Longing for the day ...

Season's Greetings

To all. Whatever your race, colour, creed musical preference or belief system, best wishes for the holiday period and for the future.

May 2006 turn out to be a lot nicer that 2005 ...

Peace.

Late-year spleen venting

Thought I'd get a few things off my chest just before the end of the year - sort of "leave them in 2005" idea. This post will probably be the last of 2005 since I'm spending time with family until January...

1) The ABC TV news' new habit of breaking after ten minutes to recap the main story and play their anthem. It's unnecessary, wastes a few moments that could contain more news, and interrupts my concentration. They can stop that whenever they like. Just get on with the news - there's precious little in a half-hour bulletin as is.

2) The pseudo-American voice in WOW - Sight and Sound's adverts. They alternate between an Australian accent and this fake yank one. There's no good reason for this and it makes me turn the radio off, it's so annoying. Just use one voice, preferrably a genuine one, please. Perhaps a pretty girls voice as an alternative.

3) Idiot DJs who talk all over the music they play on their programs. This is not so bad at the start of the song, where it helps build up expectation, up to a point, but last night I was listening to MMM's Cold-30 Countdown (which I love when I can catch it) and the cretin talked all over the end of Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" and Motley Crue's "Kickstart my Heart" (and others) - both songs with an ending you want to hear! It doesn't just fade away.

Note to DJ: Hey moron, your program is about the songs, not about you. I have no idea who you are (you'll probably be gone in a year or so), but I love those songs. If anything, these songs should be given a respectful few seconds of silence at the end to better appreciate them. Shut UP!!

[pant, pant]

OK, I think I've ranted enough now. Will start 2006 in a better mood and ready for more. Seeya then.

PS - got my entry in for Brisbanemusos' band competition yesterday. It contained a biog, two photos and four song demos: "Heart's with you", "Cry to Heaven", "Long for the Day" and "Dancing with the Stones". Fingers crossed! Hope to tell you more about it next year.

Learning from Idol mistakes

Great to read this morning that SonyBMG has signed all of the final three Idol contestants: Kate DeAraugo, Lee Harding and now Emily Williams. It shows that they've learned from their experience in missing out on finalists who've sold very well in the past.

BTW, pay no attention to the sales figures and headline in that story. They are wholesale fingures (you can tell because the retail figures would not end in 000), and very early in the process. Better to worry about the figures in a year's time. Whether Lee Harding outsells Kate DeAraugo in the first week of any particular period isn't indicative of anything except the presence of marketing hype. It is, however, a bit of a concern if overall CD sales are down - perhaps reflecting the emergence of download technologies??

In other pre-Christmas news, it looks like the Genre Benders will get up sometime next year, since I've been given a scholarship for my PhD at QUT. Looking forward to creating some great music with some great people next year.

Shame, Australia, Shame

The sort of behaviour that has been seen on Sydney's beaches is un-Australian. It is not appropriate from any group of Australians: migrants, indigenous, black, white, brindle or polka-dot. It is a black spot on our national soul.

John Howard should also be condemned for not outright condemning it. If there is ANY suggestion of a racial basis, that should be immediately and strongly dealt with. Failure to do so only prolongs the issue.

There is a direct line between howard's "dog-whistle" politics of the Hanson era and following the Siev-X and the rioting on Sydney's beaches. He will be held accountable by history for it. I will examine the issue of teh media's involvement with interest as it unfolds ...

Drowning!!

Aaarrgh!

Drowning under a wave of comment spam - of a most peculiar kind. Most of it seems to be providing irrelevant text and links to legitimate sites. This is clearly aimed at getting legitimate sites put on the blacklist for comments.

I have no idea why this is happening, but it's a pain. It's taking up so much time to get rid of that I haven't had time to post anything about the projects I'm currently undertaking - which (I hope) will be more interesting!

Curse all spammers! May your (metaphorical) balls be cut off and fried before your eyes.

Just stop it and the world will be a much better place for everyone!

CDBaby rules!

Thought I'd better post something here about what a great job CDBaby do as a distributor of recordings. Not only do they sell the hard-copy CDs for Bun' Ber E, but they also have a digital distribution program, which puts the individual tracks in places like iTunes and MP3tunes.com.

This global distribution has been even better for us than CD selling. It costs us one CD and a few bucks, but it's paid for itself many times over. The best bit is that CDBaby keep track of all the distribution companies and vet them for you. When a new one comes along, they check them out and, if they're legit, do what's necessary to get your recordings in there. When varus ones have gone under, they delete them from the list.

Before you ask, they are absolutely scrupulous about reporting and paying. They do it all for you and provide great peace of mind for any independent artist who wants to distribute their music. Excellent stuff and well worth a wrap!

This space left blank ...

for Nguyen Truong Van and his family.

I guess it had to happen

Interesting to note that the Grateful Dead, long champions of the "give the music away free and make up for it elsewhere" philosophy, have come to a crunching commercial reality. The upshot of this is that they may decide not to give the music away for free any more - which has, understandably, pissed their fans off a lot.

These are the guys who drew huge crowds and promoted themselves by allowing (nay, encouraging) fans to tape their live performances and distribute them widely to friends, etc. This was a hugely successful strategy when tour revenues were large and distribution comparively expensive but in the digital age, when the recordings can be distributed almost limitlessly and very cheaply, and they can no longer tour following the death of one of their members, they're finding that their income has dried up.

They currently sell their tunes through iTunes, but the bootlegging practice makes this almost impossible to generate income from. Hence they seem to have been selling picks and drum heads ...

Anyway, this is proof, as I argued unsuccessfully on the ::fibreculture:: list some years ago, that, however disagreeable the record company model may be, it is not sustainable for an artist to allow unlimited free distribution of their work. The solution lies in a balance between promotion via free distribution and revenue via sales of finished product.

Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.

The Australian Industry in America

Great to read the article by Tony George in themusic.com.au about government assistance for Australian musicians into the US market. This is a great boon and I'm sure Tony will do a huge job and have a heap of fun at it. The following passage is of most interest to me:

With the advent of the internet, it's never been more cost effective with a wider reach (read: global) than now. We intend on advising and helping a larger group of artists develop those tools to get them to the next level, and to further develop that all important 'story'. Ideas for internet marketing include online street teams, ringtones, Myspace.com, electronic epks, and podcasting. Strategy for radio, press, showcasing and touring will also be addressed. The key is to get the tools into the artist's hands, stand back, and see what develops.

This is exactly the process I intend to research in my PhD, which will be based around this website and project. This is absolutely the way of the future and a vital component of any act's marketing strategy.

However, I must confess that the parochialism of this approach still bugs me - from both the Australian and the American angles. I can't help but feel that the nationalism of this program is artificial and not helpful. For example, my darling and I were discussing the other night two bands: The Killers and Franz Ferdinand. We were trying to decide where these bands came from and couldn't. (Their websites both have UK URLs.)

The great thing about them is that they are both fresh, interesting and completely global in their approach to pop music. Of course, not every act is or wants to be like that - I'd like to see more Australian stories told by Australian acts - but if you market yourself as "Australian" but are indistinguishable from US or UK acts (like, say, Deltra Goodrem), then you're letting yourself and your fans down.

Still, this model allows the music to stand on its own regardless of where it comes from. I just hope it can have great benefits for Australian music (whatever that is) and musicians all over the world.