Cutting out the middleman (or you without queue)

Now I liked all of the bands for different reasons. The Courteeners sound spookily like The Smith. So I pre-ordered their debut single from here and was amused that I then had to send an e-mail to their manager stating which format I required. Nice. A personal touch.

It got even better. I ordered the debut single from Q Without U here (who seem to have quite a back catalogue of music already, just see their official site) and a few minutes later I got an e-mail from one of the band, thanking me for the order. We had a chat about music on e-mail, including the Super Furry Animals as Q/U (mathematical notation there) have been compared to them (see NME blog). And as we spoke, Tam from the band was stamping and posting my record.

No middleman. No major label. No worries. We need to support these smaller bands by buying their music and turning up to gigs. Not just by listening to MySpace. But by having some free stuff on MySpace or whatever, means that a fanbase can be built up beforehand. So it is the old "give and take". And in some cases, it works quite well.

The Invisibles have no record out as far as I know. So they remain invisible for now. Except their MySpace page of course.

The Invisibles and Q Without U are from Glasgow. What a great place for music at the moment.