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In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Billy Bragg commented on the fact that social networking sites are often featuring copyrighted music, but the artists are not getting any royalties. He dismissed the idea though of charging the audience and instead suggested that musicians should target the businessmen behind the sites for royalites in the same way that radio stations pay for royalites, not the listeners.

“How does an artist get some sort of reward for their contribution to a business like Bebo? Now, we can charge the users at that end, or we can talk to the businessmen. How do we get recompense from radio stations? We don’t charge the listeners. We charge the business. So I think before we start beating up on our audiences, which is never a good idea in my experience, we really should be looking at where the money is and where the money is going.”

You can see the full interview here

Modern Progressive Rockers Muse have announced that they are considering dropping the traditional album format and will instead release songs one at a time. Frontman Matt Bellamy mentioned the bands thinking on their future relases whilst speaking to NME.

“I don’t think we’re going to approach the next album like we’re making an album.”

“I like the idea of releasing a series of songs, every month or every couple of months – just putting songs out there. Almost like making the single a more prominent format, and then every few years doing a best of from that period and that would be the album. So in other words, throw out songs every couple of months and see how people like them.”

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Dire Straits are one of the classic British Classic Rock bands to grace the 20th Century. Intially formed by Mark Knopfler together with brother David Knopfler and developed a sound that was refreshingly cool against a backdrop of the current Punk phenomenon and the over produced Stadium Rock of the 70’s.

Their unassuming style was lapped up be the audience of the day and their self titled first album went multi-platinum. They went on to produce another five albums, all of which went platinum or multi platinum.

In 1996 Dire Straits disbanded and Knopfler went on to do some solo work, releasing his first solo album Golden Heart. Since this time he has released a string of solo albums and remains musically active.

Knopfler is noted for being left handed, but playing guitar right handed. He generally plays a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, but makes extensive use of finger picking, normally associated with acoustic guitar. Knopfler is a huge guitar enthusiast and collecter and has around 170 electric guitars in his collection!

Perfect for smaller audiences the 80 Watt Kustom KPA80 has the power and flexibility needed to meet a wide variety of sound reinforcement needs. Four channels, reverb and tone controls provide the tools needed to fine-tune the sound for any application.

Buy the KPA80 PA System

Out of the box this system takes a couple of minutes to set up. Included are 2x mic’s with XLR cables to plug into the amp, 2x speakers with 12″ cones and a power amplifier with four inputs. The amp is rated at 80 watts (rms) with 2x 8 ohm outputs. The speakers are rated at 60 watts (rms) with 8ohm impedance and a frequency response of 75hz-18khz.

Once plugged in and set up, the system kicks out some volume without loss of clarity. Noticeably, it’s lacking some low end. To overcome this we plugged a 15″ kustom wedge monitor in as a slave unit and that seemed to do the job, but was not necessary.

Due to its smaller speaker drivers and the 80w amp, you would not want to use this as your sound reinforcement rig at big show. This system would be happier in the corner of your local pub or cummunity hall, possibly blasting out the best hits from the 80’s or the local folk singer and his acoustic guitar.

So, build quality. Corner protectors as standard on the speakers and the amp. The speakers do feel reasonably heavy and quite rugged, so you wouldn’t be afraid of throwing them in the back of the van with fear of them falling to pieces. A case or soft bag would not go a-miss for the amp however.
Leads and mic’s that come with the package are generic but do the job, upgrading speaker cables always makes an improvement on sound quality.

The conclusion,

A great portable (within reason) P.A system. Ideal for a working solo artist playing small venues, just as suitable for the bedroom or mobile DJ playing to a hall of 100 people.

Tired of propping your guitars against a wall? I suggest you think seriously about this stand before gravity has its evil way. It’s only a matter of time….

The Stagg SG-A300HBK is pretty much a universal guitar stand as the body shape of your guitar doesn’t actually matter as your instrument is meant to hang from the stand by its headstock. So unless you own one of those headless guitars that were cool for about five minutes in the 80’s you’re pretty much covered. The distance from the hanger to the base of the stand is almost a meter, which will accommodate anything from a guitar to a lengthy bass.

Buy the SG-A300 H BK

First impressions on opening the box are that this is quite a solid bit of kit, when folded the stand is 90cm in length and 15cm at the widest point. A little too large to stick in your gig bag or rucksack, but you could chuck it in the boot of a car without it taking up any significant space at all.

At the top of the stand there are 3 hangers that fold upwards when being stored, when extended they protrude about 20 cm outwards at 120 degree angles from each other.

The hangers themselves are 5mm thick layer of tough rubber sponge. Tough enough to stop the heaviest guitars neck and headstock from getting scuffed.

As this is a hanging guitar stand there is no guitar body rest for the guitar (like in A-frame guitar stands) this is so you can hang pretty much any shape guitar from the stand with no problem. Instead of a body rest there are 3 rubber sponge covered rests that protrude lower down the stand beneath each hanger to stop you guitar from bashing against the metal frame.

The base of the stand is a tripod, each pole has a tough rubber foot on the end and extends out about 35cm giving a large circumference and making the stand good and steady.

All in all this is one of those bits of kit that’s really, really boring. However you’ll really REALLY kick yourself if your precious gets kicked over and for the sake of £15 it would be silly not to buy one really.

Tom Morello rose to fame with the ground breaking rap / metal band Rage Against the Machine. The combination of extremely tight three piece backing band including Tom Morello with his distinctive pseudo synthesiser style of guitar backing up the politically charged rapping / vocals of Zack de la Rocha proved to be a refreshing and very popular alternative to the alternative music of the day.

Rage Against the Machine, the bands self titled debut album achieved success in North America and Europe and was acclaimed for its originality, being the first album to completely combine Rock and Hip Hop.

Rage went on to produce three more albums including Evil Empire, The Battle of Los Angeles and finally Renegades. However the time span between albums was often quite long and rumours of splits abounded. Finally de la Rocha did leave the band, though the rest of the guys wanted to continue making music together. They started jamming with Soundgarden front man Chris Cornell and Audioslave was born.

Tom Morello’s guitar technique is definitely distinctive with heavy use of effects and a wide variety of unusal playing techniques. This avante garde style is backed up by some serious technical ability in a more traditional sense. The finished result is something that is something that swings from the sublime to the seriously hard edged and unusual.

One of Morello’s most relied on effects, especially for his more pseudo-synth work is the Digitech Whammy Pedal. This pedal allows for huge pitch shifting sweeps and is distinctive on numerous tracks.

Tom Morello is less known for his Folk music. However he has been writing and playing Folk music under the alias of The Nightwatchman.

“The Nightwatchman is my political folk alter ego. I’ve been writing these songs and playing them at open mic nights with friends for some time. This is the first time I’ve toured with it. When I play open mic nights, it’s announced as The Nightwatchman. There will be kids there who are fans of my electric guitar playing, and you see them there scratching their heads.

But it’s something that I enjoy doing. I look at it more as an extension of my politics. Then again, some of the songs are not explicitly political. It really helped me grow as an artist and songwriter. Once you prick the vein you never know what is going to come out. You could aim for all union songs and you find yourself in other territory.”

Nightwatchman Video

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There can not be many people on the who use the internet who have not come across Facebook. Now that it has achieved critcal mass in the world of social networking, it is working to expand its business and capitalise on the massive amounts of traffic that it receives.

The next thing that they are bringing in is looking like its going to be some kind of music streaming service to compete with the like of Apple’s iTunes. This would bring in another revenue stream for the site which at the moment relies on advertising.

This would bring it into more direct competition with social networking behemoth myspace – the original favourite of musicians and bands due to the fact that is has allowed the uploading and streaming of music for a long time now. Most active bands have their own myspace page these days.

Facebook is also directly targeting myspace with the addition of music template pages. These are pretty much a rip off of the myspace idea

The music template Page offers the ability to:

• Send updates about tours and concerts

• Showcase new releases and post your discography
• Add Facebook Music Player to stream your music and post buy links
• Sell tickets and merchandise
• Engage fans with rich media and streaming video
• Import photos from concerts anywhere in the world

Zildjian, you don’t need to be a drummer to have heard this name….no doubt you’re nodding your head thinking, yes I’ve heard of them….

Well that’s no surprise. Let me tell you why…..

Buy Zildjian Cymbals

Back in Constantinople in the 17th century, Avedis Zildjian was an alchemist who’s attempts to make Gold by combining base metals in turn led him to create an alloy of tin, copper and traces of silver that had unique sound qualities. It was at this point that things had changed in the world of cymbals.

Avedis went on to make cymbals of extreme clarity, tone and power. It was for this that he gained his reputation and was given the name ‘Zildjian’, Armenian for ‘son of cymbal maker’.

Four centuries on, and Zildjian are still going strong. In fact, the Zildjian company is known as the longest running family-owned business in America.

As well as bringing us remarkable sounding cymbals, Zildjian also brought us the standard drum kit cymbals that we all take for granted. For example, the hi-hat, ride cymbal, splash cymbal, sizzle and crash cymbal were all named and invented by the main man himself, Avedis Zildjian.

Now in 2008, Zildjian have a huge catalogue of cymbals. Available in various sizes, you can choose from ranges like; Z and Z Custom, A Custom, K and K Custom and of course the Avedis series.
Throughout the different musical genre’s you will see drummers using the appropriate Zildjian cymbals for their style and sound. For instance, you may notice most heavy metal drummers using the ‘Z’ range, known for taking a good old beating the Z range is heavy and designed with the heavy hitter in mind.
Get yourself to your local hip-happening Jazz joint and i can bet you’ll see the back-bone of the band tinkling away on his Zildjian K series ride cymbal, known for the defined sticking sound and washy overtones, K’s are loved by jazz drummers.

So, now you may have an idea of why you have heard of this brand. I can honestly say that this is one brand with a fully focused vision and with heritage, and with this comes the continuous production of innovating cymbals and customer satisfaction.

Unless you haven’t already heard, the music industry is, after many many years starting to come to terms with the fact that internet users are simply not going to stop illegally downloading music off the internet.

The answer to this little dilema is a website called Qtrax. It seems the only way to get around illegal free downloading is legal free downloading, you can actually download music for free form Qtrax without the FBI smashing through your windows at 5AM.

The way Qtrax achieves this amazing feat is by making big companies pay top dollar for advertising space, so hopefully after you’ve downloaded your tunes you’ll walk straight into McDonalds or whatever company filled your head with ideas and repay the dept.

This Utopian dream was due to be realised a couple of weeks ago, however ‘due to overwhelming response from music lovers worldwide’ it doesn’t work… yet. One can only assume that in a dank warehouse somewhere in a low rent country a huge bank of servers spontaneously set on fire as the entire world tried to download Wham Rap at precisely the same time.

Also Qtrax doesn’t actually have the rights to a large amount of the artists they claimed to have at the launch. So legal free downloading hasn’t quite arrived yet, but we are assured it will be here soon.

Qtrax is built around the excellent open source music blog reader / media player / iTunes copy called Songbird. However they have taken this already developed package and thrown in a few banner adverts. The more cynical internet user might think that this whole free music malarky is a sinister plot to get you to use this adulterated Songbird as your media player so that they can force feed adverts.

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