DUMA

As a big fan of Simon Cowell and the X-Factor I was delighted when Richard Stannard from Devil’s Music telephoned and offered me an invitation to judge the first semi final of the Dorset Unsigned Music Awards (D.U.M.A).

Now many people find Simon Cowell too blunt but I love how he tells the truth when judging the merits and faults of the artists on the show.

It maybe true that he embellishes his comments with a certain amount of showmanship, and encourages the role of pantomime villain, but Cowell is not often wide of the mark and his honesty is respected through the music industry. It might not be liked, but it is respected.

His attitude has helped me when informing bands their music isn’t yet ready to go on the radio. Apparently they appreciate my honesty, which is a relief, as the feeling in my stomach before making the phone call isn’t a pleasant one.

So it was with a happy heart that I accepted Richard’s offer and prepared to travel the 70 odd miles to Weymouth and step in for a last minute cancellation in the judging department.

In the back of my mind I was wondering why that person had cancelled but as usual the front of the mind was working overtime and painting a rosy picture: the venue was a hotel, so the gig must be in a function room! There’’s bound to be table and chairs where we can hold court and sit and ‘judge’. The audience would listen to our every word! What more could I want?

Even though I was running late, and even though I took the wrong turning adding ten miles to the journey, and I also received news about an A&E incident back home… I arrived in good shape.

Only to discover that the Queens Hotel in Weymouth is more pub than Travel Lodge. The grand function room I was expecting was a graffiti decorated space ideal of a night of sweaty rock. There were no chairs.

It looked like the kind of place in which the considered thoughts of a judge would not get much friction no matter how truthful.

Richard introduced me to Heidi and Ian, my fellow judges and then filled me in on all of the other details I had declined to inquire about in our previous conversation.

The first bit of good news: we wouldn’t have to give the audience our opinions. The second: our decision will be made a few days after the second semi-final. The third: we wouldn’t be judging the final.

This might seem a strange piece of good news but Devil’s Music have devised a very interesting way of awarding the excellent prizes and arranging the competition.

Crowd and band in the Queen's Hotel, Weymouth

Each semi-final has five acts and all we have to do is agree on the best five of the ten hopefuls to go through. However in the final the judges will be the people giving away the prizes; awarding it to the act that suits them the most.

As there are five prizes one band could walk away with all five, or each band could receive one. I’m sure you can work out the other variations.

On offer is a slot at one of three top Dorset festivals: Larmer Tree, Camp Bestival or Endorset In Dorset.

There is also a recording session with Room With A View Studios or a photo shoot with Seeker Photography. Five excellent opportunities for these acts to grab by the proverbials.

This really is a great way of dishing out the rewards which will no doubt make the final an even more tense occasion yet, in some respects, fairer.

The conclusion of D.U.M.A is being held in Bournemouth at the very plush Royal Bath Hotel, which is maybe why I was expecting a little more from the Queen’s Hotel in Weymouth.

Still onwards and upwards and, in this case, with a clipboard that Richard kindly provided, which now marked me out as either someone from the brewery or a judge.

However in the gentle environment of Weymouth people seem to accept this fact and avoided giving me hassle although there was one incident featuring me, the clipboard and a member of the audience.

His name was Rob and he approached me holding a bottle which I guessed must have been the third or fourth he had held that day. He had seen me composing my views and approached with the kind of bonhomie drink encourages demanding to know what I was doing.

“Judging the bands,” I informed him. “Ah!” He exclaimed, “Simon Cowell?”

It was at this point you have to sum up various options: Is it good to be a fan of Simon Cowell? Will ‘Rob the Merry’ appreciate your arguments in favour of the man of truth? Or will he loathe the X-Factor judge and heap upon you the frustrations that a week of work can build up in a man?

I decided to stick with my convictions and declare my allegiance to the House of Cowell. Rob seemed delighted with the news, shook my hand and a happy five minutes was spent discussing music and radio until he seemed keen to find someone else to chat with.

The night continued without incident and I really enjoyed the process of judging. It uses parts of the the mind rarely stretched as you have to picture these acts playing to an audience of ‘relaxed’ souls, soaking up the festival vibe in the summer sun, rather than the seemingly vandalised front room of this particular venue.

As we are half way through the competition my views about the music or musicians will be saved until after the judges have judged.

The second semi final of the Dorset Music Awards is on Saturday 11th April at the Puddin and Pye
Wimborne Minster

Last year the unsigned UK pop duo Georgia Wonder tasted minor but traditional success through supporting Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall on his first solo tour.

This year an unconventional approach has seen their debut EP “Hello Stranger” downloaded over 30,000 times in four days by users of Frostwire, one of the file sharing programmes the music industry would prefer to shut down rather than harness.

For Georgia Wonder’s vocalist, Stephanie Grant, the opportunity was irresistible:

“What Frostwire helped us achieve is incredible. Their support has put our music into the hands of tens of thousands of potential fans in a matter of days.”

And all Frostwire did was add a link to the duo’s songs on the programme’s welcome page, their spokesperson Kademlia explained (via email) that Georgia Wonder was an act they believed in:

“When we first heard Georgia Wonder’s EP, we couldn’t stop humming ‘The Girl You Never Knew’ (see below). We knew there is something unique about them, because this doesn’t really happen within our team. Another interesting thing was that we immediately felt the need to share the word about them.”

Even though this altruistic attitude has given a massive boost to Georgia Wonder’s listener base, Frostwire’s software is also helping a vast amount of people share music that should have been purchased.

When you read the latest statistics you can’t blame record companies from gnashing their teeth over the huge sums of money they are potentially losing.

Figures recently published by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) showed that forty billion files were illegally shared in 2008.

As these statistics are based on results from only 16 countries the extent of their problem is potentially much bigger.

Sharing this many files has been made very easy thanks to the “BitTorrent protocol” which allows a computer programme to download a file from many sources instead of the traditional one point of contact.

For example: if you were using the BitTorrent protocol to buy a book in the physical world, individual pages would be sent to you by hundreds of people instead of the whole book delivered from just one shop.

This type of data transfer is known as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) with the “peers” being thousands of domestic computers running programmes like Frostwire.

If you visit the charts hosted at “The Pirate Bay” you’ll see what is currently popular in the BitTorrent universe.

Heading music’s Top 100 is Pink Floyd’s full discography – all 27 albums wrapped up in a file that is just under 4 gigabytes in size.

Also in the charts are established groups such as U2, Metallica, Coldplay and The Beatles as well as a host of present day artists.

Unbelievably, unsigned Georgia Wonder are rubbing shoulders with these giants and, during the period their EP was available on Frostwire, they broke into the Top 20 – which is a remarkable achievement.

It would take many months for Georgia Wonder to reach a similar number of listeners using networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, ReverbNation and Facebook but at least with those places a firm relationship can be developed with the visitor.

However, as Frostwire only promote music they believe to be a worthy listen, they themselves will form a relationship with their users and that level of trust will mean many more digital artists knocking at Frostwire’s door.

As Kademlia points out: “Music just seems to be the natural thing to share and young and up-and-coming musicians seem to be first to understand and utilize the advantages of peer-to-peer distribution. After all, today’s new artists are the pioneers of the future music industry, one which will not be controlled by a hand full of record labels.”

With this type of success it won’t be long before the music industry embraces P2P trading and, with yearly downloads of 40 million; even fifty percent of that traffic would be a tidy sum.

For Kademlia the future is obvious: “P2P has been proven to be an effective media distribution technology. It’s been embraced by millions organically. Hopefully, the music industry will evolve and figure out way to use it, instead of fighting it.”