the MBV index: Judging relative popularity of music networking sites

I've got a ticket to see My Bloody Valentine in San Francisco on Sept 30.

I'm a member of a bunch of different music networking sites.  I joined to try to promote my events, though it doesn't seem to help much.  Part of the problem is that there just aren't that many people on most of the sites.

If you look at what happens when there's a popular event, like a festival or the MBV concert, that's when the most possible people will say they're interested in an event.  Some of the sites are barely registering, though.  If they don't work for a popular event like this, how are they going to work for a little rinky-dink one?

http://www.last.fm - 179 people attending.  312,075 listeners worldwide.

http://www.sonicliving.com - 91 going, 139 interested, 203 total. MVB has 1695 fans worldwide.

http://www.upcoming.org (owned by yahoo, uses yahoo id) - 61 going, 57 interested, 118 total

http://www.jambase.com - MBV has 172 fans worldwide, 14 going to SF show.

http://www.tourfilter.com - MBV tracked by 23 people

http://www.going.com - 7 people

http://www.eventful.com - 3 people watching

http://www.tourb.us - MBV has 72 fans worldwide, but I'm the only one listed as going to the SF show.

http://www.bandega.com - doesn't say how many people are interested in a show, doesn't show info about other users.

myspace - events zip code feature doesn't work, couldn't find event.

Anyone know of similar sites I missed?  Looks like Last.fm and Sonic Living are rivals for first place, depending on how you count it.

Currently listening : Isn't Anything By My Bloody Valentine Release date: 1993-06-15

5:46 PM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

RIP Lawrence Braithwaite
Current mood: mournful
Category: mournful Friends

I just learned from reading one of author Kevin Killian's Amazon.com reviews (you really need to subscribe to the RSS feed of Kevin's reviews) that Canadian black queer skinhead writer Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite has died. Here is his brief obituary.

I can't remember quite how I learned about him - probably someone like Dennis Cooper or Kevin had recommended Laz's first book, Wigger. At the time of reading it, I assumed that the titled "Wigger" meant it was written by a white guy - it wasn't until I met him when he came for a reading at New Langton Arts in San Francisco that everything came into focus - despite what some people might think was a contradiction, he was a black queer skinhead from Canada.

I published pieces by him in issues 16 and 17 of my zine Holy Titclamps.

His second novel was Ratz Are Nice (PSP) which has a cover picture with Laz standing in front, a compact skinhead dynamo, backed up by some of his compatriots.

I had lost touch with him over the years. Some people could cite various incidents that led them to cut off contact, but we were always on good terms when we were in touch, because I had some understanding and compassion for the reasons for his action. I believe he was bipolar, and sometimes the silences from his end were no doubt the sound of depression.

He wrote in his own argot, an inimitable flavor of the English language, and as soon as I have a chance I am going to dive in again and read his words and hopefully hear the echoes of his voice.

RIP Laz aka Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite

Currently listening : Trojan Ska Box Set By Various Artists Release date: 2002-07-09

6:25 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Vaginal Davis installation in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

There is a current group show at the museum in San Francisco Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - it’s a group show of women artists.

The opening of the show was last night.

There’s stuff from LTTR (Lesbians to the Rescue) and more.

But I was really blown away by the Vaginal Davis installation. It’s like being in Vag’s office, with a desk and some dressers and notes saying to go through things. The walls are covered with photos and flyers from clubs - there’s stuff from Sucker, the "punque rock beer bust" that Vag hosted at the Garage in LA, and a lot of pictures from her 1920s themed club Bricktops. There are also boxes full of correspondence with people from the 1990s, including zinesters, Dennis Cooper, Todd Oldham, etc.

Definitely check it out : http://www.ybca.org

On another, infuriating note, I’ve discovered that evil corporate myspace has labeled Vaginal Davis’ website (which I co-webmaster with Marc A.) as being "like head lice" (they should be sued for defamation!) and disabled links to it. Corporate stifling of free speech sucks.

Larry-bob

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New Virtual You workshop on internet arts publicity Monday March 3

"A New Virtual You"
How to advance your work, your art, yourself via the internet

Presented by Independent Arts & Media, Lilycat.com and AccessSF.org

TIME & DATE:
Monday, March 3
7 p.m.-8:30 p.m. with reception afterward

LOCATION:
AccessSF Studio -- 1720 Market at Valencia, San Francisco

SEATING IS LIMITED:
Call Indy Arts to RSVP: 415/677-9877

DESCRIPTION:

Between blogging, Internet radio, Myspace, Facebook, Wikipedia,
and Web sites galore, the internet is part of our daily lives.

If you can't Google it -- it may not exist. Learn how to use
the internet to it's best abilities to improve your knowledge
and expand your exposure.

FEATURING:

-- BLOG IT WITH BLOGHER starring beautiful Liz Henry of
BlogHer, http://liz-henry.blogspot.com

-- WEBCASTING with John Miller - the grandfather of webcasting

-- WORKING WIKIPEDIA with music writer and event planner
extraordinaire DJ Pusspuss

-- LIST IT with Larry Bob Roberts of "Queer Things to Do in San Francisco," also called the homo Craigslist

-- Moderated by podcaster/life coach Michael Vav

This is beginning part of a workshop series for Independent Arts and Media -
http://www.artsandmedia.net
We will be doing a 6 month series and future workshops will cover: money ­
how you can get it, creating your own art tools & techniques, community art,
and many more..

11:05 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Queerpunks.com interview
Current mood: energetic

There's a new interview with me posted at Queerpunks.com. They asked me about my queer cultural work with my websites, zines and mailing lists, and about the Winsome Griffles.

There was also another interview last week on the Amoeba Records Blog.

11:24 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Destroy Bourgeois Cabaret and other last.fm rants
Category: Music

I like posting my rants on last.fm because when I refer to music I can link to the music I mention... I just posted my previously unpublished rant "Destroy Bourgeois Cabaret"

Other last.fm rants:
"It's Not Easy Being An Arrogant Know-It-All"

Queer Americana

Back in the Gay

Currently listening : Will Die for You By Kiki & Herb Release date: 08 February, 2005

9:37 AM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Winsome Griffles CD Progress

I had kind of a freakout this morning when I got an email from the woman at the CD pressing plant saying "your CD master has 14 tracks, but I only see 10 tracks on the track listing."

I didn't have my photocopy of what I'd sent her, but I knew there were really supposed to be 14 tracks. I talked to my bandmate Jack and we figured out that she was probably looking at the licensing agreement, which listed the 10 tracks Jack wrote or arranged, and not my 4 tracks. Sure enough, that was it.

So that got straightened out, and she sent me PDFs of the proofs for the printing of the CD digipack and the silkscreening of the CD. They fixed up a little error I made of not having enough room on the inside edge of the digipack, and did it in a decent way that didn't mess up the design.

It's still going to be tight getting this back from the pressing plant before the Winsome Griffles east coast gigs, the first of which is Oct 12th. - probably we're going to have some copies shipped to us in New York and the remainder back here in S.F.

7:27 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Winsome Griffles east coast tour and help request

Hey folks --
My band the Winsome Griffles has got the basics of our little east coast tour in place:

Friday October 12, 9 pm: Free show at Otto's Shrunken Head in New York City.
Saturday October 13, 9 pm: At Your Roots Are Showing at AS 220 in Providence, Rhode Island, hosted by Lucky 57
Tuesday October 16th, 9 pm: Truth Serum presents Winsome Griffles, Spoilsport and more at O'Brien's Pub in Allston (Boston).

Here's some stuff I could use help with --
We'd like to try to find places to play on Sunday Oct 14 and Monday Oct 15. Maybe a college in Amherst, MA or some other regional show. Anyone have any leads on that? Also never managed to get anything to happen in Philadelphia, so if someone has a lead on something we could do there say on Thursday Oct 11 that would be super.

Also if anyone has any good press contacts for any of those locations, that would be swell.

We're going to be putting out our debut CD, "Meet the Griffles" this fall and will bring it on tour with us!

3:14 PM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Cultural Complacency

There is a phenomenon which I call "cultural complacency" where there are cultural experiences people could have without too much effort, but they do not make the effort to have the experiences. They may be exposed to advertising about the cultural activities, newspaper listings, etc. and they may be marginally aware of the activity, but they never make the effort to actually experience what is available.

I see this happen freqently. I will repeatedly recommend events to people, but they never follow my advice and actually see the performances I suggest. Even if I reserve my suggestions to only the very cream of the crop, people will not venture outside their comfort zone to check out the performers I'm highlighting.

7:02 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Closing of Carroll and Graf publisher harms LGBT books.

Consolidation in the book trade has continued, including the closing of Carroll & Graf -- see these articles: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6441065.html
http://www.calendarlive.com/books/cl-ca-indybooks27may27,0,3696417.story?coll=cl-books-top-right

One of the consequences of this has been that editor Don Weise was let go. Formerly at Cleis Press, he had been seeing work by gay and lesbian writers into print.

I have read a couple of excellent recent novels which were published by C&G shortly before they closed -- Samuel R. Delany's "Dark Reflections" and Sarah Schulman's "The Child." Due to this publishing upheaval, these books will not be getting the support that they need to find their readers -- which really ought to be broader than just the community of readers who have been following these long-active writers.

1:28 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment