Friday, February 12, 2010

When A Chapter Ends...

...It doesn't mean that the whole story is ended.

Blogger after several notifications that it has received (according to the email that I have received), decided to shut down the blog that I was running since August 15, 2006. This came suddenly without a prior notification and this fact didn't gave me the chance to make some sort of announcement to the visitors / friends and followers of this web page and to announce that this was not my decision.

Many specific labels and producers were considering my blog as a "potential" source of evil, where the black hole of hypnotic-breaks was sucking their incomes. I did not had any intention to reduce their sources of income. On the contrary, if their purpose in life is to make music in order to get money (this is what they became??? where are the artists???) they would be clever enough to think for one moment: who the fuck am I?? Do I deserve to have the attention of 100 or 1000 of people? Living in the first ages of a global economic recession, do I feel comfortable to know that some fellas out there spent one proportion of their savings to buy my music and other proportion of it to come in a dj set when I will visit a local club or event?

This blog did not has and will not have the intention to make producers to lose money. This was not a place to grab music for free. This was a place where music from all of the world was offered to the listeners according to my personal taste after hearing tons of releases (that are available through the Internet) to be bought. I never buy a pair of shoes without trying if they fit to my feet if they are comfortable, enough if the style of it fits with my outwear. Music clips offered by online vinyl or mp3 shops are in the majority misleading. When you are buying a pair of shoes do you put half of your foot in it or the whole one? Apart from sets recorded either for podcasts or live from a PA, everything else was available to physical format (vinyl or CD). It would be stupid to post something that it is released in electronic format only here and ask from myself and to all the other downloaders to buy it. Moreover and the main reason that the blog stayed viable all these years  was  that I was not posting whatever circulated around. I have introduced vinyl packs: an exploration to unknown labels and releases and to bring back from the dust lost treasures that would sound fresh. I was trying to fulfill all the the requests from all of you. And you were not looking for new releases but forgotten tracks and albums from the past.
Vinyl industry according to many reports has faced a remarkable increase of the units  sold the past 5 years in comparison to 10 years ago. This period coincide with the increase of music blogs and forums around. The person who loves music and understands the electronic music scene is going to buy it. Because, it is something that will have in his hand and will not be lost in the tons of free mp3's that has on the partitions of his hard drives and to his external  hard disc. It will be something that will access when he will feel the need to do so. The labels that opposed to this blog where asking to remove their material from this blog...because they lose money. Trust me you didn't lost money. You gained more. And if you were good in what you where doing, you would have followers and supporters. The producers will be heard to a wider audience...don't you see the benefits?

The labels and producers that asked for the removal of their material (many times not politely) where:
Klik Records, Thule Records, Firecracker Records, Quintessentials, Ostgut Ton, 20:20 Vision, Statik Entertainment, Soma Records, Kompakt and Sub Labels, Connaisseur Recordings, Mobilee, Dessous, Rekids, Compost Records, Global Underground, Defected, Modern Love, Tuning Spork, Jus-Ed, Vince Watson, Mich Huckaby, Jean-Guillaume Cabanne, Pacou, Octave One, Lunar City Express, Pablo Bolivar, Will Saul and Stephen Hitchell. I have nothing against them or their marketing policy.

Where are all the others? Did they ignore the existence of their releases on my blog? I suppose not. But they were considering blogs as a powerful promotional tool. As the mean of promoting for free a release that deserve their attention. They saw the opportunity to revive releases that where out of stock for years and to refresh to consumer memories their existence.

I have a dilemma: to continue what I was doing or to stop...I will continue to download music from the internet and what I like best will be in my cart next time I will visit a record (e)shop. Even if I stop my attempt to offer music from here,  too many other blogs will appear. Won't they??? As long as music exists, we shall exist. Take this in mind. Sounds arrive to our ears every moment. Let these sounds to enjoy our moments..to take us from here and have a break from reality.

Hypnotic Break