This is the same group of industries who told us:

The video cassette would destroy cinemas and the film industry (Betamax),
Home taping would kill the music industry,
Blank CDs would kill the music industry,
...

See the pattern? They've been portraying anyone who COPIES (that's NOT piracy, it's NOT theft, get a bloody dictionary) as being the death of their precious industry.

How long did it take those dinosaurs to embrace the digital age? Only when Apple made it a blindingly obvious profit machine did they finally decide there was something in it.

And how many of their artists are still going to be paying their labels back for all those unsold CDs?

Are they that naive and stupid? Unfortunately, yes. However, since they see their actions as being the right ones, everyone else from the indies to the listener to the less well-off major label artists are getting fucked over big style.

Which part of that do people like Lily Allen and James Blunt not understand?

If I had to guess, all of it. Mouthpieces for the corporations. Total control over what you, the listener, the artist, should be able to do with YOUR music. I call bullshit to the whole system, it's been bullshit since the first video recorder came out. History cannot be changed.

Chris

I've been slacking of late in my own musical world, that's mostly because I've been really getting low because of my hearing issues and the constant bullshit the doctors throw at me to fob me off. Still, come the end of the month I'll be hoping to churn out a few tracks with Marcus from Sofajunkies and get a couple of those tracks over on the main page... I've also got to get on with developing the SJ website too. All go!

Just built a new machine with the intention of making it my "studio machine" - Works great but 3 fans and a cheap power supply do not make for a quiet machine! So need a new psu and will probably replace the extractor fan... Any suggestions on a good make?

AMD Phenom II X3 710 (2.6GHz)
4GB DDR2-800
250GB IDE drive
XP Pro x64 (sp2)
XP Pro x86 (sp3)

Cubase, Reason, Soundforge, Jeskola Buzz... Have yet to fully explore the VST world and am purchasing a MIDI to USB cable (as my new mobo has no MIDI connector), so I can hook up my ageing piece of crap Yamaha and get practicing again. Since I'm the percussionist/"dj" for Sofajunkies (while I have some hearing left) I need to get my hands on a good sampler too... Then a smaller keyboard... Then... Then...

Best be good - Santa's gonna get a bloody long list this year. :p

Well, I got chillinbuzz.com back - rather by chance, I did one of my random checks and found it available when I didn't expect to see it again for at least another 6 months - and purchased it immediately. That was one less issue to deal with.

On the bright side of life, I have a few paths I hope will become available, including one with a musician I last jammed with in 2003 and another who has a great singing voice that I worked with in 2004. I also have several small ideas for projects down on "paper" and am writing some new material in Cubase for them. The website (linked below) is getting a bit of a revamp in terms of coding, bringing it more into line with some of the web standards compliance set out by numpties who decided that table heights and [[[[iframe]]]]s (don't ask - MySpaz doesn't like the word lol) weren't good enough to be XHTML strict coding - tossers! I've been looking at the old site design from 5 years ago and thinking about replicating parts of it, integrating it with my new-found PHP skills and other techniques... Time will tell how it turns out. There's even a retro DMusic template on the go, the old design from 2001-2006 which was by far the best. I have to butcher it quite a lot, since DM's old coders were pretty damn awful...

And there we go. An update!

http://www.chillinbuzz.co.uk
http://www.chillinbuzz.com

Wow, it's been 2 months since I logged in... ChillinBuzz is still working, albeit mostly with Cubase now and doing less "electronic" styled music. "F1339" is still sat on a hard drive, going nowhere, like most things in life lately. The hearing is getting worse but since doctors are useless overpaid jerks, nothing I can do about it.

The Sofajunkies are still in limbo right now - I honestly don't know what the future holds as the economy is crapping out, we can't sell the boat easily and get the studio built. All I know is that if it doesn't take off within 6 months, I'm going to consider moving to Holland and open a coffee shop lol. Perhaps... ;)

I've not blogged on my own site lately although I'm considering a makeover for it anyway, so I'll get around to it. If I don't see you before xmas, have a good time and don't get too drunk (and if that's likely, make sure you have a number for a taxi, spare condoms and a sick bag!)

Chris / ChillinBuzz / Chillsky.
http://www.chillinbuzz.co.uk

Well, quiet for a long time really. Not done much in the last year to be honest, not since my hearing was damaged thanks to some fucked up sinus infection... Still, I'm able to work through it but it killed my motivation off.

Right now I'm just in and out of the internet, mostly on my personal account and working a bit for Sofajunkies, a reggae/dub/funk style band from Scarborough (they have a page here) who are relocating to Leeds later this summer. It's fronted by an old friend of mine I didn't see for over 13 years until last November when we met up again. Good times when we were youngsters, if my hearing doesn't ruin things we're looking to bring back those good times again.

As for ChillinBuzz... Not much going on, if I can ever get round to mixing or find someone to assist me, I'll get "F1339" onto CD for anyone interested but with Sofajunkies, my job as a chef & pc engineer, plus my health... Don't expect anything new for a while. Sorry. :(