The best bit about hosting a party at my house was that I got to play the music I liked. During my party I could be the DJ. I would select the tunes from my limited collection and ‘educate’ my friends on what I have been listening to recently.
Now with the advent of Spotify and Youtube, everybody seems to think they can jump in and be the DJ. Now I wouldn’t mind so much if people did it properly, but they don’t.

Picture this. Everyone is in the garden, drinking a beer, listening to some reggae & generally having a good time. It only takes one ego to decide he wants to listen to a death metal tune that he knows is on Spotify for the whole vibe to change. Whats more is that once they have their song on they sit down. Then you end up getting an advert – AN ADVERT! AT A PARTY! what a killer that moment is. Then because they havn’t selected another tune it falls silent. Thanks death metal man for ruining everything.

I went to a party where there was a laptop set up with Spotify on. Everyone could pick a song. Great idea? Maybe not. What happened was every song got changed half way through by some muppet who thought his song was better than the one playing. Not only this but at times the laptop would get fearlessly guarded by someone who insisted on playing the entire savage garden back catalogue. God help us.

If you want to play the music you like at a party then thats great. But you need to ease your audience from the style thats being played to your style. Take them on journey and educate that way. If your the one organizing the party please don’t just leave spotify open for anyone to abuse! It does not work! Either have a DJ or create a few playlists. I personally turn the wireless off on my mac so no one can jump on Youtube and crank out Diana Ross.

Any way see you all at Beaverfest on 28th May Leeds!

As a youth in my home town there seemed to be a fierce rivalry between the ‘punks’ & the ‘metal heads’. Neither willing to appreciate the others style. The truth is there were only a handful of bands in either scene. A better option would have been for us to appreciate others tastes in music and co-oporate to create a better music scene in the town.

I feel sorry for people who don’t enjoy the style of music I like. I feel sorry for them because I think every style of music I enjoy provokes a different type of feeling within myself. The sensation I get in the pit of my stomach when listening to my favorite drum & bass track is totally different to when I play my favorite folk songs. When I begin appreciating a new style of music the emotions I experience suddenly make me realise why that style is loved & created by others. If your close-minded and only like one style then you only experience one level of enjoyment. I like loads of styles so experience lot of different levels of enjoyment!

My point is that you cannot criticise someone’s  taste in music purely  because it does not match up with yours. I suggest educating them on the finer points of the music you like while taking time to appreciate what it is they enjoy about theirs.

Does this make sense or are you just laughing at me now?! Dont forget to hit the orange subscribe button on the top  right and comment!

And in honor of the bass player who diddn’t know what to do when his amp wasn’t turned on yesterday. Watch this 30 second clip

Since the days of the cassette tape people have created pirate copies of their music and given it to friends. The dawn of the tinterweb made it possible for you to make pirate copies of albums from people you diddn’t even know. Now, with Spotify & Youtube, it seems people are being conditioned to expect to get their music for free. There is a vast debate about this in the music industry and its a complex matter. Im going to put a case forward for why you should support the artists you enjoy.

How much do you spend on your favorite vice each week? At the time of writing no one has designed a way of illegally downloading larger & cigarettes so Im going to assume you spend at least some of your earnings on something you can’t digitally duplicate. Even if your only hobby, other than listening to music, is miniature railway building, you wouldn’t dream of barging in to Hornby with 200 other “peers”  and making off with a plastic train. You spend money on things you enjoy, why don’t you spend on the music you enjoy?

Djs, I was buying tracks ‘back in the day’ when the only seriously way to mix was by buying vinyl records. At five quid a pop for one or two tracks it wasn’t cheap. Now with Juno Download & Beatport you can buy tunes for a pound each. What used to cost me 50 quid now costs me a tenner! Albums have now gone back to the price of £7 or £8, the price they were when they became popular in the sixties. You can not say that the music costs too much, its simply not true. When you take inflation in to account music is cheap compared to what it used to cost.

To quote a friend of mine, “Record companies have had it too easy for too long”. I guess so. The big record labels are huge multi national companies. Like most companies this size its difficult for them to change there approach to business over night. It will take time for them to come up with a model that works for them as well as you (Both parties need to like the model for it to work). If your new to this subject there are lots of new services/business models around, my guess is that soon enough one of these services will become profitable enough for the record labels to really get behind it. Check out Bobby Owsinski’s blog for a more in depth look at this.

Its drastically unfair to take so much enjoyment from something and not pay the price that has been set for it. Artists don’t get given money. They get given ‘Advances’, this is a pretty way of saying loan. The artist is given a loan from the record company and its the artists job to make a record & sell it. The money made from selling the album is used to pay back the loan. The artist works very hard & if they don’t re-coup the advance they will make virtually nothing in comparison to the amount of work they have done. I take a great amount of pleasure from the music I listen to & feel morally obliged to pay for it.

So how can you support the artists that you enjoy? You could buy the album or single, go see them perform, buy merchandise or donate money towards the next album (If they are using something like Pledge Music). For the sake of a pint a week you could buy one track from Juno a week & delete the pirated copy you once had.

You part with hard earned cash when you buy something as soul destroying as a chinese takeaway but you wont pay a couple of quid for that album you listen to over & over? What sort of twisted logic do you have to defend that?

Not going to listen? Here’s a tune you can legally download for free! x

FREE! Florence + The Machine – You Got The Love (Lee Mortimer 2011 Bootleg) by Lee Mortimer

As most people in the industry will know, many wireless channels we sold off to the telecoms industry a few years ago.  Its not long before regulations are put in place requiring you to obtain a license to use your wireless transceiver  if they  fall within the channel 69 category (854htz – 862htz).

As this article on wireless issues in the UK says, there isn’t allot you can do to fight this now. But you rest at night knowing you wrote to your MP objecting to the sell off at the time, right?

Save Our Sound UK have done an excellent job on informing the industry on what they need to do but there campaign seems to have gone a little dry recently.

The big news is that if you have wireless technology that is within the band width mentioned then there is a possibility of getting 50% of the price back. You must apply for this before the 1st of April though. Check the Save Our Sound page for info. Another point worth raising is that if you are sold kit that is within the frequency spectrum mentioned then there is also a legal requirement for the vendor to tell you about this. If you aren’t informed you can get your money back.

On a more cheery note. I wrote a blog post on what to wear to a festival. Go check it out!

Good luck…..