Monday, October 4, 2010

Static Static

My husband, Bill, and I (mostly me) recently discovered that you can download WFMU shows onto your iPod touch and then listen to them over and over again until you've pretty much memorized them, then go back to the WIFI cafe and get another one.

You have no idea how happy this made me. I basically haven't been able to listen to WFMU since they upped the bandwidth of their transmissions and put it out of range of dial-up connections. So, now I can. Though I don't have a Touch myself, so I have to pirate Bill's when he's not looking. I hear rumors, though, that I might get one for my birthday.

Anyway, I was listening to Liz Berg's show from 9/20 for the second or third time, and it occured to me that I just LOVED a couple of songs by a band called Static Static, who are, I think, from Canada, and post-punk-ish in aesthetic.

THey have a MySpace here.

They also have the two songs that caught my attention ("Satanic Speaker/Dementia", but especially "Dementia") on the Free Music Archive right here.

Okay, here's your chance to vote on my professional life. Should I take on a job that's huge and that pays about a tenth of my going rate, just because I'm not busy? I sort of tentatively said yes to ghostwriting a textbook at an absurdly low pay scale (I get three or four times as much for writing Philadelphia Weekly blurbs and I do that for fun), and ever since, have been getting a whole bunch of much better, paying assignments. Which makes me feel like I should maybe concentrate on the good stuff. However, I'm superstitious about turning down work, because god listens when you say you don't need anymore of it, and damn, I could sure use a steady stream. So, do I suck it up and do it? Or not?

6 comments:

leftoverking said...

cool on the wfmu podcasts! i'll be checking that out for sure. as far as the job goes, i say be paid what you are worth. i know it is easier said than done though...

jenniferpkelly said...

Hi, nice to hear from you.

Yeah, I talked to the guy who wants to hire me last night and told him that i was getting busy with stuff that paid a lot more and he wants me to just write the introduction and see how it goes, establish a tone, whatever.

So it's still working for very little, but maybe not working for six months for very little.

Ian said...

That sounds like a reasonable compromise. I'd err on the side of not working with them for very long if they're not going to pay you very well, but I'm pretty sure I'm also a lot lazier than you are.

jenniferpkelly said...

I'm not worried about the workload so much as getting rushed and messing up on some of the rent-paying stuff.

Also, not having enough time to screw around interviewing musicians.

But I'm trying not to think about that.

Syd The Squid said...

firstly, THERE IS NO GOD.

take every job you can get!

jenniferpkelly said...

ok, that's probably a good idea.

there may not be a good but there's something weird about how opportunities come if you're ready for them, and completely dry up if you start turning them down.