Artists are afraid of Peace

"Artists are afraid of peace."


At our/my heart we are afraid that without the chaos of war, inequality, famine and injustice we won't have enough impetus to continue to create. Perhaps the state of the world is due to the state of its artists: not the faceless multinational corporations that excuse bloodshed in order to ensure profits. Nor the pervasive banks that have turned debt into infinite profit ensuring nearly the entire world is enslaved to their visas have anything to do with it. No, it must be the artists to blame. For we owe it to ourselves to create a vision for a better world: and it seems we have come up short... very, very short.

Can anyone deny the influence of one great song?

No excuses, no denials: one great song. A song that says something about its time. For me, I'd have to say "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the single most influential song of my adult life. My old band changed direction because of Nirvana. These guys mattered, undoubtedly - however, what was the message? I mean Cobain killed himself. What could he had thought of the world?

Which is why I suggest artists must not truly love peace. Why aren't we depicting visions of unity? Why can't we see past the despair and inequality, the oppressive messages, and actually create something greater, something to aspire for.

Make the world better. Create a superior mirror to hold up to society.

This is our century. The free marketeers had the 20th Century and they made quite a horrible mess of things. Shouldn't a new thought prevail? New concepts, new vision, new hope. If our leaders can't lead then we must do it ourselves. The way it's always been done.

It's time to write new myths for the new century.

We are only going to make it if we become sustainable. As in: there is enough here to keep us going if we get in harmony with our environment. Not as in: we can keep acting like senseless rabbits, ignorant of our surroundings and expect to continue multiplying!!! What?!? Massive populations only mean a cheap labour force ready for exploitation. Infinite growth is an impossibility in a finite world. Why do banks insist a company show growth in profits each year? You made a profit, that's good right? You employed people, that's good too. Every body should be happy. Why is it expected our economy should grow each year? How can it? Sustainability isn't about growth, but balance and harmony. We require a shift in our thinking.


Let's ALL live amazing lives. Not just a minuscule few.


Sustain

love

live.

Major Labels vs. Youtube

So I just got a note from Jordy stating the Anna is a Speed Freak video has been removed from the Youtube site. Checking, it has indeed been taken down, with a message that reads "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by WMG." (Warner Music Group). Kind of a shame really as the label hasn't done a thing for Pure in the past decade and an inspired fan posted a decent copy of our best video up for others to enjoy. The small mindedness of this decision - of which I've read MANY thousands of videos by many other artists have also been taken down - seems to be in line with the way the major labels have reacted to almost every aspect of the internet age. They tried to close down Napster and instead created hundreds of smaller file sharing sites that they could never contain. Now they want their rewards from online video sites too. Hey, I understand it's a business but videos are almost always just commercials for the recorded music anyway, agreed that there have been works of art over the last thirty years or so, but generally they are nothing more than ads for the songs.

Ignoring the relevance of videos for a moment, I'd like to firstly say thank you to the person that had originally uploaded the Anna video. Never knew who you were, but thanks. That was a Floria Sigismondi directed clip and it looked great. She is a brilliant director, who's made lovely videos for Sigur Ros, The White Stripes, The Cure and many more. Almost everything she does is a step above and has true artistic merit (well in my opinion anyway), so it was good to see that one again. The original edit of the video was rejected by Much Music because they found the images of the girl lying in the bathtub too disturbing: I guess promoting ODing to children might be considered bad taste. A re-edit was made and the video received medium rotation on the nation's music station, however it was never really shown to any great amount. Which is a shame as it was our best video. That's why it's upsetting that Warner's has opted to remove it. I mean there had only been around 20 thousand viewings on the Youtube page anyway, could that truly have amounted in a loss in revenue? I think the argument could be made that the videos were the only possibilities of promoting the music once the band stopped performing, so why stop it? The albums are finally up on iTunes, but only after David Hadley personally contacted the label from Australia, and I think I can state the company wasn't too bothered with our back catalog up to that point (ask anyone looking to find a copy of either of our Warner/Reprise records - they just aren't anywhere!).

So, sorry to those of you who may be looking for that video, sorry to those of you who never saw it - it was a nice looking clip - and sorry to Warner Bros for being so damn short sighted on this issue. It never ceases to amaze me how the major labels keep making small minded decisions, still, even after all the mess ups they've made in the past decade. Oh well, what's one more misstep, it only really hurts the artists right?

Good luck to everyone out there, hope you're doing well. If you've still got a job you're probably going to do alright, if you've lost a job, you've got my condolences, but just remember, you're all doing better than 99% of the musicians out there, because we've been in a recession since 1999!

Ciao for now.

Mark

p.s. Please buy your music: out of every 99 cents you spend on a track at iTunes the indie artist gets 61¢. That is a better percentage than has ever been offered to any recording artist - ever.

last.fm royaties

Alright, the following may be either depressing or inspiring for our fellow recording artists. We, as in Boutique Empire, just received our royalties for the 4th quarter of radio play on the last.fm site. There were something like 2700 radio plays accumulated over the past few months and the royalties came in at $1.70. So while this represents a payout of approximately $0.0005 per play, you can see how it might add up if the acts were to attain widespread popularity.

Consider that last.fm is a free site: free to the user, and free to artists to upload their songs onto. Now consider it's revenue is mainly gained through advertising and you never Hear an add, you only have to avert your eyes from the one's displayed on the page. There are no announcers pressing their false sense of enthusiasm on you, there are no insipid commercials to drain your consciousness, and thankfully there isn't any music you have to endure if you don't like it. (that skip ahead button is quite handy!) While we may consider $1.70 quite paltry compared to commercial radio play, it still represents a minuscule revenue for the indie artists and labels out there. Nobody's paying their rent, but these are the early days, and perhaps we're starting to see models appear on the Internet that offer solutions for the modern musician. I know iLike.com is offering something similar on their site as well.

Saying all this, please check out last.fm. Feel free to start at the Boutique Empire page and wander from there. It is a wonderful resource for finding new and old music. Just imagine it as a radio station rather than a site like myspace. Enter a group or artist that you enjoy into the player and then allow the software to start choosing other "like" music for you to enjoy. At first it may seem a bit obvious or weird, but the software learns your tastes and starts making more informed decisions of what to send you as you listen longer. Try it out, you may really enjoy it.