digital zines, stray thoughts on bandcamp + recommendations
I've made some more zines available for PDF download! I talk about being suspicious of Bandcamp! I recommend some stuff!
Zines Available Digitally!
I've made zines for years. Maybe you know . Many of them can be downloaded in PDF form from the zines link at the top of this blog, but I want to highlight a few just for fun.
First off, a couple years ago Danielle Chelosky edited and compiled this collection of essays on Title Fight's Shed and I did the layout and design to make it into a zine then printed and sold a bunch of them. It was great. For the first time in a centralized location, you can download a PDF of it!
I wrote some essays for my 24th birthday. Some have been posted here I think, but here it is all together! Download here!
I did another essay compilation with a bunch of cool people. Mike LeSuer! Konstantinos Pappis! J Cassar! Evie Reckendrees! A bunch of other great writers! As usual, essays are focused around the living impact music has on people's lives. Download here!
I have a bunch more that you can read and download in the zines tab, like I said! Just wanted to draw some attention to them and provide the Title Fight since some people have asked about it recently.
I'm happy to provide these free of cost, but if you enjoy them consider buying a physical copy (if available) or tossing me a few dollars!
Bigcartel Store | wendyhouspress
Venmo - @miranda-reinert
Paypal - reinertmiranda@gmail.com
Bandcamp is trying to unionize right now and I think that's great. I hope they succeed, though today is Bandcamp Friday and I've been thinking about how I feel about the sort of contradiction of the messaging of Bandcamp Friday vs. the union busting going on.
it’s been said already but i’ll echo that it’s really hard to take the sentiment of something like bandcamp friday seriously when mgmt is currently union busting! https://t.co/2AHM7S7BAS
— Jordy Walsh (@Jordalsh) April 7, 2023
Bandcamp employees have been vocal about not calling for a strike because Bandcamp Friday monetarily benefits artists and to call for a strike would be impacting artists not the company and they view musicians as fellow workers. I see and respect that point of view, but I still feel a bit off about the whole thing. While Bandcamp Friday does benefit artists in the sense that they get 100% of the money from a sale, it's also a beneficial marketing ploy for Bandcamp. Bandcamp has positioned itself as the Good Guys in the digital music space and marketed Bandcamp Friday– especially in the first year and a half or so of the pandemic– as THEE way to support musicians.
While I think that the service Bandcamp provides is convenient, and their editorial writing can be very good, I think it's necessary to be suspicious of lauding a third party too much. Just like Spotify shouldn't be conflated with the concept of listening to music, Bandcamp shouldn't be conflated with the concept of Supporting Artists broadly. Bandcamp's union busting makes it all the more clear that platforms are a third party middle man that benefit– monetarily or in reputation– from the pure relationship you as a listener have with the music you love. Best not to celebrate them too much.
Do I think you shouldn't buy music on Bandcamp today? No, of course not. I don't care what you do and the Bandcamp employees making it clear they're not calling for a boycott have a perfectly valid point of view. It's still good to put money in the pockets of musicians you like. Just remember there are usually a lot of ways to do that.
To Read + Listen To
It's been incredibly beautiful outside in Philadelphia over the last week or so and with that I've been listening to Nice Weather Music. I made a playlist about it!
On Spotify & Apple Music!
Miranda Reinert
Like many of my online friends, I'm especially into the Liquid Mike self titled album. It has led me to buy an expensive Superdrag t-shirt, make that playlist, and have some quaint and warm feelings about the internet. Eli wrote a cool review of it and I'm here to cosign. Sign up for Eli's newsletter, too!
Eli Enis
Give it a listen! Buy it! I don't know. It's good. Big 70 Degree Days In April vibes.
sinixmusic
Grace Robins-Somerville is on this week's Endless Scroll episode! She's brilliant and you should read her work. We talked Wednesday and boygenius, both things she's written great pieces about recently.
Read her piece on Rat Saw God! Subscribe to her Substack! Listen to the episode!
Grace Robins-Somerville
Miranda Reinert is a music adjacent writer, zine maker, podcaster and law school drop out based in Philadelphia. Follow me on Twitter to hear more about other people's newsletters: @mirandareinert. You may also send me small bits of money at @miranda-reinert on venmo if you want. As always, thanks for reading!
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