Archive for February 2015 | Monthly archive page
Feb 19
Four Songs From Five Years Ago (New Music)
Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s patrons at Patreon are listening to four never-before-heard unfinished tracks from 2009/2010, from the 10 Neurotics era. You can join them by becoming a patron. Or if you’d prefer to dip your toe in the water, check out one track from the set (featuring Brian Viglione on drums) for free; listen to Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s “Time (October 24 2009) – Mix 12” at Soundcloud.
https://www.patreon.com/blacktapeforabluegirl
Feb 13
The truth about the troubling sex in 50 Shades
Digital freelease: Fifty Shades of Grey (music for a sensual evening)
The bombardment of “news stories” about the Fifty Shades of Grey movie is well underway; it gave me a fun idea: What if the film studio had contacted Projekt to put together the soundtrack? What would that sound like?
I went through the Projekt catalog and pulled tracks both cinematic and soundtracky for this compilation. It’s up for name-your-price at Bandcamp.
The Truth About Fifty Shades (a short editorial by Sam)
We can laugh and snark about how horrible the Fifty Shades books are. But the bigger problem here is the writer’s lack of knowledge about supportive, sex-positive relationships. She uses BDSM to mask two poorly-conceived characters who do not engage in proper consent or respect. (The writer is a boring bored* English housewife, who I can imagine watched a few porn videos for “research,” rather than getting involved in the scene, or talking to experts, or even reading some informational websites to learn the proper protocols for respecting a partner’s boundaries).
This is an even bigger issue than the 8th-grade-level writing.
What two people do together should be their own business; though I would hope they keep it safe, sane and consensual. When a book series sells 100 million copies, and has it’s attractive lead character force a woman to repeatedly do things she doesn’t want to do, that’s not BDSM…. That’s abuse! It is shocking that soccer moms who love this book for the (mostly generic missionary) sex, aren’t repulsed by the characters’ actions. This says a lot about American’s inexperience with sex, and inability to critically think about healthy relationships.
Consent Isn’t Enough: The Troubling Sex of Fifty Shades. in The Atlantic.
The Real Abuse at the Heart of Fifty Shades of Grey. in Relevant Magazine.
50 Shades of Grey: a film about male power, idealising emotional abuse as sexy when it isn’t. in New Statesman. (You can Google, for many more articles on this topic)
Bare in mind that I am not criticizing people’s involvement in BDSM; there are many relationships with it at their core. These relationships involve respect and consent, good communication, knowledge of boundaries, and love. This is necessary to give a partner a safe version of the ‘the pleasure in the pain’ they desire. Of course, it is also necessary in any strong relationship.
America accepted a really warped version of BDSM when it grew enthralled with these crappy books. The piece in the New Statesman says the film got the consent right in the BDSM scenes, but not in the overarching story. It’s unfortunate the filmmakers didn’t update the plot to address the serious problems in the novels.
On the positive side, publications are using the movie’s release as a catalyst to educated on these very important topics.
I have been criticized for calling E.L. James “boring.” So I will fix that and say she was “bored” (which is the word used in press descriptions. Does this make things better?)
You can leave a comment below.
With all the yap-yap-yap about 50 Shades of Rubbish, I should probably remind you about my book Rye — interesting characters, in original situations, humor, plus conversations and negotiations around consent, relationships and family of choice.
“Underneath all the androgyny and fluctuation, the book’s about human connection. Rosenthal’s use of sex and gender identities to illustrate how we reach toward and away from relationships is merely a new approach to an old idea: we all need intimacy with others to deepen our understanding of ourselves.” — Time Out, Chicago
Physical and Kindle copy at Amazon or buy a signed copy of the paperback book directly from me!
Support Black Tape For A Blue Girl at Patreon and get all access!
Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s Patreon campaign is building steam. It’s exciting! Patreon is a crowdfunding site built for “empowering a new generation of creators to make a living from their passion and hard work.” It’s a chance for listeners to directly support my art, while getting access to exclusive music. Thanks to my patrons, Sam
Feb 12
Voltaire’s Ooky Spooky back in print in deluxe edition
After being out-of-stock for six months, Ooky Spooky is back in print in a deluxe version that includes a signed art card, along with the 8-page lyrics booklet. These will start shipping later next week. If you’ve moved beyond physical objects – download at Bandcamp.
Feb 02
A huge unimportant detail (& free music)
From Sam Rosenthal:
A huge unimportant detailAt the time of this writing, fifty people have joined Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s Patreon campaign. What a great first week! Get involved to make week #2 even more successful.
Patreon is a crowdfunding site for “empowering a new generation of creators to make a living from their passion and hard work.” It’s an opportunity to directly support the creation of my art, and in return you get access to exclusive music.
Last week I added these tracks to the patron-area: * “Please don’t go (mix 10),” the new track from the Patreon video (with Grace Young on viola) * Two early mixes from 1992’s DAT #5: “passion drained” & “on broken shells 3”
Even a $2-a-month pledge helps. It goes towards expenses such as paying Grace a salary for dropping by my studio to record. For less per month than what you pay for a cup of coffee, your contribution joins with other backers’ contributions to help me reach my goal of freedom to work on music.
Getting back to art.
Most of my time is occupied running Projekt Records. I was about to add, “It’s my day job,” but the fact is that I’m often at it all day and still here working on Projekt at 9pm. I’m sure you’d much rather I was writing and recording new music? Yeah? So would I. The problem is it’s not like the old days when I could take time off work and invest hundreds of hours in a Black Tape For A Blue Girl album with reasonable expectations of thousands of copies selling and income coming in to cover my expenses. Nope, these days people really love their free music; but the miniscule income from Spotify and youTube is not a viable way to try to earn a living.
With four succesful Kickstarters completed, I’m quite excited by crowdfunding; it’s a brilliant method for financing creativity. Late last year, I studied various sites, searching for one that conceived crowdfunding as I imagined it. I didn’t want another one-month-campaign to make a physical object. That leaves too many people out and feels like it rushes through the fun part!
I have two main goals: ongoing funding for my music and immersing you in the process of developing new work. Patreon does this. It’s designed to facilitate your direct support of the music. With your pledges, I will spend less time at the job and more time creating new and exclusive tracks I share directly with you.
“Now hold on a second, Sam,” I imagine some of you saying. “Why all this talk about money? Shouldn’t it just be about the art?”
As Iggy Pop recently said, “To tell you the truth, when it comes to art, money is an unimportant detail. It just happens to be a huge unimportant detail.”
Those hours and days in the studio take away from time I could be working at Projekt. You understand what I’m saying here! The phone company and the gas company don’t take payment in the form of high fives and a Mp3 of new songs! : )
I’m thrilled that some of you have already backed me on Patreon.
And understand that it’s not just about the income; crowdfunding is also rewarding on a personal level. I love that I get to know people who are deeply into my music. Last week, I met graphic artist Antony Johnston. I’d love to share something he wrote:
The music you made with BlackTape, especially in the ‘classic’ Chaos / Garden / Remnants era, has been part of the soundtrack to my life for the past 20 years. As a creator myself, I know how hard the current climate can be, so it’s my pleasure to support the Patreon campaign. The new music excerpt ‘Please Don’t Go’ is lovely — more of that, please! Reminds me of dark nights, driving home from those early Whitby goth weekends in the late ’90s…” – Antony Johnston (writer of Umbral, Spooked, and Dead Space)
I want to make more of that sort of music: music that can be the soundtrack to the next 20 years of your life!
Your recurring monthly contribution of $2, $5, $10 or more will make it possible.
Antony joined my Patreon campaign; so did Tristan, Marcos, Draven, Julia, Rob, Tori, Bill and a bunch of other amazing people. In fact, we reached the first Milestone Goal of $300 and now we’re headed towards the $500 Milestone Goal: a two-hour livestream mixing session, where you can watch me in the studio, with a view of my monitor, as I mix and process the music.
I’m thinking about the creation, the connection, and the challenge of seeing this through and succeeding. It’s incredibly sweet to know people are stepping up with pledges to support my work. You can make a difference in tackling this huge unimportant detail: the manner in which artists earn money.
Please pledge here. Thanks for that.
Sam
PS: Back to the topic of free music, here are two name-your-price albums for you to enjoy. The Collection is a ‘best-of’ from Blacktape, while Fifty Shades of Grey is an imaginary Projekt-themed soundtrack for the upcoming film.
PSS: At last! I’m famous!!! (file under: “The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!”): https://www.google.com/maps/@37.790399,-122.422213,3a,75y,124.32h,83.6t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1siAPMvFgx0jhuqBacQxFnjA!2e0
