James Blake vows to avoid “the monopolies” for touring: “I’m not having my fans ripped off by people who don’t care the way we do about live music”

nme.com:

James Blake has vowed to avoid the “monopolies” that come with touring and ticket sales for artists, outlining a proposed new approach for his fans going forward.The electronic producer and musician voiced his views around the numerous issues that prevent tickets from getting into the hands of fans – including mailing lists controlled by external companies, hidden fees and social media algorithms.In a lengthy post shared to Instagram, the artist wrote that this was something “me and other artists have been noticing for a long time, not just today”.The ‘Retrograde’ singer expressed frustrations over external companies owning mailing lists who “won’t let us use them to reach our fans”, and said he was “not having my fans and myself ripped off by people who don’t care the way do about live music”.He encouraged fans to sign up for free at the Vault platform link in his bio – which invites fans to “join the inner circle” – adding that “otherwise you might never hear about any of my shows”.A post shared by James Blake (@jamesblake)He also claimed that Instagram was “restricting all my posts about my shows”, wondering why he was only seeing 3000 views on a Story when he has 691,000 followers.“Why can’t I promote a show to people who follow me?

How else am I supposed to let people know I’m playing?” he asked.In an attempt to tackle the problem, Blake explained that he’d be working with a new platform called bside – which describes itself as a “more transparent and artist-centric model” – for his upcoming piano shows in North America.“Every show l’ve ever done for 13 years a company has taken the ‘data’ – I.e email addresses/phone numbers of my fans,” he explained. “I didn’t know how important that was at the time.”Blake also.