If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you probably already know that I run a record label. If you haven’t, now you know I run a record label. It’s called Analog Revolution, and we do the bulk of our sales through our website (and our cassette subcription platform), but we have also been, for the last ten years, big fans of and users of Bandcamp. It was recently announced that Bandcamp was being sold (again) and this time, they’re laying off half the staff. This is almost certainly in response to Bandcamp’s efforts to unionize (see the bandcamp union’s response to the layoffs on instagram) and it leaves folks like me in a curious position. So, let’s talk about the future of music distribution in a world where the future of bandcamp is uncertain.

Hey Folks! It’s been a long time (Years!) without consistent updates coming from my corner of the north GA mountains. There are lots of reasons for that, and most of them come down to time commitments and my dayjob, but I’ve got some news: As of earlier this week, I’m not working a day job. I still run Analog Revolution Records, Ellijay Coffeehouse, GA Mountain Coffee Roasting, Mountain Town Toys, Mountain Town Antiques, New Ellijay Television, the Ellijay Makerspace, Mountain Town Radio, Mountain Town Technology, the podcasts Jupiter’s Ghost and Expedition Sasquatch, and I’m working to build the infrastructure and tooling for our Community Media Network, among a few other things, but I’m not giving 40 hours of my life to a company that can’t do me the basic dignity of speaking to me honestly and respectfully anymore, and that’s liberating. So, what am I going to do instead?

Microsoft purchased activision/blizzard. This is the way things go. Activision spent decades gobbling up other game studios, becoming a massive juggernaut unable to support it’s own bulk, and then an even larger creature moved in and took control. It feels like something out of the Kaiju Preservation Society, except that these incomprehensible monsters are financial fictions. The consolidation of the control of media production in to an ever shrinking number of hands is one of the biggest problems of our age (and the subject of my recent book Community Media: a Handbook for Revolutions in DIY TV), so I lament this purchase, but … Well, Activision spent years doing the same thing with small studios, and it’s one of those small studios that I want to talk about now. See, it’s time to talk about Infocom.

Back in July, I shared a post about the lofi edition of our July concert at the Gilmer Arts Playhouse. Today, I’m sharing the Hi-Fi edition. This is the first show we’ve produced in 4k, and the first of our playhouse shows to feature videographer Nelson Crawford (of John Thefruitman and Holders.) I think the results speak for themselves, and I’m incredibly proud to have been a part of this.

On July 22nd 2023, Analog Revolution gathered a horde of freaks, punks, anarchists, communists, witches, wizards, and emotionally stunted weirdos, and our little impromptu band of misfits descended on the usually respectable Gilmer Arts Playhouse in Ellijay, Georgia.