This kettle is seeing red

My last visit to the labor office left me with mixed emotions. I met the person who was in charge of me, who seemed really sympathetic and sincerely caring. I asked him whether it was possible to get any financial support for unpaid internships- a good company of my own field was looking for someone. He explained that the law had just recently changed in a way that financial support will only be granted for unpaid internships, if you are being introduced to a new field.

4-5 years of studies and you want me to get to know a new field?

There were a couple of good reasons for this, but obviously I remember only the bad sides. Those scenes in Kill Bill when Uma Thurman sees those she is supposed to kill and the screen goes red and the music starts... It was just that.

"Everywhere is illogical, here it´s just the most", my friend once said. Although he was talking about The Netherlands then, it fits perfectly this situation. I have come to the conclusion that as a graduate you really are not that better off. It´s like a limbo, when companies either want people with a lot of experience or students. Ie. people with a lot of experience or free work labor.

After realizing that the music and media industry is so vague, and the company offering the unpaid internship does things that I never had done, I sent an email to my supervisor asking if it was possible to get support now for these reasons. In my follow up email I asked for a quick response as the deadline for applications was looming.

You can take a red pen and rule out sincerely caring.

Indie Giants bring X-mas early

'Should a band put their music on Spotify or not? Why does Spotify pay almost nothing to the musicians, whose music is being streamed? Thumbs up Spotify! Screw you Spotify.'

Spotify this, Spotify that. All this talk about the good and bad sides of Spotify are driving industry people and fans crazy lately. But we can proudly say that today the spreading of good music had a big victory; indie giants Arcade Fire are back for us to stream.

It feels really weird for me to be able to listen to their albums on Spotify, as I got used to the idea of not having them a click away. For some reason I've always had the thought of blaming bands for not putting their catalogue to be streamed legally, a way to make people boost their album sales. How silly of me to think something like that, I mean for sure there are also bands who think this way, but let's go back to the good old 'blame the evil major labels'. Hihi.

Here's anyways one answer from Quora why Arcade Fire's music wasn't on Spotify;

Currently, rights holders make a tiny fraction of one cent per Spotify play. In practice, if streaming services are to financially support artists in the future, this will have to increase substantially. Spotify users are some of the most voracious consumers of music, and so from the label artist perspective, it's more profitible to hope that one out of every 100 Spotify listeners buys the album on iTunes, than to cannibilize even just a small number of sales. A band like Arcade Fire does incredibly well on iTunes, and the average Spotify user has already heard of them, so there is little incentive.

I have two of their latest albums as delux editions (special version freak), but I'm not able to drag them everywhere I go and I don't want to rip them to my laptop to take hard drive space, so now being able to stream them is just perfect. And I'll always buy the physical albums of musicians that I like, as I will always be streaming the same albums.

Nevertheless I have more great music to listen to at the office now. I hope all of you who aren't familiar with their music to give them a chance, for example by listening to some of their best songs below. Or by streaming the albums on Spotify. Yes. On Spotify music lovers!

And you who already are fans, don't change.

Caged Animals - Piles of $$$

Another cool Brooklyn band signed to UK label Lucky Number...

It's like them collecting Pokemon cards, and knowing that those cards will be damn valuable in years to come. That's when other labels will go 'shit I should have "traded" when I had the chance'. That's what the music industry is all about; getting that golden Pikachu card, before someone else does.

Last Monday Caged Animals released their third music video for the song 'Piles of $$$'. Director Ace Norton has leadman Vincent Cacchione and bandmate Magali Francoise looking like Bonnie & Clyde as they go from a shop to another and cruise around LA. It's no wonder the two have such a good chemistry between them, as they indeed are a couple in real life. Aww <3

This is one of those videos, which make you think if there's a twist in the end or if something bad actually is going to happen. Well you're just going to have to see for yourself. All I can say is that the ending is as epic as mmm.. anything you think to be epic?


Caged Animals - Piles Of $$$ from Lucky Number Music on Vimeo.