This be the blog

There’s a well loved and much used phrase that goes “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” sometimes with the addition of “the truth is you did know - you just never thought you’d lose it”. In a few weeks’ time I’ll be moving to university, and this is a phrase that’s been playing around my head; not in relation to myself, no, I’m well aware I’m leaving my friends, family, mostly reliable WiFi and 11" CRT TV with built in VHS player behind. It’s more about my parents. The title of this post relates to the “well done on your results/getting into uni” presents they gave me. For some reason my mum was possessed to get a free Kellogg’s spoon engraved with “Mentioned” on it which explains that as best as possible, but the picture of Bill Nighy is a little less obvious. Well, it’s a snap of him, copied and pasted from Google via Paint, in Love Actually as a rockstar. I’m doing a music journalism and broadcasting course, so, so far, so good. However, my rents stuck this on a car...

There's little-to-no money for the majority of people in music. No one has ever thought, "I need a way to get rich quick - I know, I'll start a band". Unless you're right at the consistently-chart topping, sickeningly-rich end, you've probably got yourself a day job. People go into music because they love it, and they love it enough to be worth the long hauls, the let's-record-this-quick-because-we-can-only-afford-three-days-in-the-studios, the empty gigs, the negative feedback, the bad eggs of the industry. At the best of times, budgets can be hard to stick to. At the worst of times they can be bloody impossible, and artists can be forced - note my use of forced  - to turn to their fans. I can't imagine any band would think, "we're short on cash, it's easiest for us to ask total strangers for their hard earned money, so that's what we'll do". Also, remember, whilst crowdfunding can be aimed at their fans, it's als...