that to anyone who’s ever professionally recorded an album), Apple seems to have all but forgotten about the humble existence of iTunes in favour of Apple Music, Google ditched Play Music in favour of YouTube music, and the stream train shows no sign of stopping.

I get it and I’m guilty of it. I have Spotify and for the most part I’m happy with it as a pleb consumer. As an artist and someone who owns an iPod or two? hoo boy, do I miss the inconvenient times of having to buy and download music.

Actually I think I miss the chase more; the hunt for a $25 CD that is all killer, no filler (I think the last full album I bought that gave me that feeling was Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero back in 2007, if that gives you any idea), and swapping tapes/CDs/files with friends because they had cooler music than you.

But -to borrow a quote from Jeff Goldblum like Kirk Van Houten wants to borrow a feeling- “life, uh, finds a way”.

This too-long-didn’t-read leadup could just end with “you can still download music” and I could finish things up here before my work shift starts with about 30 minutes to spare, but I’m relying on eyeballs here so I’m not going to do that to you.

But yeah, you can totally download full albums, in whatever filetype you want, to have and to hold forever (or at least until your hard drive shits itself).

FLACS MP3S AND WAVS OH MY!

Yeah there’s The Pirate Bay and other dubious means, but I’m going to blindly assume you wanna support the artists you listen to. As far as your copyright infringing shenanigans go, I don’t wanna know about it, and I didn’t just hear you click on uTorrent.

I’m also going to blindly assume you’re fucking lazy like I am and don’t want to rip your entire CD collection (or, also like me, you’ve completely thrashed your favourites and they’re un-rippable, either way).

A lot of bigger-name-than-your-mate’s-band are making the move to Bandcamp, basically the standard for downloading music. They even have their own app so the process is relatively painless.

zDigital and 7Digital I would suggest as your go-to for any of your big-name bands. The ones that sell out stadiums and charge $120 for a hoodie with their name on it. They both include music lockers for you to download again at any time, and all the files are DRM free. The one downside I have with these two are other filetypes are separate purchases (with the lossless files being a little bit more expensive), which is kind of a bummer.

If you want a nostalgia kick and own a Windows PC, iTunes still exists. It’s still a jank mess and the files are all in m4a so caveat emptor there. But hey if you still own an iPod, don’t wanna download Rockbox, and want to keep your player as OG as it’s ageing components allow, it’s your best bet. (Mac users: iPod support still exists in modern Mac hardware, but I haven’t owned a MacOS pc in donkeys years but apparently the iTunes store still exists for you guys?)

[INSERT PLAYER PUN I CAN’T THINK OF RIGHT NOW]

It goes without saying, that glass rectangle you may be reading this on right now is a perfectly capable DAP (or Digital Audio Player. Basically iPods for people who dabble in enough snobbery to call them DAPs). It’ll play anything you throw at it with some trickery and app downloads. The best one I’ve found is Poweramp for Android. Dunno about iOS but Vox seems to be reasonably rated.

If you’re running off of a Windows PC? Come on, man. The original and the best. Can confirm it still whips the llama’s ass. There’s probably others, but I don’t caaaaaare. Winamp is great… Almost.

Mac? Vox again, Elmedia player, or y’know, apple music/itunes.

But say you wanna switch dump all your music onto something that isn’t connected to notifications, phonecalls, and Candy Crush, where you tell it when to pause. Hell, something with a headphone jack. I don’t have much experience on this front, but I _almost_ recommend the FiiO x1. I say _almost_, because it’s quote old and would be an eBay job. FiiO still makes players though and some of them look decent. There’s also the usual suspects of Sony, Astell & Kern, HiBy, et. al.

There’s other players that won’t break the bank on Amazon if you wanna go down that route that seem pretty good on paper, and the Chi-Fi scene has pretty much exploded with how decent some of the players are, from reviews I’ve checked out.

There’s also just… getting a manky old iPod. Either getting iTunes and running it as it was intended or modding it with flash storage, whack a new battery in, or -if you’re particularly brave- adding USB-C functionality.

I could go on about this but all you need to know there are choices. Both for the budget-conscious, and for those with more dollars than common sense.

There’s more I could bang on about, but I’ll spare you a rant about headphones. That’ll come later.

Hopefully this helps the one or two of you that are looking to break away from streaming services!

Till next time…

IF YOU’VE READ THIS FAR:

Hey so I provide this on my own website, funded by myself, with my own money. If you liked this and want to support this nonsense, feel free to flick me a couple of bucks on Ko-Fi!

Welcome to the first part of a possible multi-part series I’ll call “Advice from someone who doesn’t really know any better, but hell I’ve been on this planet long enough to have a good idea or two, surely.”

I’ve been in a band since late 2019 and shared in it’s ups and downs (mostly ups, thankfully), I’ve also recorded solo bleepy-bloopy nonsense. I’ve played guitar longer than I care to admit given my skill level, so I like to think I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

So you wanna be a musician? great! It’s fun, learning an instrument is rad, and once you start down this path everything is expensive so you’ll have no money to waste on drugs, Fortnite skins, or OnlyFans egirls (uwu).

If you’re wondering where to start? Well, I’m a terrible role model, but I’ll tell you what I can. I’m going to be sharing some general stuff, as well as tips and tricks that helped _me_, specifically. Ultimately, I hope any budding muso out there finds this useful!

I’ll also be talking primarily about guitar, but I’ll try and keep it as general as possible.

PROTIP #1: Figure out your learning style

Do you prefer to just figure it out on your own and follow along to a YouTube video? Do you want lessons? If so, in person or online? This is a tough question and one you may not have an answer for right away, but it’s good to know. There’s no real right or wrong way to learn (picking up bad habits aside, but I’ll get to that later), so figure that out as well as you can.

For me I felt that getting lessons face-to-face was definitely the leg-up I needed when it came to starting out. It wasn’t through a music school or anything (it was pretty much some guy at school) so it’s wasn’t the most robust education, but totally worth it. That was for a few years and then I was out on my own, learning new songs and tabs via YouTube and Ultimate Guitar. Occasionally, I’ll pick Herschel’s brain for things if I need to.

PROTIP #2: What sort of music do you want to play? Where do you want to take this?

This sorta goes with tip #1. I’ll admit YES, learning the basic chords, your scales, whatever the fuck modes are, and a few rounds of ‘Greensleeves’ or whatever never hurt anyone. There’s a lot of fundamentals there you kinda need to know to be good at an instrument. But learning “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (as much of a bop as it is), or “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” isn’t going to be fun or teach you anything about learning how to play say, Black Sabbath, or Bad Religion. Definitely learn the fundamentals, but cater it to the sorta stuff you wanna play.

Additionally, do you want to just play for fun? (the answer is almost always is yes. The age of getting rich from playing music is kinda over) Do you want to work on your own music? Do you want to join a band? Work that out, too. I started playing guitar because I read that the school band needed a bass guitarist and both me and my parents misread the PSA. It takes all sorts. Even the annoying cunt with the acoustic guitar at parties had to start somewhere.

This will also narrow down the instrument you buy (though, it never really ends at one).

PROTIP #3: Get good gear

This is an important line in the sand. I didn’t say “buy the most expensive”, or “buy the best”, but buy good gear. The benchmark for affordable instruments (in the guitar world, anyway) is pretty decent these days, so don’t waste your money on ebay-spec, bottom-of-the-barrel trash unless you definitely know what you’re buying. Hell, buy used! Yeah you’ll have to scrub off years of skin flakes and dust and god-knows what, but that’s what technicians are for. Read or watch reviews, do some deep diving if you find something you like, and definitely take the time to go into a music store and have a play of things, as well. With everything going online these days, the store clerks will probably be grateful.

Speaking specifically on guitars, here. Some models you could look into are the Squier Sonic series and the Pacifica series by Yamaha.

PROTIP #4: Go outside and touch grass

No, seriously, you might have to go outside at some point and touch some damn grass. Go meet other musicians or get your mate who also plays an instrument over and just noodle, have a laugh over a beer while playing dumb songs. I learned way more and was table to take stock of my playing ability from rehearsing and gigging with a band than I ever did on my lonesome. Plus it’s fun! And you can count it towards your quota for socializing and going back to being a hermit!

PROTIP #5: You. Are going. To suck. (at least for a while)

There’s no avoiding this. You’re going to suck. You’re going to suck harder than a Hoover for a long time. You’re going to suck during lessons, suck during practice, suck at the music store, and suck while playing with friends. Learn from it, embrace it, and just fucking have fun. Learning an instrument (unless you’re a particularly gifted River Tam-type) is hard. Don’t make it harder by being hard on yourself.

PROTIP #6: Work on a repertoire

Inevitably, you’re going to be asked to play something for someone. This happened to me at a party and it went down faster than a lead balloon with concrete shoved in it. Learn a few songs and shove ’em in your back pocket for these occasions. My recommendation? Go for a couple of funny songs, couple of happy songs, a couple that just sound nice to listen to and a couple of crowd favourites (maybe a few sad songs too depending on your friends circle). For the sake of transparency, here’s mine:

Eels – I Like Birds
Corky and the Juice Pigs – The Only Gay Eskimo
The Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet With Butterfly Wings
The Smashing Pumpkins – Today
Bill Bailey – I Will Not Look at Titties For a Year
Blink-182 – Dammit
Blink-182 – Stay Together for the Kids
Eels – Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living)
Jon Sudano – Wonderwall (Wonderwall chords, but the lyrics to “All Star” by Smash Mouth)

I sincerely hope all of this helps you get somewhere, young (or old, or somewhere in between, for that matter) budding muso. If you read this far? You’re gonna do great. <3

Till next time…

IF YOU’VE READ THIS FAR:

Hey so I provide this on my own website, funded by myself, with my own money. If you liked this and want to support this nonsense, feel free to flick me a couple of bucks on Ko-Fi!