Easily the best thing about running a small indie record label is getting to hear demos from fresh new artists. There’s nothing better than receiving a new demo when I pop down to collect the mail from the post office box, because it’s always a chance to be one of the first people to discover an artist who’s going to be huge one day, to experience something you wouldn’t ordinarily listen to, to catch up with a good friend you haven’t heard from in a while, or sometimes, all of the above.

So big shout-out to Ted Jedlicki, hailing from the usually frozen wastes of Minnesota, who did an internship at Littoral Records back when we released James Cooper’s first album, and who’s sent me a demo from his band, Dynamite Flight.

The demo’s title is the best album title I’ve heard so far in 2008, a little wordy but fantastic:
“WE’RE GONNA ROCK YOUR SOCKS OFF AND MAKE YOU WALK HOME BAREFOOT” which might be something everybody says in Minneapolis, but I’d never heard it before. With energy and enthusiasm like that, how can Dynamite Flight fail to succeed?

Learn more about Ted, Dynamite Flight, and listen to some of their stuff at http://www.myspace.com/dynamiteflight

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the music industry is changing so that recorded music is more about promoting your live performances and less about selling songs. That said, there’s still a little money to be made from selling songs. We’re at a key milestone in Australia: the ARIA industry association has recognised its first #1 single without a physical product (no CD, no record, no tape, no DVD.) Rihanna’s ‘Don’t stop the music’ was the third single her label has released in Australia and the first to make the #1 spot in the charts. Crucially, it was released in download format only - no CD single was pressed. That’s the future you’re listening to. …yes, there’s some irony in this story photo being from a printed newspaper, but they still have a few decades of useful life, unlike CDs!