You can easily show peak points of Noisefanatics and it connects with major things happening in USA noise scene.
No Fun Festival, Hospital shop, RRRecords & co. with their regional LP box sets. Troniks and Chondritic Sound (owners of the beard) constantly putting out new product. Constant touring by big names of genre. etc etc. This kind of things would gather phenomenas bigger than usual. Cumulating interest and people.
When it's simply bunch of "regular users", posting ads of their stuff, what most often is the usual rehashing, what kind of reaction it should create? I doubt it can be climax after climax and new peak after previous peak. But many bands or labels stay in the level the reached - it simply ain't big deal anymore.
Every music style now in underground has the same situation. At least what I know of. They have died in sense what it was in 90's for example. Back then any shoe-box size distro could take 5 7"s of anything, and sell it to people. Now the 7" needs to be by someone guaranteed hot name or new interesting uprising name, or you can forget about being able to sell it. If at some point it would have been enough to say "noise cd" and move 500-1000 copies, now it is that saying "noise cd" doesn't mean shit. But it doesn't mean people wouldn't be interested.
I'm much more drawn toward conclusion of McIntosh:
There are SO MUCH MORE noise/pe/metal/punk, that the level of oversaturation has been passed years ago AND it really is move to healthy direction that whatever you release, will NOT automatically belong to people's list of purchases.
If dying scene means that labels can't pump (possibly overpriced) releases they think "should" sell and this easy assumption based on artists status (past releases and other labels activities, etc), I'm all for killing the scene!
Now as we speak, there are probably more noise forums than for years. There are most definitely more noise magazines than for years. There has been noise documentaries. Depending on countries, there are perhaps bigger amount of noise gigs in many places than there has been for years. You can think how it's possible ALAP moves... 4000 copies? SI moves 700-800 per issue, Terror moves... I don't know? Several hundreds anyways. Night Science must move 500 copies per issue. Personal Best moved 500 per issue? Fördämning boldly pressed 500 copies as well...
If you announce something on forum, Noisefanatics message gets from several dozens to several hundred hits. Same happens in SI forum. Perhaps just little less. But still way more than basically anyones mailinglists or even paper catalogues reached back in the day!
I often see complaints done by someone, who issued CDR of lesser quality material by some has-been. And they are surprised people don't care. I see the complaint done by someone who saw everybody else "succeed" and when their wagon jumping tactic failed (for reason), suddenly "noise is dead". I see PE folks complaining of hipsters, hipsters complaining about PE, everybody complaining of "HNW". Complaining of unnecessary re-unions, but still in the personal listening never giving fuck of new talent, just sticking on trusted old names. etc etc...
Mirror should be near by. Check that out when you have problems.
Noise is one of the genres where it is so small, you can really make the difference - even globally. In whole canon of genre. You can have band that creates stuff you like, label and distro what distributes stuff you believe is the strongest, best and captures ideas and sounds that inspires you. People do like good stuff. People are craving for next great noise album. So how come someones stuff doesn't sell then? Question could be: How much it should sell? How many people should contact you on monthly basis to ask title? How many praising reviews it should get? How many gig offers should you get? Should you bother to go play if there's expected 20 people. Should you announce scene dead if your latest output is not raved by masses?
I urge to read Special Interests #8 editorial. It talks about this same thing. Noise ain't dead or dying. It's merely being misused or suffocated by corrupted expectations.
If someone wants TALK to happen on forum: start interesting topics. That's all what it takes. It can't be noise daddies wiping peoples asses all the time.
