27 October 2008

Bumblebeez lose their gear - does anyone care?

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times informs us that Chris Colonna of The Bumblebeez fame has had his Braidwood studio turned over including the computers with all the songs on them for his next album.

Bad enough for any artist, but in the electronic realm much of the work is the painstaking arrangement of effects in editing. You can’t steal a folk artist’s work but you very much can this stuff.

On the other hand it’s not like a thief can sell un-released Bumblebeez tracks for much so he’s hoping to get at least the hard drive returned.

Apparently this co-incides with their first Canberra performance since they controversially won the last proper TripleJ unearthed comp to be held in Canberra in long ago 2002.

Stonefest this weekend has been judged sufficiently grand for the band to make an appearance.

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Plenty of venues really…..

http://littlesmoke.com/newjb/?p=142

Although the imminent closure of the Green Room leaves a fair hole.

The only fair way to settle this is to give all of the 2002 ACT finalists the same Geffen contract, free promotion, opportunities and support that the beez have had and see where they are in six years time.

Front, Phoenix, Transit, Basement, Pot Belly.

All venues featuring original music off the top of my head.

There’s no real shortage of them.

Man, I can’t believe some of the comments on this page. Talk about sour grapes!

Chris Colonna DOES have a growing reputation as a producer and the Bumblebeez are still getting airplay six years after being unearthed – they haven’t disappeared as 90 per cent of Unearthed entrants do. In fact, they were nominated for a J award last year. So much for having squandered a chance!

The Bumblebeez don’t owe you (or Canberra generally) anything. So what if they don’t gig – 90 per cent of electronic music producers don’t, and you know how hard it is for originals bands to get gigs in the ACT. If you owned one of the 1.5 venues left in Canberra that actually feature live music, who would do you think would make more money at the door – some generic bogan covers band or a quirky electronica outfit from Braidwood?

niftydog said :

They squandered a great opportunity and some of the entrants of 2002 Unearthed have not forgiven them.

No disrespect to anyone this applies to, but things have moved on since 2002 and the entrants of 2002 Unearthed should do likewise. The new “Unearthed” format makes it easier to get attention and you guys should be taking advantage of that.

Loose Brown said :

And BTW – the criteria for an unearthed win is how good you are…

Hey, you’re right! Add “quality of compositions” to the list of grievances, justbands!

johnnytheknife5:24 pm 27 Oct 08

johnnytheknife said :

1. Adequatly INSURE (damn spelling) your equipment against theft. At least if the worst happens, you will be able to replace the equipment

johnnytheknife5:23 pm 27 Oct 08

More for the sake of general interest than anything else, there are a nuber of things you can do to protect yourself against data and financial loss in this type of situation:

1. Adequatly ensure your equipment against theft. At least if the worst happens, you will be able to replace the equipment

2. Ensure your facility is physically secure.

3. As others have said, have an off-site backup. Note, this backup needs to be handled in a secure manner, eg, not left in locked cars while you duck into the shops to grab a couple of burgers for the kids.

4. If your data is really sensitive, encrypt it. There are hard drives and controllers out there with encryption modules built in. I have seen and used devices called Silicon Data Vaults which are really good (http://www.securesystems.com.au/pages/02_technology/01.htm)

5. Make sure you dispose of your equipment in a secure way (electronically shred / destroy old hard drives and other media etc)

All of the above cost money, but you need to determine what your data is worth, then make a call about protecting it.

More like they suited the withered dead hand of Richard Kingsmill.

… ouch.

Having listened to over 100 final entries in the competition I can tell you the Bumblebeez song won based on the opening hook.

If it had been an opening hook competition I’d have had no questions about giving them the win.

More like they suited the withered dead hand of Richard Kingsmill.

Loose Brown said :

Awesome track and video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=novN-7Qzt_o

And BTW – the criteria for an unearthed win is how good you are – not how many times you have bumped in and out of venues around Canberra.

The video looked alright, but now I have to keep my fingers in my ears until they stop bleeding.

Loose Brown said :

(sarcasm!!)

Lowest form of humor isn’t it?

Awesome track and video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=novN-7Qzt_o

And BTW – the criteria for an unearthed win is how good you are – not how many times you have bumped in and out of venues around Canberra.

Hmm – no you are all right – after hearing about the merits of the off-site data backup process and the mean spirited way that the band achieved success without gigging in Canberra and then deliberately squandered it has led me to change my opinion.

They obviously fully deserve to have had their stuff nicked. Maybe they should all be shot at dawn also!

(sarcasm!!)

> Out of interest, what was controversial about their Unearthed win?

the fact they suck and have done nothing in (or for) Canberra had something to do with it..

Tylersmayhem, agreed. Offsite doesn’t necessarily mean “uploaded” JB, what’s wrong with dropping a removeable drive at your mate’s place once a week?

johnboy said :

working audio files are REALLY big.

I’m not sure offsite would be a great option on Braidwood’s internet.

That’s why you schedule it for a differential backup O’Night, or when ever musio’s sleep.
Yeah, it sucks, but I also have a friend who does nothing but reminding people about their backups, so to hear a story about someone losing all their data simply re-enforces what others have already said. That said I hope they do get their music back (A thief with a heart maybe?).

tylersmayhem3:21 pm 27 Oct 08

I’m not sure offsite would be a great option on Braidwood’s internet.

You can buy a whopping 1 Terabyte external drive for about $150 these days. Really not a decent excuse. I store all documents and photo’s (I’ve got heaps) both on my home PC, and a copy in a locked drawer at work. To think that a bands livelihood and future income was not backed up is astounding.

working audio files are REALLY big.

I’m not sure offsite would be a great option on Braidwood’s internet.

Loose Brown said :

Be nice everyone – they could have had their stuff backed up on 100 hard drives at their studio. The issue is some b@stard has broken in and flogged the lot.

That’s why you do off-site backup. They could have arranged something over the web which is secure and would keep everything off site. So when all 100 of their HDD’s are stolen it won’t matter as the important stuff can be restored.

How many JJJ unearthed acts are still kicking on six years down the track? Not too many I daresay.

Good on the Bumblebeez for making it this far. They have certainly made more of a name for themselves than Canberra’s previous winners did (Soulcrusher and Liquid).

Not that I’m putting Soulcrusher and Liquid down in anyway – I liked both of those bands – but they never went on to the dizzying heights of Killing Heidi or Grinspoon. Or get signed by Geffen.

> Out of interest, what was controversial about their Unearthed win?

A lot of Canberra bands were peeved that an electronic, essentially non-gigging, not part of the scene artist won. Some people saw it as a bit of a kick in the teeth to Canberra music by Triple J…a joke even. Triple J support for them since has shown it was no joke, although there’s still a lot of lingering resentment to the ‘Beez over the win…not helped by having them never play here since.

Vic Bitterman1:44 pm 27 Oct 08

All the more reason folks to have offsite backups.

For example, your precious family photos of the kids and what-not. Copy them to DVD, and then take copies of them and lock them up at your workplace. Should your house be robbed or burnt to the ground, your family memories should be safe at the other site.

Out of interest, what was controversial about their Unearthed win?

That sure sucks, and I would be devastated if someone stole my gear, but I’m finding it pretty hard to be sympathetic. (Did Steve Russell get an interview in the paper!?)

They managed to get dropped by Geffen (this is the same company that had patience enough for Nirvana!) They have yet to play a gig here in Canberra since winning Unearthed and it’s taken them 5 years to put out a debut album.

They squandered a great opportunity and some of the entrants of 2002 Unearthed have not forgiven them.

ONE OF the region’s most celebrated young musicians…

Mrs Krabapple: “Ha!”

Be nice everyone – they could have had their stuff backed up on 100 hard drives at their studio. The issue is some b@stard has broken in and flogged the lot.

Pretty poor form if you ask me. Coming home to find your stuff gone (and in this case reportedly up to 1/2 a mill’s worth) takes a long time to get over.

Does this mean that the Bumblebeez will play a folk gig at UC?

That sucks, but the sysadmin’s mantra bears repeating:

Data that isn’t backed up is data that you don’t care about losing.

The words and the tune are in their heads and can, pretty much, be re-produced with any instrument.

But six months of loop fiddling only exists in the recording.

“You can’t steal a folk artist’s work but you very much can this stuff.”

Er, beg pardon?!

tylersmayhem10:38 am 27 Oct 08

No disk backup of their valuable recorded tracks? Good grief!

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