Stop using AI slop in your album art

Ah man, c'mon now.

Spurred on by two things: this skeet (yes that's what we're calling Bluesky posts now) by Posthuman, and the fact that Blank Tape had it's birthday a few days ago, I just wanted to say, for the record, that AI album covers look like absolute shit.

I'm sorry, but they all look exactly the same, like a fucking takeaway menu or something, and even after you divorce the catastrophic environmental impact it has, not to mention the theft of millions of copyrighted works, or the very questionable business practices by a lot of them, the fact of the matter is it looks and feels like absolute shit.

I mentioned Blank Tape, because the argument I heard more often than not in that Bluesky thread was 'oh I don't have time' or 'I don't have the money', etc. and I'm like, buddy - you think worriedaboutsatan has millions of pounds for these things? No of course I don't, but I do what every single artist has had to do for every release they've ever done up until the year 2024: get creative. Blank Tape's cover is just a photo of my garage door with a Critteri visual synth blasting at it. Literally all it is - took longer to clean the garage than it did to take the shot, but it means that the aesthetic of the album, the feel of it, remains 1) something I controlled and 2) connects on a much greater scale than AI slop ever could. It does not, I'd like to think, look like absolute shit.

There were lots of arguments for and against being chucked about all day, but the one I just can't get out of my head is: what are you even doing this for if you're going to just cop out right at the point where you want to draw attention to this wonderful piece of art you've just created? Typing "I dunno, some trees or something" into an AI generator and slapping that as your cover just screams "sorry, couldn't be arsed even doing the absolute bare minimum to present this incredible piece of music to the world, so I cheaped out and slapped some slop I found" - like carrying around a £10k guitar in a binbag - why would you do that?! Just to reiterate: it looks like absolute shit.

The only reason you're making music, I'm guessing, is because you have some feeling, or some sort of emotion that you want to express in a musical form - that's literally the reason art exists. If you outsource one very vital part of that to a computer, why should I be bothered by it? I can log onto Facebook and see millions of grandpa AI slop pictures if I want, none of them really resonate or connect on any level, because it's not trying to express anything - it can't by it's very being. Computers don't feel emotions, or have vibes or know what looks aesthetically pleasing - it's just a deeply inhuman attempt at making something it thinks it's vaguely like what you're after. Why should I try to connect with this piece of art, musical or otherwise, if you're just giving that job to a computer? It doesn't feel, so why should I try to? If you can't be arsed mate, I'm not going to be - why? Because these things look like absolute shit.

And anyway, as this skeet from Tarotplane explains, making friends with other cool artistic people is fucking ace. Why would you not want to do that?! If you can't bring yourself to make a cover yourself, well then find someone who can! More often than not, you can licence a picture pretty cheaply, or free if you're mates - the last couple of satan releases that had covers which weren't by me were just by friends who very kindly offered their photos completely free of charge - Providence, Crystalline, Falling But Not Alone, Time Lapse - all were free. Why? Because I made friends with cool people, and although I offered to pay them, they didn't want it because they believed in the artistic value of it. And it's that easy! Jusk ask! Tarotplane even revealed that a Gerhard Richter piece they used as a cover cost them the sum of €25 euros for the admin fee - that's insane! Use your fucking brain, your imagination, the very thing you're supposed to be presenting to the world with your music, because I'm sorry, but these things look like absolute shit.

Making a cover should be fun too, the whole process should be fun to be honest - I'm not here to impart a lecture about the value of art, etc. but as none of us are making mega bucks, the whole process should be fucking fun. There's no joy in just typing a prompt, burning a rainforest and ripping off millions of artists so you can have a front cover that looks like absolute shit. Have some fucking joy in it! If you still can't find or make a picture for your art, then go to MSpaint and fill a big square with any colour. Because even that is more creative than letting some computer program do it for you. Whip out your camera phone, download a trial of Photoshop, talk to some people, do something. "oh but I just make the music, I can't do art" well tough shit buddy, it's 2024 so you're gonna have to learn. We all did! It's easy, it's fun, it's never been easier and never been more fun to do it. Buy a cheap camera off ebay, use your camera phone, do fucking anything, I beg you, than use AI for your covers, because:

THESE THINGS LOOK LIKE ABSOLUTE SHIT.

Nathan Fake

Out today! A remix by the one and only Nathan Fake.

I've been a fan of Nathan's for years, so to have him mangle up a track of mine is pretty much a dream come true. Think I even tried to book him to play a church in 2008 lol.

Anyway, it's pay what you want and it's here:

I was so excited when he agreed to do this too, as I'd been having a hard time of it with 'the biz' and my place in it. In honesty, I had some budget set aside to help the band move forward, but all the PR people I contacted wouldn't take it, so it got me thinking about better uses of that money. The first thing that sprung to mind was to shoot my shot with someone way bigger than me and see if I could score a remix. To my astonishment, Nathan said yes, so he's a total legend for that straight off the bat, but hearing his take on my track is just double legendary.

Anyway, I very much hope you all enjoy it.

Supertramp and nostalgia

I was sat listening to Supertramp's first album the other day, and whilst that might sound like a weird way to open a blog post about the band worriedaboutsatan, it actually got me thinking loads about everything. Y'see, we used to listen to this album very specifically on the way either to or from gigs - we'd have CD wallets bursting with the most random stuff we could find to make the journey go quicker - stupid novelty songs, random long forgotten nu metal albums, and after I raided a bargain bin for 50p, Supertramp's first album.

It's actually a nice little thing, just fairly inoffensive 70s folksy prog sort of stuff - very 'Canterbury Scene', but it soundtracked quite a large chunk of satan's gigging life. So when it came on again, I instantly remembered driving up the M1 at 3am after a gig, or stuck in rush hour traffic in London, or empty motorways in the dark - it's bloody vivid stuff, this Supertramp album haha.

But as much as I loved those days, it also came with the realisation that you have to put those behind you, or risk being swallowed up in nostalgia completely. 

I can sit and think about how driven the band was back than - how much we wanted to push everything and how we'd have lazer focused goals of getting on in 'the biz' and things like that, but now as a balding, portly 41 year old, it smacks you in the face at how much those days are just no longer there. And that's fine! These things always tend to go this way - you can't stay on the road forever, you can't keep harking after a music business template that simply doesn't exist anymore, and you have to move on and change.

It's hard, re-wiring your brain, no-one wants to do that, it's nice living in your memories, and having ideas about stuff, but sooner or later, you'll have to do it or you'll literally go insane. Your priorities change, your ideals change, your idea of 'making it' changes, it all changes - you just have to be ahead of the curve in that change. For me, it's meant having gigging take a back seat and just focusing on making records and just selling them to people who find it.

If you'd have told me 10 years ago that it goes this way, I'd be horrified, but now I'm here, it's alright y'know. Just keep buying the records, lol ;)

Two Heaters

Morning!

Some new satan for you, out today.

It's a double pack of dub techno jams I did relatively recently, and thought they sounded pretty good together. I'd realised, after listening to Basic Channel and Deepchord non-stop for a week, that satan used to do a neat sideline in this sort of atmospheric techno sound, and I'd neglected that side of the band for a while, which I thought was a shame, as it's always fun putting this sort of stuff together. 

Anyway, I sat down and just jammed out these two - didn't really think too much, didn't do *that* much work on them, just wanted them to feel loose and live and full of energy. Hope you like them, I also didn't think too much of a release 'strategy' either - just 'here you go - enjoy' vibes haha. 

So... here you go, enjoy:

Live, 2024

I keep forgetting to post this here, so *finally* I've remembered. High fives to me, eh? Anyway, here's a recording of the latest worriedaboutsatan live set. It's changed a bit since last time, and changed loads since a lot of you saw the band live, pre-2019. 

Anyway, it's all semi-improvised and all brand new stuff too! We have a gig which we'll debut this set at, and it's at Leeds' Headrow House on September 4th, supporting the mighty Utopia Strong! Tickets are here, and if you want cheaplist, just lemme know as I have some space for it. 

See you there!

Agency

I’ve been reading a lot of Ed Zitron lately. In his newsletters (and podcast!) he talks about things like enshittification, the rot economy, tech CEOs becoming isolated and weird… you know, all the things wrong with modern life, and I had a sort of brainwave this morning that it underpins something I’ve been thinking about the past year or so.

Around this time a year ago, I gave up my X account. Aside from all the moral and ethical concerns about supporting far-right weirdos and their new toys, the platform also became borderline unusable from a band perspective. If I can’t reach anyone, and I’m not exactly having a great time having to put up with porn bots and endless ‘discourse’, what’s the point in having this thing again? Whilst I admit there’s still no comparable site to move onto, I always had the nagging feeling in the back of my head, saying ‘do I even want a comparable site?’ - Bluesky’s cool, but it’s still small. Threads is… just Threads at this point - an overly sanitised, boring engagement bait mess. An experience comparable with arguing in an airport duty free shop, essentially where Linkedin ends and Facebook begins. Anyway, I digress.

The thing with big tech is, that throughout my life, and my career as a budding, never-quite-popular DIY musician, it’s been there to help for a large part of that. I can remember the days before broadband, before most social networks - I was there for the boom and bust of music blogs, I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… etc. It was tough back then, and the internet alongside tech advances made a lot of it easier - I can download an mp3 and stick it on my iPod, that sort of thing. Now, however, I don’t think many would really go to bat for tech, or for social media for that matter.

Which brings me back to my point about X (it’s not twitter anymore lads, hasn’t been for quite some time) - you’d really, really struggle to find anyone enthusiastic about using it, or many other places like it. They suck, they’re run by hyper capitalist dorks who want to squeeze every penny out of you, and give you an experience that’s just-about-functional, but far from actually enjoyable. Because it’s easier and cheaper to do that. Facebook doesn’t need to innovate, it has half the world signed up to it, why would they bother now? It’s swimming in scams and AI generated slop, but they don’t care, why would they? They make more money than god on an hourly basis.

Anyway, I digress again. It got me thinking about my relationship with these things, and what joy, and/ or usefulness they give to me, to bands, to artists, to anyone even remotely creative. And the answer is always ‘yeah, not much as it happens’. They’re all a mess - confusing, restrictive, broken most of the time, awash with nazis the rest… the list goes on. So why do we bother? “oh well y’know… my fans are on there! I have to use it for ‘the biz’, I have to keep my numbers up!” - I hear stuff like that all the time, and have been known to utter it myself too. But thinking about it, really drilling down into it, it’s all bollocks. You don’t need these places - sure, they might make life an iota more easier, especially if you have a new record or a tour or something, but if you can’t reach anyone anyway, seriously… what’s the point?

It’s 2024 now, and as most of these social media places are either coalescing into a sludge of blind rage, abject tedium, or both, it’s becoming more and more apparent that you have agency now to go where you want and use what you like. That agency is so, so special - I remember the times before it was yanked away from most of us by social media companies - the thought of a band not having a Facebook page in 2013 was career suicide, and something that brought band managers I knew at the time out in hives. But now, you have the agency to do something about it - you don’t have to use Facebook, certainly not in the same way we used to use it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do now. This rings true more for the DIY people reading this than it does someone on a label, being subtly prodded to help pay back that advance in any way they can, but it makes me even angrier when I see my fellow DIY-ers constantly having to play a game that’s rigged against them from the start, and not realising you don’t have to play it.

Spotify, by and large, is a colossal waste of time. Stop using it! It doesn’t pay fairly, it’s riddled with copycat AI generated garbage, and did I mention it doesn’t pay fairly? You can hop on over to Apple, Deezer, Youtube, Amazon, Tidal, etc. There are so many alternatives to spotify. Use them! Or Don’t! It’s up to you, it’s your agency. Don’t feel the need to constantly ‘be on’ or update stuff all the time - you’ve probably just as much luck hitting the jackpot from some kid using 3 seconds of your song on tiktok as you are trying to play the game with ‘the biz’.

I stopped even doing things like pre-orders, let alone pre-release singles and videos, because I could. I didn’t need to do it, so I stopped. Hell, you don’t even need to release on a Friday if you don’t want to. I think we should all get back a little bit to those wild west days of just doing whatever the fuck, instead of feeling the need to put little icons of social media companies in your banners - they couldn’t give the slightest shit about you, so why not do likewise?

I appreciate this does come across as a bit ‘old man yells at cloud’, and there’ll be nuances and all sorts of situations where this idealist claptrap just won’t fly, but for the sake of my sanity, please at least just take away the general vibe, the general feeling of this weird rant. Again, it’s 2024 - you do not need to do anything you don’t want to do. And if you are being told to do something you don’t want to do, at least question it. At least ask if there’s another way, because these fucking companies won’t last forever, but in some way, however small, your music will.

A little trip down memory lane

A while ago, my external hard drive crashed and took with it pretty much all the photos I had of the band from it's early-ish days, which was a huge downer. I tried to cobble together as much as I could from emails, old flickr accounts, random CDs I found underneath jackets in old offices (that actually happened) and stuff. I wasn't able to get all of it back, but I did get a bit. Anyway, the other day my old mate John Banks (he of Time Lapse & Arrivals covers, as well as a plethora of promo photos over the years) sent over a bunch of stuff he'd found on his old computers and although I've backed it all up a billion times now, I thought I'd put them up here too, if not just for my own sake than having an actually quite interesting blog post full of pictures of myself looking remarkably baby faced.

These were all from 2006-08 (I think!) certainly nothing after that anyway. Mainly in and around Manchester, as we used to play there an awful lot and John is from there, so would always show up with his Camera:

This was in the basement of a pub called the Bay Horse, no idea why we used to play there all the fucking time

The Bay Horse again, rockin' out.

Another one from the Bay Horse

This was at The Brudenell in Leeds, just before one of those pretty little tealights burned through the mouse cable and almost stopped the show. Managed to press play on Reason just before it did that, and as it was the last track, salvaged the set. Still had to put out a mini fire though haha.

 

No idea where this was, but I still have that t-shirt somewhere. I used to bow the guitar quite a bit in the early days, but only started doing that in '08-ish, so I'm guessing this is from that period.

Look at how much hair I used to have! Amazing.

 

 

No idea where this was either, but could be the Star and Garter in Manchester. Rockin' a Belle & Sebastian t-shirt there.

I forget which gig this was, but it was Upstairs at the Library in Leeds - it used to have a huge screen behind it so you'd get these cool silhouettes from time to time.

Another one from The Library. It's called The Lending Room now lol

One from St. George's Hall in Bradford. It was part of a big night they used to do monthly called BD1 Live, where cool young promoters were invited to put stuff on there. We played with I Like Trains and Falconetti at this one. Was a great night!

Haven't got a clue about this one, but my hair is a bit shorter and that isn't my guitar, so could be anwhere, any time lol

Cafe Saki in Rusholme, Manchester - possibly 2006?

Another one at Saki. It was a restaurant if memory serves, but the guys who ran it just let kids put on shows upstairs after hours. Was always a laugh.

Saki again maybe? No idea. It's most probably somewhere in Manchester. Someone wearing sandals (?!) in the background there.

From the band's first photo shoot, somewhere near Alderley Edge in the posh bit of Manchester. Used to take myself very seriously, as you can probably tell here lol.