John Butler on political music and file sharing

I have just read an excellent interview with John Butler of the John Butler Trio - a band I have written about here before that has a number of political songs. The full interview from The Vine is available here and worth reading.

On political music:
There’s not many songs that you hear on the TV talking about things, talking about resource companies sucking the fuckin’ very spirit out of our country. There are no songs on radio that are talking about that, mainstream radio, let alone on a mainstream television show. To me, I'm behind enemy lines at the moment, man. [laughs] And I'm planting fucking bombs; I'm planting seeds probably more than bombs. That's how I look at it....

On file sharing:
My view is there are always going to be those who copy music and want to share it with friends. And that's fine with me. Hopefully if you like the music then you go and buy it. But I'm an independent company so 60% of my sale have gone down. As my music has gotten more popular, I've sold less albums. And I can understand why it's happening because the record companies to a certain degree kind of put out so much crap for so long that they lost their audience. Their audience didn't respect them, but at the same time, [laughs] losing 60% of your income makes it really hard to get out there and tour and to make albums!

Further Reading
The Vine, John Butler Interview (August 2010) < http://www.thevine.com.au/music/interviews/john-butler-_-interview20100831.aspx > 31 August 2010

International Association for the Study of Popular Music

I will be presenting a paper at the IASPM Au/Nz conference in Melbourne later this year. My paper is about relationship breakdown with political music - I will be discussing my personal connection to songs by The Herd and the change in political climate which has rendered many of their most recent songs irrelevant. In short I refer to the length of copyright protection and how many political songs depend heavily on the current social context to be effective.

You can read more about the IASPM conference here. It is being hosted by Monash University on the 24th-26th November. The conference theme is stated as:

Popular music is a dynamic cultural force. The acts of listening, playing, dancing, composing and recording are undertaken in a constant state of flux, further complicated by flows of space and time. This conference invites papers that consider popular music as a powerful social agent. This may include analysis of current or past uses of music instruments as the sound-producing objects of change, or particular uses of technologies and human voices of change. The conference also welcomes investigations of the institutions and discourses within which the sound, the event and the experience are created, and their relationships to social change.

Licensing graphic

PC Pro has an article with a detailed graphic on the licensing and rights associated with music - this one is worth a look:

PC Pro, A graphic illustration of music industry madness (13 August 2010) < http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/08/13/a-graphic-illustration-of-music-industry-madness/ > at 19 August 2010

Conroy on the proposed internet filter

Senator Conroy will be speaking with the triple j radio show, Hack, at 5.30pm this afternoon. You can stream the show live off the internet by going to the triple j home page here: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/

Or, if you miss it live, you can listen to it afterward as a podcast by going to the Hack home page here: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/

Senator Conroy is the Minister for Broadband and directly responsible for the proposed internet filter in Australia.

Blue King Brown

Blue King Brown have just emailed out to say that there new album will be released in Australia on August 20th 2010. They are a fantastic independent politically motivated group and I for one have been waiting for the new album - it is called “WORLDWIZE part 1 North and South" - keep a look out for it!

Sally

Internet Filter Campaign Statements

I was just reading that the Australian Liberal Government would not back the introduction of an internet filter if they are elected to office. They consider the filter proposal to be flawed policy that will not work. They suggest it will create a false sense of security for parents without actually preventing the spread of censored information and pictures.

You can read the article from ABC News here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/05/2974827.htm

Ozi Batla: Put it on Wax

There is a new great song out by an Australian hip-hop MC called Ozi Batla (he also MCs with the Herd). The lyrics state that downloading music has not hurt the music industry but that the internet has aided artists to make direct connections with their audience. The song was released earlier this year and is really worth taking a look at - you can see the clip here: http://www.elefanttraks.com/node/7385