Techcrunch reports that “360″ Music Deals Become Mandatory As Labels Prepare For Free Music - as announced by Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music. Fair enough I say, for those that want to get into bed with the majors. Its a simple deal: they invest in you, they own your IP, and they get a return on everything. This makes perfect business sense to me, if you want to submit yourself to that ham-fisted machine and accept the consequences. Thankfully there's an alternative 360 approach that a lot of artists are (perhaps unwittingly) pursuing, as characterised by the luminous Andrew Ferris of Smalltown America, who stood head and shoulders above many of the panelists at Thursday's NIMIC 'The Way Forward' conference. Andrew described how STA have been an unashamedly 360-degree operation since day one, except they aren't a record label collecting copyrights, but a creative services agency that offers a range of skillsets and services. If they really believe in your music, they'll invest, but if you just need to access some expertise in distribution, touring or merchandise, they can help you out for a fair price. Similarly, Nick Fitzsimons' Penny Distribution service is designed to demystify licensing and publishing for acts, whilst offering access to targeted online marketing and internet radio contacts that would otherwise take considerable effort to reach. Both of these music businesses are based in Northern Ireland :-) Many artists I come into contact with 'don't know where to start' - and I guess that is a fair point, it can be overwhelming but the information is out there. Blogs like New Music Strategies and Hypebot offer ongoing commentary and analysis of the many new tools and ideologies that have developed in music recently, particularly the convergence of music, marketing, social media, attention and commerce. There are no solid answers, but that's half the fun. One thing is certain: musicians can no longer afford to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to 'business', they will simply be left behind. These services complement the many areas that artists can manage directly, such as digital distribution, building fan mailing lists and social interaction, forming part of an inspired new music ecosystem that is fair and respects all the skills needed in a successful music enterprise.

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having seen Simon Rimmer make a baked aubergine 'omelette' a few weeks ago, and tasted the one my mum made i decided to give it a bash and a twist... beware - this is garlic-tastic!! slice an aubergine lengthways and fry it (in batches) till golden slice a red pepper, toss in oil and bung in the oven for 10 mins or so meanwhile, grind a teaspoon of cumin seeds and stir into to 4 beaten eggs then blend 3 or 4 decent garlic cloves and a good handful of breadcrumbs (1 slice) add 4 good tablespoons of Crème fraîche to the garlic and stir combine the garlic mixture with the eggs and season take the pepper slices out of the oven (peeling the skin if you've sliced the pepper lengthways) to assemble, lightly oil a baking dish and add a layer of aubergine pour over about half the egg/garlic mixture slice some mozarella and scatter over the top add the rest of your aubergine and then the rest of the egg/garlic finally scatter the pepper slices over the top finish with some torn basil leaves and a grating of parmesan bake at 200 for about 12 mins or until really golden serve hot, or from the fridge essentially this is one of those dishes that you can add what you want and it will always taste good!

try as i might, i never seem to be able to fully deplete the supply of carrots that gets topped up each week by the vege man, so before they all went bendy and wizened i did a quick carrot soup search to see if anything interesting popped up. low and behold the BBC Good Food site popped up, (between the site and the excellent mag, GF is getting a lot of use in this household), with a great recipe for Honeyed carrot soup - its very easy and damn tasty, tho next time i'll halve the honey to reduce sweetness slightly. the family has just spent the weekend moving my Nana's furniture and wotnot to her new house and alongside my mum's corn beef and pickle sarnies, the soup went down a treat with the troops!