50 Foot Wave - Free Music!

In these days of well-documented corporate greed, it's refreshing to see a band taking a different and bold approach to releasing their music. 50 Foot Wave are offering a completely free EP via their website and encouraging fans to set up burning trees to share the files.

50 Foot Wave are essentially Throwing Muses with a new drummer so needless to say I would thoroughly recommend them. The files can be obtained at www.50footwave.com/freemusic While downloading them, check out the philsophy behind the release on the associated PR file.

Fake Gods Diary - 17 January 2006

We have set some firm targets for this year:

• to have an EP of material available in the summer
• to have a full album ready for the end of 2006
• to check out locations with a view to playing live over the next 3 months

Tonight we had another very fruitful session in Carluke and set down chords for a new song, 'Losing God', one which we're really excited about. We also had a play-through of 'Bitter End' and are in agreement that this song is fairly strong as it stands.

Last week we recorded two rough demos ('Last Bottle' and 'Shattered') in South Queensferry and these will give us the basis for working more fully on the arrangments.

BBC Newcomers Poll

Upon surfing the BBC website, I stumbled on this beauty. Described as a poll of "more than 100 critics and broadcasters" on the up and coming musical acts of 2006, it informs us of whom the major labels and media will be championing this year.

So, without further ado, dig out your Kappa tracksuit, don the baseball cap and freak out to the sound of 'Plan B', London's answer to Eminem complete with acoustic guitar. If that seems like a contradiction too far, maybe the adolescent rap of American R&B prodigy Chris Brown (awash with" street-credo and upbeat booty-shaking songs") will be more your bag. Should you require something more nostalgic, plump instead for "mainstream croon-rock" as offered by Kubb who are "reinventing Jeff Buckley for the Maroon 5 generation". Delightful.

The more judiscious listener will of course steer well clear, however the list still has its uses. It will act as a blueprint for the hordes of music buyers too lazy or bereft of taste to do any investigative work themselves. And gone is the need to compile a shortlist for this year's Mercury Music Prize, that is already taken care of.

Pre-determined polls like this represent artist promotion beyond reasonable boundaries. They stoop to a new low, even for an industry who have recently force-fed us Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, McFly, Scissor Sisters, Sean Paul, KT Tunstall and The Bravery, all of whom are essentially derivative, third-rate copyists and all of whom appeared on this last previously.

It is horrifying that these interviewees/music industry bigwigs are chiefly responsible for musical output in the UK but sadly it was always thus. Perhaps they have a collective hatred of music but certainly not of money. As the great musical gravy train rumbles on, you can bet that more than a little gravy was spilled on a lot of them when compiling this list.

Calling India

"I'm having difficulty understanding you, sir"
"Can you spell that out again for me, sir"
"I can't hear you properly on this line, sir"

The above is an almost verbatim extract from a recent telephone conversation I had with internet service provider Tiscali. Devoid of any technical knowledge of PCs and with a scant grasp of the English language, the operator struggled to assist me in a call which lasted an unnecessary and expensive 30 minutes.

This type of complaint is common to service users in the UK and elsewhere as an ever-increasing number of organisations relocate their call-centres to India. This relatively new culture - 'business process outsourcing' - is positively flourishing. Everyone from established multinational companies to greedy entrepreneurs line their pockets by offering products at competitive market rates with little regard for quality of service. There are a vast number of articles online which expand on the practice from an employee perspective, which in the case of some US companies dictates that staff immerse themselves in American culture, to the detriment of their own.

Consumers should take a stand. In future, it is my intention to avoid using organisations who take the BPO route and I would urge others to do the same.