Stereo racks, stands and cabinets are hideous. There is no question about it. The relevant question is why. The explanation may be quite simple. Simultaneously trying to fulfil two opposing ideas, aesthetic and stereocentric. Which of the two ideas do you support? The answer depends, almost always, on whether you are a man or a woman. My personal experience is that women doesn't appreciate when a high-end stereo and all its necessary accessories dominate a room. When you are (and want to remain) in a relationship you have to be ready to compromise and sacrifice. As for personal experience, I had a stereo rack in fake teak with dark tinted glass doors (I know, but it was from the early 1980's). It was thoroughly scrutinized before cohabitation and later marriage. It didn't make it. Well, you sacrifice pawns for the greater good. Besides, the rack was an awful piece of furniture. Other key decisions could tip the scales. The placement of loud speakers are almost non-negotiable. Needless to say, acoustic values and considerations always outrank aesthetics. Stereo racks, stands and cabinets are not only extremely ugly, they are often expensive. The Quadraspire Q4 EVO with spikes in the picture cost over $700. Still, it looks just like a modernized tea trolley. Spikes are used to couple the mass of the speaker to the larger mass of the floor for stability and diversion. The spikes need to be mitigated. Spike base dissipates vibration away from the electronics (the turntable in particular). But there are simpler and cheaper solutions. A low budget alternative is the IKEA furniture LACK with the standards 22x22", price approximately $10. The classic side table was introduced in 1979. Very functional. We moved to a smaller place a while ago. This had huge consequences for my stereocentric view of the world. My cds are nowadays stored in a small closet from floor to ceiling in double rows. I must be really motivated if I want to listen to a cd placed in the inner row. Compromise and sacrifice are an integral part of life. You have to live by the US Marine Corp mantra, "Improvise - Adapt - Overcome". But, neither of these verbs are my strong suit. 

Spotify has published their final accounts for 2021. They made a modest profit. It's hard for me to comprehend and accept. I'm shocked and appalled. I never thought this could happen. The operating income amounted to €94m ($108m). Spotify has incurred significant operating losses in the past, to say the least. The accumulated deficit amounts to €3 220m ($3 689m). An almost unimaginable figure. With profits of this magnitude, Spotify will have eliminated the accumulated deficit in the year of 2056. But, it was not streamed music that made Spotify profitable. It was controversial podcasts. Podcaster Joe Rogan signed a $100 million deal in 2020 giving Spotify the exclusive rights. The Joe Rogan Experience has a massive audience, and is the no. 1 podcast in more than 90 markets. Neil Young decided to withdraw his music from Spotify because it gave a platform to Joe Rogan, whom scientists have accused of promoting falsehoods about vaccines. Neil Young spoke out: "They can have Rogan or Young. Not both." Joe Rogan defended himself. "I do not know if they're right. I don't know because I'm not a doctor; I'm not a scientist. I'm just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them." CEO Daniel Ek is not known for good media management. The first line of defense was to state that Spotify is a platform, not a publisher. It didn't work. The second line of defense was the pathetic "We’ve heard you..." statement. The Communication Department burned the midnight oil making damage control purée. This included publishing the already existing Spotify Platform Rules, and highlighting the rules in the creator and publisher tools and adding "content advisory". Late and lame. CEO Daniel Ek said: "That doesn’t mean that we always get it right, but we are committed to learning, growing and evolving." It didn't work, either. The external controversy spilled over to internal turmoil. The employees were not impressed of how the management handled the matter. On the contrary; quite a few of them were angry, upset and disappointed. They live under the illusion that the company acts according to a code of conduct. The open and soft internal culture met the harsh and brutal reality. How will this play out? What's done is done, the dog barks and money talks.    

Foddershock are based deep in the coalfields of southwest Virginia, in the small town of Clintwood in Dickinson County. They are an obscure band whose artistry is heavily influenced by the four D's...the Devil, Drugs, Death, and Dysfunction. They have self-produced and self-released nine albums on their very apt "label", Inbred Outcast Records. I have managed to get a hold of four of their albums: "Roadkill Expressway", "One Good Eye", "Inbreds From Outer Space" and "Sordid Details Of The Human Condition". I don't mean to blow my own horn, but this is quite of an achivement since the difficulty level is ridiculous high: self-released cd-r albums sold locally and I live 7 064 km (4 389 miles) from the local market. Five albums are still missing in my collection: "Ghost Of Lonzo", "‎Black Lung & White Lightnin'", "‎Corn On Macabre", "Somewhere Between Heifer And Hell" and "God Awful Truth". There are no digital releases or streaming. I would like to write an article about Foddershock, but since I haven't listened to all of their albums, I'm afraid I would not do them justice. However, some bits and pieces are uploaded on Youtube, for example "Die In Jail" from "Corn On Macabre", "Dyin' To Make A Livin'", "Mountain Misfit" and "Searchin' For The Cure" from "‎Black Lung & White Lightnin'", "When Coal Was King" and "Evil Ways" from "Somewhere Between Heifer And Hell". Collecting rare cds and cd-r is hard work. Normally, I use several search methods. Systematic and random trawling is one of them. Monitoring through wantlists, wishlists and saved searches is another. Contacting, stalking and harassing people is a third method. In this case I probably have to add a fourth method: getting feet on the ground. Fly overseas, rent a car and drive to Clintwood, VA and not leave until I have found a copy of each and everyone of them. This coincides with an unfulfilled dream I have: a road trip from coast to coast. However, this roadtrip doesn't include any tourist attractions or scenic views. This roadtrip goes through the deep dark underbelly of America.

It's better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit. That's what management consultants claim when they can't find anything better to say. They haven't learned things the hard way, through hard-earned personal experience. A high ambition is good, but you should focus and deploy your resources in a sustainable way. The secret to happiness is low expectations. The lower the better. I had very high expectations on 2021 and it became a disastrous year when it could have been a fabulous one. New fresh albums were announced from Wovenhand, Antic Clay, Sons of Perdition, Slackeye Slim, Mr Plow, T.K. Bollinger, Oldboy (of the Fens) and The Victor Mourning. It didn't stop there. No less than gothic western legend Christian Williams announced a new album. This was very surprising since he changed his musical style to experimental electronica years ago. Evil doom country band Those Poor Bastards didn't announce anything, but they're always a steady supplier. Well, I hit the ground hard. The icy grip of the pandemic is long, cold and firm. Music creativity and music production has come to an absolute zero. Very few albums were released in the gothic country genre this year: T.K. Bollinger made 12 digital EPs. You can read a quick review in the blog section. Oldboy (of the Fens) released "Invisible Man". They maintain their standards and production rate. Those Poor Bastards released "Old Time Suffering". Their new album is fresh, energetic and exuberant with a couple of outstanding songs. This year must be an all time low for new releases. In terms of quality, 2021 was a passable year considering the circumstances.

What about next year? I have adjusted my expectations down to zero. I will not be disappointed. Come what come may. I haven't turned into Ebenezer Scrooge yet. There's a difference between expecting and wishing. I haven't stopped wishing. I've had the same three wishes for six years in a row. Not much of prosperity, only adversity. The first wish: a new gothic country album from Christian Williams. This will come true. However, the artist is sovereign and not a tool for other people's expectations. The album will be ready when it's ready. I can wait. The second wish: a new album from The Victor Mourning. They have emerged with a new direction and a new name, Swarme of Beese. I'm not too worried. I don't think their new name and direction means a complete u-turn (read more here). This wish will come true in 2022. The have a new album coming up. It will be released on vinyl and available for download in high-quality format. The third wish: to acquire at least one of the hard-to-find four missing albums (read more here) and to get all albums from the defunct label Devil's Ruin Records (this is actually two wishes in one). The first part of the wish failed (as always), and the second part failed this year. I wish for the same three things in 2022. What about new album releases in 2022? Wovenhand's ninth album "Silver Sash" was initially scheduled to be released in 2020, then postponed to 2021 and now the release date is February 4, 2022. T.K. Bollinger is working on a physical release of the best songs from his 12 EPs. Hopefully, there will be more. I don't know. What I do know is that it's better to aim low and hit.

 

I'm a late adopter. I came across the mother of (almost) all gothic country bands, 16 Horsepower, in 2008. This chance meeting had consequences. I began to write about the genre in Swedish. My first staggering steps can be traced back to a site named CD-Runda (opens in a new window). After a while, I decided to launch a website dedicated to gothic country music and to write in English. I killed two birds with one stone. A website in English expands the target audience. This also gave me an opportunity to improve my English. Swedish kids have studied English for ten years before attending higher education (where all textbooks often are in English). However, I graduated long ago and there was and is room for improvement both in terms of grammar and vocabulary. I also took Spanish in school. I jumped in when the semester already had begun, stayed for six weeks and then jumped back. Never got beyond "una maleta blanca y negra". I had more options than English and Spanish. I took German for six years. There was an even greater need to improve my German. This could be a good refreshing and re-learning project. However, I never mastered the dative and accusative objects. I guessed my way through school. English was not really much of a choice. It is, after all, the most spoken language in the world. 

In the 1970s many Swedes learned English through a TV-program called "Start". The program leader was Michael Knight, a british-born university lecturer and translator with enormous ears. The popular adult education program was produced by UR (Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company) which is part of the public service broadcasting group in Sweden, with Swedish Radio (SR) and Swedish Television (SVT). It was very basic: "Say after me, please. Yes, please [dramatic pause]...Yes, please. Good! Yes, I like it [dramatic pause]...Yes, I like it. Good!". We listened to reel-to-reel tapes in school and filled in handouts that smelled alcohol. It's funny how your memory works. After 50 years, I still remember my first English lessons (two per week) in the third grade. We were all curious and expectant. Then the teacher dropped the bomb: "It's raining cats and dogs". Apparently, this sentence was taken straight out of the textbook. We understood what the teacher said, but not what it meant. A tedious teacher-led explanatory session followed. The English-language idiom "raining cats and dogs" is used to describe particularly heavy rain. It is of unknown etymology. I leave the appropriateness of using English idioms on Swedish third-graders to the scientific community. However, during the shortest period of employment in my life, in school bureaucracy on the national level, I met people who were specialists in didactics and pedagogics. They were consumed by postmodern theories and knowledge relativism. They had their own perception of the world. For them, literally, raining cats and dogs is not strange.