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Hey everyone! Quit downloading our record "illegally" or you will come under the swinging fury of the strong arm of the record industry!! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7029229.stm. This kind of stuff blows my mind. I guess it was kind of silly that this woman thought she had a chance against the record industry. I mean, even though I understand the desire to get music for free instead of paying $15 for a (in most cases) mediocre CD, it is still regarded as theft right? (as a member of a band, you might feel that skeevy smile forming..hoping that maybe people will start buying records again!) The article mentions that most of the cases have settled out of court, but this lady had the naive ambition, or audacity to go to court, and pay a lawyer to defend the fact that she did "steal" property. These kinds of cases, or this topic in general is so interwoven with legitmate concerns on both sides, it's just a little more hopeless for the working man and woman, when (after years of ripping of artists and consumers alike) the record industry can win a case and charge this lady almost a half million dollars. Man, I bet she's cursing the day she found out the ease and convenience of KAZAA, she probably thought it was too good to be true, and it turns out it was. Certain people in certain places (in the past twenty years) have channeled and manipulated the way we purchase and gain access to music, the record stores (both chain stores and indie stores) have been the middle man, and with that middle man in place, all sorts of things could be done behind that firewall to make more money through clever marketing plans, offering extra material, visual additions, etc.(.which, maybe to the music fan, is an awesome thing, something tangible, an art that extends beyond the music)...and oh! how the internet has thrown this whole system into a whirlwind. Everything is accessible now, the middle man has been cut out. The combination of flash in the pan marketing and flash in the pan success, in addition with a revolutionary change in youth culture, one of disillusion, indifference, nihilism as well as blind passion...the artists are having to adapt, and a lot of these artists can't fake themselves in to a relevant position, and kids can pick up on that. What is selling a million copies on year, is not even selling gold the next, which is strange when you think about, this is something new. Where are the music fans? They are out there, and they still care, they are just hard to see because they are being buried beneath the hot trash of shopping mall centered marketing, which probably just adds to the void anyway. The artists and the fans have to find some way to communicate, to exist, to feed off of each other, and that will never be taken away by the courts, by downloading, or by record lables. The amazing thing about art is that there will always be a need for it, a desire for it. Anything that represents an escape from the grinding design of paycheck living, anything that breathes the beauty and clarity of a true existing soul into the air will never be ignored, destroyed or dismissed. And although there are vultures ready to exploit anything that shows potential to make money, they will never be able to take it completely away because somewhere along the way, they ceased to understand the essence of what makes art appealing to one's soul. Any kind of art (specifically music in this case) has to be able to stand up to much destruction in your typical mainstream. As rare as it is to find something worth your money..once something does show up on the viacom airwaves that transcends, it shines so brightly and it restores hope..just one artist, one band can do that these days. I'm sure that indie snob joe can go to town arguing how there is a whole scene brewing just below that surface that is chock full of culturally relevant artists, I think that test still has to be taken once the band that exists in an insulated scene is catapulted into a national and global arena and put up against the cynicism, scrutiny and indifference of a population jaded and exhuasted and over saturated with bullshit. It is very rare when a band cuts right to the core of a generation...the art is there, it just has to make its way through the trenches. Keep searching for it...find it, and embrace it. OK, I'm gonna go watch MTV..HA!

This is part of a review from pitchforkmedia.com...well put?
"Ten years ago, who would've guessed that emo would usurp punk as the genre du jour for angst-ridden teens. By the late 1990s, most fans of the genre's second wave were abandoning it. Many of the best bands had split up, while the handful that were left were moving toward a more straightforward pop rock sound. But just as it appeared over, the scene suddenly exploded, giving birth to an entire new generation of slick, generic, mall-store neo-emo. It's like the bartender yelled last call, the house lights came on, and then at the last minute, he decided to keep the club open all night serving Cokes."

So where does Mae fall in all this? hmmm, remains to be seen I suppose :-) Go get the new Foo Fighters and the new Iron and Wine!!!!

Bye byee!