- Welcome to NBT

We live in a schizophrenic world baby!

So Anyway,

I decide, as a dedicated follower of what is new in the indie music world, to investigate the Act the Villagers (a kind of Brit version of America's Bright Eyes and Germany's Get Well Soon).

Well i have two options basically, download a few trax with a P2P prog and if i like them go out and buy the album.. BUT boys and girls thats Illegal you know, as Faith said when she was in Buffy's Body, ''You cant Do that. cause its WRONG!''

Other option is to go to the bands website and/or youtube and check out the vids.

So what do i find there: a big blank or blank with writing that says the bands Label (Domino) videos are NOT allowed for viewing in my country. (apparently not allowed in the Villagers own country EITHER!!)

so what crapola is this.

Don't the various people involved know that a video is an ADVERT for their product/artist. it is it's main function to make you the potential customer like the song enough to become an actual customer.

Fuck its not really rocket science.

so there are two scenarios:

1) YouTube wants too much money from Domino, doesnt get it, so doesnt allow the vids in certian countries..

if thats the case then what a bunch of greedy fuckers, since they are owned by much much much bigger internet companies and have advertising all over their site.. mmm seems if this is the case, then its greedy for the sake of greedy.. not good for the independent at all.

2) (and sadly more likely) Domino or it's partners or it's publishers or it's distributors havent got enough money FROM YouTube and so wont allow the song to be played in certian(read MOST) countries.

if THAT'S the case then the music industry is way more idiotic than I thought.

Last Months Thoughts

While here in Cyber space the choices and adventures are endless outside in the REAL universe, the music channels on TV and radio get more conservative and cynical each passing day. The Stores that sell MOST of us the tunes out here in the non electronic non dream cosmos, cut down on their stock and variety and as on the mainstream media, they only promote or sell music that is either owned or distributed by a few companies staffed by reactionary young men who are always trying to copy the LAST big thing, not look for the next one.

Last Sunday afternoon I watched the NME music channel. Now the magazine ‘’the NME’’ has been going since the 60s I think and has turned generations of people around the world (not just in the UK) into new sounds and new thoughts.

It wrote about bands you, the teenager, wanting MORE out of life, could not see on TV or hear on the radio. It wrote about the OTHER the ALTERNATIVE. So when I saw there was a WHOLE channel available to me here in still chilly Germany, I gasped and cheered and settled down with a glass of coke and a packet of chips and waited to be educated about songs and crazy cool new performers.

What I got instead was (in the two hours I watched) about 60% old stuff from bands from the 1990s, Blur, Oasis, the Manics or even worse Guns and Roses. (dont get me wrong, with the exception of GnR I LOVE those bands, just.. hey give the new kids a chance ) And then the other 40 percent repeated tracks from those bastions of the (not) different, like Muse and the Killers. Fuck even the Spice Girls made an appearance. So the NME failed in the one thing, that before it had always managed to do.. teach me something NEW.

I switched to other programs , other platforms. I saw Bon Jovi, I saw Michael Jackson, I saw plenty of pretty puppets singing songs from Bon Jovi and Michael Jackson, I even saw two bizarre idiots with big hair sing their massive ‘’hit’’ with has been Vanilla Ice. And the oldies kept on coming.

This is a world that has new music by Johanna Newsom, Caribou, Tungg, Jamie Lidell, Efterklang, Dum Dum Girls, Plan B, CocoRosie, Wild Beasts oh I could go on for PAGES.

The only one of the above mentioned that is getting any sort of airplay is Plan B. who has been described by incredibly lazy journalists as being either the British answer to Eminem or the Male Amy Winehouse.. sighs ..all these foolish people scrabbling to assure you that its ok you can listen to him cause its alright he’s not REALLY new.

(He IS pretty cool btw)

SO I guess. For now ignore the ‘’real world’ and ignore those places in the musical part of cyberspace that are tainted by the ‘’real World’’ and would like to sell you their masters' back catalog of AC/DC in new packaging. And be like the writers and artists and performers on these pages.

GO BE CURIOUS.

Now!

On a self promotion note if you have Internet Explorer do go listen to and rate tunes by the cream of independent artists played and written about on the NBT Podcasts and Blogs.

http://www.nextbigthing.co.za

(after the intro Click on the '#Just want to look around# text it will take u thru to next page)

If you don’t have IE well that’s cool cause here and on all the other NBT platforms, you will find SO MUCH NEW.

What you waiting for?