The Null Device

One nice thing about living in Northcote: going to see bands is a lot easier. I just went to the Empress Hotel to see Swirl (a Sydney-based guitar-pop band, who were something like Australia's answer to Slowdive in the early 90s), as well as a local band named Bidston Moss, who were also pretty good. (There's something about good, tight, groovy guitar pop that is free of the prions of grunge that tend to turn music into so much slop; a condition that is sadly common after the 1990s, but I digress.) I also bumped into some people I knew from FourPlay gigs there (Nick and Naomi of Dandelion Wine, who will be launching their new album soon, so that will be worth checking out).

Anyway, I was hoping to go home with a Swirl album, but alas, it was not to be; their upcoming album is trapped in rights negotiations with recording companies. Their back-catalogue is deleted, and has been so for a while because of lack of demand; and the copyrights are still owned by the recording company, meaning that it's buried in The Man's vaults, and not even the artists who created it have any rights to it.

There is something very, very wrong with the recording industry...

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