That's the Spirit Releases Free Download of Ultra-lo-fi E.P., I Like His Older Stuff

Ottawa's That's the Spirit (Ben Wilson) who gained wide critical acclaim last year for the album Staying Places has recorded a new "ultra-lo-fi" EP I Like His Older Stuff and is giving it away for free.

It was recorded using "two ghetto blasters, a broken Radio Shack mic, a cracked classical guitar and an echo pedal that caught fire during recording." Wilson promises that this will only be the first in a series of announcements including a new full length album, a tour and a new Ottawa music and film festival.

Stay tuned and grab the free EP at http://antiqueroom.ca/ilikehisolderstuff.html!

Big Music Continues to Kick It's Own Ass

Lately it seems that the big record labels, and their trade organizations are compiling lists of friends, fans and allies and slowly alienating them, individually, one at a time. For example there was SOCAN's attack on I (Heart) Music back in May, Sony's still unexplained attack on Colin Medley last week, and this week's pounding of an Ottawa record store (Legend Records).

An RCMP raid (at the bequest of CRIA) turned up 100 dodgy recordings from a collection of somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million. One of those 100 was a an album by local group the Townsmen that Legend Records owner David Nolan had helped finance the recording of. Nolan said today that he pleaded guilty only because he couldn't afford to fight the charges. (For the full article see the Ottawa Citizen.

For the music industry* in the age of free unlimited downloads, to devote time and resources to attacking someone who makes his living selling legal music to fans, their sense of self loathing and their fetish for self flagellation must be running particularly deep.

What has all of this accomplished? By most accounts file sharing continues to rise globally and by most accounts that's good for artists.

* industry in this case means the old music industry; the big labels and those who "represent" them by burning every possible bridge that could lead to their survival.