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alanlicht · 5 years ago

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Alan Licht’s Minimal Top Ten List #4

A few weeks ago, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, my friend Mats Gustafsson sent out a mass email encouraging people to send him record lists to post on the “Discaholics” section of his website--top tens, favorite covers, anything. I immediately thought of the first 3 Minimal Top Ten lists I did (now found online here) back in 1995, 1997, and 2007 respectively, for the fanzine Halana (the first two) and Volcanic Tongue’s website (the third), and sent them to him. Those articles have sort of taken on a life of their own, and I still see them referenced as the albums get reissued and so on. Occasionally people ask me if I’d ever do another one, and looking at all three again made me think now is the hour. I started writing this in the midst of the lockdown, and the drastic reductions in people’s way of life—the restriction of any activity outside the home to the bare essentials, the relative stasis of life in quarantine, even the visual stasis of a Zoom meeting—make revisiting Minimal music, with its aesthetic of working within limitations and hallmarks of repetition and drones, somehow timely as well.

The original lists were never meant to represent “the best” Minimal albums: they were ones that were rare and in some cases surpass, in my opinion, more widely available releases by the same artist and/or better known examples of the genre. Some were records that hadn’t been classified as Minimalist but warranted consideration through that lens. Likewise, the lists aren’t meant to be ranked within themselves, or in comparison to each other; the first record on any of the lists isn’t necessarily vastly preferable to the last, and this fourth list is not the bottom of the barrel, by any stretch. In some cases the present list has records I’ve discovered since 2007; others are records I’ve known for quite a while but haven’t included before for one reason or another. I’ve also made an addendum to selected entries on the first three lists, which have become fairly dated in terms of what is currently available by many of the artists, and to account for some of the significant archival releases in the 25 years since I first compiled them.

Unlike the mid-90s, most if not all of these records can be heard and/or purchased online, whether they’re up on YouTube or available for sale on Discogs. So finding them will be easier than before (although I haven’t included links to any of the titles as a small tribute to the legwork involved in tracking records down in olden tymes), but hopefully the spirit of sharing knowledge and passions that drove my previous efforts, forged in the pre-internet fanzine world, hasn’t been rendered totally redundant by the 24/7 onslaught of virtual note-comparing in social media.

1. Simeon ten Holt Canto Ostinato (various recordings): This was the most significant discovery for me in the last decade, a piece with over one hundred modules to be played on any instrument but mostly realized over the years with two to four pianos. I first encountered a YouTube live video of four pianists tackling it over the course of 90 minutes or so, then bought a double CD on Brilliant Classics from 2005, also for four pianos, that runs about 2 and half hours. The original 3LP recording on Donemus, from 1984, lasts close to 3 hours. It’s addictively listenable, very hypnotic in that pulsed, Steve Reich “Piano Phase”/”Six Pianos” kind of way, with lots of recurring themes (which differentiates it from Terry Riley’s “In C,” its most obvious structural antecedent). Composed over the span of the 70s, as with Roberto Cacciapaglia’s Sei Note in Logica, it’s an example of someone contemporaneously taking the ball from Reich or Riley and running with it. Every recording I’ve heard has been enjoyable, I’ve yet to pick a favorite.

2. David Borden Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments (Red Music, 1981) 3. Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. Like a Duck to Water (Earthquack, 1976): These were some of my most cherished Minimal recordings when I was a teenager in the mid-80s, and are still not particularly well-known; they’re probably the biggest omission in the previous lists (at least from my perspective). Borden formed Mother Mallard, supposedly the first all-synthesizer ensemble, as a trio in the late 60s, although there’s electric piano on the records too. He went on to do music under his own name that hinged on the multi-keyboard Minimalism-meets-Renaissance classical concept he first explored with Mother Mallard, as exemplified by his 12-part series “The Continuing Story of Counterpoint” (a title inspired by both Philip Glass’ “Music in Twelve Parts” and the Beatles’ “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”). I first heard Parts 6 & 9 of “Continuing Story” (from Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments) on Tim Page’s 1980s afternoon radio show on WNYC, and bought the Mother Mallard LPs (Like A Duck is the second, the first is self-titled) from New Music Distribution Service soon after. I mail-ordered the Borden album from Wayside Music, which had cut-out copies, maybe a year later (c. 1986). I wasn’t much of a synth guy, but I loved the propulsive, rapid-fire counterpoint and fast-changing, lyrical melodies found on these records. “C-A-G-E Part 2,” which occupies side 2 of the Mother Mallard album and utilizes only those pitches, has to be a pinnacle of the Minimal genre. Interestingly, Borden claims to not really be able to “hear” harmony and composes each part of these (generally) three-part inventions individually, all the way through. The two-piano “Continuing Story of Counterpoint Part Two” on the 1985 album Anatidae is also beloved by me, and there was an archival Mother Mallard CD called Music by David Borden (Arbiter, 2003) that’s worth hearing.

4. Charles Curtis/Charles Curtis Trio: Ultra White Violet Light/Sleep (Beau Rivage, 1997): Full disclosure: Charles is a long-time friend, but this record seems forgotten and deserves another look, especially in light of the long-overdue 3CD survey of his performances of other composers’ material that Saltern released last year. This was a double album of four side-long tracks, conceived with the intent that two sides could be played simultaneously, in several different configurations; two of them are Charles solo on cello and sine tones, the others are with a trio and have spoken vocals and rock instrumentation, with cello and the sine tones also thrown into the mix. (I’ve never heard any of the sides combined, although now it would probably be easily achieved with digital mixing software.) The instrumental stuff is the closest you can come to hearing Charles’ beautiful arrangement of Terry Jennings’ legendary “Piece for Cello and Saxophone,” at least until his own recording of it sees the light of day; the same deeply felt cello playing against a sine tone drone. And it would be interesting to see what Slint fans thought of the trio material. Originally packaged in a nifty all-white uni-pak sleeve with a photo print pasted into the gatefold, it was reissued with a different cover on the now-defunct Squealer label on LP and CD but has disappeared since then. Stellar.

5. Arthur Russell Instrumentals 1974 Vol. 2 (Another Side/Crepuscule, 1984) 6. Peter Zummo Zummo with an X (Loris, 1985): Arthur Russell has posthumously developed a somewhat surprising indie rock audience, mostly for his unique songs and singing as well as his outré disco tracks. But he was also a modern classical composer, with serious Minimal cred—he’s on Jon Gibson’s Songs & Melodies 1973-1977 (see addendum), and played with Henry Flynt and Christer Hennix at one point; his indelible album of vocal and cello sparseness, World of Echo, was partially recorded at Phill Niblock’s loft and of course his Tower of Meaning LP was released on Glass’s Chatham Square label. He’s the one guy in the 70s and 80s (or after, for that matter) who connected the dots between Ali Akbar Khan, the Modern Lovers, Minimalism, and disco as different forms of trance music (taken together, both sides of his disco 12” “In the Light of the Miracle,” which total nearly a half-hour, could arguably be considered one of his Minimalist compositions). Recorded in 1977 & 1978, Instrumentals is an important signpost of the incipient Pop Minimalism impulse, and the first track is a pre-punk precursor to Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca’s appropriations of the rock band format to pursue Minimal pathways (Chatham is one of the performers in that first piece). The rest, culled from a concert at the Kitchen, features long held tones from horns and strings and is quite graceful, if slightly undercut by Arthur’s own slightly jarring, apparently random edits. [Audika’s 2006 reissue, as part of the double CD First Thought Best Thought, includes a 1975 concert that was slated to be Instrumentals Vol. 1, which shows an even more specific pop/rock/Minimal intersection]. Zummo was a long-term collaborator of Russell’s and his album, which Arthur plays on, is a must for Russell aficionados. The first side is made up of short, plain pieces that repeat various simple intervals and are fairly hard-core Minimalism, but “Song IV,” which occupies all of side two, is like an extended, jammy take on Russell’s disco 12” “Treehouse” and has Bill Ruyle on bongos, who also played on Instrumentals as well as with Steve Reich and Jon Gibson. A recently unearthed concert at Roulette from 1985 is a further, and especially intriguing, example of Russell’s blending of Minimalism and song form. (That same year Arthur played on Elodie Lauten’s The Death of Don Juan--another record I first encountered via Tim Page’s radio show--which I included on Top Ten #3; Lauten as well as Zummo played on the Russell Roulette concert, as their website alleges).

7. Horacio Vaggione La Maquina de Cantar (Cramps, 1978): Another one-off from the late 70s, and yet more evidence of how Minimalism had really caught on as a trend among European composers of the time. Vaggione had a previous duo album with Eduardo Polonio under the name It called Viaje that was noisier electronics, and he went on to do computer music that was likewise more traditionally abstract. But on this sole effort for the Italian label Cramps, as part of their legendary Nova Musicha series, he went for full-on tonality. The title track is like the synth part of “Who Are You” extended for more than fifteen minutes and made a bit squishier; but side 2, “Ending”--already mentioned in the entry on David Rosenboom’s Brainwave Music in Top Ten #3--is my favorite. Kind of a bridge between Minimalism and prog, and a little reminiscent of David Borden’s multiple-synth counterpoint pieces, for the first ten minutes he lingers on one vaguely foreboding arpeggiated chord, then introduces a fanfare melody that repeats and builds in harmonies and countermelodies for the remainder of the piece. Great stuff, as Johnny Carson used to say.

8. Costin Miereanu Derives (Poly-Art, 1984): Miereanu is French composer coming out of musique concrete. Unlike some of the albums on these lists, both sides/pieces on Derives are superb, comprised of long drones with flurries of skittering electronic activity popping up here and there. Also notable is the presence of engineers Philip Besomes and Jean-Louis Rizet, responsible for Pôle, the great mid-70s prog double album that formed the basis of Graham Lambkin’s meta-meisterwork Amateur Doubles. I discovered this record via the old Continuo blog; Miereanu has lots of albums out, most of which I haven’t heard, but his 1975 debut Luna Cinese, another Cramps Nova Musicha item, is also estimable, although less Minimal.

9. Mikel Rouse Broken Consort Jade Tiger (Les Disques du Crepuscule, 1984): Rouse was a major New Music name in the 80s, as was Microscopic Septet saxist Philip Johnston, who plays here. Dominated by Reichian repeated fills that accentuate the odd time signatures as opposed to an underlying pulse, this will sound very familiar to anyone acquainted with Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin albums on ECM, which use the same general idea but brand it “zen funk” and cater more to the progressive jazz crowd rather than New Music fans, if we can be that anachronistic in our terminology. Jade Tiger also contrasts nicely with Wim Mertens’ more neo-Romantic contemporaneous excursions on Crepuscule. Rouse later performed the admirable (and daunting) task of cataloging Arthur Russell’s extensive tape archive for the preparation of Another Thought (Point Music, 1994)

10. Michael Nyman Decay Music (Obscure, 1976): Known for his soundtracks to Peter Greenaway films, and his still-peerless 1974 book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (where I, Jim O’Rourke, and doubtless many other intrepid teenage library goers learned of the Minimalists, Fluxus, AMM, and lots of other eternal avant heroes), Nyman is sometimes credited with coining the term “Minimal music” as well, in an early 70s article in The Spectator. Decay Music was produced by Brian Eno for his short-lived but wonderful Obscure label. The first side, “1-100,” was also composed for a Greenaway film, and has one hundred chords played one after another on piano, each advancing to the next once the sound has decayed from the previous chord (hence the album title). For all its delicacy and silences, you’re actually hearing three renditions superimposed on one another, which occasionally makes for some charming chordal collisions (reminiscent of the cheerfully clumsy, subversive “variations” of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D major” on Eno’s own Discreet Music, the most celebrated Obscure release). This is process music at its most fragile and incandescent. In hindsight it may have also been an unconscious influence on the structure of my piece “A New York Minute,” which lines up a month’s worth of weather reports from news radio, edited so that one day’s forecast follows its prediction from the previous day. I’ve never found the album’s other piece, “Bell Set No. 1,” to be quite as compelling, and Nyman’s other soundtrack work doesn’t hold much interest for me, but I’ve often returned to this album.

11. J Dilla Donuts (Stones Throw, 2006): One more for the road. Rightfully acclaimed as a masterpiece of instrumental hip hop, I have to confess I only discovered Donuts while reading Questlove’s 2013 book Mo’ Meta Blues, where he compared it to Terry Riley. The brevity of the tracks (31of ‘em in 44 minutes) and the lack of single-mindedness make categorizing Donuts as a Minimal album a bit of a stretch, but Questlove’s namecheck makes a whole lot of sense if you play “Don’t Cry” back to back with Riley’s proto-Plunderphonic “You’re Nogood,” and “Glazed” is the only hip hop track to ever remind me of Philip Glass. Plus the infinite-loop sequencing of the opening “Outro” and concluding “Intro” make this a statement of Eternal Music that outstrips La Monte Young and leaves any locked groove release in the proverbial dust. There isn’t the space here to really explore how extended mixes, all night disco DJ sets, etc. could be encountered in alignment with Minimalism, although I would steer the curious towards Pete Rock’s Petestrumentals (BBE, 2001), Larry Levan’s Live at the Paradise Garage (Strut, 2000), and, at the risk of being immodest, my own “The Old Victrola” from Plays Well (Crank Automotive, 2001). On a (somewhat) related note I’d also point out Rupie Edwards’ Ire Feelings Chapter and Version (Trojan, 1990) which collects 16 of the producer/performer’s 70s dub reggae tracks, all built from the exact same same rhythm track--mesmerizing, even by dub’s trippy standards.

Addendum:

Tony Conrad: “Maybe someday Tony’s blistering late 80s piece ‘Early Minimalism’ will be released, or his fabulous harmonium soundtrack to Piero Heliczer’s early 60s film The New Jerusalem.” That was the last line of my entry on Tony’s Outside the Dream Syndicate in the first Top Ten list in 1995, and sure enough, Table of the Elements issued “Early Minimalism” as a monumental CD box set in 1997 and released that soundtrack as Joan of Arc in 2006 (it’s the same film; I saw it screened c. 1990 under the name The New Jerusalem but it’s more commonly known as Joan of Arc). Tony releases proliferated in the last twenty years of his life, which was heartening to see; I’d particularly single out Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain (Superior Viaduct, 2017), which rescues a 1972 live recording of what is essentially a prototype for Outside played by Tony, Rhys Chatham, and Laurie Spiegel (Rhys has mentioned his initial disgruntlement upon hearing Outside, as it was the same piece that he had played with Tony, i.e. “Ten Years Alive,” but he found himself and Laurie replaced by Faust!) and an obscure compilation track, “DAGADAG for La Monte” (on Avanto 2006, Avanto, 2006), where he plays the pitches d, a, and g on violin, loops them over and over , and continually re-harmonizes them electronically--really one of his best pieces.

Terry Riley: The archival Riley CDs that Cortical Foundation issued in the 90s and early 00s don’t seem to be in print, but I feel they eclipse Reed Streams (reissued by Cortical as part of that series) and are crucial for fans of his early work, especially the live Poppy Nogood’s Phantom Band All Night Flight Vol. 1, an important variant on the studio take, and You’re Nogood (see Dilla entry above). These days I would also recommend Descending Moonshine Dervishes (Kuckuck, 1982/recorded 1975) over Persian Surgery Dervishes (Shandar, 1975), which I mentioned in the original entry on Reed Streams in the first Top Ten; a lot of the harmonic material in Descending can also be heard in Terry’s dream-team 1975 meeting with Don Cherry in Köln, which has been bootlegged several times in the last few years. Finally, Steffen Schleiermacher recorded the elusive “Keyboard Study #1” (as well as “#2,” which had already seen release in a version by Germ on the BYG label and as “Untitled Organ” on Reed Streams), albeit on a programmed electronic keyboard, on the CD Keyboard Studies (MDG, 2002). As you might expect it’s a little synthetic-sounding, but it also has a weird kinetic edge (imagine the “Baba O’Riley” intro being played on a Conlon Nancarrow player piano) that’s lacking in later acoustic piano renditions recorded by Gregor Schwellenbach and Fabrizio Ottaviucci. But any of these versions is rewarding for those interested in Riley’s early output.

Henry Flynt, Charlemagne Palestine: A few of the artists on that first Top Ten list went from being sorely under-documented to having a plethora of material on the market, and Henry and Charlemagne are at the top of the heap. I stand by You Are My Everlovin, finally reissued on CD by Recorded in 2001, as Henry’s peak achievement, but I’m also partial to “Glissando,” a tense, feverish raga drone from 1979 that Recorded put out on the Glissando No. 1 CD in 2011. Charlemagne’s Four Manifestations On Six Elements double album still holds up well, as does an album of material initially recorded for it, Arpeggiated Bösendorfer and Falsetto Voice (Algha Marghen, 2017). The Strumming Music LP on Shandar is a definitive performance, and best heard as an unbroken piece on the New Tone CD reissue from 1995. Godbear (CD on Barooni, vinyl on Black Truffle), originally recorded for Glenn Branca’s Neutral label (which had also scheduled a Phill Niblock release before going belly-up), has 1987 takes of “Strumming Music” and two other massive pieces that date from the late 70s, “Timbral Assault” and “The Lower Depths”; Algha Marghen released a vintage full-length concert of the latter as a triple CD.

Steve Reich: Not a particularly rare record, but his “Variations on Winds, Strings and Keyboards,” a 1979 piece for orchestra on a 1984 LP issued by Phillips (paired with an orchestral arrangement of John Adams’ “Shaker Loops”), is often overlooked among the works from his “golden era” and I’d frankly rate it as his best orchestral piece.

Phill Niblock, Eliane Radigue: As with Henry and Charlemagne, after a slow start as “recording artists” loads of CDs by these two have appeared over the last twenty years. Phill and Eliane’s music was never best served by the vinyl format anyway—you won’t find a lackluster release by either composer, go to it.

Jon Gibson: I called “Cycles,” from Gibson’s Two Solo Pieces, “one of the ultimate organ drones on record” in the first Top Ten list, and it remains so, but Phill Niblock’s”Unmounted/Muted Noun” from 2019′s Music for Organ ought to sit right beside it. Meanwhile, Superior Viaduct’s recent Gibson double album Songs & Melodies 1973-1977 collects some great pieces from the same era as Two Solo Pieces, with players including Arthur Russell, Peter Zummo, Barbara Benary, and Julius Eastman.

John Stevens: In Top Ten #2 I mentioned John Stevens’ presence on the first side of John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Life With the Lions; the Stevens-led Spontaneous Music Orchestra’s For You To Share (1973) documents his performance pieces “Sustained Piece” and “If You Want to See A Vision,” where musicians and vocalists sustain tones until they run out of breath and then begin again, which result in a highly meditative and organic drone/sound environment. In my early 00′s Digger Choir performances at Issue Project Room we did “Sustained Piece,” and Stevens’ work was a big influence on conceptualizing those concerts, where the only performers were the audience themselves. The CD reissue on Emanem from 1998 added “Peace Music,” an unreleased studio half-hour studio cut with a similar Gagaku--meets--free/modal jazz vibe. I also mentioned “Sustained Piece” in my liner notes to Natural Information Society’s Mandatory Reality too, if that helps as a point of reference.

Anthony Moore: Back in ’97 I wondered “How and why Polydor was convinced to release these albums [Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom and Scenes from the Blue Bag] is beyond me (anyone know the story)?” That mystery was ultimately solved by Benjamin Piekut in his fascinating-even-if-you-never-listen-to-these-guys book Henry Cow: The World is A Problem (Duke University Press, 2019)—it turns out it was all Deutsche Gramophone’s idea!

Terry Jennings, Maryanne Amacher, Julius Eastman--“Three Great Minimalists With No Commercially Available Recordings” (sidebar from Minimal Top Ten list #2): Happily this no longer applies to these three, although Terry and Maryanne are still under-represented. One archival recording of Jennings and Charlotte Moorman playing a short version of “Piece for Cello and Saxophone” appeared on Moorman’s 2006 Cello Anthology CD box set on Alga Marghen, and he’s on “Terry’s Cha Cha” on that 2004 John Cale New York in the 60s Table of the Elements box too. John Tilbury recorded five of his piano pieces on Lost Daylight (Another Timbre, 2010) and Charles Curtis’ version of “Song” appears on the aforementioned Performances and Recordings 1998-2018 triple CD.

Whether or not Maryanne should really be considered a Minimalist (or a sound artist, for that matter) is, I guess, debatable, but I primarily see her as the unqualified genius of the generation of composers who emerged in the post-Cage era, and the classifications ultimately don’t matter—remember she was on those Swarm of Drones/ Throne of Drones/ Storm of Drones ambient techno comps in the 90s, and I’d call her music Gothic Industrial if it would get more people to check it out (and that might be fun to try, come to think of it). She made a belated debut with the release of the Sound Characters CD on Tzadik in 1998, an event I found significant enough to warrant pitching an interview with her to the WIRE, who agreed—it was my first piece for them. Her music was/is best experienced live (the Amacher concert I saw at the Performing Garage in 1993 is still, almost three decades later, the greatest concert I’ve ever witnessed) but that Tzadik CD is reasonably representative, and there was a sequel CD on Tzadik in 2008. More recently Blank Forms issued a live recording of her two-piano piece “Petra” (a concert I also attended, realizing when I got there that it was in the same Chelsea church where Connie Burg, Melissa Weaver and I recorded with Keiji Haino for the Gerry Miles with Keiji Haino CD). While it’s somewhat anomalous in Amacher’s canon, making a piece for acoustic instruments available for home consumption would doubtless have been more palatable to the composer herself, who rightly felt that CDs and LPs didn’t do justice to the extraordinary psychoacoustic phenomena intrinsic to her electronic music. “Petra” is more reminiscent of Morton Feldman than anything else, with a few passages that could be deemed “minimal.” Some joker posted a 26-minute, ancient lo-fi “bootleg” (their term) recording of her “Living Sound, Patent Pending” piece from her Music for Sound-Joined Rooms installation/performance series on SoundCloud, which is a little like looking at a Xerox of a Xerox of a photo of the Taj Mahal; but you can still visit the Taj Mahal more easily than hearing this or any of Maryanne’s work in concert or in situ, so sadly, it’s better than nothing (and longer than the 7 minute edit of the piece on the Ohm: Early Gurus of Electronic Music CD from 2000).

A few years after Top Ten #2 I was on the phone with an acquaintance at New World Records, who told me he was listening to a Julius Eastman tape that they were releasing as part of a 3CD set. Say what?!?!? Unjust Malaise appeared shortly thereafter and was a revelation. Arnold Dreyblatt had sent me a live tape some time before then of an Eastman piece labeled “Gangrila”—that turned out to be “Gay Guerrilla,” and is surely one of my five favorite pieces of music in existence (the tape Arnold sent was from the 1980 Kitchen European tour and I consider it to be a more moving performance than the Chicago concert that appears on the CD, although it’s an inferior recording). The other multiple piano pieces on Unjust Malaise more than lived up to the descriptions of Eastman performances that I’d read. The somewhat berserk piano concert I mentioned in that entry seems similar to another live tape issued as The Zurich Concert (New World, 2017), and “Femenine,” a piece performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble, came out on Frozen Reeds in 2016. Eastman’s rediscovery is among the most vital and gratifying developments of recent music history--kudos must be given to Mary Jane Leach, herself a Minimalist composer, for diligently and doggedly tracking down Eastman’s recordings and archival materials and bringing them to the light of day.

The Lost Jockey—I was unaware of any releases by this group besides their Crepuscule LP until I stumbled onto a self-titled cassette from 1983 on YouTube. Like the album, the highlight is a piece by Orlando Gaugh--an all-time great Philip Glass rip-off, “Buzz Buzz Buzz Went the Honeybee,” which has the amusing added bonus of having the singers intoning the rather bizarre title phrase as opposed to Glassian solfège. Also like the album, he rest of the cassette is so-so Pop Minimalism.

Earth: Dylan Carlson keeps on keepin’ on, and while I can’t say I’ve kept up with him every step of the way, usually when I check in I’m glad I did. However I’d like to take this opportunity to humbly disavow the snarky comments about Sunn 0))) I made in this entry in Top Ten list #3. Those were a reflection of my general aversion to hype, which was surrounding them at the time, and of seeing two shows that in retrospect were unrepresentative (I was thunderstruck by a later show I saw in Mexico City in 2009). Stephen O’Malley has proven to be as genuinely curious, dedicated and passionate about drone and other experimental music as they come, and the reissue of the mind-blowing Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea on his Ideologic Organ label is a good reminder of how rooted Minimalism is in ethnic music, and how almost interchangeable certain examples of both can be.

And while we’re in revisionist mode, let’s go full circle all the way back to the very first sentence of the introduction to the first Minimal Top Ten: “I know what you’re thinking: ECM Records, New Age, Eno ambients, NPR, Tangerine Dream. Well forget all that shit.” Hey, that stuff’s not so bad! I was probably directing that more at the experimental-phobic indie rock folks I encountered at the time, and expressing a lingering resentment towards the genre-confusion of the 80s (i.e. having dig through a bunch of Kitaro records in the New Age bins in hopes of finding Reich, Riley, or Glass; even Loren Mazzacane got tagged New Age once in a while back then, believe it or not), which probably hindered my own discovery of Minimalism. What can I say, I’m over it!

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eirikrjs · 6 years ago

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What's your writing process like? You're so eloquent (even when answering tumblr asks ... the serious replies, anyway) and it's inspiring me to get to that level.

Awesome, I’m happy and flattered to be an inspiration! Never had my writing described as “eloquent,” so thanks for that! :)

So, I typically write for three different formats, each with its own approach but with some commonalities.

#1: Tumblr posts

Answering Tumblr asks first and foremost always starts with the good intentions to actually delve into the ask backlog. In reality, this almost never happens and I default to the first page in my inbox. It’s not technically writing but choosing asks is key to this whole process. I love ones I can answer in a sentence (or image) or two but many involve taking the time to research or fact-check. I like those too, but if they require too much of an involved effort they are more likely to go unanswered, as I only have so much time. Lately I’ve only been able to do Tumblr stuff after 11PM EST. Though I want to put much of the blame on Tumblr itself because if there was a way to tag or favorite certain asks for later (and save drafts of ask replies), I’d get a lot more done. But hey, it’s a site made mostly for sharing images, so what can you expect?

Ask frequency varies but since this is perceived as a Shin Megami Tensei blog, activity naturally increases around the time of new SMT releases, where I can get 10 or so asks a day, especially if I’m active that particular day. Since we’re in the middle of an SMT drought, activity has really dried up. I still try to answer an average of three per day.

As for my actual writing and style, I personally perceive myself as a slow writer. I believe this is so because in real life I tend towards being a perfectionist with most things I do. I proofread an average length post of 2-3 paragraphs at least three or four times. One of those average length posts will take me about 20-30 minutes to write, more if there are images involved.

Another self-perception is a preference for direct language and communication. That’s why I was surprised you called my writing “eloquent,” as I like to be straightforward and succinct, workmanlike. That said, I also am sometimes frustrated that my English lexicon isn’t grander than it is, so I often use a thesaurus to brush up. But it’s never about interjecting superfluous flair or purple prose but instead the right word that could stand in for three or four others and create better sentence flow.

#2 Long-form articles

Many of the articles I’ve written grew naturally out of Tumblr posts and asks to lengths that would be inappropriate for the Tumblr format, compounded with the problem of Tumblr’s limited (read: single option) image formatting.

When I start work on long articles, I usually go analog and write outlines and other notes in a notebook. Being away from a screen and listening to music helps stimulate my brain. Music is especially important but mostly for #3, below.

After jotting down what I plan to achieve, I often jump right in to Word or Google Docs and start writing the real text for whatever my head wants to spill at that particular moment. However, I burn out quickly here because, more often than not, I like to have properly cited sources to back up my claims and, like the Tumblr asks, researching can take a while! It’s not just about finding sources and pasting in the right quotes but understanding their context and ensuring they are used appropriately in support of an argument. It’s like every college paper I ever did, only I’ve actually cared about these!

Revision is key, as is being willing to trim dead branches. For example, from initial concept to publication, it took me around 10 months to finish all three parts of SMT’s Identity Crisis. Within about three months I had an article that was about 70% "finished,” but it was meandering and amateurish. It had a clear thesis but an inconsistent voice. It was difficult to do but I wrote a new draft that cut out much I previously thought important. It was the right call, the new draft, the current text, was clearer and better delineated. Subsequent articles have logically taken less time to write as I’ve gained experience with the format, all but the Odin one this past summer; it took me almost a year after I kept piling on new ideas, observations, and the silly notion to simultaneously reveal a website and a long-secret project.

All the same vocab and proofreading rules from #1 still apply, though scaled appropriately. I must have read the finalized Identity Crisis a few dozen times before it was published--and I still found typos much later, to my chagrin!

I treat article images as levity providers, something I hope helps retain reader interest throughout what are often lengthy documents. This is influenced by the humorous alt texts often employed by defunct gaming site The GIA, an outfit that probably made the biggest single impact on my games writing. Andrew Vestal’s Vagrant Story review not only convinced me to play the game, likely my favorite ever, for the longest time I considered it the standard for a game review. When I wrote the Vagrant Story piece for Hardcore Gaming 101, I deliberately included images similar to those of the Vestal review and alt texts (which HG101 typically didn’t or doesn’t use) as tribute.

#3 Creative stuff

I rarely talk about my original creations, if ever (I mean, talk about defunct sites--but I promise it won’t always be that way), but they do exist! I’ve been writing creatively since I was 11. Much of it bad, but that’s okay! (You’ll never see that stuff!)

We’re all influenced by the media we consume and I’m no different. For me this most plainly manifests through music, historically mostly video game soundtracks. In the past I would listen separately to soundtracks from games I already knew front and back to absorb the tone and mood of the music, which I’d then turn into various ideas (still mostly in notebooks, though that’s changing). For the longest time I thought listening to instrumental music was the key to promoting pure, imaginative ideas, but since Wisdom Eternal: 1973 is technically a period piece I’ve been listening to classic rock and having just as much luck inspiring the old noggin. It also helps that ‘70s rock influenced most of the game music I like!

The previous point made me realize something: when I criticize modern SMT, for example, I’ve also been unconsciously making the statement “I don’t want this to influence me.” Though, ironically, acknowledging those flaws has been hugely influential on how NOT to approach certain things. “We are what we eat,” and that equally applies to consumed media. Some of my older creative works that I now deem to be bad were the result of a limited pool of influences, mostly JRPGs. Very much akin to light novel-caliber writing and concepts, which are often similarly criticized for their extremely narrow range of influences too often focused on literal conflict and not empathetic, realistic characterization.

This post has been going on for a while, but one last thing I’ll say about my creative writing is just how slow the process can be. It’s slower than writing a research-heavy article, just because the idea or two you need to link certain plot threads can’t always be forced out of your brain. In my case, namely the subject of mythology and religion in a narrative, it’s not just writer’s block, it’s about being well-read enough to know (Y) about a particular culture in order to solve (X) narrative problem. Ya gotta read and you gotta read the right stuff, though what the right stuff is will of course vary depending on your own goals.

This was a fun ask that took me just over 2 hours to write, so I hope it’s helpful for you! Honestly, I could have said more but enough’s enough. That said, in the past I’ve tried adopting other writers’ processes to help my own only to find I couldn’t harmonize with their methods. But it’s something you’ll only find out as you write more and better understand what methods are comfortable for you. I can attest, that can take many years. Good luck!

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topicprinter · 7 years ago

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To choose a headline for this post which will accurately express my feeling about Facebook Page Likes was a harder job than writing the post itself. I’ve initially wanted to go with something like; “Why You Should Fire Your CMO If He Ever Invested In Facebook Page Likes (After 2013)” or* “Why Marketers Or Agencies Who Invest In Facebook Page Likes Know NOTHING About Online Marketing”*, but luckily both headlines were too long.In the following paragraphs, I’ll discuss how the online landscape changed, and why Facebook Page Likes don’t matter to for-profit businesses of any size.Short History of "I Like This"In February of 2009 Facebook introduced the “Like” button;…an easy way to tell friends that you like what they’re sharing on Facebook with one easy click. Wherever you can add a comment on your friends’ content, you’ll also have the option to click “Like” to tell your friends exactly that: “I like this.”Like button quickly became the symbol of social media, and alternatively changed the way we consume content online — Like was definitely a game-changer in the terms of user experience. But, user experience wasn’t the only thing that changed — Like enabled Facebook to know what you’re into.Every new like gave Facebook a little more insight into your life and enabled it to compare your user profile with other user profiles and find patterns which indicate similar interests, or behaviors.First time ever, a big social media website didn’t have to use surveys or ask for feedback to know everything about you, in real time. Facebook was the first to offer what we today know as People-Based Targeting. Businesses of all sizes saw the opportunity, jumped aboard and started investing heavily into their social media presence, Facebook became profitable in the Autumn of 2009, and the rest is history…The Rise & Fall of Facebook Page Likes (For Businesses)In the beginning, Facebook likes offered an interesting way for big brands to engage with their audience. “Innovative” brands hired agencies and started a mindless hunt for likes. More likes meant more brand awareness, which meant more customers, which meant more revenues… Small and medium size businesses have found a shelter in the kingdom of measurable (&cheap) online marketing. For just a couple of bucks, they could get some people to their websites and get a decent return on their advertising investment. Facebook seemed like a great alternative to expensive search engine advertising and ineffective display networks.Facebook was ramping up user numbers in an insane pace, mostly due to the internet becoming simple to use and widely available at low cost. Then came the smartphones and unlimited data packages from mobile carriers. When Facebook introduced the like button in 2009, it had “only” around 250M monthly active users — today, it has over 2B and it’s still growing.At the time when brands started their mindless hunt for likes, organic reach on Facebook wasn’t a problem, in fact, it was the biggest advantage of the platform. You just had to get people to like your page and once they do that, they’re going to see your future updates or at least a big portion of them. This meant that brands just had to pay to get your like, and every next interaction cost them nothing (in the terms of media buying).But, as we all know — nothing great lasts forever. A study from Edgerank Checker found that between February 2012 and March 2014, organic reach for the average Facebook Page dropped from 16% to 6.5%. Research from Social@Ogilvy, meanwhile, suggests that for Pages with more than 500,000 Likes, organic reach could be as low as 2%.Major advertisers started publicly accusing Facebook of a ripoff. One of them was James Del (who was the head of now-defunct Gawker’s content studio at the time) who said:Facebook may be pulling off one of the most lucrative grifts of all time; first, they convinced brands they needed to purchase all their Fans and Likes — even though everyone knows you can’t buy love; then, Facebook continues to charge those same brands money to speak to the Fans they just bought.It didn’t take too long for Facebook to deny the accusations. Brian Boland (in charge of Ad Product marketing team) tried to convince advertisers that Facebook just wants to prioritize high-quality content:No. Our goal is always to provide the best experience for the people that use Facebook. We believe that delivering the best experiences for people also benefits the businesses that use Facebook. If people are more active and engaged with stories that appear in News Feed, they are also more likely to be active and engaged with content from businesses.Boland also claimed that the problem is the “increasing competition” coming from content posted by your family, friends and other businesses. He threw in few vanity metrics and finished the post with a proposition that advertisers start investing in “specific business objectives” on Facebook, like driving in-store sales or boosting app downloads.Since then, 3 years passed, organic reach continued to decline (estimated reach for business pages on Facebook is less than 1% in 2017), while the cost of acquiring page likes, or the fans went up by few times. Back in 2009, you could acquire a page like for just a couple of cents, while the same page like today is more likely to cost something between 20 cents and a dollar.The Math Behind Facebook Page LikesThe math behind likes doesn’t make a lot of sense anymore. If you wanted to acquire 50,000 page likes in 2012 or before, it would have cost you around $10,000 (Cost-per-like of $0.20). Then, by just posting updates on your Facebook page once a day, you would have the power to reach the whole audience in less than 10 days (Organic reach was 16% with the frequency of 1.5).If you tried to do this today, you wouldn’t have a great time — acquisition of 50,000 page likes would cost you between $20,000 and $50,000. Then, you would need at least 54 days (Organic reach 3%, frequency 1.5) or more likely 160 days (Organic reach 1%, frequency 1.5) to reach the whole audience.Note: Frequency represents the average number of impressions served to a unique user.This example, although simplified, shows how strategies based on acquiring large numbers of followers on Facebook became obsolete.Some will argue that cost-per-impression is lower when you target audience on your Facebook page, and they are right. Cost-per-impression will be lower compared to showing the ads to the “cold” interest audience, but even that makes little sense when you have to first spend 1) get the “Like” and then 2) pay again to show the ad you could have shown in the first place.Not to mention that campaigns aimed towards your own Facebook page score almost the same conversion rates as your “cold” traffic campaigns.But do they really like it, or they just like to like things?Page likes campaign format offers only one option — to like a page. That, of course, makes sense, because Facebook serves your ads to people who are most likely to hit the like button. But do they really like it, or they just like to like things?Facebook wants businesses to build their presence around the Facebook page, as it was a central instrument of their marketing. First invest in likes, then invest in re-engagement with the audience to establish a relationship which ultimately leads to a sale… maybe.Unfortunately for Facebook (& advertisers), our attention doesn’t work that way. If you show something interesting & relevant to your target audience, they’ll give you a like without you even have to ask for it. They‘re going to follow your updates because they know why they liked your page.They’re more likely to buy as well. Otherwise, if your ad asks them for a like, you’ll even maybe get the “Like”, but that will get you 0% closer to getting them to buy.Likes should only be treated as a by-product of marketing efforts with higher measurable value — like getting leads, acquiring users or generating sales.In 2017, video is still the most lucrative ad format on Facebook and that might not even change when/if the AR takes over. Whatever happens in the future, investing in Facebook Page Likes campaigns will still be considered a financial disaster by every ROI driven advertiser.FUN FACT: Word “Like” and its derivatives were used 59 times in this post.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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christinaroseandrews · 8 years ago

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Marketing Matters - Brazen Bookshelf

About the Site:

Brazen Bookshelf brands itself as a site that brings authors and readers together. They do so in three ways.

Daily Newsletter (Price range $10 - 25) (NOTE after the first promotion they changed to 3 times a week, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday and added solo promotion days)

Instafreebie Pushes (seems to be defunct at the time of this writing)

Featured Giveaways (Price $200)

It’s run primarily by one person, Beth, who puts together the bookings, contests, and mailings.

What we did:

We did two promotions through Brazen Bookshelf, one when The Language of Flowers was in pre-order, the other once the book had been out for a bit. Both of them were to be part of the daily newsletter... That kind of didn’t happen.

Sneaky-Peek $10 -- April 26

This is a listing in their newsletter near the bottom of the email. It features a picture of the cover, a blurb that you submit, and the release date.

Headliner $25 -- May 20 (This did not happen)

This is a listing in their newsletter at the very top of the emails, that’s set off from the rest of the email. It features a picture of the cover and a blurb that you submit.

Solo Promotion $100 -- May 21 (Done in lieu of the Headliner)

This is single listing that is more in-depth than the Newsletter. Only one book will be sent out in their email and it can include a longer blurb, a small excerpt from the novel, an about the author blurb, and a few review blurbs. It’s meant to be a special feature to drive people to buy the book.

Return on Investment:

I’m going to be rating these based on the following: units sold, mailing list grown, new social media followers, reviews, and starting book rank/highest book rank. (Ending determined after either 1 week or when a new promotion launches, whichever comes first).

Sneaky-Peek (April 26)

Confirmed Units Sold: 11

New Mailing list members: 1

New Social Media Followers: 2 on twitter

Reviews: 0

Starting Book Rank: 78,413

Highest Book Rank: 27,289

Headliner (May 20)

Confirmed Units Sold - Promotion did not happen

KENP Pages Read: - Promotion did not happen

Mailing list members - Promotion did not happen

New Social Media Followers - Promotion did not happen

Reviews - Promotion did not happen

Starting Book Rank: - Promotion did not happen

Ending Book Rank: - Promotion did not happen

Solo Promotion (May 21)

Confirmed Units Sold: 42 Ebooks, 1 paperback

KENP Pages Read: 2166

New Mailing list members: 0

New Social Media Followers: 1 twitter, 0 tumblr, 1 facebook

Reviews: 1 goodreads ranking

Starting Book Rank: 95,837

Highest Book Rank: 5,157

Takeaways:

The site has a positive reputation and claims to have several top 100 titles. However, it is very geared toward erotica and more explicit romance. While The Language of Flowers has explicit content and features 2 sex scenes, the cover is more geared toward sweet romance, as are the overarching themes of the book. While the site doesn’t restrict what is promoted, it’s very clear that the subscribers of the site prefer things that are more steamy. This makes a difference.

PROTIP 1: Before doing ANY marketing make sure your product appeals to their audience.

Essentially, we picked the wrong book for the site. And to be fair, we likely wouldn’t have gone with this site for that reason. Except, I won a giveaway from them for some free promotion and needed to use it up by August. So you promote what you have. And The Language of Flowers is what we had.

However... we also booked a headliner spot for May 20th, paying extra to make sure we were featured. May 20th rolled around and the our book was nowhere to be found in the email. I double checked my receipt and it had the 20th on it. So I emailed Beth, the admin of the site, to ask her what was up.

She responded less than 10 minutes later with an apology and a promise to find out what happened. On a Saturday. Now, here’s the thing... some promo places are fire-and-forget deals. They take days... sometimes whole weeks off.

Beth responded again 15 minutes after that explaining what had happened -- due to my having to book through her rather than through the site because of my contest win, an error occurred. She immediately refunded my money and my contest win. And offered to do a special Single Book Promo Deal at no charge if I wanted.

So let’s just say we wanted.

PROTIP 2: NEVER TURN DOWN FREE PROMOTION!

We hastily threw together a little more information and found a viable excerpt which would appeal to Brazen Bookshelf’s clientele. I even forgot to mention the promotional rate... AGAIN... but shot her a quick follow up email with it. Then, she sent us a preview of what the promotion would look like. Which means I can share it with you.

It looks better in the email. She even made sure that the subject was appropriate to our content.

So now to sit back and wait.

We hadn’t had a promotion in a while so our Amazon Ranking was abysmal... almost 96,000. I checked our sales about a half an hour prior to the email going out and we’d sold nothing... 15 minutes after the email went out, it had sold a paperback and 8 ebooks... not too bad.

As the day went on, the number climbed... and remember we had the ABSOLUTELY wrong kind of book for this site. And we were still getting sales. Our page rank topped out at 5,157... and for a brief moment in time our book was in the Hot 100 new releases in two of our categories.

By the end of the day, we’d sold 38 ebooks, 1 paperback, and had 262 page reads. After the first day, the sales fell dramatically, but the page reads climbed. That’s how it tends to work.

But unlike other sites we’ve used, Brazen Bookshelves doesn’t appear to be a Kindle Unlimited bastion. Which is good if you don’t have a book in KU or are doing a pre-release.

If I were to use them again, I’d do the pre-release and maybe something a month or so later near the end of my sales run. But I wouldn’t spend the big bucks on the single promo deal... mostly because $100 is a lot of money and we saw a better return on other sites for less money. But this site is more economical and has a better ROI than Hot Zippy (although not the KU readers which matters for us).

Pros:

Inexpensive if you use the newsletter option in comparison to a lot of other similar sites. Fairly large mailing list.

The newsletter is well formatted and highlights each title well. The solo option lets you pimp your title in depth.

Beth is extremely responsive and values customer service. When a huge mistake was made, she went above and beyond to make sure we walked away happy customers.

If you need a promo code... there’s one for Brazen20. Which gives you 20% off.

Cons:

The website needs a better description of each product and what it entails and what the restrictions are.

Needs to highlight better who their target audience is.

Rating:

4.5/5 stars

NOTE: As of May 20, 2017. The Language of Flowers sold enough units and accrued enough page reads to make back the entirety of our marketing spend. And we still had promotions lined up. So the marketing has paid for itself, which is sometimes all you can ask.

#marketing matters #book marketing #self-publishing #self publishing #self-publishing help #brazen bookshelf #the language of flowers #self promotion #newsletter marketing #email blast #Brazen Bookshelf #book promotion #customer service matters #no really #it matters #also picking the right promo site matters #don't be dumb like us

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swipestream · 7 years ago

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A Different Sort of Dragon

Today’s guest post is by JD Cowan, writer of Grey Cat Blues.

Entertainment is in a weird place these days. It feels as if there has been a major disconnect between the past and present in regards to storytelling that has never existed before. I’ve been curious if that trend was a worldwide issue or purely relegated to the west. Since Japan has had a problem appealing to the worldwide audience since the mid-00s there had to be a problem there that no one was talking about. But finding anything out about the recent history of Japan’s animation or manga industry is quite difficult.

So I decided to look into some of the more longer lasting enterprises which contributed to the worldwide boom of anime and manga. I only found things that supported my theory. You probably won’t be surprised with the results.

Now, not everything has changed all that much. Weekly Shonen Jump still runs action adventure stories for kids and teenagers, just as Weekly Shonen Sunday, and Weekly Shonen Magazine do. There is a higher acceptance of overt sexuality than there used to be, but the link between old series and new are not all that different, content-wise. When it comes to the bigger magazines and anthologies (the ones that still sell), nothing has changed all that much.

But there is one magazine that has taken the hardest hit, and it is very evident when looking over its pedigree that things have undoubtedly changed. Looking over what I could, the only conclusion one can come to is that the cultural shift in Japan has slowly changed everything. And not for the better. This magazine is quite representative of a lot of the problems the industry is currently facing right now.

That would be Fujimi Shobo’s Dragon Magazine.

Dragon Magazine was a monthly magazine that started in 1988 (changed to bi-monthly in 2008) that ran fantasy and science fiction light novels and manga in its pages. They also included RPG information between new chapters of manga and their light novels. Dragon was a magazine for genre fiction. It was extremely popular when it came out, running some of the most popular series, but has fallen off hard in recent years. The change to bi-monthly is reflective of this as that was about the time they began to shed their old identity. Kadokawa’s official website doesn’t even include Dragon in their history though they included the creation of their fantasy line of light novels. It’s as if they are more interested in sweeping aside their past than embracing it.

It is incredibly hard to get information about the magazine’s full history since there is no real information about it in English, but let’s just say that it had a very clear goal from the start. All you would have to look at is what they ran. Specific genre magazines like this were not altogether common, especially now. Most magazines in Japan are segregated by age and sex, and rarely by genre. Shonen and Seinen magazines run fantasy, science fiction, and romance, sometimes all in the same story. But Dragon was very dedicated to genre to the point that it was its entire identity. You bought Dragon Magazine because you were a genre fan.

Fujimi Shobo created the magazine when they were still part of the Kadokawa Shoten, a major Japanese publisher. They became a subsidiary in 1991, mostly in charge of the Dragon Magazine brand. They were merged back into Kadokawa Shoten in 2013 when they shed the “Shoten” part of the name and became Kadokawa. All the subsidiaries merged as well. Now they no longer exist.

Fujimi Shobo had three basic pillars for their brand, all three of which are still running today.

Fujimi Dragon Book was a magazine on RPGs, Fujimi Fantasia Bunkocentered on genre light novels, and Fujimi Mystery Bunko focused on mystery light novels. They had six other publishing brands, all of which fell off as the years went on. They run different RPGs in Fujimi Dragon Book including Sword World, Double Cross, Arianrhod, and a translated version of GURPS, some of which spill over into Dragon Magazine‘s pages. Aside from the magazines, they also had three different card games centered on fantasy worlds.

Fantasia Bunko, their light novel brand, was mostly established off the back of Dragon Magazine and includes everything that ran in its pages, and includes series that did not. This includes non-Dragon series such as Full Metal Panic!, Lost Universe, and spin-offs of other media like Granblue Fantasy. As far as I can ascertain this is still the most popular division of the former Fujimi Shobo brand. Their other non-specified labels all went defunct over the decades, but their fantasy line remains. RPGs and genre fiction were their bread and butter.

They eventually began running Dragon Age Magazine in 2003 (and a limited special magazine which ran between 2006-2009) which was centered solely on manga, and was, honestly, characterless. It is no longer a magazine for genre.

And that was the problem.

Dragon Magazine suffered from two problems later in its life. The first was the declining readership due to the advent of the internet and the slow move to adopt digital formats from most Japanese publishers. The second was that Dragon eventually lost its identity and became just another light novel and manga magazine like everything else out there. The former is a problem still affecting the print world in Japan, the second is a problem veteran magazines shouldn’t be having, and yet undoubtedly are. Dragon Magazine should be bigger than ever, but it’s not.

To stand out in Japan’s market you need a strong brand identity and be associated heavily with what the reader cannot get elsewhere. Every successful brand in Japan lives and dies by this. Dragon, unfortunately, lost that identity around 20 years into its run. A tie with genre fiction and RPG gaming was undoubtedly its strongest feature and is one it no longer has. As it is, the magazine is really just a former shell of its peak days.

But the best way to prove Dragon’s unique flavor would be to talk about what it ran in its pages. Those that were around in the ’90s anime boom would do well to recognize many here. A lot of these series are the reason anime got so big outside Japan in the first place. The connection between genre fiction and anime is important.

Thanks to a variety of wikis for the concise descriptions.

-Slayers-

Description: Slayers follows the adventures of teenage sorceress Lina Inverse and her companions as they journey through their world. Using powerful magic and swordsmanship they battle overreaching wizards, demons seeking to destroy the world, and an occasional hapless gang of bandits.

Does Slayers really need any introduction? The primary fantasy series released over here, Slayers ran in one form or another from near the magazines start in 1989 to its downgrade to bi-monthly in 2008. Part comedy and part action, Slayers was a massive hit and is responsible for a lot of the industry’s growth over here. Chances are if you’re reading this blog and like anime then you know this series. If anything, it doesn’t get the credit it deserves these days.

-Patlabor-

Description: In the near future, robots called “Labors” are employed in heavy construction work. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police has its own fleet of Patrol Labors or Patlabors to combat crimes/terrorism and deal with accidents involving Labors. This series is about one such group of officers.

Weekly Shonen Sunday ran the original manga series, but it was Dragon Magazine that ran the light novels. Patlabor is a rarity in being one of the few classic anime franchises that broke out big here but has left so much material untranslated for release. This material from Dragon, like many light novels from Dragon’s pages, sits unreleased overseas. This is rather unfortunate. Patlabor is as funny as it is exciting even to this day* and remains a staple for classic anime fans. I couldn’t tell you exactly what those novels covered due to, again, lack of information, but Patlabor was running in Dragon from the start.

*This is an aside, but does anyone else miss those old “wacky cops take on crazy criminals” comedy action series Japan used to put out? Man, those were fun.

-Dragon Half-

Description: The story follows Mink, a half human /half dragon teenage girl on a quest for a potion which will turn her into a full human so that she can win the love of the legendary dragon slayer Dick Saucer. In the manga, in order to get the potion, she must slay Azetodeth, the greatest demon in the land.

The OVA anime for this series was fairly big back in the day, but did you know that it was based on a manga series? That’s right, Dragon Half ran from 1988 to 1994 and finished with a seven volume run. This is one of those examples of Japan’s early ’90s zany fantasy series. However, the manga goes even further into the story due to the OVA being cut short at two episodes. The series isn’t well known by modern fans, but it was big at the time. The manga was licensedjust this year by Seven Seas Entertainment and is due to release the seven volumes in three omnibus editions. Suffice to say, I’ll be in line for those.

-Hyper Police-

Description: Hyper Police is set in a period in the far future, in which humanity is almost extinct and most of the population are monsters. It is mostly set in the offices of a private police company and focuses on the life of Natsuki Sasahara, a young catgirl, and her co-workers: Foxgirl Sakura Bokuseiinmonzeninari, werewolf Batanen Fujioka and his cousin Tomy Fujioka.

It’s fairly obvious just watching the show once how heavily it has been ripped off. Hyper Police was fairly popular back in the day, and is notable for being one of the few properties listed here that had its print version released overseas. That said, it was released by Tokyo Pop, so good luck finding it. Hyper Police is primarily a science fiction comedy, complete with a lot of furry bait, but still manages to stand out from the pack it created, which tends to sacrifice story and characters for titillation. The anime ran in 1997, but the manga itself ran from 1993 up to the beginning of the modern moe age in 2004. It represents its era quite well. There’s really no chance that something like this would run now without being heavily modified.

-Rune Soldier-

Description: The series was created by Ryo Mizuno and takes place on the continent of Alecrast on the world called Forcelia, and is related to the novel, anime, and manga series Sword World. It is a sibling series to Record of Lodoss War (which is also directed by Mizuno), taking place on a continent north of Lodoss Island.

Yes, Dragon even had its fingers in the Record of Lodoss War pie. Rune Soldier was written by the creator of Lodoss War and takes place in the same world. Rune Soldier lasted longer than that seminal series, starting in 1997 and only ending in 2012, but it was a bit more lighthearted than the core Lodoss War brand and as such might not have garnered quite the same level of fame over here. Though its anime series certainly helped carry that load as, of course, the original light novels have not been released overseas. Still, it is more fantasy goodness. That said, Rune Soldier was quite popular, and deservedly so.

-Saber Marionette-

Description: Saber Marionette is a science fiction humor/adventure series featuring android girls. That’s the short and easy description.

It’s hard to imagine now, so far removed from its original release, just how absurdly huge this franchise was. The releases and franchise history is really hard to go through in a small description so let’s just say that Dragon ran a short story, light novels, and manga of a few of the different series in its pages. It is difficult to say which series have even been brought over here for release. As I said, it’s messy to sort through. But the most popular series has always been Saber Marionette J, which Dragon ran all twelve light novels of in its pages. If you like your android girls, you’ll definitely get them in this series.

-The Weathering Continent-

Description: The Weathering Continent centers on three travelers – the delicately handsome sorcerer Tieh, the burly and reticent warrior Bois, and the spritely young Lakshi – as they trek though the shattered wastelands of the ancient continent of Atlantis.

I’m not sure how to say anything about this series since it’s never been translated and the divisive movie is the only animation it has ever had. But it ran for a long time in Dragon from 1990 through 2006, the real start of the moe era. The series is a high seller and remains popular, and is very reflective of Dragon Magazine‘s brand. I’m not very certain we’ll ever get this series here, unfortunately. Like most of Dragon’s influential material, it remains unreleased overseas. Still, it was one of their pillars for the majority of its run.

-Black Blood Brothers-

Description: During a war called the Hong Kong Crusade, an Old Blood, Jiro Mochizuki, a.k.a. the Silver Blade (Gintō), fought and defeated the Kowloon King and most of the Kowloon Children. Ten years later, Jiro heads to Hong Kong with his little brother, Kotaro Mochizuki, in hopes of reaching The Special Zone, a thriving secret city where Vampires live. That’s as succinct as it can get.

This was more recent, an 11 volume light novel series which ran a 12 episode anime in 2006. It was one of Dragon’s last hits, especially one of its last to hit over here, just before the magazine went to bi-monthly. It was also one of the last pure fantasy series they ran. An action series, BBB is tight and sharp and highly worth watching. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that the light novels will ever see release over here.

-Chrono Crusade-

Description: Set in New York during the 1920s, Chrono Crusade follows the story of Rosette Christopher, and her demon partner Chrono. As members of the Magdalene Order, they travel around the country eliminating demonic threats to society, while Rosette searches for her lost brother Joshua.

I can’t even pretend to talk about this one as I’ve never seen it. But it was extremely popular. The anime, specifically was big both in Japan and over here. The manga ran from 1998 to 2004 in 8 volumes, easily becoming one of Dragon’s most popular series. You might also notice a pattern with many of the release years on this list. I swear I’m not doing it on purpose. This really is the way it is.

-Sorcerous Stabber Orphen-

Description: Orphen is a magician who is grumpy in the morning and likes money. He has an apprentice named Magic and a wanna-be apprentice girl Cleao who won’t leave him alone. At first they just see Orphen as a source of fun, but as time goes by they keep getting into trouble and pick up things about Orphen’s past. One thing in particular that haunts him is memories of when he was a member of the Tower of Fang; an incident involving Azalie, a brilliant magician, a girl who was like an older sister to him. I wish I could sum it up better than that.

A franchise that ran in many forms from 1998 to 2003, SSO is the type of series you don’t see coming out of Japan much these days. It is one of those lighthearted action comedies that gets darker and more exciting as it goes. Needless to say, it was also a fairly big hit for its time. Even without a TV run, it was decently popular overseas showing the strength of that Dragon Magazinebrand. But there’s nothing like it in the magazine now. At this point you might be wondering just what Dragon actually runs these days. Well, I’ll get to that soon.

-Scrapped Princess-

Description: The story takes place in what appears to be a fantasy world and revolves around a girl named Pacifica Casull, the sister in a pair of twins born to the royal family of a kingdom called Leinwan. Pacifica is abandoned at birth. The 5111th Grendel Prophecy predicts that she is the “poison that will destroy the world” if she reaches her sixteenth birthday. To prevent this, she is dropped off a cliff as an infant. Pacifica is rescued by a court wizard and adopted by the commoner Casull family, and that is where the story begins.

The reason this is so low is because I don’t really like this series. It starts off with an interesting idea that it ultimately does nothing with as it relies on flat one-note antagonists, useless allies, and characters doing stupid things to achieve drama. The plot also gets aggressively up its own rear as it goes along. But I can’t deny its popularity. It ran from 1999 to 2005 and is famed for having the famous Bones production team behind its anime. Chances are you probably remember the buzz this anime created when it came out. Scrapped Princess was touted as the next big thing. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the last series from Dragon to elicit any kind of response from fans.

-The Legend of the Legendary Heroes-

Description: Ryner Lute is a lazy student of the Roland Empire Royal Magician’s Academy. One day, the Roland Empire goes to war against their neighboring country Estabul, and Ryner loses his classmates in the war. After the war, Ryner sets out on a journey to search the relics of a “Legendary Hero” at King Sion Astal’s command and finds out that a deadly curse is spreading throughout the continent.

This is the last series here because it is the only one that is still running in Dragon to this day. Starting in 2002, it’s one of the few Dragon series that has maintained its high popularity since it began. You can take or leave the redundant title (I personally think it’s hilarious) but it’s traditional old school fantasy in a way you never see coming out of Japan these days. There was an anime, but I don’t believe it was all too popular. This series is the only remainder of what Dragon used to be that still runs in its pages.

Okay, now that you know 12 of the more popular franchises to come out of Dragon, you might be wondering why, if the magazine is still running, that there is nothing listed here except one series that ran past 2008 when it went bi-monthly. Doesn’t that seem odd? If Dragon’s still running, shouldn’t it still be getting quality material to run?

Well…

No, actually. In the mid-00s, Japan as previously mentioned went a little overboard in dealing with the rise of online piracy. Instead of creating series catering to wider audiences like they used to, they turned inward and began to focus on hardcore otaku with series that were meant only to titillate and make those hardcore sections of the fanbase buy merchandise. Unfortunately, Dragon was no different from the rest of them.

Like everyone else at the time, Dragon Magazine shed its identity to pander. And pander it did!

This is the current most popular thing in the magazine today:

And that’s the toned down version. Now you tell me if that is in tone with anything listed earlier.

Other series include a gender-flipped version of Nobunaga’s Ambition, a young adult vampire story, a harem story about a passive guy, another harem story about a magical school, and a straight up harem manga. Oh and there’s Tokyo Ravens, your average shonen manga. It’s the only halfway popular thing they have, but it really doesn’t offer much of note.

That’s it.

What was once the premiere genre magazine no longer sets the trends but copies them. This is all they are now.

In an attempt to milk a hardcore fanbase that has no demographic future, Dragon, like many other entertainment companies in Japan, began to shrink in everything from audience to profits to variety and breadth of content. There’s a very obvious reason Dragon’s audience shrank to the point that they had to go bi-monthly in 2008, and it wasn’t because of piracy. It took Japan a long time to realize this, but it was their own doing. It was because the material they put out no longer reflected what the majority of customers actually wanted.

And that is why we are where we are today.

Now it’s not like Dragon Magazine was flawless. I think Scrapped Princess is a self-indulgent mess, and there are one or two other series I didn’t bother listing here, but they all still tried to fit some sort of framework. They tried to be genre stories. They were about the story before everything else. Imagination was key.

The current Dragon Magazine has no character at all, nothing to help it stand out from the crowd. It’s just like everything else Japan spits out. There’s no more sense of wonder, no more big ideas, no more fun, and no more excitement. It’s all about titillation and genre cliches.

What happened? Did Slayers ending leave Dragon to forget what its goal was? The light novel industry in Japan is in its nadir right now of video game fantasy stories featuring a harem of girls and your common Japanese nerd as the protagonist with long and cumbersome titles like I Fell Into A Fantasy World And Now Girls Actually Want To Date Me! or something even more ridiculous. As bad as we might think anime or manga is, light novels are ten times worse off. Dragon could be a beacon in the darkness of the modern genre market, but they’re not even trying. To go from any of the top series above to what is being made now is disappointing. The fans deserves better. Well, whatever fans are left at this point anyway.

It’s easy to lament the problems we have about a lack of strong male characters, hatred of real romance, and obsession with genre segregation, but Japan might have it almost as bad in a different way. If one of the former leading purveyors of the medium like Dragon Magazine has fallen this far, no wonder everyone else has. It’s surprising that so many put up with it over there.

Light novels were a source of much of Japan’s pop culture appeal overseas. Japan had Slayers, Full Metal Panic, Record of Lodoss War, Boogiepop, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Vampire Hunter D, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Guin Saga, Crusher Joe, the other series listed above, and so many others that we’ll never see released here. And what do they have now? Glorified harems in video game fantasy worlds. Is this really a contest?

It’s not just about changing tastes. It is about sterilizing everything to be one and the same. This seems to be a hobby of the modern world, and it isn’t just affecting Japan. It isn’t that things were better back in the day, it’s that there was more ambition, more variety, and a sense there was more than sex to look forward to in life. All that seems to be gone. What happened to that sense of hoping for more to life?

If anything needs to come back, it’s that.

JD Cowan is a writer with an obsession for stories and Truth. He takes pleasure in looking for Light in the places where darkness grips the tightest.

His works include Grey Cat Blues, the young adult novel Knights of the End, and short stories in Superheroes: The Crossover Alliance Volume 3 by the Crossover Alliance, the PulpRev Sampler, and Paragons by Silver Empire.

He blogs about stories and entertainment at wastelandandsky.blogspot.ca and can be found on Twitter @wastelandJD.

A Different Sort of Dragon published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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easyweight101 · 7 years ago

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NEW Herbal Quiver Review 2017 [WARNING]: Does It Really Work?

Herbal Quiver is an herbal sexual supplement for women that promises to increase the quality and pleasure of orgasms, as well as the overall sex drive. It is intended for daily use, and comes in pill form.

When used properly, Herbal Quiver claims to be able to take a woman’s sexual experience to the next level, making her climaxes stronger, more powerful, and more satisfying. It contains a number of herbs that are supposed to support a more intense sexual response, and to help assist in stimulation of the genitalia alongside natural stimulation during intimacy. By doing so, the product promises to improve women’s sex lives overall and make their intimate relationships deeper and more satisfying.

Many women suffer from a lackluster sex life, but the the best product for treating the issues which limit women’s sexual potential is a pill called Libitrinex. Its blend of natural herbs don’t just promise improve natural lubrication and orgasms, but to restore optimum sexual health overall. To read about all the amazing benefits we found in reviewing Libitrinex, and to see what customers have said about it, click here.

Do You Know the Best Female Libido Enhancers of 2017 ?

Herbal Quiver INGREDIENTS AND SIDE EFFECTS

Herbal Quiver contains a mixture of different herbal ingredients and other elements mainly derived from natural sources. Here are some of the main active ingredients:

Royal Jelly Wheat Grass Guarana Gotu Kola Kola Nut

Royal Jelly: A secretion made by worker bees in hives, it is used to nurture the development of queen bees and is supposed to have medicinal applications such as treating the symptoms of menopause and insomnia. However, it does come with some possible side effects, including:

Asthma, breathing problems, respiratory symptoms

Swelling of the throat, suffocation

Wheat Grass: Considered a highly-concentrated source of nutrients, this grass is prescribed in naturopathic medicine for a number of symptoms, including water retention, inflammation, and high blood pressure. While there are no serious side effects associated with this plant, but there is no definitive scientific consensus on its supposed medicinal properties.

Guarana: A plant from the Amazon, its seeds were used in tribal medicine as a method of increasing energy and enhancing sexual potency. One of its main components is caffeine, which adds to its stimulating properties. There are potential side effects in certain doses, and when taken long-term, including:

Delirium, tremors, insomnia

Stomach cramps, anxiety, and vomiting

Gotu Kola: Used in ancient Indian and Chinese naturopathic medicines to treat a variety of symptoms, this herb is said to be able to treat low libido in women, as well as other reproductive issues like preventing pregnancy and to regulate periods. There is, however, not a lot of scientific consensus on whether or not it does what it is claimed to.

Kola Nut: Also written “cola nut,” this seed contains caffeine and has been used in traditional West African cultures to treat things like depression, fatigue, and migraines. The large amount of caffeine contained in it, however, makes it likely to give some people headaches or irregular heartbeat.

We’ve made a list of women’s sex supplements – Here are our top choices.

Herbal Quiver QUALITY OF INGREDIENTS

Herbal Quiver has the claim of containing only natural ingredients, and many people reading that claim may take it to mean that the product is 100% safe. However, just because something is natural does not mean it is safe, and the side effects of some of these ingredients just support that claim.

Royal jelly’s origins may seem harmless enough – after all, bees make honey, and that’s good for you – but there are people who could suffer serious allergic reactions to it. The fact that it could cause some people’s throats to swell, and even to cause possible suffocation and death is definitely cause for concern. Whatever its positive effects may be, the fact that many women may have life-threatening reactions to taking this product is a reason to approach this product with caution.

The same likewise goes for guarana and kola nut, both significant sources of caffeine. Not only can excess caffeine cause jitteriness and heartbeat irregularity, but it also may have a negative effect on the customer’s ability to sleep. If a woman were to take it at night, a common time for lovemaking, it is possible that she could end up being up all night. The threat of losing a night of sleep does not make this product seem very desirable.

Click here for the world’s best naturally-derived women’s libido supplements.

EDITOR’S TIP: Combine this supplement with a proven female libido enhancer such as Libitrinex for better results.

THE PRICE AND QUALITY OF Herbal Quiver

Herbal Quiver is available at certain retailers for around $14.99 for a single bottle. Some retailers have deals where you can buy more bottles at a time and see a reduction in cost, but it only brings the price down by about a dollar a bottle, which is not significant.

Each bottle contains 30 capsules, but this is where the catch comes in. The suggested dosage is 3 pills a day. Some simple math tells us that that means each bottle will only last for about 10 days, meaning that for a supply that lasts one month a woman would have to buy three bottles or more, driving the costs up.

Given the lackluster scientific basis of some of the products included here, the dangers some of them pose to certain women, and the volume of product someone would have to buy in order to see regular benefits in their life, the customer is in for a disappointment. The value is just not there.

This link will show you our Top Ten list of women’s sexual enhancement supplements.

BUSINESS OF Herbal Quiver

Herbal Quiver is made by Herbal Groups, Inc., a company based in California. To contact them, here is the information to use:

Phone Number: (800) 434-7129

Address: 9045 Corbin Ave, Suite B-1, Northridge, CA 91324

Email: [email protected]

The company offers a 60 day full refund policy for any of their products, minus shipping and handling costs.

There seems to be some confusion as to where exactly the business is located. On one web page the primary business address is listed as being in Northridge, but elsewhere in their “Terms and Conditions” page they list their address as being in Van Nuys. And that isn’t all. The Better Business Bureau lists their address as being in Chatsworth.

The overall effect is confusing, and may lead some customers to be mistaken about where they should turn, and may not have their business handled effectively. Their letters could end up going to the wrong people by accident, or return packages could be mistakenly sent to a potentially defunct location. Herbal Groups, Inc. would do well to clear up this confusion and improve the clarity of their online business listing.

For improved energy, better moods, and a higher sex drive, these supplements can help.

This business claims to be “the leading supplier of herbal supplements,” but there is very little to suggest that this is true. The company seems to make very few products, actually, and their website appears to contain mostly articles with suggestions for how people can improve their health. Not only that, but their website is in need of a serious overhaul, with an outdated interface and several pages being blank except for some text insisting that they are “updating” the site.

Overall, this does not appear to be the sort of company that can legitimately claim the be an industry leader, as a quick perusal can suggest.

For supplements that can improve a weak libido in women, this list has the best options.

CUSTOMER OPINIONS OF Herbal Quiver

There are no customer reviews of Herbal Quiver that we could see on any of the product pages that advertise the supplement. There are few reviews of the business at all, and some of it is mixed or outright negative:

“Rude customer services reps, and the fine print roped me into paying for things I didn’t want to. I don’t advise anyone to order from them!”

“There was a problem with their billing and collections department, and as far as I’m concerned, they still haven’t solved the problem.”

Health supplements are so many and so varied, and thus customer reviews are crucial for telling new and potential consumers about their experiences and to give everyone else some sign of the product working. The lack of any mention of the product – either good or bad – is disappointing. Not only is there no sign that anyone has had a good experience with the product, it could very well be that no one has even purchased it in the first place.

This Top Ten list has all the best supplements for enhancing women’s sex lives.

CONCLUSION – DOES Herbal Quiver WORK?

Herbal Quiver claims to be able to change a woman’s sex life for the better, by increasing her sexual drive and her sensitivity, but the problem is that not only do the products have significant and possibly life-threatening side effects, but the product could get expensive if taken regularly. Not only that, but there are no testimonials from customers to prove that it has ever worked for anyone.

We can recommend a better alternative, one which can address the issues which affect women’s sex lives, and that is an herbal supplement called Libitrinex. It uses a powerful mix of natural ingredients, is made in the USA, and has customers raving about how it’s improved their sexual energy. The resulting product is one that can regulate hormones effectively, make arousal even easier, and even promote better sensitivity for a more intense experience during intimacy.

We’ve found that Libitrinex stands out from all those other products out there that promise to give women stronger sexual health and a more satisfying love life. For our review of Libitrinex, and to see all the benefits it can provie, check out this link.

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