This Should Be Played At High Volume

With SoundCloud making deals with record companies and removing music coupled with the advertisement-driven YouTube confirming a subscription service that will inevitably change the way you and I discover and enjoy our independent music, it’s a perfect time to revisit two of the most important songs a couple of today’s best producers have given the world. Bassnectar and ill.Gates are two heavy-hitters in the game who’s music needs no introduction, however, two of their best works haven’t gotten the recognition of the public they deserve. Outside of rocking some of the world’s biggest parties, these two take time to use their voices to inspire their listeners to do something about the causes most of us sleep on–that our government banks we will stay asleep on–causes that mean something to every person reading this article: Net Neutrality and government take-over/censorship of media.

ill.Gates has been one of my favorite artists since I lived in San Francisco and I saw him play live to a hometown crowd. Not only is he a one man show–he designs his owns graphics, visual displays, produces his own music and is known as a technology guru who teaches online class in music production–he’s an amazing human being who uses his platform in the music community to help others, spread his hard-earned knowledge and perpetuate ideas that are good for humanity. I bought some merchandise from his website a few years back–way before I was a member of the press–and he noticed my address was near his. He sent me an e-mail saying “Hey! I see you’re near my neighborhood! Want to stop by and pick up the merch? It’ll save you shipping costs.” I was welcomed into his house like a friend, got to chat with him for a minute about his music, picked up my merch and even got to pet his cat and meet his girlfriend. That’s what kind of guy ill.Gates is. The BEST kind of guy. He’s the kind of person we hope our favorite artists are outside of the show. When an artist who’s creativity and skill serve only to compliment their beautiful soul make art like this, you must listen. His 2 minute rantapella that explains what Net Neutrality is and the dangers of standing idly by and allowing it to happen should change you. It should inspire you. Watch it. Listen to it.

Battle For The Net is a group for Net Neutrality and against cable companies/corporations attacking the internet (their sole competitor) with plans to charge websites arbitrary fees and to slow to an unusable crawl any sites that won’t pay up. The cause Battle For The Net would like everyone to stand with them is best explained in their words: “Unlike cable channels, Internet sites don’t need to negotiate deals to get on the Internet. That changes if cable companies get their way at the FCC. We need to stand up and defend an Internet that is fair and equal. Cable companies have the money, so they have the power. They’ve been lobbying Congress and the FCC for years, and now they’re calling in their favors. Here’s where our leaders stand. We’re losing, but public pressure works.” Battle For the Net wants you to help in their stand and to demand that the FCC protect the open Internet and restore Net Neutrality right away. Please visit their site and in a few clicks you can take action to Congress and the FCC by letting them hear your voice on the topic. This must be done before midnight on this coming Friday 7/18/14 to have an affect on the outcome. This is a cause that is near and dear to ill.Gates’ heart that he speaks about frequently. Read more about his passion that he would love to become your passion here.

Bassnectar‘s “Inspire The Empathic” is as entertaining as it is informative. Put together in the way DJ’s know how to best communicate ideas to their audience; through clips of the best audio content they can find with repetition given to the most important ideas that must be driven home for the listener. Known for his ability to convey ideas and emotions at an expert level with only melodies and bass–just imagine how well he can communicate a poignant idea given a medium as commonplace to us as language. What he creates is powerful. He humbly explains the problem and negative sequela with media being in the hands of only a few corporations:

“What you don’t want is to have so few owners in a community that they can dominate the dialogue and move it in whatever direction they might want to move it in without having the alternative of having competing ideas to ensure that there are diverse owners of media.”

“The founders of this country figured out there’s only one way to have fairness in media… make it possible for ordinary people to create media. And that means that it isn’t in the hands of a handful of very large corporations.”

Along with the release of such a powerful work of audio art, Bassnectar explained why it was important for him to make such a bold statement to the world:

“Some food for thought (I am just as interested in thoughts as I am in music), this was a collection of thoughts and ideas I compiled along with the input of many friends like Andres Octavio, Scott Smith & Chris Sia. The general motive was to inspire people who feel a sense of empathy (even if your life is wonderful, still feeling a sense of compassion for those who are struggling, and a desire to help) about injustice in the world. Specifically it is about fairness in media, and the importance within a democracy for all citizens to be well informed, and active in the democratic process. The corporate elite control the discourse and public opinion in the USA through carefully crafted campaigns of propaganda, and this was made easier by ‘deregulating media ownership rules’ thus allowing a very few handful of corporations to control the vast majority of our news. The issue is still a hot topic today, as those same corporations constantly attempt to control the internet.”

This 5 minutes of information should change how you want all of your media to be presented to you in the news, TV, radio and on the internet. Bassnectar’s words of wisdom should show you that even something as simple as SoundCloud selling out to big record companies is controlling the kind of information you can even be aware of existing in the world. This is how you end up listening to whatever drek Zedd just crapped out 5 times in 60 minutes instead of being able to discover artists like UMEK, TJR, Hucci and Pleasurekraft even exist. When you’re on a controlled media platform (like SoundCloud is probably going to become) and you think you just “happened to find this amazing artist”–trust me, that was no accident. They’ve spent a lot of time, money and prepared very well for you to have the experience of thinking you “just happened to stumble upon the next best thing” and “this guy just came up overnight.” Those unknowingly guided experiences are perfectly calculated and executed illusions that do not “just happen”. They are perpetrated actions by those profiting from you thinking that thought and sharing it with your friends.

But don’t listen to me… listen to the master of audio art who has an army of fiercely loyal followers that would seemingly die for his message and music to be passed around the world. He can explain it much better than I can:

Again, Battle For the Net wants you to help in their stand and to demand that the FCC protect the open Internet and restore Net Neutrality right away. Please visit their site and in a few clicks you can take action to Congress and the FCC by letting them hear your voice on the topic. This must be done before midnight on this coming Friday 7/18/14 to have an affect on the bill.

Follow me, Sydney @ Your EDM, on SoundCloud for excellent new music you need to be listening to.