Inhale deeply.
Ok.
Prime Circle are coming to South Africa.
Exhale.

...along with alt rock trophy-bearers Korn (cool site), Good Charlotte, 'Best UK Live Act' Kaiser Chiefs (hey, they even mentioned something about pigeons!), vocal superman Chris Cornell and some band called Muse or whatever.

Now: a buddy of mine who manages Cape Town alt rockers Southpaw and is planning to get the band on the bill for the March 24th concert comes up to me yesterday in our frightfully boring office space.

"Would you let them play for free?" I asked.
"Definitely! With that kind of exposure, for sure," he answered with a grin.

The debate is ongoing: For R600 a ticket, can Big Concerts afford to throw the local acts a bone when festival newbies like Southpaw are gonna fight to offer quality music for free anyway? I, personally, sympathise with bands forced to organise their own flights and costs out of pocket.

But moreso with an industry that is somehow expected to compete on a first-world level. Especially when organisers - ordinary people like you and me - get caught in the crossfire from cookie-soft 19-year-olds expecting their boyfriend's band to 'just get paid.' This is a 13-year-old country, after all.

But we're getting there. And by that, I mean keep an eye on Overtone.co.za. Smiles and coffee.

Today's cooing:

Listened to the new Amon Tobin yesterday - The Foley Room. Somewhere between having your neural pathways play hide-and-seek and an outdoor tea and vodka party where everyone's knocking over the cast iron chairs.

• hooked up with Dan Caleb last night: the guy's working at the biggest studio in Cape Town. He also wrote this amazing African song for this chick he wants to bang. She's keen. Asked him to help out with The Kuleshov Effect.
  
• The Springboks parade through the city today! RAAAAAAHRRRRR!!!!!

The news of the century (and possibly a happy tipping point for digital rights-managed music producers) is that iTunes has buckled under market pressure by reducing copyright-free tracks to below a dollar. Yaaay!

More important than the 30c per track that buyers will now save is letting the popularity of the music speak for itself, rather than being regurgitated and forcefed to an ignorant, hungry audience. Pigeons, I tell you.

It's about time that a price war put the strings back on the guitar of the consumer. Hey, even if we don't buy that many mp3s online down here in Cape Town, we are feeling the sting of being burdened with an industry that is disproportionately scarce in supporting upcoming creatives.

But boo-&$*#ing-hoo. Let the games begin!

Today's links:
iTunes - AmazonMP3



Today's cooing:

Three-hour meeting with the Key Watermelon last night regarding the future of the SA Music industry. Let's just say, as before, that wheels are turning. Also ran into Toby2Shoes at this new place in Stocks called Jamaican Me Crazy (and found out that his brother plays flute in Freshlyground). New live music venue?

Holding thumbs for a pair of passes to Balkanology -- got in touch with Ma'or and stuck up some press. Hey, this pigeon stopped paying for parties a while ago.