Have you slipped in a supermarket lately? Rear-ended by someone who didn’t have insurance? Been abused or insulted in the workplace? Call Taylor, Swift, & Harmon, serving the Capitol since 1979! Go ‘Cocks!

And it’s true. There’s not a single independent musician out there who has any real hope that they are going to get paid for their music. As I have written earlier, if you’re giving it away for free, at LEAST fuck some shit up and make it mean something…and I don’t see a LOT of that, either. So there’s a lot not working here. Time to change. Time to figure out a way where music either a) isn’t free or b) if it’s free, have it MEAN something.

Virtually every musician wants to change the streaming/download-sales model, but is anyone actually doing anything about it? Probably Bandcamp, right? But there’s room for more, no doubt. So…here’s an idea. An idea for change. Perhaps it’s filled with beautiful ignorance, but why not? Many people will tell me why this can’t happen, but possibly someone out there will tell me why it can.

Musicians: You don’t like the current stream/download/sales model? ABANDON IT. Here’s a suggestion:

Working in union with artists of every level and with people who have the skill to get projects like this online, I want to create an interface for selling downloads/streaming music. I mean THAT’S Step Bloody One. Don’t like the way Spotify etcetera handle it (and, unlike the Swiftian Taylor we spoke of earlier, you can’t count on selling a zillion CD’s)? THERE’S SOMEONE OUT THERE, probably a friend of yours, who can figure out a way you can put up a site to stream and sell downloads. TRUE, if it’s just YOU it won’t make much of a difference. BUT THERE’S POWER IN NUMBERS. So let’s put together United New Streamers or something (god knows what) to join together to sell exclusive download/streams on a NEW site. God knows I don’t know how to do this, but I am quite damn sure there are plenty of people out there who do.

Next, I want to find artists willing to commit themselves to selling downloads/streams EXCLUSIVELY on this site – i.e., these songs/albums/projects will NOT be available on any other download sales/stream site. That’s key, I think.

WHAT WOULD BE THE BIG DEAL IF EVERYONE JUST PULLED THEIR SHIT OFF OF SPOTIFY etcetera, and put it up on their own page, OR BETTER YET, A PAGE THEY SET UP WITH LIKE-MINDED MUSICIANS? The EXISTING model is NOT working. It’s like continuing to eat at a segregated diner because it’s the only diner in town. Set up a NEW lunch wagon that serves EVERYONE. I mean, Spotify etcetera works fine IF you’re looking for an old Hollies or Stranglers track, but it doesn’t work if YOU’RE THE ONE MAKING THE MUSIC. In the old days, when we saw one of our CD’s (or albums or tapes) in a store, we had some genuine belief that AT SOME POINT AT THE END OF THE CONSUMER-RETAILER TRANSACTION we would see a CERTAIN AMOUNT of money if someone actually bought our work. But that belief is now gone.

Next idea: Everyone who is part of this thing (I’m going with the United New Streamers because I can’t think of anything else, but I’m sure something better/more clever will emerge) should agree to give a certain amount – say, one-fourth – of EVERY download sale to a “cause” or charity of the artists’ own designation. ASPCA, voter registration, Planned Parenthood, whatever. Frankly, it could even be the NRA, I just want artists to commit to the idea of using a minority portion of their sales for activism.

What we need: Artists willing to GO OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM and commit one song, or many songs, to the idea of creating a NEW interface for download sales/streaming that both CORRECTS the economic inequality of the existing models, not ONE of which was created from an “artists” perspective, AND a model that commits to the idea of marrying music to activism.

What we need: Computer geek-types and folks with some music business awareness willing to commit their expertise to setting up the infrastructure for this kind of project.

What we need: an army of musicians and computer-geek types and a few organizational sorts to commit to doing this sort of thing.

Alternative: Find your favorite cause, charity, independent bookstore, independent record store. OFFER THEM YOUR MUSIC TO SELL or give away ON THEIR SITE. Or let’s set up a formal organization that acts as an interface between musicians and causes, matches songs with sites that would think that the sales or attention was actually meaningful, as opposed to meaningless. As stated, if you’re going to give it away for free, anyway, GIVE IT AWAY IN A MANNER THAT HAS SOME MEANING.

Bob’s your uncle.

DieHipster: These culdesacian culture vultures have basically destroyed art and music just about to the point of irreparable. The price of such simple things like rent, coffee and certain foods have doubled and tripled because of these zany cockrag hipster fucks who glorify everything as if they discovered it. These smug, parentally funded interloping idiots pay $11 for two poached eggs and a leaf of fucking kale – and not on Park Avenue but in working class Brooklyn neighborhoods!!! Pizza, pudding, tacos and cupcakes are now earth-shattering, tastier than ever items (according to hipster wannabe foodies who have infiltrated the media) because some sickly-looking, heavily-tattooed, garage rock band failure who arrives to work via pogo stick or unicycle makes it?

The site was an oasis for those looking for a community of like minded folks who felt that the only thing skinny jeans were good for was chafing. For those looking for a reason the site has ended, a morsel of truth may be found in this tweet from its webmaster:

See this is a reason i stopped my site; hipster media(Gothamist) mad at hipster “look-at-me” activities. RT gothamist.com/2013/01/07/des…

— Die Hipster (@HipsterBeatings) January 8, 2013

Alas, some are happy to see the site go as evidenced by this Greenpointers.com post:

Finally, the putrid and venomous, toxic and true waste of a blog – Diehipster.com is throwing in the towel.
The best part is that he is the king of hipster irony, because he focused more on hipsters than anyone else cared – thus perpetuating the spread of the culture he despised.
The only thing I will miss is all the traffic he brings to the website when he makes fun of us here. Good riddance! Finally the loser, who spent so much of his life caring about people who don’t care about him – lost.
I wonder what he will do now? Grow a beard? Eat a $10 candy bar? Change his name to Brent? Join a kickball league? Brew his own sustainable local Kombucha? Make a terrarium? The hipster world is his for the taking!
Buh-bye.

The site’s final “hipster beating” was posted on New Year’s Day:

Today, I saw Keegan and Logan stumbling back to their $2800 a month loft in their 19th century barber and paperboy outfits after celebrating another year of funemployment and Brooklyn homogenization by drinking cruelty-free champagne in which the grapes were asked nicely to juice themselves rather than being stomped; and eating local, organic Bushwickian cheese laced with red beard hair and American Spirit cigarette ashes. So I gave them each an uppercut; ran their brochure-like bodies through a paper shredder and tossed the confetti around my still normal and actually diverse neighborhood. End of story.

It’s a special look inside a bygone era.

The Brooklyn Paper reported on Two Trees’ plans in October:

Now, Two Trees says it will reach out to the community before determining if it will stick to the initial proposal — which despite its guarantee of “affordable housing” was the subject of vocal opposition and protests during the site’s contentious rezoning — or come up with something new.

“Over the coming months, Two Trees will be spending significant time in Williamsburg, listening to and learning from the local residents and community leaders who will be our new neighbors,” said Two Trees principal Jed Walentas. “This dialogue will help inform our decision whether to build the approved plan under the existing zoning, or to seek to improve upon it through a new public process.”

(via Free Williamsburg)