More bad news for the record industry as many more big names in music are following Radiohead’s lead of offering their albums for free or for a ‘pay what you want’ fee, bypassing record industry price and market manipulation. Bravo! Hot on the heels of Radiohead’s success, Nine Inch Nails announced that they are now free agents after 18 years of being under record label contracts. NiN’s frontman has informed their fans to expect some big announcements soon. Now comes word that Oasis, Jamiroquai and The Charlatans are following Radiohead’s lead in similar ways. The Charlatans are currently planning on offering their album for free via the XM satellite service in a way to boost marketing for their live tours, which their manager is stating will help them to increase capacity and revenue from their live performances.

An excellent article from The Times Online documenting the decline of the industry due to music fan’s perceptions towards recorded music as a commodity. Take that fatcat record execs! No new cars for your kid’s 16th birthday this year!

The truth now is that a rudimentary cotton garment with a band logo stamped across it that has probably been manufactured for pennies in a Third World sweatshop costs about twice as much as an album recorded in a state-of-the-art western studio. And even at that price, recorded music isn’t selling.

A bit disappointing however that the article didn’t touch more on the success of many independent labels. Many larger indies have experienced massive surges in profits and growth, thanks to the marketing playing field being leveled across the industry. Small bands and labels can now expose their music to thousands of new listeners through MySpace, Last.fm and the sorts, leading to potentially larger live show attendance and more sales of released material, which is usually available at a lower price point compared to many majors and is more beneficial for the artists, who see more of those profits in the end.

So you just can’t get enough of Swedish country-techno ‘artists’ REDNEX and have a few million dollars to blow? Then your prayers have been answered! Rednex AB, the holding company which owns all of the trademarks, recordings, contracts and rights to the Swedish techno legends is on the chopping block over at eBay, with a starting bid of $1,500,000 US. Small change my friends, small change. The company is debt-free and carries an average $4,000 - $5,000 a year in administrative costs. Naturally all royalties on previous recordings also have to be maintained. Currently the company is run by original lead singer Mary Joe (Annika Ljungberg) with power of attorney running until 2008.

In case you have a few million and are seriously considering this, watch the video for “Cotten Eye Joe” after the jump, you’ll change your mind…

Read more of ”Buy the Rednex on eBay, would Cotton Eye Joe approve?“

So your favorite band came through town, you missed the show and now your friends are all telling you how killer it was? Have no fear, a pair of grad students have gotten fed up and have developed a delightfully simple tool for keeping track of both your MP3 library AND your favorite band’s tour dates so you won’t miss the next killer do. The tool is iConcertCal and it’s a free iTunes plugin that monitors your music library and based upon your most playlist, generates a personalized calender of upcoming shows in your city. THe interface mimics iCal and is available for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Download: iConcertCal

Kori Gardner, 1/2 of the sickly-sweet indie-pop duo Mates of State (which also features her husband Jason Hammel) has created a tour diary at Babble called “Band on the (Diaper) Run”, covering their experiences as a touring band with their two year old daughter Magnolia accompanying them. The entries are extremely cool, showing the steps the band’s crew, nanny, mother and father take in making sure the environment and experiences are as enjoyable as possible for the two year old. So far the band and family have played together with Madonna (who I’m sure enjoyed meeting their daughter), swam together in the fountain of youth in Iceland, headed to Australia, toured with Death Cab for Cutie (who are now Magnolia’s best friends) and enjoyed lots of rain and mashed peas in London. An awesome adventure for any two year old and I have to give much much credit for the care that the parents put into giving their child an awesome experience starting at such an early age. Watch their latest video for the track “Like U Crazy” over at our little brother-blog Tropics and Meridians and watch for the shout-out to their daughter, which is a regular easter egg throughout Mates of State’s songs and videos.

Read more: Band on the (Diaper) Run 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 | Mates of State

Many have been asking, “where is the future?”, and although most of those are bi-spectacled nerds (who we wholeheartedly support), many others are starting to wonder where we went wrong. I mean, where are the flying cars, the stainless steel towers in the sky, the motorized walkways? Apple is starting to take us into the right direction for technophiles and now musicians have the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona to thank for the Reactable, a multi-user electronic music instrument built into a tabletop interface. Imagine if you will, a life-size Elektroplankton! Yeahhhhh. With it, users are able to create complex and dynamic sonic “topologies” (music compositions) by moving physical objects over the table, controlling virtual generators, filters and modulators in a graspable flow-controlled programming language.

Enough techno-bibble babble, take a look at the Reactable in action after the jump..

Read more of ”Reactable is hopefully the electronic music instument of the future“

I’ve gotten a few emails asking when we’re going to start posting music videos again, so I thought I’d go ahead and make an early announcement. Over the past week or so we’ve been soft launching the newest blog in our network, Tropics & Meridians. Bonus point if you catch the band reference in the title.

From now on, all of our indie music video posts will be carried on by those scurvy dogs over at Tropics & Meridians, so give them a visit or keep an eye on the footer for the latest posts from around our network.

See/Hear more: Tropics & Meridians

On January 27th, legendary indie music producer J. Robbins and partner Janet Morgan gave birth to their first child, a boy named Callum. As Callum began to grow, his parents began to notice that Cal was having difficulty reaching the development milestones a parent expects from a healthy child. Cal was having difficulties biting his toes, squeezing his parent’s fingers, or even rolling around on his own. After a recent pediatrician’s visit in September, J and Janet were given the news they feared the most, something was in fact wrong with their son. Cal was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy or Type 1 SMA. SMA affects the brain’s ability to communicate with the body’s voluntary muscles, used for such activities as crawling, walking, head and neck control, even breathing and swallowing. If Cal lives past his second birthday, he’ll never be able to walk on his own and will have to endure a lifetime of occupational therapy.

Many know J from his legendary presence in the punk, indie and hardcore scene since the early 80s, from performing in bands such as Government Issue, Jawbox and Burning Airlines or producing such bands as Jets to Brazil, Jawbreaker, The Dismemberment Plan and Against Me!, J has touched many lives in many different ways and now here’s a chance to give back. Being an independent music producer and the sole earner in the family, J’s single-payer insurance surely won’t be of as much help as one would hope, which brings me to independent record label Desoto Record’s drive to help benefit Callum. A (non tax-deductable) account has been created for Callum which you can donate to via PayPal (as well as major credit cards). All donations go directly to the Robbins family in order to continue Callum’s care and to help make the whole family’s life as comfortable as possible in this sad time.

Read more: Donate to the Robbins family to help care for Cal | JRobbins.net

For those of us who still listen to the majority of our music on vinyl (or have transferred all our vinyl to MP3), we know the only turntables we can own are those made for hyper-active kids, usually with dreadlocks, who like to wave their hands in the air while standing still and scratching up their favorite records. But thankfully, the reign of the Technics SL1200 is slowly coming to an end. With the upsurge in vinyl sales and the aging indie-kid demographic, turntable design is once again focusing on aesthetics and visual design. Rega Research Limited, the grandfathers of turntable excellence, are creating some of the most beautifully crafted space age bachelor pad worthy turntables this side of mars. Their low profile and unique designs are belt-driven, featuring a high quality synchronous motor with ultra-low vibration and one of the most famous tone-arms in the world, the RB300. Vinyl that sounds great, while not sitting on a leftover piece of industrial equipment? Yes please.

Read more: Rega Research Limited

Brian Eno has long been a pioneer in audio and visual arts. The father of ambient music, Eno’s career spans decades and his technical and artistic achievements are rivaled by very few. Eno’s recent project, “77 Million Paintings” is an experiment in digital art, featuring 3GB or actually, 77 million paintings, on one DVD. The project is full of brilliant pieces (many millions of them) of art and a generative soundtrack produced by the man himself. The generative soundtrack, which goes along well with the “ambient-Eno” many know and love, are random sounds collected and randomly played back throughout the slideshow, making the soundtrack completely unique with every viewing. “77 Million Paintings” is available now and limited to 10,000 copies, for both PC and MAC.

Read more: 77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno | Buy 77 Million Paintings @ Insound