Sounds like toothache...

Share and share alike…

musicalgibbon — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:31:27 +0000

Are illegal download killing the music industry? Lily Allen and Muse seem to think so. In fact, Ms. Allen is quoted as saying that she has no intention of making a new record. As the Grauniad aptly describes in that article, I also expect it’s posturing. She started a blog about it, but you can’t read it because she took it down after a couple of days because “the abuse was getting too much”. Hardly surprising when you stir up a wasp’s nest like the filesharing debate on the Internet and start plastering it all over Twitter. There are people with some extreme opinions and they don’t feel the need to be restrained. Without picking on her, I find it a little ironic that Lily Allen has so much to say against filesharing, when it was arguably the free availability of her early singles through media such as MySpace etc. and then subsequently peer-to-peer networks, that got her all of the exposure in the first place. The Arctic Monkeys are another good example of this, their first album was almost entirely in the Public Domain in free downloads before it was ever released. In fact, intentionally so. Ms. Allen’s argument was that filesharing and peer-to-peer was hurting new artists. It goes to show how short-sighted and self-serving she is. I just have to go on Myspace or Facebook or Soundcloud and I’m presented with millions of artists, all clamouring for my ears. Fair enough, 99.999% of these artists are unsigned and will probably never make any money from music (or perhaps deserve to). What she’s talking about are the emerging artists that have been discovered and are starting to make their career. OK fair enough, they need all the help they can get to sustain their careers. Whether they are worth it or not is subjective. However, are they likely to make any money whatsoever out of record sales any more? Probably not. Were they ever likely to? Probably not. In fact, almost certainly not.

Here is a great article from Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. What he’s saying is, make your records and give them away. It’s a good point. If no-one has ever heard of you, why on Earth should they be prepared to give you money for potentially awful album/EP? In this day and age of cheap electronics and software, the ability for anyone to make professional or near-professional recordings in our bedrooms is readily achievable. Go and download Ubuntu Studio, short of a few cables and a microphone, you’re set to do anything you want, for free. Software like Ableton Live has even made it accessible to people who have ideas but no technical knowledge with its innovative approach to recording and producing. It’s cheap as well (relatively). If you’re sensible you’ll make your money by doing what musicians and artists should be doing. Working. Going out to the people and performing. I think what’s happened over the years is that popular music has become less an art form and more a money-magnet. Fair enough, your Lady Gagas, your Sugababes, your Beyonces and Shakiras are some of the world’s richest people, but is that what you’re doing it for? Are you doing it for the fame and money? Or are you doing it because you’re an artist and your medium is music? Are you doing it because you want people to hear your work and be moved? If you’re after fame and fortune, you’re a narcissistic fool. The chances are, you aren’t going to make any money, your career will be short and difficult and at the end, no-one will remember you. And of course, there are a million degrees in between. You may be lucky, never say never, but also, try and stay sensible.

So let’s say we take Trent’s advice. Let’s say we give our music away for free initially. What advantage does that give us, we aren’t making any money! So what? You aren’t doing this to be rich remember, you’re doing this to exhibit your art. Let’s say you make your EP and you put it on iTunes for 79p a track. What incentive have I got to buy it? None. If you stick it on a streaming website like Soundcloud and link it from every forum you frequent, every Twitter account you have, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, whatever. I still might not fancy listening to it. Maybe that’s my loss, maybe not. But let’s say I did, I might link it myself, I might send it to my friends. They might hear it and think it’s good and do the same, they might not. This only has to happen a few times and you’ve reached a potential audience of thousands, maybe millions if you’re lucky. Make it downloadable for free and suddenly, they might whack it on their iPod, MP3 player, PC music library of whatever description. You might get scrobbled to Last.fm and, if you’ve uploaded tracks there, you’ll start getting radio plays. Suddenly you’ve inadvertently got people listening to your track all over the world. I personally would be chuffed to bits if I’d heard people had been hosting my music on peer-to-peer networks. Why? I’m getting nothing out of it. So what! People like my art enough to offer it to others to hear!

So is peer-to-peer and filesharing killing the music industry? No, it’s just making it harder for the lazy elite to make loads of money out of it. Is that a problem? I don’t think so. I personally buy any music I like now. Every time. I used to download music illegally, I confess. I’d do it to tell whether I liked a band, before buying the CD. If I thought they were worth it, I’d buy it. If not, I wouldn’t listen to it. Nowadays, there’s no need with stuff like Myspace and Spotify and Last.fm and eMusic, I can preview almost anything. Plenty to gauge whether I like an artist before spending my hard earned cash on their art. Is it really killing the music industry or just giving the little man (or woman, or collective, or indeed none of the above) more opportunity to be heard by a wider audience. Those that really like music spend it on gigs, or club nights, or merchandise. All filesharing is doing that I can see, is making it more difficult to get rich from music. It’s definitely making it all more interesting =]

Music Journalism, where did you go?

musicalgibbon — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:12:03 +0000

I’ve been wandering the Internet and newsagents on a quest. Many moons ago, I used to keep abreast of popular music, current affairs in it, new releases, next big things… All of this nonsense. I used to read Melody Maker and the NME avidly, amongst other stuff. And they were good, really good, genre spanning, eclectic, impartial and most importantly, about music. I love music. I’m no genre hermit either by any means. I’ll just as soon listen to rock, metal, folk, indie, electronica, classical, world music, jazz, whatever. The genre is not important, just that it’s good. Now “good” is of course very subjective and purely based on one’s own tastes, however certain things are apparent regardless of taste: effort, production values, originality, plagiarism, good/ bad songwriting, musicianship, the ability of the song to change your mood, lyrical content. What I’ve gleaned from my visit back to the world of music journalism and the fruit of it’s orchard, is that the fruit got GM’ed. It’s almost impossible to find someone reviewing albums, gigs or singles that isn’t some kind of scene-biased media whore. Everyone’s so desperate to find the next big thing, or jump on the credibility bandwagon that no-one seems to care about what they’re actually writing. I suppose the point I’m trying to make is, where did they all go? Has the accessibilty of the Internet meant that all the good people, who cared deeply, and most importantly, were educated about the industry, have been diluted by all the dross and subjectivity of everyone and his wife with a blog? Or have they gone into hiding?

One thing that has become apparent, and one thing that terrifies me, is that people actually like these opinionated, biased ramblings. What’s started to become more important than the music, is the image. Look at the plethora of cloned indie bands and cloned emo bands and cloned metal bands and substanceless hip-hop and R&B. If they look the part, who cares what they sound like?

August Magic Mix Tape

musicalgibbon — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:41:41 +0000

I’m going to create a mixtape every month. I’d love to actually make a real tape, but this is the Internet, the logistics aren’t really workable… Short of a better method (suggestions welcomed) I’m going to use Mixtape.me. I think I’ll loosely theme them. This month, as it’s the end of summer, I’ll keep it fairly upbeat. I’d also like to show off some stuff you may have heard, but if you haven’t, I think you should. This includes Blank Dogs, Deerhoof, Metric, Metronomy and The Whitest Boy Alive amongst others. All stuff I’ve been introduced to over the last six months or so and become very fond of.

First up we have Blank Dogs with Tin Birds. I’ve already written a little bit about Blank Dogs. I’m very fond of him indeed. now I have no idea what he’s singing about in this song as it’s almost unintelligible. Musically however, it’s wonderful. Like a vaguely upbeat, lo-fi Joy Division or New Order crossed with the filthiness of Sparklehorse.

Next Deerhoof – Gore in Rut. These guys are a four-piece from San Francisco and have been around since the mid-90s. Words that I can think of to describe them… Don’t know, chaotic, volatile, noisy, unpredictable but even so, cathartic. This song starts with an amusingly amateurish drum-roll into a wall of squealing, distorted guitars, and over the top, this sublimely cute refrain of “bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny”. it appears to be about a monster-rabbit. Who knows… Deerhoof are however, very awakening.

Track three is Dead Disco by Metric. Another band it’s taken me 6 years to discover. Their first album was released in 2003, which is where this track is from. This is a lovely synthy-indie dancey track that’s in the same league as the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs but a tighter sound. Despite being in a minor key, it’s nice and uplifting, and not too serious!

Metronomy should be massive. Their second album, Nights Out is easily my favourite album of 2008. Minimal production and bizarre vintage synths, along with clever little bass and guitar hooks that are almost out of tune, and clever minimal drumming. It’s absolutely wonderful, and the live show is also incredible. This song is one of so many awesome songs on the album, it’s called A Thing for Me, and it’s simply brilliant.

The rest, I’m not going to waffle on about, you should just listen for yourself.

August Magic Mix Tape

Blank Dogs – Tin Birds
Deerhoof – Gore in Rut
Metric – Dead Disco
Metronomy – A Thing for Me
The Whitest Boy Alive – 1517
Cloetta Paris – Secret Eyes
Rex the Dog – Circulate
Simian Mobile Disco – Tits & Acid
Aphex Twin – Windowlicker
Filthy Dukes – This Rhythm
!!! – Yadnus
Cancer Bats – Firecrack This

You can get to it here: http://mixtape.me/p/8743

Cover Bands

musicalgibbon — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:52:30 +0000

Why are there so many Oasis cover bands and so few (if any, I’ve never seen any) Blur tribute acts? Is it because it would be too difficult to be a convincing Blur tribute, whereas Oasis is just disposable drawl? I have no idea… Maybe an interesting discussion point

Soundcloud and my crap

musicalgibbon — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:53:38 +0000

Soundcloud is bloody awesome. If you don’t know what it is, follow the link and get involved. I guess it’s a bit like Flickr but for musicians. Any way, I’ll link to the crap I’ve been putting up there. Basically, having been in loads of bands over the years as a drummer, I’m getting a bit bored of taking things too seriously. I’ve decided to start making music that isn’t remotely serious. My current project 8-Bit Ninjas is essentially a sort of chiptune inspired electroclash, rock mashup. If it hasn’t already been coined, I’m stealing chipclash, you heard it here first. I’ll post my stuff up here. Remember, I’m doing this to make music for people to dance to at venues, purely in defiance of the plethora of drab indie-rock-drawl that I hear week-in week-out at places…

I do write original tunes, but first up, my stab at terrifying pop harpy Lady Gaga, here I give you, Pokemon Face:

Blank Dogs

musicalgibbon — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:50:50 +0000

I thought I’d kick all of this off with a bit of praise. It’s easy to start ranting about disposable pop music and marketing gimmicks, so let’s have a pat on the back for some of the ‘industry’. We’ve moved on at a heck of a rate over the past 20 years. For example, Indie music appears to be a genre in it’s own right. Be that as it may, the question is has it lost it’s roots? Well, indie used to refer to independence from the major record labels. Be that a release under a small label, or indeed DIY. In the 80s, it was quite commonplace for bands like Pop Will Eat Itself, to pay for their own work to be pressed onto vinyl and then go around record stores, begging them to stock it. Towards the end of the 80s and through the 90s, we lost that. Independent record stores started to retreat into the shadows like forestland in the Industrial Revolution, driven away by the might of massive record stores like HMV and Virgin, with their 3 for 2 offers and slightly cheaper prices. Even Our Price got swallowed by Virgin. The independent stores started to become boutiques catering more in vinyl and second hand than anything else. This is a massive over-generalisation of course. We lost that outlet for indie bands and manufactured pop and the big marketing machine took over. We saw the rise of boybands and girlbands (band being an amusing suffix) and europop. It wasn’t all bad though, we still had Britpop and grunge holding up the indie flag. However it was drowned in the mire of disposable textbook hits.

Enter: the internet. Not, initially, a particularly useful tool for musicians but with the advent of broadband and streaming media, the whole world is opened up for any artist. Sites like Myspace and cheap recording software like Garageband have meant that for a very small investment, anyone can get their tracks heard by, potentially, millions, maybe billions of people. This is a blessing and a curse however. My view of the current state of music is one of copycats and very little innovation. We have poster-boy bands that are thrust into the public eye, TV, Radio, Internet, whatever and they’re dressed up and marketed as a lifestyle rather that as musicians. An example is someone like the Kooks. Snapped up almost hours after recording a demo by Virgin records. Hardly do we hear about their musical prowess, to be honest, it takes second seat to how pretty and well-dressed they are. The music itself isn’t poor or offensive, they are all accomplished musicians. They produce catchy, guitar-driven pop tunes but to be honest, it’s all entirely forgettable. Also, music publications are starting to suffer for it as well. We’ve all questioned the credibility of the NME for years but nowadays, it’s starting to look like Smash Hits for the Topman crowd. Essentially, it’s now easy for you to get your music out there, but how about getting it heard? Well that could prove more difficult. There are well over 8 million artists on Myspace alone. How can you compete with them all? You can’t, you have to find your niche. The lack of originality on Myspace is quite astounding. The attitude of a lot of musicians as well is amazing; that they don’t get the attention they deserve even though they are on Myspace. The misguided belief that record deals should be handed to you on a plate on the strength of a demo you recorded in your bedroom on your mom’s Mac. All the soul, all the effort, all the blood sweat and tears have gone form these wannabe rock stars. I read a book called ‘The Eight Legged Atomic Dustbin will Eat Itself’, which describes the rise and fall of the ‘Stourbridge three’: The Wonderstuff, Pop will Eat Itself and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. In there Clint from PWEI was describing the months they spent driving up and down the country playing gigs every night for no money, sleeping in the van in utter squalor for the love of their music. I can’t imagine the Kooks doing that…

Despite that though, we occasionally find a little bit of valuable flotsam on the sea of mediocrity. I’m currently listening to Blank Dogs. A one-man project that still releases self-pressed 7″ records. Admittedly, I’m listening to them in MP3 format that I bought from eMusic (which I love by the way). In the same sort of vein as Sparklehorse and White Town, in it’s lo-fi, distorted vocals, with nods to early New Order or maybe Joy Division possibly. Last.fm has them tagged as ‘shitgaze’ amongst other things, which appears to be some sort of contraction of lo-fi shoegaze. To be honest, with almost no description, this phrase describes it perfectly. We have distorted, chorused, mostly unintelligable vocals mixed very low and nested in between fuzzy chords and distorted synths and almost out of tune plucked lead guitar and a drum machine that sounds like a Casio from the 80s. Very melancholy and introvert and absolutely wonderful. I suggest you listen to it to get the full effect. He (whoever he is) has now been signed to In The Red records, which if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and listen to some more of their releases. Enjoy!

But why?

musicalgibbon — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:19:30 +0000

It’s a big cliché, probably the biggest, but music is everything to me. Listening to it immediately brings in floods of emotion, be they from the past or invoked by the music itself. More importantly though, I like to make music. I like to make all sorts of music. Some of it is silly, some of it is very serious, all of it is very important to me. I like to immerse myself in music wherever possible and have diverse and, dare I say it ‘eclectic’ tastes. The consequence of this is that I’m very opinionated about it. Not of course, that I’m not open-minded or as some may accuse me, a fascist, by any means. I’ve just generally got something to say. Now, I’m not narcissistic or egotistic enough to think that anything I have to say is vaguely relevant to your life, or indeed that anyone else in the universe should care. Not at all. I’ve started this blog as a challenge to myself to record my thoughts. If anyone else wants to listen the that’s all the better. If anyone wants to discuss it with me, well, that’s what I was after in the first place. So ladies and gentlemen, I give you the poorly titled: Sounds like toothache. Play nice!