I’m happy to announce that my new song, OCCUPY, will be debuting tomorrow night (1/28) on CYBERAGE RADIO broadcasting out of Albuquerque, NM.  The show is hosted by TOMMY T of DSBP records, and is one of the longest running Industrial/electronic radio shows in the US.  You can listen in the New Mexico are at 89.9 FM, or via the internet at www.cyberage.cx or www.kunm.org

You can listen in to hear the new song starting at 1am – 6am tomorrow night.  I’m very excited to release this song! It will be available for purchase via the internet following the debut at my Bandcamp page, found at brianbotkiller.bandcamp.com, where you can also purchase my previous album, “Welcome to Postwar USA”, and other goods.

I hope to hear from you about what you think of this song! Thank you all for your support!

-brian

*Disclamer* This is opinion, so make up your own mind

Recently, the FBI shut down Megaupload and Megavideo, both well-known file sharing services. These shutdowns happened under the pretense of copyright infringement by the company’s owners, and the FBI’s belief that the website was hosting and sharing large amounts of pirated videos and music.

Well, this is partially true, I mean, we all know that Megavideo hosted plenty of videos which shouldn’t have been up there; but, here’s a truth – Youtube hosts thousands upon thousands of videos and audio files which contain copyrighted work.  ”How dare he attack Youtube!”, you say; but the truth of the matter is that Youtube is not at all innocent in the world of piracy.  In fact, no one is, if they’re on the internet. We are are all going to come across some kind of pirated material one way or another as we traverse the net.  It’s going to happen.  So, why does Youtube get to keep going, yet Megavideo has been shut down?

Firstly, no website can track all of the user uploaded data which it hosts.  To assume that one could, is silly.  Therefore, to arrest the site’s founders under the pretense that they knowingly participated in copyright infringement, is quite silly.  If we’re blaming site owners for user uploaded content now, we’d better start arresting a lot of people at Youtube, Vimeo, and other sites which host user created data.  Even with a team of people checking videos, and unless you institute a human filtering process to check every video before it goes live, there is no way to ensure that everything uploaded to a site like Megavideo will be legit.  While this seems like a cop-out, Youtube uses it everyday as an excuse.  The law will say otherwise, of course; but the law bends to the highest bidder.  Plenty of large scale media corporations have a stake in Youtube.  None had such stake in Megavideo.

So that brings us to the REAL reason that Megaupload was likely shut down, and that is Megabox:

Megabox was meant to be a music cloud hosting and publishing format for independent artists. Megaupload had stated that they had partners in Amazon mp3 and Gracenote, and were planning to launch the service to allow artists to upload their own work, sell it in a cloud based format, and keep 90% of the profits.  This doesn’t sound like a model that a big record label would very much like, does it?

“But they were pirating!”, you say.  ”They would have done that with music, too!”.  Again, this argument doesn’t make sense.  There is no fool proof way to control user uploaded data.  However, controlling music for copyright would be even easier, thanks to services which can identify a song and tag it (such as that used by Youtube, although Youtube’s algorhithm for doing so sucks BAD), and then mark it for deletion if someone does not own the copyright.  This is harder to do with Video, hence why Youtube still has such a plethora of content not owned by the uploaders.   So, using a tagging and recognition system, copyrighted music could have been found and tagged, while artists could have uploaded and sold their music in a cloud based format in which they would get the most money back over any deal they can currently enter with a digital aggregator such as iTunes (in which an artist gets roughly 70% of a sale of an mp3).  This service was slated to roll out this year, and Megaupload was shut down on January 20th. Does that sound like reason for a shutdown? It does to me.

The shutdown triggered Anonymous’ cracking of the MPAA and RIAA’s websites, as well as the Department of Justice.  Shots fired, kids. You want to see what will happen if you keep fucking with the Internet? You’re going to find out, real fast.

Listen, we all know that piracy is more rampant now, than ever.  We know that plenty of people aren’t paying for things they get on the Internet.  But, we also know that people WILL pay for things on the internet, if paying for those products is easy, fast, accessible and affordable.  I personally believe that $10 for a digital album is too much (and I’m a musician!), and it stops me from buying many albums.  For $10, I would rather purchase a CD from an artist and support them directly.  So, I believe that to sell our products digitally and reduce piracy, we must find a good price point to sell at, and make the product very, very accessible.  Megabox would have been another offering that could have done that.  There are others, of course, such as Bandcamp.com, which make it easy for an artist to upload and sell their works – but Megabox would have been a first in cloud-based music which was easily accessible to the artist.

Whether this is truly the reason that Megavideo was shut down or not, we’ll never know; but the fact is that the FBI works as the police for the RIAA and the MPAA, and major media corporations, who DO NOT like the democratization of tools for creative people to share their work with the world. Why would they? If they don’t control all the ways money can be made from created works, they don’t make all the money.  If an artist can self-publish to millions without a record label, why would that record label stay viable, unless they were to change and evolve their model?  The record labels won’t do that, and so they instead get the FBI to do their dirty work, and do it under the pretense of copyright infringement, which only drives piracy up.  More sites like Megavideo will appear, more material will be freely shared, and you WILL NOT stop this process.  You MUST adapt, or die. The Record labels refuse to do this, and therefore, need to die.  They’ve had their time, and they’ve overspent, underpaid artists, and they cling to a dying business model as if it will someday be viable again.  It will not. It will be the independent artists, doing things without these huge, monolithic labels, who will create the new market.  We are more educated about the music business than ever at this point, and we’re not getting screwed anymore.

I leave it to you to make up your own mind about this situation, which you of course should. I as always ask that you support independent artists, and continue to support yourself, and be educated.  This is how we can be viable and successful, unlike our corporate counterparts, who are currently riding a quickly sinking ship to the bottom of the sea.

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Happy Holidays, ya’ll.  Here’s a techno jam tape I did when I was 16 or so.  Rough, kinda wack, etc. etc. ENJOY.

DOWNLOAD:
brian botkiller – Cassettes and drum machines

STREAM:

Hi Everyone,

Tonight I am DJing for Burlesque Noir, and my band, Vertigo Venus, is playing live to open for Burlesque Noir at the Launchpad in Albuquerque (6th and central ave.).  The show is 21+, tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. You can get tix in advance here: http://holdmyticket.com/event/19988

We will be playing a live set at 8:30pm, so please get there early! I will be DJing all night.

Hope to see you tonight!

 Hey everyone! 

This Friday, January 7th, our new video will be premiering on the internet! Before it, does, we’ll be doing a live internet performance from our studio via the web at: 

http://www.ustream.tv/user/vertigovenus

Join us at 6:30pm MST on Ustream for a live performance from our studio. followed by the premiere of the Video on YouTube.com.  The Video will premiere at 7:30pm MST at our YouTube channel at 

http://www.youtube.com/vertigovenus

We’re very, very excited about this video, so we hope you join us for it. This is the first video we’ve ever had that features all of us in glorious HD, professionally shot video.  Rip Williams (http://www.ripwilliamsphotography.com), a great local Photographer, shot it, along with Steve Groves (http://www.esi-media.com), Jason Alexander (www.wolfnetarchives.com), Deyona Gundlach (www.otakuphy.com), and Brad Cole ( www.i-systems.us)  We’re very lucky to have the group of people who shot this for us, so we hope that you’ll join us for it.

To RSVP for the event, click here: 

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187807004564362

Please spread the word, tell others, tune in!  Thank you all for your support! 

-brian, Vertigo Venus 

Which is why I don’t blog very much. 

But here’s the gist.  

In July I released two CDs.  One of which, “SOS”, I released with my band, Vertigo Venus.  It dropped on July 9th, 2010, with a CD release at The Launchpad in Albuquerque.  The Strand, from Arizona (one of my favorite Industrial bands), played a set, and kids got rowdy.  It was quite nice to finally release a CD that was the culmination of the hard work of a group of people I love.

Soon after, I released a CD, one that I’ve been meaning to release for a long, LONG time.  It’s called “Welcome to Postwar USA”, and it’s the culmination of about ten or so years of writing, self-doubt, and re-construction.  I’m pretty happy with it.  I released it with only 100 CD copies, about 70 of which are left.  It’s for sale over in the store, if you’re interested, or you can get it digitally at all your favorite e-tailers. 

I had a CD release on July 24th, 2010, at Burt’s Tiki Lounge.  The Booty Green played, which made me very happy, and so did Vertigo Venus, the band with whom I plan to take over the world. The interesting thing about this day was that we’d already played a show earlier that day, in Farmington, NM; 200 miles away from Albuquerque.  So, I drove 400 miles in one day, and played three concerts.  I work really, really hard.  I was joined onstage by my friend Clint, who destroyed my beats and sounds with his unique noise/FSU sound.  I think it was pretty good.  Some super great fans bought the CD, and supported the hell out of me.  I’m really grateful for that. 

Some time passed, some more shows were played, and now another birthday has came and went.  I’m now 30 years old, and I feel like I’m only getting started on all the work I have to do. 

I’m pursuing a lot of avenues right now, including a radio promotion for Vertigo Venus, an Ableton Certification, and a lot of other hard work.  I’m keeping myself on the path to do things I want to do; play Coachella, tour heavily, and be a successful musician. Nothing, NOTHING will stop me from doing this. 

Thanks to everyone who reads things like this, supports me, and continues to listen to me.  You mean the world to me.  Thank you. 

/brian

Tomorrow (weds), I am doing a DJ set with Burlesque Noir for their “NY meets NM” showdown show.  Sure to be good fun! At Low Spirits bar (2823 2nd st. NW, Albuquerque, NM), $10 @ door, 21+, doors @ 8pm, I’ll be DJing big beat and 8bit tunes, then playing for BN’s set, then DJing a bit more! Please come out!

My new CD is done, too!  Stay tuned for updates!

Thank you all for your support!

/brian

It’s been about ten years, tons of various releases, and now I’m finally doing a CD release.

It’s a CDr, yes… but I don’t personally want to release a full-on silverback CD right now.

The CD is nine tracks:

What a fucking sick show. The turnout was great (especially for a tuesday night in ABQ), with over 70 diehards coming out to make it happen. Slick Idiot killed it, despite the band being a little beat up thanks to health issues and such. A real pleasure to meet En Esch in person finally, I only wish I had a copy of my CD with the song we did together to give to him. I got into a few mosh pits, and got to beat myself up to “Godlike” and “A drug against war”. Reminded myself I’m human as I slammed against others and yelled lyrics at the top of my lungs. Had a great time opening with Vertigo Venus for the show, got to hear my new drumkit mic’d up and love love loved it.

Thank you to the Launchpad and Slick Idiot, you guys rock, and I hope we do it again soon.
/brian

I’ve been using social networking hard for over eight years to promote my shows.  I had a myspace profile before myspace was myspace, and had it turned into a music profile the second I could do so. Social networking has always been a part of promoting my music.