Speaking of stats, here’s some stats from Jetpack for this web site. Lots of countries have checked in, which gives me hope that running this web site isn’t a total waste of time.
Here’s hoping for better results in the next twelve months.
Here’s some links for you to peruse:
https://linktr.ee/jaypeach53 – this site has links mostly to streaming sites, although there are sites like Bandcamp and Mirlo where you can listen to some of my catalog. Maybe even purchase some music.
I’ve been getting more plays in more regions on Apple Music lately. Here’s a sample from Apple Music of my reach. The stats from Apple Music supposedly got an upgrade, something I don’t see.
As you can see, I’m now getting listens in 7 countries, so Apple’s been successful in extending their reach outside the US.
And this is a sample of Apple stats for a single release:
Small progress, but progress just the same. And I guess the stats from Apple have improved slightly.
Well, I had a productive March, with some paintings worked on, some music moved along in the production process, along with some music recorded .
This post will go into more detail about the progress, even though the weather lately hasn’t been conducive to working outdoors. Today we had a wind advisory, meaning 20-30 mph winds, just enough to get the dirt and dust flying if I felt adventurous enough to try painting when it was in the sixties temperature-wise. It’s hard enough painting when the bugs try to kamakaze themselves into the acrylic paint that I usually paint with. Dunno if the oil paints I recently bought will have the same attraction to bugs.
I got a copy of Henry Dreyfuss’ “Symbol Sourcebook” as I’ve been unsuccessful at locating to copy I bought probably 30 years ago. And that being the second copy I’ve purchased. I include those symbols I think are relevant in my paintings. Just another odd way I have of distinguishing my work from others. Though, I don’t think I’m unique in that respect as I think I read that Jean-Michel Basquiat also had a copy of that book.
“Symbol Sourcebook” is a rather primitive compendium of symbols that Dreyfus’s collected in his endeavors. Originally published in the early 1970s, print quality has either degraded through numerous reprints, or the quality wasn’t great to begin with. But this is no concern to me as I just freehand the symbols in the book, to the extent that the symbols in my works only have a fleeting resemblance of the “original” image.
The sourcebook was an offbeat production even back in the ‘70s, collecting a foreword by Bucky Fuller, which is probably how I got introduced to the book.
Well, I had a productive March, with some paintings worked on, some music moved along in the production process, along with some music recorded . And a personal high water mark in visitors, though I don’t know what they looked at because WordPress stats suck so bad.
This is WP ‘s (there goes the fucked up “smart” quotes again) stats page:
It shows 408 pages viewed, from 400 visitors, (which is weird; usually a visitors views 3-5 pages) but only 48 homepage hits. Where are the rest of the page hits? Who knows. And the referer links are significantly lower than expected.
Well, Jetpack on iOS ipad shows different stats than iOS iphone. Here’s the iPhone stats for March:
This time the individual page stats look normal , but the visitor count is different. Way to fuck things up Automattic!
And to just throw a monkey wrench into the mix, here’s Google’s Analytics posted today. It shows significantly lower viewership, more in line with the expected results.
And here’s two snapshots of viewers and page hits which seem more believeable:
All told, Automattic needs to revisit their stats generation process; it seems to be genuinely fucked up.
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
I just wish I could paint more often without having the shakes. Between my hockey injuries and the fact that two of my medications can cause tremors, I’m constantly having to compensate for the tremors. Mostly I just avoid any kind of detail work that requires fine motor skills. So my work tends towards that of Basquiat, I wish I could afford the canvases Basquiat used in his work, it might make creating work a little more appealing.
More delays have cropped up in my musical endeavors. I keep a notebook of my progress and the thing has gone missing, along with my recorder, the Zoom H8. So until I figure out where I left them, and yes they’re almost inseparable, I’m up shit’s creek without a paddle. My memory doesn’t work as well as it used to and I have a habit lately of burying things under piles of junk mail.
More (boring) stats from me in this post. For some reason, about a week and a half ago my readership has blossomed. Here’s a snapshot of the views over the past year:
Now that the weather’s getting better I have been spending more time outside painting. I’ve mostly been working on painting backgrounds and such on a number of paintings, I have 4 paintings in various stages of completion. They’re all pretty much in a new style I’ve been trying out, so I’ll have to see if anything I’ve started will be saleable.
Here’s a picture of the canvases laid out:
Most canvases are approximately 12 by 16 inches, with the black one being approximately 16 by 20 inches. Yeah, they are metric.
(As an aside, WordPress encourages users to use Jetpack to construct post, and overall interact with the platform. And Jetpack has many “features” that are quite obnoxious. Word completion and spell checking are two that I find to be especially obnoxious. And obvious features that would enhance the user experience are dribbled out rarely. They just got around to enhancing the statistics so that creators can more easily judge what posts are hitting and which are not. The improved stats also go into more detail, showing monthly and daily hits on the site, though what’s still lacking is post level stats.)
Lately I’ve been on a kick to fill out the sample libraries I have for my Elektron Octatrack and Roland SP-404. Well, that’s been continuing now for 3-4 months now, I guess. I change between recording synths and recording drum machines. The drum machines include the Behringer RD-8 and RD9 and the Erica Synths LR-02 (think I got the model numbers right). Yeah, I know the detractors say “Ewwwwww, Behringer”, but they are close enough for my uses. And as far as I can tell, purists don’t appreciate my music anyways.
I haven’t tried putting out music made from the samples, as I usually don’t have a recorder hooked up to the sampler, usually my trusty Zoom H8. I need to finish my recording setup in my bedroom, where I plan to make a permanent home for my Tascam Model 16 mixer, so that I can make more complex music.
