In Spain a couple of years ago it was declared in court that a serial downloader had no case to answer against the music publishers as he used the files for his own personal use and had never attempted to sell or loan the material that he had accumulated.

That sounded like a fair outcome to me, but in the UK it appears that the Government is having it’s strings pulled by the major players in the entertainments industry and have outlined their anti file sharing proposals as part of the Digital Economy Bill.

Back in the seventies and eighties the same record companies decided that Home Taping Was Killing The Music Industry and Talk Talk have commissioned musician Dan Bull to make a recording along those lines in it’s own campaign against the government’s plans to disconnect alleged filesharers.

The tongue-in-cheek video features 80s legends Madonna, George Michael and Adam Ant (well, actually it’s just a trio of look-alikes) lip-synching to the song; Top Of The Pops style.

Dan Bull, who composed the song to accompany the video (created by an ex-Top Of The Pops director), had this to say about his creation:

“As a musician, I’m against the Government’s filesharing proposals as they would misguidedly hurt music fans. Disconnecting thousands of users suspected of filesharing wouldn’t suddenly mean that people would go out there and buy more music. The internet has fundamentally changed the way we listen to tunes, watch films and so on, so we actually need to think of new ways of how we make a living out our creative efforts.”

Dan Bull – Home Taping Is Killing Music

TalkTalk has also carried out some research which shows that the majority of music fans will switch to alternative ways of accessing copyright-protected content for free if using peer-to-peer (P2P) services leaves them vulnerable to disconnection. You can read TalkTalk’s press release here.

If you feel as strongly as we do about this governments proposals sign this ‘Don’t disconnest us’ petition to abolish the proposed law now.

Arbouretum

Hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed album Song of the Pearl, Arbouretum have announced some UK live dates in July. The psychedelic doom folksters will be bringing their electrified gothic Americana to the UK with a string of live dates, starting in Cornwall and travelling the length of the UK to end up in Glasgow.

Song of the Pearl has recieved some fantastic reviews, The Independent said “It’s one of the most startling, insidiously attractive things I’ve heard all year” and Mojo made the record it’s Underground Album of the Month, describing it as “Spellbinding”.

You can enjoy a free download of the track False Spring, taken from the album Song of the Pearl, here. The album is available now on Thrill Jockey Records.

Arbouretum UK live dates in July

24/07/09 : Penryn, Cornwall – Miss Peapod’s

26/07/09 : Birmingham – Supersonic Festival

27/07/09 : London – Club Uncut @ The Lexington

28/07/09 : Winchester – The Railway

29/07/09 : Colchester – Colchester Arts Centre

30/07/09 : Manchester – Night ‘n Day

31/07/09 : Glasgow – The Captain’s Rest

Doomcloud by Kevin Hewick

In the summer of 1980, following the untimely suicide of Ian Curtis, the remaining three members of Joy division: Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook & Steven Morris, returned to the studio to record with a Factory Records labelmate and friend, Kevin Hewick.

I can’t remember if the official line was that Kevin Hewick was auditioning to become the new singer with Joy Division or New Order, as they became, or whether the resulting track, Haystack, was always intended to be a one-off collaboration. But months later, after Steven Morris then Peter Hook recorded vocal tracks, New Order decided to release their debut single, Ceremony, an unreleased Joy division song, with guitarist Bernard ‘Barney’ Sumner on vocals.

Haystack was released by Kevin Hewick in 1981 on A Factory Quartet along with six other tracks, on Factory Records.

A Factory Quartet was a double album featuring one side each from four Factory artists: Kevin Hewick, Blurt, The Royal Family & The Poor, and Durutti Column.

Kevin Hewick went on to release his debut single, Ophelia’s Drinking Song, also on Factory Records in February 1982. The single was produced by A Certain Ratio drummer Donald Johnson and Peter Hook.

Hewick left Factory Records and released a couple of singles and albums on the independent Cherry Red label, including the Tender Bruises & Scars: The Factory & Cherry Red Studio Recordings 1980-83 compilation.

Like many other ex-Factory Records artists, Kevin Hewick seemed to drift into silent obscurity with such wonderful artists synonymous with the grey, wet Manchester (even though Hewick is from Leicester!) sound of Tony Wilson, Joy division and Factory Records.  Artists like Section 25, Stockholm Monsters, The Wake and The Royal Family & The Poor.

In 2003 Kevin Hewick recorded Doomcloud, an album laid bare with personal lyrics and just Hewick’s voice and acoustic guitar.

Doomcloud is now available as a free download from Kevin Hewick’s official website.

Hewick describes Doomcloud as:

“My dogme album. Very bare, very honest.”

Doomcloud features raw recordings made between 2000 and 2003 with Robbie Murphy at Woodland Studios in Leicester.

Kevin Hewick recently played European dates with fellow ex-Factory act Section 25 and Joy Division / New Order bass player Peter Hook.

Free Download Doomcloud

Download Doomcloud – free mp3 album and artwork

For more information on what Kevin Hewick is doing in 2009, visit the Kevin Hewick MySpace page.

By selecting a track from below you can hear an excerpt of eack track.

Since their headlining treat at Glastonbury this summer, The Verve are once again the current big thing in the UK, where fans are hoping for an album to match the excellent Urban Hymns and Northern Soul.

Have a listen and make your own mind up. You can pre-order the album on the MySpace site including a Limited Edition box set.

Here is the video of the new single Love Is Noise.

Snowflake Midnight will be available on September 29th from high street shops.

The second album, contains eleven tracks and is called Strange Attractor, but will be available only as a free download, to those on the bands mailing list.

Both album’s see Mercury Rev embracing  more ‘electronic elements’  than the over orchestrated offerings that have been the band’s trademark.

Each headline act’s performance will be recorded and put out on iTunes for sale at a later date.

All tickets for the shows are free and can be won on the iTunes Live London Festival 08 website.

The up to date line up is listed below, but  headline and support acts are still being named and will be confirmed as soon as possible.

1 July N*E*R*D
 2 July Paul Weller + Glasvegas
 3 July Hadouken
 4 July The Feeling + Gabriella Cilmi
 6 July Elliot Minor + Kids In Glass Houses
 8 July Lightspeed Champion + Pete & The Pirates
 9 July The Ting Tings + Florence & The Machine
10 July Jamie Lidell + Yelle
12 July James Blunt + Beth Rowley
14 July Death Cab For Cutie + I Was A Cub Scout
15 July The Zutons + Red Light Company
16 July CSS + Alphabeat
17 July Guillemots + Lykke Li
19 July Feeder + Infadels
21 July Sam Sparro + Annie
22 July Suzanne Vega
23 July The Script + Sam Beeton
24 July McFly
26 July Chaka Khan
28 July Pendulum + INME
30 July The Pretenders

Remember the only way to get to see the shows is to win tickets at theiTunes Live web site.

McGuinness says that despite In Rainbows being offered on Radiohead’s site for as much as you wanted to pay for it, including nothing at all- “60 to 70% stole it anyway, even though it was available free.”

I’m not really sure what that means, but would suggest it means that U2 would never give anything away for free. They will none the less make use of every technology available to promote the album, presumably where possible at no cost to themselves. But hey, they are artists, right!

McGuiness added that physical CD sales were still a large part of U2’s business and “We still sell a lot of actual CD’s.”

The band’s 12th studio album is expected to be released in October.

Listen or download the album before it hits the shops. Frontman Gaz says the album gives you all of Supergrass,”the joy, the intensity, the darkness, the melodies. All of those have always been important to us and still are.”

The single was made available from April 29th and after 24 hours had been downloaded 600,000 times. The download will be available until May 5th after which time it will be released as a paid digital download.

The new album Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends is due for release on June 12th.

To whet your appetite here is a video of the new single:

Users will be able to preview the album and even share it with others in the network, a week before the official release.

As bands search for new ways to get their albums heard, this is the first time that a major act has used the iLike medium to do so. Michael Stipe says of the technology available to internet users, “I think you can go with it or sit back and watch it happen, and I would rather be out there in the field than in the bleachers.”

Accelerate will be on iLike on March24th and in shops March31st.