Britters.

Third letter down. RIP MCA, you perpetually irreverent inspiration. Today New York City has lost a crucial member of its musical elite. 

markrichardson:

perpetua:

This is a really good essay by Amanda Petrusich about the ways Instagram lets users “age” their digital camera phone shots with filters that mimic the look of various analog photo printing effects. I totally understand why people would look at this and think “ugh, too easy, cheap nostalgia,” etc. I am not a photographer anymore, but I have a degree in photography from Parsons School of Design, and I finished the program just as digital was being introduced to the curriculum, so I have a lot of first-hand experience with printing photographs. I could easily play the snob card here, but I can’t – though I really loved the printing side of photography and enjoyed the analog aspects of the craft that allowed for happy unrepeatable accidents that could yield great effects and unique objects, I just can’t get mad at people using Instagram or Photoshop to simulate these effects.

This is why: I just can’t see the difference between these automatic filters and effects pedals for guitars and other instruments. Effects pedals - particularly digital effects pedals – do more or less the same thing, and simulate analog sounds that could be achieved in homemade ways, like with the flanger effect. I am very pro-effects pedals in music, and don’t think anyone is wrong to use these shortcuts. The really good artists usually get creative with the pedals anyway, combining them in interesting ways or modifying them to get a precise signature sound.

Instagram gives its users the same freedom to juice up otherwise bland or ugly camera phone photos in the same way entry-level Danelectro pedals can make blah, mediocre chords played on a cheap guitar with unremarkable tone sound a bit better than it would otherwise. The problem with Instragram isn’t that it propagates cheap nostalgia but that it doesn’t yet offer users the fine control to adjust and mutate its out-of-the-box effects. I mean, yeah, you can do that stuff in Photoshop and other digital photo programs, but not in this particular mass-market app.

Very good points here. But I imagine a guitar pedal that made your guitar sound like a 78 recording of Django Reinhardt. And imagine if most “guitar music” started sounding like Django Reinhardt because we collectively agreed that there is something special and warm about that old-timey sound so we wanted as much of it in our lives as possible. I think that’s the danger of Instagram. Not saying it can’t be used in creative ways too. 

This is completely incorrect. I studied photography too. I enjoy effects pedals too. But comparing instagram with a woogy-woogy board is totally nonsense.

Instagram is an easy way out. There is no futzing with the finish product once you’ve posted it. But when you’re playing on-stage and the ball of your foot is just… testing the pedal, resting on it, and then forcing it to play along, no, that is a momentary, very present way of interacting which instagram does NOT do.

Don’t let’s ourselves be confused.

Jack White is beyond. 

He’s weird, loves vinyl, and lies to reporters. Oh, and most certainly rocks with his cock out.

Read this article right now.