#Firehose

[blurredbuddie]

No wonder Eddie called him a cowboy

(SAVE A HORSE, RIDE A COWBOY)

Eddie it's your turn

[possible-streetwear]

[shortformblog]

More on the Automattic mess from my pals at 404 Media:

We still do not know the answers to all of these questions, because Automattic has repeatedly ignored our detailed questions, will not get on the phone with us, and has instead chosen to frame a new opt-out feature as “protecting user choice.” We are at the point where individual Automattic employees are posting clarifications on their personal Mastodon accounts about what data is and is not included.  The truth is that Automattic has been selling access to this “firehose” of posts for years, for a variety of purposes. This includes selling access to self-hosted blogs and websites that use a popular plugin called Jetpack; Automattic edited its original “protecting user choice” statement this week to say it will exclude Jetpack from its deals with “select AI companies.” These posts have been directly available via a data partner called SocialGist, which markets its services to “social listening” companies, marketing insights firms, and, increasingly, AI companies. Tumblr has its own Firehose, and Tumblr posts are available via SocialGist as well.  Almost every platform has some sort of post “firehose,” API, or way of accessing huge amounts of user posts. Famously, Twitter and Reddit used to give these away for free. Now they do not, and charging access for these posts has become big business for those companies. This is just to say that the existence of Automattic’s firehose is not anomalous in an internet ecosystem that trades on data. But this firehose also means that the average user doesn’t and can’t know what companies are getting direct access to their posts, and what they’re being used for.

This story goes deeper than the current situation.

[napunk-history]

fIREHOSE (1988)

[musickickztoo]

Mike Watt  *December 20, 1957

[gotankgo]

1993 - poster by Coop

[psychic-terror]

[musingsofom]

Light layers for the tropics!

[comiiical]

@theclosestcloset

"Oh, my dick makes you that horny, Edmundo?" Buck teased raising his boyfriend's hips up enough so he could sneak his hands underneath while still offering a resting mattress: his arms, fingertips brushing his perineum as he continued to massage him, albeit on the low of his body, bringing him almost out of the water. "Also, don't give me ideas. After the dream I had in the coma, all I want is a bigger family. Being a teacher and married didn't help." Even though his partner was not Eddie, because he never became a fireman, and never got to meet or save him in the first place.

[soundgrammar]

Bassist, vocalist and songwriter Mike Watt (born December 20, 1957), co-founder of Minutemen, Dos, and Firehose

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Sonic Youth - Knights of Columbus Hall, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, November 11, 1986

The Flaming Telepaths Tour! Late 1986 saw Sonic Youth taking EVOL on the road all over the place, with Firehose opening up (that band having just recently risen from the ashes of the Minutemen). You have to wonder what kind of impression these strange bands made on audiences out in spots like Kansas City, Tallahassee and Baton Rouge. They must have seemed like they were from another planet. Or maybe not! Back in those days, weird little scenes existed in virtually every city. And Sonic Youth was eagerly exploring most of them, making connections, absorbing and observing.

This Knights of Columbus tape is great — a SBD / AUD matrix that gives us a very up-close-and-personal capture of the band at this stage in their development. Things are getting a little more pro, but not too much; technical difficulties abound at the beginning. Thurston is heckled during a guitar strap malfunction. (Audience member: "You suck!"; Thurston: "You suck me!"; Kim: "Life sucks, you know?") A tuning break is soundtracked by Janet Jackson's deathless "Nasty."

But once things get rolling, Sonic Youth is mercilessly awesome, whether on a vicious "Tom Violence" or a haunting "Shadow of a Doubt." Steve Shelley gets to shine on the new "White Cross," powering everything with a Keith Moon-joins-Black-Flag energy level. Best of all is the version of "Expressway To Yr Skull," wherein Lee Ranaldo conjures up what may be the sweetest guitar tone of the 1980s.

The encore in Baton Rouge adds another wrinkle — Sonic Youth as a bunch of goofballs. Joined by the Firehose dudes (the supergroup is christened Ciccone Life), there's a skronky rendition of "Starpower" complete with free jazz sax and a rollicking, on-the-verge-of-collapse cover of Blue Öyster Cult's "The Red & The Black." Make a dash for freedom, baby!

(Oh and I couldn't track down a tape of Firehose's opening set, but here's one from a couple weeks later!)

Bandcamp | Merch | Concert Chronology

[possible-streetwear]

[spilladabalia]

fIREHOSE - Windmilling/Slack Motherfucker (Superchunk cover) - 04/17/92, Houston, TX

[napunk-history]

fIREHOSE

© Naomi Petersen

[musickickztoo]

Mike Watt  *December 20, 1957

[gotankgo]

1990