I can’t really prove it, I guess, but I was alterted by Andrew over at Artists House Music that three major record labels are banding together to start a tuition-paid music service for college students — the exact thing that I said they should do a month ago.

Should I sue?  I’ve always wanted to sue someone for something, especially something vague like “intellectual property.”

The idea was proposed by Jim Griffin, a “digital music strategist”, i.e. a guy who gets paid to do what a bunch of us do for free (lucky bugger).  He came up with a similar idea in March to add a fee to internet service bills.  Perhaps one day he was browsing the internets and came across a Tweet or link to my article at AHM and said, “Stupendous!  I will steal his idea.”  I doubt it.  It seemed like he pounced on the Tennessee bill thing in the same way I did.

Jim Griffin, if you are out there, tell me if I am the muse to your idea!

(On a side note, I apologize for my lack of posts recently.  I just started working at my new job and thus have no time to be bored and thing about stuff to write about.)

I saw School of Seven Bells & M83 at the Doug Fir last night.  It was a great show.  You can read a review of it here: review!

Trifecta is a blog that I’m trying to get my friends to write for, that’s about art, food and sports.  So far no one has written anything besides me and Charlie.  Hopefully this will change soon…

Tomorrow is — Decemberists!  And capture the flag!  And Buffy rehearsal.  Gah, long day indeed.

I had a good Thanksgiving, thanks in part to my wonderful friends Maarvi and Paul, who kept me from spending the day all alone.  Actually, if Paul hadn’t given me the ticket to M83 I would’ve gone to Astoria with my brother and his wife, but eh, it all works out in the end.

I wrote up a WP page for my Christmas album, which is totally free and can and should be downloaded by everyone because it’s just a really good album, not one of those stuffy Christmas cover albums.

But as I was writing the page I thought, “Gee, Josh, not everyone is Christian.  Some people might not want to download your album because it’s about Jesus and stuff.”

I don’t usually think about this because I myself am not a Christian — I’m a pretty laid back agnostic, if anything.  In the long run I don’t care if there’s a God because his existence does not change the fundamentals of morality and how we should utilize our lives.  I will stop talking about that now, cause I could write a whole other post about my feelings on objective morality.

Instead, I will offer up my separate, seemingly cutesy term for Christmas — Chrimmis.  I started saying Chrimmis years ago, for no real reason other than my family (esp. my father) is big on malopropisms and so we’re always substituting one word for another (e.g. “horse pistol” for “hospital” and so on), and so it seemed natural to say Chrimmis instead of Christmas.  But it ultimately has a separate meaning for me as well.

Christmas is a religious holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

Chrimmis is a secular holiday celebrating the spirit of family by giving presents and/or generally hanging out with the ones you love.

Some will say, “But Christmas is about family too!” and I would agree.  But it’s more about Jesus.  And while I think that Jesus was an a-okay dude (had some nice stuff to teach people that unfortunately got twisted by fanaticals into slaughter, rape, pillage, and general mayhem), I think that Christmas leaves out all the other religions of the world, and thus the other people of the world, which is awful.

So, instead, I celebrate Chrimmis.  The term “Chrimmis” makes me think of my six-year-old self, waking up before dawn on Christmas Day, sitting by the pile of presents under the tree, waiting for my parents to wake up so that I can open them (the presents, not my parents).  The term “Christmas” however makes me think of old people singing dull hymns in church.  Not the place I want to be.

Anyway, I just thought I’d put that out there.  I understand that most of the songs on my album are Jesus-specific, but they’re also just songs.  Good ones, too.  So no matter what religion you may be, I hope you’ll download it and at least take a listen.

I also didn’t want to step on any toes with this post, so I apologize if you feel offended at all.  Generally I like offending people, but not with this one.  :)

UPDATE: This post is getting a lot of attention!  If you’re here from some website or re-Tweet, I hope you stay and check out my site, and download my free Christmas CD!

I also have a permanent continuation of this page here.

I’m sure at some point in your lifetime, you’ve thought, “Gee, I really like Josh Belville’s music, and I really want to help him become rich and famous, but I do not understand these Internets.  What can I, a simple beggar, do?”

It’s easy!

First and foremost!

last.fm!

Let me know that you’re listening!  One easy way to do this is to get the last.fm scrobbler.  I could explain to you why it’s called a “scrobbler” but that would be boring and nerdy, so I won’t.  I’m not sure if you have to sign up for an account, but even if you do, it’s worth it (for me, at least .

All you do is download the software and install it.  Then when you’re listening to music, it puts what you’re listening to on last.fm.  This may freak you out if you listen to Britney Spears every day on repeat forever, but don’t worry, chances are there’s another dude in Germany who does the same thing.  You guys can be friends!

They also have software downloads for your iPod and iPhone, so there’s no excuse to say, “I can’t scrobble you cause I have an iPod!” Plus almost every song I’ve ever recorded is available for listening there. For free! So if you wonder, “Should I buy such and such album?” well, just go to last.fm and listen to the whole thing!

What This Does for Me:  Two things.  First, it lets me know how many listeners I have, and how many times my tracks have been played, either through the last.fm radio, or through scrobbling.  Second, I get a very teeny royalty for each track that is played.  So the more tracks that are played, the more money I get!  It’s not gonna pay the bills or anything, but it could buy me some new strings for my guitar, something I desperately need!

Second, and slightly more obviously!

BUY MY MUSIC!  

I had a discussion with my friend Rhett about getting an audience, and my thoughts basically boiled down into one sentence, which was: 

do i offer my albums for free for anyone to download, and by doing that, feel like my stuff isn’t good enough to be bought, or do i sell my albums and risk losing listeners because they can’t get it for free?

(I type in lowercase in chats and IMs because I am ultra 1337)

songs for autumn! yeah!

The truth is, if I could, I would offer everything for free, but then I couldn’t have a website, because I would go over my bandwidth every month, which would require me to get more bandwidth, which would require the cost to get bumped up, which I can’t do.  Plus the psychology of the whole thing does get to me.  By giving away things for free, I feel like I’m lessening the value of my work, which is kind of ridiculous, because it’s art, but unfortunately these days value is measured in money, which we all need to survive.  So if you have a couple of bucks and can spare those bucks for some good music, then I encourage you to do so.  That way I can keep making more music!

What This Does for Me: Pays for my website, future pressed CDs, future uber-digital distribution (iTunes, AmazonMP3, etc, instead of Snocap),  gives me more time to tour and make new songs!

UPDATE: After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided to scrap Snocap.  Or as I shall now call them, Snocrap.  Ingenious, I know.  I’ve had too much trouble with their system.  I’m currently looking for an e-commerce site specifically on my website.  So DON’T BUY FROM SNOCAP, er, SNOCRAP.

Thirdly!

 Twitter — Facebook — Myspace!  Use them!  Add me to them!  Pay attention to updates!  Ultimately, this may sound stupid and hokey, but I want to be your friend.  (Okay, it does sound stupid and hokey.)  I would much rather talk to you through social networking sites than write a long blog here about how you can listen to me on last.fm.  It’s more fun and I get to meet a lot of very cool people.

There are a lot of cool new sites out there too, that offer a lot more for fans than those three do.  Sites like ReverbNation, iSound, The Next Big Sound, they’re all out to help listeners like yourself find new and exciting music.  So do yourself a favor and check them out!  I can’t guarantee that you’ll enjoy every one of those sites, but if you do, I heartily recommend you establish yourself on those sites.  If you like ReverbNation, then join a street team!  Sign up for a mailing list!  Make yourself known, because if you do, the artist (i.e., me) will pay attention and appreciate that.

What This Does for Me: Keeps me in touch with YOU, the listener.  The age of untouchable celebrity is waning.  The future is connected.

There are all sorts of other things you can do, like giving my music to your friends (burn CDs!  trade MP3s!  I don’t care), coming to a show of mine, putting up flyers for shows, etc, but in the end you will only do those things if you like my music (and, by extension, like me, I guess).  So before you go crazy, take a listen.  If you like it, follow through, please.  If you don’t, no harm done!

And that is the end of that.