housekeeping

Labor Day updates

I just checked my watch, and I’ve been writing about music on the internet for 20 years. The scribblings now run to literally millions of words.

Over the next year or two I’m planning to repost most of DTM over here to TT with a fresh edit, because A) I only have so many good ideas, B) my prose keeps improving, meaning I can’t bear to read some of the old poorly-written posts, and C) many new readers haven’t explored DTM.

So—and please forgive an egotistical comment—if there’s something you look at on DTM as a reference, maybe download it and save it in your own folders. Nothing lasts forever on the internet, one must publish your best ideas in book form, which eventually will be my final step. (As the internet degrades further, it is possible that non-fiction books will return to greater prominence in the daily discourse. )

The next reposts will be from my educational packet—”back to school”— and I am readying a fresh dropbox for those who want the standards and the blues riffs.

New content at TT will also continue, there is lots of stuff in the pipeline. Paid subscribers enable the reviews of new recordings.

photo at Menards by Tim Harmston

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I got an email on Friday that really bummed me out. A few minutes after posting about “Red Top,” a person wrote me privately, “You didn't want to include the King Pleasure version?”

What??? In my post I discussed the King Pleasure version and included a YouTube link to the record. I even transcribed Pleasure’s vocalese melody.

This kind of email—where I am sharply criticized for something that I do not deserve to be criticized for—is more common than I expect. I’m always surprised. That this kind of email happens at all remains a mystery to me, and perhaps even explains something about the larger dysfunctional body politic, where many people eagerly make strong decisions about action before reading past a headline. I fumed for an hour before calling a friend to vent, then could finally get back to work.

I don’t think this stranger would have left that criticism as a public comment. For whatever reason, they liked the idea of emailing me personally and giving me a little slap.

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Email is generally hard for me to manage unless it is about business. I don’t even always write friends back. Somehow I can (mostly) text back, but non-business email is a heavy lift. I have no good explanation for this errant behavior, although I don't think I’m unique. At any rate, I usually have to make a fresh coffee and just dedicate myself to working like an office person to deal with the friendly and discursive email.

The very great drummer Jeff Williams wrote me over a week ago about Billy Hart’s memoir Oceans of Time. Jeff is a contributor to the book, and somehow it was easier for me to go to Billy’s house in another state, have Billy sign a book for Jeff, and stop by the Montclair post office to mail the signed copy to Mr. Williams than reply to Jeff’s email! Sorry Jeff! Absolutely inexcusable! I’ll write you back right now! I promise!

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All this is to say: if you want to discuss a post, maybe leave a comment. And, by the way, if you disagree with me that’s more than fine. Smart disagreement helps the discourse and can clarify my thinking. (But do read the full post first, and also don’t leave frequent negative comments; I eventually block people who seem to have it in for me.)

In addition, the algorithm likes comments, they help the site gain notice from the Substack overlords, who may then deign to promote TT to others within the Substack ecosystem.

Of course, what the overlords really dig is a lot of paywalled content with thousands of paid subscribers, but that’s not going to happen here at TT. My internet content creation is free .

Likes, reposts, and comments are the tips you can leave on any site you appreciate. Indeed, likes, reposts, and comments are the most important currency within the algorithm. It is what it is.