Benoit's World News |
Good Morning ladies and Gentleman, I am here making a real effort to please people. It's been half a year since I have sent anything, and I took some good resolutions in january, one of which is to send a newsletter monthly as promised. Here is the first one. Current AffairsCurrently I don't have any affairs. Quite boring I know, hardly rock star news material; but here is the stuff: for some inconvenient reasons I did not release any music for years and had to reduce my gig schedule by about 70%. Well, rest assured, times have now changed and I will soon be able to go back to performing and producing music full time! I'll spare you the details but I'm starting to see the light at the end of a long tunnel that lasted 6 years. Happy days! Weather ForecastThis week the weather will be truly awfull, even absolutely abominable in certain areas. Please stay safe at home and listen to my music with a cup of coffee and your pet if you have one, or your favourite mobile phone instead. World News: Streaming WarsWe musicians, can't stand Streaming Platforms. And I can't stand them even more because I'm French! We get paid $0.002 per play so I will let you do the maths and have a laugh, or cry... But people do use them so we have to have a presence on all of those somehow. Therefore, I finally took a month off in order to remove my catalogue from the Internet (Streaming, CDbaby, Soundcloud, revebnation, websites, Spotify, various websites, Youtube, reviews, blogs...) 17 years worth of stuff... It was just like doing archeology digging up bones and trying to make sense of them. I've closed all the multiple accounts I could find for all the bands with different names to re-publish under one name, in one place, with one link for one person: you. (The brown things below are buttons you can click by the way)
Like most I get less that £10 a month from streaming for about 7-10.000 plays. So I have decided from now on to release all my new music exclusively on BANDCAMP.COM (I'll tell you more about the new stuff next month). Bandcamp is a better platform all round, there is no intrusive advertising, no algorythms that only play the chartbusters. Bandcamp is run by human editors, and also hosts all the cool cats and interesting independent artists. They pay them 85% of their sales. Have a look:
Post Scriptum: tomorrow we'll be Friday April the 4th, or the first friday of the month, and it is: BANDCAMP FRIDAYS. Bandcamp have started to waive their commissions on artist sales during the pandemic to support musicians and have kept it going due to it's popularity with the public. That basically means that if you like a certain band and want to support them you can buy something from them tomorrow, pay what you like, and they will get close to 100% of the revenue. Humanitarian isn't it? Culture & Entertainment
From the EditorI hope that you enjoyed reading all this. I had pleasure writing it for once. I'll try to publish monthly so you get a chance to catch the good gigs and new music releases. Please email me if you have any feedback or questions. I will be delighted to reply and maybe publish your reviews if you write one. A bientot. (French: meaning "See you soon") Benoit Viellefon |
 Benoit Viellefon - St Matthews Gardens, St Leonards-on-sea, East Sussex TN38 0TT |