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About this Djouls.com blog
By Djouls :: 2005 :: About Djouls :: #479 :: rss
I run a record label and I also do websites (besides journalism, internet consulting, graphism, A&R, booking agent and many more).
I've started this TIMEC/Djouls record label/website thing way back in 1996, and from the beginning i've followed some Coldcut's principles : "Don't use the media, be a media" and "Write your own history books".
I've started in 1996 by writing complete discographies with reviews for Ninja Tune, Mo' Wax, Warp, Phish and Medeski, Martin & Wood, which seemed to me at the time the most important things that were happening in music (and I was fu**ing right). Those were my first online history books, and I meet people these days that praise and thank me for letting them discover those artists between 1996 and 1998!! So those history books are useful in the end... cool.
Those history books have expanded in 10 years, I have so many on my website now. Which brings us to the "be a media" part... My website djouls.com is a media for my label TIMEC, you can find in there info about TIMEC, info about the cool music you can find and download on the web, info about the record that are NOT released in france or badly promoted or badly distributed, those history books, etc.
In 1999 I already had 30.000 visitors each month. I never did any kind of promotion at all. I have today 60.000 visitors each month and have become a reference guide in France, with people calling me "a living encyclopedia of modern music" (as introduced to James Brown) or "the greatest crate-digger i've ever met" (Dj Oof).
I just feel like an A&R/Record Label doing his job, listening to music, producing music, promoting music, and sharing music and tastes in music. Which is the job everyone who loves music should do. (you need to be highly dedicated to music though). I now try to find the time to talk about at least 4 labels and 150 record reviews a year (two "best-of" every 6 months... 2005 -part 1- being the most recent).
So this Djouls.com blog is my book of history books, its existence being a statement of my love for all labels and artists featured and their essentiality in today's different music scenes. It also has less philosophical purposes, like helping me get in touch with artists after reviewing a lot of their releases, promoting the swapping of remixing skills we've put in place with Jon Kennedy, Flevans, Mawglee, Treva Whateva and hopefully more others coming soon. [Another example is djouls.com/deodato. Eumir Deodato found this page where we reviewed all his albums from the 60's up til now. He wrote to us to congrats. We got in touch, started talking and now a collaboration project between him and TIMEC (my label) could be in the works...]
The idea is to respect the artists, show them you understand what their art is about, then contact them. And I'm not contacting them as a plain journalist, but as a record label with its history books. They all understand very fast.
If I don't write my own history book, no one else will. In France, nearly no one talks about the artists and labels I've chosen to talk about. Their distributors treat them like shit, they don't develop web communities and stuff for them, they don't sell ringtones for them, they don't promote and they don't seem to pay very well.
So no one writes about those artists and labels in France. The french Wikipedia doesn't have much info about them.
What will still be here in 10 years? What has sold, and what's been written about.
Most of those artists and labels aren't selling much and aren't written about much in France.
But most of them are ESSENTIAL to today's global music scene.
Tru Thoughts, for example, is a beacon of light in the post-breakbeat /new-funk /roots /worldwide scene; It's influence on many artists and labels can be compared to Ninja Tune and Mo' Wax (10 years ago).
And in 10 years, my sons & daughters & nieces and nephews will be able to read my history books, and the only way to preserve and diffuse information about essential music from today for them in 10 years is in writing about it. In english, other people can and are doing it, but in french, there's a void that TIMEC feels it can fill.
Oh! Something I forgot.
There's three classes in music :
The lower class, unsigned artists, newly formed band, beginners, amateurs, etc.
The middle class: us indie labels and artists that have been doing it for 10 years.
The upper class: Fu**ing music that is over-promoted, and not everything is there can be called "music" (pop idol is in the upper class, for example)
This middle class is now the biggest part of music that is produced. kinda like an iceberg form the consumer's point of view.
The upper class is in competition mode, where artists "fight" to get to number one, to fill stadiums, etc.
The lower class is in "let's help each other" mode, of course.
Now the middle class has to understand that it needs to quit the competition, that it's artists and labels can only survive in helping each other. It's all about artists working together and not against one another.
That's why I do websites about other artists and labels that count IMHO, because we need to work together as a whole, to help each other, to collaborate...
Music in its essence is something that is good for humanity.
Music from the upper class isn't interested in that because there's no cash or glory in the good for humanity.
Music from the middle class is here for that: Real ARTISTS that do ART even if it's not paying the rent because they are ARTISTS when they wake up every day, anyway.
Djouls
http://www.djouls.com
The rough guide to music you don't hear on the radio
http://www.timec.net
The Incredible Melting Entertainment Compagnons - Music / Web / Production / Publishing
So this Djouls.com blog is my book of history books, its existence being a statement of my love for all labels and artists featured and their essentiality in today's different music scenes. It also has less philosophical purposes, like helping me get in touch with artists after reviewing a lot of their releases, promoting the swapping of remixing skills we've put in place with Jon Kennedy, Flevans, Mawglee, Treva Whateva and hopefully more others coming soon. [Another example is djouls.com/deodato. Eumir Deodato found this page where we reviewed all his albums from the 60's up til now. He wrote to us to congrats. We got in touch, started talking and now a collaboration project between him and TIMEC (my label) could be in the works...]
The idea is to respect the artists, show them you understand what their art is about, then contact them. And I'm not contacting them as a plain journalist, but as a record label with its history books. They all understand very fast.
If I don't write my own history book, no one else will. In France, nearly no one talks about the artists and labels I've chosen to talk about. Their distributors treat them like shit, they don't develop web communities and stuff for them, they don't sell ringtones for them, they don't promote and they don't seem to pay very well.
So no one writes about those artists and labels in France. The french Wikipedia doesn't have much info about them.
What will still be here in 10 years? What has sold, and what's been written about.
Most of those artists and labels aren't selling much and aren't written about much in France.
But most of them are ESSENTIAL to today's global music scene.
Tru Thoughts, for example, is a beacon of light in the post-breakbeat /new-funk /roots /worldwide scene; It's influence on many artists and labels can be compared to Ninja Tune and Mo' Wax (10 years ago).
And in 10 years, my sons & daughters & nieces and nephews will be able to read my history books, and the only way to preserve and diffuse information about essential music from today for them in 10 years is in writing about it. In english, other people can and are doing it, but in french, there's a void that TIMEC feels it can fill.
Oh! Something I forgot.
There's three classes in music :
The lower class, unsigned artists, newly formed band, beginners, amateurs, etc.
The middle class: us indie labels and artists that have been doing it for 10 years.
The upper class: Fu**ing music that is over-promoted, and not everything is there can be called "music" (pop idol is in the upper class, for example)
This middle class is now the biggest part of music that is produced. kinda like an iceberg form the consumer's point of view.
The upper class is in competition mode, where artists "fight" to get to number one, to fill stadiums, etc.
The lower class is in "let's help each other" mode, of course.
Now the middle class has to understand that it needs to quit the competition, that it's artists and labels can only survive in helping each other. It's all about artists working together and not against one another.
That's why I do websites about other artists and labels that count IMHO, because we need to work together as a whole, to help each other, to collaborate...
Music in its essence is something that is good for humanity.
Music from the upper class isn't interested in that because there's no cash or glory in the good for humanity.
Music from the middle class is here for that: Real ARTISTS that do ART even if it's not paying the rent because they are ARTISTS when they wake up every day, anyway.
Djouls
http://www.djouls.com
The rough guide to music you don't hear on the radio
http://www.timec.net
The Incredible Melting Entertainment Compagnons - Music / Web / Production / Publishing
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