No Pirate's Life for Me: Why I decided to stop pirating music, and how it has changed the way I listen

How many songs are in your music library?

How many have you never listened to?

If your library was anything like mine, the answer to both of those questions is probably "A lot!"

My collection, which may even seem quite small by some standards, contained 12,208 songs.  That wasn't even enough to fill up my 120GB Zune, but it was more than enough to never be at a loss for something to listen to.  In fact, that amount of music is, at times, overwhelming.

How did I acquire all of this music?  I certainly didn't spend twelve thousand dollars on 99¢ song purchases; I downloaded a great deal of it illegally through torrents or rapidshares or direct file transfers from friends, just like a great deal of other people do.  Was it morally wrong of me to "steal" music?  Though it's debatable, that isn't this post's topic of discussion.  What I do want to talk about is how easy music is to acquire through piracy.  Any time I heard a song I moderately liked or felt like listening to something in particular, I could fire up The Pirate Bay and download the entire album or even a full discography and add it to my collection.  With all that free music flooding my hard drive, at times I felt I spent more time finding and downloading music than I spent listening to and enjoying it.

Like many my age, I never really had any moral qualms with music downloads.  To us, it's just another way of discovering music to listen to.  Is it thievery?  I don't think so.  There's an argument to be made that I wouldn't have bought all that music anyway, so there's not really a lost sale, but that doesn't really justify downloading vast amounts of unpurchased music.  I will say that even though I was downloading more than I payed for, I was still paying quite a bit of money into my music habit in the form of CDs, vinyls, merchandise, and shows.  Hell, even the RIAA admits that pirates are bigger fans than the average consumer because they spend more on music than those that don't pirate.  It makes sense, really.  If you're finding and consuming 10 albums a week versus just buying one for ten to fifteen bucks every couple of weeks, you're probably going to be more knowledgable and enthusiastic about your favorite artists (and you've probably got more of them).  I've experienced this phenomenon myself, even.  I've been to plenty of shows for groups that I wouldn't have been a fan of if I hadn't pirated their music.  And usually, I'll pick up their album from the merch table if I didn't already own it along with any of the opening acts' stuff that I liked.  All that being said, I didn't quit piracy out of any moral obligation I felt toward artists (though it always feels good to support them) or any fear of getting into legal trouble with the RIAA.  I quit for a much more personal reason:

I felt like I had lost a connection with my music library.  It had taken on a life of its own, and it was no longer "mine."

I had become a digital hoarder of music, and it was time for my self-intervention.

It feels good to get rid of things you know you don't need anymore.  Clothes you haven't worn for years, stuff that's been sitting in storage, or old toys left over from childhood that have no use to you anymore.  An obligation is lifted from your shoulders and you no longer have to worry about those things anymore and carry them with you.  Even though they're just digital files, it felt the same way deleting my old music collection.  Hours upon hours of music that I hadn't listened to, and had no real desire to listen to, was suddenly no longer taking up screen space and making the music I did want to hear more difficult to find.

After the deletion, I started with a fresh library, re-downloading digital purchases and re-ripping CDs I owned.  I purchased music I enjoyed that I hadn't actually owned before, directly from the artist, if possible.  I was creating what felt like a much more modest yet much more meaningful music library.  Getting at least one play on each song felt like an attainable goal rather than an impossible challenge.  And so I made it a point to listen to each album as I added it, forging a connection with the music that wasn't possible before with such a huge library.

My library still isn't complete, and will probably continue to grow, but now my library feels like MY library.  There is still a vacuum of music that I miss, but that's slowly being replenished and replaced with music both new and old to me.  I've discovered more independent artists recently than I had before, despite the fact that I always viewed piracy as a discovery tool.  Streaming music legally through services like Spotify or Pandora makes discovery so easy that piracy almost seems unneccessary.  I may never go back.

Sleigh Bells @ The Bluebird - 10/30/2012

I hopped off the bus in downtown Bloomington and made my way toward the bar with the tour bus parked out front.  I was right on time according to my ticket, which of course means I was ridiculously early.  I sauntered over to one of the three bars in the building and ordered myself a Dirty Bird, yet another blue-colored variation of the Long Island Iced Tea, and began waiting with anticipation.  When I first saw that Sleigh Bells’ tour would be bringing them to the Bluebird in Bloomington, I knew it was a concert I had to attend.

I first heard Sleigh Bells two or so years ago around when their debut album, Treats, was released.  I heard “Tell ‘Em” played a few times on the radio and promptly filed Sleigh Bells into my mind under “Bands I need to check out in the near future.”  Of course, as anyone who keeps those sorts of mental lists knows how easy it is to forget to check them.  

Fast forward a few months and my friends and I are visiting Ear X-tacy in Louisville.  Javon hears some music she likes playing over the store’s speakers and has to know who it is.  Spoiler alert: It’s Sleigh Bells.  She bought the album and we listened to it for the rest of the day.  We fell in love with it.

After finishing my drink I made my way down to the stage.  I had never heard of the opening act, AraabMuzik, prior to buying my tickets.  His official website compares his use of an MPC to "Travis Barker on the drums."  I thought it sounded interesting, and boy was it.  Unfortunately, I was far more impressed by what he was doing physically than what he was creating acoustically.  I wasn't alone either; the crowd was there, watching, but not many were moving with the music.  At the end of the performance, I was impressed, but not really that entertained.  But it was time for Sleigh Bells, and that got me pretty excited.

I'm never quite sure how to describe Sleigh Bells as a band.  Noisy, electronic, heavy, and crunchy are all words that come to mind. Their sound just can't really be compared to any other popular acts; I always find myself simply calling Sleigh Bells unique.  The contrast between Krauss' wispy, ephemeral vocals and the heaviness of the backing power chords and noisy electronic beats create an excellent and, again, unique sound.

That sound was in full force at the Bluebird.  Sleigh Bells came out on to the stage with huge amounts of energy.  Opening with "Demons" from their 2012 album Reign of Terror, the Brooklyn duo (plus touring member Jason Boyer) filled the smallish bar with a wall of sound.  The crowd was moving constantly thoughout the concert, and I moved with them.  Band members werI really need a phone with a less shitty camerae crowdurfing, pauses between songs were minimal, and though the set was relatively short, I would rate it as one of the best concerts I've been to.

The setlist itself was excellent.  The band played a mix of songs from both Treats and Reign of Terror, hitting greats like "Kids", "End of the Line", "Comeback Kid", and "Rill Rill".  Though it may be that Sleigh Bells has a smaller repertoire compared to many of the other acts I've seen live, this concert was one of the few that I've left feeling like none of the songs I wanted to hear were left out.

Overall, the concert was excellent.  Sleigh Bells was a great band to see in the more intimate setting of a bar like the Bluebird, the crowd was great, and the music was high-energy.  

I'll leave you with one tip:  If you ever feel discouraged from going to a concert because you'd be going alone.  It didn't detract from the experience one bit, and I actually met some great people afterwards.  Shoutout to the guys whith whom I shared a pitcher of beer and a game of pool with after the concert.

Best.  Concert.  Yet.

Dungeonist's Future - What We Learned From Our IndieGoGo Project

Woo money!  At the end of Dungeonist's 30-day IndieGoGo project, our pledges sat at $225 out of our initial $10,000 dollar goal.  Perhaps we were a little too ambitious, but I certainly don't count that $9,775 shortfall as a failure, and I'll tell you why.

1. We put ourselves out there and did it.  We tried, and are still trying.  That's more than a lot of people can say.  Runners usually say things like, "It doesn't matter how slow you are, you're still lapping everyone on the couch," and that phrase has resonated with me a lot lately.
2. Even though it's not a lot, we still made some money.  It'll be enough to run the site for at least a little while, which means we don't have to pay out of our pockets, at least for a bit.  It does mean that when we fully launch, the site will have ads, but that's pretty normal for the web these days.
3. It was a learning experience.  We learned a lot about promoting ourselves on the web, what people online want, and how people perceive us.  We now have a better insight on how to make our project a success in the futre.

So what does the future hold for Dungeonist, exactly?  Well, we aren't entirely sure at this point.  We know one thing for certain though: We aren't giving up on it.  Stay tuned for more updates!

Dungeonist Kickstarter - News Coming Soon

Since graduation, Nick and I have been looking for jobs in different cities and Nathan has started graduate school.  Dungeonist as a project has fallen out of our main focus, and we want that to change.

So we're doing a Kickstarter project.

Everything seems to be going well so far, and we hope to post the project within a week.

I'll post updates here as they occur.

Dungeonist Alpha is Live!

Check it out at Dungeonist.com!

Dungeonist is a social network for your tabletop RPG characters.  You know that pesky paper character sheet that you're always losing that's covered in pencil and eraser marks and that you spilled Mountain Dew on that one time?  Well, get rid of it!  Dungeonist lets your create, manage, and view your character's stats and information from any device with a web browser!  Plus, there's functionality for setting relationships to other characters and managing campaigns, too!

Myself and two others have worked, and are working, really hard on this project.  We're pretty proud of how far it's come, but it still has a long way to go.  We need the support of some of our friends to trudge through the crappiness of early alpha and eventually beta testing so we can make Dungeonist a success.  This is our dream, and we hope to make it into a reality.

If you want an account, just visit our Facebook page and send us a message.  Registrations are closed so we'll set up the account for you and help you get started and deal with any bugs or confusion down the road.