Comments on: Modernaire & the Culture of Ownership

By: Cruella de mill and the 101 damnations

Cruella de mill and the 101 damnations — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:44:06 +0000

Good afternoon toad and all, I concur with Chesty, and im perturbed that someone is being a naysayer without my knowlege or permission. and indeed, promoters and such are the villains of the peice, who have managed to cultivate the idea in this country that musicians should largely volunteer to play, and have no idea about common hospitality.
In other news, i found an essay by the honourable George Orwell, ‘Some thoughts on the common toad.’
Maybe we should all step away from these pernicious computer machines, and go and lark about, carefree in the springtime lushness.

“Is it wicked to take a pleasure in Spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird’s song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenom¬enon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of Left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is no doubt that many people think so… People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous.
I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and – to return to my first instance – toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader-worship. ”
not enirely related, perhaps, but a good read all the same.

By: Modernaire Strike Back! « Song, by Toad

Modernaire Strike Back! « Song, by Toad — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:08:59 +0000

[...] (Chestie La Rue – what’s not to love about a name like that) from Modernaire has replied to my rambling nonsense about copyright and freebies, although she did so in a comment, so I thought I’d move it up here for your perusal: Hello [...]

By: ruth (chestie la rue)

ruth (chestie la rue) — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:29:53 +0000

Hello all. It’s Ruth here from modernaire and the moulettes. Sorry for the delay in responding but we’ve been touring and driving a lot and today is the first proper bit of time I’ve had to get something written down. I apologise for my clumbsy way with words but i’m extremely tired and verging on mid-tour tonsilitis.
As Matthew explained earlier, the problem was in fact just with one song and one particular site (the kruger website). In fact all of us love blogs and bloggers. To be honest Hannah and I aren’t particularly technically minded but we still browse blogs from time to time to find out about new and exciting things. I know that you were expecting us to come back with an adversarial response but really we completely support the use of our songs by people on the blogs. After all, it’s about the music and it virtually pointless to write about music if it can’t be simply heard. I honestly do not believe that blogs are taking money from our pockets, if anything they are helping a huge amount. So many people have discovered us through blogs and then gone on to come to gigs and buy cds. This may be a vast generalisation but I would say that the people who are interested enough in music to spend their time discussing music in fora such as these are the kind of people who go out and buy/see the music too. For small bands like us gigs are the biggest potential sources of income and without internet hype nobody would be booking bands outside their local area.
There’s one small thing that would possibly cause a little resentment but I don’t think blogs generally do this. If you were to put up a band’s songs for download without their permission I think that would be a bit cheeky. Essentially a band’s material is their’s to do what they like with but if other people want to talk about it, play it to their friends and even give it to their friends then that is fine as long as we don’t forget to support the music scene in a physical as well as a virtual manner by going to gigs and buying the music too. I just think it’s such a shame to see talented musicians, such as Hannah, wasting their potential creative time working in crap jobs to pay the bills. I could slip into a little rant now about the evils of greedy promoters (they’re the guilty ones not the music fans) but I won’t because i don’t have time, got to get ready to play the sold out Astoria this evening!

By: Divinyl

Divinyl — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:55 +0000

Bloody good post, Toad. A well-considered, articulate voicing of fact and opinion…and no, you weren’t too dogmatic…there wasn’t even very much swearing! I must say that I am envious of your stats; my own blog is only 7 or 8 months old at this stage, but I have already found the whole page views go up, comments go down situation, which I find rather bizarre. Of course, since I joined Hype, I get a lot from there, but very very rarely does anyone take the time to leave a comment, rather than just downloading (or, more likely lately, getting there and realising I have run out of bandwidth!) and bogging off again!

I agree that music bloggers are (generally, anyway) doing this as a result of personal passion for all things music, and therefore want to share their enthusiasm and ‘spread the word’…it’s like when I used to get so excited, in making mix tapes/CDs for friends and introducing them to something they might not have heard and might love! And aggregators such as Hype do play a big part in getting the small bands’ names out there.

Gah! I do hope that the above is not just some disjointed mumbling…probably is. It’s 1.00am and me peepers are struggling, so I haven’t even read it over and it might not even be in proper sentences! Apologies in advance for typos etc.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:24:43 +0000

Well the deal was apparently for a specific song, and the magazine (not label) in question were basically trying to exercise exclusivity in order to drive traffic to their site. As I said at the top, this is fair enough as urges go, although I am not sure how well it works in practise.

I was sort of hoping to get an artist’s-eye view of the sharing culture actually, and see how it is viewed from the other side. I haven’t given Modernaire that much time to respond, but if they don’t fancy it I might ask a couple of other bands I know if they want to play instead. I genuinely think it would be interesting to hear their side of the story.

Rob is in a band/is a band himself so he counts of course, but I would be interested in the view from people who might be on the verge of making the leap to full-time musicianship.

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:49:20 +0000

Couldn’t have put it better, I think you make an excellent argument. I’m obsessive about new music and use MP3 blogs to find out and listen to new stuff. I don’t use them as a way of getting out of paying for music. Without MP3 blogs and the Hype Machine I wouldn’t have discovered half the bands I have over the past year, some of which have gone on to become all time favourites. Thank you!

By: rob

rob — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:37:21 +0000

a good piece, and good arguments which i mostly agree with. i agree it’s daft for a fledgling artist to refuse the offer of free promotion, regardless of how few tracks they have recorded. word of mouth is key in getting people to your gigs – and blogs are generally one of the best way to acheive this. i think this has become particularly important because there’s generally so little profit in selling yr own cd’s, however losses can be made up by getting paid to play live etc. some people are just too precious for their own good. i think my attitude to this would change if i had to pay my bills from music though.

(jeez, sorry that wasn’t eloquent, am very surprised no one else has any opinions on this…)

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:06:59 +0000

I don’t think I’ve been too dogmatic, do you? Ah well.

By: Campfires & Battlefields

Campfires & Battlefields — Sat, 17 May 2008 11:03:19 +0000

Well, so much for dialogue.