Oatmeal nails it on "The State Of The Music Industry"

THE OATMEAL has just put up a fantastic cartoon on The State Of The Music Industry. The final strip sums it up excellently:-

You should probably like the Oatmeal on Facebook. Also, go and have a look through all their other comics.

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.

Cellgraft - s/t LP

Sadly it appears that this is the final Cellgraft release. Shame as they've made some of the best grindcore of recent years. And when I say grindcore i mean grindcore. In my review of their split 7" with Drainland I pointed out that they seem to take grindcore back to first principles of mixing Swans grind with fast blasts of hard core.

This stuff is genuinely equal to a band like Discordance Axis

Pusrad - Smarttrams EP

Super short blasts of hardcore punk. Weirdly tuneful rather than a Drop Dead clone or something. Ex-Raped Teenagers if you're an old punk. Actually at a loss to accurately describe this because, unlike most punk stuff, it isn't just blah crossed with blah. Guess it comes from the same place as freaks like Nomeansno/Pissed Happy Children/Minutemen but in 15 second chunks.

Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction

tl;dr Album of the year. Doom. Candlemass



This is the best record of 2012. I don't care that there's still half a year to go. There's no way on earth that this is going to get beaten. There was a good month or so when I listened to this at least once a day. Recent lack of access to the stereo is the only reason that run has been broken.

NPR were streaming the album back in February and it was instantly clear that it topped their non-too-shabby demo from the other year. Listened to that loads and grabbed a cheeky mediafire link to wait out the time before the official release. Official release came and it was a CD on Profound Lore. Think I might have mentioned I hate CDs. Thankfully 20 Buck Spin are doing a double LP of it which should come out at some point. Just saw Profound Lore put it up on their bandcamp for sale so just bought the FLAC of it and you can really tell the difference. Sounds so much better than ropey mp3s. Still reckon I'm going to get the vinyl as well though.

Anyway, the music. Musically this is total doom stuff but totally tuneful. Could well imagine this having come out on Hellhound donkeys years ago. Candlemass is a a reference that gets bandied around a lot with them and there's certainly an influence in there. It doesn't 'sound like' Candlemass though. They've got a similar melodic sensibility though despite the fact the songs are stretched out even further. I guess it's also because the singer actually sings rather than growls. There's an incredible bit about 10 minutes into the first song, Foreigner, where the vocals kick back in which sends shivers down my spine. You'll recognise that bit when you hear it.

Basically, if you like any kind of music spawned from Black Sabbath then you'll love it. Guaranteed.

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."

Absolutist - Ave

Savage savage savage savage dark metallic crust inspired hardcore. And it's not pretending either. This band are from Aberdeen. Ever been to Aberdeen? It's fucking bleak, cold and windswept. Some of this lot used to play in Filthpact and many moons ago they put on my old band in Aberdeen. Nice folk. But the town they live in is on the border of being the absolute wilderness. The North of Scotland has a similar line of latitude as all the Scandanavian black metal and raw crust bands. Not much else to do but shelter from the cold, drink beer and cook up the sickest music imaginable.



Now when i say crust i'm kind of alluding to the more fucked up end of the 90s crust stuff when the punks started making music like Neurosis, His Hero Is Gone and Dystopia. However, this is not sounds-like-Neurosis or sounds-like-His-Hero-Is-Gone stuff. There's tons of bands out there doing that generic copycat thing but this ain't it. It's coming from the same root as those 90s bands. The label compares them to The Dagda and I'd have to agree. Sadly, I feel that it's unlikely you'll have heard them. Do yourself a favour, find some Dagda stuff on a blog or soulseek. Oh, and My Name Is Satan too. Two of the sickest, most twisted hardcore bands Ireland ever threw up. It doesn't sound a million miles away from Ireland's current bleakest sons, Drainland. Not surprising as the man running the Suburban Mayhem label used to be in them. It's a bit more straight forward than them though. It's the kind of thing your regularly crusty might well shake his fist in the air at live whilst also appealing to the handful of oddballs that are into weird stuff but hang out in the punk scene. I reckon this lot would flatten the 1in12 if they played towards the end of an alldayer.

I mentioned the Suburban Mayhem label and sadly this is the last release as the label is calling it quits. It's all explained by them in a post called Death Of A DIY Label.

NOW GO AND BUY THE LP

That last thing was a link to buy the record but maybe you need me to show you the link like this - http://destroyedhuman.bigcartel.com/

Oh, and pick up the Drainland/Crows split 7" at the same time because it's killer.

Dark Castle - Surrender To All Life Beyond Form

One half of this band is in Yob (the drummer) but it's mainly the project of Stevie Floyd: vocalist, guitarist and visual artist. Crushingly heavy, kinda like His Hero Is Gone but way more expansive and Doom. Crusty yet beautifully melodic in places. I saw them support Yob last year and they were better, in my opinion. I've been listening to this record a lot since then, really superb stuff.

 

Tidal - Olympus

More far out underground synth/drone stuff. All under water and gurgly synths with pads reaching on forever.



BOD (2-(2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylphenyl)-2-methoxyethanamine)

Tidal, the UK based Jimmy Billingham's otherworldly musical project has found a home on a variety of important underground labels from around the globe, we are finally lucky enough for him to join the Chemical Tapes family with his latest work entitled Olympus.

Is this a reference to soaring mountain peaks? If so this is the perfect soundtrack. 4 journeys spanning the c40 cassette take us on a trip of psychoactive shimmering ambience, there is a re-assuring warmth to the synth soundscapes across Olympus, keeping the listener engaged and locked into the eternal bliss.

Kemialliset Ystävät - Kadonnutta kaupunkia etsimässä

Kemialliset Ystävät have just put up an unreleased EP of their homemade Finnish psych folk. They've put a bunch of stuff out on Fonal so you know what you're going to be getting. If you haven't dabbled in the weird sounds of the Finnish free folk scene then you really need to. Definitely one of those scenes which sits in its own little world and doesn't sound like much else.