And The Winner Is...
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Jan 31, 2013
Congratulations to Michael Sandy of Swansea. Because he was able to tell me that Maartin Allcock was born in Manchester, Michael wins a copy of Maartin's new album, Chilli Morning.

Stay tuned for another great giveaway in the next couple of days.

To Stream Or Not To Stream?
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Jan 31, 2013
My thanks to tbreen23 for spotting this article on the current state of play regarding royalties  - or lack thereof - with the rise of streaming.  

Nina Simone's Direct Action On Royalties
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Jan 31, 2013
My thanks to homeoffice for sending in this. "Just ran across this older bit today on the interwebs...good old Nina, if only the kind folks of DGM could go back in time to get Ms. Simone to handle the backpay issue, she seems sure of how to handle it here...good stuff"

Bernier's Looking Over The Edge Of Death
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Tue., Jan 29, 2013
Ex-Stick Men member Michael Bernier has posted up a rough mix of a work in progress called Looking Over The Edge Of Death. Michael writes "I thought I should share this new track's process. I’ve been dealing with the gauntlet of medical analysis and speculation over my mysterious brain growth anomaly and the seizures while trying to complete my newest CD.

This track music was inspired by the terror experienced within a grand Mal seizure yet translated through my subjective suspicion as to how KC would approach it. Sort of a tribute to KC while also a sonic insight to my experience under the veil of flatlining. I’m still tweaking it but I always like feedback and sharing the steps along the way. OK back to tracking...cheers!"

You can listen to the track here.

You can also listen and buy Michael's last album, Leviathan here.

Famous Formentera
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Tue., Jan 29, 2013
My thanks to Ricj Mlinar for this item about the island of Formentera's links with popular culture. 

Latest DGM Press Release
:: Posted by David S on Mon., Jan 28, 2013

Ground-breaking multimedia project challenges the Music Industry

A sleepy village in Wiltshire seems an unlikely place for a media revolution – even if it does involve earl grey tea-drinking Vicars, retiring rock stars and (in a twist worthy of Monty Python) a video-blogging flatulent drummer.

The intent of THE VICAR CHRONICLES, based around the exploits of the legendary music producer, The Vicar, and released this week by DGM Ltd, could not be more simple:  to expose the ill-treatment of musicians and artists at the hands of the ‘evil empire’ of the music industry.  An industry, in the words of guitarist Robert Fripp, “founded on exploitation, oiled by deceit, riven with theft and fuelled by greed.”

Even the copyright statement is a challenge to the status quo: “DGM Ltd accepts no reason for artists to give away the copyright interests in their work by virtue of a ‘common practice’ which is out of tune with the time, was always questionable and is now indefensible.”

No revolution would be complete without a street protest – and Punk Sanderson, author of The Vicar Chronicles, recently took his protest to the London offices of Universal Music Group, the largest record label in the world, releasing a Youtube video of himself holding placards and breaking wind in protest at each broken contract.

“It’s like the OCCUPY movement only smellier. We’ve called bankers, politicians and ‘phone-hackers to account – now it’s time to blow the wind of change at the major record labels. They trample over musicians’ rights and rather than owning up and offering fair settlement, reach for expensive lawyers. It would cost over £300,000 to fight them in the courts – who’s got that kind of money?”

It has taken ten years for The VICAR CHRONICLES to see the light of day. It is only now possible due to recent changes in the media landscape.

“A few years ago, a project of this magnitude – involving novels, graphic novels, audiobooks, videobooks, albums, even a potential TV series – could only have existed with the unlikely support, given the content, of a major label and book publisher,” co-creator, David Singleton, explains. “Now it took just two meetings.  One with Robert Kondrck, co-founder of iTunes, who flew into London, and the other with Dan Slater, the head of Kindle at Amazon in Seattle.”

The Vicar Chronicles, by Punk Sanderson, are released through Amazon and iTunes. ‘Sherlock Holmes meets Spinal Tap’, an ingenious series of whodunits set in the music industry, blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Good Evening Vancouver!
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Mon., Jan 28, 2013
The Crims pull off a cracking gig on the last night of their North American tour in 1981.

Farting Vine
:: Posted by David S on Fri., Jan 25, 2013

Technology lovers will know that today saw the launch of VINE - Twitter's new 6 second video tweets. And one of the very first VINE messages was apparently by none other than The Vicar's very own Punk Sanderson.

Punk did, of course, use this new medium to send out yet another "Fart For Your Rights" message - so this was presumably the world's first Farting Vine (although thankfully I think he may finally have run out of wind).

One can do nothing other than applaud his efforts (from a safe distance).

We Fart on the Beaches
:: Posted by David S on Fri., Jan 25, 2013

A Third Video in the Fart For Your Rights campaign against UMG on behalf of King Crimson has been posted on YouTube  - with Punk Sanderson once more on the streets in Kensington.

Maartin Allcock Giveaway!
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Fri., Jan 25, 2013
Mentioned in recent weeks on Robert Fripp’s diary, Chilli Morning, a new album by Maartin Allcock has a version of Discipline on it and we have a copy to give away to a good home.

If you’d like to win this all you need to do is tell me where Maartin was born.

If that information isn’t on the tip of your tongue then you might want to take a peek over at Maartin’s website. Send the answer, along with your postal address in an email to competitions@dgmlive.com marked DISCIPLINE. The winner will be announced on Thursday 31st January. You can read my take on the album over on the blog.