Jumped through MMM to a hot link called Russian Independent Music. I'm looking for good, unusual sound clips. The graphics on the first page (and throughout the site) are crude and quirky, a refreshing change from the oh-so-slick pseudo-surrealism you see so often from Western artists. (And, of course, since the server is apparently at Tufts University, one wonders...who does this? We shall look and see.)
I load a wav by a band called 2 Samoleta...245K...this baby'd better be good <g>. Apparently I have my "viewer" configured wrong, or the Web browser is too stupid to know that this is a sound file. After five minutes of loading, the darned thing passes the code to the screen as text. Sheesh! Delete the viewer type. Take the next one and try saving it to disk.
I can hear the "get a horse" crowd saying, "You oughta have Netscape." While I can't disagree, that begs the point. The traffic, the poor design of browsers (Microsoft's Internet Explorer won't view inline graphics as inline, but puts them in a separate window. Brilliant, Bill.), the traffic, the incredibly long load times all conspire to make cruising the Web a less-than-salubrious experience. If Web-o-philes want to see the medium remain viable and continue to grow, then these stumbling blocks must be removed. Think of it as pouring digital gasoline on ill-conceived asphalt speed bumps. Some speed bumps are good and save lives, some are bad and tear up undercarriages.
But we finally get the thing downloaded to disk and mess around with the media player and get something that sounds truly scrofulous but is enough to let me know that this is an interesting-sounding band.
Back to the top page and click on another (clickable graphic) link: Who's Who in Indie Music.
This page is thoughtfully laid out to load fast (something I am coming to appreciate). The graphics are not inline; the first page is all text. If you want to look at a picture, there are links, but you're not forced to endure the wait or stop the loading of the document and feel you've missed something.
The content of the page is informative. There is a neat listing of bands, the cities from whence they hail, the names of the musicians (I assume that this is "if known," as some are not listed), and some short comments about styles and influences. One could come to appreciate a whole site of pages like this.
Here's Kolibri, the band who produced the clip I listened to. There's a link to a home page. Let's see if this tasteful arrangement carries through...okay, we're still on the same site. This page is also tastefully done. There are inline graphics, but they are small and unobtrusive. A couple of untitled clips. Let's grab one. Apparently Slava Borisov, who maintains this site, is working with the disadvantage of not being on the scene in Russia and so must sometimes get information and clips secondhand. (There is a message on the home page that solicits clips, as a matter of fact.)
Back to the Who's Who...and hot link to another band's home page. This time the band is called Nogu Svelo. No pictures, just a text discography with a couple of sound clips.
Back to the top and try a link entitled News and Rumors. This is neat. A chat section or BBS where visitors can post little tidbits about the scene. This echoes a service that, in my opinion, online services can provide better—at least until it is possible to navigate the Web and the Internet automatically and process bits offline. It is, however, a nice touch, and I'm glad to see it here.
There's an Old News Archive, organized by month, but it appears the site goes back to only July, so there's not a lot of history here. And, I note, Slava has quoted the sources for these little gems, too. So, I presume, one may place more or less credence on a report from the St. Petersburg Press than one would from a private individual, depending on one's predilection for trusting the media.
Well, this has been fun and refreshing. Back to the MMM and jump around a bit. It seems as though a great many of these sites for bands and solo artists are maintained by college students. Does no one else have the time? Can't the professionals see an opportunity here? Whatever happened to copyrights and trademarks? How long will it be before a merchandiser or a lawyer makes a fool of himself trying to shut down sites in violation of either?
Here's Prince New Power ([US] or [Eur]). This ought to be professionally done...but no, he's not calling himself Prince this week. (May have changed by the time you read this. Who knows?)
Prince's site (or at least the one linked from the MMM—and mirrored both in the US and Europe) is well done, but a little dry for a non-fan. For a fan, I'm sure there is much to be found that fascinates.
Incidentally, there seems to be a growing etiquette among Web site developers, some of which I appreciate. For example, the practice of noting the date a site was last modified is something to be encouraged. Nothing like waiting for a graphics-heavy page to load, only to discover you've already seen it all.
Okay, how about record companies? Surely their pages must be professionally done. Back through MMM to a page listing record companies linked through the metalist. Incredible! Most of the labels listed are vanity labels or basement operations. Of world-class labels, I can count six and a fan magazine. (Or is Teen Beat a label?)
Let's check out Sony. Another well-done site. Inline graphics seem to have been thoughtfully limited in size. The page is well organized and presents itself quickly to the browsing eye. There are the links you would expect: tour information, links to pages for individual artists, sound clip libraries, and on and on. One thing that I find surprising is that the link to the Who Are We page—the folks behind the page—is reported by the server as belonging to a file that does not exist. Bad form (pun intended). The tour info page seems to list every Sony artist currently on tour. Good form. You win some, you lose some.
I'm out of time and I want to mention a couple of major sites before I go.
Two trade magazines, Performance and Pollstar—the papers of record in the touring industry—have Web sites. The Performance site is still under development, but should come online in November. The Pollstar site is up but as of this writing (Nov. 1), under construction or remodeling. The reason that these sites may be of interest to WWWiz readers is that both will contain tour itinerary information from the magazines' databases in their public areas. It has, in the past, been hard for fans to get thorough and accurate information on play dates, despite the fact that most tours are booked as much as six months in advance. So watch these spaces. They could prove to be interesting.
That's me. I'm outta here!