Happy New Year everyone! Service should be returning to normal with the holidays finally over, so there will be a number of posts available for your consumption shortly. Next up should be selections from the Dust Brothers and Matt Dike outside of their best known works. Today though, I wanted to talk about the future of the site and something unrelated to music, for the most part at least. In regards to the site though, I'm going to start featuring posts about rare and unreleased films. These won't occur more than two or three times a month at most and they will be torrent based. Workprints and rough cuts will be the main focus. I will also be starting a sister site, tentatively named Imaginary Records. It'll be a little secretive, and it won't be updated very often, but fans of The Unheard Music will find it interesting to be sure. More will be revealed closer to it's arrival, likely in February.
Anyone notice Blockbuster Video stores closing in their area? Most of the time I feel bad when comfortable standards start to die off, at least initially. For instance, the loss of most record stores has been a mixed blessing. Big chains like FYE and Sam Goody's had outlived their purpose and usefulness, much because of their high pricing and lack of true variety making them eyesores, but losing my favorite independent stores was heartbreaking. I found other haunts, and I get a lot of music via digital sources as well as by mail, but it'll never be the same. Video stores though, that's a different story. I grew up close to several good independent video stores that had just about anything I could ever want, so the arrival of Blockbusters on every corner wasn't a big deal. When it became easier to get new and old releases there it was understandable why they got my business, especially when the indie stores became pickier about their stock and started focusing on current hits rather than older collections, but eventually, with stores like Blockbuster ignoring their collections, letting them fall into disrepair or selling them off, I stopped visiting altogether. These weren't the only reasons I had disliked these chains though, I hated the way they rented video games, overcharging people with insane fees on the argument that you get it for five days, and I also hated their prudish mentality, refusing to stock adult titles but featuring all kinds of soft-core titles or requiring R-Rated versions of films like Requiem For A Dream. The biggest FUCK YOU was when these video stores that wouldn't carry the classics started featuring every piece of shit straight-to-video release pushed in their direction, so when you visited you were confronted with every American Pie STV release, as opposed to something truly edgy or with a story. Hell, if you just wanted to see tits you could rent 10, but you got a good movie too, which is so much more than you get with most STV releases. So, while there are some video stores still worth visiting (Movie Gallery is my favorite for having the bravery to feature adult videos and a generally decent collection of normal videos, although their video game pricing is pretty awful like everyone else.) I must say I'm pleased to see Blockbuster in it's death throes. On top of that, much praise to Netflix and Gamefly for great service and props also to Movie Gallery and Family Video for maintaining while a once-juggernaut collapses.
This wouldn't be The Unheard Music if I didn't give you something to listen to. If you liked the earlier John Oswald posts, you should visit this link at his FONY Records site. Towards the bottom of the page is a version of a work-in-progress related to Oswald's Plexure named prePlex. I'd post the link for download but, as he didn't make it available for download, I'm going to respect his wishes and leave it where it streaming only. Of course, if you know what you're doing, I'm sure you can figure out how to download it...
By the way, I know this is a dated joke, but I think the image in this post is very appropriate for my death-of-Blockbuster rant. Check it here.
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