BANDITBLUES
|
11/14/2010 3:44:18 PM
---- Updated 11/14/2010 3:48:13 PM
THE BANDIT BLUES is the band of blues from Pekanbaru ( Indonesia ) Genre : Blues & Rock'n'roll Progressive Now, u can download our songs above it's FR
Indonesia’s Bandit Blues Band, based in Pekanbaru, has just taken a major step to expand its visibility internationally. It has released its first album The Bandit and is making all tracks available for free download from its blog. I find this effort laudable — but I do have one reservation about the delivery system the band chose to use. Fans will certainly enjoy the album, and other bands can use this release as one model they may themselves wish to follow.
In order to spread the word, the band has set up a new blog, using the free Blogger platform. I personally have not used Blogger for a couple of years, and I am impressed with its expanded capabilities. The appearance of the blog is quite distinctive — I would have never guessed it was a Blogger-based site, except from its URL at blogspot.com.
To facilitate file handling and downloading, the band has uploaded its album files to www.2shared.com, a free file-sharing facility. and then created links within its Blogger site to that file-sharing website. [EDITOR'S NOTE several days after posting: Due to poor performance, the band has moved its download files from 2Share over to www.boxnet.com. Bands, please take notice!] An intriguing solution. The files are not accessible by everyone — a password is required in the case of this album [an optional feature within 2Shared] in order to initiate the download. In the Bandit’s case, the password is indicated for each song file at the Blogger website.
Having never encountered 2Share before, I looked into its Terms of Use. I found a provision that I personally find worrisome: “If you upload any file to the 2shared site, you agree that such a file will be in the public domain, and you will not claim to own or to have exclusive copyrights or trademark rights in such content.” In other words, you give away all of your ownership rights to your material. For a brand new band seeking to spread word of its existence, this may be just fine. But established bands will probably wish to find another route to distribution.
Have any of our readers had experience with this and other file-sharing services? If so, share your experience and observations in a comment.
What about the music itself ? The essence of the album is captured within the very first four bars, sung unaccompanied in vocal harmony, declaring, “the spirit of rock and roll, brought to you by the blues.” That opening really caught my attention. Almost all of the album sticks very closely to blues structure, but the delivery is pure rock and roll. The guitars are aggressive, the lines played cleanly and crisply through the fuzzy tone. The beat is consistent through the heart of the album, strong and danceable. Harmonica adds some spice in the background. On most songs, I found the vocals swimming upstream against the strong guitar current. Personally, I wish the vocals had been mixed a bit more “out front,” as they featured lots of harmony lines that were mostly lost in the mix. For me, the best songs were the opening title, and especially the final two cuts, where tempo and backing were brought down almost to acoustic level, allowing the vocals to shine. Lyrics were a mix of English and Indonesian, appropriate, I think, for an album seeking a wider audience. Overall, I liked the energy of this band. I look forward to hearing more from them.
The band, incidentally, has a Facebook page — just search for Banditz Bluez.
|
|