bcc:

things this space may become

I started working on this website/"app" just under a year ago, mainly as a way to release the second bcc: LP.

The concept was/is to make a record where there are X number of songs, each of which has Y number of versions. When a listener comes to play the record, they are presented a randomly selected version of each song, and therefore are given a unique experience of the songs and the album each time they listen to it.

I wanted to play with a couple of ideas. One is simply an extension of the first bcc: album, in never really considering a song complete or as having a defined structure. Another is the idea that, before recorded music was a thing, songs were more mutable, since there was no definitive “version” of them. All people would have to go off of was sheet music, or perhaps having seen someone play the song in the past, which likely led to mutations similar to a game of telephone. It’s also trying to call out that, even when a song recorded today sounds finished or definitive--and even when it was written/recorded/mixed/mastered to optimize for e.g. virality or to be put on playlists--it is really the result of lots of ultimately arbitrary decisions, and there are other universes where that song sounds different and is still good or interesting.

So, since there isn't any ready-made way to insert that type of listening experience into the digital ether, I hacked something together using the limited Python I know to get something that "does the thing" in the simplest sense, bashing my head against many Django and Google Cloud tutorials, and probably hundreds of poorly-searched StackOverflow posts.

Once the framework existed, all that remained was to record many different versions of the songs I was working on. I wanted (I want. I still want to do this, and hope to) to record versions with the A New Theory of Nothing... band, of course, including alternate performer arrangements (what if Brad played guitar and Abhay played drums?). But also, ideally I would also work with other musicians I haven't played with before (which I find scary but in a way that means I should probably do it). In a world where time and resources are not scarce, the project would be a way to ask and answer the question: what if someone else wrote this song?

All of this is hard, but I was starting to try to plan, to reach out to people. We know what happened next. So what started as a complicated recording project turned into a complicated recording project on hiatus.

That said, I did make a proof-of-concept for the randomized record, using mostly phone demos from bcc: practices, that you can hear in the music section under There are no songs. And some slightly more polished home recordings from the spring that I've just called New Confusion. There is also the first bcc: record.

Over time, I'll make previous and future music available here. As one does, I've set mental intentions to play music more, and to record that music. And generally, this will be my little corner on the internet, for music, collages, writing, etc. Having mostly moved beyond the idea that music or art could be a financially successful endeavor for me, I'd like to double down on making it a personally and socially successful one. I think part of that means orienting what I create around this space, rather than on the typical platforms¹; one might as well embrace the fact that, owe you a living or not, you're not getting a dime out of Spotify² et al., and Squarespace isn't going to help you SEO your way to the public consciousness.³

And that's kind of it for now. Writing this the night after a group of white protestors stormed the capitol building to stop the validation of a presidential election is maybe not the best timing, and it wouldn't be the first time the timing has been inopportune⁴. But it is nice to be writing right now, and I'd like to feel like this is "out there" in more than some technical sense. Plus, I just got this great domain.

Be well,

bcc: 1/2/2021

¹ Obviously there's some conflict here, since this is currently hosted on Google Cloud. Maybe one day I will bang my head against many other tutorials and host this elsewhere, but that is decisively Future Bobby's problem.

² The work of Union of Musicians and Allied Workers to pressure Spotify and other services to pay more per stream notwithstanding, I think this is true. Meaning, even if they are someday successful in getting a penny per stream (and I hope they are), I don't think there's much money to be made from people listening to my music, online or in general. I'm not taking anything down that's already on these platforms, but new music won't be distributed online outside of this website or Bandcamp (which will be linked where applicable).

³ Or Substack, or having a Linktree, or a Patreon, etc.

⁴ DTCC's Bob Ross II came out the weekend of the first attempt at a Muslim Ban; A New Theory of Nothing and a New Theory of Nowhere came out 2/22/20. What can you do?