Changes

If you already know about my rating system then skip on down to the next header, otherwise here's the lowdown.

The rating system
The rating system I use for this blog is somewhat unique. It's not a reflection of how much I like the music itself as much as it is of how far I am along the process of conversion from consumer to fan. So, over time you may well see some of these ratings go up if I mention an artist again. And indeed go down, as musical changes of direction or failure to keep my interest are just some of the reasons that may affect a rating.


Congratulations, you've made a temporary blip of interest on my radar. Now how are you going to keep it?


I've seen enough of you to recognise and remember you, but I'm undecided so I'm not really following you (yet). I may make a spur of the moment decision to check in on what you're up to once in a while, but even that's no guarantee. May also apply to artists I am aware of, but whose music I've decided I don't have enough interest in to want to pursue further based on what I've heard.


I'm liking what I hear in general, but I still wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I will be wandering past your site occasionally, and there is something like a 50% chance I'll be buying your next offering once I find out about it, providing I have the money available.


Now I am a fan, so the chances are I'll be past your site once every month or two at least. There's a 90%+ chance your next offering is already sold, and occasionally I might even be going for something more than the basic package (if you have one)


Reserved for very few, this is about as close to internet stalker as you can get. I am actively watching because I do not want to miss your next release date, tour in my area etc. etc. You may not always be aware of the fact I'm looking over your shoulder to see what you're up to, but trust me, I'm there on a weekly if not more like a daily basis. Depending on how you tend to release your information, I may well be signed to your mailing list as well.

What I've been looking at
A lot of what I've been looking at recently appears to have had "change" as a theme running through it (hence the title of this post)

For starters, a couple of artists I'm aware of appear to have been undergoing an identity crisis.

T-ka changed her name to June Caravel back in May, but as an artist I don't particularly follow, I only spotted this at the beginning of December. Seems she decided to fund an EP via her own website rather than coming back to Sellaband and it's now available for pre-order. In addition, if you do pre-order, not only will you get to hear it prior to the official release, you can get into the release party for it for free. Assuming you can make it to London on January 10th that is.

The other identity crisis comes in the form of Tim Bennett, who has decided to revert back to the Civilized Tears name he was using when he originally signed up to Sellaband. He's recently started streaming performances on UStream in-between filming for the "Black Rain" video with the help of Bambi Monroe, who gets the main job of keeping the chatroom organised as well as relaying questions and trying to keep Tim's rockstar cat Hermione from stealing all the screen time. Whilst he's been mostly playing tracks from his "Miseducated" album, he's also thrown a couple of new ones into the mix, so irrespective of whether you like cats or good music it's worthwhile keeping an eye on his twitter feed for the announcement of his next concert if you want to catch some entertainment.

Onto a musical front with change as a theme, Fabrizio Paterlini has been continuing his "Autumn Stories" project. He's been releasing a track for free download every week since the beginning of October and he's finally coming to the end. He'll be selling an album with all the tracks he's released as part of the project plus some others in the New Year. Having been following the project since the start, it's been noticeable listening to the change from "warm" sounds at the start to a much colder feel in the later ones that mirrors the change from Autumn into Winter. Week #11 is a particular standout in this respect and paints a picture for me of opening the curtains in the morning to find the first frost of the year has hit, followed by stepping out into the crisp clear morning to find there's still some warmth to the sun. Stop on by his Soundcloud page to get the free downloads and find out what you've been missing.

The websites I've been looking at

Sellaband
Following on from my last post, I have still been keeping an eye on the place, but through curiosity as to whether anything different to what I was expecting would happen once the forum was shut down. And part of me doesn't really know whether to be happy or sad at the fact it appears that what I was expecting has indeed happened. The discussion that started on the forum (of which most but not all got copied into the support pages) died the expected death on the support pages with pretty much all the contributors choosing to take no further part. The Sellaband representative appears to have started up further threads since with the aim of getting people talking, only to have been met with the same level of tumbleweed. I've decided to continue to watch what (if anything) happens on those support pages until next year before scaling back fully as a result, but tbh I'm not expecting any change from the current situation. Obviously the lesson that if you want communication, the last thing you should be doing is shutting the place where you're getting it didn't sink in. And now that the horse has bolted it'll be too late to shut the gate in the slim event the change gets reversed. i.e. once people are gone, they won't be coming back later to communicate.

Interestingly the current top 2 artists on the site were both due to be deleted in January through having been on the site a year. Neither had even raised even half their budget, until recently when Guru Groove Foundation halved the amount they were looking to raise a few days ago, meaning they had about 3% of budget to go and hence that reduced target has now been reached (pending the 14day cooling off period after a budget change). I'll be interested to see what happens with the other artist, who was only looking to raise the minimum 3000 euro budget anyway.

Slowbizz
The aim of this new site is to bring artists to play in the comfort of your own living room. Or indeed shed, barn or whatever else you have available. Artists wanting to sign up to the network need to convince a minimum of 100 different existing fans to vouch for them to be considered for inclusion. Potential hosts apparently also go through some kind of vetting process before inclusion on the site. Slowbizz then aims to help the artist set up a tour between a number of these hosts (a figure of a minimum of 20 is quoted).

On the host side of the equation, each host is expected to pay the artist a fixed fee for the performance, arrange (and presumably pay for if necessary) accommodation and a meal for the artist and provide either transport to their next venue (if close enough) or a sum of money in lieu of that. They're also expected to be able to come up with a minimum of 10 attendees for the performance, but they are not expected to charge them for attending. i.e. it's expected the host will fill their venue with their own family/friends.

On the artist side of the equation, the artist pays Slowbizz a fixed fee for arranging the tour and an additional fee per venue visited. They're free to sell any merchandise or receive donations at the performance itself as extra income over the fee they'll receive from the host.

Sounds like a great way to listen to artists if you're a music lover, doesn't it? And if you're an artist it sounds like a very interesting way to get yourself some new fans, doesn't it? But whilst I see potential there, I also see a number of traps for the unwary. One of which could even make artists lose some of their existing fans. So let's take a closer look.

There seem to actually be quite a lot of costs for potential hosts. The fee you pay the artist is $205, which is quite a chunk of money on its own but certainly far from unreasonable if you compare it to some of the prices top-name artists charge just for one concert ticket. But as you're paying for the artist accommodation and will need to not only feed the artist, but your roomful of guests as well, you've essentially got a party to cater for and that's certainly not going to come free. Add to that the potential for a 100 mile round trip to deliver the artist to their next venue (or money instead) and I'm willing to bet the price for just one concert will actually cost a host more in the region of $500 once you take everything into account. Again, not necessarily unreasonable, but it does make it more of a special occasion thing rather than something you'd want to do on a regular basis unless you're rich. And that makes me wonder. When it comes down to it, how many people would invite any old random artist to play at that kind of cost level? Wouldn't it be more likely they were already fans of the artist?

And let's say the invite is for a special occasion (e.g. someone's birthday). If there isn't a big fan of the artist there, then there's a danger the artist becomes "background music" or constantly asked to play cover versions rather than their own songs, rather than the intimate experience they might have been expecting. There is room for some serious disappointment here if you're an artist that thrives on the intimacy and interaction when people genuinely pay attention to your music.

Slowbizz actually do a calculation on their site showing how much money artists could make from a 20 date tour. But however nice those numbers might look, there's actually a big howling gap in the equation. Essentially, if the host doesn't transport the artist to their next venue, then the artist is going to have to cover the cost of that themselves. Stop and think about it. Even if your venues are grouped fairly close, it's likely you're still going to have to get to the first one and find your way back from the last one. Now start thinking about playing on a different continent from the one you live on. How much are the flights going to cost? Oh and don't forget the transportation/insurance for any instruments too. Bet you those attractive looking numbers are starting to look less attractive the further you go from your normal area. And that's a problem because why would you pay someone else to find you gig dates in the area you already use?

And now for the real potential kick in the teeth. Let's assume for a moment that you CAN afford to make a tour in a completely different country or continent work financially. And given our internet era, let's assume you've already got fans in that area (one of the reasons you want to play there, after all?). Consider what happens if these fans cannot afford the fee to host or do not have a suitable venue in which to host, but would be prepared to pay a fee to see you perform. That means not only is your host a non-fan, they may well have no connection to one of your existing fans as well. The problem is easily identified once you re-read this statement from the Slowbizz website

The events are in principle only open to your close network of family members and friends. We don't want strangers to invite themselves into the intimacy of your own home

Seen the problem yet? Let me enlighten you. You have (potentially big) fans who have not had the chance to see you perform before because it's the first time you've come to their area and you're now performing just a few miles down the road from them. They might even have already been supporting you for many years. But irrespective of whether or not they could actually attend on the day, they're essentially not even invited, because they don't know the host (and vice versa). Congratulations, I'm willing to bet that at best you've just upset them, and at worst you might even have lost them, and there's no guarantee you'll pick up any new ones from your unknown host anyway. Is this something you seriously want to risk?

And consider the alternative if all your hosts are existing fans (or connected with existing fans). If the financials say you can make this work when you're paying Slowbizz a fee, then why the heck would you be using a middleman anyway? If you can sort something out with your fans, then you get more money and/or they pay less for a great experience when you do it direct. And because they share a connection with you, it's likely your existing fans have also formed some connections between each other even if they've never met before. It's more likely an existing fan would welcome another fan into their home even if the two were essentially strangers, compared to a host who isn't a fan inviting one of your existing fans in.

But these are perhaps two extremes and the real potential lies in a mix of concert hosts between fan and non-fan. Even here, although I can see potential, the jury is out because the scales just look wrong. On the one hand, Slowbizz are currently looking to attract hosts more than they are looking to attract artists, which is good. But on the other they are basically looking to attract 1000 hosts in a year. That's 1000 venues worldwide in one year's time. Now think...what's the average distance between those venues going to be, given we are talking worldwide? Want to revisit my earlier question on travel costs you might have to pay as an artist, given that knowledge?

For me the reality would seem to be that although some pockets of venues may spring up, there is no guarantee these will be somewhere useful to you. To create the host network the company is talking about is going to take way more than a year for it to be of benefit to all but a handful of artists. Start thinking more like five years from now. Or even better ten or more before you could usefully use it for a tour. And even then, that's assuming there are enough people who are interested in hosting concerts on a regular basis (particularly for artists they don't know) once they realise the true costs of doing so. It's an idea worth keeping an eye on for sure, but I'm far from convinced it can work in practice. I think it just as likely if not more likely we'll see some artists working out how to tour using their own fanbase directly before this idea has the chance to grow any real usefulness.

Shirtify
Welcome to a site for the music lover which combines the idea of music streaming with what can best be described as a "t-shirt of the month" club. Basically, in exchange for a monthly fee, the site keeps track of the music you've been listening to on your preferred streaming service and then sends you a shirt from one of your most-played artists over that period. It's also possible to buy a month or 3 month package for this e.g. as a present for someone else. The obvious downside for music fans is the fact they will currently only ship to addresses in the USA and Canada and have no current plans to expand.

As a music lover, this looks like quite an interesting idea, mostly due to the surprise factor (i.e. you don't actually know which artist you'll be getting a shirt from) and the fact it does put some money in the pocket of an artist you wouldn't necessarily buy from unless you went to one of their gigs. However it is also something which has its downside once you look at it with the eyes of an artist.

Shirtify say they pay the artist full retail price for the shirt, which basically means their service is coming at a premium i.e. I find it hard to believe they would offer this service for free, hence must be keeping whatever the difference in price between the shirt and the monthly fee they charge as their fee. If bought direct from the individual artists, it wouldn't surprise me if you could effectively get an extra shirt for free by going direct over the course of a year (i.e. shirts from 13 different artists instead of 12 for the same price) as a result. And therein lies a potential problem, because I'm willing to bet that very few music fans would stop and think about that fact, and that actually they're taking money out of artists pockets as a whole and giving it to a middleman instead. I know I for one was originally caught up in the idea and that thought didn't occur to me until I stopped to think more deeply about it, so I find myself wondering just how great an idea it really is, particularly given the monthly cost anyway.

And Finally
It looks like this will be pretty much the last post from me before the year end. If you're lucky I guess you might land up seeing one more, but if not, it's likely the next post will be my annual review of the year one, which you can expect to appear some time over the Christmas/New Year period as usual. As well as my favourite artists/songs of the year, this time I'll be following up on the statement I made in last year's review of the year post by revealing whether Matthew Ebel has managed the one thing I was looking for to make me declare "Entourage for life", as well as a couple of interesting stories that happened this year that I haven't told you about. Stay tuned, you know you won't want to miss this one.

The final nail?

Well I had been planning to release a different special post, but events of recent days have caused me to postpone that in favour of this one instead.

On the one hand, you could say it's something that was expected months ago and on the other you could say it should have happened months ago, but Sellaband recently made the announcement they are shutting down the forum on their site "soon". Whether this means some time next week, or whether the end of the year is unclear, but either way it seems likely it will happen before 2012.

Whilst some may claim it is no great loss, due to nothing much constructive happening in there for months, the reality remains that a lot of the reason for this is that Sellaband themselves are responsible by not taking part on their own platform, but preferring to spend their time promoting Facebook instead.

They've been holding competitions and polls (amongst other things) over there for months now and therefore directing traffic away from their own website, rather than following the mantra that the more sensible have been trying to instill on people out there. You have no idea how long the popularity of another website is going to last (look what happened with Myspace when Facebook came along), or even whether it will continue to contain features you want, so avoid having to start over from scratch again and realise that all other websites should only be signposts pointing to your own website It's a scary thought that they seem to be trying to encourage the exact opposite.

Scariest of all though is the impression left by the person announcing the closure of the forum. Particularly when you consider what has happened to me over the past couple of weeks.

It started quite simply with Pledge Music following me on Twitter. I hadn't followed them. (I have in fact never even followed Sellaband on Twitter - call it a case of being deliberate to see if/when/what would happen). Whether Pledge picked me out from the description I have there ("searching for new music"), whether they followed me from this blog or whether it was some other way, I have no idea. Whatever the reason, it prompted me to take a look at their Twitter feed.

In many respects it's rather spammy, given the frequency of the "x made a project update" and "y has reached z% of their target" messages, but it does at least suggest there's a lot more happening that the rather limp updating Sellaband have (and indeed had back when the site was a lot more active). I very nearly didn't follow back as a result of the seeming spamfest, but something in the feed caught my eye.

I spotted a conversation which was started by someone mentioning they'd seen a particular artist was fundraising on Pledge and would have supported them if they'd received the previous album (by a different artist) that they had funded on Pledge. Someone from Pledge tweeted back asking what the missing album was and was given the answer along with the fact they'd emailed about it months ago and were told it would be looked into, but nothing had ever happened.

And so time to consider what I found so scary in the Sellaband thread about the forum closure. When confronted with the suggestion that Sellaband should get involved with protecting believers, the question came back "How do you think we can set up a lawsuit against an artist?" along with the suggestion that perhaps believers should check out artists themselves before spending any money.

Eh? Really?? As I've said in the past, people go to a middleman for the trust aspect, otherwise there's no point. To see what has been put in the thread by Sellaband smacks of amateur idiots at best.

Compare by going back to the Pledge user whose last tweet on the subject read

"I'm back on the @PledgeMusic bandwagon after they fixed my Damnwells CD snafu AND tossed in a gift. Excellent!"

That tweet in turn brought another problem with a missing CD for someone else out. The speed and manner in which both problems appear to have been addressed once it was clear they had grabbed the attention of someone is noticeable by following the relevant tweets.

The net result of what I've seen recently is that Sellaband have now convinced me they have absolutely no idea what they are doing. As of the forum closure, I'll only be checking in there once in a while to deal with any money. I'd say there's now a 98% chance I won't be spending money there again, so checking the revenue balance will be my only reason to log in unless Sellaband themselves can get my attention in a positive enough way otherwise (and given how infrequently the balance gets updated, my logins will follow suit).

In contrast, Pledge have gained a few points on the trust meter. Whilst I won't be spending money there in the near future, there is now a chance I might consider spending money on an artist I haven't heard of before on their site (despite the fact I don't really like the T&C of their site either for the seeming lack of protection it gives). I'm now officially watching their site more closely than Sellaband as a result of what has happened recently, so we'll see what happens and whether the forum closure does indeed prove to be the final nail in the Sellaband coffin.

Discoveries and disappointments

If you already know about my rating system then skip on down to the next header, otherwise here's the lowdown

The rating system
The rating system I use for this blog is somewhat unique. It's not a reflection of how much I like the music itself as much as it is of how far I am along the process of conversion from consumer to fan. So, over time you may well see some of these ratings go up if I mention an artist again. And indeed go down, as musical changes of direction or failure to keep my interest are just some of the reasons that may affect a rating.


Congratulations, you've made a temporary blip of interest on my radar. Now how are you going to keep it?


I've seen enough of you to recognise and remember you, but I'm undecided so I'm not really following you (yet). I may make a spur of the moment decision to check in on what you're up to once in a while, but even that's no guarantee. May also apply to artists I am aware of, but whose music I've decided I don't have enough interest in to want to pursue further based on what I've heard.


I'm liking what I hear in general, but I still wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I will be wandering past your site occasionally, and there is something like a 50% chance I'll be buying your next offering once I find out about it, providing I have the money available.


Now I am a fan, so the chances are I'll be past your site once every month or two at least. There's a 90%+ chance your next offering is already sold, and occasionally I might even be going for something more than the basic package (if you have one)


Reserved for very few, this is about as close to internet stalker as you can get. I am actively watching because I do not want to miss your next release date, tour in my area etc. etc. You may not always be aware of the fact I'm looking over your shoulder to see what you're up to, but trust me, I'm there on a weekly if not more like a daily basis. Depending on how you tend to release your information, I may well be signed to your mailing list as well.

What I've been looking at
The past month or so seems to have been dominated by a mix of discoveries and disappointments.

Cheryl from the Jade Diary tweeted about a video by an artist I hadn't heard of before, and they seem to be one well worth following up on to listen to more of.
Lovers Electric are from Australia and I'm actually pretty willing to bet that if you like listening to Jade Diary, you'll enjoy this duo too.

Despite having an album out with his sideproject less than 6 months ago, it seems Brad Cox is still in full music writing form. An additional track "We Light the Way" has been posted on the We Love the Underground Soundcloud page. In addition to that the new Skitzo Calypso album called "Ghosts" already has a release date early in the New Year. It looks like their website is undergoing a revamp to go with this as there's currently only a frontpage with a countdown timer available.

There's nothing quite like political issues to get artists out in force. The "Occupy Wall Street" movement which has since spread to other cities across the globe has prodded a few of the artists I follow into musical action. Most notable amongst these is
Matthew Ebel, who has made 3 songs he already had regarding monetary inequality downloadable for free from his website homepage. Look for the scrolling banner at the top of the page, if you want to get hold of a copy of "They got the money", "It's raining bankers" and "Not our bed".

Meanwhile Simon Scardanelli's new band Dr Scardo is releasing its first single and it's also along the same lines. Check out the video for "Wall Street Hustle" below - the images in it really say it all.



And of course the lineup wouldn't be complete with some Mysti Mayhem thrown into the mix. Here's a video from her on the subject.



Getonic is a new service which allows artists to sell music direct from their facebook page. OK, you might think that's nothing new, but the twist here is that rather than using a credit card, or even a service such as Paypal, this one allows you to buy using your mobile phone. I haven't looked into the full details behind this one yet, but it seems that the purchase gets added as an item on your mobile phone bill. Prices vary slightly from country to country, but a track cost of $1.50 is said to generate 64 cents of revenue for the artist once the phone charges and Getonic's admin fee are taken into account.

I've started listening to some more of the Popes of Chilitown since originally spotting them on Strummerville, but so far I'm feeling a bit disappointed compared to the track that originally got my attention and I'm starting to think I'm not going to develop any kind of interest. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, but I've a suspicion I'm finding them a bit too weak lyrically.

Also on the disappointments side there's still no sign of the Natalia Safran album that was supposedly being printed a couple of months ago. In just a few days she'll reach the milestone of having raised her money on Sellaband for this album three years ago.
Lori Greco doesn't seem to be doing much better on this front either, as she's already passed the 2 year mark since raising her money, though at least she is keeping people a lot more informed of what is going on than Natalia has been. The latest news from Lori is that there's a good chance her album won't be released until next year now. And as for Radio Orange - they were announcing on their page more than a year ago that all that was left was some artwork but haven't been seen since, meaning they're also already well past the 2 year mark since they raised their funds on Sellaband. If Sellaband thinks they're going to persuade people to spend money on the site when they've got problems like this still hanging around they must be crazy, yet so far they've done sweet FA in terms of getting things sorted or even explaining to believers what's causing the delay.

And finally, whilst not totally unexpected, I was also sorry to hear of the death of Ray Baisden. As one of the few believers from the early days of Sellaband who was both a part of the community and passionate about music, he'll be missed by both other believers and artists alike.

Music and gaming

If you already know about my rating system then skip on down to the next header, otherwise here's the lowdown.

The rating system
The rating system I use for this blog is somewhat unique. It's not a reflection of how much I like the music itself as much as it is of how far I am along the process of conversion from consumer to fan. So, over time you may well see some of these ratings go up if I mention an artist again. And indeed go down, as musical changes of direction or failure to keep my interest are just some of the reasons that may affect a rating.


Congratulations, you've made a temporary blip of interest on my radar. Now how are you going to keep it?


I've seen enough of you to recognise and remember you, but I'm undecided so I'm not really following you (yet). I may make a spur of the moment decision to check in on what you're up to once in a while, but even that's no guarantee. May also apply to artists I am aware of, but whose music I've decided I don't have enough interest in to want to pursue further based on what I've heard.


I'm liking what I hear in general, but I still wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I will be wandering past your site occasionally, and there is something like a 50% chance I'll be buying your next offering once I find out about it, providing I have the money available.


Now I am a fan, so the chances are I'll be past your site once every month or two at least. There's a 90%+ chance your next offering is already sold, and occasionally I might even be going for something more than the basic package (if you have one)


Reserved for very few, this is about as close to internet stalker as you can get. I am actively watching because I do not want to miss your next release date, tour in my area etc. etc. You may not always be aware of the fact I'm looking over your shoulder to see what you're up to, but trust me, I'm there on a weekly if not more like a daily basis. Depending on how you tend to release your information, I may well be signed to your mailing list as well.

What I've been looking at
Do you like classical music? Instrumental piano? And do you want some free music? If so, then now is your chance to get hold of one song a week all the way up to Christmas from probably one of the most relaxing artists I've had chance to discover on my travels. Fabrizio Paterlini has started an experiment on his Soundcloud page and you can download the results of it for free every week. The link I've given you is to the first week's offering, where he also explains exactly what is behind the idea and what you're likely to be hearing.

Looks like the training of the Last FM music player I've been doing may be mostly on hold for a bit. As I've already said, I'm finding the process rather "hands-on" and I'm currently using the time I've been spending training it to try and dust off my old first person shooter gaming reflexes. And having spent most of the past 5 or so years playing World of Warcraft instead, I can honestly say I'm well out of practice if my first few hours are anything to go by. But if you're wondering why I'm talking about gaming in a music blog, then I should explain it has all come about as a result of Matthew Ebel's latest way to connect with fans. Seems that a number of them are, like me, computer gamers. And so he's started up a special group for those who have one of his VIP or higher subscriptions to be able to meet online and play computer games with or against each other. What exactly will be played is as yet unclear as he's only just announced it, but it's something I'm excited about as the preferred gaming genre seems to be how I started back in University rather a long time ago and what I used to get together with my husband and a group of friends to play in the local village hall before the Internet became just as good an option. It'll be good to get back into the swing of things and who knows, maybe even make a few friends in the process.

Remember GD Allan who was on Sellaband, originally as a solo project and then later as his collaboration Broken Sun? Seems the Aussie has taken his young family and moved to America now. He's start blogging about the move, music and what else he's up to now over here. If you haven't heard any of his music before, you'll also find a lot of tracks to listen to in the same place and he's also started up a Twitter account, so if you are one of the ones who deserted Sellaband long back but are still following my blog, I'm sure he'd appreciate a follow if you were one of the ones who liked his music.

Epyllion are one of the Sellaband artists who have still been dropping by the forum, although the site has been getting quieter and quieter recently in terms of the old believer base logging in. They've just released another track for free called "Lame". You'll find the details on Youtube and I'd describe the offering as catchy college rock. No idea about the "live" front, but on the "recorded/musical" side they do seem to be getting both better and more interesting if the releases since they released their Sellaband album are anything to go by.

Pre-orders for Nemesea's new album "The Quiet Revolution" are now open. You can get it here.

I haven't just been digging around after artists recently, I've also been having a look at a few sites which offer tools for artists.

Vibedeck
This site allows any artist with a Paypal account to sell music directly to fans and get the money straight into their account without using a middleman. You can sell from the Vibedeck site itself or link it to your Facebook, Soundcloud or even a Youtube profile. A "tweet in exchange for a track" option is also possible, so the possibilities for an Indie artist are varied. At the moment Vibedeck takes no money from the purchase, so it's unclear how they will be able to sustain themselves if they take off in any big way. Paypal fees may be payable but it depends on how much you're charging and what options you have set up in your paypal account. Typically you'll see 90 cents in your Paypal account if you sell a track for a dollar, but a more comprehensive guide can be found in Vibedeck's blog. I can't find any obvious drawbacks at the moment and I know at least one artist who has used the site successfully as well, so this is looking like an awesome deal at present. I'd say use it and enjoy it while it lasts.

Fantrail
With so many smartphones coming on the market, the app market is going crazy. One such app currently in Beta which aims to give a way for artists and fans to connect more closely is Fantrail. The basic idea behind it is that any fan who has a smartphone with your app installed will basically be able to check their mobile to see your latest updates without having to visit all of your social media profiles to get the information. They can also buy music via their phone and see any gigs in their area amongst other things. As an artist you are able to see how often each fan does a "positive" action, like buying a track using the app, tweeting about you to their friends etc. and you can then even send them a voicemail message or decide on other ways of thanking the fans who are most active in this way. It's also possible to target mails etc. according to fan location if you wish. That way, a fan halfway across the world isn't going to get spammed about the gig in your hometown next week.

So whilst on the surface this looks like a great and modern way to connect, there are a number of things I really don't like the look of once I dive a little deeper into the site and its T&C. The first and most obvious one is the fact you're pretty much forced to have a facebook login/account to stop it from popping up prompts to log into Facebook, making it an immediate turn-off for someone like me who doesn't use Facebook and has no intention of doing so. In addition it also comes across as a potential spamfest once you do, as users seem to be "encouraged" to have whatever they do automatically tweeted or posted to their facebook profile etc. For one, I really wouldn't want to be spewing out stuff to everyone with a whole load of "I liked this" or "I bought this" or... well you get the drift.

Call me old-fashioned, but another thing I really don't want to see is a whole load of ads being thrown at me when I access an application. The T&C of the site specifically state that ads may be included, so until I actually see how this works in practice and what sort of ads come up I'm reserving judgement on that score. Wouldn't have thought the average artist would be too impressed either if their fans are being showered in advertising from "their" application, particularly if it were to be promoting/tempting people away to another random artist instead.

I also have large privacy concerns in general about the site. For instance the fact that everything is "opt-out" rather than "opt-in", meaning ALL of your information will be public by default rather than you choosing what information you want to share and who you want to share it with (there are, however, settings you can change). I'm also not too impressed with the Rights section in the Artists Terms of Service. Whilst this states you're authorising them to make your content available to the rest of the world but you still own the rights to your content, it also states you're granting them a license to adapt or modify any content you submit (and also includes any other party they sub-license to) without them making payment to you. Confusing and looks like it could lead to some trouble in the right set of circumstances.

So on this one at least I'll keep an open mind, but I'm not feeling as impressed as I feel I ought to be by such a forward-looking service.

Diving into Last FM

So I've started the training process of Last FM's radio and at time of writing I'm just over a month into the process with around 400 artists added to my library and around 2000 tracks played. And I've still got an awful lot more artists to add. Unfortunately, as I stated in my extremely long post on the blog relaunch, the radio player has got a number of issues with someone like me.

Last FM appears to be set up for the addicted teen rather than the long time music lover. What this basically means is that as soon as you "love" one track the system seems intent on playing it over and over and over again and not offering you anything else by that artist. Likewise it's very keen on playing the same artist a lot and ignoring others in your library if left to its own devices. As a result, someone like me who listens to a huge range of artists stretching back over around a 60 year period (that's something like 20 years older than me if you were wondering) is faced with a lot of work to get it to play artists in the first place and to "tune it" to play a much wider variety of tracks whilst still keeping some idea of the artists and tracks that are genuine favourites. If you have a narrow genre of music and/or a narrow range of artists you listen to, there's a good chance it would work well on its own, but the wider your tastes, the more annoying things can get.

It could be argued that a lot of the problem might go away were I to download the scrobbler and use that for the training process, but as I've stated before the one thing I don't want is to have to download additional software to listen to music.

There are also some more general problems though. As well as the obvious one that it appears not all the artists I listen to have music on the site, there's also the problem that artists with the same name share the same page. And it seems there's no easy way to get the artist you want and get rid of tracks from the artists of the same name that you might not. Seems you have to wait for a track to appear on the player and then ban it. Which unfortunately also seems to make that artist less likely to play in general, hence upsetting the training process. Argh!

Even more.... interesting... are some of the really weird tracks you can come across. Usually because the track being played does not necessarily match up with the album it claims to be from, or because it's the right track but not the claimed artist. As just a few examples, Robbie Williams well-known track "Angels" has been replaced with a pan pipes instrumental version of the same, the Flanders and Swann classic "The Hippopotamus Song" is being sung by some opera singer I don't recognise rather than the duo themselves and if you're not a fan of Howard Jones, then the version of "Things Can Only Get Better" being played will come as a bit of a culture shock, as it comes from his 25th Anniversary concert rather than the 80s version you probably remember and that it's claiming to be.

I've started the training process with a combination of artists I tend to listen to on a regular basis and am working back pretty much chronologically from present day on top of that, letting it pick up some artists naturally from other key ones on the way. As a result it's actually got quite good already at understanding what I listen to from Finland and I've picked up on some artists I haven't listened to much before (or even at all) as a result.

Apart from that, most of my other discoveries to date have come about as a result of me dipping into particular artist radios to force artists to play as part of the training process. So without further ado, it's time to introduce you to what I think are some of the best discoveries I've made through this site to date.

Northern Kings
I think Sellaband must have distracted me too much from the Finnish artist discovery I was going through when I first found it, as I really ought to have picked up on this artist before now. Not exactly an artist in their own right, this is a supergroup formed of 4 lead singers from some very well known metal bands in Finland. And interestingly I listen to all except one of those bands on a regular basis, so this now gives me more incentive to go check out the "missing" one too. Even more interestingly, they play no original music but only metal covers of well known songs. So if you ever wondered what the metal version of Lionel Richie's "Hello" sounds like, or "My Way" (as popularised by Frank Sinatra), or even Kylie Minogue's "I Should Be So Lucky", then this is a great place to stop off. Some of the covers can best be described as strange, and this is definitely one of those cases where you'll either love or hate what you hear. My personal favourite so far is their cover of ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down", but you'll easily find most of the large selection of covers they've done on Youtube.

The Giant Leap
Not an easy artist to find information on, as their website lacks a lot of the interactivity of a modern artist site and only contains snippets rather than full blown songs. What I can tell you at the moment is that they play fairly mainstream, listenable rock, but to find much over and above their biography and discography it looks like I'm going to need to go on an internet hunt. To be brutally honest Last FM is as good, if not better, than their own website for information and that has to be a bad thing. You'd be expecting Last FM to be driving traffic to their website for further information, yet there's pretty much nothing extra over there to be had.

Dark Moor
For those who like their male fronted heavy/symphonic metal along the lines of artists like Stratovarius, Hammerfall, Helloween etc. then this artist from Spain should be right up your street. You'll find a lot of live videos on their website, but sadly it seems you'll need to go elsewhere (e.g. Last FM) if you want to hear recorded versions of tracks.

Fox Amoore
If you like instrumental soundtracks, orchestral or new age music then this appears to be a hidden indie gem. Both restful and interesting at the same time, this is an excellent choice if you want some background music to listen to while you work. There are quite a few tracks to be discovered and it's well worth stopping off at both his Youtube profile and his Myspace page to get an even better idea of what he's created to date. He's also already written some game soundtracks as well as covers of some others.

Ikodo Moonstrife
At first glance it might be easy to dismiss this one as a hobbyist, given they've never actually performed for anyone else, but with a recorded quality higher than many indie artists out there, this is well worth a listen for the more professional sound alone. Once again an instrumental artist, only this time in the electronic/trance fields, I actually think there's some good material here and I'd be interested to see if they ever try to make it out of the hobby stage as a result.

Misha Williams
Here's one for those of you who like the ladies. This young singer-songwriter has already supported more well-known names such as "Girls Aloud" with her similar blend of up-tempo catchy pop/rock tunes. Given her age, this could well be an artist to watch for the future.

The Ditty Bops
A little hard to describe this duo of ladies, other than the fact they seem to write folk tunes which are heavily influenced by music hall themes of the 1920s onwards. The results are surprisingly catchy and extremely interesting lyrically. Well worth checking out if you want to listen to something that little bit different.

As to what's next on the Last FM front, I'm still expecting the training process to take until at least Christmas at the rate I'm going, so expect quite a few changes in artist order, particularly away from the first page or two as well as a lot of new additions if you do stop by before then. I might find a few more new artists during the training to tell you about later, but I'm not really expecting to at this point, because I'm still taking a mostly hands-on approach rather than letting it play whatever it wants.

So before I go for now, here's one final interesting little aside I found out from the age-gender chart in the experimental area of Last FM. To give you a brief description, for any artist, the average age of their listeners is calculated along with the ratio of males to females within that number and this value can then be plotted on a chart of age vs. gender. If given a Last FM user id, the software then takes the most popular artists from that user's profile (currently can select up to 90 artists) and calculates a point on the chart to represent the user. And I've found my own chart very interesting reading indeed.

Age wise it reckons I correspond to (approx) a 25yr old for musical taste, and I'm also fairly gender neutral when it comes to my artist choices i.e. I listen to artists males mostly listen to about as much as artists females mostly listen to. Both these things are pretty much what I was expecting to find, but the interesting part then comes when my top artists are added into the chart. You see, whilst it seems I listen to artists that males of pretty much any average age listen to, when it comes to artists that females mostly listen to, it seems I'm stuck firmly with the teenage market as there's virtually nothing in the female section of the chart above about an average age of 25, even when I expand it to the maximum number of artists the chart currently covers. The few artists I do have on the female side of the divide up there are generally all pretty close to the gender neutral line. Whether this means there aren't that many older female users of Last FM or whether there are but I just don't share any of their tastes in music is something I'm still trying to work out. Have I really been working with males too long and hence picked up more on their music tastes as a result? What does the average 25+ female listen to musically anyway? Any suggestions are more than welcome.

Initial meanderings

Welcome to the first of what is going to form the main theme for my blog posts from now on. This is where I'm going to take you more inside the process I go through when discovering new music to show you just how difficult it is to create a fan. And even if you succeed, how difficult it is to keep them. This process is something which largely remains hidden from the artist - it's often only as a person starts to approach the 4th level of the rating system I have that an artist stands any chance of becoming aware there's an interested person, rather than just another number in the list of album sales.

Apart from this rather long initial post, the nature of the music discovery beast means that I can go through extremely quiet periods and then some very busy ones. As a result, I probably won't be posting on a regular schedule, but you'll likely get shorter and more frequent posts on average, compared to the monthly posting schedule I've used in the past.

The rating system
The rating system I'm using for this is somewhat unique. It's not a reflection of how much I like the music itself as much as it is of how far I am along the process of conversion from consumer to fan. So, over time you may well see some of these ratings go up if I mention an artist again. And indeed go down, as musical changes of direction or failure to keep my interest are just some of the reasons that may affect a rating.


Congratulations, you've made a temporary blip of interest on my radar. Now how are you going to keep it?


I've seen enough of you to recognise and remember you, but I'm undecided so I'm not really following you (yet). I may make a spur of the moment decision to check in on what you're up to once in a while, but even that's no guarantee. May also apply to artists I am aware of, but whose music I've decided I don't have enough interest in to want to pursue further based on what I've heard.


I'm liking what I hear in general, but I still wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I will be wandering past your site occasionally, and there is something like a 50% chance I'll be buying your next offering once I find out about it, providing I have the money available.


Now I am a fan, so the chances are I'll be past your site once every month or two at least. There's a 90%+ chance your next offering is already sold, and occasionally I might even be going for something more than the basic package (if you have one)


Reserved for very few, this is about as close to internet stalker as you can get. I am actively watching because I do not want to miss your next release date, tour in my area etc. etc. You may not always be aware of the fact I'm looking over your shoulder to see what you're up to, but trust me, I'm there on a weekly if not more like a daily basis. Depending on how you tend to release your information, I may well be signed to your mailing list as well.

Where I've been
Traditionally the first couple of months after Christmas is often when I take a look at a number of artists I haven't been in touch with for a while to see what they're up to. I don't often go out looking for new music in this period - rather anything out there tends to find me.

One place I really hadn't been for a long while was to visit L-60, and I'd been feeling really guilty about it because Olli is one of those really open and friendly artists who absolutely loves meeting and talking to people and getting to know them. Even if you're a complete stranger. That's a fan creator. Anyway, I had a bit of a shock when I got there because the band has split up. Well... sort of... What's actually happened is that a second band Fivestar Prophet has been created with the 4 members from L-60, plus a new guitarist. And their sound seems to have gone heavier and less mainstream. And quite a lot of both of those. There are only three tracks currently available to listen to online, and as a result I have to admit I'm not quite sure what I think of this new direction. So i'm still considering whether or not to add the album they just released to the queue to buy or not.

Nemesea are getting ready to release their third studio album entitled TQR (The Quiet Revolution). Amongst the guests appearing on the album are a couple of the guys from Bulletproof Messenger, which has only served to make me keep even more of an eye on the progress of the album.

It's only taken 25 years, but Warner have finally let go of the masters for Howard Jones. As a result he's had the lot remastered and the results are now available to buy from his own site.

It seems I wasn't the only one slightly disappointed by Francis Rodino's EP release in comparison to the quality of his album (Remember what I said last year?). Seems that Francis himself actually had similar feelings, as he has subsequently had the lot remastered and released for free to all his mailing list subscribers.

Matthew Ebel is continuing work on "The Lives of Dexter Peterson" (the project I told you about last year). So far, subscribers have been treated to a full early draft copy of the book as well as sketches from the graphic novel and songs from the album as they're being developed. Matthew has even already played one of the songs "The Last Pirate" on a couple of his Ustream shows. The release date for the project was originally set for 17th September 2011 to coincide with his annual fan meetup, but he's recently admitted that it looks like it won't be ready in time. A new date has yet to be mentioned, so I'm expecting the meetup will provide more info on that score. This means he will indeed exceed a year since he originally announced the idea ( as I suspected in this post), but given the complexity of the project and the fact we're hopefully only talking a couple of months, this can still only put a large number of artists on Sellaband to shame, seeing as they can't seem to make just an album in a year after reaching target, despite having had all the fundraising time on top in order to get prepared. (But more about those Sellaband artists later). In the meantime, there's an opportunity to win a free download of the album and novella on its release, by entering the competition he currently has running here. It's open to anyone, not just his subscribers, so why not check it out? You may also be interested to know you can also listen to one of the tracks from the album "I wish I were" in full in its pre-mastered version by visiting this page.

Interest grabbers
Here's the people that have caught my attention without me going looking for them.

In the course of trying to catch up with people I haven't been near for a while, I usually find myself on some interesting diversions. One such discovery is Charetta. If you like strong female vocals in your rock and metal, this is definitely worth a look. As to how I landed up finding their website, well some of you should recognise a familiar name in their lineup. I'd actually started off looking for information on Conflict in the Sky, seeing as their website is way out of date (last updated middle of 2010), and it turns out Chris from there is now playing guitar in this band.

Gayle Skidmore was one of the artists I had money in on Sellaband when the site went bankrupt. Due to the terms and conditions the site came back up with and the fact that she was nowhere near target at the time (none of the artists I had money in were) I pulled my cash. However she was subsequently one of the first to finish raising budget and also release after this, and it just so happens you can listen to the entire thing here on bandcamp. Having spotted the announcement of this and listened to it, she has officially become the first (and so far only) artist on Sellaband where I genuinely wish I'd stayed put, as I would rate this well within the top half of all the albums I've received from Sellaband artists. You could say I have a situation I need to put right here.

I spotted Kris Searle as a result of his Sellaband promotional video. There was a time on Sellaband not so long back where not only would believers have jumped on this, but it would have also garnered attention in the Tribune as well as a good example of a pro-active artist. So you could say this is an artist which clearly demonstrates just how much things have changed on Sellaband, and why it has become a site where you raise money with your existing fans alone, as the vast majority of the ordinary music lovers have given up on the place and certainly won't be tempted by the unrealistic sales revenue he seems to be touting - the knowledge of what has happened with existing artists is well known. Whilst a lot of his music isn't something I'd listen to, it's clear from what I've heard on my travels, there's actually quite a decent songwriter lurking underneath. From a musical point of view it's therefore a shame to see the complete ghost town of interest in him.

My interest in Tim Bennett has increased quite a lot recently. Not only has his album been proving to be one of my favourites, the fact he has continued to keep his Sellaband page updated with what he's doing, despite the seeming lack of interest in the site these days is something which hasn't escaped me. As a result, it's looking likely I may land up following him a little more closely than some of the other artists I initially found on Sellaband.

It had to happen eventually that one of the Finnish artists I already both knew and listened to would sign up on Sellaband. I already own all four Naked albums and they are one of the artists where I usually buy direct from Finland as no UK option is available. So although I already own the albums and although I am not currently planning to buy any parts on Sellaband due to the T&C, I obviously had a great interest in how they'd do. Indeed had I been buying parts, I'd almost certainly have supported them despite already owning the album they were offering. But a couple of weeks later I discovered they were also on Pledge Music trying to fund the same project with the same incentives and they were offering them at a much cheaper price over there. When combined with the fact I know Sellaband lock money into their site, this makes me even angrier about the situation. I wouldn't want to be a fan who funds them on Sellaband only to find out that not only were the incentives offered cheaper elsewhere but that they also couldn't remove their money from Sellaband to get the better deal once they found this out. I think it's fair to say that this is one artist where I'll probably still buy albums after they are released (I do like the music after all), but given what I've seen I definitely won't be funding any project of theirs in advance that I come across either now or in the future.

As a result I also think that fan-funding sites should be insisting on a certain amount of exclusivity within their T&C in order to avoid getting a bad name, rather than the existing practice where the same project can be signed up in as many places as you like at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with artists trying out different sites. I just think they shouldn't be trying to fund the exact same thing at the exact same time from the general public in more than one place.

Scott Bull was another Sellaband signup that managed to grab some of my attention, though for reasons very different to his music. I get the impression he thought the site was something very different to what it currently is, given his arrival in a blaze of forum postings and the circumstances surrounding his departure. Given the lack of his own believers signing up, it certainly gave the impression he was expecting existing people on the site to be falling over themselves to fund him if he made himself unmissable. Unfortunately the "spam the forum to death" approach has been used so many times before by artists in order to try and gain attention that it tends to have the opposite effect. Add to that the general lack of old believers taking an interest in the site and expecting a project to be funded entirely by existing people is pretty much expecting the impossible. I have to admit I did stop by his page and take a listen to the music he had there, but wasn't overly impressed, and with none of the believers that I know are still spending money on the site seemingly taking an interest in his page either, I suspected he was talking to a brick wall. A couple of weeks after he signed up, I found a rather long mail in my inbox, and given what happened next, I now find myself wondering how many of the other "visible" people on the site landed up with one too. It seems he wasn't very happy with the lack of interest in his page and left a few messages on the forum when he then asked Sellaband for his profile to be deleted. Whilst his artist profile was initially converted to a believer profile (as with all artists who have left the site), it looks like the contents of the forum posts may have caused Sellaband to delete his profile entirely, seeing as you get a 404 error if you try and visit it from the forum link. If they have indeed deleted it, this has to be the fastest response from Sellaband seen to date, as the lot (with the exception of the forum posts) disappeared in less than 24hrs after he put the request in.

The websites
The music sites I've been spending time on

Songza
Whilst not very good for new music discovery, this site had been proving itself as an excellent source to find and listen to artists I was already aware of, both from the mainstream and indie markets, even if I didn't already own a copy of their music. Therefore a very good "try before you buy" method that has directly led to a sale for 3 different artists in question already. With no software to download and no need to login to listen (you only need to login to create playlists, or as they call them "stations") it had therefore become my preferred streaming service. Indeed the playlist I linked to for my last review of the year post is hosted on there. However, in the spring, they pulled the plug on all non-US listeners without any warning.

So I'm back to the search for a streaming service that fulfils the criteria I'm after (no software download required, no country limits on songs and the same quality or better that I normally rip my own mp3s at). Until then, I'm mostly back listening to my own collection and chalking one more score up for the idea of having my own copy of music rather than following "the future of music" and the idea of cloud streaming.

I have one basic rule as far as streaming services are concerned - if I can listen to a song just by visiting the artist's own webpage, then I want to be able to listen to it on a streaming service too. It shouldn't matter what country I'm in - if I can listen to it by visiting the artist's own webpage/bandcamp page (etc), why can't I listen to it on your streaming service? Until the industry sorts this out I won't be paying any streaming service - it's bad enough to be building up a collection of music on a free one and have the rug pulled from under you without paying someone a monthly fee, only for them to suddenly do the same one day. And from a consumer point of view, I'm already fed up of disappearing rugs on music sites meaning I have to restart from scratch elsewhere. As someone who had made over 200,000 ratings on Launchcast before that service got pulled, that's just one of many examples of past experience and should give you some idea of why I look at things the way I do.

No doubt if/when Songza comes back up outside the USA it will have restrictions on what you can listen to (the same problem that was starting to put me off Amie St before they sold the site to Amazon) and if that's the case then it will probably have lost my interest for good. Just like other sites before it, such as Pandora, who still are restricted to the US only.

The site most likely to get my interest for streaming music discovery at the moment would therefore seem to be Last FM. Whilst I originally signed up to the site in 2006, I never used it back then because I'm not interested in downloading the scrobbler software. However, as it's now possible to stream quite a lot of music direct from the site I decided to give it another tryout at the beginning of August. The big downside of course is the fact I have to teach it about my music collection first, and whilst I've started that process, it's looking likely it will take until at least Christmas at my current rate of progress. Additionally, I've already encountered a number of problems, so whilst I'm not going to give up on it just yet, it's proving to be a lot more hands-on requirement for the training process than I'd been hoping. If you want to catch up with me on Last FM while I'm still adding and shuffling artists around, you can find me here or by clicking on the "recently played tracks" widget you should have seen over on the right of this page. And yes, I am streaming music at some very odd times of the day at present.

Free albums galore
I stumbled on this while starting to look at the current state of streaming music sites. Not a site in itself, it's basically a blog with links to download music legally for free, most usually the sites of the artists themselves. You can find out more about the criteria the author uses for deciding to include an album by reading their welcome message, but with over 2000 albums listed since the blog was created in a large variety of genres and the number still growing, it's likely I'll be taking a better look at this soon.

Strummerville
Another case of being sent off in a different direction than intended came when I was looking to see what The Lights were up to. Whilst I discovered they have played at the Glastonbury festival this year, it appears they got the opportunity as a result of their association with Strummerville. I wandered onto the site to get the free download The Lights were advertising and landed up checking out a number of other bands as well. The site is actually a charity set up on the death of Joe Strummer (The Clash) to help unsigned bands. Currently inclusion is by invitation only and requires that an artist be unsigned and will make one track available for free download. As might be expected, a lot of bands on the site currently seem to fit within the punk, rock or ska themes, and are also very British, both in origin and sound. From the listener point of view though the site oozes quality music for the most part and it will definitely take you a few days to get through listening to all the artists currently on there. I'll definitely be checking back to see what other bands they add, as this is serving as a nice "taster" starting point to decide if you want to wander off to the artist's own site to find out more about them. The ones that have particularly caught my interest to follow up on so far are The Popes of Chilitown, Bastille, Molotov Jukebox and The Penny Black Remedy

Sellaband
Since my review of the year post, a number of the albums I am waiting for have now appeared, however these have been almost exclusively from those artists who were keeping their believers regularly updated. Here's what little I know about those I'm still waiting for, more than 8 months down the line from my last update.

Natalia Safran
The big fat sound of silence on the artist I've been waiting the longest for continues. I've seen several mentions on her Facebook and Twitter about an album release being "soon", but those messages have been the case for months now. One existing believer has said that the albums are supposed to be in the process of printing, but I'm beginning to think a copy of this album will never be seen.

Radio Orange
Like Natalia Safran, there have seemingly been no updates and no information as to when (if ever) this album will actually be seen. Their Sellaband page claimed in a blog on 13th Nov 2010 that they were only waiting on final artwork but they haven't been seen or heard from since March.

Lori Greco
Last known to still be in the recording studio, although most of the way through the process. I currently have no information as to when the album can be expected though.

Cubworld
Finally reported that he has just started recording in June, more than 18 months after hitting his target. With a DVD to film on top of this, I don't even want to put a guess on the year it will be released.

Sellaband itself is proving to be a real shocker in general under its new management though. Communication with believers has now basically stopped (except for mails/articles trying to get people to buy more parts). Even the re-incarnated "pay and we'll send your CDs home, otherwise we'll keep them and use them as we see fit" which had people up in arms the first time around doesn't seem to have had any proper communication behind it now that it's back, as people who paid back in May landed up waiting a good couple of months before anything actually appeared, and indeed several were even sent the wrong CDs.

Add to this all the comments and complaints on the Jonathan Davis page from people upset because the 24hr viewing of the DVD didn't work properly and/or the fact they haven't received anything just a few months after he completed funding (in comparison those of us who have been waiting years for other artists have been much less noisy about it!). In particular what they'd bought on Sellaband was already available on Amazon at a much cheaper price too (and, well, Kornspace news page from 25th August says it all really). Add the fact that it would appear artists aren't giving believers any of the revenues promised by their projects, generally citing the fact they're recovering expenses that believers weren't made aware of at any point (Aly Cook and Inge are known to be the 2 main exceptions to this complaint) and Sellaband aren't doing anything to rectify the situation. Add the fact that a large number of believers in Nearfield are complaining they still haven't received their CDs and nobody seems interested in doing anything about it, and the fact that Sellaband do not chase up and relay information to believers about what is happening regarding CDs we have been waiting years for and the result is a site which I certainly can't trust, never mind recommend to others. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

In addition various parts of the site seem to be broken or out of date and nobody seems to bother fixing them.

A lot of the solutions are quite simple - Get those long overdue CDs sent out. Get promised revenues paid. And actually do some management and communication, rather than leaving the paying customers (i.e. the believers) in the dark and left to attempt to discover information themselves. Until some definite progress in a positive direction is made on this score, I'm officially slapping an "avoid like the plague" verdict on the site for anyone who might have been thinking about using it. Some issues have been outstanding for way too long now, and the complete apathy from Sellaband management when it comes to sorting them out (and even communicating why they haven't been sorted yet) means I have no confidence in the site or its management at present. A middleman with no clout is useless to say the least, and there's no incentive or reason to fund artists (unknown or otherwise) on such a site.

The developments on the Jonathan Davis story in particular have now led me to request a payout of revenues earned, rather than saving them up with the intention of buying parts in future if things settled down. With both Aly Cook and Inge back for a second funding round and both quite obviously keeping up their end of the agreement with believers (unlike many other artists), they would have potentially been some of the first in the queue to get parts without me adding new money to the site if I could have regained my trust in Sellaband itself. But I'd say Sellaband now have at least twice the work to do to regain my trust compared with how things stood when the new management took over after the bankruptcy.

Albums
I'm at a point where I can't actually afford to buy much in the way of music at the moment, due to lack of income, so I currently have a queue of music building that I'd like to buy but where the funds just aren't available at present.

Currently in the queue (in no particular order)
Come to Dust - Second Person
I Am Not The Night - Julia Johnson
Make Believe - Gayle Skidmore

The one exception I did make was to buy what has probably been my most eagerly anticipated album of the year "The Day The Devil Fooled The World" by We Love the Underground and I definitely wasn't disappointed. I'd heard roughly half of this before of course, as versions of some of the songs had been up on Sellaband, Myspace or Facebook, but Brad still managed to pull off something a little surprising within the rest. There is actually quite a diverse selection of tracks here, with particular standouts being "Transmissions" which is more than a shade reminiscent of David Bowie and my new favourite "We Love The Underground" which sounds like it might even be quite at home in a Tarantino film. I hope he does more with this project, as listening to the album has definitely left me craving more.

However that's not the whole story with this album, because I had a bit of a surprise when I opened the package - it contained two copies of the album, not one. Given I know what the cost of postage from the States to here is like, he can only be making a loss off such generosity. And as a music lover, this gives me even more incentive to find that extra copy a home where it will be genuinely appreciated.

In terms of "expected soon" albums, which will likely either get bought or join the queue above, the list is thankfully quite short at the moment. No doubt it will start to grow as I start wandering past some more artists I haven't been near in a while though.

Album title and release date TBC - Into the Night
The Quiet Revolution (Nov 18th 2011) - Nemesea

So if you're still with me after that extremely long summary of highlights of the past 8 months, I hope to see you for some of my much shorter posts in future (promise!), as well as a few special posts from the fan view of the music industry that, as always, get inspired by what and who I come across.