We’ve been hearing things.  Things about our name being, well, a bit shitty.  Pun intended.

And these are not just the low rumblings of the insignificant or of jealous competition.  No. Here at Fairtilizer we are proud to say that we’ve been honored with such accolades as…

Being #1 on the Top 10 Worst Web App Names:

“The service is great, but the name attracted a bit of attention, for example Valleywag suggested (rather subtly, given their rep) that Fairtilizer re-brand.”

Getting totally made fun of by @RyOnLife:

Being simultaneously loved and hated by the famous Alex Payne, @al3x:

And actually astonishing The Name Inspector to a point of dismayed interjection:

“Phil Butler over at ReadWriteWeb has written a post about a new online music service called Fairtilizer.  Oh dear. The Name Inspector doesn’t even know where to begin.”

We see these as no small feats, and have thus far been of the mindset that any press, is good press.

—–

So fine, perhaps Fairtilizer has a few too many syllables.

Ok, perhaps it evokes images of cow manure and has to be repeated three or four times whenever explaining it to someone for the first time.

It is possible that we didn’t check Urban Dictionary before stamping Fairtilizer on everything we created.

1. fairt

A fart that makes a noise, but does not smell. Hence, smells like air.
“Man, why’d you have to fart in my car, the windows are up”
“No worries dude, it was only a fairt”

…or Youtube, for that matter.

It could be the case that it’s a bit too easy to mistakenly type “Fartilizer,” and then not be able to work for ten minutes because farts are funny.  Always.

It might even be that at a quick first glance, it looks like our name is actually “Fartilizer”.

laughter…

Ok we’re back.

But it’s not that bad.  Well intentioned, a bit quirky, memorable once you can say and write it properly, but not THAT bad a name.  Right? Guys?

…guys?

Ok. Fine.  Any ideas for a new one?

Wanted: Freelancers (6 to 12 months)

We’re moving fast and have a team of super passionate, smart people who pride themselves on exceptional quality work. Our office environment is creative, collaborative and a lot of fun, so if you’re a soon-to-be music professional with a passion for social media, online marketing and growing an online audience of music users, read on.

Open positions:

UK, Russia, Canada, USA X2, Jamaica, North Brasil, South Brasil, South Korea, China, India, South Africa and West Africa.

Responsibilities will include but are not limited to the following:

• Help with translation in order to launch local version.
• Describe, explain and promote to bands, labels, managements, webzines, blogs, venues, etc… the “Fairtilizer experience” (player, private promo, url based site, statistics…) .
• Reporting and feedbacks from end users: pros & cons.
• Weekly/monthly activity.
• The ability to organize net activities using Fairtilizer tools: contests, private promo, build a radio…
• Interview artists, bands, producers and other tastemakers/trendsetters in your area for our awesome blog.
• Provide a bit of tech support to users in your area.

Required skills:

• Tech friendly (net).
• Scenester with some music biz experience (i.e. label, band, venue, management, webzine, party promoter).
• Still active in her/his scene.
• Blog or website experience required.
• Organization, ability to prioritize and strong reporting are a must. A passion for music and a commitment to delivering value to our users.

Full or part-time positions available.
To apply: send resume to jobs (at) fairtilizer (dot) com

Primary Responsibilities

• Create test case development and execute test cycles to ensure successful releases
• Report open issues and work closely with fellow developers to diagnose and fix bugs
• Collect and analyze feedback, and suggest features that would address customers needs.
• Ensure that customer satisfaction is achieved
• Maintain help section and documentation

Required

• Four-year technical degree or the equivalent in work experience
• 2+ years of experience in test engineering and in high-profile support role
• Thorough understanding of SQA best practices (including test case development, test case execution, bug reports, etc.) and knowledge of software development cycle
• Knowledge in security testing
• excellent customer-service and communication skills
• good team player

Compensation:

Competitive package depending on experience.

This is a fulltime position.
To apply: send resume to jobs (at) fairtilizer (dot) com

Launched late in 2008, Fairtilizer offers an alternative means for artists, labels and media to publish and promote music from one single place, offering public and private URLs for your tracks, playlists, widgets, statistics and more.

Based in Switzerland, Paris and New York, Fairtilizer describes itself as a ‘Do It Yourself Music Club’ and combines the licensing, publishing and selling opportunities of sites like Bandcamp with the easy customisation of access offered by the likes of Soundcloud.

Music discovery and rating options are available for music fans and consumers, and in its relatively short existence, Fairtilizer has managed to drum up a substantial following.

Their embeddable music widget can be used by bands and fans alike across all blogging platforms and social networking sites.

For example, here’s a player created by Sheffield’s Bromheads.

I think the site offers the best combination of attractiveness and functionality I’ve seen for a while, which is why Fairtilizer.com is my Website of the Week.

Tom Robinson presents BBC Introducing
Fresh on the Net on BBC 6 Music on Sunday and Monday nights.

Visit BBC’s Introducing Websites of the Week page

Modern music marketing is about the artist-fan relationship

In the mid 90’s i had been lucky to be involved with some major rap band releases.

As radios were very slow to react, we use to manufacture few hundred thousands of promo CDs, stickers etc for street marketing campaigns. Means that we used to pay almost half a million dollar to be able to give away music, just to get our new band heard by the kids ….

Things done changed, new digital ecosystem is offering services for free that used to be so expensive…

Make sure you are getting the best out of it:

- Get out the traditional album marketing path. Release yourself, Release more music than a traditional label can handle. Remember the mixtape era ?

- Give away music for free, donations, feedbacks, email addresses …Download is the new radio !

- Host your music in one single place and publish it across the internet. Tracking streams and download is the new soundscan.

- Release Objects, Clothes, art, picture discs, books, connected devices, handcraft records… whatever will match your brand and please your fans. CD era might be over but music will never be … digital only …

posted by Olivier Rosset / CEO

Visit Olivier Fairtilizer profile
Visit Olivier Highsnobiety column
Follow Olivier on Twitter

Chief Architect | Fairtilizer.com

Type: Permanent.

Benefits: Flexible hours, Laptop / computer, Equity share.

Fairtilizer is looking to fulfill a key position in its team to build the future of the music industry.

The perfect candidate is a visionnary technologist, is a mentor for the dev team, is passionate about delivering high quality products, and is a music lover.

Should be based in the nice city of Geneva or ready to spend a few months this Winter/Spring (Snowboarding is a plus).

Job desc.
- System administration, architecture and scalability.
- New features suggestion and implementation
- Production issues troubleshooting

Requirements
- BS/BA in Computer Science or equivalent
- 5+ years of software development experience
- Ruby and Rails
- Apache
- mySQL
- nginx
- svn, git, rsync
- Experience with plugging and designing APIs
- Believe testing is part of the development process
- Lazy when appropriate, experience working with free and open source projects
- Good team player

Recruiter Information

Interested? Get in touch with:

Name: Antoine Marguerie
Company: Fairtilizer
Email: jobs(at)fairtilizer(dot)com

We investigated and discovered the way they did it, and we are working on a solution to avoid this kind of bad behaviours. (we would rather spend our time on more useful features for you but …)

The easiest way would probably have been to publicly name the cheaters and to desactivate their accounts, but we thought it would be better to figure out a technical solution to make it harder to reproduce in the future.

So, if you think as we do, the charts are supposed to showcase the activity of a track from across the internet, and feel like Fairtilizer charts aren’t relevant anymore, don’t worry, this is gonna change pretty soon.
The new charts algorithm will be applied retrospectively, so all the charts (today, this week, this month, this year, all time) will be seriously affected, for the good.

We know times are tough in the music industry, but we believe it really detracts you to look like a starving artist or label.

Interview with DJ UMB / Generation Bass:

What are you up to at the moment?
Well I’m just preparing a trip to Morocco to DJ at some private beach for 2-3 nights at the Essaouira Jambash, which takes place alongside the main Festival. There is a whole group of us going from all over the world.
I will also then DJ with a famous Moroccan Artist called U-Cef at one of the world’s most beautiful venues, The Comptoir Darna, which has hosted parties for the likes of J-Lo, P Diddy, Roger Sanchez, Erik Morillo etc etc.. I have played there at least annually for the past 4 years.
I like to go and DJ there when I want to feel luxurious, extravagant & RICH…haaaaa….haaaaa

Can you introduce yourself to our community?
Well, I am DJ UMB. I have been dj’ing since November 2003 for fun mainly.
I started off as a specialist kind of Buddha Bar/Arabic House DJ but I have got into all sorts of different vibes since then. I just change my style to whatever I’m feeling most at the time and that is tickling my fancy.
I am part of a little but influential blog called GENERATION BASS (www.generationbass.com) founded by my partner, Vince The Prince aka Sonido Del Principe.
I have done lots in the past and have had some successful commercial releases as Shisha Sound System too. I am currently doing some dj’ing once in a while at a world famous Club/Bar/Restaurant in London (whose first home was in Paris) but that is more loungey/chill and house type of vibes.
We are hoping to start some Generation Bass parties because my love for music lies in the UNDERGROUND!

How did you get into music, what’s your musical magical background?
Man, I have been in love with music since about the age of 7 years. I dreamed about becoming a musician and was once in a rock band in London but nothing serious, just fun. Studies and University led to another path and career but I keep coming back to music again, again, again and again!
First loves, Elvis, Beatles then Led Zeppelin who led to me to everything from World (in particular Middle Eastern), to Jazz, Funk, Reggae, Classical, etc etc. I have a very open mind and will listen to almost anything provided it sounds great.
For just listening at home or in the car, I will listen to mainly global stuff, some traditional, rock and even Arabic pop some times.
For dj’ing, however, I am currently listening to all things Global Ghettotech!

Influences and family?
Led Zeppelin, Tom Waits, Claude Challe, Oum Kalthoum, Cowboy Junkies, Rush, Gustav Mahler, Neil Young, Jeff Buckley, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Radiohead, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Joao Gilberto, Fela Kuti…etc etc etc
Dj wise…Mad Decent, Zizek, Bersas Discos are hitting all the right notes at the moment & all those involved in the Global Ghettotech scene.
Married, 2 beautiful kids!

How would you define your blog sound?
I would define it as “Global Ghettotech”, to me that is Generation Bass which is a mix of Kuduro, Baile Funk, Nueva Cumbia, Dancehall, Elektro, Hip-Hop, Baltimore Club, Techno-Brega, Dubstep etc….anything with a bass heavy sound or funky traditional vibe.
However, Vince might define it differently…but that’s good because I really don’t like to pigeon-hole music.

Who you see coming on strong in the newcomers, why should we listen to them?
Well, I would like to think the whole Ghettotech scene is ready to explode thanks to artists like MIA, Santogold, Switch, Diplo, Toy Selectah etc etc. So just watch out for any releases on Mad Decent, ZIZEK and Bersas Discos.
Also watch our for Baandish Project, Villa Diamante, Barbarix, Schlachthofbronx, Sonido Del Principe, Sufi Dubstars, Basswreckers, Bassnectar, Celt Islam, Maluca, Modeselektor & Apparat, Ladybox, Blood Shake, Addiquit, Zuzuka Pederosa, Zakee Kuduro, Sticky K, L-Vis 1990, Jaime Fanatic, Peronists, Destroyers, Phil Retrospector, Simon Iddol, Turbo Tim, Major Rye Rye, Lazer, Frikstailers …man, there are so many …sorry if I’ve missed anybody etc.
For me the best DJ in the world at this time is a guy called Mayur from the Bandish Projekt. I’ve heard 1 mix of his and if he never does another mix again, the one I’ve heard is my all-time favourite DJ Mix of all times (as Muhammed Ali would say).

The future Bass Generation?
We don’t know, I suppose we’ll keep blogging until people tell us to stop it! We want to start some Generation Bass parties worldwide eventually I suppose. We have a big party in September in Tilburg, Holland.
http://www.zxzw.nl/2009/

And of the music industry?
It’s very difficult to say but what is quite apparent is that artists are not making money from album sales but mainly from live gigs. I’ve personally noticed a sharp decrease in album sales as I’ve done 10 compilations of various descriptions in the past 2 years covering a range of different genres within Global Music and the labels’ output is drying up because of poor sales.
Hence the massive increase in free promo’s and bloggers.
There has to be a new business industry model in the music world but what that is, I’m not sure. I’m not into music to make money, in fact I’ve done so much free just for the love of it. I can afford to do so as I have another fall-back career. For people trying to make a living on music though, man it’s tough and I don’t know how they survive!

How’s the scene in England (Where you are from exactly), who do you rate?
England has obviously been a beacon for great music throughout the years. There’s a strong indie/rock, R&B and Dubstep scene here. There’s a huge Bhangra scene in Birmingham where I live but that is because there are lots of Asians here, including me J. Reggae & Dub has always been big here.
The only thing recently to have interested me from England is of course Mia, Switch and Dubstep.

It’s less open to global music than other places like France and so it’s always a struggle in England but that might now be changing, I hope.
Obviously, MIA is probably the best thing to come out of England for a very long time.

Places of interests in your city?
The public toilets….haa.haaa.. No, I suppose the fact that we have great Asian food here of the Indian and Pakistani variety, the best in the country I would say. Apart from that it’s a pretty boring city.

As an artist (dj) how do you use & see the web today? Is it important for you?
Yeah very, very important, in fact it’s crucial. I am ultra dependant upon it. I use the web just for music, to find new things, to check up things, to do business music-wise.
I cannot remember the last time I walked into a record store, which is a great shame. When I was a kid I would save up all my school dinner money and starve so that I could head to the local record store on a Friday to buy some vinyl. In fact I use to prefer spending my money on music rather than taking a girl out…TRUE!

Do you live entirely for your music today?
Of course not, family comes first, so I always say but ask my family and they will tell you music comes first…haa.haa.
So yes, I could not imagine life without music, it is my best friend, my most trusted companion and my medication to keep me sane in this mad world.

shorties:

Best thing that happened to you recently?
Watching Global Ghettotech growing and growing…..and joining Vince @ GENERATION BASS!

Where is, for you, the best venue/place to play live, if one (panorama, sent, sound, lights, crew, friendly promoter, unlimited drink tickets…)?
I would love to play in a desert…that has not happened yet.

A movie you would like to watch now, right now?
City Of God or something dumb & funny…

Best place to live if you had unlimited budget?
Morocco

Last album you enjoyed listening?
Baandish Project, MGMT, Justice, Celt Islam ….I’m sure there are more but I just cannot remember just now.

Best TV shows (current and ever)?

Fawlty Towers.
Laurel & Hardy
Apprentice
Newsnight.

Last musical genre obsession you digged frenetically?
Global Ghetottech.

What was the last (physical) book you read and when was that?
I’m not much of a reader, I should read more.
I feel however that there are those that read books or write them and then there are those who live them. I feel my life is a book that I live, I might be the only one ever to read it but that’s how I feel.
But the last book I read from cover to cover was The Prophet by Khalil Gibran about 15 years ago!

How do you know what time it is?
Mainly, instinct. I have some great watches but I never wear them.

Fave night drink and morning beverage?
A cup of English Tea!

How do you like to dress, how do you define your look?
I’m a simple jeans & T-shirt and trainers kind of man.

Smoking or non-smoking clubs?
Smoking Shisha clubs

Your joke of the moment?
I am a DJ and I am funky!

Generationbass website
Dj Umb Myspace
Dj Umb Fairtilizer profile

Tracklisting:

GENERATION BASS – FAIRTILIZER EXCLUSIVE – GLOBAL GHETTOTECH VOL FREE III

1. Ruthless – DJ Cleo
2. Gone Too Far Feat. Sizzla (Buraka Som Sistema Remix) – Dre Skull
3. Yah! – Buraka Som Sistema
4. Zirkus – Schlachthofbronx
5. El Tigeraso – Maluca
6. Get With This (Get Busy) – Dj LoKey
7. Get Up (Diplo Remix) – Bingo Players
8. Solid G – Ruff N Funct
9. African Chant – Top Billin’
10. Soundbwoy Don’t Like It (Vince The Prince Remix) – Tupolev Sound Crash
11. Art of Revolution (Ghislian Poirier Remix) – Bassnectar
12. Sah Raoui _ Fnaire
13. Hold The Line (Ghislain Poirier Remix) – Major Lazer
14. Com Respeito – Buraka Som Sistema
15. Favela Bounce – Sabbo Feat. MC Thiaguinho
16. Eurovision – Zombie Disco Squad
17. Suckaz They Dont Know – Jaimie Fanatic
18. Bandari Funk – Sticky K
19. Warp 1.9 (G-Tronic BadAss Rmx) Feat. Steve Aoki – The Bloody Beetrots

MIXED BY DJ UMB
MASTERED BY timxavier@manmademastering.com

Fool’s Gold pt.1: Nick Catchdubs
Check out tracks from the Fool’s Gold catalogue and read the interview with the one and only Nick Catchdubs.

Fool’s Gold pt.2: A-Trak
A couple of A-trak joints, a few gems from Fool’s Gold, and yes, an interview!

Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Preview the new album.

Claude Von Stroke
Minimix courtesy of Fabric.

In the charts this week

World
Secret Agent by Tony Allen
A funky gem courtesy of World Circuit.

Remix
Little Secrets (Sox remix) by Passion Pit
Nice little remix that confirms one thing: Sox is on the rise.

DJ Mix
Exclusive Fairtilizer Mix by Lazy Flow
Self-explanatory!

Download of the week

I Got What You Need May Mix by Don Rimini
The Don is back and he’s hitting harder than ever.

Contests

The Von Bondies Cover Contest
Cover any Von Bondies song and get the chance to win a Gibson guitar, vinyls, and tshirts. Deadline to submit your cover: June 3rd.

Micachu Remix Contest
Remix the track “Lips” and get the chance to have your track on French magazine Tsugi’s next sampler CD. Deadline to submit the remix: MAY 26th.

Birdy Nam Nam Remix Contest
Winners announced soon!

Popular Computer Remix Contest
Winners announced soon!

Exsonvaldes Lali Remix Contest
Winners announced soon!

Fredo Viola Red States Remix Contest
Winners announced soon!

What’s next

Playlists and mixes by Toy Selectah, Drums Of Death, The Rza, Mr. Lif, Black Lips, Tiga, Nick Catchdubs, Kashmir, Numerogroup, Play Paul and more.