Streams of Wordsmoke

WORDSMOKE DANCE REMIX; Save a pub, save the world? Jesus, Etc. Notes, Etc.

First thing’s first. Wordsmoke is now available to stream or download at all of the services of your choice. It’s a gem and I hope you put it on your playlists, share it with your friends, etc. But that’s not all. There are a total of THREE tracks associated with this single.

1. The original Miter/

   Jill
   sensation that rocked the nation: Wordsmoke

2. The DANCE REMIX of this very song, that dare I say—is like a whole new song.

3. The Instrumental Version of Wordsmoke for those that enjoy that kind of stuff (like me).

I’m quite fond of the cover art, though I may be unintentionally mimicking

d.w.

colors.

A light-years removed interpretation of Oxfordshire

As I’ve attempted to articulate, this newsletter is a hero’s journey to change the world. I don’t know how, but I am going to try and do it one song at a time.

Here’s one step: let’s help save an English pub from the powers of private equity. Save the pub, save the world—or one small part. FYI, that’s what I actually mean by saving the world; change one small part for the better, little by little over a long period of time. So perhaps songs are an excellent chisel, chipping away at a mountain of hardened crap.

First, read this post:

EAT DA RICH

TL;DR: private equity suuucks and Jill is part of a community group trying to buy a historic pub before it is sold privately and likely flipped into a soulless plan. Saving a village pub may seem like small stakes in the fight, but it is exactly where the battles are fought.

The idea of these battles being “small stakes” is part of the problem, along with general apathy.

If so moved, you can help buy a share in the pub. All funds received via the sales of WordSmoke (all versions) via Bandcamp through the end of October 2023 will go toward pub shares.

Pub shares are £100, so our goal is enough money for 1 share. Each track is available for a minimum of $3. But, you are welcome to spend more. Or you can buy all three for $10 (whole, sum of its parts, etc.). If it’s successful enough, maybe we’ll all meet for a pint there one day and fight over

Joel Drapper

. Maybe it is all a dream, but thanks to the dreamers,

Kenneth Mills

and

Chloe Hope

for adding to the inspiration.

How to contribute? Go here and buy the album or a track or two:

Additionally this is an opportunity to save a piece of cultural heritage and a hyper local community asset. This is a fascinating policy mechanism. I don’t know if we have a similar community development tool in the United States. Historic preservation is the primary thrust of domestic cultural preservation in America, and the historical nature of the structure seems to be in-play in this UK case. However, assigning an entity as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) to retain a cultural asset seems like a useful policy. This is speculation without deep expertise, but this could be a method to help combat gentrification, especially without a historic preservation prerequisite. It makes a ton of sense that a village pub is qualified as a community asset and for pubs to be a real battle line in the fight against private equity enshittification.

All said; I want to fight it and so should you. I hope you are moved to help in the fight and purchase a song or three. Think of it as arts-based community place-keeping. Or think of it as a global conspiracy of like-minded thinkers, united via Substack, influencing local policy. Wait until you learn about all of the hidden messages when you play the track backwards.

Jesus, Etc.

A newsletter is a fascinating artistic medium. It requires a level of dedication to keep it going and it necessarily evolves over time. This is one reason why the quality of Substack authors is so high. Many, I would say, are putting their hearts and souls into it. And many of those putting most of their hearts and souls into it aren’t the ones with the largest readerships.

If only the equity of one’s soul could be measured in dollars.

Currently, the only price for your soul is eternal damnation, and who really believes in that anymore? Ok, I guess a lot of people do and for those who do, I’m not judging you (much respect). But God is.

Speaking of eternal damnation, there is a growing depth to the network being deployed on Notes. I’ve found many of these connections to be mysterious, gothic, perhaps evil in nature. No one can be sure, but as the seasons change, the dead things begin to rise and the spookiness can bleed all the way into December. That’s right. Time to decorate for Helloween [sic] and eats somes [sic] yummy candies [sic]. Pardon me, just some pre-Halloween jitters.

Substack isn’t perfect. It is a company that has made some questionable ethical decisions.

But, perhaps, we can create artist/writer/people centered networks with lasting connections, regardless of what brand name is on the company. Substack is a newsletter service. Someone could code another newsletter service in a couple of hours using AI and deploy veritably the same technology. There are hundreds of viable alternative publication methods for authors. But, no one can do it alone. There needs to be a network and a vision.

Given our interdependence, I feel a esprit de corps among writers on Substack.

Like a pub, there is public value in the ability for people to connect and share art and engage in civic discourse with each other.

That is the promise of the internet. Perhaps the only realistic utopia to which we can aspire is that of an idealized internet: one that is free of advertisement and larger forces of paid media manipulation. One where we are free to engage in discourse without retribution and one that allows individuals to have agency over their content. Having agency over one’s art and content is probably the most important thing. The flipped script of having authors in charge of the financial value of their work (for the most part) is a simple yet monumental change. It’s not genius. It’s the combined efforts of many—plus the evolution of technology.

Notes, Etc.

I am starting to share some simple impromptu phone recordings on Substack Notes. I may try to write most of my next song iteratively on Notes and the Google Recorder app. You’ll have to subscribe to find out!

You can listen to some of these unfiltered impulsive recordings here:

Thanks to

olivia rafferty

and

Maggie

for the Steely Dan post which spurred this shaky “Pearl of the Quarter” cover:

And this may be part of the reason for my latest effort leaning toward Pollardom:

Thanks to Leah Charney, Erin Barnes and

Mitchell Stirling

for the inspo here:

Thanks for reading, sharing, listening and for all of your support. There are more exciting collaborations in the works and I’ll be sharing more soon, stay tuned to WMRT for further instructions.

We have assumed control. We have assumed control. We have assumed control.

Your pal,

RS