Some Really Good Ways To Help Independent Musicians…Part 3
Sharing great music is the first, best step towards supporting it. It need not cost you a bean, so it’s also a good way for people with little spare dosh to engage with their favourite artists. So far, this series of articles has focused on the pages of the musicians themselves, but this week we’re looking at one of the places where you can find a range of independent music played and promoted.
Mixcloud:
Just like Blue Sky Social, Mixcloud is not run on algorithms like Facebook, Instagram, and their despicable ilk. What that means is that you, as a human being, connect with other human beings on the platform. If you choose to follow a radio show on Mixcloud, it’s presented by another human being. If you choose to comment on a show, you will receive a response from another human being. It’s how it was always meant to be.
As I write this, I’m listening to Andy Inns present his 3-hour weekly epic of the best of folk music in all its forms. It runs from 9am to 12 noon (UK time), and unlike many Mixcloud shows, Andy runs the Black Dog Radio feed live from his bunker in Belper, Derbyshire. I’ve been listening to the show for years, and frequently find music on there from artists I’ve not heard before. The quality never drops. Andy has also been kind enough to feature my music from time to time.
I upload my weekly Compendium to Mixcloud (just one hour folks – I don’t know how Andy does it!) and I’m still a comparative novice, approaching just 250 shows. I actively search for new music. As well as being sent submissions by various artists and agencies, I buy from platforms like Bandcamp (see Part 1 of this series of articles) and draw from an ever- rowing music collection.
I don’t know how many shows Mixcloud now hosts, but it’s significant. So if you’re looking for new music, it’s a really good place to go. Like most radio stations, most of the hosts on Folk Friday Radio upload their shows to Mixcloud after they’ve aired. It’s a veritable gold mine.
There are several things you can do to support these shows, and therefore indirectly support your favourite independent musicians. The simplest things to do when listening to Mixcloud shows are to ‘Follow” the shows and ‘Favourite’ any that really resonate with you. Just like with Bandcamp and YouTube , the number of ‘Followers’ gives some indication of the quality of each show. Not perfect maybe, but it’s at least an indication. ‘Favourites’ help to elevate the status of a show still further. Positive “Comments” take it up a notch beyond that.
The most important things you can do on Mixcloud are to share the shows you like, and to make comments about the songs you like. These shows are listened to by musicians at all levels, when they aren’t creating music, touring, or being otherwise engaged. Feedback for musicians is really important, whether provided directly or indirectly…and yes, feedback is also important for the shows. Independent radio and independent music are interdependent, and you can play a part in strengthening the connection between the two, for example, by telling musicians at gigs where you first heard their music, or a particular song. You can help the shows by telling them theirs was the show where you first heard a particular musician. It all helps.
Note also that there are links to other websites from a Mixcloud page, and that there are tabs above the list of shows. Mine are ‘Shows’, ‘Posts’, ‘Reposts’, Favourites’, and ‘History’. The first two of these take you to lists of shows and posts from that page. ‘Reposts’ are the shows you have re-posted from your own page, ‘Favourites’ provides a list of shows you’ve favourited, and ‘History’ the shows you’ve listen to.
Mixcloud themselves nearly stopped operating a couple of years ago, because too many users were treating it as a perpetual freebie. So they set a limit of 10 shows for any user who wanted to carry on using it for free, and slapped a £9 a month charge for those of us who found the platform valuable enough to store our entire history of shows. Just as music should not be for free, neither should radio.
Because of this monthly charge, some of the more established shows like give you the option to send a one-off tip, or to subscribe to their shows. There is absolutely no compulsion to subscribe because we don’t do this for money. For my part, any small contributions fund the purchase of music from independent music platforms like Bandcamp, which I then play on The Compendium. Next time around, I’ll take you through some of the ways in which independent radio stations and shows present themselves to the world. It isn’t consistent, so it’s a guide that might help you wade through the treacle!
Peace.
John