Playing the Links

I went back to visit the audiovant website and realized there was one interview I hadn't listened to. I had listened to the one with Jens Lekman, Vetiver, and Tapes N Tapes. However, the first interview was with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, which I picked up sometime last summer.

As I was listening to the interview, the guy talked about Pitchfork Media which I may have heard of, but only vaguely recall in my mind. He claimed this indie music website helped promote Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, even though one of the members said he doesn't really relate to the indie scene, his influences being more popular.

I decided to check this rather garish website, with ads blinking at you as if I were staring at buildings in Times Square. On the top right is a picture of Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan's photos almost seem like he's posing for one of those cameras from the turn of the twentieth century, where people had to pose for minutes without moving, and thus avoided smiling. Sufjan looks off to the side at the distance, his cap somewhat askew.

I suspect that he controls that imagery quite specifically. I haven't seen a Rolling Stone, famous photographer, Annie Leibovitz sort of photo.

The picture is for an interview where he discusses his latest album, The Avalanche, songs that didn't quite make it to his breakout album, Illinois (or perhaps more properly, Come on feel the Illinoise which apparently is a riff on a popular song by Quiet Riot (spelled "Cum on Feel the Noize"), which itself was taken from a British rock/glam band called Slade.

Sufjan had written some 50 songs. While he's generally happy with The Avalanche, he's not as thrilled with it emotionally as he was with the Illinois. In the interview, he mentions he likes one song in particular, The Mistress Witch of McClure, which he suggests has a personal history that he's not quite ready to reveal. He spends a lot of time, it seems, hanging out with his friends, many of whom are musicians, and who either collaborates with him on his music, or he helps out with their music.

The webpage, which is a bit of a newspaper or a magazine, also said that The Concretes, who I saw a few weeks ago, had cancelled their performances in the United States. Their equipment had been stolen, and the lead singer had gotten sick. I'm still waiting for NPR to mail me their latest CD, which I would have bought at Amazon (and received by now) had I not been such an idiot and found the "import" CD which is always expensive, rather than their normal CD, which was ten dollars less.

Anyway, the interesting thing about the website is that I didn't really know its reputation at all. Again, it's me checking out the Audiovant website, listening to an interview, then having that guide me to another website. This, in essence, is websurfing. Unlike channel surfing, web surfing often takes you to new places you've never been, and unless you bookmark well, places you might never go again. It's a portal that I still believe is leading us to a new way of learning things, and we're only scratching the surface of it.

Some things stagnate a bit (for example, I doubt much work is spent on Blogger, though I see tiny changes over time), which isn't that bad, to be honest, but others chug ahead, adding their Web 2.0 features, as web designers look for the next great way to present information to the user.

Some sites I've been a little less thrilled with. I tried out Last.fm, but haven't really used it that much to listen to new music. Generally, I prefer hearing about it word of mouth.

Anyway, chasing links, that's what I've been doing.