Not so long ago a reader of this blog asked about my feelings on file sharing after a post on Canadian singer/songwriter Brad Turcotte who offers his music free of charge for file sharing, mashups and remixes.

I never really felt like I gave her a satisfactory answer, perhaps because my thoughrs continue to evolve on the subject and I hate to sound too old guard in a world that is rapidly changing in terms of practical realities.

So let me take another stab at the subject from a slightly different point of view that has less to do with the morality of the file sharer and more to do with the reaction of the content creator to these changes.

Obviously as a creator of content who has little more than original ideas to share or with which to make a living for my family both in my full-time job and part-time on the web, I’ve got some issues with theft of intellectual property.

But just as obviously, as a creator of material outside the mainstream and without the backing of major media funding I know the difficulties connected with getting music (or anything else for that matter) to those who will most appreciate it.

If we all had chains of big corporate radio and TV broadcasters lined up to push our product with airplay and distribution systems capable of putting our release in every giant retail chain and small mom and pop in the nation and around the world, life would be easy, right?

But we don’t. So, what’s the alternative?

One, it seems to me, is to turn to the very trend that has been so reviled by the mainstream record industry percisely because they have all these other means already at their disposal and, I suspect, because it invites unwanted competition from anyone with access to an Intenernet connection and the ability to upload or download music.

Specifically again we’re talking about file sharing here.

But how to use the power of file sharing, perhaps the least expensive and most efficient method of distribution ever conceived not only for music but for anything that can be saved in a digital format and then retrieved, in a way that benefits the originator of that content.

One method, I believe, can be used to benefit both file sharers and the originators of content in a way that a few years ago would have seemed impossible.

The means is through what I believe will be a growing trend in download file sales popularized by sites like the now defunct Weed and today being carried on in a much more developed manner by sites like Musicane.

Musicane lets you upload and sell files by the download but also lets listeners hear your music files first, decide whether or not they like them and even sell them for commission at other sites.   

More to the point, such services in the future could allow file sharers to download files with the payment for the download being the artist’s royalty and then resell hard copy discs online or physically distribute them in storesd creating a whole new grassroots distribution network.

I plan to test the idea with a new release by my alterego Big Daddy Blue in the coming months. Watch fot it coming to a downloadable file sharing website soon.  

Just posted the first entry at the new Hessinger Media Blog which will chronicle the launch of the new network.

Though n10ah will continue to be part of the larger network, questions about our overall setup can better be answered by reading regular entries there and making your suggestions for content and other features.

Please confine comments to suggestions about the new network and what features you believe should be offered.  Think of it as a continuation of the conversation in the previous post.

Posts here, however sporadic as I’m trying to get things up and running, will continue to be mostly about independent music.

Sorry about the long hiatus. Burning the candle at both ends again between my day job (though I’m off this week) and a second gig editing this business blog over at the Creative Weblogging network which is slowly becoming an increasing focus of resources.

However, in view of a good natured warning from reader wookin’ pa nub, I’m going to slip another post in here in hopes of generating some feedback.

As I’ve hinted in the past, I’m currently working on the possibility of incorporating this website into a larger project which I’m hoping will provide not only additional content on a variety of subjects but also in the future perhaps free blogging service for others with a passion to communicate something on the Worldwide Web.

I’m thinking the first step in this process will be a network of some kind including this blog and a growing family of others to appeal to a variety of readers.

I’ve already gotten some useful feedback from visitors here at n10ah about some other blog subjects that might have an audience and, although I can’t guarantee we will use all the ideas, I’d love to hear more.

What subjects do you think might be interesting to read about as part of a new blog network and what kinds of features do you think should be included in a free service offering high end blogging to readers? Include your suggestions below or e-mail me here with your ideas. Thanks.

Photo Credit: ©Nicolas Raymond, Morguefile

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The success of Ottawa-based singer/songwriter Brad Turcotte is probably the best argument against the paranoia over file sharing displayed by large record labels in recent years.  On his website,

Turcott explains:

:

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Until recently, the best place to hear live original music might have been at a local open mic at a café or other commercial venue.

But musicians at such events still had no easy way of sharing their music with a larger audience.

With the advent of mp3 files and now YouTube all that may soon change and a social change to match the new technological possibilities seems in order.

Imagine, for example, the emergence of living room sessions with original music beamed right out of people’s homes via audio or video onto the Net.

Imagine hosting an open mic party at your house instead of a Super Bowl Party packed with friends and invited musicians.

Podcasters could even be invited to capture the event live and disseminate it to the Web, so there’d be no reason to even worry about providing your own gear. Just the space.

Sites like MeetUp.com could even be used to gather the right mix of folks and musicians though, of course, great care would need to be exercised to overcome the inherent danger of such an endeavor.

Those interested, for example, might gather first in a public place to check everyone out and make sure there are no causes for concern.

For those who think this sounds strange remember that early blues singers and hip hop DJ’s played rent and house parties before larger venues were ever open to them.

And for a better understanding of how the underground club scene in New York City got started out of a guy’s oversized apartment read about David Mancuso and The Loft here and in “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jocky” by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton.

If you decide to host a living room open mic, we’d like to know about it.

Drop me an e-mail and some audio or video files if available so I can share them with the network. N10ah will also be working toward having some of its own similar sessions in the future.

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A few months ago, I was interviewed by a guy named Halil from Stuttgart, Germany whose new site Peopleized offers members the opportunity to create conversations with friends, associates or perfect strangers.

The result will give regular readers of this blog a little behind the scenes info on me and some of my other projects in case you’re interested though it is more about the BootStrapMe.com blog.

You can join and do your own interviews on-line. I’m hoping to use the site myself to do some musician interviews in the near future. Enjoy.

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After another depressing election season (May here in PA), it’s nice to find something that’s really worth supporting with all your heart and soul.

No, I’m not talking about do-nothing political candidates. I’m talking about great independent music!

SongFight! offers a weekly roster of artists performing songs written around a common theme or phrase selected by the site’s creators. Visitors do the rest via the voting section.

Here are some examples of recent entries and a sample of a recent ballot.

At least there may finally be some democracy in the music world even if there isn’t much anywhere else.

Make your voice heard!

Photo credit: Dawn M. Turner, Morguefile

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Here it is as promised. More info on my two cassette releases, Big Daddy Blue “His First Recording” from 1993 and Big Daddy Blue “King of the Northeastern Blues” from 1994.

The title of the second may sound a bit hyped to some, but, more than a boast, it was intended as a play on the titles of other traditional blues performers who often attached some similar grandiose description to their names—King of the Delta Blues, King of the Texas Blues, King of the 12-String Guitar, etc.

I was living in the Poconos in northeastern Pennsylvania at the time, so I figured “King of the Northeastern Blues”

Anyway, I had a small psychotically dedicated following, did two live radio spots one for WVIA in Pittston and another for a defunct station that no longer exists, and had the tapes for sale in Tie-Dye Dave’s Hippie Gift Shop (now Dave’s Unique Gifts and Novelties) and a few other regional outlets. 

In fact, I think ol’ Dave may still have some of those tapes or may have sold them in the interim since I admit I was not much good at regularly servicing my retail accounts. Wasn’t much of a business man in those days, just a dumb kid barely out of college.

So that’s the story. Questions are welcome, and I still have a closet full of inventory since I ordered much more than I needed. There was another recording too by the “Buck Hill Ramblers” a traditional country, cowboy and bluegrass duo of which I was one half. Again, a small dedicated following and some gigs.

Once I can figure out how to get some of this stuff on line I most likely will. Perhaps as part of an on-line independent record store, a companion to this site, that I’ve been kicking around. More on that later…

Suggestions for that venture and what you’d like to see? E-mail me!

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And while we’re reflecting on the great gimmick of an all girl group traveling around on bicycles, what other ideas can our burgeoning community here at n10ah come up with for future music groups yet unborn? 

One that occurred to me recently is a bit tongue and cheek but should certainly get the discussion started. 

The idea would be to have a group dressed up like characters from a Japanese monster movie.

Just think. They could call the group Kaiju, the term for the Japanese giant monster movie genre, and little kids everywhere could spend time on the Internet trying to figure out the origin of the name.

There might be a bit of a problem with copyright and trademark infringement, but it seems to me that imaginary characters could be used to get around the issue, or a “fair use” argument could be made saying use of the characters constitute a parody.

Anyway, I haven’t quite figured out what kind of music the group would play, but I think that’s kind of secondary in any case.

The live shows would be fantastic.  I may act on this one if someone else doesn’t beat me to it.

 Let’s have some other ideas and see if we can’t influence the next wave of independent artists looking for the next big thing. 

For more on-line photos of Mr. Tall Green and Anti-social like the one I mutalated above, visit Barry’s Temple of Godzilla when you have the chance.

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Bicycles       Girl Groups       Drum Sets

So it turns out the girls of Menstrual Cyclists, that mystery group from Arizona State first mentioned here in the comments section of a previous post, rode bicycles.

Somehow, the idea of a girl group riding around on a couple of Harleys or even Hondas seems a little cooler (sorry, girls).

Anyway here’s the full story from one of the members, also entered in a previous comment section and reprinted here for anyone who missed it, a true tale of musical obscurity that definitely belongs in a book somewhere:

Hi everyone! My name is Tessa and I was a one-time member of The Menstrual Cyclists. My friend Mike (I hope he doesn’t mind me using his real name!) asked me to check out this site and give a little history of the band. I have to admit, I was a little stunned when he told me, I haven’t thought about those days in a long time and it seems a little weird that anyone would remember us. But I read the posts and it seems only one person really knew who we were, so I guess it all makes sense now!

As to the band, we were “formed” in the fall of 1997 at Arizona State University. I was a freshman living in Hayden Hall and my new roommate Jenna, told me she meet some other students who were interested in trying out for the freshman talent show as an all-girl band. I played piano for years so I volunteered to be the keyboard player. As luck would have it, we never really got our act together to be in the talent show, but a few of the girls suggested we should try and perform at some of the local frat houses. Of course this was really just a way to get into some of the off campus parties, since freshman rarely got invited to those! The initial members looked like this: (I’m not including any last names here since I haven’t spoken to some of these people in years and I’d hate to have someone track them down from this website!

Me-keyboards
Jenna- bass guitar
Erin- vocals
Melanie- lead guitar
Heather-drums

Of the five of us, only Melanie was a music major. She was the person most responsible for the band, she found places for us to play and tried to get us to practice at least three times a week, which we rarely ever did. Erin had the voice of an angel, but the rest of us were rank amateurs. Aside from our playing, the other problem for the band was that none of us had a car since freshman (or which there were four of us) weren’t allowed to have one on campus. I’m not sure who came up with the name of the band, but it was somehow related to us deciding to ride bicycles to the places we would play. (I still laugh when I think of poor Heather carrying her drums on her back—at least she was in shape!) Thankfully, the next year Erin got a car and we stopped riding bikes. It was just as well because I was getting tired of hearing all the new nicknames we’d picked up, like the Rag-time Band and Dykes on Bikes! By 2000 Melanie had graduated and we knew the band couldn’t last without her, which was fine since none of us really considered music a career we expected to get into anyway. During those three years we performed about twenty times at local frat houses and bars off campus. It was fun, but not something any of else except Melanie took seriously.
 

In 2002, I had graduated and was working as a cost accountant when I got a surprise call from Melanie to tell me a guy named David Duncan wanted to use the name after he heard about it from a former Arizona State alumni. Melanie told him he could use the name as long as he gave open auditions to the former band members. I declined naturally, but Melanie was picked up as the lead guitarist. However, she told me later they only played six gigs and broke up when it became clear David was only interested in promoting his wife’s career and really thought of the band as studio musicians. The article someone mentioned earlier that said they were dominating college towns in southern California was, at best, some wishful hyping by an editor or writer!

So that’s the story, if you want to know anything else, just post a question and I’ll try and answer it!

Tessa has graciously offered to answer some more indepth questions for a future post and we’re trying to set up a connection now to get things rolling. Tessa, if you’re reading this, you can contact the n10ah editorial department here.

Photo Credit: bigfoto.com