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This guest post comes from my good friend Thomas Mathie, aka @headphonaught on Twitter and elsewhere.

When John asked me to write about Independent Music… I automatically thought of all the indie bands that make up the (capital “I”… capital “M”) Independent Music scene: Oasis… Stone Roses… etc. Independent Music aka Indie is a genre… a style of music worthy of capitalisation… and not necessarily what I intend to talk about.

When I talk of independent music… I talk of the roots of what became Indie (genre)… when folks made music that was released independently of the major music labels. I also think of one of my favourite bands… Fugazi… who are renowned, at least to me, for their frugal DIY tours and fair price policies in the late 80s through the 90s to the present. It was their stance towards their fans that got me thinking about what I wanted to talk about: fairtrade DIY music.

The whole concept of fairtrade is knowing the producers of the product you are buying have been given a fair price for their product. When it comes to music… this is vitally important for me. For the most part… we are moving from the physical to a digital environment, when it comes to the distribution of music. I still buy Records and CDs… and hope HMV doesn’t close because they own FOPP and FOPP is my favourite recordshop chain.

But things are changing… and with this change… the barriers of entry have been lowered considerably for independent musicians. Sites like SoundCloud, Last.fm and Bandcamp give the opportunity for musicians to be heard. My personal favourite is Bandcamp… because you can stream the whole recording before you download it… the formats they offer are excellent (320kpbs as default – higher than iTunes) and their tagging allows for efficient exploration of music deemed similar to that which you are listening to. It’s ideal for the one-man-or-woman-band… low cost to enter… the ability to set a price or suggest to the buyer that they can “pay what you want”… the opportunity to get heard and, hopefully, make some money.

Thing is… however… Bandcamp isn’t enough to get the message out there. I find the majority of my music through recommendations from friends… predominately on Twitter. Folks like guitarist Matt Stevens or ambient soundscape creator James Fahy aka Ambienteer have built up a real community of people (of which I am proud to be part) using tools like Bandcamp and Twitter. I love their work, found out about it on Twitter and happily paid for it once I had had a good listen to it.

Matt and James are truly independent. They don’t have a record label. They aren’t backed by one of the Majors. They aren’t backed by one of the Indies either. They are one-man-bands. Take Matt, for example… to have no one inbetween works in his favour… Matt can deal directly with his fans… react quickly and genuinely promote himself as a truly authentic independent artist. He can sell his physical CDs via his Bandcamp page (or bigcartel, if he wanted to) at very reasonable prices… because he simply doesn’t have the overheads that the labels do. What’s more… he streams concerts via his Cafe Noodle site… and brings others in. He opens the door for others to participate.

The thing is… if you are like me… you do not object to paying £5 for one of his albums… because you have a real relationship with him. This is what the labels so desperately need but can’t get their heads around… the desire for a real relationship. Dealing direct with the artists, in this manner, removes the need for a label. In essence, Matt or James are their own labels… Matt through his solo work or his work with his band… the fierce and the dead… and James through his Ambienteer work.

What is important to note, however… is that both Matt and James’ music is niche. Matt make wonderfully upbeat futuristic flamenco guitar sounds that he loops and tweaks to make a wall-of-sound. James makes droning ambient electronic soundscapes. When I say niche… I mean that the majority of X-Factor-loving drones won’t get it… but then Sigur Rós are “technically” niche and yet they’ve received mainstream acceptance… mostly for their appearance, at one time, on nearly every piece of incidental music on the BBC (see note below).

I guess it is fair to say all music is niche… with some niches bigger than others. What artists like Matt and James have done is to find their niche… and build a relationship with it… and that is extremely important to acknowledge and understand.

To be continued…

Note: Nearly every other piece not by Sigur Rós is likely to be by Brian Eno! (John)

Here is one of my favourite pictures taken from inside The Deep in Hull. I love buildings, both old and modern, and I feel this shot captures an aspect of this iconic building designed by Sir Terry Farrell.

The long-running British sci-fi television series has been a part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember, and so I’m very excited that a new series starts today! I remember watching the first ever episode on an old black and white television in 1963, and (apart from a time when it went off a bit and was dropped) it’s as good as ever. Yes, the format has changed, but the current episodes encapsulate the spirit of the original – scary episodes (hiding behind the sofa is legendary) and great humour, with the latter being far better than it ever used to be. So (I for one) can’t wait until 6.00 pm on BBC1 today!

Update after today’s episode: It had everything in 45 minutes that’s good about Dr Who! As near a perfect episode as you could get, if not perfect! Intelligent, thoughtful, surreal, scary and witty!

Today’s race was one of the best and most exciting for a while. Unpredictable to the last, it was won by Lewis Hamilton for McLaren. Sebastian Vettel came second, with Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber coming third – but that doesn’t tell half the story! You can read the BBC race report here, but I was most amused by Webber’s comments in the press conference afterwards! Now everyone knows there’s no love lost between Vettel and Webber, and today it stepped up a gear (much to Vettel’s surprise and Hamilton’s amusement). Webber made two very telling comments.

First of all, he expressed relief that someone had finally beaten Vettel, whilst at the same time realizing that he probably shouldn’t be saying that about his team-mate: Congratulations to Lewis. It was good that someone finally… Of course, Seb is in the same team, but he has been on a phenomenal run and we are all here together fighting for victories. Shame McLaren won in a way, but also we can’t let Seb get too far away. So it was good day for the racing and good day for us in terms of points for the team. Secondly, he referred to the McLarens as Vodafones, I was looking for more yellow flags, a few more retirements, a couple of Vodafone cars pulled over but nothing, no yellow flags, I had to pass everybody. Hardly a slip of the tongue! Surely a dig at Vettel, who last week mistakenly used the sponsor name to describe the Renaults? What do you think?

No race report for the Malaysian GP as I’m not planning to cover every race. Sebastian Vettel won from pole and had been flying all weekend! Vitaly Petrov, on the other hand, was literally flying – as screenshot shows!

Yesterday I started a Blipfoto Journal for photos and thoughts. I already keep a private written journal in which I express my deepest thoughts, emotions and ideas, and this is certainly not for publication – for my eyes only! Keeping a journal can be very helpful and cathartic, and can be especially helpful for people (like myself) who have to deal with mental health issues in their day to day life. I’ll probably post more about this in due course. I also find the creative process of writing extremely satisfying and therapeutic, and feel I have a measure of talent in this area – us Brits should be more upfront with our talents in my humble opinion, good for overall well-being!

But back to Blipfoto (you’ll possibly have noticed I go off at tangents at times, but hopefully enlightening ones). Blipfoto is one of a number of websites that allow you to post a photo a day (a 365 project), and I chose it because it looks stylish and allows you to upload photos from the day you join. There are some restrictions (not really a problem), you can only upload one photo per day which must be assigned with the exact date it was taken, although you don’t have to physically upload them on that exact day. A review of four sites for uploading one photo a day says:

One of Blipfoto’s strengths is the fact that all uploaded photos are displayed as thumbnails on the front page, giving all members a chance to get noticed. And because of the strong community built around the site, members are constantly giving feedback.

And, as I suggested at the beginning of this post, I like the fact that you can add a long journal entry to the photo as well. Why not check it out?

I’d been looking forward to watching this movie for a while. I finally watched it last night and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a moving cinematic masterpiece directed by Wim Wenders, and I’m currently working through a boxed-set of some of his best movies that’s been lent to me by a friend. This award winning film is an unusual road movie that tells the story of Travis, presumed dead, who reappears after four years wandering in the desert on the Mexico border as an amnesiac. It’s a slow-burner that holds your attention through an excellent screenplay by the acclaimed playwright Sam Shepard, great acting, lovingly crafted photography and tracking shots, and an atmospheric score by Ry Cooder that’s integral to the whole movie. The story unfolds gently, mirroring the experience of Travis (and those around him) as he seeks to reconstruct his memories, and many of the scenes are so good you’re just transfixed on the screen. This is a movie I can wholeheartedly recommend.

I love the delicate quality of light in this photograph taken in York 2008. It was part of a site-specific art installation by Keiko Mukaide in St. Mary’s Church. If you enjoy my photos, please check out my Facebook photography page and click the [Like] button, John Ager’s Art & Photography.

This is first of a number of my favourite photographs I’ll be showcasing on this site. I really like this one of my daughter that was taken in dark surroundings on a low specification mobile phone camera in 2008, it shows that good results can be achieved without expensive equipment. It was originally a colour photo which I changed to monochrome and then tweaked to give some soft-focus and grainy effects. I hope you like it!

I’ve also set up a Facebook page for my photography – so if you enjoy my photos please check it out and click the [Like] button, John Ager’s Art & Photography.

As the replay of this morning’s race is on the television in the background, here’s my post about the season opener. It was another early morning for me, as I was up to watch qualifying yesterday and the clocks moved forward to British Summer Time today. Having said that, the benefit of getting up early was a cooked breakfast on both mornings! As I always say, true fans watch races live whenever possible! It was an interesting and enjoyable race, although not a classic. There were lots of uncertainties, particularly resulting from the rule changes introduced this year.

Red Bull‘s Sebastian Vettel started where he left off in 2010, winning the race from pole after making a flying start off the line. Lewis Hamilton finished second for McLaren, but unfortunately team-mate Jenson Button was down in sixth after being penalised for cutting a corner while overtaking Felipe Massa. Normally he would have just had to give the place back, but Massa’s team-mate Alonso overtook Massa and forced a drive-through penalty for Button, effectively wrecking his race. Russian Vitaly Petrov had a great start and gained his first podium with third for Renault. Scot Paul di Resta finished 10th for Force India on his debut after the two Saubers were disqualified for a technical infringement. This was actually a shame for Sergio Perez who drove an excellent race. Bring on the rest of the season!