February 1st 2009 Hatchet Day

Well as I said in last "proper" hatchet day blog there are going to be a few changes from now on. Here's hoping you like them.

Results from last month
Well actually this time around this section would probably be better called "Results since I last did a hatchet day blog", because there's been quite a few things happen during December and January.

Guy Barnes reappeared the same day I started writing my last blog and changed some info on his profile for the first time in over 6 months. Also reappearing on the scene in December was an artist called Slap of Sound that I used to own parts in but who met my hatchet after disappearing - if you remember the Spellbox song that was written about my artist list, you'll know they were one of the ones mentioned in that. Sasha Vella seems to have returned and is now going under the name Sasha and Sam. You'll find more than one new song on her profile, now that she's officially partnered musically with Sam. Incidentally, Kristy J is another returner, who some of you may remember is one of the "Phil Tweed" production list.

Coldplayers actually contacted me, because they saw what I'd written about them in my December blog, they didn't know how to delete their profile and they didn't want to do anything bad, so they asked me how they could delete it. So I'd just like to say at this point that if you are an artist that wants to delete your profile then you have to email info@sellaband.com. That's what I told them and hey presto a couple of days later the profile was gone, proving that this information obviously isn't prominent/easily accessible enough on the Sellaband website and also seemingly proving that I'm a more effective way to get a straight answer than contacting Sellaband themselves with the same question. Maybe I ought to start charging Sellaband for giving out info like this on their behalf? ;)

This month's gainers and losers
Well I had hoped this section could get retitled, but it seems there's still some time to wait before Sellaband start dealing with inactive artists so I've decided to deal with these for a couple more months yet.

First on the list to go have been Lone Pine as they haven't been seen for nearly a year now, and I also removed Lucia Barreto as it seems she's become yet another of those who have cleared out their profile but it's still there. I've also removed Promethic as it's stating on their profile "Promethic are no more".

The parts reclaimed have gone to a rather diverse set of artists. Finite State Machines, Meg and Mark and Rustie Blue are the recipients. Country doesn't normally get a look in on Sellaband, but are there any Shania Twain fans out there? Rustie Blue may well be one for you if so.

I'm not actually marking anyone else for potential deletion next month. Unless you do a "clean out the profile", vanish for a long period of time (say 6 months plus without a login), manage to forget to thank me or notify believers you're leaving, then it's unlikely I'll be removing any more parts before the Sellaband deadline on the CDs is up. So let's see how busy this section is next month.

New investments
I've bought parts in just 2 artists and these both earlier in the month. Unfortunately the vibes I was getting even before buying them look to be proving true.

Fables Last Stand only have the one song up on their profile, but if you wander off to their Myspace page you'll find a lot more to listen to. In fact having listened to what they've got up over there, I'm actually slightly surprised JohanV hasn't bought a part in them as I know our tastes in rock overlap. Maybe that access to the backend has something to do with it, because even the aura given off by the profile is one that makes an established believer like me think it has only been started to promote their new album, rather than for the purposes of raising 50K for their next one. A real shame that there's still no mention of Sellaband on their website, or anything except the banner on their Myspace (what about a bulletin or blog entry explaining it to your fans guys?! I'm in the UK so I know that banner on its own will mean nothing to the average person over here). The fact they've also got an album coming out would also be an ideal way to start off promotion for raising 50K on Sellaband, but I fear this one is going to turn out to be just an album promotion profile, despite the fact I think they've genuinely got the calibre of music to really make it on here if they'd only take a proper interest. Or to put it another way, I think this is easily the best band I've heard sign up on Sellaband for quite a while based on what I've heard of their music, but I haven't seen anything of them yet despite the fact the profile starter has logged in in the past couple of days.

The other artist I believed in, tAIT, are even worse as there isn't even anything about Sellaband on their Myspace profile. And yes they've also got an album coming out in early 2009. Yet another case where there's something really promising that's (so far) exhibiting all the signs of being merely an album promotion profile.

It's quite disheartening as a believer to run into a profile where you really love the music and then it turns out to be nothing but a promotion, rather than a genuine attempt to raise 50K. And yes, this behaviour can put people off of becoming believers in the first place, because it's impossible to tell what an artist's real intentions on Sellaband are. I'm not sure there's any way to effectively stop this, but it really bothers me when it happens because I know there are artists on Sellaband genuinely wanting to raise 50K. It would be so easy just to wander past and ignore any new profile announcing the imminent launch of an album, but the thought that there might be someone who's genuinely thought it through and is using the album they just made to act as the launchpad to get them started or move them forward in budget on Sellaband is something that leads me to give artists like these a shot if I like the music. And yes, there is also always the potential for the "clueless", which is one of the reasons I came up with the video idea I've mentioned in a previous blog post.

Watching
It's been a pretty chaotic couple of months with things happening with artists all over the place. It's been so bad that I'll be here for about a week if I try to tell you everything I'm watching at the moment, so you're only going to get some of the more interesting or important ones this time around.

After a busy Christmas I finally got back to my Myspace profile after a gap of 2-3 weeks in visiting it to find a message in my inbox there from an artist that had signed up on Sellaband over Christmas. Straight Forward asked me what I thought their potential in the Sellaband universe was. Well I responded to them over there with what I think, but why not visit their profile and offer your own opinion on that question? I'm undecided on them musically, but they seem to have brought a few new people with them which is much more than most seem to manage.

Bands in the Arenafest competition are something I'm watching at the moment. I'm not a fan of some of the voting practices going on at the moment, but I've actually started drafting a blog post which covers both this and some other things about the community which are bothering me. I've been accused in the past of writing self-fulfilling prophecies, so I'm wondering about continuing to watch this voting round until it's over before I say what's on my mind or whether to follow the "publish and be damned" route. Although for the record, I don't believe in self-fulfilling prophecies - you can prove a prophecy is true, but I don't believe you can prove that it is self-fulfilling. No prizes for guessing who I'm voting for at the moment by the way.

I'm watching the latest album releases on Sellaband quite carefully to see if the early action continues, given that you already know I rate some of these quite highly. After things being fairly static for quite a while in terms of money coming in from Sellaband, I was pleasantly surprised to see my first cent from Francis Rodino's less than a day after it was released and with one Bulletproof Messenger album sold just as quickly it's been a great start for me. Particularly when you add another 60 cents in commission from people buying/downloading from these 2 artists via my profile, so thankyou very much whoever you are for that. I also love the cover of Angie Arsenault's album, and will be looking forward to the listening session for that on 5th February.

In terms of new artists, I have been rather surprised that the "usual suspects" who are keen on female artists don't seem to have been near Janesville Dolls yet. Though with them stuck on the magic zero dollars, I've a feeling that even this mention isn't likely to get them any further forward on its own. And given that Pine Divine are stating on their profile they've only started in 2009, I'm impressed with what they've put up on their profile so far, but again maybe their current budget of zero dollars isn't therefore that surprising.

Video of the month
One of the things I have on my profile is a video from an artist outside of Sellaband to give people a better idea of what kind of music I like. As I'm noticing an increasing number of Sellaband artists following what I have to say on this blog, and I realised I've been updating the video on my profile very irregularly, I decided to start this new section in order to make sure I update that video once a month. So if you are wanting to get a better feel for whether I'm likely to like your music enough to want to buy a part, this is the section to be following to find out what kinds of music I'm into.

This also gives me the chance to say a little bit about the choice in question each month, rather than just the simple few words I usually have on my profile telling you what it is.

So for this first selection, let me send you away from my love of rock and introduce you to a singer/songwriter who is local to me called Simon Scardanelli. There is a chance you've heard of him before in some dim and distant past, because he did have a brief stint of fame in the late 1980s under a different name as part of a duo. I'll let you discover for yourself who that duo was, but for now visit my profile to enjoy his first attempt at video editing for his song "Alien State of Mind". I'm also going to send you in the direction of his Myspace page which should give you an introduction to his diversity of material and interesting lyrics. I'll dedicate "It's Only Life" from that to Mawa as I think he'll enjoy it - a song which incidentally was written at least in part as a result of Simon's own experiences with the music industry. (warning for the sensitive of ears - it does contain a swear word, but I expect me stating that fact is enough encouragement for some to listen in itself!).

Sixpack Stories
I've had some hard choices recently in the Sixpack. Last time I left you, I'd been voting for Kane Sole. I couldn't quite decide between The GoStation and The DayOf the week both were available so landed up voting for both (just not on the same day - I genuinely do have only one profile on Sellaband). Second Person got my vote the first week they were available, though it was a tough decision to choose them over MDATA, but the following week was probably the toughest choice I've had to make in a Sixpack so far and I landed up leaving them in their second week to vote for Radius. Any of the artists in that particular Sixpack would have been able to count on my vote in a normal week, but when they all come at once like that it really is hard to decide. I continued with Radius and it looks like they got caught by timezones in their second week as they were ahead on the last day before Bonnie overtook them when their part of the world woke up.

Sellaband
Well the good news is that Sellaband has finally fixed the speed problems. The bad news is that it's taken so long I'm now suffering from a severe lack of motivation with respect to doing anything much at all on Sellaband at the moment. I've listed up a number of things I want to do (think of it as a list of New Year resolutions if you want) but a combination of the ever increasing believer fatigue, plus the fact I can see no real progress forward by Sellaband itself makes me wonder whether it's even worth it. And let's clarify that one stage further by saying that for all I know Sellaband may be moving things forward, but there's nothing visible happening.

I wrote an article on believing for the community section of the news on Sellaband in order to try and show people what I think (as a believer) is so special about this place and hopefully tempt more people into believing as a result. But it's still sat on my computer. A combination of various things exploding on Sellaband (e.g. the 0 parts/0 believers debate over Arenafest) plus the fact I went back and re-read the article I wrote way back for edition 11 of the Tribune made me realise that the timing of the article is wrong - the community as it stands today is not ready for what I have to say because it can't even be effective at taking the first steps required. The worrying thing is that I don't see the community manager doing the job I think they ought to be doing - at the moment I'd say Danny is making a better job of it, despite a couple of comments that were always going to land him in some hot water with artists. Remember that draft post I mentioned above? Well it's relevant here too.

So whilst I'm feeling like I'm taking more interest in Sellaband than Sellaband is in itself, the list below (in no particular order) remains pretty much untouched - I have other things I can do with my time so I want to feel that how I use it is worthwhile. I'm therefore not sure how to get the motivation back to start on this list without some kind of positive actions (rather than something that turns out to be just another set of hype after you wait around ages for it) from Sellaband themselves happening first. Even writing this blog is hard for me at the moment.

1. Multi-lingual video project to answer common questions of both believers and artists and introduce them to Sellaband, help them sign up etc.

2. Get back to taking the level of interest in artist profiles that I used to have right at the start, by leaving comments regularly on all levels of artists - e.g. both those new on Sellaband and those who have been on my belief list a while.

3. Take more of an active interest in, and/or get more involved in some of the projects of others on Sellaband (e.g. Collaboration Project and some of the things Jayne and/or Netvalar have been trying to start off)

4. Reviews both on and off Sellaband. I have been horribly slack in writing things about the Sellaband albums and about writing a review for artists I believe in that would show up on their Sellaband page.

5. Picking up on active artists by mentioning them in my blog earlier. Alex Ganassini gave up on his Sellaband quest the same month I had decided to write about him in my next hatchet day post, and I had been planning to write about Liza Lee in this one. Just two of the cases where I feel I should have said something about their artist profile, but seemingly didn't get there in time.

That's all for this month, particularly given that I'm already at least a day late in publishing it. Hopefully the next thing you'll see is that draft post I've been mentioning, but if the next thing you see is next month's hatchet day posting, then I think it will be pretty safe to assume the believer fatigue really does have a hold of me that's going to be pretty impossible to shake.

Hello 2009, Goodbye 2008

At this time of year, I've traditionally listed the Sellaband artists and songs I've been enjoying the most over the past year. You'll find the old lists on one of my previous experiments with blogging here. Given that I've started this blog (and more importantly kept it going!), and also that I like to take a bit of a break from the hatchet over Christmas, I decided to put the 2008 lists in here instead and actually turn it into more of a proper blog post in the process by telling you a few stories and generally expanding the information rather than just presenting you with a list. So, the normal "hatchet day" post will be back on 1st February - this is just a one-off special.

But before I get into the good stuff, here's the answer to the question you've all been waiting for. Did Sellaband manage to meet the challenge to have a system in place to deal with inactive artists on 7th January (about a week after their own reported deadline of Jan 1st) and manage to win themselves 5 giftparts from me in the process? Sadly, the answer is no. Just one of the examples I've been keeping my eye on is here in the form of Lone Pine who were last seen back in March. I had been hoping Sellaband would save me the trouble of having to move this part, but it looks like this is just one of the targets for hatchet day on 1st February. And just for you to prove to yourself that there really is no change, go to the find artist page, search by budget and they'll still come up in the listings, so it isn't even a case of inactive profiles still being accessible but just hidden from view.

Favourite Sellaband artists
Never confuse the number of parts I have in an artist with how much I like that artist because there is no direct correlation. There are a number of factors influencing my parts, including the fact I'm awkward because I'm female so it's very easy for me to confuse people with what I'm really into as a result. If you want to know what I'm really liking, then these yearly lists are the best way to get a feel for my musical taste. So this is the definitive list of the 10 artists I've been liking most this year, with the main criteria for inclusion being that either you're new/have a new profile on the site, or you've posted new material for me to listen to during the year. And yes, some artists have shifted positions relative to each other in the listings for the previous year. This is generally an indication that I've had a wider range of material to listen to and they were close together in my list of likes to start with.

1. Skitzo Calypso
2. Phil Tweed
3. BulletProof Messenger
4. Francis Rodino
5. MOPI
6. Morris
7. Sheet Metal
8. Radius
9. The Jade Diary
10. Tarek Sidani

Seriously, it is VERY close outside the top 3 and I've got absolutely no idea what a 2009 list is going to look like as a result. I therefore have to make a special mention for Marc Supsic, Silverimage, Civilized Tears, Six Eyes Lost, Essentia and Conflict in the Sky as being particularly "near misses" for my list for one reason or another. The biggest news if you hadn't realised it already from my change in spotlight artist earlier in the year, is that Phil Tweed was finally knocked off his perch as my favourite Sellaband artist. In many ways it's amazing that he lasted as long as he did, given my fondness for rock, but it's a testament to the strength of his songwriting that he's been able to do so - and indeed that he's just managing to keep BPM in 3rd place. There have only been 2 artists on Sellaband to date where I've gone "I must absolutely have a piece of that" less than 30 seconds into the first song, and Skitzo Calypso become the second of these (BPM were the first). I'm particularly fond of the Niki Thunders stuff that Brad has done, but having heard a random selection of the Skitzo back catalog, I know they're currently headed in a musical direction I like the look of very much indeed. Francis Rodino moves up to 4th, mostly on the strength of his new album and MOPI become a somewhat surprising entry in 5th through being seriously way too catchy to ignore. I seem to be loving every track they're posting at the moment. Morris, Sheet Metal and Radius are all proving solid long-term likes, with Tarek Sidani and The Jade Diary being the other "newcomers" that particularly grabbed my attention.

Favourite Sellaband Songs
Given the amount of music on Sellaband, I've extended the list this year to my current 20 favourite songs. The only criteria here is a maximum of 1 track per artist and the fact the song had to be one of the three on the player when I wrote this blog. You can catch all of these songs and more of what I like if you listen to the playlist on my Sellaband page.

1. The Sickness of Dreams - Skitzo Calypso
2. Bring me to Life - BulletProof Messenger
3. Another Sky - Lawrence Collins
4. Who do you find - Morris
5. The Alphabet Song - Second Person
6. Open Her Eyes - Silverimage
7. Feel it down - MOPI
8. 7:30 plane - Matt Byers
9. Twenty To Life - Sheet Metal
10. The Universe is Burning - Marc Supsic
11. Love called me home - The Jade Diary
12. Julie Julie - Phil Tweed
13. Candy Whore - Six Eyes Lost
14. Prayer - Tarek Sidani
15. Passion - Essentia
16. Death Clock - Conflict in the Sky
17. Long Way Down - Guy Barnes
18. Next to Me - Radius
19. Uncomfortable Skin - Danny
20. Last Tear - Steel Temple

Special mention here for The Queen of Something New by Daniel-Ward Murphy which misses out due to being in his video section. This song would have been number 6 otherwise.

Dropped the ball
Here's my top list of artists on Sellaband that I think have real 50K potential in their music, yet they've pretty much disappeared into thin air and haven't been seen round Sellaband for absolutely ages. Check them out if you've missed them.
1. Matthew Clay
2. Matt Byers
3. Lawrence Collins
4. Guy Barnes

Argh I missed it!
This section is dedicated to songs by Sellaband artists that you may have missed when they were on the player that I think are particularly worthy of attention. Go pester an artist - who knows they may make both yours and my day by putting them back up for you to listen to!

I Wannit - Francis Rodino
Not only is this the song that got ME hooked on Francis, it also happens to be one of very few Sellaband songs that's had my husband going "Who's that?". If any track of Francis' has sure-fire hit written all over it, I reckon it's this one, yet I'd say the nature of the song means it would be difficult to get a live performance to live up to the recording - very hard to explain in a few words but think of it as a radio song if you will. The average SAB believer usually seems to go for one of the ones which probably translates better live, so it's interesting that my husband also immediately loved this song when he heard it when he can take or leave the rest of Francis' stuff. He spent a week during the summer playing it at full volume on constant repeat in the car and nearly made me sick to death of it as a result every time we went out.

Brave For Me - Wetwerks
This is probably the song I have both the biggest hopes and fears for with the new Wetwerks vocalist, as I mostly fell in love with Wetworks on the strength of this song, and I find myself wondering if this change is going to affect how I view it.

Bitter Pill - GD Allan
Whilst GD has gone down an electronic path with his new project Broken Sun, this track still represents the ultimate in GD Allan for me. You can still catch the video for it on the Sellaband Youtube channel and discover a side of him you may not have seen if you weren't here in the early days.

50K albums
What's my favourite of the 50K albums produced so far? Just a top 5 here as we don't have that many out yet. The main factor deciding the order is how much I like the tracks on an album and therefore how likely I'd have been to go out and buy it if I'd heard it first.

1. Arm Yourself - BulletProof Messenger
2. Circles and Squares - Francis Rodino
3. In Control - Nemesea
4. The Elements - Second Person
5. Until the Morning Light - Daniel Ward-Murphy

I've been lucky enough to hear the BPM album already in its entirety as mp3, even though it's not out yet, and I can say that if you've liked what they've had up on the player, their album is going to be right up your street, even though none of those songs are included. As a result, it just managed to shade Francis and his preview of Circles and Squares into second place. You might find some of my choices in this area quite surprising, but a lot of it really does come down to my musical taste. A lot of you are probably also wondering about the lack of inclusion of Vegas Dragons at this point. Whilst I think it's a much better, and certainly more consistent album compared to their previous ones, that also seems to be its problem because although I found a few "growers", I didn't find any particular track leaping out and saying "listen to me" as I have done on their previous albums.

Live Performance
Again top 5 of who I've enjoyed most performing live. Obviously there is some influence of whose music I like to start with and the number of times I've seen an artist live definitely helps, so I think you may find some surprises in my choices. To be eligible for this, I must have either been there to see you play live or seen a live web broadcast - videos just won't do.

1. Daniel Ward-Murphy
Like many people, I used to think that the quality of live performance was the ultimate decider in how good an artist actually is in practice. That theory got blown out the water when I went to the launch party for DWM's album. I now think there's something even better than going to see a live gig. You see, I happened to be staying overnight with Martin Nicholas, and he'd won a competition to attend DWM's soundcheck, so yours truly got to sneak in as well. So whilst for most people, live is still the best you're likely to get, if you ever DO get the opportunity to go to a soundcheck for an artist, take it. Even though my ears aren't as "production-sensitive" as many, it was still possible to pick out what's the artist and what's the sound guy tuning in and setting up the sound levels in the board, and you can learn an awful lot about the quality of both in the process without there being the usual distractions such as people talking that you'll find at a live gig. What particularly stood out for me in Dan's case were 2 particular things. First, you could shut your eyes and it was seriously like you were hearing his album. So many times in live performance, you can hear a definite difference compared to a recording, particularly in the sound of the vocals - this wasn't the case here. The second thing was when the sound guy asked for a particular style of playing for an instrument so he could determine the levels and the group of musicians had to pick up and play a song from somewhere in the middle. The timing of the lot was spot on to the extent you thought you'd just hit a button on the stereo to un-pause the track. Whilst DWMs music itself doesn't tend to be one of my real favourites, I have to give credit where credit is due and what I saw from that soundcheck opened my eyes to him in a way I perhaps haven't viewed him before. If you want real music with real musicians, go see him live, you won't be disappointed.

2. Mysti Mayhem
Having been online watching a number of the Spellbox live webcasts, I have to say I think you got short-changed at Sellabration 2008. Not because of the length of time Spellbox play in their webcasts, but rather because you missed out on Mysti playing 12-string guitar which is where I believe she really shows her talent.

3. Electric Eel Shock
Whilst I can't see them winning many prizes for their lyrics (well, at least we can they're easy to remember), it's hard not to get drawn into the show. This is a band to be enjoyed for its show even more than its music, so if you believe a show is an important part of live performance you won't go far wrong here.

4. Francis Rodino
For me Francis is still the king of gig improvisation. I'll probably get shot for using the word "busker" but it's the nearest single word I can use to describe what I'm seeing. For me his key strength is his ability to just pick up a guitar, go play anywhere and pretty much improvise something of a show around it. This was easily demonstrated by his street performance in Amsterdam in 2007.

5. Bulletproof Messenger
The single performance I've seen here can best be described as extremely solid, and being one of my favourites this is definitely an artist I want to see again just to prove to myself that they really are that good consistently.

Special mention goes to Sheet Metal for narrowly missing out in my top 5.

Disappointments of the year
You may not realise it but there are a few occasions where I've felt somewhat let down in 2008 because things have not been what I've come to expect.

1. Vegas Dragons listening session
With the amount of time Brian Taylor normally has for people, I was expecting this listening session to be something special. In fact, it became the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I felt so sorry for all those people who'd got up early, or rushed home from work just so they could listen to the album and talk to Brian, only to find he spent a total of about 5 minutes on the computer and instead spent the rest of the time with the people who'd turned up at the Sellaband offices for the party. A number of people online also drifted away as a result. Seriously Brian, what were you thinking? You had a load of people online who would only be around for just that one hour, and yet it seemed you'd rather spend that time with a group of people who'd presumably been around for some time before the session started and who would also presumably be around for some time after it finished. I'd liken the effect to waiting around in the rain after a gig having been told the artist would be out to sign autographs, only to find that when they do finally appear, they head straight for the tourbus and only sign for the lucky few who happen to be standing on the route there. Kudos to Phil Tweed who got up in the early hours of the morning and stayed online for the entire session - I actually felt quite sorry for him too, particularly as people kept asking where Brian was.

Whether something like this hasn't helped the listening sessions, but like many things on Sellaband it doesn't surprise me if they are being scrapped because they too have been downgraded and to my mind have lost a lot of their appeal as a result. Hands up who remembers the early listening sessions which were broadcast with webcam. There were problems with the technology e.g. which lead to Manda from Nemesea writing mesages on card and holding them up to the camera because there was no sound, but to a large degree that was part of the charm - you felt there was a real interaction and that has now gone. Think of Lily with her questionnaire about the songs and the fact you could actually see her jokingly threatening you with all kinds of doom if you didn't fill them in for her. If you weren't there in the early days, am I at least giving you an idea of the "special something" I think has been disappearing?

2. Francis Rodino at Sellabration 2008
I have absolutely no idea what this sounded like in the hall, but the live internet feed was absolutely terrible. Whether it was nerves, the recording sessions for his album taking a toll, too much alcohol (or lack of it) or just some bad sound work, I have no idea but he sounded awful. I'm also used to seeing Francis play on one of the "postage stamps" we like to call stages that exist in a lot of the pubs and clubs in the UK, and I often think that he ought to translate well to a larger stage with his energy, but on that score he looked a bit like a fish out of water too. I'd say the problem on that was the fixed microphone - on a really small stage there's nowhere to go and yet when Francis is the front man (rather than when he's playing with another artist such as Maitreya) you can see he really doesn't want to stay put. So this performance most definitely wasn't the Francis I know and love and it really makes me think he also ought to consider a setup where the microphone goes with him when he's performing on anything that's more than about 6ft wide, because I think that's going to better suit his style.

3. Sellaband
So let's give you that story I promised you in my last blog about why I think Sellaband is moving further away from the community and why I'm actually feeling somewhat upset and frustrated at the moment as a result. I've already mentioned in a previous blog post that I'm suffering from "believer fatigue", and there's been a lot of things floating round the forum for quite some time now, many of which I agree with at least in principle, but which also are the kinds of things which will set off real alarm bells in any potential new believers. My usual way out of this situation is to find something positive to do, in order to try and rebalance things. I still believe Sellaband is a very good deal if you're looking to buy an album - my views on a 1 part purchase haven't changed at all, even through the new era. I probably wouldn't even be here if they had! Things like the forum I set up before Sellaband had one of their own and even this blog have come about as a result of frustrations I've had in the past. Whilst I believe it's not good to hide problems and try and pretend they don't exist, I also believe it's possible to make things appear much worse than they actually are. In everything, I like to try wherever possible to look at both sides of the equation.

So back in September, I came up with an idea based on comments I'd been seeing round the forums, plus my own experiences and thoughts about Sellaband in order to try and solve some of the multilingual problems and promote artists at the same time. I won't go into specific details because that would take too long, but lets just say that the idea revolved around creating a series of videos. I spoke to Sellaband about it, because it was going to require some fake profiles that they would need to take care of after I was done with them and the response I got back was encouraging but basically along the lines of just "go ahead and do it". Fair enough. I've only edited one video before, and that was the Vegas Dragons 50K video (I haven't even shot one), so something like this is quite a challenge on its own for me without any unforseen problems getting in the way. That thought doesn't scare me though as pretty much everything I've ever done has been self-taught. I wouldn't claim to be an expert in anything - rather my skills seem to lie in getting a long way in a short space of time. If the idea is as good as I think it is, I know someone with better skills than me is going to come along and improve upon it once they've seen it and that's something I'm prefectly comfortable with.

Anyway, I was just starting to test out the technology when the alarm bells started ringing in the form of the "new era" banners on the website. Nobody at Sellaband had said anything about a major website change to me and what I was aiming to do relies very heavily on a nice stable, working website. I decided to put off recording until the "new era" arrived. I'm glad I listened to my own alarm bells because any work I might have done would have been useless. But if you've been following my blog, you'll know that the Sellaband website is still not working in a manner I would consider stable, and there's been no indication from Sellaband as to when it might be. Until the speed problem is fixed, I'm basically stuck with an idea I can't do anything about and it's getting me rather wound up, given that I originally had it 4 months ago and the fact the balance of good points vs. bad points that new people would see on visiting Sellaband seems to be getting steadily worse.

In those 4 months I haven't had one single enquiry from Sellaband as to how the project is going. I don't know whether they think I've forgotten about it, whether they have forgotten about it or whether they just don't care. Let's just say that if I was the community manager and was genuinely interested I'd have at least checked in by now to find out what's been going on.

Most people would have given in by now and just given up on the idea. Unfortunately I'm not most people, which is why I decided to let you folks know what's going on in the hopes that someone at Sellaband can actually be made to wake up and take an interest.

We've had discussions in the past about tools for believers to help them promote the site and unfortunately the most promising looking sources of those tools got snapped up by Sellaband to work for them and nothing useful has appeared since. Until Sellaband helps its community, its community cannot help Sellaband. Given the number of artists I believe in, it's more logical for me to do something to try and help people within the site, rather than wandering off on individual artist projects that may conflict for time. But I am starting to wonder whether I should just forget about Sellaband as a site and pick a few artists and concentrate on helping them with whatever they're up to instead. At least I know I'm dealing with interested people there.

And Finally...
Is it just me, or are my posts actually getting longer? Either way it's time to say thankyou to some of the people I never seem to get around to thanking before I go and give you a few new artists to listen to until my new posting. So thankyou to everyone who is following this blog, irrespective of whether you comment or not. I do read everything you leave for me, even though I have to admit I'm likely to be very lazy getting back to you with any kind of response. And a special thankyou to netvalar. I know you leave a lot of postings around on Sellaband with ideas that nobody ever seems to reply to. I for one appreciate them, though I rarely if ever reply. One day I hope some of it will combine to give me an idea I can work with, because it definitely has that potential.

My first part of the New Year has gone to Ian Bel. I'm also currently watching BIT, Tanja Dankner and SpiN as being interesting new artists. Let's see if I have more to say about any of those next month.

A belated December 1st "Hatchet day"

Well the "new era" website on Sellaband which launched on 1st December completely and utterly messed things up, including my usual hatchet day (which proved impossible to do), so I've been attempting to perform it as I visit the site. I say attempting, because even now, treacle is moving at least 10 times faster than the Sellaband website loads in Internet Explorer. To be brutally honest I haven't seen page loading times this slow since the "good old days" of dialup - the only area that doesn't have a problem is the forum.

So here's what I've been able to piece together as (generally) the "hatchet day" that should have been posted on December 1st. And here's hoping for a fix on the speed problems before my next one, because there's nothing more annoying than forgetting you've got to load the site in a different browser to your default to get it to work in any reasonable fashion.

Results from last month
In terms of artists thanking me, I actually had a thankyou from one of the artists I believed in 2 months earlier who didn't thank me at the time. Guess some people do manage to check their profiles occasionally. I'm also still waiting for a month where everyone manages to thank me - I was missing one again this month, despite investing in so few artists.

Sasha Vella turned up about a week after I posted my last hatchet day blog and updated her profile. Kristianna does appear to have visited her profile around the time of the site change announcement, but she hasn't left any messages anywhere that I've heard about.

It seems there's been a number of changes as well as the Sellaband "new Era" as far as artists I've mentioned recently have been concerned. The Spellbox profile has now changed into a second album run for Mysti Mayhem. Cubworld becomes the second artist to try for the $100,000 budget. Sunsoma posted after my last blog to say they are still around but down to only 3 members at the moment, and it seems Sheet Metal are also feeling the pressure (but more about them later)

This month's gainers and losers
Apparently the message from Sellaband to all artists about the "new era" must have been enough to shock Devil's Food Cake into contacting them, because their profile was shut down without me having to do a thing about it.

The new feature of "last seen" date on Sellaband is proving to be quite interesting. None of the other 3 artists I had marked for parts removal have showed up to take a look at the new era, so it's goodbye to Air Raid Anthem, Lo Mass Republic and Percy Mejhagen. Interestingly, Air Raid Anthem haven't been seen on the site since their last post in April which said they were going to be more active.

In terms of gainers, Second Person's new profile was always going to be on the cards. Based on the change to my investment policy, I've only bought the one part in them at the moment but I am seriously considering going for at least a publishing level incentive (5 parts) as they are one of few artists I think actually have a potential to pull it off. Unfortunately the 100K budget is also putting me off doing so because of the halved revenues and the "break even" point on money from an artist for publishing revenue seems so unlikely anyway even for a 50K artist.

RedLizzard had been by my profile several times in the past couple of months leaving messages in a way that shows both persistence and patience. I like the music and I like their approach and I believe it's even more important in the "new era" for Sellaband believers to jump on board and buy just one part with artists like this whose music they like. It's easy to be a sheep and only buy a part in an artist if you see lots of others buying parts first, but it also seems very "old" music industry. If you're quite happy just to follow what others are listening to and not attempt to break the mould occasionally, where's the difference to listening to whatever the local radio network or label decides to put in front of you? No artist is going to get anywhere unless those who know Sellaband is legitimate (so you will get that album after 50K) are prepared to stand up and dive in occasionally. Hell don't you folks want a low-numbered CD anyway, particularly if they're going to be rarer?

Sonichouse are actually quite an interesting choice for me because they don't fit into a style of music I am particularly fond of. However, musically I do get a few curveballs in their genre who manage to grab me where similar artists can't (and for where I don't really have an explanation of why I like artist A but not artist B). It just so happens they've grabbed my interest and I'm looking forward to their promised new songs.

Leave were an artist I mentioned in my blog a few months ago. It seems that having released an album the band situation is undergoing a bit of a sabbatical, while the guy who obviously started the profile has basically picked up his guitar and gone on a world adventure. In the meantime, you can listen to rough drafts of songs that are being composed whilst he is on his trip, and even currently he is asking for comments as to how one particular song actually makes you feel. See their profile for more details.

Being the season of goodwill, I decided artists get a reprieve from the hatchet around Christmas, so I'm not actually listing any artists due for removal at the moment. And here's hoping I won't need to next time either, as Sellaband are supposed to be putting something to cope with "inactive" artists in place.

New Investments
I had a message in English on my page a couple of days after I posted my last "hatchet day" blog from MINGMEN, inviting me to come and listen to their music. When I got there the profile was pretty blank apart from the tunes, so having noted their country as Switzerland I took a wild guess and left a message on their page in French. Lo and behold they filled in the info section in French and from the level of language used in the French message I got back from them, I'm guessing the person running the profile is much happier communicating in French than English, which may actually make it difficult for them to get people in, despite the fact they sing in English! So do check them out - if you like Nemesea I predict you should like them too. They uploaded a new song about a week into December but I think you'll find the later tracks on the player more instantly catchy.

I spent the gift part I won on Bonnie. I've kind of been on the fence with them a long time. Maybe they just caught me on a good day, maybe they've just not had the right songs up on previous visits, but this time around I did kind of start to wonder why I hadn't actually bought a part before.

I also increased my belief in Skitzo Calypso and got a nice shiny album through the mail as a result.

Watching
With the change to the limited edition CDs my focus is starting to shift back towards listening to artists newly signing up, or artists I'm noticing around. I've also been watching to see how artists are reacting to the changes.

One artist I didn't mention in my November blog but who I had already started to notice around even before the prompt from Ray is Catself. It's quite refreshing to see someone from Finland actually going out and kicking down a few doors with their passion, rather than lingering in the (often koskenkorva induced) reticence that often seems to characterise the Finnish nature. Maybe it's the Polish blood kicking in, or maybe us females just get used to finding ourselves kicking at doors. Her lyrics are unusual for something sung in English, (and that's worth a trip to listen in itself) but not so unusual for what you might find sung in native language from Eastern Europe. Sadly I haven't found anything to grab my interest enough to buy a part in what she's posted so far.

Another artist whose music I can't really get into because I'm not a fan of rap, but who is one of a number I'm seeing struggling away on the site is M Harris. If you're getting a bit fed up with the "folky" music that a lot of the more prominent believers seem to have been latching onto recently, then maybe this is someone you should take a look at. And even if (like me) you're not a fan of rap, then I'd still recommend you take a listen to "The Waiting Game", which shows there's more diversity lurking here than you might think. To be honest, maybe that's even part of the problem as far as the "Sellaband target audience" seems to be concerned, because if I thought there'd be no rap and more music like "The Waiting Game" I would have quite happily bought a part by now.

Having listened to the bands mentioned by Bob Slayer as signing up to Sellaband, I have to admit I put El Guapo Stuntteam on my wishlist but haven't been particularly impressed by Samurai Fury. And obviously there's no link to the first of these because they've already left the building!

Getting back onto the story of artists I've been watching to see how they are reacting to the changes, it seems that Elise Azevedo isn't happy with the updated terms and conditions for artists, and having only just got back onto Sellaband, decided to leave again and sent out a bulletin asking believers to remove parts. Her profile is still there though, unlike Chapter 9, who have left the building.

More worrying though are artists who seem to have lost faith in Sellaband but who can't seem to wrench themselves away from the place because of some of the people they've come into contact with here. And in many cases these are people who have been working for a long time to spread the Sellaband name without any help from Sellaband themselves. I can't help but feel their pain. Two of the most noticeable ones for me have been Black Jack and Sheet Metal. A lot can happen in 12 months and to show a public loss of faith while there's a chance of a load of new believers in (think Arenafest) can only hurt their chances of picking up some of those believers.

In the case of Black Jack, their initial blog post asking people to reduce to just one part seems to have mellowed into a case where they don't seem to have given up hope entirely, but are now aiming for 5000 believers instead. In many ways I think their decision was premature. With the fact they were on more than 14K in budget before the changes were announced and therefore within the top artists on the site, I think they would have been better taking the same kind of 12 month option that I am - give it the 12 months to reach the 50K under the interim rules and then go the route they've already announced if they didn't make it. There wouldn't have been anything stopping them announcing this intention either as I've seen other artists taking the "I have 12 months to make it, but if I don't and you take your parts out then I won't blame you" approach. I suspect they've lost more parts than they might have done had they gone this route.

The Sheet Metal case is in many ways more serious. Whether directly or indirectly, their failure to make serious progress forward seems to have had some effect on some of the band members. Shortly after a wonderful Halloween gig, 2 of the band members decided to call it a day. It's been a particularly sad moment for me, as I'm the one who originally dug them up from the Sellaband "mud", having never even heard of them before and got them showing other believers round the site that they were actually out there and interested. I've always been convinced they will sell, and there seems at least some evidence my hunch is correct, due to the fact the album they put up on Amie Street has been doing rather well there and has outstripped most of the 50K artist albums there in terms of sales. I don't know what 2009 is going to bring, but I'd really hate to see them call it a day.

There are several recent artists that have caught my attention. The first of these is Detached. They signed up around the same time as the "new era" site went live so I don't know if that has anything to do with the lack of profile, but if you like ska and/or you remember Upstanding Youth who were on the site for a while, then their music should appeal to you. "7 Years Ago" has a long lead into the vocals, so hang around and wait for it.

Ahmond has also caught my interest, but they're featured in the Sixpack so hopefully you'll have stopped by and checked them yourself already.

Tribe of Eden is one for all you classic rock music lovers but unfortunately they haven't been seen round the site since the day they signed up. Anyone want to guess if JohanV is regretting his decision to beat Ed to the punch for first part at this point?

The Day Of is also another artist I'm quite interested in and they are showing signs of life, so I shall be tracking them through January.

Finally, the most amusing artist story I've run across recently has to be Coldplayers. This artist from Brazil is a Coldplay covers band who wants to make.... (you guessed it!) an album of Coldplay covers. I left a message with them asking if they realised that they couldn't use the money on Sellaband to make an album of covers and got the reply back that they hadn't realised and the profile would therefore be deleted. So of course, in true Sellaband fashion, the profile is still there.

Sixpack Stories
I don't have an awful lot in the way of Sixpack stories this time around. But then for me, the most interesting thing since last time has been watching the voting. The secret to getting voted artist of the week seems to generally come down to a few factors. a) How many "active and well known" Sellabanders you have in your belief list. b) How long you've been on the site and c) how you're perceived by believers. In weeks where there's been an artist who has been round the site for a while and got a resonable budget, any "newcomers" don't seem to stand a chance. I have a feeling the total number of votes is lower in weeks where all six artists are low in budget and/or haven't been around the site long, but without any actual voting numbers being posted it's impossible to confirm this.

In terms of my own voting over the past few weeks, we'd got as far as Morris becoming artist of the week at the end of my last hatchet day post. I went for Slim Void that week, but the following week was to prove a real wrench. I would have loved to have gone for Outrance that week because I think he's highly underrated on here, however he was up against my favourite Sellaband artist, so Skitzo Calypso were to get my vote for the next 2 weeks. Civilised Tears were my choice the week after with Kontrust the week after that, proving that I too tend to vote for artists I've been following on Sellaband for a while rather than the newcomers.

Then something which may come as a shock. The week that Kontrust were artist of the week, all the artists up for selection were new. I didn't vote at all that week! Not because the artists were new, but rather because I wasn't interested enough in any of their music. Following Sellaband's decision to drop 4 "big names" in to fight it out the folllowing week, I bet there were some who had an even harder time than me in picking someone to vote for. Kane Sole was the one who got my vote in the end, and again kept it the following week.

Sellaband
The "new era" on Sellaband has lead me to make a few changes which will inevitably also affect how this blog appears in future.

Firstly, I cancelled my "12 days of Christmas" for this year. I seriously don't like taking parts out of artists once I've put them in, and to buy another part in artists I already believe in, that I could well have to take out at a later date because of the incentive boundaries would hardly be fair. With the speed of the website adding to my woes, I decided there was little point me trying to come up with some alternative for this Christmas, because it would just take too long to do. IMO a real pity.

Secondly, the addition of the "last updated" date and the fact I won't be buying more than one part in artists in future except under rare circumstances, theoretically means I will have less part removals going on. Particularly if Sellaband actually put a system in place to filter/remove the inactive artists. Don't forget my deadline for the 5 gift parts to them for meeting this "inactive artist" challenge is on 7th January (even though their own date was set as 1st Jan), so you'll be able to find out in my next blog if they've succeeded or failed in this. So whilst there will still be a "hatchet day" blog, you'll find more of an emphasis on artists I'm listening to, rather than where parts have been gained or lost. I think you'll find all becoming clearer about what I mean by this on 1st February.

I really can't make my mind up about the new era at the moment. There's things about it that I like or I think have potential, but there are also a number of things I'm really not happy with. Arenafest has the potential to be good for the site, but it feels rather like a big "if" at the moment. I'm ignoring arguments over how the artists are being chosen because I think there's a bigger issue. Had the idea of using stadiums in that way already been a case of tried and tested, and SAB were just taking over the opening slots I wouldn't really be worried, but the fact this seems to be completely new and it is hard to find information about it if you don't already know where to look doesn't exactly inspire confidence that it's going to work. I'll be interested in what some of our US believers are seeing "on the ground", so to speak, as the dates get closer.

One other thing the "new era" seems to have brought is the fact that HQ seem to have really stepped away from the community - even more than before. I'll have more to say about this in my Jan 8th post, because it's something that's directly affecting some of the things I'm trying to do, it will take rather a while to explain and I'm not liking it one bit.

So that's about all for this issue. The January "hatchet day" is actually being posted on 8th January, and a combination of being so close to the season of goodwill and the fact we're just starting a new year, means you'll get a special episode before normal service is resumed on 1st February. So expect a kind of "review of 2008" containing charts of my favourite artists and songs of 2008 and a few interesting stories I've been saving up for just such an occasion. In the meantime, I hope you've had a good holiday and I'll wish yu all a happy New Year.

All change!

Reading through the changes to the Sellaband concept has left me with very mixed feelings. In many respects I'm actually extremely pleased they've finally taken the action they have, but by the same token I now see only a make-or-break option with no obvious alternative routes for the progress of the site.

The change to only 1CD per believer may seem like a relatively small thing once you get past the legitimate reasons such as artists investing in themselves and people wanting more than one copy for friends/relatives, but I think for the average believer it should now make you stop and ask the following 2 questions - Why did I join Sellaband? and What do I expect now the new terms have been revealed?

When I originally joined Sellaband, with the exception of Nemesea I was quite a small believer. Like several other believers, I actually became a "big believer" (or at least a bigger believer than originally intended) most particularly after Sellaband raised the idea of believer shops. Many may see me as a "big believer" but I'm really a music lover who turned into one, because of the way I viewed Sellaband at the time. Was it really so naive to think that so few CDs would sell via Sellaband? After all, we're talking a company here with contacts in the music industry already. Like many others I thought those contacts would be able to have some impact, because I do genuinely believe there are 5000 homes for the CDs of any artist out there and they can be found eventually. After all, how many people are there in the world with an Internet connection who listen to music? 5000 is the merest fraction of a percent! And when it comes to contacts, you also get the ideas of marketing and promotion in mind - the contacts ought to exist not only to make the CD but also to give some guidance to help it to sell too!

But I think that Sellaband has stated its position very clearly with the new terms and has basically stated that it does not want to be the revolution in the music industry, but rather wants to be a small cog which may or may not turn out to form part of that revolution in the future.

Sometimes I despair, because when it comes to "music 2.0" nobody seems to have figured out that being just part of the equation isn't enough if you truly want to start a revolution in music. The first company to figure out how to help an artist get fans, book gigs, record their music, manage their money, deal with promotion and generally stop them going insane in the process is going to be onto a winner. It's fine to say that in the "new music world" artists are now in control of their own destiny, but when you consider all that's involved in terms of finding and keeping an audience on top of them actually having the creativity to make music in the first place, "non omnia possumus omnes" surely has never applied more strongly than to the artists themselves. And sure, a company can take that "we can't do everything" approach as well, but having the options all in one place is surely going to be a winner over having to go everywhere for all the tools you might need. Some artists may be good at self-promotion. Some may know one of the guys who works at the local recording studio. The reality is, most don't know what they're doing - they just have a dream to make music. So the person who can come along and fill in the gaps so making music is all they have to think about is always going to be in demand.

From my point of view, therefore, Sellaband has stated that they are merely a tool where you can turn up, raise 50K and record an album. Don't expect anything outside of that, because I haven't seen it anywhere in the "new era" concept changes. Don't expect them to find your fans and don't expect them to promote your music (despite this maybe being quite a weird concept to get your head around as they're taking publishing revenue). Maybe if their top-secret partnership to be revealed on 1st December is someone like Topspin I may change my mind, but I see the future as a combination of 1 part believers, "fanatics" who really get hooked on an act and a few of the super-rich who are just spending their pocket money (yes we have a few believers on Sellaband who own companies, their own aeroplanes etc. etc.).

Look at it this way - if 50K artists aren't selling a large number of normal copies of CDs or digital mp3s now through Sellaband and its third party links, what makes you think 50K artists will be able to sell copies in future? With Sellaband saying it wants no real part of promotion (but hey you're free to use the 5K from your budget for that if you want it) and there being no additional copies of CDs for buying more than one part, I see no obvious reason to buy more than one part in an artist in future, unless one of the as-yet-unknown incentives is deemed to have sufficient value to you as a believer to make you want to spend the extra. (hence the "fanatic"). Artists are going to have to prove they can already effectively promote themselves through channels other than Sellaband in future and bring people in via that or I can't see how they will stand a chance of raising 50K until Sellaband has an awful lot more real believers on board.

I think it should therefore be obvious from the above what my own strategy will be in future. I will be buying one part in artists I like (probably fairly early to reserve that low-numbered CD) and only decide much closer to the 50K whether I want to go for an incentive, based on how much I like the act, or whether they've actually done anything to convince me they're worth spending extra cash on. I figure questions such as "Have you got a manager?", "Who is your promotion company?" and other similar nuggets may be on others minds before they part with a lot of cash under the new rules. On the upside, if a lot of people start looking at incentives then we could actually get some faster runs to 50K than we've seen of late as people snap them up. The bar has really been raised for new artists - if you can't bring a heap of people with you I'd now be inclined to say forget it until Sellaband actually has that 100,000 new believers on board (assuming it can get them)

For my existing multiple-part acts the future is unclear, but I am in no immediate rush since the 1 year extension plan on CDs announced. I figure that I've got until an artist gets close to 50K or the 1 year deadline is up before I decide anything. If I'm still on a heap of parts and an artist hasn't moved significantly forward in that year the incentives (including any I've received to date) will decide what I do, and I think that's fair given the amount of time. Likewise, if an artist looks like hitting 50K and I'm not sure I'll be able to sell all the CDs myself then I'll be having a chat with the artist in question and seeing what we can work out, but I think there will be very few of those.

New believers therefore become the crunch point. Without some "big names" arriving and bringing believers with them, Sellaband is pretty much going to have to provide these believers themselves. I can only hope for their sakes that they are sitting on something really big, because the early part of 2009 and the number of new believers it brings is going to mean the difference between artists stagnating and new artists being able to make progress as well as artists already on Sellaband trying to make the rush before the Dec 1st deadline. Will Sellaband still exist in 2010? I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

P.S. As you can probably realise my change in strategy means there will be a few changes concerning my "hatchet day" blog but you'll have to wait until the 1st December to find out what the future of "hatchet day" looks like.

November 1st 2008 Hatchet Day

If you want to know more about what "hatchet day" is, visit my Sellaband profile and read my info section.

Results from last month
I did better than I was expecting this month. Only one artist actually forgot to thank me, and I will be watching them with interest as, incredibly, they have actually shown a few signs of life otherwise. More about this artist later in this blog!

Well after a couple of weeks I finally had a message back on Myspace from Jo of Luna Assassins which confirms they're leaving the site. I'm therefore going to run my "12 days of Christmas" again this year (this is where I choose an artist to highlight every day for 12 days by buying a part - you can probably dig up last year's forum thread if you go deep enough) and also treat the Luna Assassins parts as a pot of money to draw from unless the "change" that's coming on 1st December is one where Sellaband actually do their housekeeping. So unless Sellaband do actually pull their fingers out and delete the profile, expect my parts to slowly reduce.

Walter B hasn't heard any more about Kristianna than I have so I've removed one part already and will continue to withdraw slowly over the next couple of months unless I see some kind of reaction. Likewise there's still no sign of life from Sasha Vella so the same basic rules are now also in effect.

Finally, it seems the artist out there that I mentioned last month who has some rather eager believers just hasn't got the message. Within a few hours of Jess King announcing she was leaving the site I was receiving PMs inviting me to move my parts from Jess to this artist instead. Talk about walking on others graves! When will people get the message that I'm not going to invest where I'm told, but rather where I decide? So I predict an artist is going to get a rather nasty shock in their inbox after I've finished my hatchet day and uploaded the photos from last night, because if I get one more such "invite" before my next hatchet day blog (and after I've dropped off the warning so I can be absolutely sure the artist is aware and the believers aren't doing this off their own initiative), then I WILL name and shame. And that would be a pity because I'm convinced Greebo would be interested in the music, even though I'm not particularly sure, but there's no way in hell I'm going to point him in the direction of listening to an artist whose believers are basically trying to bully parts out of other people. To the artist in question, I'm going to say this publicly: You don't need these tactics. Irrespective of whether I personally like the music enough to buy a part, I actually know you've got what it takes to succeed on here, but at the moment you're doing yourself no favours with me, and for all I know, possibly other believers too.

This month's gainers and losers
Not a single artist I mentioned last month as being under threat showed any sign of life so it's goodbye to Skin Diary, The Reverend Coyote, The glo, Tico Verde and Jon Curtis

I landed up splitting the parts reclaimed between just two artists this month. As I said last month, MOPI are proving to be one of my favourites on here, so the choice to increase was an obvious one. MR-10 is the other recipient, mainly as a result of the Selloween gig last night. Get less covers and more originals in the set list and fulfil that potential, because that was one cracking gig!

Next month's "under threat" list is as follows: Air Raid Anthem, Devil's Food Cake, Lo Mass Republic and Percy Mejhagen.

It seems that as well as "believer fatigue" we're also getting quite a few cases of "artist fatigue". As well as Jess King announcing her intention to quit, Cris Tanzi, Chapter 9 and Marc Supsic have asked for people to buy (or reduce to) just the one part and Telepathy and Tarek Sidani announcing they're scaling back on their activity on the site, at least for the present. I've not shifted any of my parts in these artists, nor do I intend to at present, but I can only hope that there is a genuine "change" on the way because the signs don't look that healthy at present. In fact you could say it goes even further than this given that I posted a thread in the forum back in August announcing my intention to come visit a gig or two in the euro-zone of Europe in November if anyone had one planned. Given the response from artists (or rather the lack of it as I only had a response from one artist in the euro-zone) to that thread, I've abandoned the idea. Obviously I was mistaken in thinking artists would jump at the chance to get a face at one of their gigs they wouldn't normally see, and possibly even a chance to convert me into a believer if I wasn't one already. Is this the ultimate symptom of "artist fatigue"?

New investments
I put the "curse of the knifelady" on Lucia Barreto earlier in the month. For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon it means I bought the first part, which seems to be akin to a death sentence as far as getting believers is concerned - just ask any of the other artists I have "first part" in as I'm still waiting for one of them to hit 10K, never mind 50K! Lucia herself is friends with So What and I suspect it's they who persuaded her to sign up. I just hope she stays active as she seemed quite keen for her first few days on the site.

Next on the list is Cubworld. The conversion actually happened earlier in the month when he posted "Wounded" and I could actually feel the hairs starting to stand up on the back of my neck. I think this is the first time I've actually felt that "something" that others see in him. It's a hard thing to describe and the nearest I can get is by drawing a parallel to a young Finnish guitarist I've met called Markus Nylund - he wrote a song called "Millionaire" and when he plays it you can actually hear the room go quiet and people start to listen. Listening to "Wounded" feels exactly like that.

As the first has fallen on a weekend, we obviously haven't received any payout from Sellaband yet, so I've only bought one more part today and that was in I Am Not Lefthanded who only signed up a few days ago. Hopefully this means I'll be spending more next month, but to be honest I haven't actually found many artists really grabbing my attention recently.

Watching
I wasn't watching Sunsoma that closely before but I will be now, as they didn't turn up at the Selloween gig last night. I've left a message on their page, so I hope things are alright.

The inclusion of the Sundial Project in this week's Sixpack reminded me that I haven't been near their profile in ages, so I've resolved to go visit some of the other people I haven't been near in a while, such as Seventh Sin, Soulslide and Grant Stevens. Incidentally, you can download the latest album from the Sundial Project for free if you go visit their profile - I've got as far as the downloading and just need the time to listen. They're inviting feedback in a thread on the forum for anyone who does download - you might have to dig down a bit in the "road to 50K" section before you find it though! The album I downloaded from John C Fraser is now next in line to be listened to, and he'll tell you how long ago I got a copy of that!

Biggest worry of the month is probably Spellbox though. After a bulletin announcing that their cam streams would be live again from October 13th, I haven't actually spotted any confirmation of days/times anywhere and this date wouldn't have fitted their usual Friday sessions anyway. Their budget has also shrunk to just over 2K now and their profile hasn't been updated in over 2 months which is completely out of character. Fingers crossed it's just the ongoing promotion of Mysti's album getting in the way, but I'm starting to feel the need to rattle a few cages and find out what's happening.

In terms of people dropping by my profile, story of the month is basically an artist who hasn't. I had a friend request from an artist on Myspace with the attached message "Hi I see you're on Sellaband". Having seen hundreds (well thousands) of bands on Sellaband, I automatically assumed they were a recent signup as the name didn't ring any bells, however when I reached their Sellaband profile I discovered the last message on their profile was actually from me and dated well over a year ago! The artist in question is Quarter2. Needless to say, I still like the music but what I wrote back then is unfortunately still true today, and I haven't had them leave a message on my Sellaband profile either.

Rooga dropped by to say they're now back on Sellaband, as they'd been away on tour.

Most noticeable of the "people i don't believe in (yet?)" set of profile posters have been Anne Marie Sunshine and Meo and the Alternative Preachers, mostly because I bumped into both of them during the Tiffany Gow countdown chat. In the first case I've been interested enough to wishlist straight away, but in the second nothing has caught my interest yet.

Sixpack Stories
I actually decided to start this new section before the current Sixpack was posted, and, in fact because of what happened the very first Sixpack week because I thought you'd find it interesting. The aim is to tell you any interesting stories I've encountered as a result of the Sixpack and I will also be revealing who I have been voting for in previous weeks and why.

In the first week all six of the artists chosen were basically "new and untested" therefore logic dictated that my choice for the week was going to be between the two artists I had already bought parts in. In the end, I went for The Hoodoos because I preferred the music but by the end of the week I was wishing I had gone for Promethic instead. Remember I said at the start of this blog that there was only one artist who hadn't thanked me. Well that artist was The Hoodoos. In fact, they still haven't.

So although they finished the first week in second place, I didn't actually vote for them the following week. Amazingly The Hoodoos did seem to actually come alive in the second week of the Sixpack, presumably through hearing they'd actually done quite well the first week and they even posted a new track. I'll be looking to see how "alive" they remain though. The second Sixpack week actually proved quite a hard choice between Alex Joe Marczak and Conflict in the Sky, but a combination of the fact I am a rocker at heart and I also often have a soft spot for the underdog, meant that Conflict in the Sky got my vote that week.

I was originally thinking of voting for them again in the 3rd week but unfortunately for them Sellaband threw one of my real favourites into the mix in the form of Morris, so no prizes for guessing where the vote went.

Which brings me neatly onto the current week's voting. Well, I don't know who chooses the Sixpack but they sure have picked some interesting (dare I say controversial) choices this week. I'm voting for Morris again, as you may have guessed but there is actually more than one artist with an "interesting" story in the rest of the lineup.

Most obvious is I Kissed Charles as people have already dragged the threads up from when they were asking how to delete their profile because they were already signed. Indeed the question we can expect to be answered on Monday about signed artists is actually from me as a result of their selection in the Sixpack. I'm hoping for a definition of what Sellaband consider a "signed artist" as part of this answer as there are circumstances I can see where there's no real conflict of interest e.g. when an artist has their current album signed but wants to start fundraising for another which isn't. I think this is one area not clear at all to believers (let's face it, how much does your average person know about the workings of the music industry) and hence one area where a proper clarification could make things a lot easier for all concerned. In actual fact, I wouldn't be averse to seeing Sellaband working with some of the smaller "indie labels" - in terms of partnership there's probably benefit to be gained from both sides.

But a less obvious potential source of controversy that nobody seems to have pointed out or got wound up about is the current 3rd place The Last Grand. Hands up how many people noticed they were on Slice The Pie? I'm not over there so I don't know how much of the 15,000 funding they were looking for has been raised. What I do know is that they're advertising on their Sellaband profile that they're looking for people to go and fund them on Slice The Pie and only one of the two sites (Sellaband and Slice The Pie) is mentioned on their own website. And I'll give you three guesses as to which one that is (and the first two don't count!)

Add to that the fact that The Words will be performing in the hopes of getting a deal from either EMI or Sony next week and I think we can agree it's definitely been an interesting selection on the Sixpack this week!

Sellaband
As if the current Sixpack wasn't enough potential source of controversy,
Ferry is back as furr:www.unrocked.net. For those who missed what happened - last year he was 13 and was kicked off the site along with the various artist profiles he'd set up after he pretended to be a well known Dutch artist. Interestingly, this new profile says he is 16. Reformed character or an accident waiting to happen? I know he's been spotted by other long time believers but I see that Sellaband haven't deleted this new profile, so I'll leave you to make up your own minds what the real truth is here.

Change may be coming on December 1st, but will it be too little, too late? One thing is for sure - if it isn't seen to resolve some of the long-time issues, I can't see the site surviving 2009 given the reactions I'm seeing from both artists and believers at present.

That's all for this month. Hopefully I'll get that post about expectations done before next hatchet day, but the need to earn a living keeps getting in the way!

October 1st 2008 Hatchet Day

If you want to know more about what "hatchet day" is, visit my Sellaband profile and read my info section.

Results from last month
This is a new section in which I'll be posting about things relevant to the previous "hatchet day" blog.

First off, as one of the things people seem interested in is whether artists actually thank people, let me tell you that from those I bought parts in last month two forgot to thank me. I did have some say thankyou via PM, so if you were watching my page, you will have thought there were more than this who didn't thank. I won't mention any names but let's just say the two in question were artists I didn't hold any parts in before, which significantly increases their likelihood of meeting my knife sooner rather than later, as I'm sure you can guess.

Secondly, it looks like Erik must have heard my ponderings, because sure enough there was a new tune posted on Dandelium's page in the middle of September. See - I told you he usually shows up.

This month's gainers and losers
If you are on Sellaband, be warned! Last month I posted a list of artists who were under threat. I actually left messages on the vast majority of the pages in question on 1st September and only ONE artist in the list was active enough to take any notice and make a response. As a result, BillyJon, Off the Bridge, Immortality, Rotten Cheri, Joel John, Guy Barnes and Striving in Greater Hopes have all been removed and I'm still wondering what to do about Worow (the one who responded) as it seems the band itself is no more, but the singer who started the profile is interested in continuing on with Sellaband. We've seen it before when Glass Moon split and we got MR-10 back, so for the time being I'm going to leave the part where it is, wait some more and see what happens. So, if you are an artist and you spot me mentioning your name as being under threat in my blog, then I think it should be obvious from what I've just posted what you need to do. And if you're a fan reading the name and you're convinced the artist is genuinely out there - go give your artist a kick!

As always, parts removals benefit other artists and this month I decided to make a bigger dent than normal in my wishlist as there's been some names on there a while. So, apart from the extra part for The Jade Diary and the part I was obviously going to buy in Elise Azevedo as I was one of those sad to see her go from when she was here last time, the rest of the recipients have been lurking on my wishlist for varying amounts of time.

Natalia Safran has been hovering on the fringes of my awareness for a while now, but hasn't been one of those whose music I've fallen instantly in love with. With her recent fast movement in particular, it was obvious that I was running out of time to decide which side of the fence to be and couldn't sit hovering forever so it's taken some serious listening for me to decide that, yes I do want a part. "Overdrunk Love" was really the song that decided it and she becomes one of the recipients of my hatchet day parts as a result.

MOPI on the other hand are an act I've fallen in love with. My recent sales on Sellaband have been slow otherwise it's quite likely I'd have given them more than just the one part at present, proving once again that whilst my favourite genre is rock it's not necessarily the only genre that can produce my favourite artists.

Raza, Fay Stevenson and The Hoodoos complete the rest of the recipients of the moved parts.

In addition I've had a part return from when Mandocello left earlier this month and I've also reclaimed my part from Jay Stenning as he's looking to concentrate on Sandbox at the moment. In the first case the profile is gone, in the second I was the last believer to remove even though the profile is still there, so there's no point in me reminding people to move their parts.

But you're probably wondering about why I still have 25 parts in Luna Assassins. The main reason for this is that I haven't made contact with Jo yet to find out what's going on. You see Jo removed all her own parts and posted the bulletin about the band leaving, yet she came back a few days later and bought one part in Luna Assassins. She's also quite obviously been into the profile in just the last few days. Strange behaviour for a band that's leaving, so for the moment I'm going to hold where I am until I can get the time to chase up after this. I'm thinking of doing my "12 days of Christmas" or something similar again this year anyway, so it may be I decide to use some of those parts for that, depending on what the story is.

I'm continuing to weed out artists who haven't been around so long it's insane, so those under threat of the hatchet next month are as follows: Skin Diary, The Reverend Coyote, The glo, Tico Verde and Jon Curtis. And yes, I still have even more of you on my parts list that I'm keeping my eyes on!

New investments
All money in this section comes from money received from Sellaband or where parts are returned/reclaimed through artists leaving the site. I only ever buy parts in artists I like or grow to like - I'm certainly no Sellaband collector, so what you see here is always a reflection of my own musical taste. And as always, where it's an artist new to my belief list I often have no idea just how active they'll become. (that's why hatchet day exists of course).

This month I've bought, or increased parts in the following artists: Promethic, The Opposed, The Akibas and Achilla. I also bought yet another part in Skitzo Calypso earlier in the month as I've been loving the music arriving on the profile over the past few weeks. Warning: I already have a strong feeling that one of those mentioned here is likely to face the hatchet at a later date - I often pick up vibes when I visit a profile about how interested the artist is really, and they're usually correct - but there are just times when I like to go against instinct in the hopes that I can be proved wrong, because I love the music.

Watching
My watching list this month is heavily influenced by similar artists or artists in similar situations.

For starters, Cubworld is back. I didn't buy a part last time round. You could say I fell off the fence the other side (think about what I said about Natalia Safran earlier) as he never quite grabbed me with anything he posted. Truth be told, I nearly landed up regretting that decision when the listening session for his album started and I heard the first track on his album. "Rocked out" is something that would have tipped me the other way off the fence if I'd heard it before the 50K were reached, however none of the other tracks on the album managed to win me over, so I'm not overly disappointed I made the decision I did at the time. With it being that much of a close run thing though, I will definitely be keeping an eye on him this second time around - from what I've heard so far, I'm still sitting on the fence.

The "similar artist" link from Cubworld goes to Kimo Watanabe. I've never quite worked out why the two of them have so few believers in common, because they both play the same sort of "island music" and to me it's logical that if you like one, you should have at least some liking for the other. Check him out and see what you think.

I'm not a big R'n'B fan so it's probably no surprise that I have no parts in Audley Anderson, but all I've done over the last two months is watch his parts slide backwards from close on the 3K mark at their peak. Although his page was last updated in July he has definitely been round in August (I can't say for sure about September) and he's never been one of the "noisier" artists round here. He is another case like Kimo Watanabe, where I land up scratching my head - in this case wondering why people go nuts over N'Kenge but not him. I'll be watching to see how the situation develops.

Other noticeable "parts sliders" have been Sunsoma and The Quahaugs. Sunsoma originally removed some of the money they invested in themselves to buy new recording equipment, but I've seen their budget shrink further since, presumably because people don't read and have panicked. They're performing at Selloween at the end of October for heavens sake - what makes people think they're vanishing? The Quahaugs story is even more of a mystery though as all they did was announce they'd be off into the studio to record some new music so wouldn't be quite as active for a while. But that simple message seems to have been the catalyst for a mass parts pullout. Ironically they have still been around - their page was last updated a few days ago.

And talking of updates, one of the benefits of making the "last updated date" for artists more visible is that it's highlighted people I haven't really noticed before, or reminded me of some of the other "quiet but active" artists I haven't been near in a while. The most noticeable pair of these are DiVan and DaNnY. DiVan has been here since December 2006 but the first part was only bought a month ago and they've grown to $380 in budget since. Proof that if you do stay active, someone will notice you eventually. I wouldn't say the current selection of tracks from DaNnY is necessarily the best I've heard from him, but he is definitely one of the "quiet but active" set and one I'd half forgotten about. Check him out, most of his believers currently aren't the "usual suspects" from Sellaband!

Rather than one artist I'm worried about this month, I actually have two. Kristianna has been pretty static for a while with no updates, and it seems she's been having a baby, but it's unclear if she plans to be active on Sellaband again or not. I guess I'm going to have to go chase after Walter B and see if he knows any more than I do (unless he reads this and gets to me first!). Sasha Vella is the other artist in question. She has "disappeared" on a previous occasion for several months and it looks like it's happened again. With people seemingly taking such a "snapshot" approach to the site, that last updated date is now a big cause for concern.

As for some of those dropping by my profile, I was absolutely horrified this month at the audacity of one of the PMs I received from a believer, who named an artist I had parts in and said the artist in question was inactive and said I should move them to the artist they were suggesting instead. Absolutely nothing wrong on the surface of that as far as I'm concerned, but when you consider the artist they named was one I mentioned in my last hatchet day blog as one that people should take a look at because they were actually active, and on top of that said artist had updated their page AGAIN less than 7 days before I received the PM in question and perhaps you can understand why I'm not amused. I hope it's a genuine mistake on the part of the believer in question, though the coincidence does leave me wondering. And it also leaves me wondering if any believers have been tricked into moving parts from artists who really don't deserve that treatment through similar tactics. Why do you think I'm mentioning who is under threat of parts removal in this blog? It's to try and avoid me making a mistake along these lines - at the very least it should show an artist that if I think they're inactive, it's likely others do too and hopefully they will get the message and change their behaviour accordingly.

Chloe Michelle also stopped by to thank me for sticking with her and to be honest it got me wondering. Here's a voice looking for music and equally I know we've got musicians looking for a voice. Wake up and work it out people! Anyone spotting a missed opportunity yet? To be honest I'm amazed she's not involved with the Collaboration Project.

Sellaband
Are Sellaband finally going to do something about "inactive" artists? They say they are and I'll be watching to see if they can meet the deadline to sort this out by the New Year. I've already said it on the forum, and I'll say it again here just so people can be sure I genuinely mean this - if Sellaband do have a system in place by the end of 7th Jan 2009 (they've promised Jan 1st but I know this date is going to slip) that will solve this artist problem then I will send 5 gift parts to JohanV for him to distribute amongst the SAB staff who made it happen as he sees fit. (and yes, that could include keeping one or more for himself - it'll be his decision where they go, not mine!) The problem of working out who is really still on Sellaband and who isn't is one that's been annoying me for far too long and I will be glad to see the back of it. Sellaband have been absolutely terrible at keeping their promised deadlines in the past, but those were back in the days when they didn't have their own in-house development. Although there was some slip in the launch date of the new website, I'd consider the few days we had this time as normal, whereas we've been talking months and months of slip in cases before. I'm seriously hoping they can pull this off to prove that the old days are truly over and get some confidence back in the system as a result.

I'll also be watching to see who gets selected for the "Sellaband Sixpack". It will be interesting to see where the chosen artists are in budget as well as things like the number of people signed up as fans. Is this going to be a case of those low on budget never standing a chance, or will artists actually be able to get fans (i.e. people who don't currently believe) in to get them to the top too?

That's all for this month. Next month's episode may prove to be even later in coming than this one as I'm going to the "Selloween Seance" on October 31st. Check out Sheet Metal's page if you want more details on that.