Getting it out there!

I've found this amazing web site called Music Nerds.com where you can write reviews of album with track by track commentaries and they'll actually pay you for you contributions! The amount is not much, but if ads on your page are clicked on, you get more.

Anyway, I've written two so far - one for Weird Al's "UHF" and one for Pet Shop Boys' "Actually". I posted the Weird Al one to Digg and just got an email from Music Nerds that it also appeared on Fark, which is just awesome.

So I'm going to write a few more, submit a few more and hopefully have a fun time talking about the music I love. If I make a few bob in the process, well that's just dandy!

Can't stop the Fopp!

Walking through Covent Garden today, I was over the moon when I discovered Fopp has reopened. Rumours of HMV having difficulty with landlords, etc. have proven to be unfounded and the best record shop in town is back in business.

Can't wait to devote a nice lunch time to perusing the DVDs, books and CDs and coming away with a few winners.

It's ain't easy being green

Trying my darndest being a greenie, as I want a planet for my kids to grow up on.

Everywhere I look it just depresses me how much waste there is and how no one seems to care. At work, everyone prints EVERY THING out! Talk about your horrendous waste there.

Then there's the kettle situation. I saw a great ad years ago that said you can really reduce the electricity you use if you just boil the water you need for your drink. Every time I'm in the kitchen some "Good Samaritan" is busy boiling away two full kettles for no one. Next person comes in for a cuppa and reboils BOTH full kettles.

Out and about, all the bins near work are full of easily and OBVIOUSLY recyclable materials - paper, paper, paper, plastic bottles, etc. Why are these not being dealt with properly? I read about a guy in Ottawa actually getting busted for recycling glass and other materials in peoples' trash. It should be them getting busted for not-recycling, not the homeless man trying to make 10c/bottle and saving the planet from us.

I just wonder if we, as humans, should actually be here. We're turning this planet in to our own private rubbish tip and not a lot of people seem to care. It's the whole "not my problem" and "someone else will deal with it" situation. I don't think so and the next few years will prove me right.

What year is this?

I got a newsletter from Ticketmaster in my email and have to question what year it actually is.

Lead off news is tickets for Buzzcocks go onsale soon. Not content with them? How about Teenage Fanclub or Spice Girls.

Man alive. I guess it proves the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Actually I think it proves how out of touch with reality record labels are becoming that people are still flocking to bands who broke up YEARS ago!

I can't see bands like Hear'Say selling out their 30th anniversary shows in 38 seconds for some reason.

Radiohead's new pay what you want album

I know you need a fan base before you can go it alone, but I'm really enjoying Radiohead's new attitude, now they're free of the shackles of EMI (so would argue it was those shackles that allowed them to get the place they are today).

Their new album In Rainbows is getting set for release either on 2x12" vinyl/2xCD or download. The vinyl/CD box is quite pricey, but comes with LOADS of stuff. The intriguing option though is the download.

As the band are basically label free, they can do what they want and what they want is to offer the album for download on a pay what you want basis. Essentially, you can get the new album, DRM-free for free (if you want to be really mean).

Canadian musician Jane Sibbery did this a couple of years ago and found that given the option of setting your own price, people actually did.

I have to say that 99p/c/whatever a track is a bit steep, and I enjoy picking up the odd CD at Virgin or HMV for £4.99, and would be comfortable paying that. Why CDs were ever £15 is way beyond me.

I'm intruged enough by the new Radiohead proposition that come 10 October, I'll be over their site downloading it and giving them what I deem a proper amount of coin for an album.

Link: RadioheadLP7.com

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Now playing: Depeche Mode - Flexible (Remixed Extended)
via FoxyTunes