Farcaster

Working on Farcaster and Warpcast. Longer thoughts at https://dwr.email

Music beyond mainstream stuff. More DJ mixes, original releases. Events and lived experiences through music. The use of music as a storytelling medium and a communicator across culture.

More curation, more ideas. Just.. more

If niche music genres ever become a thing on Farcaster beyond a handful of hardcore music nerds, let it be known that I've been a crate-digger music writer with deep roots in the dark ambient + drone scene since the 1990s. 

I've done custom themed playlists for meditation groups, deep dive interviews with top artists, beginners' guides, underrated albums lists for goth/industrial music blogs, mini-reviews on Bandcamp... you name it. 

I only stopped because there was no sustainable way to fund that work.

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith

More evidence on my Bandcamp fan page:

https://bandcamp.com/dswanson

Most recent evidence:

https://paragraph.xyz/@blackstonesanctuarypm.me/scandinavian-heritage-an-interview-with-ulf-soderberg

Marketer @Breadchain, creator of Is This The New Internet? Podcast, /newinternetpod 
https://www.marvynpaul.com/subscribe
https://linktr.ee/marvynpaul

Thanks for the kind words. I'd love to see more deep diggers here too.

I only talk about music here every once in awhile, because there doesn't seem to be much interest in it beyond the aforementioned handful of hardcore music nerds. 

But if I had the right place to publish and a way to fund the work at least to a basic level so I didn't have to pay all production costs myself out of pocket, I'd do it here anyway.

Your profile was the quickest I ever hit the "follow" button on this app specifically because of your music writing. 

This is the greatest time ever to be a music fan, I wish more people embraced deep digging

positioning rants 🚀; bringing you ✍️ /buildbetter, 🎙️ /artistspotlight and🎙️ /web3magic; De*** & open-source HW/SW enthusiast; https://nf.td/bfg

Depends on what you mean by reciprocity. If you mean praise for good work, sharing it on social media, etc., there's plenty of that. But actually funding the work itself? Not so much.

In the days when I was publishing a music newsletter on Substack, there was plenty of praise for my work, but very few paid subscriptions. Readers even asked me for full refunds without ever explaining why. I gave them refunds, but it really hurt. Completely demoralizing. I've earned more and been treated with more respect when I was waiting tables in a restaurant as a teenager.

When I started working on a book manuscript about dark ambient music, I naively thought that having a good book proposal and a blog that was respected by the musicians and scene insiders would be sufficient to get the work funded. 

But publishing doesn't work that way -- especially not for writers covering underground arts, culture, and music scenes.

Sorry to say it, but it's bleak.

I have to say that there's one thing I find very surprising ... and you may say it's natural, which it is ... but I have always expected and assumed that very niche communities would find a way to show reciprocity to those who put work into keeping them alive and curating "the thing", etc. 

You do a lot of non-mainstream stuff and you're the testament that reciprocity is not higher in niches than in general populus 🙄 

just thinking out loud cos I have a moment between calls

off & onchain operations
<--->
Sharing ideas over at /workflow <--->
Problem solving is my jam😎
🎩

seemore.tv/free/fc/adam-

Hate to say it, but even the 1% don't make a living in music journalism. Even with a big audience, it's just not financially sustainable long term without philanthropy or hidden subsidies. It's bleak.

Maybe a few overachievers who grind on Substack and do several jobs on top of their music writing manage to earn minimum wage. 

Old-school music journalism is circling the drain, if not completely dead. Makes me very sad.

Would love to see more of that that work surface here, but I understand the struggle to find a viable way to fund it. In this day and age, I wonder if print can stand on its own if it aligns with a specific niche, or if one needs to service multiple mediums in order to make it feasible? 
There's probably 1% of niche creators who have been doing it long enough that have a built in audience that can make this a reality, but that shouldn't mean others should't try as well.

Say more...? What are you trying to make happen?

I am trying to make this happen! Let's talk

Bias Research Ltd. • Druglord •
De-di-designer, autodidact. 🗿 • /antimeme

I'm not familiar with that artist. When I hear "Big Black" my first thought is the punk band from the 1980s.