The past couple of months

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

Video of the month
Well, not one but TWO this month, seeing as work has meant I've been slacking on writing a blog post. First up is Francis Rodino with his video for "Higher ground", which features a lady who ought to be very cold.



The second is a video from one of the artists who have managed to find me, rather than vice versa. Interestingly, I'm not that big a fan of rap, but this is one of the few that manages to slide past because it's only a part . So enjoy Left Step Band and "Weird Green" - a video which incidentally has been made by the band using some free animation software called Muvizu.



Who I've been looking at

Stickboy
I don't often rate artists with more than one star if it's the first time I've heard anything from them, but it's quite obvious from what I've heard of Stickboy so far that there's a potential four star plus on offer and likely quickly too. Given the number of tracks he has up on soundcloud and the fact I haven't found a single one I dislike in the couple of hours I've spent listening so far, I'm already hovering on the border of three stars, never mind the two I just gave. I'd describe the music as guitar based folk, but it's particularly outstanding for its production qualities (for a home-based artist) and the lyrics which are a great reminder of why I think we still have the best songwriters in the UK. So if you only listen to one new artist this month, make it this one, I promise you won't regret it.

Derek Webb
Matthew Ebel is always mentioning this artist, so when he decided to do a very rare public live internet show, I thought I'd check him out. Wasn't overly impressed myself - nothing he played made any real impact on me, though it was a pleasant enough listen and the guy can sing for sure.

Daniel Ward-Murphy
Daniel has decided to try to get a second album recorded, but instead of using a third party fundraising site, he's decided to try and collect the money himself using a Fundrazr widget. There's no official timelimit set, but Dan has said if it doesn't look like it will reach target he'll refund the money raised (minus Paypal fees). So far so good - I've got absolutely no problem with this idea in this case based on my past experience with him as he's never given me any reason to doubt that he'll do what he says.

But I find myself torn.

Why? The answer is twofold.

Firstly there's the knowledge of what I've experienced over the past six years.

The second reason is perhaps best explained if you've read his open letter about the project. The ultimatum is contains may be unintentional, but the knowledge it's there in the first place still grates. My head really can't get past the "give me the money to make this album or I'll stop making music" idea.

So on the one hand I have one of the "good guys" that I'd love to see make a second album, but given the budget set and the fact that only a digital album seems to be on offer, I'd be expecting it might well take at least a couple of years to raise that kind of money based not only on the last time, but also what I've seen of other artists and their fanbases since. Which means that on the other I'm left wondering about the commitment level and patience based on the contents of his open letter and his response to my question of how long the fundraising  would be open for. Is he really up for the timescale I'm thinking? (assuming no miracle huge level funders in the current economic climate). The timing and subject matter of a recent blog post I read, couldn't have been more appropriate or relevant on this subject.

So my current plan is to wait. My finances are planned out for the next few months already, meaning it would almost certainly be late spring before I could consider spending money on this anyway. I'm concerned at the size of the target he's set based on what I know, but I'll also be keeping an eye on how things develop.

Cheryl has released her first full album "Mermaid", under the name Jade Diary since splitting off from her band and deciding to go solo. Whilst I've not heard enough to convince me into a purchase, I'd highly recommend getting the physical album if you're interested, as it's got some of the most beautiful artwork I've seen in a while, particularly on the CD itself.

I don't know much about saintsaviour, except that I found them as a result of Soundcloud radio and was immediately attracted to the track I'd heard "Woman Scorned". And I haven't yet had time to try and chase up any further information,

I've joined the mailing list for The Traps, though they're fairly quiet on the mailing front. But I did receive a notification of their second video through this which says the song is available for free download on 19th November. Now I really ought to find the time to get out and see if they are any good live, seeing as they appear to be a fairly local band.

Yes, someone out there did it. They created a mashup of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and PSY's "Gangnam Style". And it's rather catchy in a one-hit-wonder kind of way. You can check it out here - if you think you can cope.

Lily Brooke is another find from Soundcloud. There haven't been any updates to the profile for a year, but if indeed she was 14 at the time of the uploads then that would make her only 15 now, yet she already has quite a voice. If you don't believe me, then check out her Youtube channel, which does have some more recent material. I'll be interested to see how her songwriting develops and whether she decides to pursue a career in music.

The sites I've been looking at

ONErpm
From an artist point of view, this site appears to be an alternative to CD Baby, claiming to be able to distribute your album to a wider range of sites (iTunes, Amazon etc.) for a lower setup cost. The FAQ shows the prices in dollars, but I'm seeing the same data in GBP i.e. where it says 10 dollars it shows me 10 pounds, which does lead me to question that information as the exchange rate definitely isn't anywhere near 1:1. As a result, I'm going to quote from here on using numbers rather than currency. The artist can set an album price at 8.99, 6.99 or 4.99 with individual tracks being set as 0.89, 0.69 or 0.49 accordingly. The artist will then receive 85% of the revenues for tracks sold from the ONErpm site itself or via their Facebook widget. For all other sites that ONErpm distribute the music to, they give the artist 85% of the money they receive from those sites. There is a one-time setup cost of 10.00 per track or 34.99 per album for distribution to more than 30 global music services, or you can specify individually at 1.99 per service. Pricings for distribution to premium services, mobile services and DJ services are also available on the site. The site can also supply UPC codes for albums and ISRC codes for tracks if you don't have them already.

In addition to the three pricing tiers previously mentioned the site supports "name your price" downloads and  "free track in exchange for email" options. Money is paid to an artist via Paypal.

From the fan point of view, purchases from the ONErpm site mean you get BOTH the original wav file and the mp3 with unlimited streaming and streaming before purchase available on the site itself. On the minus side, not every album on the site is available for purchase in every country, and so far I'm finding it's the names I tend to recognise as being more well-known (rather than completely obscure) where this seems most likely to apply. I'm also not convinced on the information given about the Facebook widget, which seems to suggest that someone has to "Like" before they are allowed to play the track from the Facebook widget - this seems rather back-to-front i.e. how do you know if you like something until you've actually heard it?

All in all, a site which seems potentially worth a look whether you be artist or music lover, but with a lot of the pricing information seemingly in conflict between the FAQ and what is actually displayed and the reputation of CD Baby, I'm not entirely convinced by the idea that this is a better option.

Sellaband
There's still no sign of the "new website" at time of writing. Likewise no surprise there's no sign of albums from the 2 artists from here I'm still waiting on. In fact, Lori Greco seems to be expecting yet another 4-6 months before she releases, meaning the bets are on as to whether she can even manage to release an album before 4 years after fundraising has passed, seeing as the 3 year mark passed a few months ago. There are hints that Cubworld might actually be getting close to release as he recently tweeted that 8 of 10 tracks were mixed. Who knows - maybe I'll get a birthday present.

In the meantime, I got to watch some bending of the rules in October, when an artist had their budget reduced by 300 euros on the last day before their profile was due to be deleted, only for them to fail to meet this deadline too. Seems someone then tweaked the numbers behind the scenes, as we went through several hours with the artist showing a signup date in the main listing of 24hrs after that found on their own profile, not only in terms of the signup timestamp but also comments and blog postings left too. The extra 24hrs given by the tweaked times meant the artist did reach the reduced budget (which was then left to run the normal 2 week grace for a budget change) and the dates were tweaked back to make it look as if nothing had happened. Which left me wondering if they'd have done the same for a non-featured artist or not.

Also, a couple of artists who had failed to meet their budgets the first time, failed in their second attempt. It seems one has resigned for a third try, but currently only has a fraction of the money they had when their profile got deleted for the second time. The numbers on the site are also heading back further apart again i.e. instead of less artists signing up but getting a higher percentage of budget, the number of artists is increasing slowly again but the number on at least 1% of budget is struggling to stay at the 50 mark. But one piece of good news was John C Fraser returning to the site under his new name of Please Be Frank and raising a budget in just a couple of weeks, proving it's perfectly possible to raise your budget on Sellaband if you bring your fanbase with you.

And finally...
My review of the year post will be along next. Hopefully in the next couple of days. As well as my top songs and albums of the year, this time you'll be able to discover who managed to upset a result I was originally expecting and some of the conclusions I've drawn as a result of the fan funding I've been doing since I last funded on Sellaband.

Why I'm spending less on music

It looks like we'll be moving and the house is currently being tidied as a result. I realised during this process that a lot of the CDs I've bought aren't actually in shelves where you might expect them to be, but instead are lurking around the computer. And that got me to thinking. I do have music only in digital form, most usually when a physical copy isn't available, but how exactly does my physical music collection so far shape up? And what might it tell me about my buying habits and how they would evolve in a digital only world?

The results are interesting and may add another piece to the jigsaw of why music sales are on the decline.

This doesn't cover digital-only artists in my collection, nor does it cover artists whose CDs are elsewhere, but from the number of CDs I've packed, I believe it to be a significant enough sample of the music I own. Singles are not included (in fact I own very few of those in physical form) but the figures are obtained from adding together the number of albums and EPs I own for each artist.

The rating system
The first thing I had to do was come up with a rating system for the music I own. Whilst this is based loosely around the rating system I use for my main blog posts, I've also weighted it towards the likelihood of a purchase of more music from that artist, based on the purchases previously made.


Bit of a disaster really. Seems the only tracks I liked were whatever I'd heard before I got the album. Doesn't rule out buying singles in future, but it will probably take a lot to convince me into an album.


Not bad, not great. Maybe the odd track I like, maybe the odd track I dislike, but in the main it's nice background take-it-or-leave-it music. Probably not going to go out of my way for a new purchase here, but when I've got spare money there's a chance I might buy something (but it will have to grab my attention first).


Liking about half, with most (if not all) of the rest as take-it-or-leave-it. Likely to buy more but might not. Depends on the mood I'm in, the money available and what I hear in advance of the release.


A few tracks here and there I'm not so fond of, but I'm in love with the majority. Unless there's a change of musical direction, I'll be looking to buy more.


Struggling to find anything that fits the take-it-or-leave-it category, never mind tracks I dislike. This is pure love - give me more!

The breakdown
Having decided on a rating system, I then proceeded to assign each artist to a rating. I also counted the number of CDs I own for each of the artists in question and applied some ranges. Here's what I found

One star artists

Cds Owned           Number of artists
1                                19
2-4                              2
5-9                              0
10+                             0

Two star artists

Cds Owned           Number of artists
1                                29
2-4                              8
5-9                              0
10+                             0

Three star artists

Cds Owned           Number of artists
1                                5
2-4                           14
5-9                             6
10+                            1

Four star artists

Cds Owned           Number of artists
1                                2
2-4                             4
5-9                             1
10+                            1

Five star artists

Cds Owned           Number of artists
1                                0
2-4                             0
5-9                             2
10+                            1

In addition to the above I found 4 compilation albums, but I'm obviously not including these in the main count as they cover multiple artists.

The conclusions
First of all, wow. I've found CDs from nearly 100 different artists lurking in the vicinity of my computer rather than with the rest. I'd make a guess there's nearly the same again in the CD rack. I've only been collecting music in CD format for about 15 years, though I obviously have some that were originally released earlier than this due to getting back catalog items. As a rough estimate, that means I've been buying an average of 2 CDs a month over the past 15 years, which puts me firmly in music lover territory.

As might be expected, in general I only own one CD for any artist I've rated as one star, whereas the more stars, the more CDs I'm likely to own for an artist. It's also not unreasonable to expect that some of the 3 star artists may gain a star (or two?) over time, particularly if I don't own more than one or two of their albums at present. (also possible for other artists, though less likely if they have less than 3 stars at present)

But for the rather shocking conclusion of why it looks like even a music lover like me will be spending much less on music in future, you need to understand the change that the swap to digital is having on me.

My digital future
When I start to look at some of the dates on the CDs, it's clear that my buying habits have already started to change. For starters, I'm actually quite shocked at the percentage of artists I rated at 1-2 stars out of the total artist CDs owned, but sorted by date I'm seeing a noticeable decrease in my purchases of these over time. Some of that is due to the financial crisis of the past few years, but not all. The internet is clearly having the effect of making me more picky about the albums I actually buy, because I'm now using the likes of streaming services and Youtube when I haven't already rated an artist as 4 stars or more to listen to what's on offer first.

Based on the above information, if the CD were to vanish tomorrow, I predict the following would happen in my case.

1. I'll only be buying full albums for about 10% of the artists where I'd have considered buying an album in the past. (4-5 star artists)
2. About 25% of the artists where I would have considered an album purchase in the past, will likely land up selling about half the tracks on that album to me instead. (3 stars)
3. Approximately 40% of the artists where I would have considered an album purchase in the past will likely land up selling only one or two tracks from that album to me. (2 stars)
4. The remaining 25% will likely only sell the occasional track that I've heard and hence know I like. (1 star)
5. I'll almost certainly start buying the occasional track I hear and like from other artists where I haven't considered a CD before.

This is bad news for artists. Here in the UK most artist albums can be bought for £6.99-8.99, but single tracks are usually 99p each. Assuming 10 tracks per album, it looks like my money won't stretch as far if I move to a track based rather than album based purchase system, doesn't it? But it turns out that's not the real problem.

Leaning towards the generous end of the spectrum, my album spend would be around £200 a year (24 albums at £8-9 each). Given the 10:25:40:25 split my new spend for a year on digital only would be as follows

£20-25 on full albums (2-3 artists)
£30 for half album sales (6 artists at 99p a track for 5 tracks)
£20-30 for a few tracks (~10 artists at 99p a track for 2-3 tracks)
£6 for occasional tracks ( 6 artists at 99p a track for 1 track)
Total: £76-91

Yes, you're seeing right. By switching to digital I'm automatically spending half or less of what I do currently. Even without taking aspects such as piracy or shared files from friends into account as ways of obtaining music instead.

But as stated above, digital opens up the possibilities for artists to sell tracks to me where they wouldn't have stood a chance of selling an album before. But to make up the difference, that means I need to be buying tracks from something like another 100 artists a year. (assuming I buy 1 track at 99p per artist). That means I need to hear another 2 new tracks every week that I like enough to want to buy (think of it as the track needing to hit the equivalent of a 4 or 5 star rating on my scale before I'll consider buying). And at the moment I can say for a fact that doesn't happen.

So it looks like I'm heading towards spending maybe 75% of what I do currently if I completely switch away from buying music on a physical album basis. And then only if I can find an average of one extra track a week

But instead of looking for more new tracks to buy, I could spend the difference on something like a £10 a month streaming service instead. But if I were to have an "all I could eat" stream that played exactly what I asked it to, what would be the point in buying anything? Going with this model, I'd still only be spending about 60% of that £200.

And another problem? I'm splitting my money 5 times as many ways as before, if I'm now supporting 124 artists a year rather than just 24. If I were spending the full £200, that means an artist getting more like £1.60 compared to the £8-9 before (minus overheads in both cases).  On average an artist would need 5 times as many people to buy their music for the same income under these rules. And if I'm only spending half what I used to, the reality is 10 times the number of people as before. Artists may now have a better chance at getting a share of a pot of money under digital, but equally there are only so many ways the pot can be divided before everyone essentially gets nothing. Basic result: the number of successful artists drops (as do the complete failures) but we increase the number of starving ones more or less tenfold.

Final thoughts
I'd be extremely interested to see the results of anyone else doing a similar experiment as I may not be typical of a music lover. I'd also be interested in the thoughts of the average consumer (Do you buy one CD a month or less, for starters?) as the idea of £10 a month streaming may actually mean these people paying more than before and picking up some of my slack. One thing is for sure, I need to be discovering a lot more music that I really, really like every single week, or I am clearly going to be spending a lot less on music than I have done previously. Clearly a very bad statement for a music lover to be making.

Selling music as non-music

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

Video of the month
I have UK comedian Dave Gorman to thank for this month's video from an artist I'd never heard of before I caught his tweeted link. So without further ado, take a listen to Scottish artist Admiral Fallow and a track they released last year called Squealing Pigs.

And if you're in the USA this September/October and you like what you hear, you have the chance to catch them live on their first North American tour.





Who I've been looking at
I got an email from Markus Nylund, a young artist from Finland I first encountered nearly 10 years ago. Well, not quite so young now perhaps if we consider that timescale. Anyway it said he is going to university in the Autumn and is done with music and has uploaded some of his more recent recordings (all as free download) on Soundcloud - I guess as a leaving present if you like. You'll find them under the name Sunlight Heart. I'm left wondering by this announcement - is it possible to "grow up" past what I describe as "the artist's soul", or will he be back at some point? It may be possible to be "done with music" if you have "the artist's soul" but that doesn't mean the music is done with you. And as I saw that spark of "artist's soul" when we met several years ago, I'm not yet convinced he has indeed let go

Ironically a couple of days before that email, I found a business card from Ruth Angell, a young violinist I'd met at one of the gigs I saw Markus play at when he was in England a very long time ago. She'd just started experimenting with adding vocals to her music and was still rather nervous about performing in public (despite the fact the audience in this case happened to be an audience of 3 and then only if you included the barman) . I took her card at the time and didn't really think anything more of it until I ran across it this month and decided to check out whether she was still out there making music. Well wow, what a difference a few years can make. She recorded her first album as part of acoustic duo Peacock Angell last year, is part of the folk group The Rainbow Chasers, put together by Fairport Convention founding member Ashley Hutchings and also performs with a number of other artists.

And perhaps a lesson to learn from this experience if you are an artist. Just because a contact or business card doesn't lead to something within a few weeks or months, it doesn't mean it's a failure. Rather if I hadn't taken her card at the time (or hadn't been offered it), I would probably have completely forgotten about her and not looked again.  Always remember this - you never know if or when something will bear fruit.

Francis Rodino's track "Higher ground"  was used for a video on the British Armed forces news website celebrating the armed services involvement with the 2012 Olympics. You can see the video here.

A couple of artists I've encountered this month have the common theme of approaching music as non-music. The first of these that got my attention Beck is selling an album that isn't recorded. Instead, what you get for your money is the sheet music for all twenty of the songs on the album, and it's up to you and/or your musical friends to come up with the musical interpretation. This article from Forbes and its follow-on explains why this is an innovative idea which may inspire the user-generated content generation.

The second music as non-music idea is by a gentleman called Jeff Boller, who goes by the name The Simple Carnival. Rather than recording an album, he's recording an animated movie in stereoscopic 3D. The songs and associated video clips are being released on the internet as they are mostly finished, but the final product will only be available as digital tracks or as a bluray video disc - there will be no CD. It's currently possible to download the mp3s he's uploaded so far for free in exchange for a tweet or facebook like, but as Jeff is doing all the work on both the recording and the animation (with a few exceptions) by himself, the projected finishing date is currently 2014. If you're interested in the project, keep an eye on him because he may start up a Kickstarter (or similar) project to collect funds when he gets more work done and gets closer to working out a more accurate end date for the project. You'll find a video on his website (approx 25min)  showing how he's creating the animation, and for music aficionados, not only does he play nearly all of the wide range of instruments himself, but he also claims to be mostly ignoring modern recording techniques and restricting himself to techniques used before 1980 where possible, so it's well worth a visit. Just remember to take your red-green glasses with you if you want to get the full 3D experience. (You can also get a pair for free if you order his previous album "Girls Aliens Food")

Look Left caught my attention through being mentioned in the text of a Matthew Ebel concert download (apparently one or more of them are particularly noticeable in the audience vocals of the recording). This young band has recorded an impressive 4 full length albums in the past 2 years. Their website is basically their bandcamp page, so there isn't really much information available about them, but you can download all of the aforementioned albums for $8 each. The music seems mainly Americana/folk rock, but there are a diverse range of musical styles in play often within the same song, and particularly in their earlier albums, so it's well worth a stop off to listen to what they have to offer for that fact alone.

I'm not sure which existing artist originally caused this one to pop on my Last FM station but after hearing a couple of different songs over the past few months, I decided to get around to checking out Brianna Gaither. She has an entire album of songs available to stream for free on her site, but disappointingly the only obvious purchase option is iTunes and her site also contains very little information about her or her music. Although the blog page was updated in the last month, her shows page only contains dates for past shows from the last 3 months.

Katie Thompson has just started up a new funding project for an EP on Indiegogo. You can find the details of what she's offering here.

The sites I've been looking at

Tastemakerx
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery and the continuation of last month's story about this site turned out to be someone imitating me. If you recall, I'd posted about a number of artists increasing in price in a short period, all boosted by pretty much the same group of user ids and it was unclear if this was a group of people joining or if someone had created some fake accounts. And that I'd joined in on the buying spree. Well it so happens I'd left a comment on one of the artist pages saying that I thought the price was on its way up fast before I'd worked out this was happening to a number of artists. Another user had also spotted the increases and started leaving a comment on many of the fast movers that the price was being inflated by false accounts. Then it seems he got into an argument with some of the other users on the site involved with buying parts in the artists in question and was told off by one of them for bullying. At which point I can only guess he decided I was creating fake accounts (as a result of the comment I'd left) and tastemakerx weren't doing anything about it and decided to make it look as if I was exactly the same user as him by modifying his profile to use my knifelady avatar. Given the number of users then starting to question if we were the same person and if indeed we had been creating fake accounts, I contacted tastemakerx to step in. After a couple of emails, they reset his avatar to the default one, but not before I'd had to get into a conversation with some of the users involved to try and convince them we were indeed different people, leaving me more than a little irritated, rather than flattered at his stunt. The user in question does still appear to have some kind of a sense of humour though, as the new profile picture they've uploaded is the default tastemakerx one with an added pair of devil horns. It's not the first time I've had problems on a "young" site that I've used heavily (Sellaband and the unofficial forum anyone?) and somehow I doubt it will be the last. Meantime, I now seem to be officially entrenched within the top 10 tastemakers on the site but am not really expecting to get all the way to number one given I've been mixing it with the serious gameplayers for the past couple of weeks and things don't shuffle round that much at the top as a result.

Sellaband
Most notable this month has been the rather strange looking decision of Unter Null to reduce their budget twice despite only being on the site a month or so. First it was reduced to 8000 euros, and then more recently to 7000 which was reached rather rapidly after this and just left to complete its 2 week grace period. Someone who only wanted a month-long fundraiser, or someone who wanted to get out before the "new website"? Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime, I've heard a rumour that the "new website" due this autumn is basically going to extend fundraising to projects other than music. Hopefully it won't be too much longer now before fact confirms or denies that. In the meantime it's noticeable that the majority of the "promoted artists" on the Sellaband frontpage are now German, but likewise it's the German signups in general that seem to be bringing some believers in the first place. (10 of the current top 50 sorted by % raised are from Germany, with 6 of those on the first page of the site). It's currently looking like the site will evolve into a niche for fundraising for German projects based on the way things seem to be going, rather than the global music fundraising platform originally intended.

And as promised, here's the update on the albums I'm (still) waiting for. Lori Greco passed her 3 year anniversary since reaching target, yet there's still no news on when (if ever) the album will be seen. In the meantime, it seems she's off to Italy, as that trip is pretty much all her tweets have been about recently. Things are also rather quiet in the Cubworld camp despite his three year anniversary getting ever closer as well. He did tweet that he's set a pretty firm release date, but I haven't seen any mention of when that's likely to be.

Pledge
The other artist I'm waiting for is on Pledge Music. After some comments on their profile asking what was going on because there had been no update for over 2 months Vertical Horizon finally posted a video update just a few days ago (ironically the day after I left a comment - coincidence or the knifelady power back at work?) of one of the new songs and showing the individual layers making up the track. However the question of when the album is coming out still remains unanswered despite that being one of the main questions they were asked in the comments.

As a result of this, I'm now watching Ginger Wildheart's new project very closely on there, as it's the first project of his that I'll have been watching from start to finish. Given he raised his budget in less than two hours (it would have been less than one, if Pledge's servers had been able to cope with the load) and last I looked was about to hit 400% of his total, I'm interested to analyse how this project goes on Pledge and see if it confirms the current ideas I have about crowdfunding music in general.

Last FM
Last FM may be about to lose quite a bunch of subscribers. About a week ago it introduced a 6 skip limit for all users, not just non-subscribers. This means you can't skip more than 6 songs before you need to change the station you're listening to, whereas before it was unlimited. This makes the process of music discovery through the site even more time consuming and a lot of users aren't happy with the change. Particularly as the algorithm they use isn't particularly friendly as it tends to offer you the same track for a given artist and/or keeps playing things you've listened to recently, rather than offering tracks in your library that you haven't listened to in a while (hence the nightmare I've been having this past year trying to "train it" to understand what I listen to). Last FM say they can't change their policy due to their licensing agreements, even though several users have offered to pay MORE to have the facility to skip whatever they want. With music licensing being cited more and more often as the reason why people can't listen to what they want, I'm beginning to think the sooner this idea is banned, the better. Otherwise, we'll definitely reach a stage where nobody will want to pay for music at all (several of those who have stated they are cancelling their subscriptions because of this change have said publicly they will go back to sites which are known not to pay musicians). The current system of music licensing is clearly broken and needs to disappear as soon as possible.

The not-pop Jukebox 
Not a site, but rather a blog with the subheading "Ignored, Maligned and Forgotten Music". Which pretty much says it all. The blog is updated daily with at least one track embedded into each post. So if you want to listen to music you may not have heard before which comes from a wide range of musical styles, this is a very good place to look.

Rekiosk
Seemingly originally started as a way to sell digital books, the site has now expanded into selling other things digitally as well. The basic idea is that for anything sold from your kiosk (store) on the site, the original creator will get 70% of the cash and you will get about 25% (with the remainder obviously going in site fees) which makes it an interesting looking affliate scheme.

On the plus side, you can add and sell 15 items to your kiosk without attracting a fee for your kiosk. On the minus side, you can only add products already on the site to your kiosk in the first place, unless you can prove you are the original content creator. And at the moment there seems to be very little content available on the site to choose from. Additionally, the payments to you are made using dwolla, rather than one of the better known payment methods such as Paypal and you're required to fill in IRS forms when you open your kiosk. What this means for non-USA citizens is unclear, and their FAQ section doesn't cover that either. However, Pledge Music already have a kiosk on the site, so I'll be keeping an eye on it to see whether it starts to become a more attractive prospect in future.

Current verdict is that it seems an interesting idea but too mired in red tape to attract users. Also without offering an obviously better % to content creators (say 85-90%) than well known services such as iTunes or Amazon, there's very little reason for independents to add their content to the site, as it's unlikely to generate sales without users.

That's all for this month. Hopefully next month's post will come out on time, but with some real life issues needing resolution, I'm likely to become busy around the time I'm due to post.

A Lazy Summer Update

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

Video of the month
I've decided to restart a section I briefly toyed with back when this was my hatchet day blog by including a video I've come across over the past month. Some will be from artists I already know and in other cases it will be the video that might have led me to their discovery.

This month's video is from Remi Miles, an artist I originally discovered on Myspace (and who still doesn't seem to have a website). Enjoy this video from a track he's newly posted this month called "Perfection (YOLO)"






Who I've been looking at
I've had another fairly quiet month in terms of actually looking for artists, but it seems my lazy Summer hasn't been as lazy as I was expecting because once again a number of artists have found me in various ways.

For all those who remember Luckyhorse from their Sellaband days, it seems they've either changed their name or are starting up a different sound. I haven't heard any of their new material yet, but thanks to a tweet from Hogdaddee, I now know they're called The Criminal Hand and have a link to their new Facebook page.

And talking of Sellaband, the fastest moving artist we've seen on there in a long time signed up only about a fortnight ago and is already over a third of her 9000 euro budget, proving it's still possible to make serious headway if you bring your fans in the first place. Unter Null is essentially an electronic project, but including a wide range of elements that make it sound gothic, industrial and trance almost by turns. If I'd still been buying parts there, I'd have been tempted to join in with this one based on what I've heard. No prizes for guessing that unlike many other acts that join Sellaband, this is one that is actually advertising their fundraising effort on the front page of their own website as well as talking to people about it on their social media.

Meanwhile Kabul Dreams have slashed their target from 100,000 euros to a mere 5,000 and will probably complete their funding by the time this post publishes as a result of this change, having less than 100 euros to go the last time I looked. I'm not going to provide a link to their website as it's apparently using a javascript exploit and has sent several different anti-virus products nuts as a result every time I've tried to access it. Not a great advert for an artist.

The big question for the next month is what Aly Cook will do. With less than 7,000 of a 40,000 budget raised on Sellaband and about a fortnight to go before her year is up when I last checked it will be interesting to see whether she decides to make a budget change or not.

Elsewhere Poets of the Fall have been announced as a support act for the Red Hot Chili Peppers on August 1st. Whilst I'd be happier to see them announced as a support act outside of their own country, the fact it seems they're now being considered for major artist support in the first place gives me a little more hope they might actually make it to the UK one day. They've also released an extended version of their recent cd "Temple of Thought" containing 3 extra tracks - 2 live versions of tracks on the album and the "missing" track from their debut album. If you're familiar with their work you'll know the album title for each of their releases has either been a title track for a song on the album, or a key line in one of the songs. The exception to this was their first album, hence the "missing" track they've just released on the extended version called "Signs of Life". However this release has caused some concern and exposed the fact they appear to be following some antiquated practices which really ought to be stamped out in a modern music industry. The first problem is the obvious one that this extended release comes less than 6 months after the original. Whilst designed as a "new release" for German speaking territories, it's led some fans to question why there's a different release in the first place and whether they can buy the extra tracks separately as they're not bottomless pits of money. The second one is the rather bizarre situation that this extended release is available to buy from the artist's own webshop, unless you live in one of the German speaking territories where it is being released, in which case you CAN'T buy it from the artist's own webshop.

Huh? Or rather, how stupid can you get.

The lessons to be learned here, irrespective of whether you are artist or music industry. 1) There is only ONE WORLDWIDE release date for your song (or album of songs) and no such thing as different versions for different territories. Any other option is just encouraging people to go pirate it. 2) If a song/album is available for purchase direct from your own website, it should be available irrespective of where the buyer is coming from.

GD Allan has been putting some more tracks up on his Soundcloud page recently. It's prompted me to start following him on there as a result.

Mysti Mayhem has been posting some new material on Reverbnation recently. "How do you know" has a bit of an R'n'B vibe going on, whereas the acoustic "Mary don't you weep" is much more of a blues track. Both songs (along with others) are downloadable from Reverbnation, so why not check them out. She's also got some shows coming up in North Carolina, the area she's now living.

Vertical Horizon are busy proving that life isn't really any greener on the other side of the fence as far as crowdfunding is concerned. There's still no sign of or release date for the CD I paid for on Pledge Music back at the beginning of the year and their last update was at the beginning of June. Considering Ben Folds has signed up, raised funds AND announced a September release all in the time after my money was actually taken for this one, it really does seem to prove that artists are going to have to get it together if they want to take a publicly funded route. Crowdfunding is still in its infancy, but if it's to become mainstream then artists are going to have to start being a lot more reliable rather than leaving people hanging for months or even years after their money has been taken. Bet you wouldn't get to treat a label who'd financed you like this, so why such disregard for fans? There are plenty of other artists out there wanting funds and I'm hoping the crowdfunding industry will move towards supporting those artists with proven reliability and adding more protection for fans against those untried or just plain unreliable rather than standing by and wanting nothing to do with it as the case is at present. It may sound harsh, but enforced penalty clauses are something I'd really like to see adopted for crowdfunding based on my experiences to date, given artists in general seem to be incapable of doing anything in a timely manner unless they've been through the wringer at a label first (and even then I'm seeing exceptions). Seems the lesson that being independent means that YOU are the one accountable for the money you've just taken is something which artists are currently not being taught strongly enough. And that's a situation that really needs to change (and urgently) if you want to stand any chance of convincing people to pay for music, particularly up front.

As a statistic for you. Of the 36 artists whose projects reached funding on Sellaband where I was involved there are only 6 I would definitely consider funding again based on my experience there. A further 19 I might consider funding. That means there are 11 artists I probably wouldn't or definitely wouldn't consider funding again. On Pledge Music I don't have a wide enough sample to compare (just the 2 artists to date, one of which I'd funded before on Sellaband), but with my feelings currently starting to lean in a negative direction on an artist I've funded on Pledge as well, is it really any wonder I think crowdfunding platforms need to be taking a more active role with artists and communicating the results to their funders rather than leaving them to their own devices?

So I now consider that's a "late" album from Pledge Music (given the email when I funded them stated a March 2012 release date) as well as the two (much longer) overdue from Sellaband. Of the two Sellaband ones, Lori Greco will become the second artist I bought parts in to pass 3 years since funding completion during August, so bets are now officially on as to whether she will take longer than Natalia Safran's current record (All the evidence I see suggests she will). It's also worth noting that it will soon be 5 years since Lori first signed up on Sellaband, so I really am beginning to wonder now what on earth she's been doing in all that time, and can only assume she was nowhere near ready to make an album when she signed up. I'm willing to bet that if her funding had been label based she'd have been hit with a penalty clause for non-delivery by now. If further evidence were needed that crowdfunding sites need to start protecting consumers against artists, as far as I'm concerned you can't get a better example than this.

It's not often I pick up an album I'd decided to avoid, but a combination of some Amazon funds and the fact a song from it came round on my Last FM station made me change my mind. I've been a Chris Rea fan for a long time but after the illness he only recovered from after they'd removed rather a lot of internal organs he'd announced he was going to be going back to his roots and start writing blues. I'd given the resulting 12-disc behemoth he'd come up with based round the history and development of blues music a try when it came out and it turned out to be too much of a change in musical direction for me. So when he'd released "another blues album" a couple of years after, I decided to give it a miss at the time. However the album in question "Santo Spirito Blues" is the one I've now picked up because, well, it may be blues influenced but unlike the previous 12-disc it's actually back to sounding like the Chris Rea I know and love. Looks like I may land up looking out for his next album on its release after all.

Miranda Shvangiradze is an artist I've picked up on as a result of Soundcloud radio and in my first listening session on it too. More about what that is under the sites section, but what you'll find here is mainly instrumental electronic music with a classical influence. The recommendation came about as a result of the fact I listen to Fabrizio Paterlini. You'll find lots of music you can download for free from her Soundcloud page but I haven't seen any mention of a website for her.

This month's "whatever happened to" moment happened when I decided to take a look and see what Pete Strobl was up to these days. Hadn't seen anything of him in a while, so the most obvious thing to do was stop by his music blog. Sadly things are looking rather quiet over there as it seems his last post was made in January 2011 but after leaving a comment over there I got an email from him. Apparently he's been writing a book and working with Van Halen as well as wishing he had a lot more hours in the day (amongst other things). Here's hoping we'll see some more articles from him soon.

Meanwhile on Twitter a familiar face appeared in the list of people following me. Fred, or Meo (as more may remember him) of  Meo and the Alternative Preachers is the familiar face in question, but I've not got around to checking out what he's currently up to yet.

The Sites I've been looking at

Sellaband
I spent the first couple of weeks this month fighting Sellaband's support system as it seems their server migration managed to break my Sellaband profile in a rather large way. I've heard of sites sending you an email asking you to verify your signup before, but never a site sending an email asking you to verify that you've asked for support before your support request actually gets sent. As a result, the problems with my profile took about a week longer to fix than they ought to have done, as that's how long it took me to figure out what the situation was. Things did get fixed quite rapidly when the request actually reached Sellaband and I decided to withdraw the money on my profile when things got back to normal due to the uncertainty over what the "new concept" will be and hence to minimise any impact due to changes in what will happen with revenue and/or payouts. On that score, Sellaband have sent a link to a questionnaire round by email. Whether it asks you different questions if you're an artist, I obviously don't know (one of the first questions is whether you're on Sellaband as artist or believer), but it does ask some interesting questions such as whether you want revenue option to be available, whether you think Sellaband should hold live performances and whether you want a CD for your investment. However, it's hard to understand exactly what Sellaband want to get from the answers to these questions - if they've already decided on their new concept/new direction and that it will be launched in the Autumn, this seems to be asking relevant questions too late to be of any worth for that. They've also announced a concert in Berlin to celebrate their 6th anniversary, but I won't be attending as it doesn't seem appropriate, given the only thing I'm currently capable of "celebrating" is the fact I'm still waiting for albums I should have received a couple of years ago (one of the reasons I've refused to buy parts in artists on there since.)

TastemakerX
After only my second month using the site, I seem to have already worked myself into the top 20 players (and have gained a shedload of followers as a result), helped at least in part by investing in some very well known names who were at or near minimum price when they certainly shouldn't have been. But moment of the month on what is still a very young site came just over a week ago when a number of profiles started buying into the same group of about a half dozen artists, leading one player to comment on many of these that someone was cheating by setting up multiple accounts to inflate artist prices. On the one hand, a possibility, on the other you would get the same effect with a group of friends signing up, or even potentially fans of an artist. Whatever the case, I did dive into the buying spree and stand to make a decent profit on a couple of the artists involved if I decide to sell in the near future. So far, the profiles that went on a mass buying spree haven't gone on a mass selling spree to reap their profits, nor does it seem the site creators have taken any action. I'm watching closely to see what (if anything) happens next on this one.

Soundcloud
Someone has created a Soundcloud radio app. Essentially it plays tracks you have favourited on the site, tracks that people you follow have favourited and also tracks that people they follow have favourited. As a result I've already picked up on one interesting artist (as stated earlier) so I might start using this a bit more to see what other discoveries it will lead to. In the meantime, I'm probably the one responsible if I'm following you on Soundcloud and you've seen a sudden jump in your Soundcloud plays as I've had a few hours listening to the app already.

That's all for this month. Stay tuned for next month when I'll let you know if there's been any further news on the three overdue crowdfunded albums I'm waiting for (two from Sellaband and one from Pledge).