The White Streets

Coupla things. First is a comment after reading this article. To summarise, Jack White runs Third Man records; Third Man releases limited edition stuff by the White Stripes and other bands Jack White is involved in; usually that stuff is a weird vinyl version of an already existing record; now instead of selling at a normal price and letting people flip the records on ebay, Third Man is selling directly through ebay itself and keeping all the extra money. Fans are moaning that it's not fair but I think it's totally legit -- musicians need to make money and White argues that by selling through ebay it's the artist getting the extra cash rather than some random flipper. The music itself is available in other formats for cheap/free, so it's not like fans can't access the actual tunes -- they just can't get the special versions without shelling out extra. And why not? Hasn't it always been that way any way -- limited and special editions cost more but you don't have to buy them. When bands are only making money now from concerts and merchandise I think a strategy like this is actually very clever -- leverage your fame to make some extra money and thus an income. It's better than having your tunes in an advert.


In other news, Mike Skinner is blogging again and this blog is the best one I've come across in a long time. It's updated pretty much every day and he's usually responding to an actual person off twitter, or he's giving us his thoughts on creativity, boredom, fame, etc. Posts are usually accompanied by music or really good imagery -- all the music is coupled to a freshly made video. The tunes are very good which makes me wonder why his last couple of albums have been a bit crap? Sadly they don't seem to be downloadable. There are podcasts which I haven't checked out yet, perhaps the songs are included in those. There's a link to a blog that's supposedly by the Streets' manager, Ted Mayhem, which is also worth a read. He's already influenced my choice of TV to purchase... Skinner only start blogging again in October so if you hurry you can catch up on all his posts without it being too much of a hassle!