I was honoured to attend the official launch of the Hillsborough Tribute record "Fields of Anfield Road" yesterday at The Picket.

The CD is on sale from April 6th and remembers those who died at Hillsborough 20 years ago this year.

It was good to see Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez take time out of his schedule to appear at the event.

Former Reds captain Phil Thompson gave an impassioned speech to a venue decked with Liverpool banners remembering the 96.

The premiere of the song and DVD were shown and it really is fantastic.

It features Kenny Dalglish amongst many great ex Reds singing along to the chorus, but the lead vocals are taken by John Power.

It has to be said that John is superb. I love his voice anyhow. It has that Lennon rasp to it. His delivery of this song was simply perfect.

Congratulations to all involved for a wonderful product.

It’s up to us all now to buy it and put the 96 back in the forefront of everybody’s minds nationwide.

Nothing would please me more than this track getting to number 1 in the charts, and we can make it happen by buying it the moment it is released.

Our friends still haven’t had justice. We have not forgotten. We never will.

My album is due out in August.

Would you like your face pic to be on the album sleeve?

Well you can!!

Just reply to the thread in my brand new Parryfans community for my friends, fans and supporters.

Here’s the link

Within the last couple of months I’ve become a daily Twitter user.

I must admit I like it. I pick up some useful articles and blogs from the links people post, and I’ve even started chatting to a few interesting people in my twitterverse.

Oh, twitterverse? Well it’s like Universe but limited to Twitter. People on twitter start talking like that. Things tend to start with tw a lot too.

A festival of twitter users becomes a twestival. People on twitter become tweeple.

We can only hope that cats never start using it!

But that’s another story….

If you’re twaddicted to your twitterverse then enjoy a bit of self parody with this fab movie animation.

And if you think everyone in twitter is a stupid big nerdy moron (like me!) then watch it as you point and laugh.

The irony is – I found this on Twitter!!

Seth Godin spoke to musicmarketing.com of how he gave away his book free on the internet as an ebook for people to download.

He pointed out how this helped sell his REAL book, because people would want the real thing so they’d buy it.

The problem with Seth’s analogy is that there is no "better" version when it comes to music.

Once you have the music you have the music. End of.

But once you have an ebook, there is a better, more convenient, easier to read option out there that is worth paying for to have.

Seth’s ebooks are not giving away stuff for free, but is more an extreme example of freemium – where you give away stuff for free, but you have a better "premium" version of it that people pay for it.

I say extreme because the idea of sitting in front of a screen for 197 pages is horrific to me, when I could just buy the book for only £6.

So most who want to read it will probably just buy the thing.

Most freemium businesses aren’t like that. Most offer a service that is great to use for free, but a few per cent will convert to the premium features and that’s how they are able to make a living.

The analogy between authors and musicians is often made, but I think it’s a poor one for the reasons I gave.

I chatted to Seth last night on twitter briefly and he accepted there was a difference in this regard.

So is there a better analogy?

As you know, I believe free is a good idea – but how do us musicians scrape a living if everything we do is free.

Google is ridiculously useful and it’s free. It is able to make its money through a "side door". In Google’s case, that side door is advertising.

But for musicians, where is our "side door" once we decide that we are enthusiastic about giving away our digital stuff to fans for free as I do.

I reckon that ebook analogies aren’t where it’s at.

A better analogy is free software.

I don’t use Windows anymore. I don’t believe many of us actually need to. Most of what I do is online, and the rest used Microsoft Office.

Openoffice offers a perfectly good alternative to MS Office, and online is available anywhere.

So i use Ubuntu Linux, the free operating system. The only difference I’ve noticed is that it works better and I’m not inundated with constant malware attacks. Bliss!

When I get a free computer program, just like when I download a free mp3, I have the final product. There is no "physical book" equivalent to jump to.

For musicians who accept that free is fine, analysing the free software sector may be a better way to examine how we can give stuff away for free yet still survive.

I’ll shut up now, but I’ll come back to this in another post.

Muso’s and music lovers – I welcome your thoughts.

Ideas guy Seth Godin has given his thoughts on the music industry in a devastatingly good interview on musicmarketing.com

It’s a real tonic for those of us who see music differently from the major labels, and who don’t feel threatened by the download-it world.

Seth talks about how he sees traditional PR as spam. It tries to force your music into everyone’s attention, even those who will never be interested.

Instead, he says musicians should be drilling down to their niche, attempting to lead their "tribe".

That way, you target people likely to be interested. You seek permission rather than spamming.

It’s no longer a case of "how can I get the whole world to hear me?"

Instead it’s "how do I get MY group/tribe to hear me?"

Drill down to your micro niche he says, and serve it.

It certainly sounds like it offers us a more varied and vibrant music scene than having one mass market.

People are interested, he says, in what everyone else is listening to. But back then there was simply one big "everyone else" – the mass market.

Now there’s a million "everyone elses" so people are now interested in what their own "everyone else" is listening to.

Punk fans want to know what punk fans are listening to. Motown afficionados want to hear what that group are into. It’s a world of niches and Seth celebrates it.

Interestingly, as an author, he says he no longer tries to find new fans.

He argues that the cost of finding new fans is much higher than just pleasing the ones you already have.

Don’t try to find fans for your music, he argues. Just make music for your fans. Let your fans pass on the message if you’re good enough.

For those of us who seek to make authentic, honest music without being too focused on the tides of commercialism, Seth’s ideas are a welcome boost.

They also treat the music fan with the respect we deserve, instead of being chased by lawyers and corporations.

Listen in at http://www.musicmarketing.com/2009/03/seth-godin.html