Free, free, set them free?

So, it's funny how, after all I've said about 'unestablished' bands (for want of a better term, which is probably, 'unknown' bands) making their music free for download, that as I was uploading the new Pocket Rocket EP to ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP-RECORDS, I chose to make it: 65p your individual download, two quid your whole EP.

Apart from the one site, for which Give The Boy A Chance had to remain free to qualify to appear in an unsigned bands chart, I couldn't bring myself to give any of the new EP away. Not after all that time and love and money that went into producing it.

Don't worry though, I'll get over it. As I mentioned in the last blog, one person has spent £2 so far. He knows who he is. I know who he is. Hopefully, he's playing it in his office (there's your first clue - he has his own office) as I write, hopefully with the windows open - it is a warm and bright autumnal day - and the whole of Clerkenwell (there's your second clue) is getting an earful of it too. Maybe... no... no more clues.

Now, I'm sure, when I get round to the giant email-out promoting Pocket Rocket's new EP, that we'll sell at least another couple of downloads. Now, at this point I'll probably give in to me old modus operandi, and make them all free to download.

The CD-EP, when we produce it, will of course be two quid as well. But free to mates, and people who come to gigs. Somewhere between free and two quid, then. I wonder if there's a bar code for that?

So, should I just get on with it and make the downloads free? Because, what's the point in a few quid anyway? It's not worth worrying about, is it?

Free is the new expensive

Okay. That's it.

If you didn't already know, I should tell you that I also fancy myself as a bit of an artist. Over the weekend, we opened up the art studios to the general public, sent out 1000s of invites, even invited our grannies and cousins, and guess what? We hardly sold a thing. Maybe it's the current climate? It was raining.

Anyway, after discovering at the last RTYD gig that 14 Carat Grapefruit give their CDs away for free, I have been thinking alot about music, and now even art, being free.

I've got a workspace full of art I need to get rid of so I've got room to make some more art that won't sell, and a few MBs of music just sitting here on this dusty old portable drive beneath my feet. It's a shame really.

So, that's it.

I've made a bunch of Pocket Rocket's songs available for free download to members only, for a limited time (the limited time is merely a get-out clause, in case I change my mind again, by the way) on the Rock-Til-You-Drop-Records site.

If I could get a few other bands to contribute free downloads, maybe we'll get more traffic to the site and people will get to hear some of this great music that's sitting silently in the great iTunes library in the 'Net.