Slashdot Mirror

Just playing the devil's advocate here...

How do you find out about these new albums that you want to buy? Heard a tune on the radio? Saw their video on MTV? Saw them in concert? Borrowed a CD from a friend? Ad in a magazine?

The fact is, unless you listen exclusively to independent artists and have an extensive network of friends in the independent music scene, you have heard about this band and/or album through some form of marketing - either directly through advertising, or indirectly through "hype" marketing (how else can you explain Spice Girls?). Who pays for marketing? The "moronic dinosaurs" known as the record labels.

<grumpy_old_man>Now, my personal opinion is that 99% of the so-called "popular" music out there these days is pure crap, and I'm sick and tired of marketing BS.</grumpy_old_man> But the fact is, the record company has invested in marketing and promoting - are you saying they don't deserve to reap some rewards from that investment?

Things are changing - with independent artists distributing MP3s, having their own web sites, and not having a label. But for the time being, if you want to "make it big" in the music business, you gotta play the labels' game. They provide a service (distribution and marketing), and shouldn't they be able to make a profit at that?

My solution: support local, independent artists. Go to your local clubs, see some of these up-and-coming bands (if you're in Saskatoon, SK go see Old Guard Road). Buy one of their CDs if you like them. If you don't like them, hey, you're in a club - keep drinking until the music sounds better. :-) Don't buy major label CDs, turn the radio off (or at least change to a community or college station). Change is coming, slowly but surely.
________________________

moog-influenced station
--

What about the rest of us?

There's this assumption that only major label acts count, that the rest of us are geeky guitar player or ReBirth-diddling dirtbags who don't _deserve_ to be popular. This, in the face of legis lation that rapes musician's interests even worse than usual- now musicians will be pressured into contracts that sign away their music FOREVER to the label. Is that fair? Is that right? If Metallica are part of that system do they deserve sympathy? Certainly. Do they deserve for people to support it just because Metallica are associated with it? Well....

Meanwhile, I for one am feeling much like the Linux camp in "Cryptonomicon"- the guys with the free tanks that get 60 mpg and go 120 mph with air conditioning and cruise control and fuzzy dice. I go "Please, download my music! I've been playing and composing for more than fifteen years and my heart and soul is in the work, plus I build my own equipment and share my information and ideas freely with others and offer to help people get samples off my tapes if they want any!" and then what?

I'll tell you what- then I post in Slashdot threads, because I love Slashdot and this musician is user #580... there are lots of musicians who read Slashdot. There are lots of _listeners_ who read Slashdot. Yet, I won't bother even asking if I can get a feature on the way I am trying to bring free-software principles into music, because it'd be 'promotion'- but Lars Ulrich GETS THE FEATURE on Slashdot, and the 'Pay Lars' site GETS the hits- why? Because they are 'newsworthy'! Because they are MAINSTREAM and joking about how some website wants to pay them is considered more important than my sweat and blood and heart and soul. It's a question of numbers. How are you going to stop the mainstream industry from smothering you if you just feed it every chance you get? Even bad attention is attention!

TO HELL WITH THAT. I may not be able to get a Slashdot feature- I _wrote_ a Slashdot feature and am friendly with roblimo, but I am just too close to this one- maybe the mainstream media still makes a sick joke of journalistic objectivity but _I_ take it seriously enough that I won't try to 'sneak in' promotion in the guise of an article, even a good passionate persuasive one. Somebody should write that article, though. How many Slashdot articles have given hits to Metallica, the RIAA and their supporters, and how many have supported the musical equivalent of free software and Linux- the artists out there trying to use mp3 for good, inventing a whole new marketplace dynamic based on what free _software_ has taught us? Are we to be totally ignored, do you _really_ want to just only support the major labels here?

And meanwhile- heck with being shy, Metallica is not shy, the RIAA are not shy, and I for one am getting steamrollered. BUY MY ALBUM . Yes, I know that every song on it (actually I have _five_ albums up at mp3.com) is downloadable at no cost- I'm doing that on purpose, dammit! It's important to me that I give freely- I also share my production tips and technical tricks with musicians on the mp3.com boards quite freely. BUY MY ALBUM anyway. There are several to choose from, my favorite is 'anima' a set of rock instrumentals based on animal themes, some are really damn good music. You can hear them all you want, totally free, with my blessing- download them from that page and there's no strings attached and I'm not _forcing_ you to do anything. I'm asking, like someone who has just seen yet another Metallica publicity-boosting article even here on Slashdot where I go to get away from that crap, to BUY MY ALBUM . The Metallica is what, $14? $17? MY ALBUMS are all $5.99- if they'd let me set the price lower, I would! And I'm _still_ getting 50% of that, more per album than Metallica will ever see. Buy the damn things! Argh! *g*

Not only that, if you go here like I am piteously begging you to do- you can download, again free with my total blessing, the first track on another killer album I'm putting together- a groundbreaking techno album so new I don't even have a cover for it or a CD of it yet! The sound rivals or kicks the ass of any major label release in this genre, especially bass-wise, and the music is TOO INNOVATIVE for the labels to cope with- the whole album is techno in unusual time signatures! "Fire Dragon" , the first track to be created (not 'released'- when I do 'em you get 'em that day!) is in 7/4 time! It still dances, but this stuff is too innovative for anything but FREE MUSIC as we indie artists are doing it. You'll never see anything this fresh on a major label! They're even kicking Clive Davis out of Arista so they can get safer and more corporate!

You can even get "Fire Dragon" direct from here and not even visit the page- here is a link to download the mp3 file without even leaving Slashdot. It's only 4.7 megs, even if you're not into fierce innovative techno please give me just the seconds or minutes to download the song anyhow? You might like it, and as an indie musician I really could use the support. :)

And _while_ I'm at it, I want to mention some really nice people- a sort of coalition of artists (of which I'm one) gathering together to try and promote their work in the face of this horrible indifference and in spite of how much more power the major labels have- Liquid Dreams Records . I am just one of _lots_ of neat independent bands working together on this, and we deserve the page-visit and listen! Trust me that there's a lot of wonderful stuff... one of my favorites was corruptdata , who does neat fierce electronica that I kept listening to over and over and over :) please, go hunt down the free indie artists and talk about us and support us! Do you _want_ to be listening to nothing but re-releases of Metallica for the rest of your lives? (besides which, depending on their contract they might not even own their music at all)

They said "I ain't gonna play Sun City"- now it's time to say "I ain't gonna waste my time talking about major labels!" To hell with 'em! Please help us real artists- and not 'help us to get signed' either, hell with that, it's too horribly corrupt, help us establish a new industry, one that is decentralised like Linux! Because you know what?

WE OWN OUR MUSIC. We are _allowed_ to use mp3. And we're doing just that- HELP us.

-chris

What about the rest of us?

There's this assumption that only major label acts count, that the rest of us are geeky guitar player or ReBirth-diddling dirtbags who don't _deserve_ to be popular. This, in the face of legis lation that rapes musician's interests even worse than usual- now musicians will be pressured into contracts that sign away their music FOREVER to the label. Is that fair? Is that right? If Metallica are part of that system do they deserve sympathy? Certainly. Do they deserve for people to support it just because Metallica are associated with it? Well....

Meanwhile, I for one am feeling much like the Linux camp in "Cryptonomicon"- the guys with the free tanks that get 60 mpg and go 120 mph with air conditioning and cruise control and fuzzy dice. I go "Please, download my music! I've been playing and composing for more than fifteen years and my heart and soul is in the work, plus I build my own equipment and share my information and ideas freely with others and offer to help people get samples off my tapes if they want any!" and then what?

I'll tell you what- then I post in Slashdot threads, because I love Slashdot and this musician is user #580... there are lots of musicians who read Slashdot. There are lots of _listeners_ who read Slashdot. Yet, I won't bother even asking if I can get a feature on the way I am trying to bring free-software principles into music, because it'd be 'promotion'- but Lars Ulrich GETS THE FEATURE on Slashdot, and the 'Pay Lars' site GETS the hits- why? Because they are 'newsworthy'! Because they are MAINSTREAM and joking about how some website wants to pay them is considered more important than my sweat and blood and heart and soul. It's a question of numbers. How are you going to stop the mainstream industry from smothering you if you just feed it every chance you get? Even bad attention is attention!

TO HELL WITH THAT. I may not be able to get a Slashdot feature- I _wrote_ a Slashdot feature and am friendly with roblimo, but I am just too close to this one- maybe the mainstream media still makes a sick joke of journalistic objectivity but _I_ take it seriously enough that I won't try to 'sneak in' promotion in the guise of an article, even a good passionate persuasive one. Somebody should write that article, though. How many Slashdot articles have given hits to Metallica, the RIAA and their supporters, and how many have supported the musical equivalent of free software and Linux- the artists out there trying to use mp3 for good, inventing a whole new marketplace dynamic based on what free _software_ has taught us? Are we to be totally ignored, do you _really_ want to just only support the major labels here?

And meanwhile- heck with being shy, Metallica is not shy, the RIAA are not shy, and I for one am getting steamrollered. BUY MY ALBUM . Yes, I know that every song on it (actually I have _five_ albums up at mp3.com) is downloadable at no cost- I'm doing that on purpose, dammit! It's important to me that I give freely- I also share my production tips and technical tricks with musicians on the mp3.com boards quite freely. BUY MY ALBUM anyway. There are several to choose from, my favorite is 'anima' a set of rock instrumentals based on animal themes, some are really damn good music. You can hear them all you want, totally free, with my blessing- download them from that page and there's no strings attached and I'm not _forcing_ you to do anything. I'm asking, like someone who has just seen yet another Metallica publicity-boosting article even here on Slashdot where I go to get away from that crap, to BUY MY ALBUM . The Metallica is what, $14? $17? MY ALBUMS are all $5.99- if they'd let me set the price lower, I would! And I'm _still_ getting 50% of that, more per album than Metallica will ever see. Buy the damn things! Argh! *g*

Not only that, if you go here like I am piteously begging you to do- you can download, again free with my total blessing, the first track on another killer album I'm putting together- a groundbreaking techno album so new I don't even have a cover for it or a CD of it yet! The sound rivals or kicks the ass of any major label release in this genre, especially bass-wise, and the music is TOO INNOVATIVE for the labels to cope with- the whole album is techno in unusual time signatures! "Fire Dragon" , the first track to be created (not 'released'- when I do 'em you get 'em that day!) is in 7/4 time! It still dances, but this stuff is too innovative for anything but FREE MUSIC as we indie artists are doing it. You'll never see anything this fresh on a major label! They're even kicking Clive Davis out of Arista so they can get safer and more corporate!

You can even get "Fire Dragon" direct from here and not even visit the page- here is a link to download the mp3 file without even leaving Slashdot. It's only 4.7 megs, even if you're not into fierce innovative techno please give me just the seconds or minutes to download the song anyhow? You might like it, and as an indie musician I really could use the support. :)

And _while_ I'm at it, I want to mention some really nice people- a sort of coalition of artists (of which I'm one) gathering together to try and promote their work in the face of this horrible indifference and in spite of how much more power the major labels have- Liquid Dreams Records . I am just one of _lots_ of neat independent bands working together on this, and we deserve the page-visit and listen! Trust me that there's a lot of wonderful stuff... one of my favorites was corruptdata , who does neat fierce electronica that I kept listening to over and over and over :) please, go hunt down the free indie artists and talk about us and support us! Do you _want_ to be listening to nothing but re-releases of Metallica for the rest of your lives? (besides which, depending on their contract they might not even own their music at all)

They said "I ain't gonna play Sun City"- now it's time to say "I ain't gonna waste my time talking about major labels!" To hell with 'em! Please help us real artists- and not 'help us to get signed' either, hell with that, it's too horribly corrupt, help us establish a new industry, one that is decentralised like Linux! Because you know what?

WE OWN OUR MUSIC. We are _allowed_ to use mp3. And we're doing just that- HELP us.

-chris

My LORD.... tell you what... next time you make a knee-jerk assumption like that, be looking for a check from a record company.



What do you have to gain by comming in here and saying crap like 'We all know its for pirating.' Sorry to dissapoint you, Mr. Holyer Than Thou... but I actually use it to disperse my friends OWN music that he makes. W/O glorious Napster and even the MP3 phenomenon, he wouldnt have gotten NEARLY the exposure if he had to rely on pressing his own expensive CDs or begging the big multi-billion dollar company that he was worth wasting their time.
And guess what... he doesnt do it for freaking money either. He does it because he likes to do it.


WHY CHARGE PEOPLE TO DOWNLOAD HIS MUSIC WHEN THE INTENT OF THE MUSIC ITSELF IS TO BE FREE!?

This is just an example of why opensourcing this (to me) is a exellent thing.

Thank you, good bye.

And now for a shameless plug for my friend Denizen's band Magic Firesheep, who's been doing this kind of music for about 10 years.

Magic Firesheep - Electronic/Trance

If you're stoned I highly recommend (ah! ah!) Triton and Nereid's wires song.

If you're stoned I highly recommend (ah! ah!) Triton and Nereid's wires song.

If you're stoned I highly recommend (ah! ah!) Triton and Nereid's wires song.

It is in fact hard to find decent things on mp3.com, but for whomever likes latin music (bossa) I do have two recommendations:

Cilico+Amigos=Parceria

and

Rio Bahia

I absolutely loved the first (Cilico...), and I bought their CD, hopefully others will do it as well.

It is in fact hard to find decent things on mp3.com, but for whomever likes latin music (bossa) I do have two recommendations:

Cilico+Amigos=Parceria

and

Rio Bahia

I absolutely loved the first (Cilico...), and I bought their CD, hopefully others will do it as well.

My school uses Linux, and were were on ISDN trying to download from Audiofind at a k a second up until a week ago...
now we have 8mb/sec fullrate ADSL.

And I figured out how to get the Qt libs and stuff onto a computer without root, and now we all have Knapster. And lots of MP3s.

I love school!

(Isn't it funny that Knapster and Gnapster both sound the same when pronounced?)

Of course, I love the techno/trance from Raymond Wave much better... Free MP3.Com music.

Fight the RIAA with what is legal... free music only, and set up My.MP3.Com so you can upload the CD's you do have.
--
Talon Karrde

Heartily agreed.

Be honest - you have seen more simplistic ones, I'm sure.

Yeah, but I'm always unimpressed with them too :) It always disappoints me to see humans still stuck on the simplest approximation in this day and age. I'm not asking for people to construct entire tomes, but something a little more robust than black and white.

Appologies for the tone of my reply. I was reacting to what I perceived as the tone and attitude of your reply. And I guess you were probably reacting to the fact that someone was marginalizing who you were based upon what you were wearing... Understandable. Perhaps in 100 years when there's no fear of affecting still impressionable segments of society negatively...

There was another discussion in the past two days where a URL to your pics was given, and the comments made were less than pleasant to see. What we really need are good role models *in* the locker room and other places during the impressionable years... I've been thinking lately that schools are the main places where each generation is taught what to think of each other, by the group 1-2 years ahead of them!! Like a waterfall of disgusting attitudes.. (Thinking back to when I was in HS.) Well, I'd better stop here, I have a tendency to go on and on.

It's late, I'm still internally three hours ahead of everyone else in CA. Meep.

Ack... my sympathies. Late is noticing it's 3-5am, on a workday! ( I need to get control.. doing that too often just hurts, no good at all.)

TTFN

BTW: I highly recommend this - Mind Control - nicest stuff I've heard in ages. Notice I don't get any 'commission'. I just love the stuff.

"Mass destruction - hooray hooray"... Jim's Big Ego have a hilarous song about Y2k! (I am not affiliated with them, I just like this song. Also, check out the search engine at mp3.com - there are dozens of other Y2k songs there... and no, I am not affiliated with mp3.com, either.)

------------------

With the text on his page as the lyrics. It can be found here: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists /63/mahir_cagri.html

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/3 5/netslaves.html

Artist description: Unplugged robots who've decided to use MP3 to spread their subversive, anti-technology, anti-boosterism.

I came across these guys on mp3.com a couple months ago and found nothing of value. It appears that they've decided to move to print media since web and audio wasn't selling.

They've added some new MP3's since the time I found them, and if they're anything like what I've already heard, then clicking the above link is just a waste of time anyway. Or maybe it's just me...I didn't get it.

numb
?syntax error

Mostly minimal 4/4 monotonic techno banging. Word.

Curse at mp3.com

Christian Bloch at mp3.com

Mostly minimal 4/4 monotonic techno banging. Word.

Curse at mp3.com

Christian Bloch at mp3.com