iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 4h

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (October 15, 2026) at disquiet.com/0772, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores ... gardening. Join in!

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 5h

And Todd Rundgren's Nearly Human album cover

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 5h

Wondering if the pianist in Gattaca hits young audiences differently post-AI

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Reposted by Marc Weidenbaum

Lucas Gonze @playingintongues.com · 11h

The personal touch never felt so impersonal

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 11h

Music PR after AI: Hey, Marc, I see you published a piece about the cross-section of [X] and [Y] at 8:53pm on April 12, 2018, and your Goodreads says you gave four stars to a book about alien first contact three and a half years ago, so I think you’re going to enjoy our latest …

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 11h

Music PR before AI: Hey, [Marc], how’s stuff? I’m getting over a cold and been chilling to one of our new releases. Check it out.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

One I’m in has ““There’s probably more efficient ways of doing things, but I am not interested in them” and “If you post a track, consider going back and commenting on the last one or two tracks” and “yeah, i have a whole ecosystem.”

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

There’s wisdom in those boards. I’m on too many BBSs to count, and I love the ones that have a little phrase at the top of some threads, which Slack is good at. These become the Oblique Strategies of the given space.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Nine is a very small number but sure I'll play along, and I no doubt will have a half dozen to switch in tomorrow

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Was expecting a nice quiet day now that the holiday weekend's strafe LARPing has concluded, but instead a massive utility vehicle has been parked out front for two-plus hours, and the resulting heavy-equipment drone is so dense you can almost see it in the air

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Yeah, Bill Orcutt was awesome last night, opening for Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. Have a great weekend.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Ah, Fleet Week. The World War III cosplayers yet again take over the skies.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Frisell just joined the band Big Thief on stage at Red Rocks and recalled having seen Jimi Hendrix and Thelonious Monk play there when he was in high school. Love when these influence byways circle back around.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I saw trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire lead a trio that featured guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, both roughly twice his age, and Akinmusire mentioned having borrowed a friend’s Frisell CDs when he was a kid and having his mind blown.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The price of Nagra reel to reel tape recorders rose so steeply over the past 10 years or so that I'm convinced there's a loose group of six or seven speculators in the area buying these and selling them to each other, round and round, unaware there is no demand beyond their little circuitous bubble.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

When I started the Disquiet Junto, it hadn't really occurred to me that the thing could last so long that we'd be revisiting projects a decade later. The Junto turns 15 years old in January, and here we are exploring a project about Steve Reich we did (a "mere") 10 years ago. Time is weird.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Disquiet Junto Project 0771: Phase Incident The Assignment: Celebrate Steve Reich’s 90th birthday. Deadline: Monday, October 12, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0771 #disquietjunto

A pattern of blurry parentheses and brackets plus the name and number of the project

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Sure, my disquiet.com site celebrates the 30th anniversary of its 1996 launch in December, but @perival.com's amazing Don DeLillo website launched even earlier in 1996, and is still going strong: perival.com/delillo/deli...

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It’s the time of year when there’s almost always an exclamation point next to the weather, but one day it’s extreme heat and the next it’s dense fog. (Bonus points for small craft warnings.)

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I've gotten fairly conversant if not fluent in fog horn and today's mournful bleating means, "Yow this is thick."

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It worked out perfectly. Plant and band were fantastic. The two seated guys in front of me slept for most of the show.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yesterday was a darn good day at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. I'd guessed there'd be festival zombies in seats on high ground and I could arrive for Robert Plant's set just prior to the end of the previous act, Jesse Welles, and read for the hour between the end of one set and the start of the next.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I get to see Los Lobos tomorrow and Robert Plant on Sunday, and a ton of other musicians in between, all free, at the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival here in San Francisco, a couple blocks from home. There have been worse weekends for sure.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This week's Disquiet Junto project explores reverb. It is not a coincidence that the project started the day after I toured the massive space that is San Francisco's Grace Cathedral.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I’d say online bulletin board participation is sort of in between email and text messaging, and it’s at its best when it’s closer to email and further from text messaging (i.e., slightly slower pace, little more reflective).

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Plunder them phonics! Sounds great.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#DisquietJunto Project 0770: Reverb x Reverb The Assignment: Use some reverb. Then use some more. Deadline: Monday, October 5, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0770

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (October 1, 2026) at disquiet.com/0770, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores reverb (and then some). Join in.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A category that occurred to me today: a band I never put on but also never turn off

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you're looking for that thread of my semi-solicited advice for active musicians during the perceived AI avalanche, I put it here, under the title "On Craft, Process, and Networks": disquiet.com/2026/09/29/o...

disquiet.com

On Craft, Process, and Networks – Disquiet

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Been in love since first listen, back in 2006. Start with the first one, the album Grist.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Drumcorps (aka Aaron Spectre) has been bashing together drum’n’bass and metal and whatever happens to be in his spam folder for at least 20 years now. And it’s as awesome as ever, and there’s an advance track from his forthcoming album, Breakdown, 10/2. drumcorps.bandcamp.com/album/breakd...

drumcorps.bandcamp.com

Breakdown, by drumcorps

10 track album

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Oh yeah, I was an editor and writer there for a long time.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I'll close now as I opened, with the bad news. These two suggestions, you may have noted, have something in common: they don’t happen instantly, at the push of a button. They take time. Put in the time.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This isn't in the hostage-taking sense (though that vibe may be correlative), but in the “here’s someone doing something interesting persistently” sense. It's always been helpful, and it's become nearly essential.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Right now the biggest potential distinguishing factor in all this music being promoted — all the stuff filling the inboxes, and the feeds, of people listening to and writing about music — is what might be termed “proof of life.”

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Express the connections inherent in your work. Slowly build a timeline. Slowly build a network of collaborators.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The second thing is this: you have an opportunity to stand out, which is simply by doing things, and doing them regularly and publicly. Perform live. Perform online. Post videos of yourself. Post information about your process. Interact with other musicians.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

So, the best thing to do is put the threat you may perceive from AI in a tidy little box full of all those other excuses, don’t distinguish it from them, and get to work.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you allow “AI” (I put it in quotes because it’s less a specific thing, in this context, than what is often cast as, to borrow a historical term, a specter) to become that excuse, well, it’s unfortunate, but there would have been other excuses.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Also recognize that expected paths lead to unlikely ends the more patiently and curiously, guided by instinct and experience, you walk those paths. There is always an excuse to not put in the work.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The first is don’t let anyone or anything, or anything acting like anyone, or anyone promoting anything, convince you that craft is outdated or will ever be outdated; you will only improve, only make the sounds you imagine in your mind’s ear and feel in yourself, by working steadily to achieve them.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Perhaps worst of all, the ongoing avalanche casts doubt about other, more ambiguous but equally unfamiliar things in my inbox, such as your music. The good news is there are some things you, as a musician, can begin to do to address the problem. Here are two that I find myself thinking about:

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

My inbox — and as someone who writes about music, I’m not alone in this — is full of stuff that strives to be taken seriously, but whether it’s bland press releases or even blander unconsidered automated music, it is taxing, and getting through it all takes time, and doing so is dispiriting.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you’re making music and are concerned your creative efforts are being buried in an avalanche of rote AI-produced and AI-promoted competition, the bad news is you’re not wrong.

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