| Proposal
for a Network of Independent Sound Centres |
| In today's society
music, like milk, is farmed, processed and sold. Rather than being a
spontaneous transformation of the milk of everyday life into sonic
yoghurt by a free cultural process, the music industry treats musicians
as cash cows. Their product is pumped out of them by the machinery of
the
record contract and pastuerized by the censorship of mass-produced pop
culture
and compressed by the corporate marketing machine into hard cheese for
everyone
except for the blue vein of the corporate elite. Who benefits from this industrial treatment of music? Not the artists, who must sell the rights to their work in order to gain access to the means of distribution which the six major media corporations monopolize. Not the audiences who must pay for over-inflated CDs and concert tickets and can access only those forms of music which are considered marketable by the gatekeepers of popular culture. The only class who seem to benefit from the dominant form of musical manufacture are the shareholders of the major labels and their pseudo-independent subsidiaries. The commericalization of music, like so many other aspects of modern society, is a tool for the concentration of wealth and the majority of musicians are as exploited as any other industrial worker. So what forms of resistance exist to this rampant commodification? Firstly there is the immediatist response - to make music only for the pleasure of the players and never perform it publicly or record it. Then there is the DIY movement championed by punk bands like Crass, where bands are encouraged to manage themselves, organise their own shows in whatever venue is available - ideally all-age, non-commercial ones - make their own records and run 'distros' to trade them with other bands. The DIY philosophy has been remarkably successful within the various punk subgenres with warehouse venues, garage rehearsal rooms, home studios and small scale labels and distros springing in and out of existence all over the world. To some degree the same DIY ethos can be seen at work within other musical subcultures such as the underground dance party movement or the lo-fi and indie pop genres. But although DIY has kept an independent musical muse alive it has yet to become a publicly-accepted alternative to the corporate world and thousands of young music writers and performers are still trapped into exploitative by the promise of fame, fortune and album sales. As well as DIY there are also the independent labels often run by cult celebrities. Examples include Alternative Tentacles run by Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys' fame and Epitaph run by Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion. The major problem with the 'indies' being that they are still businesses, bound by the structural injustices of the state-corporate system. Each indie could potentially become a major of the future, be bought up one of the majors or turn out to be a sub-label created by a major to niche market more edgy musical commodities to more skeptical alternative music consumers. If the hands of the
corporate ogre are to be removed from the neck of
the music world, there needs to be a way for all of the people involved
in
these anti-corporate organisations to pool their resources and form a
transnational co-operation that I have dubbed Indymusic. I envision a
global network of open content websites that showcase independent music
along the lines of
the way Indymedia currently provides alternative news. Each site would include: Another part of the concept is for each local Indymusic group to also be affiliated to a community recording facility - an Independent Sound Centre - where the music can be produced, converted to .ogg and audio CDs made, recycled cardboard cases and slicks made etc. This facility could also involve video artists making music videos and burning them to DVD. The Independent Sound Centres could fund themselves by burning and selling compilations and albums of each other's local artists. The concept would be communicated in a 'copyleft' open content license http://www.creativecommons.org/ that would mirror the way open source software licenses guarantee the freedom of anyone to distribute the content free or for a fee negotiated with the buyer. The Indymusic network
could also help bands tour, providing accomodation and help with
finding venues, support bands etc. If the costs and stress of touring
can be reduced to the point that playing live becomes a viable and
enjoyable living for artists, they can stop stressing about shifting
units
and celebrate the fact that fans anywhere in the world can download
their
music free or buy it cheap from their local Indymusic centre. At the moment I'm
looking for input from artists about the proposal and to see how they
would feel about using such a system. I would really appreciate it if
you could talk to any musos you know and pass my email address around
for feedback
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| Created: Last Updated: 28/03/2005 |
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