Getting Back Into RSS: Publicly Posting my Feed Library for you to Raid

Smokler on September 24, 2019

 

Inspired by Matt Haughey's public posting of the RSS Feeds he subscribes to, I'm doing the same (below). 

What is RSS, you ask? A method to subscribe to what your favorite websites publish and have their updates all in a single place. Think of it as DVR for the Internet, food delivery instead of pickup except for the web. Podcasts would on the same technology and concept: Subscribe once, receive forever without asking again. 

RSS has been around for most of the 21st century but took a pretty big hit first when people began using Facebook and Twitter to receive regular news updates then when in 2013 when Google discontinued its free RSS product called Google Reader. At that point, anyone who still used an RSS reader and carefully pruned their feed library was probably over 30 and stubborn. 

Lately though, its been making a bit of a comeback. Idea being that self-selecting your daily information diet (see: No Trump-loving-creepy-brothers-in-laws) probably means less unwilling toxicity and restless nights of non-sleep. 

I'm all for this. RSS made the Internet seem both rich and manageable in my early days with it and I'm still grateful. And while not every one of your favorite web publications still have rss feeds (many newer ones which came along in the last fallow few years just didn't bother)  many still do. 

The more feeds we share, the more our friends and loved ones can conveniently use RSS to assemble their own rich and varied information diets free from the poison of racism, intolerance and fight-picking. 

In that spirit, my entire RSS feed library taken from the great Newsblur Reader service then alphabetized is below. Take, subscribe, read, enjoy. 

* items with a star are feeds custom created by me. 

 

Feeds:

 

Things I Didn’t Know About Woodstock…

Smokler on September 10, 2019

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This last month was the 50th anniversary of Woodstock (1969, height/end of hippie generation, claimed-to-have-ended-Vietnam-War blah blah zzz) a subject that both fascinates me and I never need to hear another word about ever again. But thanks to Chris Molanphy and his fantastic podcast "Hit Parade" I now know a ton of stuff about it that I didn't before. 

C-Molan is Slate magazine's pop critic and wisely framed the 3-day festival in his episode "We are Stardust: We are Gold-Certified" as a countdown of the acts whose careers saw the greatest chart benefit from appearing at Woodstock. In addition to all-of-this which I didn't know at all, I also learned…

 

  • Most acts who got a bump from playing Woodstock didn't reap the benefits until the next year. Billboard charts just didn't move that fast in 1969. 

 

 

  • Many of the tracks on the original soundtrack were recorded elsewhere as the sound quality for many of Woodstock's performances was too poor to include on the record. 

 

  • The Who hated their performance at Woodstock even though it is considered one of the event's best. Because of the rain and other acts being stuck in traffic, the band had to wait hours before going on stage. When they did, they were tired, annoyed and wanted to go home. 

 

  • Santana got to play Woodstock because of their mentor, San Francisco concert promoter Bill Graham. Woodstock's organizers had asked Graham for advice and he only agreed to give it on the condition Santana got to play the festival. Barely known outside of the Bay Area at the time, here's how Santana took advantage of the opportunity. 

The band's first album came out the following week. The rest, as they say…

 

That’s a Wrap!

Smokler on July 25, 2019

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Friends, 

On behalf of Chris Boone and I and our entire crew, we're happy to let you know that, as of this past weekend, we have has completed principal photography on our documentary "Vinyl Nation: A Deep Dig into the Crates of the Record Renaissance:" The photo above includes our cinematographer Sherri Kauk and our production assistant Cariwyl in Detroit the evening of our last day.

15 cities, nearly 45 subjects over eight weeks, we spoke to musicians, DJs, record store owners, pressing plants, labels and ordinary people who have always loved records and those whose love is brand new. Our cameras were present at Record Store Day and The Austin Record Convention, the nation's largest record show. Poetically, our last day took place at Third Man Record Pressing in Detroit, the company widely seen as the public face of vinyl's return and increased cultural profile.

We have a long way to go. Post-Production has begun and will continue throughout the summer. But if all goes as it has so far (we have been blessed with an incredible team that makes the long hours and days not just bearable but a pleasure), our documentary will be finished by mid October, in time for film festival submissions.

This journey through our first gate has been an unforgettable creative experience for us all that would not have been possible without your belief in Chris and I and our story. Thank you so much for your faith, your support, your wisdom and your love. We feel so much gratitude for the opportunity to have worked to honor it as hard as we did.

Look out for our documentary film "Vinyl Nation: A Deep Dig Into the Crates of the Record Renaissance" coming your way next year.

In 33 and 45,

Kevin