(Caution reader, I used to word ‘gig’ far too frequently in the post below to the point that it lost all meaning for me, you have been warned)

Why is it still quite a ball ache for me to find upcoming local gigs for bands which Spotify and Last.fm know I listen to or might like to listen to. Between the two they know,

- where I live,
- which bands I like,
- friends of mine and what they like
- A fair amount of the gig listings for the region

But its still a roundabout affair getting from listening to new bands to keeping track of when they’re playing up or down the road. Its seems even more absurd considering that there’s surely money and face to be made here for these services which have questionable longterm financial stability.

Its also not just that both have the facilities to compile this information between them and put it right under my nose, but through a cross pollination of these and other online streaming services my listening habits have changed and expanded greatly across the past few years which in turn has directly influenced and increased my gig going (read ‘spending’) behaviour, and surely they’d like to make artists and rights holder aware of this.

I have only ever and will only ever describe myself as a fair weather music fan. I used to only buy an album once every few months which usually occurred after a brief love affair with a HMV listening post or via a radio show (of which there was a steady decline in my listenership at the end of the ‘Lemacq to Peel’ era). As for gigs, well this was mainly lead by social interaction and less frequently a burning desire to see an artist live (as and when I could convince a friend to be dragged along).

But now my music comes to me from a hopscotch trail across computer and friend generated recommendations and other sources I often can’t remember. I can quickly dip in and out of a seemingly endless selection of bands to find those which resonate with me, and I subsequently listen to a lot more of them. And during this voyage of discovery my gig going behaivour changed (again read ‘spending). Its now far less led by social interaction as I often go it alone (although I’d like the record to show I have started to make new friends through attending gigs and the local online community that surrounds them) as its now out of a burning desire to see these new acts live… and subsequently I also go to more of them.

I think the last CD I bought was at the end of last year, and already the thought of ever buying one again seems absurdly archaic and the same goes for any future physical format. So instead my previous CD buying budget goes into a spotify pro account and the odd download which doesn’t exist there.

But if people like me aren’t buying CDs and places like spotify are reportedly being slammed by labels and artists for the lack of revenue surely the world as we know it going to end? Well not if its true that one of the financial saving graces of the music industry is the live performance, something we can’t ‘steal’ or stream.

Which brings me back to my point, over the past few years I have listened to a lot more music (and a more diverse range at that) as a direct result of easy to access online streaming, but the services which have fostered this are still financially questionable and criticised by the bigger industry.

So why haven’t spotify and/or last.fm got their act together and made it easy for me to know when the people they know I’m listening to are playing- where they already know I live and actively putting this information in front of my face? Instead they currently leave me to scour through last.fm’s recommended listings pages, or click on an ‘on tour’ banner only to find said tour is not in my hemisphere.

If they put this information say in the Spotify player in a convenient place, suggesting gigs it knows I’m interested in, and those I might be (with links to the artists music to test the water), it wouldn’t be advertisements in my eyes, its the information I want that I currently have to go out of my way to get to.

Its a product that I will pay for as long as I’m told it exists. Direct click through links to ticket sales sites would help cut out the hassle, and would surely make it easy for these services to provide proof to labels and artists that they help support other revenue streams, and maybe even take a percentage of these sales as a trade off for free marketing?

Am I missing something? Is there a piece of the puzzle which makes this impossible cause at the moment I can’t see it?? Or is there some switch on spotify I just haven’t switched on yet- cause it really feels that obvious to me.

So in the meantime for my part at least… “Dear Online music services please note that the following artists would not have earned my money through their live performances if it had not been for you and would appreciate it if you could make the process of spending my money in this manner easier in future”…

Fuck Buttons (granted they’re not on Spotify but their Fever Ray remix you get when you try to look is pretty awesome)
The Vivian Girls (I even bought merchandise at this one)
Daedelus
Veronica Falls
Yacht
A Place to Bury Strangers
Plaid
Three Trapped Tigers
Micachu and the Shapes

(and I would have if I could’ve seen Sleigh Bells)”

Image credit was unspecified, if its yours let me know and I’ll add a link or yank it down… but please dont make me do the latter cause Oliver Ackermann is a beautiful man.

17 days and no posts, tut tut tut. This was due to being very busy recently (which 9 on the list partially explains) and not for a lack of subject matter, in fact there’s been a tidal wave of subjects I could have written about that I felt overwhelmed at the prospect of catching up. So here is a rodeo round up of 9 things that I could have written about but didn’t since June 1st…

1) iPod Touch 3.0 update. I have an iPod touch so the update is not as thrill a minute for me as the iPhone owners. But it was £5.99 well spent on the ability to copy and paste.

2) Kev and Alice An interesting experiment in which games design student Robin Burkinshaw is documenting the lives of two homeless characters (Kev and his daughter Alice) he created and has let loose within Sims 3  (found c/o Billt)

3) Digital Britain Well who doesn’t know by now that the full report was published this week to a generally ‘its not soo bad’ reaction.

4) American Prince Tommy Pallotta’s (producer of rotorscoperific A Scanner Darkly and Waking life) sequel to Martin Scorsese’s American Boy, American Prince has been distributed for free across tinterweb torrents.

5) Eden I don’t think I’ve ever been as surprised by news of an upcoming video game as I am with Eden; a first person PC follow up to events in Lars von Trier’s controversial Antichrist – not one for the DS then.

6) Milo All technological wows of Milo and Natal aside- does anyone else have the nagging feeling that Milo is the harbinger of doom who will eventually bring about the death of the human race?

7) Channel 4 Back Catalogue From July Channel 4 is going to be putting all of their back catalogue on the 4oD catch up service for free.

8 ) #iranelection I’m guessing that 99.9% of people reading this post will be on twitter so I don’t need to elaborate on the impact twitter and the Iran election have had on each other, especially in light of the fact that the Twitter rescheduled maintenance to ensure the service stayed up on Monday.

9) New Job and last but not least, I have a new job as an Innovation and New Markets Executive for Screen West Midlands which I’m thrilled about. Meaning I will departing Soda Pictures and London (eep) at the beginning of July to return to my Brummie roots.

Yes its technically now old news, but when the dates where announced this blog didn’t fully exist so you’ll have to excuse the less than >breaking news< of this post. As in past years Power to the Pixel 2009 will co-incide with the London Film Festival and will run this year from the 14th-16th of October (although events on the 16th I think are part of a ‘invite only’ experts think tank.

Now in its 3rd year is great to see the forums scope evolving…

2007 – Digital distribution Forum for Independents
2008 – Digital Distribution and Film Innovation Forum
2009 – ‘Cross Media Film Forum’

..and I’m excited to see it incorporating more cross media discussion after some inspiring talks last year by Christy Dena and Alex Johnson.

Although the full line up is not yet announced they have announced a new addition of the Pixel Pitch…

PTTP is proud to follow-up with this year’s newly-named Pixel Pitch.  Throughout the day of 15 October, 10 leading teams will have the opportunity to pitch their cross-media film projects to a select group of financiers, commissioners, tech companies, online portals, media companies in front of an open audience. One project will be awarded a sponsored cash prize. The call for applications will be announced in the coming months, so stay tuned.

I know its a long way away, but I’m looking forward to heading along again this year (and seeing if in light of Twitter’s PR explosion if the twitter contingent come out in stronger numbers- remember #PTTP!) For more info and to be kept up to date with further announcements, or to view videos of last years talks then head over to the PTTP site.

However praise be as sanity may be slowly prevailing as in last weeks Guardian box office round up by Charles Gant came some incredibly sensible comments regarding the pre release leak of Wolverine online…

“Based on the comicbook spin-off’s performance at the UK box office, it seems the online piracy of Wolverine has had little effect. The official opening weekend figure is £6.66m, including Wednesday and Thursday previews of £1.87m. Add in the bank holiday Monday takings of £1.9m, and the prequel has grossed £8.56m in six days – far and away the biggest release of 2009 so far.”

Yes that’s right, a film with a high profile online leak still managed to have the highest opening weekend of the year so far (one that even Star Trek failed to beat by a reasonable margin). I’m yet to know whether the leak online was, as some have suggested, a marketing tactic by Fox and would be fascinated to know if this leak might have actually helped the box office.

Although I don’t think that this news is going to open the flood gates on alternative distribution for blockbuster release titles just yet, at least it does give me an alternative response to ‘shut up’ next time someone fires at me the line…

“Our film has been pirated online a billion times, therefore we have lost out on a billion sales”