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Does the Spock in your universe have a beard?

Closest thing to useful info associated with one of Bennett's posts. Spock's Beard is an awesome band.

Then you would have Spock's Beard

First off, you save your silly rant for someone else and for the right context. The article has to do with ripping CDs that you own for your own use, which the RIAA doesn't recognize as valid, but it falls squarely under Fair Use laws. It is not just my opinion that they are wrong on this issue. It is the clear law in the U.S., as confirmed by the courts in the Sony case back in 1984.

Second, I've spent (rough ballpark guess) $15,000 over the past 25 years or so to amass my entirely legal music collection, including several hundred records, about 1000 CDs and a couple hundred albums from eMusic and a couple dozen more on Mindawn and Jamendo. Musicians have made a lot of money off of me and I've gotten more than my money's worth from them.

Third, I am active in several online communities devoted to progressive rock, and am personal friends (online) with several professional musicians, managers and other people in the business. I've even provided the (modest) cover art for a CD from one of my professional friends, which you can find here. I promote (though not formally nor professionally) a few groups in particular whenever possible (Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, and The Tangent) who work for a label that is an RIAA member and I have legally purchased all the recordings available from each of those groups. These are exceptional artists who merit much more attention than they get. In fact, I've purchased roughly a third of everything this label has ever released.

And third, I have created my own music and have shared it freely with others. You can find one of my tracks here. I can provide a few more upon request and several more if I get off my duff and digitally master them, but honestly I don't think too many people would be interested.

So in summary, I think this gives me more than the right to express a simple opinion on the RIAA. All I said was that their opinion on the matter of ripping is as irrelevant as my opinion of them is, which is a objectively true and correct statement. Fair Use laws are clearly on the side of those of us who rip our legally acquired and licensed music to our own devices for our own use.

And finally despite its correctness as a statement of fact, it was clearly and obviously meant to be a joke. Someone here is being illogical and childish, but it surely isn't I. Maybe you should criticize what I am actually saying rather than your completely wrong prejudices. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Word-of-Mouth and actual sampling were the only way I ever discovered music, especially since my tastes evolved beyond the confines of commercial radio as much as commercial radio devolved beneath the tastes of anyone who takes it seriously.

The Internet has made this much easier for me (as has the recent renaissance of progressive music and instrumental and compositional virtuosity.

Whereas in the late 80's I thought my days of discovering new music was limited to haunting used record stores and reading obscure buyer's guides, I now find that there is more information out there than I know what to do with.

This incredibly granular democratization is true for all forms of culture, whether it's music, movies, politics, TV, religion or any other bizarre interest you might find.

And as far as Red Dwarf goes, it's apples and oranges. Comparing the Red Dwarf books to the HHGG books isn't fair, you should probably compare the TV show to the original HHGG radio show. I enjoyed the books, but they're definitely different. Besides, I think Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are better than both.

TOS: During a space (ion?) storm Kirk, Uhura, Scotty (and Checkov?) are beamed to the ISS Enterprise in the Mirror Universe. Conversely, Mirror Kirk, Mirror Scotty and Mirror Uhura are brought to our reality. Much fun ensues.

Oh yeah, in the Mirror Universe, you get to see Spock's Beard. ;)

wbs.

While many never have heard of Spock's, they are pretty big in the Progressive Rock scene.

While many never have heard of Spock's, they are pretty big in the Progressive Rock scene.

Fine, I'll list a few more for you:

Katatonia
Nevermore

and, slightly more in keeping with the prog theme,

Spock's Beard
Transatlantic

Good taste, BTW, but I'm still not sure about that 60s South American psych-pop :)

I hear on alt.rock.progressive that, say, Spock's Beard is a great band. My choices are to buy the cd without listening to it, or wait until I hear one of their songs on the radio (yeah, right) or go to KaZaA and type spock's beard in the search list...

I've bought nearly a hundred cd's based on nothing more than recommendations from fellow fans and downloads from napster and kazaa. I've also not bought a number of cd's by poor musicians who have recieved rave reviews (reviews which would have caused me to buy the cd's a few years ago)...

Imagine, buying cd's of music you like, instead of music that someone else wants you to like. Sounds like an RIAA nightmare to me.

I happen to dislike massive commercial music, and prefer less commercial genres (King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Brand X, Spock's Beard, Steve Hackett, Camel etc. - you get the drill). Many of the artists I like have their own independent labels and issue their CDs by themselves.

I can't help but wonder what do they think about the whole issue (other than their piracy policies, which are already well known).

It seems to me that promotion is the only thing that affects a song's popularity. A number of the "underground" bands I listen to (Enchant, Spock's Beard, Vanden Plas, Tiles, and Transatlantic all come to mind)</PLUG> could easily be played on the radio (to the best of my ability to judge, anyway) yet virtually no one has ever heard of them. The music is there, but they're not getting the publicity from their labels.

Damn you Rob! Have your party tomorrow night!
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