Found an old Myspace blog post digging through the old band RSS, it’s more appropriate to repost here. It’s a list of people I bought stuff off of. There was someone on there with a list of albums for sale that I felt was just fucking with people so I called their bluff and bought one, because I was also fucking with people but I had real CDs I was giving away for free. Of course I never got anything, or my money back. After a period of public antagonism that probably went on longer than it should, I decided to thank the people who had no problem at all exchanging money for goods. I’ve rewritten and updated the list, I could add more people but there’d be no end to it. This is more like a where-are-they-now of that original list:

3Xfx pedals

Still around but not very active on the social sites. Crazy stuff. The pedal I got from them is so crazy apparently no one else wanted it cause they didn’t make anymore.

ASSACRE

Bandcamp), but he’s moved on from one-man conceptual-performance art metal bands; the quintessential type of Myspace band that’s half-joke but was able to find some kind of audience outside of an immediate group of friends.

Autonomous

Gone without a trace. Got some band buttons from them, really nice. Haven’t seen another place offering transparent backgrounds.

Azure Emote

Another one man metal band but less of a joke, Mike Hrubovcak is also another artist who does artwork for other bands.. Met this guy a few times but we’re not friends to where I get free CDs or anything. And yet, for money, a physical copy of his recordings can be obtained directly from him in a timely manner. Definitely worth buying too, he puts a lot into the packaging of course. Moved his business to Reverb Nation which Myspace made almost obsolete…at one point.

Bei Bei

The other type of unique artist on Myspace are the completely serious Classical instrumentalists. It’s a lot rarer to interact with these people on other networks the same. Bei Bei plays Chinese Zither and she’s got a regular website but that’s not much fun (right). Got a CD from her with a personalized autograph, nice touch.

Brad Warner

Think I bought his book from him before he joined Myspace, whatever. He’s good for it. Altho you can get his stuff on Amazonnow of course, which I recommend, but what do I know. He was not a fan of the Myspace. Moved on to his own site.

Bubble/Gum

Inactive. They might have broken up. Bought their one CD and they threw in a 7″ after sending them a money order with a hilarious note I do not think they found funny but what can you do.

Candle-Ends

Purveyor of spooky music, and a spookier podcast. On his site.

George Korein

Took down his personal page although his several other bands are still on the site. On bandcamp.

Kenny Mooney

I’ve got a CD copy of industrial project Novak’s In Ruins with a different cover than on his new site but you can’t argue with a free download. I’ve tried.

Nick Millevoi

I believe Circles is no more. This guy has a lot of projects which can be kept up with in blog form.

Matt Garfield

Mose Giganticus mastermind is now signed to Relapse, but used to sell his own CDs direct to you, the CD buying public. By which I mean me. Also he had another band Hulk Smash who also had a CD, purchased painlessly.

Joseph Suglia

Clearly an instigator, yet comes through with the product. Bought his book Watch Outtwice, because I lent the first edition to a friend who was so disturbed by it he threw it away. I try not to lend him things anymore but that’s a different story. Yeah you can get it on Kindle now but the paperback of that edition us really nice. Seems to have run out of steam after making a straight-to-video movie adaptation of the book which is another thing all together. Most likely to comment on this post.

Jon Solomon

WPRB DJ Jon Solomon is mostly know as a WPRB DJ, But he also runs Comedy Minus One and My Pal God Records. You can buy records directly out of his basement. You should really follow him on twitter.

Pirate Satellite

I don’t know how this happens in 2012 but I think there’s another band using this name now. Members are now The Glass Bees.

PxOxFx

Planet of Friends was a one-off benefit comp. Mean to review it, some good Russian hardcore and not-so-good rap-rock. Interesting tho. It was for a good cause but not sure how much money they made.

Pothole Skinny

Know these guys but you know how that goes. Still around but very sporadic. Cover of one CD was handpainted. And…it looks they’re on bandcamp, wow that’s a lot of stuff. I should talk to these guys more. Reclusive dudes.

Secretary

Bari sax player Moist Paula and co. is on facebook and such.

Seething Grey

Know the bass player through the Giant Robot message board, but he doesn’t run the site so I bought it off one of the other guys. This is like a almost local to me Jersey band I should have known already but didn’t until I met the one guy. One of those weird things. They were pretty good. Apparently…the one guy (who I don’t know) is making new songs. Not sure what that’s about. The old stuff is on Amazon digital.and CD Baby.

Wheatboy Dave

Dave has probably created and deleted more myspace profiles than anyone. His experimental band MFM changes what their initials stand for every time they do something. One of those is or was on bandcamp, but I can’t find it now. He’s on youtube but who knows how long? The easiest way to contact him is by postcard. Or facebook, I guess.

Yah Mos Def

Seems like they broke up. One of the guys is in Instamatic, but that is not the same at all, it’s just a regular band. I guess they were too extreme. And they were probably bummed they had to change their name. Sucks. That album still rules.

Vanessa Rossetto

I bought one of her records and when I didn’t get it after a month I told her and rather than shamelessly mocking me she sent me two more. Astonishing. You can get them now through the site for her label Music Appreciation Records.

I hate to admit feeling a little nostalgic for a site that never worked that well. Absolutely nothing works on there anymore. I can’t even delete inbox spam, which people don’t even bother to send lately. Supposedly there’s some radical redesign coming, I do not see that working. But when everyone was using it, some people made it worth using. And I think there were some strengths to the way it was originally designed that other sites have missed. They’ve all gone for a real-time feed-based system which favors the noisiest members: It encourages meaningless activity. This was originally only a small part of myspace (the bulletins) that you didn’t even have to look at to use the site, you could just go through your friends list. It’s almost calming just to think of this simpler time…of course this was all because they hadn’t figured out the best way to maximize people’s time spent on this kind of site. The feed is distracting and addictive. It keeps you coming back to a site there’s no reason to visit more than once a day and makes it harder to just look up what you might be looking for that day. It’s diabolical bullshit, man. You gotta not get sucked into it. I hate to see people falling off that can’t deal with it all but you can’t blame them either. And there was that whole NewsCorp thing. Pure evil. I don’t know what else to say. Support the arts. Have a great summer.

It did? You didn’t? Well, keep in touch.
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