The Revenge Of REO Speedwagon

OldMediaResurrection
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Sure, they were simultaneously bombastic and insipid.....




But for awhile there they rode the magic carpet ride of kings that trailed behind the bloated PR machine driven by the big media screwheads.

It's something that Jane Hamsher wrote about a while ago, back when Firedoglake was still running on Blogspot and a couple of AA batteries:

The music business in the 70's had grown bloated and moribund and disconnected from its audience. Record executives busied themselves buying Rolexes for REO Speedwagon and paying millions for Casablanca records and nobody cared......


Then, suddenly, all hell broke loose:

They (the record company screwheads) were perfectly horrified at the spectacle of kids paying $3 to see the Clash play a benefit for Marxist youth at the Geary Temple in 1978, but even as a kid it was perfectly obvious where the energy was, where the zeitgeist was shifting. Punk rock became a beacon for creative people of all walks, and oh so many years later the shadow it casts looms far greater than the corporate culture merchants of the time were able to envision......


Which is not something I could disagree with, even if my own involvement, unlike my younger brother's, was peripheral to that scene.

Anyway, writing from the perspective of early 2006, Ms. Hamsher had the same feeling about the bloggodome at the time, especially that upper left quadrant that would soon become known as the 'Fever Swamps':

It's not that the movie business or the book business or the magazine business is dead, or that the blog world is any challenge to any of them, but creativity is a very fluid thing and when it becomes difficult to achieve any kind of satisfaction in a particular medium the quality talent will siphon off into an arena that allows it expression. I could stand at a magazine stand for 24 hours straight, reading every issue on the racks and not come across the clever, relevant, insightful things I know I can find in a half hour on the blogs......


And, as someone who has had their own little bloggobubble hidden deep within the northern swamps over the ensuing period, I can't disagree with her there either.

But here's the thing......

Since the writ was dropped in the country formerly known as Canuckistan a few days ago it has suddenly dawned on me that the amateurs are no longer out front all on their own.

I mean, heckfire, I could sit in front of the screen for 24 hours straight staring at this and wouldn't be able to get more in depth election analysis anywhere - dead tree edition or otherwise.

And because the Pro-Blogs are still pretty much free-wheeling and fancy-free it is, at this point at least, still a pretty good thing indeed.

But, clearly, the screwheads are gaining on us.

OK?


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For the record Ms. H. knew, right from the start, that the salad days were going to be short lived.
So here's a question.....Can the hybrids like say, The Tyee's 'The Hook' keep us (ie. the amateurs from getting elbowed out completely?
Ever the optimist, Kady O thinks that everybody can get along (fast forward to the 51st minute, oh the irony!, if you want to cut to the chase). Just to be clear, I'm not worried about the pro-journos themselves that are doing a king hell job of blogging (And I put Sean Holman and Frances Bula in that category locally) that I'm worried about. Instead, it's the big Corps themselves, who I'd take very short odds have business models incubating that they figure will re-establish their hegemony, that I'm worried about.


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