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John Holmstrom's avatar

It's so difficult to try to sort out AI technology, since it isn't a fully-formed. fleshed-out thing yet. We hear that it will end humanity! Or, it might create a Utopia by solving our human faults. Who knows?

But I am glad to see so much pushback against this digital takeover of human culture. When I wrote the anti-disco editorial for PUNK #1 in 1975, I was expressing something that many rock music fans hated about disco: it was artificial music, created by synthesizers and "vocal enhancers," new digital technologies that sounded artificial. Brian Eno said something once about how "the most embarrassing aspects of the things you do are normally the ones that are most interesting in the long run." Yes, "misteaks" that creators make are often more interesting than perfection. "Perfect" music or art is boring.

I had an art teacher who said something like: "A sculpture is what you have after you throw it down a hill: what's left over is true art."

The best thing about AI technology is the reaction against it. On the other hand, as Tim points out, the technology can be useful.

Great post, Tim!

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Tim Napalm Stegall's avatar

Thanks, John. You scared me, however---I made a search to see if I let the word "misteaks" through! LOL!

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Peter K's avatar

I desperately miss Strummer, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Shane MacGowan. I even more desperately never want to hear an AI approximation of them.

That Matlock, Chrome and Burke lineup sounds intriguing but as its own entity, not as the Dead Boys.

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Tim Napalm Stegall's avatar

Exactly.

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Ryan Meyers's avatar

I think the idea of an album of all stars like Cheetah Chrome, Glen Matlock, Clem Burke, and James Williamson, sounds amazing, however that isn't the Dead Boys, and there is an angst embodied in punk rock that is about laying it on the line, where you profess, right or wrong this is who I am, and the hill I'm willing to die on, which is impossible to get from an undying machine. I would argue that the first time we heard that angst in music was when Bo Diddley sang "I'm just twenty-two and don't mind dying" in Who Do You Love, but that mentality predates music in the Beat writers and going back to Wylde and Rimbaud, and has never been captured by a machine. That is in whole a human originated thing that droids just can't replicate. There are great singers out there. If Cheetah, Glen, Clem, and James would tap someone like Handsome Dick, Lee Ving, Michael Monroe, John Doe, Iggy Pop, Danzig, or countless others to round out this super group and call it any other name than the Dead Boys, there wouldn't be substacks and endless facebook posts of disappointment in a cheeky money grab, but genuine excitement of a true super group.

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Tim Napalm Stegall's avatar

Amen!

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Ronald Craig Williams's avatar

Spot on.

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Lori Christian's avatar

Cleopatra tried that with Steve Marriott too as his wife needs bux but the family have fought it.

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Tim Napalm Stegall's avatar

So basically, Cleopatra has a history of graverobbing.

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Lori Christian's avatar

They have a dodgy history I have heard through the grapevine of my music biz pals...

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John Holmstrom's avatar

Ha ha! I love making "misteaks! Thanks for the feedback, as always.

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Shadownlite's avatar

I missed it but was the deleted song a fully formed song? Completed?

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Tim Napalm Stegall's avatar

Hard to tell, as it was a 53 second reel, clearly an excerpt. It could have been that was all that was done, simply to fuel the prank.

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Shadownlite's avatar

Ahh okay.

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