November 1st 2009 Hatchet Day

With the changes to the Sellaband website and particularly its terms and conditions it's time to have a proper weed of all the dead wood that's been floating around since June. Hence hatchet day returns in record-breaking size. In this particular issue I'm going through the reasoning behind my parts changes, so you can perhaps get an idea of what has actually happened in the whirlwind of decimation you will have seen if you have visited my profile. I'm also going to give you some of my own thoughts on how I view the changes, but I suspect you'll have to wait for further postings before you get the full picture of what's been going on in my head.

Firstly, what has prompted such changes? Basically the clauses in the Terms and Conditions which now basically remove Sellaband from any liability when it comes to artists making offers on its site. Secondly, the fact that a Limited Edition CD is no longer guaranteed (indeed, there's no guarantee of a CD at all) which is a fundamental move away from the reason I signed up to the site in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, there now needs to be a reason for me to buy into a project. i.e. if I will get exactly the same thing at the same price or cheaper after the project is complete, then where's the reason for me to tie up money now? The limited edition CD for its price was the original draw into the site for me, and whilst it didn't quite perhaps work as intended due to believer shops etc. meaning those CDs were still on sale to people who waited, the original idea that the LE CD would only be available to people who bought parts was enough of a reason to want to buy into a project rather than wait. I already buy albums from all over the world so I have a very good idea of the cost of getting something after release. As a result, I'm basically not interested in artists who only offer a download option. Downloads to me are something you pay for and get now, not something you pay for and then wait an unknown amount of time to receive. It also doesn't take much effort to work out how many tracks are required at 99 cents a track for it to be preferable to paying 10 dollars. And remember one track has usually been offered for free via the Sellaband shop!

As a result, I've had 3 main priorities - to check that artists are still out there, to check what's going on with regards to them putting a plan online and to see how their plan fits with my view on how I'll be spending money in future. As a plan is required under the terms and conditions, I am automatically very uncomfortable about leaving even one part in any artist which does not have one.

However I'm also very aware that such a change in the site has also caused many artists to re-think their plans. No more waiting until the budget is reached and then deciding what you need to be doing. One month since the site went live isn't necessarily enough time to get all the details sorted. As a result I'm having a phased hatchet process between now and the end of January.

This hatchet day has been the first phase and changes have taken place based on how artists responded to the message I left on their page in the first week of October. A more detailed breakdown of this follows.

Artists who didn't respond at all
Where I received no response of any kind from the artist, then I looked first at 2 criteria - the number of parts I owned and the "last seen" date of the artist.
1. For artists where the last seen date was "unknown"
If I owned one part it was removed. If I owned more than one part, then the number of parts in the artist was reduced to 1.

2. For artists with a last seen date
Profile was then checked for existence of anything in the plan or blog section. If nothing there and the artist hasn't been seen that recently, then the actions outlined in 1 were taken. For artists where I found something to tell me they're still about e.g. a blog entry which says they're working on the new plan, they've escaped this time around, but I won't be so generous next month if there's been no obvious progress. In a couple of cases I've decided to try chasing up with a PM to see if I can get any response. I really don't like removing parts from artists and if an artist is still around but basically considering their options, I'd rather know and give them that bit more time.

Artists who responded
If I only own one part and the artist responded then it's been a case of no change for now. Next hatchet day is when I'll look more closely at these. The exception to this is mooncrow where he is unsure if he is even going to continue with the site, so I've withdrawn the part for now as he requested in his post to me. Where I own more than one part, it's been a case of looking at the plan that has been posted and I have reduced parts in some cases already. I do have a number of artists that did respond that are working on plans, so in those cases it's a case of no change this time around.

I have a few artists giving me a headache in terms of their plan changes, as they don't quite fit with what I'm after, but the case is borderline rather than an obvious case where I'd radically change the number of parts I've got. So even if you've changed your plan already, there's still a chance of a small parts adjustment in the pipeline over the next month, when I've stopped scratching my head on the do-I-or-don't-I-change-parts that's the case now.

It also looks like I may need to make some upwards re-adjustments now the majority of the "weeding" process is done. There are some artists in my list of belief where I've received incentives in the past for buying parts. Having thought about it, as long as they don't break the 3 month "last seen" date rule I've set, then I feel it's only fair that I maintain the parts corresponding to the incentive I received in the past, even if it doesn't match an incentive they're currently offering. So apologies in advance to anyone who is currently on less parts than they really ought to be, and I promise it will be sorted by next hatchet day or you're quite welcome to chase after me with a knife then!

The artists who didn't respond at all but where I still own parts basically now have one more month to contact me and/or put their plan on the Sellaband website. Never let it be said that I don't give people second chances!

Phase 2 is when I deal with the remaining non-responders and start to take some more preliminary decisions regarding plans posted. This will take place on December 1st.
Phase 3 will take place early in January when I will be removing parts from any artist who still doesn't have a plan available and/or who can't be found in the search/listings, and making a decision regarding any plans that haven't been dealt with in phase 2.

The alarm bells will also go off if an artist reaches 80% of the budget they are currently showing as target on Sellaband. If the plan, incentives and/or budget still don't tie up properly for the level of parts I have by then, there's a good chance I'll be reducing or even possibly removing all parts in that artist, until such time as the situation is rectified or I have written confirmation from Sellaband themselves (direct, not forwarded) to confirm the artist's plans have been agreed differently to what is shown in the incentives section. Artists can get this information changed if they contact Sellaband, so there is no excuse. It's already happened in several other cases and in one case I've even landed up following an artist I would otherwise have ignored as a result. If you are an artist, take this warning very seriously. There is a principle here. I wouldn't buy a part in a new artist I'd never heard of before if their plan and incentives didn't match, so why should I treat artists I already hold parts in any differently?. The view I hold on this is actually being reinforced by some of the plans I'm seeing out there (more about this later). Even if I've got to know the artist to the point I feel I can trust them, the chances are the discrepancy will put other potential believers off (just as it does for me when the artist is new to me), so it's actually in the artist's own interest to ensure this is right anyway. You should have seen from the havoc in my profile today that I'm quite prepared to follow through on this. And if you missed it - over 100 artists removed from my following list and more than 50 artists removed from my belief list, should give you some idea of the scale we're talking about.

Particular warning bells for next month have to be ringing in the direction of a number of artists where I've reduced to one part, as a result of them not being visible in the search or because their "last seen" date is unknown. Black Jack, MDATA, Heartshine, Silverimage, Tarek Sidani, Achilla and Six Eyes Lost are among those.

New parts
As you can probably work out from the above, rather a lot of money has been freed up back into my balance. I've found a new home for some of it already, but I'm now actively looking for places to spend it, so expect my following list to start exploding in size again. Best get my interest fast though, because it's likely I'll be attempting a payout some time between now and Christmas if my balance stays where it is and as the money now goes to Paypal, that means I'll be buying some things I've been putting off buying because there were no funds of the correct currency in my account and the exchange rate has not been favourable. But before my profile gets deluged with comments to listen, you better make sure you've read the "About Me" section on my Sellaband profile and acted accordingly. The basic rules are as follows:

1. Do I like your music? I only buy parts in artists whose music I like. There are people around Sellaband who can testify to the fact I've even turned down gift parts if I didn't like the music enough.
2. Are you only offering a download? Sorry, I'm looking for a Limited Edition album. If I'm interested enough in your music I might buy a download after it's available, but you'll need something pretty special to get me to buy parts in any project which doesn't offer a CD. I need a reason to tie up my money for an unknown length of time if all I am going to get is exactly the same as those who wait for you to finish your project and then buy. Unless it's love at first listen, I'll be looking at things such as likely price to buy afterwards or what else is within the incentives if the CD you're offering is not a limited edition or of shorter length than an album.
3. What incentives are you offering? In general I'm looking to only buy one part, but if I find your incentives interesting enough to me there is a chance I'll buy more. I'll need to have become absolutely, irreversibly hooked on your music to even start looking higher than a 10 part incentive though.
4. As far as revenue share is concerned, I don't care. I've done the numbers and I've also got a large selection of "already funded" artists and all the evidence suggests no more than a few cents. If a miracle happens and you are offering revenue share then I'll probably love you forever, but I think my chances of winning the lottery are better. I'll therefore buy parts irrespective of whether you offer revenue or not.
5. What's your last seen date? If I ever spot this date as being "unknown" or more than 3 months old, you haven't sent me a message/visited my page and I don't recall seeing you elsewhere on the site (e.g. the forum) either, then you can expect to be visited by my hatchet day.
6. Can you be found if I type your artist name into the search? Does your plan look at least halfway reasonable or does it give the impression you don't have a clue? If you're giving a bad first impression, or indeed can't be found at all by others, then where's the point of me spending my money on you?

So having been forced to sit through reading everything I've written in this section, now to the bit you're really interested in. Where have I actually bought parts and why?

The first "new era" part I bought isn't really a purchase but just a straight move of the part I had in MAYHEM to Mysti Mayhem's new profile. The main thing bothering me at the moment is that her plan is stating a CD for every part you buy, but this isn't reflected by the incentives panel. (and the CD icon = 1 CD per believer, not per part). I've met Mysti in real life so I'd say I have more trust in her than on average over the artists I believe in, she's nowhere near the 80% threshold yet and with only the one part anyway at the moment, I'm prepared to let this problem go for now. But Sellaband really need to do something about this to make it easier. I've seen they will change things if asked (Gayle Skidmore for instance recently had her "1 cd per believer" activated where it wasn't before, and I started following as a result) but it's surely a lot of work for Sellaband (never mind hassle for the artist) if artists have to keep asking until it gets done right.

Matthew Ebel becomes the first artist where I've actually increased the number of parts I had already. I said back at the beginning of the year when he joined the site that he was, for me, the best discovery of 2009 so far. It's looking like it won't be long before I can remove those last two words, unless there's a last minute surprise. This is one case where I've officially crossed the border from music lover to fan (and fast seeing as I'd never even heard of him before he joined Sellaband). I'd actually been planning to buy a subscription to his site if I landed up paying money out into Paypal, so for me this is really a case of having your cake and eating it too, as his lower level incentives (5,10 and 15 parts) basically amount to getting a year's subscription (at the relevant level) plus the album. He does a live concert online pretty much every Tuesday night, so if you really want to check for yourselves if he's the real deal I say he is, then this is probably the best place to do it.

Aly Cook finally gets a part, having been sat on my wishlist while the site was in chaos and I wasn't buying parts. Her incentive is extremely tempting, but I also am left wondering if she's realised just how much the postage cost (of which there's no mention anywhere in her plan) is going to work out to be, particularly if she gets a lot of believers from outside NZ.

John C Fraser turned out to be the returned part I was left wondering about in my previous blog post. He's come back with a 20K budget and the part has gone back in as a result.

The more I see Epyllion, the more I find myself liking them. As well as the music, I think they've got a lot of the "artist spirit" we had back in the early days of Sellaband that seems to have been so lacking recently. A weekly video diary, the fact they actually spotted I'd started following them and sent me a message (even before I bought a part) and the way they've been trying to get involved with the forum, are all things which stand out in this regard. The plan to use Sellaband as a boost to help them finish what they've already got a lot of the funds for and are already working on is something I also think is quite smart, as it means there should be less of a wait between the funds being raised and the album actually recorded, due to the fact they've started recording already. i.e. instead of waiting at least 6 months to a year, I'd say this one is more likely to be nearer a month or two after reaching their target as a result. It's also noticeable that they seem to have a big backer buying a certain number of parts every week, so if things keep up at their current rate, I'm currently expecting them to be somewhere around halfway to their target at Christmas, which should be about the right time for all you late "sheep" to start thinking about spending your Xmas money on them. I'm already convinced this is one artist that will definitely reach their target on Sellaband and probably within the first quarter of next year, unless anyone out there wants to prove me wrong and make it happen faster.

Particular near misses who didn't get parts this time around come in the form of Chris Jones and The Silence.

In the case of the former, a combination of relatively low budget increase and page attendance after the first couple of days of "hype" and the fact the budget is in euros rather than dollars is putting me off. Whilst there's no doubt that 10 euros is still a good deal for me (a lot of the time I pay nearer to 20 including postage if I have to order direct from Europe), it's unclear as to how the transaction change is handled. e.g. if the price converts to 15 dollars to be taken from your balance and you later remove the part, do you get 15 dollars back or whatever it converts to at the time instead? At the moment I have no doubt I'll be buying a part if he stays on the site long enough to raise his budget, but it's looking more likely I'll be a late believer as a result.

In the case of The Silence things are pretty much turned around due to the fact he's not offering a CD if you buy just one part. The 5 part deal is the thing looking most tempting for me - 3 CDs for $50 looks reasonable, particularly when you consider one is a copy of previous work, meaning you're left with one for yourself and only one to either give away as a present or potentially sell in order to get some of the money back. Although the deal itself looks interesting that then leaves the question of the music, and I already know it's very likely there's going to be some on there I won't like due to his inclusion of Maitreya and the fact I don't like rap. Until I get a better feel for the project, you're therefore going to find me sitting on the fence, as there's not enough either attracting me or chasing me off at the moment.

I've got a plan
Here's a section I suspect is going to become a regular feature of hatchet day from now on. In this section I'll be selecting a few artists and taking a look at some of the plans and incentives on offer. And in true knifelady style, not just ones I consider good, but also some of the more entertaining, amusing and even downright strange ones as well.

TheLights are giving me a dilemma at the moment. Whilst they've dropped their budget, they now only plan to record a 6 song mini-album, and as they're based just around the corner from me anyway, I find myself torn between the urge to support a very talented band now and the urge to wait until afterwards. Whilst I'll be waiting a bit longer before making a final decision on that one, the main reason for including them here is to tell you about the incentive you've missed out on. For a mere 2000 parts, you too could sleep with a band member of your choice, but as that equates to their total budget, they already have sold parts and it's meant jokingly anyway, it would appear you're just that little bit too late.

One of the more innovative plans around has to come from Allen Thompson For a certain minimum number of parts (could be 8, could be 15 depending on whether you believe the plan or incentives) he will come round to your house and play a concert. For larger numbers of parts he'll "upsize" and bring his band as well, so effectively you get to pick what level of concert you want e.g. acoustic or full band, depending on the number of parts you buy. Each concert gets recorded and the album produced for believers is basically made up of the "best bits" of those concerts. That's the basics but you'll find a much more detailed explanation in his blog post. There are obvious questions, such as what would happen if I was to go and buy 15 parts (he's in the States and I'm in the UK), and at what kind of point would you feel comfortable having an artist into your own home, but otherwise I find the idea a very interesting one. Whilst it's obvious from his wording he intended this for his existing fanbase, it's also interesting to note his current budget raised is $0 despite the fact he's already been on the site a fortnight. Just not attractive to his existing fans (and he didn't ask beforehand), or something about Sellaband putting people off? I think the answer to this one could be very useful information.

Band Without Borders is one of the new custom projects out there. As someone not interested in revenue share who finds the music interesting, I've been half tempted to buy a part for the CD, but the way things stand at the moment the project itself doesn't make sense once you think about it. For starters, if the idea of the revenue share does appeal, there's rather a lot of holes in the plot. You see, the project itself requires $250,000 to be raised but instead of trying to raise it all in one go, they've decided to split it into 5 phases of $50,000 and that's where the problems start. Firstly the text on the first $50,000 project states a 10% revenue share whereas the incentive icon is stating 15%. We also know the revenue share is meant to apply to the $250,000 which actually means that only 3% of the total revenue will apply to each $50,000 chunk, (assuming it is 15% for the total project). These differences mean you'd better be very good at mathematics if you're interested in the revenue, because it's extremely easy to get misled with the way the information is presented on the profile. There are also other questions to be raised such as the fact the revenue share depends on them being able to sell the project to TV (and that doesn't seem to have happened yet), and the question of how you get people to buy into the second (and subsequent) $50,000 project chunks, which would obviously be an ideal situation to raise money fast - you can't very well offer the same thing to the same people second time around because most (if not all) won't be interested. And if you are going to be offering the same thing, where is the next set of interested people going to come from? All in all, I'd therefore say this is one project which is a great idea, but very badly thought out.

Another confusing custom profile comes in the form of Nylon Pink, who are the only artist not offering a CD that seems to be doing fairly well to date. But is this because potential believers are getting confused? If you're not offering a CD, yet you get your name in the CD booklet for 10 parts, this seems rather strange unless there is actually going to be a CD available for sale later. None of the incentives listed actually say that believers will receive a CD if they buy multiple parts, but how many are going to be fooled into thinking they'll get a CD because of the wording in the incentives section? Or indeed, is a CD actually available for multiple parts, but the information is missing?

Bench Grinder have traditionally been one of the quietest artists on Sellaband, but their changed budget could be of interest to those looking at revenue share. Their plan involves 100% of revenue from their physical sales (yes, you heard right - that's the lot and not a mistype adding an extra 0) and they won't need all of the CDs they are producing to cover believers either. Unfortunately their "extra incentives" section is activated but blank at the moment which means it looks like there's still a bit of work to do there.

I've also seen a number of plans that can best be described as "Help I'm Lost", but I'll leave you to decide whether that statement refers to me or the artist in question.

One such example is Davizion whose plan proudly states "Have one number one hit song". And... well... that's actually all there is to it. Personally I'd consider that more an ambition than a plan. I'm also wondering if the fact there's just a single song in the profile has some relevance here.

We also have Champ with "I Am Trying To Go To School For Audio Engineering So I Can Change Things From Witthin Music Labels"... soo.. I'm actually paying for your college fund? Or..? If you like your rap/hip-hop, he's actually got about 2 albums worth of material posted on his page, so there's actually plenty to check out, and hence might be a shame to see him passed by for want of a decent plan.

As a late edit just as I'm about to post this, I also see we have a new arrival in Steven Marr with "blah blah blah, who really wants to read that". No comment from me on that one - I'll leave you to decide what you think.

I'd also love to know how any of the last 3 artists I've mentioned manages to meet condition 5.5 in the fundraising terms and conditions. Anyone got any ideas? I'm completely lost on that score.

So whilst I have seen some such profiles deleted (such as the artist who was going to spend 50% of the budget on food and drink and the other 50% on booking shows so you could watch them eat that food and drink), I'd say the fact that there's no real regulation going on out there is something that bothers me. Νεφελοκοκκυγία is the first word that comes to mind, because whilst some out there might be very good at music, it's clear they're missing the knowledge, access to advice and often just plain logic required to even sound as if they know what they're doing. And if Sellaband have experts on board, then why aren't they helping to close that gap, rather than just letting these plans slide out there?

Add to this the question of how far you bend the rules, or even what exactly the rules are in the first place and the whole "plan" idea is, quite frankly, a mess. But what do I mean by that previous sentence? Well if you take a look at the fundraising agreement you'll see that 3 types of music project are identified. However if you look at the "how it works" slideshow for artists you'll see on the 7th slide that there is a star in the top right corner which says "Want a bigger budget? Want to raise funds for touring or promotion? Go custom". So are options b) and c) in the fundraising agreement meant to apply to custom projects only? And if touring or promotion/marketing are meant to be custom budgets only, then why the large number of standard artists with plans stating their budget is for these activities?

This whole area needs clarification by Sellaband, and preferably yesterday, otherwise the place is rapidly going to gain a reputation as the funding platform without a clue.

Following
As part of hatchet day I've also taken a big clearout of my following list and removed all artists I don't hold parts in where the last seen date is either "unknown" or more than three months ago. This rule will continue to apply on future hatchet days. I've also removed all artists on my following list on $0 who signed up prior to 2009, as I think it's very unlikely there will be any change in their status. Like many other parts of the site, the following list also has bugs with artists whose profiles have been removed from Sellaband still showing, and it's not possible to stop following them, so I do still have a couple of those lurking in there.

I follow artists for one of several reasons. I automatically follow artists where I own parts. If I own parts and I'm not following as well, do give me a prod! In general I start to follow artists before I actually buy parts though, so this isn't usually a problem. Other artists on my following list are usually there because I am planning to buy parts, am sitting on the fence and want to hear more before I decide whether to buy parts, or I'm thinking about including them in a hatchet day post for some reason.

Of particular interest this month are Phil Tweed and We Love the Underground. Neither have posted plans yet, although Phil has sent several mails my way to gauge my reaction and Brad has mentioned the kind of thing he's thinking of, which resulted in me posting a response to him in this thread on the forum, which many artists will probably find useful as it gives a good idea of the reality of just how far (and fast) postage costs can spiral if you're looking at sending CDs to your believers and there's a move towards one-parters rather than multi-part believers.

Along with Matthew Ebel, these two are the artists currently fundraising on Sellaband where I officially consider myself having crossed that border from liking the music into a real fan, so I'm extremely interested in what they come up with, as it will have a heavy influence on the parts I have in them. Both have also recently posted new tunes. "A few good men" from Phil is up with the best songs I've ever heard from him and could well become my new favourite song of his. At a time when I'm going to have to make some pretty hard decisions regarding parts, it's given me rather an emotional reminder of why I landed up buying so heavily in the first place. "Afire" from We Love the Underground is less commercial than the previous track but also gives me a better feel for where Brad is heading with this project relative to the ones we've heard before. (Niki Thunders/Skitzo Calypso)

There are also a number of artists already added to my following list since the site changes that I'll be keeping an eye on.

My father likes jazz, but my mother doesn't. This simple fact is what led to me gaining an appreciation of it many years ago as my father used to play his tapes in the car when taking me to chess matches in the evening - about the only time he'd get a chance to listen without my mother being around. Whilst I've never been a big fan of the genre as a whole (and there is a wider range to it than most people realise), Abram Wilson therefore becomes of interest, as his particular style matches that of my father's favourite. Even with a relatively modest budget of $30,000 I'd say he's got his work cut out for him on Sellaband though, so I will be interested to see how things develop.

The Esoteric Gender look to be keeping it quite simple. With an 11 song album planned, no extra incentives and a 50% revenue share it looks like something to appeal both to the 1 parters who want the music and anyone who does want to go nuts if they think the revenue is going to be there. I'd actually recommend checking out the video first (home of the whale), which has a very Celtic feel to it.

Gayle Skidmore was an artist I originally passed by because she wasn't offering a CD to believers. That's now changed, and consequently there's a good chance she'll attract a part from me some time soon.

Josianne is looking interesting, but with only the one song at the moment, it's not yet enough to make me jump off the fence.

Modern Day Ruin need to do some work on their profile. There isn't a biography at the moment, but they've got some decent (although not outstanding) songs and tick the boxes on CD and revenue share that most believers seem to be after one (or both) of, so I'm slightly surprised they don't seem to have picked up any interest yet.

Elio Cagnizi also has some nice music going on, but is probably suffering from a combination of no plan and both his music and biography being in Italian. Well worth checking out, and I know people have bought parts in similar artists before.

And finally, here's an interesting one for those who are also on thesixtyone. As well as Loom that I see a lot of you have already noticed, am I the only one to spot that Kashmere Hakim came over at about the same time as well? Popular over there, but seemingly not so popular over here.

Sellaband
It's fair to say that the rules of the believing game have changed. Where it was only necessary for you to trust in Sellaband before, now a large portion of that trust has been shifted direct to the shoulders of the artist. In my opinion this is a very bad thing for artists unless they already have a decent fanbase willing to support them. From a believer point of view, you no longer have one "unknown" (i.e. Sellaband itself) in which there needs to be trust, but 5 or 10 or 20 (or however many different artists you believe in) instead. It's also a case that there is no simple "Buy one part and get a LE CD" rule any more. Believers now have to take the time to check each profile and understand exactly what's on offer, and, let's face it, how many are going to be bothered or even have the time to do that? Privacy also has the potential to become an issue. As artists can now choose to distribute themselves rather than everything being done through Sellaband, this means information you originally needed to provide only to Sellaband will need to be passed on by them in order for you to receive albums or other incentives.

The changes allowing artists to set their own budget are good, as it means in theory that more should be able to reach the target faster (and then hopefully come back with a slightly larger budget next time around) and not everyone is at the same level of musical development anyway, however just because the budget it smaller, it doesn't mean it is going to be any easier to get believers, because the changes introduced have actually made it harder for music lovers. Much harder.

Considering an average time of 6 months to a year to reach the goal, plus a further year while you wait for the outcome, more and more the question has to be asked - why should I tie up money now? I've already stated in my case it has been the LE CD that answered that question for me originally, but now it's no longer a guarantee, I too am largely looking for a reason to believe early. Unlike other funding sites, Sellaband takes your money now and basically holds onto it indefinitely (or at least until you ask for it back), whereas in other places there is a set time to pledge money - if the target is reached in time the money is taken, but if it isn't it has stayed in your own bank account earning money. A lot of people already won't make the jump to believe early as a result of this simple difference, even if something is only available if they do.

And that's where the problem starts. If even the music lovers who traditionally have believed early to try and give someone a boost (after all, someone has to get the ball rolling) are now sat wondering where the reason is that they should buy parts early, we rapidly start heading towards a point where only those who get a big sponsor on board (whether that be an existing big believer who gets interested or e.g. an indie label willing to buy a large number of parts in advance) are going to make any progress away from the $0 mark and have any chance of reaching their target.

Add to that the move away from community for believers rather than any attempt to foster it and help it grow, and from a music lover point of view, the site is holding less and less appeal.

There was originally an outcry when the listening sessions for believers were removed from the site, and it looks very much to me as if Sellaband may have very quietly found a way to remove them again. As we've now reached a case where it is "the artist's" album rather than a "Sellaband" album, are there going to be listening sessions for the albums any more, once the ones currently in production from the old era have been made? Indeed, what does it mean for the Sellaband shop, now that Sellaband will no longer be producing standard copies of the albums? Will any of the new albums be available for sale there? Will the free download of one track even continue? Add to this the relegation of the forum into the depths of the footer section of the site and it appears that even the few things remaining to attempt to keep people on the site rather than the idea of "visit once and go away" are slowly disappearing.

Sellaband's mission statement has traditionally made a point of saying they are there to break down the fences in the music industry, however with this latest set of changes it looks very much to me as if they'd rather still keep some of them in place instead. The site that will revolutionize the music industry first has to be able to educate and advise new artists coming along, otherwise the fences between those who have the connections and those who do not will remain firmly in place. And it also has to provide an environment that music lovers want to hang around on, form friendships and share in a way that makes the "sheep" realise that actually, this is something great to get involved with.

At the moment there is still time to redress the balance, but it won't be long before I see Sellaband heading down a path from which there will be no return.

And Finally
As you may be aware if you've been around the site for any length of time I usually hold off on the hatchet over the Christmas/New Year period and do something else instead. Last year that was a "review of the year" style post. This year, I'll be giving you the new top 10s as usual, but I'm also looking to do something slightly different.

This is your chance to get to know the "hatchet lady" and ask any burning questions you have lurking in the back of your mind. I am willing to answer a maximum of 10 question publicly in my blog post over the Xmas/New Year period. In the event of too many questions submitted the most popular ones will get answered first, and in the event of a tie it will be the questions asked first that count. Keep it sensible - I'm obviously not going to put personal information like my home address publicly, but otherwise the door is open for whatever you want to ask, whether that be about me or my views/experiences on Sellaband and I promise they will be answered truthfully. The questions themselves must be submitted via PM at my Sellaband profile in order to be considered and you have until December 20th to do so, so get creative!

A musical interlude

Whilst I'm on Sellaband sabbatical, watching the latest fun of a hacker having a go at the site, waiting for the (finally and hopefully correct) calculated revenues to be credited and wondering both where that part that came back to my balance came from and whether I ought to start bets on how many years it will be before the housekeeping is back to where it was before the site update in June, I've been spending most of my music listening time round thesixtyone as one of the commenters on my last blog post successfully managed to work out.

Impressions of thesixtyone so far are that it provides the first stage that Sellaband is missing. I've mentioned before that part of what I see as the future of music is that artists need to be able to get enough people interested before they go ahead for that album, and one of the ideas I came up with was a 2-tier system where artists could build up a certain degree of popularity before converting their account into a "raise 50K" one. Thesixtyone provides a popularity index by means of voting on songs and some complex wizardry in the background which determines what is popular enough to hit the homepage. Additionally there is the feature for users to download existing songs (whether for free or a nominal fee) or even to just donate some cents to an artist - the kind of thing that both believers and artists have been asking for on Sellaband for a while. All you'd have to do is come up with some wizard formula based on number of hearts given and number of different people giving the hearts, and bingo you'd have the basis for deciding whether someone was ready to head up to the "tier2" of trying to raise the 50K. Food for thought?

So in celebration of more than 2600 plays over there since the sabbatical started, here's a roundup of some of the must-listen music I've discovered in my time away.

First on the list are Paul and Storm. A kind of guilty pleasure and a modern day Flanders and Swann, both in terms of the storytelling and the often "interesting" (for want of a better word) lyrics. A couple of tunes to watch out for are "The captain's wife's lament" which simultaneously features both an amusing and potentially embarassing play on words and "Cruel, cruel moon" in which a young man describes the dilemma he's going to be facing come sundown. Having a bad day? This is just the place to stop off for a listen and a laugh.

Back to the more conventional we have Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden. Every so often an artist comes along where you just go "wow" on first listen and this is no exception. Plenty to discover here, but for me the pick of the tracks is still the haunting "In Your Dreams". I challenge you to listen to this one and not get goosebumps.

There's also been a number of signups hiding in with the large quantities of junk on the site where I've either managed to get in on the ground floor and discover a tune, or very shortly after. Most noticeable of these is probably Annie Brooks, who has some charming little tunes and a very distinctive voice to boot.

Shannon Corey provides what's probably my best discovery to date of those who have just signed up to the site, and is currently looking likely to provide the second of my discoveries (or first blood, as the site calls it) to hit the front page.

Hot off the press for you, being brand new on the site today, is an Icelandic folk band called Árstíðir. They have one song in English and one in Icelandic on their page at the moment and both are well worth a listen.

And if you don't mind covers, there's an absolutely awesome acapella group called Duke Out of the Blue. My favourite is their cover of "Black horse and the cherry tree"

Finally, we hit the headscratching section. It's quite true that country isn't a very popular genre on the site, but I'm still at a loss to explain why "Something to do with you" by Patrick Brealey still has so few hearts, given some of the other country music others rate highly. The only explanation I have so far is that he's male.

I also piled in early to the first song of Aussie rock band Into the Night. Not a hard decision given the production quality and my liking for rock to start with. Like most of the other rock acts on the site though things have ground to a halt as far as getting new listeners seems to be concerned. Just like Sellaband it appears thesixtyone is populated mostly by lovers of the poppy/folky styles of music and/or female fronted acts. A real shame to be honest as these guys have quite a varied style, and a definite quality feel compared to most artists on the site so it's well worth checking out their other tracks even if the first one you listen to doesn't appeal.

In addition to these artists, there have been some very interesting songs which grabbed me though the artists providing them haven't done so (yet?). here's a few for you to check out.
Morgan Page - Fight for You
Yonder Mountain Studio - Complicated
Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers - Shady Esperanto and the Young Hearts
Santiago - A place and a face
Andrew Morris - Dust
At the Stars - When words won't come

If you haven't visited me on the sixtyone yet, then here's a few interesting bits of information for you. Firstly, I pick out 3 tracks and feature them on my page every Monday. Generally these are songs which a) haven't hit the front page yet b) the artist is fairly new to the site and c) I've searched through everything I've hearted to try and bring you what I consider some of the best (not always easy considering I try to provide a range in musical genres every week!). So if you've only got 15 minutes a week to spare, late Monday (or any other day of the week) is probably the best time to find out some new music. Since I started the 3 songs every week feature, at least one of the 3 songs I've picked has hit the homepage within a couple of days (last week 2 out of 3 of my featured songs went to the homepage during the week I featured them), so if you want to be just ahead of the popularity push, maybe I'm one to watch?

Secondly, keep an eye on my tags. "Discovery" hosts every song I've managed to get a first heart on. "Favourite" contains only those songs I've genuinely fallen in love with, so it should make it easier for you to pick them out from all those I have a moderate liking for or where I've hearted because I think they show potential. And you know, a couple of people may just get an unexpected surprise from that list. "sellaband" should be pretty obvious, but I've been a bit of a slacker there and may not yet have every song from a Sellaband artist that I've hearted on that list yet. So when you've got a spare hour or two, click on a tag to get that playlist up and then take a listen to what I've got there, if you want a wider selection than just my 3 featured songs.

Thirdly, if you listen to my radio, it should contain every song I've hearted to date (as well as a few I haven't got around to yet) so you really can expect a mixed bag there (though pretty much rap/hip-hop-free due to my own music taste) that'll keep you occupied for days already should you so choose.

Away from thesixtyone, musically I find myself still waiting to hear Phil Tweed's new tune. There was originally meant to be a rough version up back at the end of June, but like so much else the Sellaband website got in the way. He has however uploaded a few more tracks that have been up before but were swapped out as a result of the old 3 song limit.

I also am looking out for the new Skitzo Calypso track on 27th September. Don't know if my dropping a kudos on Brad's blog was what prompted him to wake up and post about this on Sellaband, but I'm also wishing he'd post a new "We love the underground" track on Sellaband. The curses of sideprojects though I guess.

And finally as late breaking news - just as I'm writing this blog, one of my 3 featured songs for this week hits the homepage on thesixtyone, keeping my record intact for another week.

Whatever happened to hatchet day?

I expect by now, many of you are wondering what happened to my hatchet day post which was due last week. Well one thing I always do before actually posting is go back and read what I've written. I like to hope that in general I provide a post which both reflects my own opinions whilst attempting to provide a balanced view at the same time, so the reader can make up their own mind. And I found that what I'd written didn't pass the test, nor could I write it in a way that would make it pass the test, because I'd been beaten by circumstances.

Let me explain.

My time on Sellaband has been progressively getting less and less since the website changes back at the end of June. As a result, a week or so into August I migrated and started listening to music elsewhere, because it was taking too long to track down the new artist signups on the Sellaband site. And whilst that problem has been fixed with the recently re-introduced artist search, the other problem is still there. Yes folks, we're back to the bad old days of "inactive" profiles. I haven't done an exact calculation over a period of time (though I'm sure someone will manage that for me), but I'd guess there's roughly a 60% chance that when you do find a newly signed up artist, the profile in question will have no music or information, even if you wait at least a week for it to appear. In fact, of signups in the last 7 days, only 10 out of 27 had any music on their page when I last did a check. So with so much wasted time trying to find new music on Sellaband and still no indication of when the situation might be improved, I'm now listening elsewhere for the forseeable future.

A couple of people from the Sellaband userbase have already spotted where I've migrated to, and left comments on my profile there, so they'll also be able to confirm I've listened to over 1700 tracks in the time since I migrated. A feat not possible in the same length of time on Sellaband at present.

Whilst some problems have been fixed, and indeed continue to be fixed, I still regard the Sellaband website as in a worse state than when I originally signed up to it in 2006 from a listener point of view. Couple this with the fact a number of artists on the site are leaving through various reasons (including getting signed - the latest of those is Chupacabra, if you hadn't spotted, even though like many "left" artists the profile hasn't gone yet) and it's getting to the point I'm getting more parts returned to my profile than I've seen an equivalent value return in revenue from 50K artists via the site. It doesn't help that we're now heading into the 3rd month when no revenue of any kind has been paid into believer profiles. Forget that we're overdue for the values assigned to one quarter of third party sales and that a second will be coming due soon - we're also talking that no revenue through the site itself has been paid, including the compensation for stopping the advertising.

Profiles are still a mess. As someone who has been on the site for the vast majority of its life, I noticed that one of the "upgrades" brought back all old profile comments that had been deleted, whether manually by the user or as a result of the artist profiles being removed. It appears a rather selective fix has been applied to that particular problem - or maybe the data is as screwed as my comments section would suggest. Seems that somewhere in the process, a number of artists managed a name change, even though they didn't have a profile on the site any longer. For instance, Elleanore comments have gone again while comments from The Super Dead remain and Luna Assassins are now called Noname157. All deleted artists and all treated differently, and that's just one example of a much wider problem (there's a lot of Noname lurking around for starters). Add to that the expanded "artists I like" section (though mysteriously the similar "friends" section remains as it was) and the whole thing still looks a bit of a joke once you go deeper than the (mostly surface) changes which have been happening. Some serious housekeeping needs to be done to sort out this complete mess, but I'm thinking it'll be months before we see it.

In short, it's not a site I'm happy with as a believer at the moment. I'm not planning to buy any new parts at present as a result (exception would be if someone looks like hitting 50K, I fancy a CD and I don't have a part) and therefore any "hatchet day" would be removals back into my balance only. As I'm not really visiting or listening to any new music on Sellaband either, it's kind of reached the point where a "hatchet day" post is going to turn into one big long whinge about Sellaband and have very little musical content, which is exactly the reverse of its original intent to perhaps introduce you to music on the site you might have missed.

So for the moment, my hatchet day postings are effectively suspended. Maybe they'll return and maybe they won't. Much of that depends on whether this new web team can actually return the site to the condition it was in before the update in June. And how quickly. As I've already said on my profile page, if my balance starts getting too large I will start removing money from the system, and I'm just about to request a payout that will mean I've removed more than has been credited in revenue. No parts have been removed from artists to do this, rather this is all money returned through artists leaving as my normal "hatchet day" has always reassigned money where I've done the removal. So much for re-investing. I'm also getting very inclined to start withdrawing parts back into my balance from some of the low budget and long time inactive, as well as those stating on their profile that they've left the site, so keep your eyes out, because next "hatchet day" might actually be a "half-a-hatchet day". And who knows what the status will be if this debacle is still going on come Christmas.

August 1st 2009 Hatchet Day

A strange month due to the website problems, but more about those later.

Results from last month
Wetwerks actually appeared and left a message on my page. Looks like they're going to be locking themselves in the studio for the duration of the website problems, so hopefully something positive will come out of that in the form of new music.

I haven't actually finished the first post in my "vision" story yet, for those who were wondering. The reason being that I've been spending most of my limited spare time recently with the unofficial bug tracker. I made an initial set of postings in there, and have been drip-feeding a few ever since, meaning I'm currently maintaining a record of having made the initial post for roughly a quarter of the bugs in the database as a whole, even though others keep posting a few bugs as well. And OK, you can argue that under 150 in total isn't that many (yet), but I don't think we'll be done posting for a while, even though there may be a bit of calm while we wait for the promised update. Here's hoping it will fix at least some of those. And hopefully that comment last month about needing a full time job to collect and report bugs makes a bit more sense now as well.

This month's gainers and losers
There have been no gainers or losers this month due to the website problems. I'm going to give it one more month to see if things improve on the artist searching, because it's still a major issue to find artists in the first place. At the moment it looks more likely that artists will want out of the site themselves rather than me having to worry about them. It's also looking unclear from the "last visited" and "last updated" dates as to whether these are actually working or not, as these 2 dates now seem to be identical and quite often seem to be set to the current date when you visit the profile, even though I often can't see any change in the profile itself. Haven't yet spotted one where the dates are different but I'm still looking. It's therefore a completely unreliable method of finding out whether the artists are still around or not, and I'd have to go chasing round elsewhere as a result. Not something I really want to spend that much time on at present.

New investments
All new investments are on hold while the website is in such a dire state. I did get a part in Lip Service, but only as a result of winning a gift part for entering bug number 50 in the bug tracker. And even collecting that giftpart brought out some new bugs.

Watching
This month I'm mostly watching those artists I would probably have bought a part in if the site had been working properly.

Casee Wilson is the first of these. She's been lurking on my wishlist a while, and I had intended to buy a part last hatchet day, but as you know, the website got in the way.

The last Sixpack winner Lani Lewis is also on the list of those left waiting for a part since last hatchet day due to the website being in such a mess.

Finally on the waiting list we have Bermir, who I kind of remember listening to a while ago, but who I only really took a serious listen to when he hit the charts just before the website problems started.

There are also 2 new artists I'm interested in, where I had the opportunity and would probably have dived in as "first part" if things were working. The first of these is Taylor Horn who has worked with Tim from Civilised Tears, who I'm presuming is the reason she found this site. The music has a great sound to it already, given that she's only a teenager and it's quite possible to hear the CT influence in the two songs posted, so this is definitely one to check out if you like them.

The second looks to have come in on or near the "German publicity rush" about sellaband.de. I found them from a seemingly random showing on the artist page where they appeared in the "spotlight" box on the right hand side - I've more usually seen Kirt or Civilised Tears popping up in that one instead. The artist in question is called Poem and it seems they make some very nice easy-listening acoustic guitar style pop. Check them out, the music is well worth it.

Next in the list of artists I'm watching, there are two that have popped up as a result of the chaos on the website and are worth visiting if you want some entertainment. Kluklu makes the best "Sellaband song" I've heard in a while in the form of a tune called "What have you done?". One of these days, someone ought to gather up all the fun songs that have been posted for entertainment value and make an album of them. I mean, who can forget such gems as the "Sellaband rap" by Brian Taylor of Vegas Dragons, or even the "Sellaband Tribune" song by Spellbox. I'm pretty sure we're heading towards an album's worth already if people think about songs that have been around.

And of course, how can I forget MaWa - the artist who is the second of the two in question. The latest song, an epic called "White Noise" can probably fill an album all on its own. Though I'm not sure you'd want to listen to that much of it, if the truth were told. I'm just waiting for the first video to appear on this profile. Based on the songs posted and MaWa's sense of humour it would be an interesting choice for sure. There's a great "protest parts" feel to what's going on here, particularly given the list of believers so far, so it will be interesting to see how long this particular entertainment continues. So far it seems it's been worth $250 - maybe there's a lesson or two some artists can learn from this about involvement with the community.

It's also interesting to see what's been happening with artists in general since the chaos started. Whilst the majority seem to have lost parts, there are a few who continue to gain despite the website troubles. Sylvain Zebo is one of these and whilst I haven't heard anything I like yet, he has to be worth checking out for this fact alone.

Bugfest entertainment
With the lack of a Sixpack this month, I thought I'd give you a roundup of just a few of the more entertaining sights to be discovered as a result of the new website and bugs in it. Whilst this might be regarded by some as a rather irreverent thing to do, I'm of the opinion the state of the website is currently one of those cases where if you couldn't have the occasional laugh, you'd have to cry instead.

1. number 1 or number 2?
At the top of the community page, it's quite clear about the spotlight artist

As number one in the overall charts, Civilized Tears has rightly deserved to be the first to be put in the spotlight as featured spotlight Artist.

But it even now says "Civilised tears - number 2" in the title, despite this having been the case for a while after a large parts drop took them from just under 42K to back down below Lori Greco. Whilst there's more important things that need fixing, I still find this spotlight amusing as a result.

2. To promote or not to promote? That is the question.
We started chasing down some bugs with the "promo tools" link showing in the believer dashboard and reporting them in the bugtracker. Initially someone else brought up the fact there was a link on the wishlist tab to them and that didn't work. I brought up the fact there was no equivalent link on the dashboard for artists you hold parts in. The information in the bugtracker that came back from Sellaband says that to fix the problem they've removed the promo tools link from believer profiles because there are currently no promotion tools. Which then leaves the rather interesting question of that "promote" tab on artist pages, which tells you that in order to promote "you can use any of the following tools". My brain is fizzing at the logic of this. If there are no promo tools, then what is this tab still doing here? Alternatively, there's a "share to various places" in this tab, so doesn't that count as a promo tool? (in which case why remove the link from believer profiles in the first place). Hopefully my sanity on this one can get back to normal when they sort out the new promo tools, because the Sellaband logic and my logic feel currently incompatible.

3. Now you see it, now you don't.
The thing that can most easily get you to question your sanity at the moment is the number of things that appear (or indeed disappear), particularly on your own dashboard. Here's just one example. The "buy album" and "free track" buttons aren't there on your shop tab any more. Unless you have more than one page in that tab, when you'll find they're back on page 2. And then just to make you doubt your sanity, you'll find they're back when you go back to page 1. So if you think you've seen something, but it isn't there any more, or you can't see something and then suddenly it's back, there's a very good chance it's not you, but is in fact another bug. Just make sure you look twice at everything, because you definitely can't trust your eyes first time. It can make quite a game trying to work out what's what as a result.

Video of the month
Well I can't actually delete the old videos at the moment, but it seems I can upload a new one into my profile, which is an improvement on last month. So this month, I present to you a story about how the music industry can go badly wrong for some, in the form of a band called Protocol and the song "She Waits for Me". I originally picked up on them through another song of theirs ("Where's the Pleasure") being played on TV, and having visited their website, I found their debut album was due out a couple of months later. But when it didn't appear, I went looking and found out its release had been delayed. Several months later, a different story emerged. It seems that the record company were unhappy with the promotion of the artist and dropped them because the singles hadn't reached the chart positions they were hoping for. Despite the album having been recorded and mixed, it was never released. And as I haven't linked to the artist website, you've maybe guessed that it appears whatever exactly it was that happened, it seems it was too much of a strain on the band and they split shortly after being dropped.

Sellaband
It's hard to see at the moment how Sellaband is going to recover from this latest disaster. It's not a site I can recommend at the moment. There's just far too much wrong with it, but the biggest worry has to be the question of who is going to be left if/when things do settle down again and the website is mostly working properly. This time things have gone beyond what your average reasonable person is prepared to stand, and I have an increasing feeling Sellaband is going to have to rebuild its believer base from the ground up again once this is over if it wants to survive. And given the history, that's going to be a near impossible task. In the meantime, believers are left waiting for revenues that haven't been paid, and seemingly can't even be calculated, and I'm watching the parts of many artists in the mid-range slowly shrinking as believers either withdraw from the site completely or move money into people higher up the ladder.

Here's just some of the things you can experience today, more than a month after the site went live.

The data may still be in the database, but even deleted data is still in the database. For instance artists who have closed their profiles since the change still have songs available (Just visit my playlist and play one of the "unknowns" if you don't believe me). Even more interesting is the existence of artists who started signing up and never got all the way. One of my Myspace friends is among those. I tried to get him interested in Sellaband shortly after I joined the site, and I thought he hadn't bothered as his profile never appeared. He's there in the new site though the profile is an empty one with an initial signup date corresponding to when I first tried to get him interested. Maybe one day I'll get around to dropping him in "video of the month" and get you to discover some great music from an artist I thought would be able to really benefit from this site.

The new forum software is slightly better than the glorified message board we had as the incarnation before the last one, but like many I'm missing the PHP forum we had before the new site went live.

You still can't find artists. Or at least if you try searching for artists, it's pretty much impossible to tell if you've found a real one or a "ghost" profile that wasn't even there before the changes. The sorting (alphabetical by URL for those on the same budget) makes it impossible to know who has just signed up as well.

Artists themselves are struggling to get to grips with the fact they have a believer profile and an artist profile now - even if they had a believer profile before. Talk about poor implementation! They should have been given the choice when they logged into their artist profile for the first time since the change as to whether they wanted to link the project with an existing believer profile (in the case of no, then the "default" believer profile could be created). As it is now, we have scenarios such as Brian from Vegas Dragons with a Vegas Dragons believer profile, a believer profile for Vegas Dragons 2.0, artist profiles for both of these and his own believer "Brian Taylor" profile. That's 5 different profiles, without counting any other believer profiles he's set up in the past, whereas it should be one believer profile linked to two different projects if the system had been set up right.

So in short, it feels like the place is a man with both legs broken who is still trying to walk. I haven't even covered everything that's wrong in this blog because it would take too long. But in fairness there has been some progress in the time since the site went live. At the moment it doesn't feel like anything significant for the amount of time involved though, so I guess we'll have to wait and see how the promised update (and any others over the next month) changes that view.

I can also guess you're itching to discover the "issue" that had me growling on the forum about a week ago. I have to warn you at this point that what follows contains information of an adult nature, so if this kind of thing worries you, then I'd suggest this is probably the end of this month's blog reading for you and I'll see you next month with your innocence still intact. It was a difficult decision to include this story in the first place, but as you'll hopefully realise by the end, there's still potentially reason to inform, and on balance, I decided that I thought most would actually want to know what had happened.

For those with the will to carry on despite that warning, here's the story. I was quite innocently traversing the new site when I hit the community page and got a bit of a shock. As you've probably realised there are 4 photos on this page and they are taken at random from believer profiles. They don't have to be the main profile photo, they're actually taken from any photo you have uploaded which appears in your "photos" section. And there, staring at me as one of these four photos, was a young lady laying on her back, "flashing the gash".

After a bit of investigation, I determined that my browser had definitely not been hijacked and that the picture in question did genuinely appear on the Sellaband website. Interestingly, the believer profile with this picture contained a number of mud-wrestling pictures and also a series of links to websites which were described in the profile info as "naturist". One link even pointed you to a website where you could "make money from your naturist photos". I didn't investigate any further to determine how true that assertion was, but I kind of get the feeling pornography might have been a more accurate word to use than naturist, given what I'd actually seen.

So the e-mail went off to Sellaband about what I'd found and for the first time ever I actually got an auto-responder reply. An actual response to my e-mail was to come approximately 24hrs after the original sending, assuring me the problem would be dealt with as soon as possible.

Three days later, having been checking the profile on a regular basis, it was obvious nothing had been done. That's about the time I started making noises on the forum. The "spam e-mail virus" story hadn't long appeared, so I'm willing to bet a "Hey look I found some porn on the site" on top of that would have really made for a storm. There's nothing quite like waiting to see if someone else manages to make the same discovery, when you know it's still there waiting to be found. Don't get me wrong, I haven't got any problem with nudity in general, it's just the last I looked Sellaband was mostly family friendly as a site, and not an X-rated one, and some things are most definitely inappropriate images as a result. Despite the other problems going on, I therefore view this as something which I shouldn't still have been wondering if/when action was going to be taken, three days after it being acknowledged by Sellaband themselves - it should have been sorted by then!

Was it a hijacked profile or had I just been (un?)lucky enough to pick up on something that had actually been there for a while. As viruses and "adult" pictures quite often go hand in hand, had this provided some way into the Sellaband system for the e-mail addresses to be taken that were then sent spam mails containing viruses? It's all speculation, and I figure we'll never know whether the two were related or not. A couple of days after I started making noises on the forum, the profile was finally cleaned up. Whether that was coincidence, or the "growling" had been taken as fair warning, I have no idea. I mean, can you just imagine me having to write this story as a case of "Hey I found some porn and guess what.. it's still there!" That would have meant they hadn't looked at it after the best part of a fortnight, and would surely have made for some red faces if I'd published this blog with that being the case.

But for those of you feeling sorry that you actually missed out, there could be a glimmer of hope on the horizon in the form of bug number 0000045 in the unofficial bug tracker. I find myself asking how well Sellaband have actually cleaned up, or whether this bug applies and there's a very slim chance you can still view any of the photos as a result. Good luck finding out though, because four pictures at random out of a few tens of thousands means you might be looking for a while. And if it is in fact fixed properly, you'll be looking in vain anyway. On the one hand, things that are deleted are still showing up in Sellaband, so it's perhaps wise to use some caution if you have younger family members who normally see you accessing the site. On the other, I personally haven't seen any of the images again so far, but then again it was pure luck beating those odds to find out in the first place. Here's hoping they have got this one right, but I've no doubt there'll now be several people looking to find out. (Hi Pieps!)

That's all for this month. I'll see anyone that's still left in the madhouse next month, when I hope even this blog can get back to its normal self.

July 1st 2009 Hatchet Day

So much for my hopes that this was going to be a short post this month. I already knew there were going to be some interesting stories as a result of the knifelady returns, but I never quite realised all hell was going to break loose (but more about that later)

Results from last month
First off I just have to mention Alita's Curse for being the first artist I've bought a part in that has actually said thankyou in a comment to this blog (see the comments on my June 1st post). I get artists saying thankyou in different places and different ways but this is the first time one has come through on here. The nearest I've had before is artists thanking me for giving them a mention.

The story on Mysti's profile MAYHEM also continues. I had a personal message from Ray Baisden in my inbox on Sellaband confirming the split with Mandocello. To quote Ray: "So there is no Spellbox or Mayhem any more". Whilst I've asked for clarification that this means Mysti won't be taking over and chasing a second 50K on the Mayhem profile, that hasn't been confirmed or denied as yet. I can only leave you to draw your own conclusions - mine being that the Mayhem profile is probably a dead one for the forseeable future.

I landed up with an interesting comment from Blair on my profile page as a result of my mention of The Average Person last month, which I thought I'd share part of here

Thanks for the mention.
SAB must love my stuff so much, I asked them to delete my account over a month ago now and they can't seem to bring themselves to do it :)

Enough said I think. I can already see those who have commented on Sellaband's efficiency before smiling knowingly to themselves.

There often seems a certain irony about this blog. Either I plan to write about an artist and they disappear before I get the chance, or I suddenly start taking an interest at around the time they decide to call it quits with Sellaband. And yes, it's happened again in the form of Laixa deciding to leave the site. The biggest irony being that the goodbye song posted (called "Sometimes") becomes the second song of theirs to grab my interest.

Also, one artist didn't thank me last month and I bet you can guess which one it was.

This month's gainers and losers
As a result of Sellaband's second round of deleting inactive artists, I haven't removed any parts this time around. Of the artists listed in my last hatchet day post, only The Sundial Project actually showed up. The rest got deleted automatically.

With the site so hard to navigate at the moment, plus the volume of artists who have had their profiles deleted from Sellaband that are now mysteriously showing up in my wishlist once again (go through and count the "unknown" artists) I haven't officially marked any for deletion next month. I'm going to give it another month to see if/how many of the major problems the new site has get fixed before I decide how best to tackle the problem.

New investments
It probably comes as no surprise that I haven't bought any parts on this occasion, and I don't plan to in the near future either. I'm waiting for the artist listings and search to be fixed because buying parts is just going to be a pain at the moment without it. I do have a couple lurking in my wishlist that were due to get parts this time around, so I'm hoping you'll see those in next month's post, when I'm feeling a little less shellshocked. However I've got a distinct feeling there aren't going to be many parts bought for the next few weeks and it won't be possible to blame it on the Summer, or the credit crunch either. If you're not in the charts, the top 50 artists or signed up in the last month and gained some kind of budget already, the chances are you're currently impossible to find. Looks like a return to the old days, only in a role reversal. i.e. instead of the only way to get to a believer profile being through remembering which artist(s) they have most parts in, now it seems you can only find an artist by first finding a believer who already believes in them (assuming you don't know the artist name already). If you're looking for a particular artist, it seems like a good time to visit one of the "noisy" believers like myself, because I don't see how anyone is going to find artists easily otherwise.

Prior to the chaos created by the new website, I bought another 5 parts in We Love The Underground and Chupacabra very kindly gave me a giftpart as a result of their win in the Sixpack.

Watching
It's very hard to watch artists at the moment for reasons you should understand by now, but I'm still going to have a go.

As part of the correspondence achieved by the knifelady's return, I had a conversation with She's themorning and thenight which I think reveals a lot about many artists on Sellaband. You can follow the full conversation by going back through comments on my page (and obviously on theirs) but here's a little taster.

When I heard about this site I got excited - but then I had a look around and did some research on it, and it's just another place for our music to be - we're going well in other areas - as long as we keep our name here and there it all pays off, so we aren't looking for the money really - just a few more fans. We have access to a recording studio where we get to keep all of our revenue. So we're lucky that way - the only thing we need now is marketing - that's the only difference between us and bands that play sell out shows these days, anyway take care.

It seems to me that this is typical of why many artists sign up to the site in the first place, yet it's not the reason why Sellaband is said to exist. I'll be interested to see how much funding they do pick up as a result. Whilst their music doesn't seem overly different and interesting to me from some other artists on Sellaband, it's one which ought to find some listeners based on what others are liking on the site. So if you're into people like Daniel Ward-Murphy, Kane Sole or Meg and Mark (amongst others I could name), then here's another artist you might find interesting.

Metibla has caught my interest but I'm not quite ready to believe yet - I need more music to make up my mind, so will be sitting on the fence watching to see whether I can find enough I like. Someone has already offered me a gift part in this artist, but as those who know me will know, I don't accept gift parts in artists unless I'm convinced I like their music. i.e. if I'm not "ready" to buy a part myself, there's nothing you can do to tempt me into believing in a particular artist. I much preferred the "free part" gift parts which you could spend in any artist as a result and would quite happily accept those. Guess with the website changes I won't be sending or receiving many gift parts at all any more as they seem to have discontinued these, and you can now only buy a gift part for someone if you first specify the artist it is for. Not fair on the (potential new) believer to choose an artist for them, and not really fair on the artist if that believer then finds an artist they like more and decides to move the part after it's been claimed. With a "free part" you got the value added to your balance and could decide at your leisure - something which seems to me to be a much better way of enticing people in general in, rather than those who have been introduced to the site as a result of a particular artist. To me, the "gift part" system now only works as an incentive basis for artists to try and get their existing fans to support them, rather than something which can be used as a way to introduce new people to Sellaband in general, and therefore I view this as a very bad change.

Antropy is a very interesting new signup, but is suffering from only having the one track on their profile at the moment. I will be watching the profile for more music, but I'm already very interested with just the first track.

I think DJDJ is a very promising young artist, however not being as heavily into the dance/trance styles of music I much prefer the more classical track she's had posted, even though it would appear from the conversation I've had with her it's not representative of what she'd really like to make as an album.

And of course I can hardly leave this section without mentioning The Clooneys. If you haven't recognised them yet, then perhaps you remember the band Snelle Jongens who were on Sellaband, who renamed themselves to Snelle Fellas. Well with the split of that project, Arnold has come back and this is his new project. I'm unsure at this point if I'll find them too rap/hip-hoppy just like I did with Snelle Fellas, but early indications are that I might not, so I'll be keeping an eye out to see if they can convince me to believe in them.

Video of the month
Again, as I'm sure you can guess, there's no video of the month due to the new website. So I'm going to use this opportunity to send you to listen to someone I regard as an up-and-coming talent instead. I first encountered this particular artist as a solo performer, when I ran across a (very roughly produced) acoustic version of one of the songs you'll get to hear an updated version of by following the link (called "Drop Dead Gorgeous"). To quote a friend of mine when I played her the track originally - "The production is terrible, but wow can that guy sing!". Remi Miles is now getting a band together under the name Kuliks. Check out the music on his Myspace page and see what you think of how he's coming along in the 3 years since I first discovered him.

Sixpack Stories
Is the Sixpack no more? I saw a "potential sixpack" (well potential sevenpack really) showed up under the old website, which still has partial navigation based on the route I took from the old forum. The page in question is very slow to load whenever Sellaband are doing something with the main site at the moment, but you'll see the list of artists include Mount Fabric as well as the eligible loser from last week. Possibly a strange choice there - did I miss something, or didn't J A Marczak win a previous Sixpack? Or is my memory at fault and that believer in the list called Sixpack is someone else? Wonder what artists and believers think of a previous winner being put up for it again, if indeed that page I spotted was due to be the Sixpack before the new site went live.

As to my own votes, after voting for Exoluta, Chupacabra were next on the list to receive mine and I voted for Alita's Curse both weeks they were up, despite being tempted to vote for Lip Service as I really like their sound.

Sellaband
Firstly, let's have a look at the easy bit. I guess you're interested in "the knifelady's return". I've had quite a mixed response level to the messages I've left around. Many of those artists I don't contact often have acted as I expected and quite happily responded, but there are a few I was expecting to hear something from and I haven't. Probably the most notable of these is Wetwerks, who also seem to have been going through a slow and steady parts leak over the past couple of months. Even though someone is still obviously visiting the site, the lack of response where they were always very good before does make me start to wonder what is going on.

I've had to put my plans on hold for continuing to see who is out there and what they're up to though. Yes, you guessed it - again it's the website change that's responsible. I'm going to talk about that more in a bit, but it's obviously very hard to find artists when they've been made all but invisible on the site. Might actually be a good way for Sellaband to weed out the inactive ones though, because there ought to be about 4000 artists complaining they're not visible right about now. Personally I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of an inbox of that size, and remember we're only taking into account complaints that your page isn't visible here, not any of the other problems people are experiencing. I can't very well try and encourage artists with the site barely usable, so it looks like the knifelady is going to have to pretty much crawl back into her shell for a bit and just keep in touch with anyone she can easily reach for the time being.

As for the ongoing stories of Sellabration and Arenafest, well we now know that the Arenafest situation appears to have disappeared into legal territory, and that Sellabration is not going to happen (well at least not when expected) presumably due to money being tied up both in preparation for Arenafest and resolving the legal situation that has arisen. I'll leave it open to the conspiracy theorists to decide whether/how much Arenafest is being used as an excuse for cancelling Sellabration or not, or whether there are other factors at play here too.

The next thing to mention obviously has to be the MaWa - Danny controversy. To be perfectly honest, I see MaWa as being guilty of no more than "being German" on this one. And that's no more a crime than me being guilty of "being English". I've been (un?)lucky enough to be employed by a firm with an Austrian parent company back in the days when I held down a regular job, and whilst some Germans might consider it an insult to be compared to Austrians (and possibly vice versa), what little experience I have suggests that Germans tend to hold very similar values and react in similar ways to their Austrian counterparts. "Being German" is not something I can describe any better than that - it's something you've either experienced and got your head around or it's something you haven't. It's quite an alien and frustrating thing to deal with if you're English, and it seems to be even worse if you're Dutch. I happen to think Danny fell straight into that cultural difference hole and couldn't cope with what he found there. Whilst Danny's reaction was indefensible, to me it was also not an unexpected possibility under the circumstances. If it were possible to be... well.. "slightly less German" occasionally, I get the feeling the non-natives might stand a better chance of coping. Something like this could have been stopped before it got out of hand.

I kind of wish you could get an appreciation for the way other cultures think and react in school (particularly European neighbours), but it seems to be something you have to both experience for yourself and more importantly be interested (and open-minded enough) in having a go at learning before you get thrown in at the deep end and (inevitably) fall down a rather big hole as a result. It's one of the things I like about Sellaband. Having been given a bit of a culture shock myself as a result of dealing with Austrians, I like the potential opportunities for at least trying to gain an understanding of others - I think it's an important skill nobody can do without in this day and age, yet I don't think it's one which can be taught.

I'm glad MaWa is lurking round reading this blog still (as can be evidenced by his comment on my last post), because it gives me the opportunity to try and say that I understand, maybe not completely, but enough. I can kind of see both sides of the equation on what happened, with the stressed out IT guy on the defensive as a result of a project going somewhat differently than expected (been there, done that myself) coming up against the ideals of German efficiency and "Es gibt nichts Gutes, außer man tut es." and.. well.. both parties reacting in a way that looks very familiar to me as a result. I don't really have the words to get across the message I'd like to say to MaWa, but let's just say I hold a very English hope that one day that German phrase can reach a point of truth and we'll see him round Sellaband again as a result. Oh, and for all those of you wondering, the English equivalent is not a literal translation, but rather the phrase "Actions speak louder than words".

This "incident" is basically what has prompted me to want to start the story of my own vision of Sellaband. Going through those who have me as friends on Sellaband and looking at the names of those who used to be active supporters and have now either left, have faded completely into the background, or seem to view the site negatively is a very depressing experience. Sellaband isn't the same site I joined, yet at the same time it is. I see so many of the things I "saw" struggling to survive or get off the ground in the first place, and I found myself thinking of MaWa's "Where did it all go wrong" post. At best, it's my attempt to make a difference and possibly introduce people to things they haven't thought of before. At worst it will probably prove to be an interesting piece of history if/when Sellaband should fall. The time is right, and I hope to get started in the next couple of days. It does feel somewhat overshadowed by the rather negative experience the new website is producing though.

And so, finally we come to the mess, otherwise known as the new Sellaband website. I was asked if I would take a look and do some testing on this back in the first week in June. It just so happened that JohanV managed to contact me by mistake on Skype around the same sort of time and he asked me at the time if I'd been invited to take part in the testing. I told him I had, but I'd not had the chance to take a proper look as it appeared I was going to need a pen and paper. Perfectly true, because when I really did get into it, it only took a couple of clicks before I had that "oh dear" feeling. Problems all over the place, and with half the system not even being linked in, some of it was just plain impossible to know whether you were staring at a real bug or something which just wasn't implemented yet. I pulled together an initial list and sent it in, fully expecting that I'd go back in a couple of weeks, (hopefully) find some or most of that fixed and another series of problems would have appeared. Plus I could take a look at some areas I'd not really tested fully at that point, and send a new list in. Having worked in IT, I know how seriously depressing it is to have stressed yourself out on a project and then get hit with a buglist that feels like several years in length, whereas if you get thrown the same thing in more manageable chunks somehow it doesn't feel so bad, even though it is.

It seriously looked like a site barely at the start of its test cycle, not one towards the end of it. So many bugs were popping up it would basically have needed a full time job to have collected and reported as much as I could find, and (like other testers) being merely a "volunteer" rather than an employee, you could say I have more important things to be spending that level of time on. About three weeks after that initial look, the ominous message about "site maintenance" appeared and I found myself thinking that surely they wouldn't be so crazy as to put it live - apparently, as we now know, they were. In actual fact there are things not working in the live system which were definitely working in the test system - the videos were OK for one at the time I looked at them. I'd say there are significantly more bugs in this version of the website compared to the previous one when it was released, and I've got a feeling it's going to be quite a while before the site settles down into a state that you don't need a qualification in IT to work out how to use/get round the problems without someone else telling you how.

Incidentally, I still need to sort out my own "about me" profile information since the change, but at least I have enough knowledge of html that I can probably set things up quite nicely, once I work out what is supported and what isn't. Not going to be the easiest of jobs using the ugly scrolling lightbox that seems to be inconsistent with the way the others work on the site mind you, but at least Sellaband are aware of that problem.

One other word of warning to anyone using an old browser version out there, because I know there are people still using IE6. Boudewijn tells me they are not going to be supporting this, so basically if it doesn't work properly when they've finished fiddling with it (and I know a number of things that don't at the moment) you'll need to upgrade or look at an alternative browser.

And in case you were wondering, this blog won't be migrating into the new blog feature on my Sellaband profile - it'll be staying quite happily here. What I do plan to do though is use that feature to tell you when my monthly hatchet day post is actually live, so that anyone who drops in at random rather than receiving this by subscription knows I have actually got something there for you to look at. Being late on posting this is something I don't like, but when people give me rather a lot to talk about, the inevitable tends to happen and it takes me longer to write down what's in my head than I expected, and this month is no exception.

So my final thought for this month has got to be, please give me less to talk about next month so I can actually get this published on time, but more importantly, please Sellaband give me something positive to talk about for a change!