Bandcamp app

Bandcamp now has it's own iphone and android app

As ever, Bandcamp get it pretty much spot on:-

- generally seems easy to use and it all works properly

- the app itself is less than 1MB.

- it seems to be perfectly happy streaming albums over 3G. It worked fine when I was sat at my desk at work. Was even more impressed to find I could walk into town to get my lunch and go in and out of shops etc without a single glitch.

- it's really good on privacy as it only asks for network access instead of full access to everything on the phone like some apps do.

Man Or Astroman? download card

Went to see the reformed Man Or Astroman? the other night. They were fucking awesome.

On the merch table they had something I hadn't seen before but have long argued bands should have - download cards! A fiver for their new album. Half the price of the CD and a 1/3 of the price of the LP.

LSE report on filesharing concludes that it really isn't killing the music industry

The London School of Economics has whole load of research into digital media.

They've just issued a new report on the effects of filesharing called Copyright and Creation: A Case For Promoting Inclusive Online Sharing. It shows that the music industry really isn't dying and that filesharing isn't killing it.

Obviously, the music industry likes to point out that orange line showing the decline in recorded music sales. That blue line at the top, however, shows that overall revenue is increasing. The LSE's argument is that the mid-2000s slump was due to the music industry sticking their heads in the sand about digital distribution and that the uptick at the end shows they're getting their head around the idea.

And here's the bit showing how much digital has increase:-

And here's a few key lines from the report:-

"The music industry may be stagnating, but the drastic decline in revenues warned of by the lobby associations of record labels is not in evidence. "

The music industry has experienced overall revenue growth in recent times. In 2013, for the first time, UK revenues from online music were higher than revenues from CDs and vinyl combined (55% for online and 45% for CDs and vinyl of total revenues from sales of recorded music)

Revenue from online sources including recorded music sales, streaming, online radio, subscriptions and other is increasing, both absolutely and as a percentage of overall revenue.

Insisting that people will only produce creative works when they can claim exclusive ownership rights ignores the spread of practices that depend on sharing and co-creation and easy access to creative works; this insistence privileges copyright owners over these creators.

Targeting individual internet users is not likely to reverse the trend toward an online sharing culture, and there is an urgent need for independent verification of claims of harm to the creative industries as a result of individual copyright.

iTunes accounted for 60% of total music industry digital revenues in 2012

Hypebot have got an interesting article about this here - http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2013/02/itunes-payments-account-for-60-of-total-digital-music-revenue-analysis.html

It's only a quick read but quite informative.

Point I want to bring up is that iTunes sold $4.3 billion of music in 2012. That's $4,300,000,000. That's roughly £2.9 billion. As a comparison, £2.9 billion would be 1/25th of the UK's entire retail sector.

Whichever way you look at it, that's a fuckload of money.

It certainly demolishes the "people don't want to pay for downloads" argument that's popular amongst DIY/indie labels that still refuse to offer downloads for sale.

Suffocation buy their own CD at the shop

A guy from Suffocation videos himself going to the shop to buy his own band's CD.

Basically, he points out a lot of good things about why people should pay for music. Especially why people should pay for underground music. He points out that Suffocation aren't Beyonce or someone like that racking in millions and millions of pounds.

He points out that if bands and labels lose money then bands get dropped, they can't make records, they don't come and tour your city etc etc etc.

He's really trying to drive home the point that underground music needs supporting and fair fucks to him. Fully behind his sentiments.

However, there's a big 'but'. And come on, you knew the 'but' was coming.

Neither Suffocation nor their label (Nuclear Blast) make the music available for sale as flac/wav or any other lossless format.

It's a familiar rant on this blog but crappy, lossy mp3s from amazon/itunes can well and truly get fucked. I'm not handing over cash for something that sounds shit. Also, I'm not buying a CD as I don't own a CD player and I think they're fugly.

I'd be more than happy to hand over cash for a flac download of Effigy Of The Forgotten. It's a classic. I'd also buy their new one too.

That's two album sales they could be making right there for virtually no effort. I'm guessing Kevin would buy them as well. Seeing how much the folk over at Metal Bandcamp buy I'm guessing there's fuckloads more people that'd buy it.

And here ends yet another "just sell us the damn music" post.

Ninja Tune digital subscription

A subscription service is something I've often thought would be a good idea. For a set amount you'd get everything from a label.

Ninja Tune were started by Coldcut years ago. Recently they've been putting out stuff like The Bug and Actress so they've still got their finger on the pulse.

Here's a link and their blurb:-

https://drip.fm/ninjatune

Want an easy, convenient way to get every album, EP and single Ninja Tune and Big Dada release? Then our new subscription service is for you.

Subscribe for just $12 a month, and we'll send you everything we put out, on release day, in high quality MP3, WAV or FLAC formats , which are yours to keep forever. In the event that there are less than 2 albums in any month we'll top up with favourites from the back catalogue.

Sign up now and you'll receive a 42-track compilation we've put together from all our 2012 releases, as well as recent albums from FaltyDL and Dobie, with new releases from Bonobo, VISION and more coming up in the next few months!

WHAT YOU GET

$12 a month for everything we release, delivered straight to your inbox
At least two albums a month
High quality MP3, WAV or FLAC downloads
Subscribers in February 2013 also receive a 20% discount code for any purchases at the Ninjashop, as well as a 10% discount for the entire time you're a subscriber.
Automatic entry to our VIP Club, where you'll receive news about exclusive releases, bonus content and more
A free Ninja Tune Mug!

Ninja Tune don't put out enough stuff I'm into for it to be worth it for me. However, I'd love it if a label I was totally into did this.

Pere Ubu and Neil Young

OK, the new Pere Ubu and Neil Young songs are really good.

I'm now going to say a bunch of words like mediafire, rapidshare, zippyshare, free download, megaupload, lossless, piratebay, israbox, torrent, filestube.

As Pere Ubu and Neil Young are both on large record labels I'm presuming they have people employed to try and stamp out free downloads and piracy etc.

Fingers crossed I've used enough naughty words for them to find this blog while they're googling. If this happens to be your job and you're now reading this please could you pass this brief message on to your manager or someone involved in trying to get the artist/label as much cash money as possible:-

I would like to buy both the new Neil Young album and the new Pere Ubu album. However, they are not available to buy anywhere as FLAC (or any other lossless digital format). I'm not paying hard cash for shitty mp3s from itunes/amazon. I don't want a bit of crappy plastic. I just want the music exactly how it came out of the studio (ie FLAC/Lossless) and I'm more than happy to pay for it. There's loads of other people like me. Stop pissing around while you're industry tanks and just sell us the damn music.

Both albums are well worth checking out so here's a couple of youtube vids.

Bandcamp Fan Pages

http://bandcamp.com/fans

Somehow Bandcamp have come up with another great idea for the site. It's a thing called Bandcamp Fan Page. It's just in private beta at the moment but I reckon it's really good. Really hope it takes off when it's fully available.

It adds a dash of 'social networking'. Basically, it shows the things you've bought on bandcamp. You can follow your friends and see what they've been getting. Plus you can follow artists and labels you're interested in so you know when they've released something new.

It's not pretending to be Facebook or Twitter and become you're default social networking site. Or Myspace for that matter (apparently they're trying to relaunch - good luck with that......). No, it just adds a small dash of social networking stuff. A bit like last.fm or IMDB or even Discogs.

One nice feature is a thing called a Wishlist. Handy for easily bookmarking things you might like to get. How many times have you listened to a previously unheard band on bandcamp, thought it was good but then kind of just forgot about them? Well, personally, not often enough that I'd lose sleep over it but enough that I appreciate the option is there to kind of bookmark stuff.

I think one really good thing is that it subtly encourages you to pay for music. Peer-to-peer pressure as a friend quipped. If you can see your friends buying music you feel compelled to join in. I know that sounds like I just read Nudge by R Thaler but, well, I did.

If you want to have a look at it then here's my page and here's Kevin's

Orgone Accumulators EPs on Grindcore Karaoke

This is the best piece of music ever produced. Better than anything else in the world ever. Download immediately.

Shameless sock puppetry aside, give it a listen.

Also, check out the other stuff on Grindcore Karaoke. It's a net label that J Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed runs. Tons of releases available and all for free. Oh, and all available in FLAC. Definitely an interesting use of bandcamp.

Last Shop Standing

Last Shop Standing is a documentary film to be released on September 10th 2012.

Last Shop Standing inspired by the book of the same name by Graham Jones takes you behind the counter to discover why nearly 2000 record shops have already disappeared across the UK. The film charts the rapid rise of record shops in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, the influence of the chart, the underhand deals, the demise of vinyl and rise of the CD as well as new technologies. Where did it all go wrong? Why were 3 shops a week closing? Will we be left with no record shops with the continuing rise of downloading? Hear from over 20 record shop owners and music industry leaders as well as musicians including Paul Weller, Johnny Marr, Norman Cook, Billy Bragg, Nerina Pallot, Richard Hawley and Clint Boon as they all tell us how the shops became and still are a part of their own musical education, a place to cherish and discover new bands and new music.

http://www.lastshopstanding.com/

Got the book for Christmas the other year and it's a great, if very depressing, read.

I love record shops. Scary to think just how much money I've spent in them. I've got shelves and shelves and boxes and boxes of records to show for it though.

And, as the trailer states, record shops are great for finding out about new stuff, getting recommendations, chatting and all the rest of it. It'd suck if you couldn't turn up in town you've never been to and check the record shop out.

I reckon it'd genuinely be disastrous if record shops died.

Which is why I can't understand why record shops don't sell downloads. Already touched on the idea in this post about Rough Trade but it's worth repeating.

A record shop is somewhere where you go and buy music. In ye olden days before records you'd have bought sheet music. Then it would have been 78s and then onwards to vinyl, 8 tracks, reel to reel, cassette tapes, CDs and whatever else you could stick music on.

So why is the thought of selling a piece of card with a download code printed on it so inconceivable?

New 7"s in shops are now between £4 and £7 which is quite a lot. Wouldn't it be great if you could get several singles for a tenner? Well you could with download cards. For a couple of quid people are more likely to take a punt on something they haven't heard before.

I can't think of one single idea why it would be a bad thing.

You only need to look at the itunes store wikipedia page to see the ridiculous amount of money they're making. Biggest music store in the world now, apparently.

Blows apart any argument about people not being willing to pay for digital stuff.

Could you imagine a music shop in the 60s and 70s that refused to sell vinyl or one in the 90s that refused to sell CDs?

10 Reasons Why Itunes Is Crap

10 Reasons I Don't Buy From Itunes

1. They don't sell FLAC.
Kevin points out the many reasons why FLAC is vastly superior to mp3 in this post - http://spoonfuloftar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/why-flac-format.html

2. Because I'm buying independent or DIY music.
I buy my vinyl from someone with a box of records at a punk gig in the back room of a pub. Either that or a proper independent record shop. I'd steadfastly refuse to go to somewhere like HMV. Why would I want to buy my digital records from the equivalent of Tescos.

3. Apple are a bunch of tax dodging bastards.
They use every dirty trick in the book to pay only a peppercorn tax rate in any country they operate in. You might argue that it's 'legal'. It's not. The methods are just not explicitly illegal. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy-aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html

4. I'm just not a fan of Apple products.
Shiny and overexpensive and just frustrating to use. I just don't like the walled garden appraoch. Also, the itunes program has given me nothing but grief.

5. Bands and labels have to pay for their stuff to go on itunes.
Could you imagine a shop demanding to be paid to stock your records? That's up front by the way. Not just taking a cut of each sale (which is fine). No, you actually have to pay to be put on itunes in the first place.

6. DRM
Yeah, I know they don't do DRM anymore but they used to. And the stench remains. They're very much not on the side of the music fan. Which brings me on to the next point.

7. You don't own the music you buy
This one is almost incomprehensible. You don't actually own the music you buy from itunes.

"Part of the problem is that with digital content, one doesn’t have the same rights as with print books and CDs. Customers own a license to use the digital files — but they don’t actually own them.

Apple (US:AAPL) and Amazon.com (US:AMZN) grant “nontransferable” rights to use content, so if you buy the complete works of the Beatles on iTunes, you cannot give the “White Album” to your son and “Abbey Road” to your daughter.

According to Amazon’s terms of use, “You do not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music content.” Apple limits the use of digital files to Apple devices used by the account holder."

Read more about that here - http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-08-23/finance/33336852_1_digital-content-digital-files-apple-and-amazon

8. They almost have a monopoly
It almost seems like people don't realise there's other options. OK, it doesn't help that loads of independent labels use it as they're default option for selling digital. But, the fact is, there are far better options such as Bandcamp or Boomkat or whatever.

9. It's expensive
You want me to pay the same price as a CD for a digital version that's worse quality? Erm, no.

10. Fuck itunes
Just fuck it. Everything about it. Just fuck it. Itunes is just pure unadulterated bullshit. I've tried to focus on specific things but the fact is that there isn't a single good thing about itunes. Not one. Itunes stinks to high heaven. It's the very antithesis of independent music.


And yes, I know these ten points have ended with just irrational ranting but that's irrelevant. What labels and bands should understand is that I will never, ever, ever, ever in a million trillion years buy anything through itunes. And I know that goes for lots of other people too.

There are independent options so use them. Obviously I'd like to see more independent options become available but for the moment any option is better than itunes.

Arctic Flowers - Procession

Gloomy anarcho post punk goth stuff. Fairly simple mid-paced tom heavy drumming, bit of reverb on the guitars, woman half singing miserable lyrics. They've got a bit of a knack for subtle hooks and keeping the songs interesting. Yeah, it's a dirge but it's not a bland, unlistenable dirge.

There's been a bit of a revival of this kind of stuff in the past few years. The forgotten bit of the early 80s where the anarcho punk scene bled into goth. I'll be honest I didn't even know about it until this stuff started coming out. There's a fairly detailed article about these news bands and their influences here - http://souciant.com/2012/08/the-year-goth-punk-broke/

I know my MRR reading friends have been raving about this lot and it seems justified. Definitely makes a nice break from what seems to have been an endless onslaught of d-beat from the punk scene.

Also, really cool that they've made digital available. Most of their contemporaries who are dogmatic vinyl purists unfortunately.

Update: Yes, let's have a postscript on this. I've just bought the FLAC of this. I listened to it. I liked it. I'd downloaded one of their previous efforts for free and quite enjoyed it. I was happy enough paying what worked out as about £3.50 for a 12" worth of music. I did this while I had Soulseek running and also downloading something else from mediafire.

I was also checking out other stuff from that Year The Goth Punk Broke article. That Dekoder band sounded interesting. There's no way of hearing their album online. They've got some demo stuff up and that sounds alright. The only way of getting the music is to buy the LP. I'd be paying way over £10 just on postage. And that's for something I haven't even bloody heard.

And that's the whole point I keep trying to get across about why it's a good thing for DIY bands to offer their music digitally. Dogmatic vinyl purism actively denies the vast majority of people access to your music. That isn't 'punk'. I don't mean that it denies me access to the music as if it's some horrific burden on my existence. Yeah, I'm fully aware that it falls under that horrendous (& actually quite offensive, when you think about it) phrase "first world problems".

There's a small chance the LP might turn up in a distro at a punk gig I might attend at some point in the future. But it's a small chance. Even then, unless I'm friends with you or you have a superlative history of putting out awesome records, I'm not going to buy something I haven't already heard.

Maybe I'll notice Dekoder on a blog with a mediafire link at some point. Or maybe a friend will rave about them and I'll be reminded that I thought I should check them out. Alternatively, I could have listened to them tonight, really enjoyed them, bought their music and banged on at my mates to check them out as well.

I dunno, it just reminds me of when I first managed to track down a copy of Maximum Rock n Roll (one with Misfits on the cover from 1995 i think). Some of the stuff sounded awesome. Walked into my local indie record shop and tried to order some stuff but they couldn't get hold of the stuff as it wasn't distributed. I bought something on Epitaph/Fat Wreck instead. Thing is, now labels and bands don't need to go with a big distributor. A couple of minutes work (and a bit of time for the music to upload) and they've got instant global distribution at no cost whatsoever with virtually every penny going to them from sales.

This rant is getting kind of rambling so I'll finish up. Just seems that Arctic Flowers way is the better approach. And their stuff is still on vinyl and going through all the usual diy punk rock channels. It's all win-win.

Cash Music - Open Source Tools for Musicians

Basically, these folk are building a load of open source software for musicians to use. Much as I think Bandcamp is great it's still a very much 'for profit' outfit. People have invested millions into it and they'll be wanting a return. Fair enough but open source stuff puts it all in the musician/label's hand.

Go and have a look at the site which explains how it all works - http://cashmusic.org/

They say it best in their own words:-

What Wordpress did for bloggers, we're doing for musicians. We're building a free and open platform that’s available to all artists, designed in partnership with artists and labels.

CASH Music is a nonprofit organization that builds open source digital tools for musicians and labels. Our mission is to help educate and empower artists and their fans to foster a more viable and sustainable future for music.

And from their About page:-

Everything in this business starts with musicians, but with all the money around music they're often the last to see any. Most of the artists we know are working so hard just to keep their heads above water.

The whole Internet thing was supposed to make things egalitarian, but it hasn't. It's mostly startups with big money and major labels making weird deals and everyone else working extra hard to just stay afloat.

Entire companies are being built around the idea that if they can finally make the Internet work for musicians then they can get rich. Some are making things better. Some are making things worse. But they're all doing it backed by millions of dollars on the promise that they'll deliver billions later — and in their world it's consumers (fans) and content (music, more specifically music copyrights.)

So we've built a lot of tools that actual, working musicians need and can use - we know because we're building them directly with artists and labels. Also, what we're doing is different because we're building it in the open where it's all totally free and doing it as a Nonprofit so someone else can't just buy it all up.

It'll be fascinating to see exactly how far they manage to get with it all. I know bollock all about coding but it sounds like a great project.

http://cashmusic.org

Rough Trade

Customer just asked if the record we were playing in-store was available on itunes.......

— Rough Trade (@RoughTrade) August 11, 2012

@ everyone thats asking We smiled and told them we had no idea and went about our business (selling records)

— Rough Trade (@RoughTrade) August 11, 2012

Ironically, this brief exchange popped up in my twitter feed whilst I was in the middle of writing an anti-itunes article. One of the main points in it is wondering why the indie music scene hasn't created a digital equivalent of Rough Trade.

It begs the question as to why on earth music shops don't sell digital versions. Rather than lol'ing on the internet that someone wants to buy music on one of the most popular formats they could have sold him a card with a download code on. Regardless of recession & financial crisis stuff record shops are closing left, right and centre. But the last bit says it all "our business (selling records)". Notice they didn't say "our business (selling music)". In Hank Hill's voice I hear "we sell polyvinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride accessories".

Anyway, these ideas will be more fleshed out in forthcoming "why i don't buy from itunes" and "why don't touring bands sell downloads on the merch table" pieces.

Why FLAC? - Format

OK, when I started to write for this blog I intended to write some posts about the mechanics of what I feel are the correct distribution methods for music using today's technologies. There are many different topics to cover to explain why we feel so passionate about this, so I'll start with a basic one which most people will probably know about anyway, but it's a way to get started.

Why FLAC? What's wrong with MP3s?

Well, there isn't anything inherently wrong with MP3 as a music format, but one significant factor which, for me personally, means I do not wish to pay for MP3s and require a FLAC download option is compression.

Both FLAC and MP3 audio files are compressed audio formats. An un-compressed 44.1kHz 16bit WAV master file of a track is compressed to either FLAC or MP3 to reduce the file size so that the file may be more easily distributed via the internet. For example a FLAC file may be roughly 50% smaller in file size than the master WAV, whereas a 320kbps MP3 would be roughly 15% of the original WAV file size. So why is FLAC better than MP3? Well, it's because FLAC is a lossless compressed audio format, where as MP3 is a lossy compressed audio format. This means that the FLAC file, although it is compressed to be smaller than the original WAV file size, retains 100% audio information and quality. An MP3 does not; information is discarded from the file and the audio quality suffers. The FLAC operates like a ZIP file; it reduces the file size, but it can at any time be uncompressed to restore the original bit-for-bit perfect WAV file.

So to summarise the audio-quality of each format:

WAV > MP3
FLAC > MP3
WAV = FLAC

OK, now since we are talking about digital music distribution being a very viable and, to be honest, a superior successor to selling people CDs, it's important that you sell people the music in an equal audio quality.

Audio CDs are bits of plastic which contain 44.1kHz 16bit WAV audio files. Today, selling these WAV files on bits of plastic is pretty redundant since we can just download the files via our super fast internet connections. Since it takes only a little more time to download these files in FLAC instead of MP3, we shouldn't settle for anything of lesser quality than we have been getting for the past 20 years when buying CDs. Since WAV=FLAC in sound quality and MP3<WAV then we should not settle for buying MP3s.

That's my logic anyway. I've been listening to CDs for the last 20 years and I do not wish to take a step back in sound quality just because I'm buying my music digitally these days. I want it in FLAC.

YMMV of course (perceivable audio quality difference between high bit-rate MP3 and FLAC is often minimal) and if you're not bothered then fair play, but it is important to give people the choice. Again, this is where Bandcamp have got it utterly sussed by offering any format you want up to the best audio quality possible (while also offering OGG, AAC etc). This is also why iTunes fails.

Not everyone listens to music in the same way, be it via CD, cassette, vinyl or whatever, and if someone chooses to buy their music digitally they shouldn't be given a shittier option for audio quality as there is absolutely no reason for it anymore. Give people more format options and more people will buy your music, it's that simple.

Metal Bandcamp

Just stumbled upon a blog called Metal Bandcamp. Basically, it's loads and loads of metal on Bandcamp. Full reviews of everything too. Covers everything from your Mayhem's and Fear Factory's to underground stuff. Covers all types of metal as well. It's just metal, metal and more metal as far as the eyes can see.

Great idea. Here's the link again - http://metalbandcamp.com/

Bandcamp compared with the "Selling Out:How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online" Infographic

Just came across this update to the "Selling Out: How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online" infographic via the splendid WFMU. Digital Music News has the full story on it.

Image from Digital Music News

Unsurprisingly doing stuff DIY comes out on top. Goes without saying really doesn't it. yeah, a major label probably has the infrastructure to enable bands to sell millions but this blog isn't really about that kind of MTV world. In all honesty, it's not really even about bands scraping a living (although there's nothing wrong with that). It's more about DIY punk type bands managing not to lose money on doing a record or covering the costs of a tour.

Once again, Spotify comes out as the worst. Someone in the comments posted another infographic showing how much Spotify pays out to artists and it's a reasonably respectable 70% of it's profits. The idea of being paid a small amount per stream does make sense but at the moment the number of streams you'd need to get is just ridiculous. Especially for small DIY bands where you'd consider a youtube video to have gone 'viral' if it had more than a thousand plays. The only way I could conceive of it working would be someone created a DIY version. Say you paid £10 a month for the power violence channel or £10 a month for Swedish D Beat channel. Probably not going to happen anytime soon so let's move back up to the top of the infographic where the self released music is.

I ran a few numbers on equivalent prices in Bandcamp to see how that would work. With Bandcamp they take a cut and there's the paypal fee as well. The cheapest paypal rate is a straight 5%. Bandcamp's fee is 15% which falls to 10% if you're selling quite a bit (basically enough that you'd be making this fictitious minimum wage figure).

Let's begin with selling the digital version at $9.99 which the other digital and CD rates are set at on the infographic. Bandcamp wins! At Bandcamp's top rate of a 15% cut plus paypal's 5% you'd need to selling 145 copies. That drops to just 136 copies if you're selling enough to get Bandcamp's 10% rate.

Now, in all honesty, a tenner for a digital album just really isn't on in my book. Let's drop the price down to $5. It comes out as only slightly more than selling a $10 CD (and no-one buys CDs). You'd need to sell either 290 or 273 copies (depending on Bandcamp's rate) at $5 to make that minimum wage figure.

It's one of the main reasons I'm not a fan of itunes. I say I'm not a fan, I absolutely refuse to buy from itunes. Going with the fact loads of people I know are trying to offload boxes of CDs as they don't want them it seems there's only two options left: vinyl and bandcamp (or other independent digital distribution). Pretty much the whole argument of this blog that digital can make a big dent in the cost of doing a DIY record.

Pop punk and RVIVR

Right then, our friend George (@Georgianafleur) is going to start contributing some stuff too. Apparently she's going to "ruin [the blog] with girl punk and French electro pop". So here's the first installment:-

"Like Ewan and Kevin, I've been getting frustrated at the lack of legal digital downloads outside of itunes. I recently saw some hipster bands upstairs in a bar and their recordings came in two formats - vinyl and CASSETTE. Unacceptable. I don't have the facility to play these and don't intend to change that. I wanted to exchange cash for their art but they recommended I download it for free. I think they were missing the point. I'm an adult with a disposable income that I enjoy exchanging for art work, telling me it's free if I search their name + mediafire makes me sad.

So finally, a DIY label I have respect for. Read about Rumbletowne here - http://www.rumbletowne.com/rtr/node/15. They respect the need for accessible music to those without funds but also have donation buttons with suggested donations for MP3s. They even encourage full album downloads instead of song by song.

I stumbled across this American DIY label during my obsession with both male and female vocal punk bands. RVIVR are my showcase for today with their Re-release of their first two 7"s and the Dirty Water EP. (Kevin will hate them)

http://www.rumbletowne.com/rtr/rtr-releases/RTR-011

They are an American melodic, energetic punk with dual vocals, catchy riffs and a righteous attitude. These are things I am a fan of. Like bands before them, they use inspiring music with political themes. Try them out, great as summertime music and one of many bands in this genre that's picking up again. Whole tracklisting is great, can tell it's a compilation of previous EPs but a geat introduction to a great band."

The economics of a DIY punk 7" in 1986

There's a track from the Generic - For A Free And Liberated South Africa 7" from 1986. The very first release on Flat Earth Records

You can get the whole thing for free here - http://flatearthrecs.blogspot.co.uk/ aka The Archive Of Bloody Everything. Pretty much everything Flat Earth put out is available along with stories about how it all happened. If you have even the slightest interest in the history of DIY punk in the UK then Flat Earth is essential.

Inside the record (yeah, the actual 7" - this blog might be about encouraging people to sell digital stuff but I'm also a vinyl nerd) is a fascinating insert detailing the exact costs of putting the record out. The point being was to show other people that it could be done and how it could be done.

The other month I decided to have a little look into what the costs would be in today's money. I've used the Bank Of England inflation calculator to see what a price in 1986 would be in 2011 (the most recent year it does). Yes, this is quite a geeky thing to do but personally I think it's quite interesting to compare. This is especially true when people say that vinyl is so much more expensive to press nowadays. I was going to leave you with a link to an article explaining why there's no such thing as an exact inflation rate as it all depends on what you personally buy. However, I can't for the life of me find the link. Anyway, on with the costs.

First up is "Recording/Master tape/Transport" which in 1986 came to £80. That comes out at £192.33 after inflation.

Next is "Pressing". All the individual parts of the pressing process are listed but even I'm not that sad to check them all. The overall price of pressing 1,000 7" was £493. That comes out as £1185.29 in 2011 money. That's without covers. If you head over to Key Production you can see that you can get 1,000 7"s without sleeves pressed for £1002. That includes transport and test presses as well.

They spent £57 on covers which today would be £137.04.

An advert in Maximum Rock n Roll was £15 (now, £36.06). 1/6 page ad in MRR is currently $33 which isn't too much difference

After adding everything up and including a bit for telephone calls and other bits and bobs they totalled it at £700 for 1,000 7"s. That comes to £1682.97 in 2011.

Strangely, the conclusion appears to be that pressing 1,000 7"s is actually cheaper these days. Of course, it's far harder to actually flog 1,000 7"s now. That's one of the reasons I reckon it's a good idea to sell digital stuff as it makes up a bit of the shortfall

A Quick Introduction

Recently one thing I've been ranting about is the fact that's it's hard to buy a lot of DIY hardcore and other types of punk rock digitally. There's 687 trillion blogs with mediafire and rapidshare links for free. The better ones actually write about the band and also include links to the label to buy it. And, of course, there's good old Soulseek.

Downloading stuff for free is fine. Lord only knows the number of records I've bought having already downloaded it. Pretty much now I'm not going to buy a record unless I already know I like it. Also, it's great being able to check touring bands out beforehand and get to know the songs.

I'm guessing you know all that and probably agree since you've stumbled upon a DIY music blog with links to the music. Especially if you googled Band Name - Album Title - Mediafire. Yeah, don't lie to me and say you've never done that.

Increasingly, though, I'm becoming less and less bothered with actually owning a physical record. For a select few bands I really love I'll still want the vinyl. Yeah, there's CDs but I'm half tempted to hire a skip, fill it with all my CDs, douse them in petrol and set it on fire.

More and more, I want to be able get FLAC. And not just get FLAC for free. I want to pay for FLAC. At some point I'll do a post outlining all the whys and wherfores about that but for the moment I'll leave it as I'd like to buy FLAC. I'd like to cut out as many middle men as possible and give bands/labels my money for the music directly.

And so we come to the point of the blog. Basically it's like any of the other music download blogs out there but focusing on DIY stuff where you can pay for a download.

Hopefully it'll be reasonably successful in encouraging more DIY bands and labels to sell music downloads and help them to not lose quite as much money.