David Allen Kelly | kellydallen

Lack of action on the web and music front obviously.  It’s a
combination of things for which I half-heartedly apologize with great
fervor.

A brief synapsis of life, lack of, and otherwise:

Work –

Some may know I did web design for essentialgroove.com for the past
couple years.  Well, essential shut down October 1st, 2004.  They had
told me they wanted to just shut down the retail store and attempt to
continue the internet site.  Co-owner Caroline said she’d call when
they were ready to start it up, and over 3 months later I haven’t heard
a peep.  So consider it done.  For those interested in gory details,
the 2 owners were married, and you know how married life goes:  at some
point both parties decide they hate each other, decide to divorce, and
fight over every aspect of their once-shared lives, especially any
aspect that could be shown to have money-making potential.  So EG was
partially a victim of marital strife (of which I was not involved,
obviously) and partially a victim of total lack of any advertising
online at all.  In fact, I believe the actual brick & mortar store
was advertised for in exponential amounts greater than the online
store, so they were spending some on the 100 people living in South
Florida that buy records, while spending nothing to attract an internet
(i.e. worldwide) crowd. 

The label (Pure) and label group were fought over as well, but I
believe it has apparently restarted upon DJ Hardware’s self-imposed
exile to Houston.  In many ways it has ceased to be a label "group" and
mostly just a collection of Pure labels now.  (Pure, Pure Breaks, Pure
Limited, etc.) 

So I was out of a job.  To continue the story, unemployment denied me.
It’s a long story, but it’s not worth going into.  Let’s just say that
the Florida Unemployment System, in all its grandeur and honor, is set
up to reward those that take advantage of the system with nefarious
intent, and punish those who try to avoid unemployment altogether. So
here I am let go from essentialgroove.com when it closed, and any music
money would have been coming from the temporarily shut-down Pure label
group. 

About then is when you say, "I better get a fucking real job." 

So that’s what I did.  And I’m working a lot for now.

Which brings me to….

Music –

I have no idea if the latest productions I’ve finished are officially
out or not.  Both have been almost universally praised by every opinion
I’ve heard.  The IIO mix has been described as "new and innovative
without sounding too intellectual or odd".  I know Sasha & Chris
Fortier both have it (because I sent it to them) but I don’t know if
they’ve played it.  I know Chris isn’t because it’s not quite his
sound.  I’m not sure who else has it, has played it, or whatever, but
when it comes out, take a listen because it’s one of the things I’m
most proud of ever.

The official "America" remix is on promo vinyl I believe, but no idea
who’s playing that either aside from Chris Fortier.  We talked about
him using it on an upcoming mix-CD of his, but no word on that.

The un-official "America" remix (the one on this site for download) has
also been almost universally applauded and I know it has been played by
Kobbe himself, and pretty heavily by Filterheadz amongst others.
Cheers mates.

What will the future be with me holding a ("real") job?

This I can’t answer right now, but in all likelihood I will release
less, but what I will release will take far greater chances.  If I’m
making money from a real job, there’s no good reason I see to write
music for the express reason of making money from it.  Thus, I will
write music for myself, with no limits or rules self-enforced, and if
others like it, jolly good.  If they don’t, no biggie, the income will
come from someplace else.

This also means the far likeliest choice of production I will move in
the near future is one of non-dance music, unless I get some remix
offers damn quick (hint hint).  I have long respected Pete Namlook,
Wolfram Spyra, and the whole Fax crew.  I think Ulrich Schnauss is a
genius, and love stuff like Zero 7.  So count a real possibility of a
future release of a full-CD, very likely self-published on my own
label.  Which is made possible by having aforementioned ("real") job.

Mixes –

I’m working on a new DJ mix.  Perhaps it’ll be my last one ever, or
perhaps (with encouragement) I’ll continue even with a rough time
schedule.  But I’m approaching it like it may be a long time before I
do another one, and I’m approaching it with the attitude that I don’t
care who likes it besides me.  This is how some of the best things are
created in my opinion.  I can say I think it’s incredible, the bits
I’ve mixed so far, and am concentrating on using things people would
never imagine someone playing.  Thick in terms of some of Tom
Middleton’s mixes (like the one called "The Trip") but mine is actually
good throughout (unlike the aforementioned).  [sidenote:  Tom
Middleton is truly a genius, but "The Trip" was either incredibly
ambitious or incredibly stupid - either way, I think it fails in its
approach.]

That’s all I have for now.  If something happens that is interesting (besides a tsunami) in the news, I will attempt to comment on it in my brazen, self-centered, entirely narcissistic way.  [sidenote redux:  Nothing against tsunamis and their noteworthiness - it's just that I can't say anything more than "bummer" and that's been said far too many times already.]

Jason Kottke (of kottke.org) is apparently being strongarmed by faceless but monstrous corporation Sony over his leak about Ken Jennings’ loss on Jeopardy Tuesday.

Perhaps this should not come as that big a surprise coming from a company so integral to the RIAA, but this goes even farther than that.  Kottke doesn’t have a whole lot of details on his site about the actual communications with Sony, but the fact that there are communications even after he complied with their requests implies that they are threatening to take matters further than a simple request that the information taken down and something similar not done again.

From the little bit that I know about copyright law, I believe a company must protect it’s copyrighted material because failure to do so can be seen as giving up rights to the said copyright.  In other words, (in my understanding) a company has to protect it’s copyrights with some arduousness or it can lose them just by not doing so.

Sony requested the audio be taken down, and thus, were protecting their copyright.  If they are considering taking this to another level though, one of lawsuits and settlements and all those lovely words that corporations seem to love, then the backlash against them should hopefully be swift and massive.

Obviously there are still a lot of legality questions about whether or not a website or blog can be considered journalistic, and this affects the right to post something like that.  Maybe someday this will be clearer, but to me, that is not the question here.  The question is one of a company that is so big they have lawyers whose sole job is to search and destroy the consumers using their products and have done nothing more than infringe upon their copyright in such a way that probably helped Sony make more money from publicity on the internet.

Does Sony really think fewer people watched the Jeopardy episode because they read on Kottke’s site ahead of time about the loss?  If they really do think that then I eagerly await seeing what will happen to a company that approaches 21st century life with a 20th century attitude.

If they don’t think that, then they are just abusing their power and their ability to have armies of lawyers on permanent staff, which is clearly even worse.