Blogs:
Chuck Eesley // Ryan Murphy // Mike Sieburg // Diana Not Bombs // Cogito Ergo Sumana
Websites:
Music: Mp3it.com // Midheaven Mailorder // Epitonic // Pitchfork // Fakejazz // Forced Exposure // Othermusic // Ecstatic Yod Collective // Gabor Szabo // Aquarius Records // Cerberus Shoal // Future of Music Coalition
Politics, Society, & Philosophy: Common Dreams // Democracy Now! // Buckminster Fuller Institute // Infoshop // Murray Bookchin // Slashdot
Science Fiction: Philip K. Dick // William Gibson Documentary //
Web Resources: Amazon // Epinions // IMDB // Dictionary // Craig’s List // Yellow Pages // Deal News // Tucows
Ephemera: GWU Alumni Community //
San Francisco: Jezebel’s Joint // Free Print Shop // Diggers // Bottom of the Hill // Hemlock Tavern // Aquarius Records
DESCRIPTIONS:
Blogs and Journals:
Chuck Eesley: Chuck is Mike Sieburg’s best friend from High School. He went to Duke and Chuck is an honorary member of our family of friends from college (GWU). We attended various Phish shows and have seen Chuck through regular visits of his to Mike. I’ve been staying in touch with Chuck, and I think he is an incredibly intelligent, insightful, and genuine fellow. He studied abroad in India and is a beacon of hope for young people and individualist spirituality.
Ryan Murphy: One of my best buddies from college, Ryan (aka “Murph” or “Murphdog”) is currently in Chile, playing guitar on the street for a living. He is an apprentice of Sanjay Mishra’s (who is a stunning Eastern Jazz guitarist that split the album “Blue Incantation” with the honorable Jerry Garcia). Ryan has a lot of hope for him with his guitar, but read his blog to see that he is also gifted in the mental faculties too.
Mike Sieburg: Also known as “Sieburg” “Waterbuffalo” “Bangs” and “Muff”. Mike is also one of my best buddies from DC. He is currently wrapping up teaching English in Viet Nam, studied Anthropology, and is an avid watcher of politics; he always knows what’s going on in Congress. He reads like a maniac and farts like a 1987 Volvo.
Diana Not Bombs: Diana is an inspiring individual I’ve met in San Diego. She is a dedicated participant of Food Not Bombs and the The Che Café. She’s an animal rights activist and a vegan, part-time raw-foodist. She inspires me in her idealism and determination.
Cogito Ergo Sumana: Sumana is a girl in Berkeley that tried to get me to move into her apartment from an Ad I posted on Craigslist.org. In the process of correspondence with her, I have discovered an idealogue of a personal, individual webpage that has high content yet is navigable. She uses her boyfriend’s webjournal software that he created. You can link through her to some really interesting noncorporate web journals/blogs… One day I’d love to have my Future Wave site like hers. She doesn’t use any fancy layout or design, which emphasizes the importance of the information. I vote for a middle ground: beautiful simple design.
Websites:
Mp3it.com -- Check it out for free mp3’s by Physics, Aspects of Physics, live Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Black Heart Procession. An incredible website, nice design too. By Jason from San Diego’s Aspects of Physics… great band. Also links to The Experiment Network, Aspects of Physics, and FreeNews.com
Midheaven Mailorder, Forced Exposure, Othermusic, Ecstatic Yod Collective, Aquarius Records: The only places I might consider purchasing music from that are not direct labels. Midheaven (a retail version of the distributors, Revolver USA, based in San Francisco), is by far my favorite, with the best prices, a selection exhibiting fine taste, and great descriptions and sound clips. Ecstatic Yod Collective is run by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, based in Western Massachusetts. They’ve got a great collection of rare vinyl, but also have a decent variety of the more recent experimental stuff, especially free jazz. Aquarius Records, in San Francisco, is my favorite retail store in SF (Jackpot Records in Portland takes the cake, I think, for best retail store ever!). Aquarius has great reviews, lots of sound clips, decent prices, and a very friendly and knowledgeable staff. Their website is a wealth of information. Forced Exposure also has good descriptions and reviews, carries a much larger variety of obscure music, and probably is the best way to acquire some really esoteric or rare finds for good prices. Othermusic is based out of New York City; their retail store is so much fun, but I find their website slightly less exciting. I never like their prices, but they are a good source for more obscure experimental & avant garde music.
Pitchfork Media & Fakejazz: These are two online journals that publish reviews of various indie and experimental albums. These are my first sources of information I go to in order to find expectations of new albums (they have good rating scales that I generally agree with). Pitchfork deals more with Indie Rock stuff, like Will Oldham and the Flaming Lips and Godspeed You Black Emperor!. Fake Jazz deals more in things like Surface of Eceyon, Six Organs of Admittance, Pelt, Kinski. There is considerable cross-over, of course. Pitchfork seems more corporatized but has a much wider news & interview range. Fake Jazz is much more indie and personal.
Gabor Szabo: When I was in high school, my father got me a record player so I could listen to my indie and punk 7”s that I’d been receiving with fanzines. Consequently, I decided I’d check out some of his hippy LP’s that had been stacked in the basement, untouched for years. I came across this one particular record, “Dreams”, by Gabor Szabo. Gabor was a Hungarian gypsy/jazz guitarist. This record is what ultimately turned me on to the more delicate side of experimental music (prior to this it had been abrasive noise and fuzz forays like Sonic Youth and Lush and Sunny Day Real Estate). I don’t think I’d be quite the hippy I am these days if it weren’t for Gabor. In college, my favorite record for smoking pot was “Dreams”. I slowly turned all my friends on to Gabor (‘what IS this music?!” they’d remark). Many of his records are now being reissued, and this website is a fantastic document of his life and career. “The Sorcerer”, reissued by Impulse, is a good easy-to-find record of his (more on the Jazz side, though). His clean guitar tone makes me weep. Step over, Jerry Garcia!
Cerberus Shoal: A band from Portland, ME that defies categorization. They started off doing sweeping shimmery post-rock (a la Tristeza) but then moved on to trancey Eastern soundscapes. They then progressed to incredible post-rock funk-jazz-skronk-psychedelia. Now they are off the wall. Male-Female vocals with clever poetics and jagged rhythms and tones, and a personality that is so distinct and sharp it may cut you. I feel these musicians are a godsend and we need more people that have individuality and quirk in their art. The ugly and the jagged are not always unpalatable; often what is perceived as different yields the best rewards. Their music is fresh, envigorating, and highly emotional. On this website you can download mp3’s, order cd’s, read their writings, look at their artwork.
Future of Music Coalition: A website and organization started by Jenny Toomey (formerly of the band Tsunami and the record label, Simple Machines). Jenny does a lot of advocacy for the future of music and its relationship with property rights through technology. She is a media activist, has developed into a fine singer, and is an asset to the indie community.
Common Dreams: This website is a collection of different news articles that you won’t normally find in your own paper, but most of them are a collection from the editorial sections of mainstream papers around the country. So you know the slant is not as great as, say, reading a leftist journal. It’s simply the opinions that normally get snuffed out by the corporate media, or buried in the middle of the paper by fraidy-cat publishers. I have it as my webpage and can’t get enough of it.
Democracy Now!: Better than NPR. This radio talk show (one hour a weekday) is available online, but check the site to find out what station carries it in your city. This show is what woke me up to politics, activism, and societal/global concerns… Amy Goodman has redeemed my life. It is hardly dull and always eye-opening, but posesses hope.
Amazon: Believe it or not, I enjoy this site. I REFUSE to pay them any money, of course. If I find out that you have purchased something from them I will be very angry, because they put small record stores and bookstores out of business. But what I most enjoy about their website is the online, democratic community of reviews of artistic and informational products. Of course, all creative endeavors are ranked and recommended subjectively, but the only way to delve into the mire of the independent world is to find out what others’ experiences have been. I often will read the (diverse!) reviews before I decide which book I want to read, or which album to get by a band I haven’t heard yet. The neat thing is that all the reviewers are registered and are ranked, like Ebay, based on how often they post and how they have been rated by customers. This is a meritocratic form of deciding whose reviews are more important. No corporate hierarchy; it’s participatory democracy. (At least it appears to be!) I’m also a little peeved, though, that they SWALLOWED up another awesome online resource, bibliofind >> this website used to be a clearinghouse for most of the connected independent booksellers. You could look up a book and find out who’s selling all different versions of the book and then order directly from the bookseller. Now you have to do a bit of research to figure out how to order directly and avoid giving information and/or money to Amazon. An alternative is ABE. And Powell’s is the neatest, largest used bookstore I’ve ever seen. It’s in Portland, OR; if you’re ever there, bring a large suitcase to bring back all the incredible (cheap!) used books you’ll find.
Epinions: similar to Amazon, Epinions is a website dedicated to reviewing and comparing products that can be purchased online. It will find you the cheapest prices, show you the competitors, and have lots of opinions from people who have already purchased and used these products… For instance, what bicycle to buy? Which CD Burner is the best for your price range? What Sonic Youth album should I get? How does the new Vespa motor scooter rank against the new Bajaj ones? Great resource. But of course, don’t be a consumer! Skirt mass-mainstream techno-society! You don’t need it! (This, as I type on my computer!)
Buckminster Fuller Institute: First of all, check out my page of quotes by R. Buckminster Fuller. Bucky was one of the most brilliant minds, and because of his ingenuity and lifespan (1895-1983), he was able to shed a lot of light on our evolving technocratic society. He believed in a Design Science Revolution and he is the most forward-thinker (prognosticator is the word) I have ever discovered. You can access many of his books, which were turned into e-texts, on bfi.org. “Critical Path” is my favorite, but it’s a long read. For an introduction, check out “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” or “Education Automation” (both available free on bfi.org…. The Institute has a wealth of resources about the man; please check it out. An additional source is the Global Energy Network Institute, which seeks to link renewable energy sources with a long-distance network, linking the whole world with grid energy. The strategy seeks to reduce the dependence on polluting and unsustainable energy options, increase the supply of energy, reduce waste energy, and unite the world in peace. The strategy, to me – and countless notable figures including Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama – is one of the most important ideas that may carry us as a world society into a sustainable future.
Infoshop
Murray Bookchin
Slashdot
Philip K. Dick
William Gibson documentary (No Maps For These Territories):
IMDB (The Internet Movie Database): What a fun information resource!! This is the ultimate site to get information about films. The best part is the links: every actor, director, movie, etc has its own page. So it becomes the easiest way to cheat at the games Movie Pong and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (these are real games; I’m not kidding!).
Yellow Pages: This website is an incredible tool. What you do is keep your address saved as your primary location, and then search for a type of store (perhaps laundromats or coffeeshops), and the addresses and phone numbers of the nearest stores will appear, with distances to the .1 mile. It links, then, directly to mapquest. Thank goodness for free information and computer tools. This puts paper to shame. Maybe we won’t have to recycle those clunky books anymore!!
Dictionary
Craig’s List
Tucows
Dealnews
GWU Alumni Community: This is a useful way for all of my friends and fellow alumni from the George Washington University, where I got my undergraduate degree, to stay in touch. If you keep your profile updated you can list your current address and email. Supposedly we have lifelong membership in this service (and also with our alumni.gwu.edu email forwarding service).
Jezebel’s Joint: This amazing place (yeah it’s a bar) has free films during the week. Check it out.
Free Print Shop: This is the nonprofit that I am a part of. We publish charts of all the free resources in San Francisco. There are charts for Free Eats, Free Pantries, Free Shelter, Free Medical, Free Mental Health, and also a Neighborhood Fix-It Chart (a must-read for all SF residents!!). The .pdf files are available to print them out yourself online. We publish these every three months (the fix-it chart every four months).
Diggers: A website devoted to hosting information and archives about the San Francisco Digger Movement in the 60s that spawned communalism and the concept of Free societies. Why did all of this hit a brick wall?
Bottom of the Hill & Hemlock Tavern: These are two places that I feel have good concerts occasionally in SF.