NoiseTrade: Fair Trade Music

This is a bit off my blog focus, but (non-'churchy' and non-secular knock-off) contemporary Christian music is a side interest of mine. (Hey, if the irrepressible New Testament scholar and publisher of countless fine books, Mark Allan Powell, can publish the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music in his spare time, I can take a few minutes off here.) I've enjoyed the music and perspective of a musician like Derek Webb (and Over the Rhine, Bill Mallonee & the Vigilantes of Love, Mark Heard, Bruce Cockburn, Jonathan Rundman, Charlie Peacock, Sara Groves, Vector, Brent Bourgeois, Salvador, PFR, Pierce Pettis, Innocence Mission, Chris Rice...), then you will want to check out a new venture he has started, NoiseTrade. The email I just got reads:

It was through the support and success you gave [Derek Webb's] Mockingbird experiment that inspired Derek, with the help of a few friends, to start NoiseTrade. Now any artist can freely distribute their music online, via NoiseTrade's remarkable and embeddable widget, offering fans the choice to tell 3 friends or to pay any amount in exchange for an immediate download.
Derek concludes, "If artists and fans realized how they could help each other and started making direct connections, without a middleman, the whole industry would change overnight. It would start a revolution."
Rather than over-charging for music, we want to let you choose your price or will give you the record for free in exchange for a little help. NoiseTrade believes it's time to stop applying the old rules to a new world. If we can work together, an environment is created for the long-term benefit of both fans and artists.
Thank you for your continued support of Derek and for participating in this grand experiment. Check out NoiseTrade today!

I already had Webb's outstanding Ringing Bell CD, but I just downloaded (his wife) Sandra McCracken's Gravity/Love by sharing a few emails. No problems.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming...