I have only one comment on the MySpace experience. I find the whole "comments" and rating scheme to be wildly offensive. To quote a French fan who's putting together an Ubu Radio myspace site: "nobody has the right to rate a song, something or someone, so I let no possibility to do it." What I think he means to say if he had command of the English language is, "Who the hell do you think you are?" But of course, you know I am an old-school elitist. My dictum: "Self-expression should be left to the professionals. We are uniquely qualified to endure the failure and overwhelming sense of disappointment." Which leads back to the comment/rating scheme. Two things are problematical. Any artist who seeks approval and/or validation is onto a loser. Any scheme which encourages this way of thinking is damaging. This is the Oprah Winfrey Effect foisted on a generation of men who, consequently, have no spine. Screw the audience. Ars Longa, audience brevis. If you create a product they want, they buy it. That's the end of the transaction. It's not friendship. It's not family. It's the marketplace - which is the only place where a man stand stand free and upright in the light. Second problem: The audience, your "friends." It takes years of application to know what the hell you're talking about in regard to a subject matter. You need to study the history of the subject, the history of criticism in the subject and you need to be informed of any number of aesthetical issues and need to engage in grounded, informed analysis. To quote somebody, "You're free to have your own opinion but not your own facts." So this comments/rating scheme encourages a delusional state, a warm and cozy feeling that YOUR opinion matters and counts for a hill of beans. That you're part of a community, in this case a community of creative endeavor in which of course you have not participated. It is an ersatz folk experience, more accurately a counterfeit folk experience. When Dub Housing came out we played a show in Cleveland to mark the event. A guy from a band called The Human Switchboard came up to me and wanted to deliver a critique of the album. I said I'm not interested. I don't care. He went into a tizzy. He wouldn't give it up. He followed me into the parking lot, out onto the street, as I tried to get away. "How can you not care what I think?!" "Because you're not in the band. Because I KNOW what the strengths and weaknesses are and I'm not interested in anyone else's opinion." Making independent music means saying Screw You! to everyone who is NOT in your band. If there had been a REAL punk movement that would have been the enduring message. But the real avatar of the punk movement, as you know I've said endlessly and fruitlessly, is Oprah Winfrey. Everyone is creative. Everyone has a (valid) opinion. Let's all be cozy together and respect each other. "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony..." Blah-blah-blah. Well, harmony makes my flesh crawl.