I just noticed that my favourite page since years will stop. Since I started browsing the web it was my first love and – unbelievable but true – my first bookmark ever. I couldn’t believe what i could see! All my favorite bands (and even more) I could join from my living room. It’s hard to describe today how many beautiful and wonderful hours we’ve spent together. This news blows my shoes off, and made me stop breathing for a day…

All my love belongs to you – not since the full nine passionate years you are here for dudes and dudettes like me – but I am a proud user and listener since 2002. In all those great years you shared the most amazing concert recordings with us.

This is so sad and frustrating because you gave me so much and now you close the doors this month. That is not a b-day present I wished for. The quality of the stream was superb during all those years, and your dream of streaming concerts to all of us… I really hoped would continue.

Decision to Kill

The fact is, a great number of record labels still won’t allow Fabchannel to record their artists. That’s still making me sad because this is the reason why they had to kill our beloved baby. I’m not sure how many of you knew about this service, so maybe couldn’t enjoy the full excitement that made this idea the best of all.

The Beginning

Fabchannel started in 2000 to create a promotional platform for the artists that play the Paradiso in Amsterdam. My first visit there was in 2000 and it was Candy Dulfer. 2000 was also the year of Counter-Strike and 56k Modems. It was a crazy time, without social media or labels that support the bands. Media attention for upcoming bands was decreasing on radio, TV and in newspapers. You can imagine how this was a bad thing for the fans, artists, the venue and the labels. Back in those days bands played live to promote their new album and even got tour support from their record label. But when no media covers your wonderful gig, only the fans in the venue can tell the rest of the world what a great album you have released.

The Idea

The idea behind Fabchannel came about because of the very poor return on investment for the bands and labels via other media outlets. By webcasting the show live and putting it in an on-demand archive afterwards, thousands of fans could enjoy the shows for years. But it wasn’t just this streaming -  it was much much more.  Fabchannel promoted the latest album release, made adverts, linked and used the social media as it came about,  and helped on a very good way the bands sell more CD’s . Everybody was happy  – or so we thought…..but, no!

Back to 2000 and those times when we mostly used our 56k modems and later switched to ISDN…even the majority of labels (major and independent) weren’t so enthusiastic about the internet. There was just this slow connection and a huge idea -  to record the concerts in a high quality video format and archive these videos on the website so they can be accessed by fans around the world, on demand. At this time, broadband internet and online video were still promises of the future. Services like Youtube weren’t even in our heads yet. The plan and hope Fabchannel had was that the labels and music companies would start experimenting with this and embrace it. But, as of 2009 they did not.

Selling Concerts

I can remember the year 2007. Fabchannel asked the audience and friends to make and help find a plan to keep this project alive and make some money to survive. The idea was – selling the concerts. Lots of viewers agreed with that bc we all loved (including me) these videos, and wanted to have them as download or DVD. They pitched this idea to the labels, “but not one of them saw it as an interesting business model,” to quote this right from the page. The problem was that Fabchannel had no rights to sell them themselves. It was necessary to get approval from the labels.

A lot of the companies the labels work with these days are companies that need music to promote another product. Fabchannel does not. We don’t use music as a marketing tool to sell phones, jeans or soda pop. And we do not have the budgets to buy the content. For us the product is the music.

If you have to pay 10 Euros per month to watch a concert archive and live webcasts you would want to see the big names right? To make this all work you, as visitor, had to help too – by promoting on social media platforms, signing up, spreadiing the word, and watching the adverts that came with the stream. But, what if the number comes from the original blog and 80% of the visitors don’t sign up? It was obvious that it was necessary to get a lot of pageviews and unique visitors from users worldwide to make this happen.

A lot of the companies the labels work with these days are companies that need music to promote another product. Fabchannel does not. We don’t use music as a marketingtool to sell phones, jeans or sodapop.

And it worked…for a while. But all plans need support and help from all sides, and this didn’t happen. To use a sentence from the blog again, “although a lot of labels are facing serious problems these days, they seem to be incapable of starting meaningful partnerships with more than a few worldwide players.”

I recommend this as a very good read.  It’s a post i found on TECHCrunch, written by Michael Arrington. It helped me to bring more light in this dark time.

The Dream and Concept

Like Fabchannel, I still believe in this concept. It worked as a promotional platform in the days CD’s were sold at concerts, and it works today as a powerful promotion/sales platform still – with the right support. After reading the blog post I recommended above, you will understand and see, that the next few years will be getting even more difficult with sponsoring or advertising.

Goodbye

Its not possible to find the words I want to send you from Austria…because you gave me so much joy and love and nice music. My heart is bleeding right now because you were a part of my life over the years. You gave me so much. I love you Fabchannel and want to sincerely thank you for being my friend, my hope, and my love!

They are pulling the plug of the online archive on Friday 13th of March, until that time i enjoy all my favorite concerts once more, and hope we meet again one day.

Im presenting you the perfect soundtrack for the spring/summer 2009. Dancing till your flipflop burning! I tried to make this setup with all genre across hiphop to electro, jazzfunk to trip hop. Inspired form the Air&Style aftershow-party and Fabio i also created this wallpaper just for you and this post. Hope you like this post and i made you bounce and happy.

Estelle – “Wait a minute” ( Just a touch )

A great voice, smooth rap-flow with a mix of hiphop and reggae-style – that fits to most of the british musicians nowadays. And so to her too. DJ Dynamite recorded in 2002 a great Album (“Welcome to the World of Joni Rewind”), no doubt the album was great, but what made this record so outstanding was just one song – “Uptown Top Rankin” – the remake of Althea and Donna.

Today Estelle lives in NewYork, makes music with Kayne West, John Legend und all top notch of the US-rap-biz.”Wait a minute” was her 2nd release and it comes with perfect sample, with perfect rap, and perfect hook. Just perfect!

www.myspace.com/estelleonline

Dizzee Rascal feat. Calvin Harris – “Dance Wiv Me”

The Grime-Days are over…thats what i think when i hear this tune. Back in 2003 Dizzee let all her critics and listener standing around with wide opened mouth and smiling faces – her debut album was just sexy and blew my shoes off. Minimalistic, roughen Lo-Fi-vibes coming from hiphop, electro and techno – that was the secret. Now 6 years later, with more then tousands of sold records and some winning prices later, there isnt so much left of this roughen “Roll Deep Sound” like in the beginning of this great career. But thats not really negative, because when Calvin Harris´80s-Indie-Electro meets Dizzees Rascal Grime past, it can just equal one thing – that sounds suspiciously like a summerhit to me

www.myspace.com/dizzeerascal

Chromeo – “Bonafied Lovin” ( Riots In Belgium Remix )

“The only succesfully arabic-jewish partnership since the beginning of the human culture” is what the label V2 says about their musicians Dave 1 and P-Thug. This duo is action since ever and shows and makes us listen to, how understanding among nation with canadion accent works and sounds. But what sounds here very political is just pure fun – rock guitars ( no Rock guitar heroes ) and rhodeo meets analog synthies and a 808 drum-machine. Sound, that is made to move your feets and what i call electro-funk as its best. The original version of this song is a masterpiece – but Riots In Belgium give them another touch with a portion of POWER with, that none in the crowd stop from bouncing. ( ohohohoh )

www.myspace.com/chromeo

Kraak & Smaak ft. Ben Westbeech – “Squeeze Me”

Heineken, Van Gogh, me, and Kraak & Smaak. The four most famous things to come out from the netherlands. Some of you wont agree this quote of the biography on the profile on myspace, but this trio comes from my hometown, the 120.000 ppl big town Leiden. And yes, the know how to make good music. Kraak & Smaak make their own music, and their own definition of this sound is “Future-Funk”. Its a mix of liveinstruments with programmed beats and guestvocals such as Ben Westbeech or Dudley Perkins. You have to watch the video to “Squeeze Me” or i kill you (joke) – flip-book as its best, just love it!

www.myspace.com/kraaksmaak

Golden Bug – “Bisco”

The frenchmusic industry earns lot of success, and if the french ppl just had sent Justice, Daft Punk & co., the “grande nation” wouldnt have fallen in this collective depression. But that outside of the illustrious circle of Ed Banger Records one hattrick follows the other, proves Golden Bug. His tunes are little dangerous missiles, made of gloomy basslines, cross synthiesound und really fucked off vocals. France = division winner

www.myspace.com/goldenbug

Blind Alphabetz ft. Sean Price – “Hammer”

Some say, this band is the answer of Public Enemy, others just hit the spot like my friend Fu did – its a wonderful mixture of hiphop, spoken words, lots of poesie, with thoughtfulness and subject matter. The two MCs Mohammed Yaha and Iron Braydz are pious musleme and brought us with “Luvolution” hiphop as its best and not this gangster/crime/shit and without MTV look. And when you can get Sean Price, the NewYorker scene-heavy-weight, it just can go perfect. Thats how hiphop should sound in 2009, <3!

www.myspace.com/blindalphabetz

Siedah Garrett – “Do you want it right now”

Sometimes member of the Brand New Heavies, worldwide succesfully duett with Michael Jackson, discovered by Quincy Jones, songs written for Aretha Franklin, walk-ons with the Commodores and Chaka Khan and last but not least, sampled by the house-genious Armand van Helden. This woman had to tell you many many storys while having a good bottle of vino together. However, this 80s revival-thing could be very exhausting (probably), but this song, that has to be said here, is just amazing, still unbelievable good!

www.siedah.com

Kings of Leon – “Fans”

To make things clear, for all friends of good riffs and whiskeyfucked vocals, to a real bbq or party with friends, a real good rocksong shouldnt be missing. And here the Kings fit like the herbed butter to your steaks. “fans” is now two years ol, but is still a wonderful-melancholic song, that comes stright to your ears when you hear this itchy voice of the leadsinger. And im allowed to quote Noel Gallagher

“The Kings of Leon are my new fucking favourite band!”

www.myspace.com/kingsofleon

Yes King ft. Tor, Baby Chann, Ayak&Mystro -”Crunch”

Oh behave – and again im addicted to the british kingdom. Yes King is a project that started years ago with Mark Rae and Rhys Adams. This release from the UK made it clear and showed me/us once again, the border crossing naturalness of this hiphop, the sky has no limit.

www.myspace.com/yeskingrecords

Roisin Murphy – “You know me better”

What can i say, shes an irish producer-songwriter and known for her electronica style, shes founded Molokko ( one of my fav bands ever ) and started her own way back in 2004. When relations break, or go their own ways, sometimes its not enough to split your house, sometimes bands split too. And so she said “Ciao, byebye” to Mark Byrdon and the band Molokko. But she is very expermimental and a real limelight hog, and it was clear that she wont stay inside her 4 walls. Since that day she toured to nearly every stage in the world with her solo performance. In 2007 in moscow, she headbanged so hard on a gig, that she hit her head on a chair next to her and had to cancel this concert. Yes when she bangs, shes in her elements. Electronical music with rockn roll attitudes, what else can i say – shes good, shes hot, shes a woman!

www.myspace.com/roisinmurphy

2 Comments

• At March 13, 2009, VoteAudrey wrote:

  thank you for sharing your treasures

• At March 20, 2009, Tom wrote:

  anytime, i hope this make your ears smile and dancing. i love them all and cant believe i was browsing and listening to myspace music. i used to listen and find music with blip.fm and itunes. maybe myspace isnt that bad at all :)