WOEBOT bows out

His posts (and scanned in record covers!) will be deeply missed. That latest Jazz piece was monumental.

Matthew, can't you keep scanning in the record covers of your new finds on flickr? It's a fairly mechanical activity and I for one would love it if you kept that up...

First Stylus and now Woebot??!? This is cataclysmic. What am I going to read?

As everyone said, Matt - do a book , a DVD , a Movie that can rattle 'round all spheres.
Cheers on whatever you do and we'll catch you when you return !

Total shame. I just found his blog last week or so too... Hopefully he keeps the archives around.

woebot, your comment on pannalal ghosh (something about reconciling oneself with psychedelic experience) was super deep, i always remember it. this capacity you have of expressing complex things in laymen's terms could be put to good use in education or politics, anything involving a wider audience. good luck in whatever you do next!

Sweet last post on Jazz though. Yeah, good job Woebot. Best of luck and all that.

Here's a great comment from Woebot-LIte, Sep 27 2007. Totally otm, even if its not the whole picture.

Moreover what I try to convey here at WOEBOT is (pretentiously/portentously) the value of music as an object and not, I think, for trivial reasons. There's the dimension of the fetishisation of the vinyl format; failing to grasp the importance of the object has been key to the collapse of the music business. Intertwined with this is a celebration of the power of the record cover, of the art, design, fashion and style which goes goes hand in hand with important music.

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I'm very glad I freed myself of the need to own lots of records. Of course I still love music but have no need to own it on vinyl anymore as long as I can hear it at reasonable quality. Now I can move house without having to hire an articulated lorry.

Hmm...I have about 300 house/techno/electro records from 99-2005 (I gave up trying to DJ when I realised I wasn't going to get any gigs) and my mates where like "Shit, do you need that many records?"* lol, that's a tiny fraction of what a real collector can own.

*You don't really, even for DJing, most tunes over 6 months old get forgotten about/tired, very few become evergreen classics.

noel emits said:

I'm very glad I freed myself of the need to own lots of records. Of course I still love music but have no need to own it on vinyl anymore as long as I can hear it at reasonable quality. Now I can move house without having to hire an articulated lorry.

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Yes, true, I had a relatively tiny, but choice collection of dub and reggae vinyl that I sold because I knew that I was never going to build on it for exactly the reasons you speak of. That said, I also know exactly what Woebot refers too from the way I often (or used to when I had the sort of slacker job that allowed me to read copious amounts) buy literature. The materiality of the book, in all aspects, from cover art, to paper stock, to font, to proportions, has a huge influence on my pleasure. Desire concentrates itself from all angles. I have no problem with that being called fetishization. The world is built on fucked up intensities, after all.

The key phrase is 'failing to grasp the importance of the object.' I think that insight can be extended to much else we consume.

Dial said:

The key phrase is 'failing to grasp the importance of the object.' I think that insight can be extended to much else we consume.

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Oh definitely. I was thinking about gourds as water vessels the other day, what beautiful and unique objects they are, each one. Also safer and way more durable than disposable plastic bottles. We used to have a personal relationship with these objects, didn't need them to define us, they were us. You grew your gourd and used it your whole life. We must all be out of our gourds to give that up.

noel emits said:

Oh definitely. I was thinking about gourds as water vessels the other day, what beautiful and unique objects they are, each one. Also safer and way more durable than disposable plastic bottles. We used to have a personal relationship with these objects, didn't need them to define us, they were us. You grew your gourd and used it your whole life. We must all be out of our gourds to give that up.

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Absolutely! Christ, (check) don't get me started on what that did for specialization and the skill of 'gourding', which has all but disappeared. Although, evidently, there are still a few scattered villages in the Caucuses and Brittany where the craft survives to this day. There was a BBC doco on it mid-way through 2007. Google: 'The Gourd's Return' if you feel like checking it out. And, of course, plastic doesn't break down for thousands, if not millions of years (or even twice that).

We must all be out of our gourds to give that up.

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Ain't that the truth, brother.

Here's something you'll like. Enjoy.

http://www.welburngourdfarm.com/index.asp?ID=5&PageAction=Custom

real shame,he's written some amazing stuff and has contributed enormously to my listening habits and appreciation of music