“Thomas Dimuzio” (Used 3 times)

This year, The Wire Magazine began a series of reflections on "the fallout from music's shifting economy." The Collateral Damage column seems to have been sparked by UbuWeb's always-provocative Kenneth Goldsmith. "Just like you, I have stopped buying music," Kenny G wrote in his Filesharing Epiphanies, because "I’ve got more music on my drives than I’ll ever be able to listen to in the next ten lifetimes." This inspired an equally provocative anti-piracy response piece from Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, ReR label) on the serious consequences for fringe labels.

The latest column is by Bob Ostertag, a key figure in sociopolitical avant-garde music since the late 70s. He should already be familiar name because, in 2006, Bob Ostertag made all of his recordings to which he owned the rights available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, and his recordings have since been downloaded over 100,000 times.

This month's Wire piece is an update to Bob Ostertag's original article justifying what he dubbed "The Professional Suicide of a Recording Musician." Five years later, "I still see my CDs in record shops around the world," Ostertag writes in The Wire. But he has no idea who is profitting from their sale, as the royalties aren't making their way to him, and many of the fringe labels who released his music have since folded.

The crux of Ostertag's observations is that "This deluge of more music than anyone can hear will change the very meaning of ‘music’ in a profound way." And that is why his latest releases -- 2007's w00t and the brand new Motormouth -- are available under the most permissive Creative Commons Attribution license (striking the "NonCommercial" clause that he used for earlier releases).

Motormouth was performed entirely on the Buchla 200e, a modular synth created by Don Buchla. In Ostertag's liner notes, he describes the Buchla 200 as similar to the modular synth known as "the Serge" which he used in his group Fall Mountain, as well as in collaborations with Eugene Chadbourne, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, and Voice of America, a 1982 release with Fred Frith and Phil Minton that is available from Negativland's Seeland label and can also be heard right here on the FMA. The title track to Motormouth was mastered by Thomas Dimuzio.

>> Collateral Damange: Bob Ostertag (The Wire Magazine)
>> Bob Ostertag's FMA Profile
>> bobostertag.com for more of his music, writing, photos, and videos