People follow platforms not artists anymore. This needs to change. Have you ever considered what I means that you can stream a song which someone spent weeks working on and they get nothing for it? Yet huge corporations make billions from being the uninvited middle person.

I have invested my whole life into making music. I will never stop. But it’s basically an expensive hobby which a whole system leaches off while the people who love your music and support you seem unable to directly connect their financial contributions to the artist.

Please don’t just buy on Bandcamp Friday, buy music from Bandcamp as much as you can. Hit up artists directly too. They will be happy to chuck you a wav for a quid, it’s more money than they will get with 1 month of streaming that track.

Subscribe to their membership clubs, share their posts, share your enthusiasm for their music. When was the last time you posted saying how much you liked someone’s music? If the post gets no likes do you stop posting about that person? The internet is rigged remember.

Remember most of the music ‘acts’ being supported today have no actual content. They are selling you seeing them DJ. Why is that? Yet artists who consistently create music, run labels etc get no love from the industry. Why is that? Management ‘create’ content for the ‘artists’

Why is the industry selling a hollow vessel which is a carrier for marketing and having to label manage for them, have the music ghost produce for them, why aren’t today’s artists prepared to work for 5-10 years before they release music or DJ in a club?

In the end all of these ‘services’ exist because people don’t want to put the time in and PAY for something which the creator deserves payment for. You can pay 12 quid a month and get EVERYTHING instead of paying an artist 12 quid a month for their hard crafted music.

In the end we as a society obviously expect that creators will just create regardless and we will. But isn’t it so cynical to stop paying people ‘because they’re gonna make music anyway’ yet continue to consume their music despite knowing they aren’t getting paid.

In the end the current business model has artists having to actively seek SPONSORSHIP direct from the fan/supporter. Think about that for a sec. I grew up with my parents sponsoring families with Action Aid so does this mean that I am working in a Third World industry?

Are the streaming platforms a corrupt government embezzling the hard earned taxes from the people living the high life while the people who DO THE FUCKING WORK have to panhandle in the digital gutter while being told they need to MAKE MORE MUSIC. Pay me and I will.

And yes I am lucky. ‘Lucky’. I have been able to earn a living from music since 2000. But consider this. I used to make 350 quid a week in the early 2000s from playing records in bars in Nottingham. I spent 200 minimum every month on records. I didn’t have an artist profile.

I was just a local DJ earning good money and putting money BACK in. Let’s look at the 2020 me. To ‘cut through’ I have to plug my music directly to press and radio DJs, pay for super pro artist photos, pay for monthly artist pr retainer, do radio shows for free, pay for artwork

I have to take part in online debates I am not qualified to comment on, I have to regularly change the cut of my trousers to meet the lack of taste of the people who influence people hearing my music, ok that last bit wasn’t serious. I will never wear half mast trousers.

But look my point is, should I be running a subscription service, working as a video editor, working as a teacher, receiving work for free from friends to support me, subtitling videos, just to create stability so I can somehow steal a second once a week to switch on logic?

Or should I pay a manager, pr retainer, be the most woke person ever, have to curry favour with unqualified gatekeepers (you can check MY history on discogs) pay a disillusioned producer who’s given yp their dreams to write music for me while I bleach my hair for Instagram?

And yeah you could say get a real job, try living in the real world etc but I haven’t been sat on my ass for the last 20 years. Musicians and artists are cultural and societal rescue teams, we forgo families, pensions, mortgages, relationships, security, holidays and DREAMS so

You can put on your AirPods on that commute or put on Spotify while you do that project management job, or perhaps we provide that sync for nothing as your company doesn’t want to pay for music. We do those radio shows for free, we pay to fly to another country to do that gig,

We pay to do the boiler room while promoting some fucking alcohol company, we pay our travel costs to do round table discussions for some brand trying the deflect their non payment of sweatshop staff in their outsourced factories, we have to suffer our music being used as a tool

For someone who no one with any gumption has ever heard of being put forward by a corrupt press and system as a ‘real’ artist, the rooms full of vintage hardware when you know their ghost writer does it in the box, a hypnotised public being consumed by the same insta images on

Rotation just to get the days allotted hundred and 50 likes 3 times a day because that’s being a real DJ and music producer right? Receiving promos which contain music completely jacked by the artists ghost producer from your friend who is working in a factory to survive while

Their original music is watered down to receive record of the month while their own music gets zero press support. Your own music verbatim copied by cynical bigger forces to be in the yearly top 10. Well hey at least the ghost writers get paid. Sometimes..not always money tho ;)

Anyways I could go on but I urgently need to discount my full discography on bandcamp to perhaps make 50 quid out of the music I spent thousands of hours on. Oh and let’s not forget the video subtitles as 80% of you watch with the sound off. Better cater for them so they notice.

We are all responsible. But I think YOU have to make the change. Not me. If you want me to create really good music then I can’t spend all my days being a socio economic activist railing against multi billion pound corporate forces. I have bills to pay.

Art will die. Because the artists will die. Sure they will get a job and make ends meet but they won’t be creating. They will be posting letters, subtitling videos while you stream music being made by a ghost producer and pay to watch someone who’s been DJing for a year play a

Bland set of that weeks digi promos with the sync on. Cool t shirt tho. You’ve accepted this. You’ve welcomed this. Because you don’t have to think anymore. No critical thinking required. It was ‘alright’ wasn’t it. Hearing that fast trancey prog which no one touched with a

Barge pole in 95. But hey I wear daggy clothes and listen to crap music too so it resonates with me. Dance music used to be followed by the press. They struggled to keep up with the trends. Because the people making it were innovators. They had history. Not photos on Insta.

So stop and have a think. Does this artist actually make good music? Do they make music? Do I actively support individuals rather than brands and platforms? How much money do I spend on music? Not on streaming. That’s not music. It’s a shitty lo res mp3 with adverts.

You’ve accepted this. I didn’t want it. I wanted a fair system where genuine talent and workload was rewarded. Not iding tracks on sc despite spending hours working out the tl on a 3 hour live recording so someone can stream that track on YouTube and pay the artist nothing

I wanted the press to INVEST in journalism and artists so they could work together over a period of creativity, not have to write the biggest record of the year to write your own feature while people with no investment or content get the daily coverage because.... ‘they just do’

Why are the anointed up there? Can’t produce, can’t mix, other people’s records, start a label to get press while the artists are barely mentioned, label managed by your DJ agent who’s fresh out of Oxford... why are marginalised people only featured after high profile murders?

It’s like this because of US. You and me. We’ve let them get away with it. They are rich of it. They don’t care. Be a hero in private. Not to help your profile. The faketivists don’t really care. It’s just a smokescreen to keep you paying. Paying off society to look the other way

I would love to help more people. I really would. But I simply can’t cope with the workload. It’s too much work. It sends you crazy. You can’t just stay in your lane as no one follows artists anymore. They follow the press and platforms. That’s why we do insta for no reason.

Nothing to say? Just post a pic. Maybe some comedy. Music posts get less likes. No one cares about it. Why would you. It’s free. But not for the creator. We fucking pay. In life. In love. In hopes and dreams. So that’s why we’re subtitling videos, tagging ‘bigger’ acts on Twitter

Replying to some flaccid bs to get visibility on that artists thread, letting corporate societal and cultural raping companies use our language, culture and co-opted music to blind side us while they pay NO TAX. I pay tax btw. I can’t afford not to.

Ok time to go. Time to get on with being an artist. Just wanted to say something else apart from ‘please buy music off me on bandcamp at a huge reduction so I can afford my parents Christmas presents this year’ I am not speaking for me here btw. I know this resonates with many

Even those who chose the profitable path at the crossroads. You know it and feel it too. Your soul hurts too. I feel it. The exodus continues. Art will die if we don’t save the creators. Will you help save us?