Reuben Flagg knows the score.

Reuben Flagg knows the score.

A long time ago there were pirates
Beaming in waves from the sea
Now all the stations are silent
‘Cos they haven’t got a government license
- The Clash, “Capital Radio”

Welcome to the next incarnation of Armagideon Time.  I’m glad you could make it.

As you may have heard (or perhaps experienced firsthand), there has been a crackdown on music bloggers during the past few weeks, resulting in entire posts — not just links to copyright-infringing material — being summarily deleted. I’m not going to pontificate about the ethics of music blogging, though I think overall it does the artists and labels more good than harm, but I don’t think the powers that be are doing themselves any favors by swinging truncheons when a light tap on the shoulder and a polite warning would work just as well.

Music blogs, especially the ones on the lower end of the popularity heirarchy that have been especially singled out, are easy targets. Cracking down on those small fish allows enforcement people to pad their kill totals and present the illusion of progress to their bosses while rips of insider-leaked advance copies of anticipated big releases flow unimpeded onto the torrent circuit.

Adding to the Keystone Coppery tenor of the procedings is the fact that several of the targeted posts featured materials freely distributed to bloggers for PR purposes. I’m not saying that outright piracy isn’t a problem for the recording industry, but it seems to me that a complete lack of internal coordination within these corporations ought be a greater source of concern when it comes to the bottom line.

While I have been lucky (or, ha ha, influential) enough to dodge the takedown notice bullet so far, the growing atmosphere of paranoia has got me second-guessing myself and wasting too much time peeping over my shoulder. It has also made me finally confront something that has been rattling ’round my in the back of my head for some time now.

I’ve been doing Armagideon Time for two and a half years now. When I got the (misguided) urge to start up my own blog back in May 2006, I considered a couple thematic avenues of approach. I settled on music because the comics blogging field was pretty crowded and music blogging offered more opportunities to stray off-subject while maintaining an overall focus.

And it worked really well…for a good while, at least. I’ve met a lot of great people, gotten some modest (but incredibly flattering) praise and wider attention, and have exorcised a lot of creative demons in the process. There came a point, however, towards the beginning of this year when the process of doing musical annotations for non-musical topics began to feel more and more like a crutch and a straightjacket.

I had to work harder to justify posting songs that often felt were simply bribes to convince folks to read whatever nonsense I felt like rambling about on a given day. Sizable hitcounts and aggregator referrals are fine and all, but they also involve a high percentage of chew and screw visitors who come for the download link and fuck off back to their corner of the internet. On the other hand, there were an increasing number of visitors who made it clear that they were coming for the writing rather than the music…which baffles me even as it makes my heart swell to bursting with pride.

I’d rather have an engaged readership than a large one, and given the present state of the music blogging world, I realized it would be better if I moved forward on my own terms instead of spinning my wheels until the inevitable day of reckoning came along. The crackdown wasn’t the deciding factor, it just gave me an opportunity to reassess my priorities (even though I do feel a little sad about leaving).

What does all of this mean for Armagideon Time? A new self-hosted website and address for starters. (I’m still tweaking things and getting used to how WordPress works, so pardon the occasional bit of oddness.) The subject matter of the posts (political, retrological, provincial, idiotical) will continue to adhere to the high standards I’ve set, only minus the music links (except perhaps for rare cases where music is the focus of a post). I’ve also decided to fold pronounced WOO-BIN into the new, improved Armagideon Time as a recurring feature, which will keep both the conceit and myself from burning out too quickly.

So there you have it. I hope you’ll stick around, if only to see my planned take on food blogging. It promises to be an interesting experience.

Recommended Reading: American Flagg! Vol. 1 by Howard Chaykin

Recommended Listening: The Story Of The Clash, Vol. 1 by The Clash

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