If you are as big of a fan of Einstürzende Neubauten as Sandra and I are, you should definitely check out their new website. Neubauten is working on the release of an exclusive album for their paying supporters by their 23rd anniversary, April 1, 2003, without the involvement of a record company.
The site has a recorded message with scrolling text from Blixa Bargeld that explains what they are doing and why. In the message, Blixa claims they did not receive any royalty payments for the albums they recorded with Some Bizarre. He says, “We urge you in case you find any of these records in a shop: please don’t buy them. Steal them.” Amusingly, the “steal them” part is only in the recording, not the scrolling text. The story Blixa Bargeld tells is very interesting in light of recent investigations(1, 2, 3) into how record companies have ripped off artists via fraudulent accounting.
A one-time fee of US$35 gets you access to lots of stuff on their website — photos, live video footage from recording sessions, archived recording sessions, discussion forums, etc. You can even directly send the band comments during the recording sessions. They have a lot of previously unavailable tracks on the site priced at roughly 25 cents per minute.
