Dec 232023
 

I didn’t name this column “Seen And Heard On A Saturday” because it’s not the usual assortment of recommended new songs and videos, though I do have a few of those in here at the end. Mainly I wanted to let people know what’s going on at NCS and what the next few weeks will look like.

We’re still in the midst of our annual Listmania orgy, though nearing the end of its main phases. Our Readers’ Lists (in the comments on this post) are still growing, and the only way that stops growing is when people lose interest in 2023 and wholly give themselves over to 2024. We’ve completed rolling out the lists we traditionally share from bigger platforms than our own. And we’re well along in the rollout of lists from our writers and usual guests.

At this point I have three more of those latter lists to present, in addition to the final two Parts of Neill Jameson‘s 5-part list. I’ll get all of those posted in the coming week after Christmas Day. Another list or two might arrive after I write this, and might spill over into the week after next.

Next week I’ve also got three premieres on the schedule, and then five more for the first week of 2024. But beginning that week, things are going to have to change around here. Continue reading »

Jun 192020
 


The just-discovered original handwritten “Juneteenth” military order informing thousands of people held in bondage in Texas that they were free

 

Today is Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. It was on June 19, 1865, that Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. To help celebrate the day, Bandcamp has announced that “from midnight to midnight PDT, and every Juneteenth hereafter, for any purchase you make on Bandcamp, we will be donating 100% of our share of sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.”

To be clear, this isn’t the same as what Bandcamp did on June 5th (and will do again on July 3rd), when it waived its share of sales of digital music and merch on the site. Today it will still collect its share, but it is promising to donate that share to a cause that aligns with the Juneteenth celebration. And that provides an added reason to consider purchases on Bandcamp today.

It also provides a reason for me to do what I’ve been meaning to do for a couple of weeks — to spread the word about some recently released compilations of underground music on Bandcamp. I know that I probably overlooked some, but these are the ones I made note of when I saw them. If you know of others, please leave a Comment. (Some of these are name-your-own-price downloads, but if yoiu kick in some money for those, Bandcamp’s pledge will still apply.) Continue reading »