Ground To Zero

Freedom and music

One of my greatest all-time favourite bands Faith No More have reunited after a decade apart, according to an official statement from bass player Billy Gould. Naturally, I’m excited as hell, and will be even more so if/when they announce tour dates in Australia.

Since the announcement, Billy Gould, or @MRGOULD as he is known on Twitter, has been keeping us posted on rehearsal progress, tour dates… and the relaunching of fnm.com as their official website.  Previously a fan site maintained by a group of devotees spread across four different countries (though somewhat neglected since the band split), the new official website has lost none of the community spirit of the old, nor even most of its content.  The bio and fan-collated photo gallery from the old site are still available on the new, although the bootleg live tracks are unfortunately absent.  If anything, the site has been catapulted into today’s online landscape by embracing the current web culture in a big way!  For web-savvy music buffs like me, there’s much to like.

For instance, the Videos section points to a YouTube search for “Faith No More”, the Photos section links to a similar Flickr search and the News section scrapes updates straight from Billy Gould’s Twitter feed.  It’s an extensive use of social media on a scale of almost Skittles proportions, which is great to see especially from a band who last played together in the late nineties.  Some might see this as lazy web design, but that kind of thinking is so… earlier this decade.  If Trent Reznor has shown us anything, it’s that fans and bands find mutual benefit in a thriving, sharing community.  Also, did I mention the website is very low on clutter?  Seems that FNM are making all the right moves so far.  It will be interesting to see how they push those boundaries in the coming months… I mean, this is Faith No More we’re talking about here!

On a related note, anyone know where I can score free tickets to the Download Festival this year?  Flights to England are cheap these days right?  I’d better stop before I get myself too depressed.

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m a bit erratic with the frequency of my blog posts here on Ground To Zero, though hopefully this will change in the new year.  One thing that I am frequently doing though is collecting articles about copyright, record labels, digital media, piracy and all the chaos that has swept over the music industry.  Most of these will likely be the basis for future articles on Ground To Zero.

So why wait for me to concoct another ramble when you can go straight to the source?

Jump into the Ground To Zero room right now on FriendFeed where I’m sharing all the good stuff I find online.  This is as raw as it gets folks!  If you’re not yet a FriendFeed user, it’s free to sign-up and it pulls together all the social networks you already have into one easy location.  There’s already plenty of crazy stuff there, so come share your thoughts and get a taste of what’s to come on Ground To Zero.

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