Topic: George Hrab

[pandamonium]

I've listened to some of Hrab's stuff on Last.fm and have been toying around with the idea of buying an album of his for a while. i wouldn't otherwise obtain his music, because i respect him as an artist and would want to support him financially, but i haven't really had the budget for music lately.

email him and ask him if he appreciates your decision to not enjoy his music and not give him any money, because you don't want to enjoy his music until you've given him money, unless it's available on youtube or lastFM or the radio or podcasts.

wut.

[GodSlayer]

I've listened to some of Hrab's stuff on Last.fm and have been toying around with the idea of buying an album of his for a while. i wouldn't otherwise obtain his music, because i respect him as an artist and would want to support him financially, but i haven't really had the budget for music lately.

email him and ask him if he appreciates your decision to not enjoy his music and not give him any money, because you don't want to enjoy his music until you've given him money, unless it's available on youtube or lastFM or the radio or podcasts.

wut.

more traurig than wut.

[GodSlayer]

I think the problem is that he's not a well known artist. I wouldn't even consider him big in the scope of the skeptical community, and we're pretty damn small as far as sub-cultures go. I'm not morally against internet piracy or anything, I just haven't done it in a while.

Is "war-torn nations" a band or or do you mean demos from bands who are from war-torn nations? I just spent 15 minutes looking for them...

Yea, I'm talking about Metal bands from Poland, Czech Rep, Serbia, etc.
If it was a band name I would have capitalized it.

[Evil Eye]

If George Hrab is tiny... then I would like to know why at least 4 (other than his own) of the podcasts I listen to (that also have thousands of listeners) have his entire album in their feed.

[GodSlayer]

his entire album

doesn't he have like five of them?

[pandamonium]

his entire album

doesn't he have like five of them?

he just put out his 6th, which is the album that EE is referring to - he asked fellow podcasters to include the 6th album in their feed.

i'd say hrab is big depending on which demographic of the skeptical community you ask. he's been getting a lot of good publicity in the last two years or so, but he's been doing the geologic podcast since 07. i didn't hear about him until late 08, i think.

outside the skeptical and wedding band circles, he's pretty small. he's on his own label, even.

[GodSlayer]

he just put out his 6th, which is the album that EE is referring to - he asked fellow podcasters to include the 6th album in their feed.

nice

my computer isn't iTunes compatible. Does anyone know if the new free Hrab stuff on iTunes is a higher bit-rate than the big file in the podcast feeds?

[Skepticalmoouse]

I'm not suggesting anyone should host them on this forum, or even that anyone on this forum should host them, I was just griping that he doesn't seem to have enough fans out there who are willing to seed a torrent such that there are enough of them to have cumulatively made all his albums available. (who knows, maybe they're those weirdos who like an album but then inexplicably choose not to get any more albums by the same artist...)
some seriously crazy obscure demos from war-torn nations can be found, but the albums of a US artist who is well known can't, it's just...so...n0n-l33t!

if his fans weren't so stingy about sharing his albums, there might already be one. I've only ever managed to find Coelacanth and Interrobang.

George Hrab's made it pretty clear that he considers doing that kind of thing to struggling artists as akin to stealing. It's on the liner notes of his albums. He talks about it at the start of episode #67 of the Geologic podcast. If you listen to his show, you'll find that he's one of the most generous and canny musicians in regards to promoting his work with lots of freebies and yet still making a living.

He's made some of his tracks free for people on a number of occasions: 'Brains, Body, Both' has been available from his site ever since it was out and 'Barney's in the Vent' is still available for free download. Practically all of the album 'Vitriol' is all available on his Geologic site too, if you look there?

Quite a few of his songs (and many cover versions of others) feature on his Geologic podcast too. His podcast is practically one big freely-downloadable advertisement for practically all of his work, along with the comedy and essays he does.

Episode #145 of the Geologic Podcast has for free the his favorite songs that he's written:
“Blue Genes”  from Interrobang; “Roman”  from [sic]; “Trust Me”  from Minutiae; "Age of the Fern”  from [sic]; “Monkey Hip Dysplasia”  from Vitriol; “Incompetent”  from [sic]; “How Do You Do?”  from Coelacanth; “The Coelacanth Sighs”  from Coelacanth; “Disappointed”  from Interrobang; “This One’s For My Sister”  unreleased; “For This You Went To College?”  from Minutiae and “Who Dogs The Outlet” from Interrobang. 

He's talked on several podcasts where he is more than happy to allow other podcasts to use his work ('Heaven Must Be Boring' is the themesong for a Mur Lafterty podcast and there's a few others). Listen to episodes of podcasts like the first Skepticality interview #14 and SkepTech #8 where they interview him about his work and how he is very generous with his music, within reason. 

[Fast Eddie B]

I'm going to violate the "Thumper" rule*...

I love listening to George Hrab...talk.

A few days ago I was driving home from Knoxville and had pretty much run out of podcasts to listen to alone (there are a few, like FilmSpotting, that I like to listen to with Karen, and she wasn't with me). Trebuchet was featured in full on Skepticality and being 70 minutes long pretty much fit into my remaining drive time.

Well, there's no accounting for taste, but I found it unlistenable - I gave up after about 2 1/2 songs. I found it grating and cacophonous, and the lyrics a bit "forced". It reminded me a bit of Zappa, but just didn't click with me.

Only later did I hear Hrab give Zappa as an influence on the Point of Inquiry podcast. Again, he's great to listen to as a guest and I enjoyed him as a guest rogue.

I know, I know, everybody's a critic! But I think I'm just speaking in a true skeptical vein here.

Sorry, George.


*From Bambi: If you can't say something nice

[Jack]

George Hrab: I Don't Believe In Christmas

[GodSlayer]

I don't know why you quoted two posts of mine, unless English is your second language and you were somehow confused.

George Hrab's made it pretty clear that he considers doing that kind of thing to struggling artists as akin to stealing. It's on the liner notes of his albums.

then he isn't very bright, because a. piracy does not equal theft, and b. in offline sources of albums a person is able to sample before they buy--hearing an album and not wanting to keep it is not a crime like sneaking into a concert, hearing the concert, and not paying for a ticket is.

but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and suspect that you're just misrepresenting him.

He talks about it at the start of episode #67 of the Geologic podcast.

you can quote him if you think it's relevant.

Practically all of the album 'Vitriol' is all available on his Geologic site too, if you look there?

oh, neat. I haven't heard that one. thanks.

Episode #145 of the Geologic Podcast has for free the his favorite songs that he's written:
“Blue Genes”  from Interrobang; “Roman”  from [sic]; “Trust Me”  from Minutiae; "Age of the Fern”  from [sic]; “Monkey Hip Dysplasia”  from Vitriol; “Incompetent”  from [sic]; “How Do You Do?”  from Coelacanth; “The Coelacanth Sighs”  from Coelacanth; “Disappointed”  from Interrobang; “This One’s For My Sister”  unreleased; “For This You Went To College?”  from Minutiae and “Who Dogs The Outlet” from Interrobang. 

so does he call me a thief if I listen to these rather than buying his album(s)? or do I have to listen to one of the other songs to have stolen?

[Jack]

That guy is never going to respond to you, so I don't see the point of your post.

To be honest, a thirty second clip should be enough for you to decide whether you want to buy something as cheap as a $1 song or a $10 album. But Hrab's going a step further than that. He's actively handing out his music to people; he's forcing fans of Scott Sigler and Skepticality to listen to Trebuchet by putting it in their feeds. He's giving you every opportunity to sample his music before you pay for it, but he's still expecting you to either pay for it or delete it.

[GodSlayer]

To be honest, a thirty second clip should be enough for you to decide

you must be mad.

something as cheap as a $1 song or a $10 album.

wealth/cheapness is relative.

he's forcing fans of Scott Sigler and Skepticality to listen to Trebuchet by putting it in their feeds.

feeds don't force downloads. and downloads aren't forced upon PC users.

[Jack]

To be honest, a thirty second clip should be enough for you to decide

you must be mad.

It was 2 minutes before Sivers jumped ship, IIRC.

something as cheap as a $1 song or a $10 album.

wealth/cheapness is relative.

Fair enough.

he's forcing fans of Scott Sigler and Skepticality to listen to Trebuchet by putting it in their feeds.

feeds don't force downloads. and downloads aren't forced upon PC users.

Maybe not yours, but us cool kids have iTunes, which forces us to listen to everything we've subscribed to. If we don't Apple sends ninjas to kill us. It's kind of a messed up system, but we get by.

[GodSlayer]

It was 2 minutes before Sivers jumped ship, IIRC.

the punctuation here tells me I'm missing some sort of pop culture reference.

us cool kids have iTunes, which forces us to listen to everything we've subscribed to. If we don't Apple sends ninjas to kill us. It's kind of a messed up system, but we get by.

I might get iTunes one day, since I have to if I want to pay for this one album worth paying for, but even when I have iTunes I'll still use FireFox's NewsFox for the feeds I don't want cunting up my bandwidth even if I do want to use some auto-bullshit to get certain stuff done automatically.