I like the sound of this.

Just a quick pointer to let y’all know about some shows we’ve got coming up.

Next Thursday and Friday Dominik and I are helping out by playing on a few Neil Young tracks at an FBi Radio fundraiser organised by Nonzero Records.

We’ll be following that up with a gig at the Sando in Newtown on 24 Jan.

Hope to see some of y’all there…

About this time last year I mentioned seeing That1Guy at the Woodford music festival on New Year’s Eve. It was a great show, that’s for sure. I spotted today that he’s making the trek to Oz again, and is playing a set at the Vanguard, Newtown on Jan 5.

I can’t make the show (something about a wedding or something…), but thought I’d mention it here if anyone wanted to check him out - it’ll be well worth it I reckon…

Just heard that The Devoted Few are playing at The Big Day Out. Awesome news!

P.S. congrats also go to Dave from TDF for the birth of a baby boy…

Just a quick note to say that in addition to the Fuzu gig with The Devoted Few at Gasworks on 28 Dec, I am performing a solo acoustic set at Mars Hill Cafe in the afternoon (partly as a promo for the gig in the evening).

There’ll be a cross-over of songs that we’ll be playing in the evening, but with very different arrangements. If you can make both, I’ll probably be doing dinner somewhere around there before setting up for the Gasworks show, so lemme know if you’re interested in hooking up…

…for those that might be wondering.

Work is crazy in the lead-up to a new campaign, and training up our new web developer… Yay!

Also busy packing and preparing for the move to the new apartment next Monday.

In the meantime we’ve managed to score our first gig for my new band!!! Two gigs in fact - the first is on 28 December with The Devoted Few and Neon Knight at Gasworks Parramatta.

The second is a slot early on 24 January at the Sando in Newtown.

Anyways, just thought I’d pop up for air. Gotta get back to it…

It seems Bono can do no wrong lately. I haven’t really bought into the hype surrounding his recent interview with Andrew Denton (which I’ve heard is “really good”). I am going to see the band - to fulfil a promise I made to myself nearly 10 years ago when I missed their last tour - but I’m not a real big fan of their last few albums.

However, I was killing time yesterday and came across this interview when I was rustling through a paper left at a local cafe. I had a bit of a read, and this passage stood out for me.

“Intimacy is a great word. A lot of people are listening to music through earphones [these days] and you know, you’re whispering into people’s ears. It is a very intimate relationship and I think the place where it flowers is, of course, at these shows. You realise that people are not screaming their lungs out for you - I’ve kind of known this - they’re screaming for themselves. And they’re screaming for the moments they attach to those songs, the lives. Our songs tend to be with people at either the best of times or worst of times. When things are going normally, I’m not sure people listen to our band very much ,” he said, laughing again.

I mentioned this to Ang, suggesting that it was a pretty humble response to the kind of hysteria that he probably witnesses at shows and elsewhere. Ang wondered aloud if it was just an act?

And so a great discussion ensued. It really challenged me to think about how we idolise people.

I figure that Bono has worked out that some people do hang on his words. That doors open for him that are not open to many people. That what he says has massive influence on people (whether that influence is warranted is open to debate). And with all that I get a sense that he recognises this as a great responsibility - and therefore measures his words and uses the airtime he gets to put forward ideas that may otherwise be lost in the noise of the media.

Some other questions that came up: why do we/how can we idolise people when we don’t even know them? Is the hype around U2 the hype around Bono? Is it true, as he suggests in the interview, that the band wouldn’t work if one of the members stopped playing? Does he warrant the attention - is there something truly special about this one person? Are his words any more valid than the next person’s? Is it all an act? (I personally don’t think it is - there seems to be a consistency in what he’s been saying the past few years that would be hard to maintain unless it’s authentic.)

Anyways, the conversation challenged me for a lot of reasons, and I wanted to share some of the thoughts around it - I don’t quite know why. What do you think?

The Devoted Few recently finished their latest video-clip for their single, Don’t Listen to Us (which, incidentally, you can download from their website).

The clip captures moments from their recent touring and recording activities, and looks pretty cool. The band currently doesn’t have a label deal, despite getting high-rotation airplay on Triple J, and therefore they don’t have the budget to produce a video clip. (I still don’t get this: band that consistently gets good airplay and has done some amazing live dates supporting top-line acts like Eskimo Joe hasn’t received any bites from a major label? But I digress…)

So they turned to iMovie. Barry collated a bunch of footage captured on his personal digital video camera and pulled it into iMovie, then cut it to the track. The bridge section needed a little “something else”, so a friend helped them by pulling it into Final Cut Pro to do the 16 panel sequence that fills that spot. That’s the only sequence that wasn’t done on a basic G4 iBook and the free software that comes with it.

And the result is quite compelling. Sure, it doesn’t have fancy special effects, but it does capture the tone of the band, and is compelling enough to hold its own. Compelling enough for multiple spins on Rage, and hopefully jTV - Triple J’s digital TV channel (which also appears occasionally on free-to-air ABC).

So - let’s recap. They couldn’t get a label deal so released the single on the net and got high-rotation Triple J airplay. They didn’t have funding for a video clip, so they did it themselves using a video camcorder, an iBook (recently replaced in the Apple hardware lineup by the more powerful MacBook), and a bit of creativity - posted it on YouTube, and also had it played on free-to-air television.

As I understand it they are currently working out how they might fund their next long-player themselves also. Sure, it’s a lot of hard work. Sure, it would be nice to have the funding to get other people to do the job - more time to spend on creating music. But whereas these used to be barriers that couldn’t be overcome unless you had truckloads of cash, nowadays bands can do stuff on a shoestring and pull it off.

Anyways, enough philosophising on the power of digital and social media Give them a hand and go check out the clip, download the single, request it on Triple J’s Super Request and jTV.

Just a heads up that I’ve posted two new demos (recorded with the full band) over at our MySpace profile.

“We have a very strict policy in regards to product purchased OS.

We won’t provide parts, power supplies, circuit diagrams or labour for any goods purchased outside the local music retail channel.”

That’s what Electric Factory, the Australian distributor of M-Audio equipment, had to say when I asked them about where I could get my new Axiom keyboard repaired. I waited months for it to be delivered by Amazon (their supplier kept delaying delivery apparently), only to discover two of the faders had been damaged in transit.

Now, I wasn’t asking for this to be covered under warranty - I sent an email a good week and a half ago simply asking if they could provide me with details of a repair centre in Sydney. I rang Sound Devices at the same time, and they passed me onto Phase Engineering. I dropped the keyboard off to them, and they said they “contacted M-Audio for the parts” but had no luck, but were able to source a suitable replacement elsewhere.

Now, imagine that you’re a touring international musician - your M-Audio gear falls off the stand and onto the stage. You ring Electric Factory: “We have a very strict policy in regards to product purchased OS…”.

Imagine you bought your M-Audio keyboard when you were living in London, you’ve moved back to Australia and it’s damaged in transit. You ring Electric Factory: “We have a very strict policy in regards to product purchased OS…”.

Or imagaine you bought your Axiom keyboard as in an Ableton Live bundle, it’s delivered to you but is faulty upon delivery. You check the M-Audio website for warranty details - no mention of jurisdiction or country of purchase - so you ring Electric Factory… well, you get the picture.

In this day and age, of relatively free migration, global travel, and the internet, a global brand like M-Audio can prosper. But this also places a lot of pressure on local distributors - their margins are increasing depressed by overseas competition. It’s also hard for M-Audio to provide service in all those countries - they have to rely on local distributers to provide such services.

If the M-Audio warranty stated that it was applicable only in the country of purchase, I’d accept Electric Factory’s right to refuse service for warranty or technical support. But there is no such clause, and that wasn’t my request anyway - all I asked for was the name and number of a suitable repair centre. I think it’s telling that Electric Factory’s first response to my request was “Where did you purchase the unit from in the first place?”.

As a customer I will always be working in my best interest - sometimes that’s price, sometimes it’s other factors such as support - which is obviously what they’re banking on by being so strict. IMO, where I choose to purchase an item should be irrelevant when dealing with things like warranty and organising paid repairs (different story if I was asking for support on the product from a store that I have no relationship with - financial or otherwise).

When I pointed out to Electric Factory that I felt this was perhaps “short-sighted” and an “abuse of your sole-distributer status” I received an this response (in part):

“Grant feel extremely free to contact M Audio. Their number is 0011 1 626 633 9050.”

… If you chose to by pass the local industry we cannot support you because it would be disloyal to our retail partners.

Our company has been successful since 1973 underpinned by loyalty not shortsightedness.

There will always be a few disgruntled customers… no business can please 100% of the people…. enjoy being the small few who we can’t please.

(I noted it was a phone number, not an email address, they quoted). Again - Electric Factory is the distributer. Their customers are the retailers, not the public - so they are loyal to their retail partners. But how much is their sole-distributer status a factor in customer “loyalty”? I wonder…

In this case it took them as long to respond to my initial email inquiry as it did for me to put the keyboard in for service and have it repaired (I picked it up on the same day as my first response from Electric Factory). I have also contacted Electric Factory in the past for support for a purchase made through a retailer in Australia and was less than satisfied with the response - the support person was rude and sounded like I was the last person they were interested in talking to.

As it stands my relationship with Sound Devices has been improved through this exchange. I’m also very happy with the service provided by Phase Engineering - so a plus for them (the phone number for Phase Engineering is 02 9982 0000 btw). If Electric Factory had have simply answered my question with “Phase Engineering can help you out, here’s their number” I would be a happy customer, and not investing the energy it takes to write this negative post about them. They may not have made many $$ on the repair (depending on how much they charged for replacement parts, they may have made a few bucks), but they would have benefited from goodwill - at least avoided the badwill that ensued.

The biggest loser I think in this exchange is M-Audio (and to a lesser extent any manufacturer for which Electric Factory is the sole distributer).

My relationship is with M-Audio and their gear (I love a lot of what they produce), not Electric Factory. Yet my dealings with Electric Factory have tainted my relationship with M-Audio.

It makes me think twice about buying M-Audio gear in the future, if I’ll have to deal with Electric Factory in any way (whether the purchase be local or international). I’ve contacted M-Audio, and received an understanding response, and an offer to help any way they can, from the States. They say, in part:

I understand your frustration, but indeed a company is global via distribution and they are unfortunately entitled to turn down supporting users that don’t purchase locally as they try to discourage this daily.

I do agree that it should be in their interest to do so, but this is the way they try to stop it and by having users recognize the benefits of buying locally.

This is a business for them and M-Audio nor most manufacturers can afford to have world wide service centers like Sony (a consumer company) vs. an MI (musical instrument) company.

With all that said, we do support folks like you but in the States, where you bought the product.

Just wanted to share my experience with y’all so that when you’re thinking of buying M-Audio gear over the net, you know what to expect.

Am I tripping? Is this basic level of service too much to expect? Am I getting what I deserve by purchasing overseas?

FWIW, even with the repair bill (AUD$120) and transport (approx. AUD$100) I do slightly better than breaking event based on the RRP in Australia (after GST). I may claw some of that repair bill back through postal insurance. It makes me wonder where that $120+ (the repair cost + whatever a distributer would save on transport costs) going when you buy in Australia?

Update 03-Aug-2006: I just received another email from M-Audio directly - it seems they are working on updating their warranty information on their site to reflect the situation internationally. I found out that they have 80+ distributers internationally, and that they are trying to get some basic levels of service secured across all jurisdictions. So, I have to say that I’m happy with M-Audio again, but still none-too-fond of Electric Factory.