Tag Archive: Bandcamp


IN LOVE WITH MUTUAL BENEFIT

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October 26, 2013

Mutual Benefit - Love's Crushing DiamondI want to shout it from the rooftops but I’m rubbish at climbing and I’m afraid I’ll fall.

I’ll blog the news instead that Love’s Crushing Diamond by Mutual Benefit is the best record I’ve heard all year.

I don’t usually look for music tips from Pitchfork Media – I’m too frequently irritated by their show-off reviewers and their keenness to demonstrate their hipster credentials.

But I’m eternally grateful to Ian Cohen’s enthusiastic write-up for bringing  to my attention this instantly appealing and spontaneously joyful release.

Cohen is right to draw comparisons to Devendra Banhart (and other freak folksters) and to note that these lovely songs are about as un-macho and quietly endearing as you can get. Continue reading →

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CREATIVE COMMONS: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE FREE?

Filed under: Books, Good causes, Music, Politics — Leave a comment
March 14, 2013

“Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing” – Cody Doctorow (from his preface to Little Brother – available as a free e-book here)

Copyleft symbol

Creative Commons was set up to encourage authors to surrender part (but not all) their rights under copyright law so that their work enters the public domain.

A prime mover behind this so-called copyleft movement was the late Aaron Swartz.

I’m ashamed to say that I have only come to realise what an important figure he was since his tragic suicide at the age of 26.

He stood up to enemies of the freedom to connect and one of those who ensured that ill-conceived Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) failed to get on the statute books. He explains this campaign against state censorship in a keynote address at a Washington DC conference.

SOPA and the legal campaigns against Swartz illustrate that there are many powerful groups and individuals who would dearly love to claw back control of the internet from the ordinary people.

The introduction to Cody Doctorow’s novel which I quoted from above contains a passionate argument in favour of what essentially amounts to giving away creative works for free.

Doctorow argues that for the vast majority of writers and musicians, meaning those who aren’t the next Dan Brown or the new Coldplay, the big problem isn’t privacy but obscurity. He writes: “if the choice is between allowing copying or being a frothing bully lashing out at anything he can reach, I choose the former”. Continue reading →

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LEE JACKSON IN SPACE TRIBUTE ALBUM

Filed under: Good causes, Music — Leave a comment
June 5, 2012
A massive 94 track tribute album has just been released in honor of Lee Jackson, a Dallas-based music writer who passed away in late March 2012 aged 38 after a struggle with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
He’s not someone I’d heard of before but the scale of this project makes me think I missed someone I should have read or at least read about.
The album is compiled by Mats Gustafsson, Travis Johnson and Ned Raggett and is described in this way on the Bandcamp site:
“This collection of songs, nearly all of which are new or previously unreleased, comes from the many bands and musicians who Lee not only covered and celebrated with such passion, but also in many cases befriended over many years of correspondence, concert and festival attendance and more”.

Among the artists who make me sit up and take notice are : Charalambides, Valerio Cosi, Six Organs of Admittance, Marissa Nadler,Kemialliset Ystävät, Roy Montgomery ,Vanessa Rossetto and I’d hazard a guess that many of the less familiar names  are well worth checking out too.

The tracks are streamable at Bandcamp or, better still, the whole package can be purchased for $30 with all profits going  to the Texas chapter of the ALS Association..
The download version contains 12 hours of music plus  full information about each song as well as thoughts about the contributing artists, taken from Lee’s writing work.
Good cause, good writing, good music – looks like a no-brainer to me.
Link:
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E-MUSIC – LEAVING A SINKING SHIP

Filed under: Blogging, Music — Leave a comment
November 30, 2011

I signed up for e-music in April 2005 and according to my profile history, I have downloaded tracks from a grand total of 1,185 artists but today I decided to cancel my account.

In the six and a half years I have been a member the download and online streaming options have changed radically. For example, in 2005, there was no Spotify (launched in 2008), no Soundcloud (2007) and no Bandcamp (2008). Also, it was not so easy to find tracks and albums on blogs and I was not so genned up on P2P sites like e-mule or Soulseek.

I am grateful to e-music for helping me to discover artists like Jack Rose, Charalambides and Acid Mothers Temple but I have decided to leave what I regard as a sinking ship. Continue reading →

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IN MYSPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM

Filed under: Music — 1 Comment
March 10, 2011

I have always hated MySpace. The website design reminds me of brash junk mail and gives me a headache when I try to figure out just what resources it offers.

When it started out in 2003, it at least provided a world wide window for unsigned or struggling bands but now this service is much better catered for by sites like Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

If you want another outlet or to see how many people are listening to your music there’s also Last.Fm.

As far as social networking goes, it may have been the most popular site in June 2006 but nowadays they haven’t a hope in hell of competing with the Facebook juggernaut.

A takeover by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporations in 2005 and more recent attempts at an ‘awesome’ makeover don’t convince me that the site is anything more a sinking ship. Since 2008, user growth has stagnated. They have laid off 30% of its workforce and in April 2009 they made the  drastic move of replacing longtime CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe with Owen Van Natta. He would have to be a Steve Jobs-like genius to pull things around.

Seven years is a lifetime on the Internet and MySpace is a website which has been unable to adapt to survive in the face of changing tastes and challenges. Start writing the obituaries now.

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