Tag: NOFX

Fat Wreck Chords RIAA member

Fat Wreck Chords are listed on the RIAA members list. This is a little confusing, considering they are an independent label who vehemently oppose the practices of the record industry dinosaurs.

After lots and lots of searching, I finally found what seems to be an excerpt from some newsletter by Fat Mike which denies this insanity. Though it states that they were taken off the list after complaining a lot, they are back on it now.

I’ve e-mailed them to suggest they put it on their website news section or something. It’s difficult to find the truth otherwise (assuming it is the truth).

UPDATE: Turns out this is old news, and Fat Wreck Chords deny any involvement with RIAA. I found that a guy e-mailed them about it in 2003 and they responded. Still no answer from them myself though.

25/11/2005 Add Comment

buying music online

I got an illegal copy of some Half Man Half Biscuit from a friend a few months ago. I really enjoyed it so I decided to buy some. I don’t care for inlay sleeves, or for any physical aspect of music other than the actual audio waves so I thought I’d try pay for a legal download. This proved impossible.

I firstly realised that my own specification on getting this music in either a lossless format, or an open format (such as OGG vorbis) were hilarious in the current online music climate, so settled for, well, basically *any* format. The iTunes download software isn’t supported on my GNU/Linux OS, and Apple are far too big and evil for me to give them any more money anyway. MP3.com looked promising until I realised they seem to just be a front for other online music stores, none of which had any Half Man Half Biscuit available anyway (and were just as big and evil sounding).

I gave up. I went to bloody HMV and bought an album there. And when I listened to the album when I got home, it I didn’t even like it much.

I’ve sinced downloaded more Half Man Half Biscuit and really, really enjoyed it. I think I’m just going to send a cheque direct to the band.

I once met El Hefe from the punk band NOFX. I told him I’d downloaded their latest album for free off the Internet. “Oh, then we don’t get paid” he jokily explained. I offered him a tenner directly as payment, and he turned it down. “So I can listen for free?”. “Sure” he said.

The music industry needs to change. But we already knew that.

25/6/2005 1 Comment