In this mad world, we see many changes. But in the last 100 years the music industry hasn’t changed madly. We see the invention of the radio, which meant people, could sit at home, and listen to the opera or “pop” music, without leaving the comfort of their wing chairs. As we moved into the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s things only changed slightly as the television meant not only could you hear the music but you could see the artist make a hames of it on stage!

We moved into the new century/millennium, and the only thing that changed is how the music got distributed, but nothing changed, we stilled went down to the local music shop, and purchased the music with this strange thing called cash! It was pas over the counter in exchange, for a 33/45, cassette, or compact disc (yea, I called it that!). Then we saw that you could backup your favourite album onto your computer, in this strange format called “MP3”. And we soon found that we could swap these MP3’s online in Napster. So that brought a new way to appreciate music. You could go online and look for music and listen to music that you liked!

So what does this have to do with why I’m here today? Well I’m here to talk about some of the new cyber-pioneers! Macrogrizzly. Who are these mad bunch of lads? Well Mostly plucked from the soil of the tri-county area of Carlow/Kilkenny/Laois. They found themselves in a dilemma. They wanted to start a band, but their drummer had up and left for Australia, and one of the other band members didn’t have a car to come and go. Oh no! How to have a band without all the members being available? Well, the main man Cormac Strain, not to let miles gets him down; he started a band, which each individual member could actually act like a sub-band. Confused? I am! Let’s explain it differently, Cormac can’t sleep, he has a song idea. He goes out to his secret “shed” and writes it down, plays it and does a rough recording. He emails this idea to Steve Ryan. Steve wakes up the next morning, checks his emails. See’s that Cormac had an idea the previous night, Loves the lyrics, likes where the tune is going but thinks it would sound awesome if he did it acoustically, instead of them bickering and fighting over which one is better, they record both! And in some cases they record it up to 8 times, the same song, but in different variants for different scenes. Like most bands they do have a single that they push. Macrogrizzly are no different. They have had their single played on Beat FM, amongst others.

I hear you say, that’s different, but not pioneering. Well they so far in 6 months of existing , they have had several gigs, with not one physical person at them, other than a support band, Dj Killbot(me), Cormacs wife, and 2 thirds of the band YouNameUs. That’s Disheartening? Well that’s because it has been in a Secret Location. What’s the point then? Well anyone, anywhere in the world, with a half decent internet connection, can access their monthly web gigs, Free Of Charge. So where do they make money? Well you then go and tell them how much you think their singles are worth. You can then get access to the “online shed”.

This has worked well so far. If you want check out their website here i think they would appreciate it. You can also find when their next webgig is, please check em’ out here.