Escape This Town is Out Now!

The fully re-recorded and remastered version of my album ‘Escape This Town is out now on CD (link) and to download (from FREE)

Why download it?

If you’ve heard the last album then please have a listen to the new version. There’s 2 new songs, slightly less songs but it sounds 100 times better…I should have a review from Ben to post in the next couple of weeks too!

If you like the album please tweet, Facebook it etc. and spread the word!

So far both Cadbury and Sainsburys have responded (I feel like there’s more authenticity in the Sainsbury response) but here are the responses:

Sainsburys

Dear Mr Tiddy

Thanks for your email about our Fairtrade products.

We’ve been concerned about socially responsible sourcing for many years, and we’re proud to be the UK’s leading Fairtrade retailer.

In 1998, we became the first UK retailer to develop our own Code of Conduct for Socially Responsible Sourcing.  The Code sets out the labour standards we expect our suppliers to meet, including fair terms of trading, protection of children, worker health and safety, equal opportunities, freedom of association, freedom of employment, hours of work and wages.

Every banana we sell, and all our Red Label tea is Fairtrade.  By the end of 2010 all our own brand tea, roast and ground coffee will be Fairtrade, returning around £2 million to developing countries each year.  Our annual sales of Fairtrade products now amount to £139million

Many producers in the developing world find it difficult to meet Fairtrade standards without some help. Our Fair Development Fund helps more farmers and growers to sell their produce as Fairtrade.  We made an initial commitment of £1million and this should provide a real boost to the livelihoods of producers, especially in Africa.

We continue to support the national Fairtrade Fortnight, which takes place in February and March of each year.

You can find more information on our approach to socially responsible sourcing by visiting our corporate website at www.­j-sainsbury.co.uk.

I’ve also passed your comments about making our chocolate products Fairtrade to our development team.  They’ll discuss it at their next review, and if it’s a possibility I’m sure they’ll do their best to make it happen.

We appreciate you taking the time to get in touch with us, and look forward to seeing you in store again soon.

Many thanks for contacting us regarding labour conditions on cocoa farms in West Africa.  Like you we condemn child and forced labour and want it to be eradicated.

While we do not own or directly control any farms, we recognize that this is a complex problem and will take all involved – growers, exporters, non-government organisations, national and local governments, and manufacturers – working together to address it.

We see our partnership with Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance one part of the solution to this situation and in addition we have a number of other significant investments and programmes which are outlined below:

Kraft Foods Cocoa Investment

• Since 2001, Kraft Foods has been working with the chocolate and cocoa industry on a multi-year, multi-stakeholder effort to reduce child labour and forced labour in the cocoa sector in West Africa.  This effort has been done in partnership with Senator Tom Harkin, Representative Elliott Engel, and the governments of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.  The industry will have spent more than $75 million on surveys, remediation, and development programs in the sector between 2005-2010.  The Harkin-Engel Protocol has been the overarching structure to support this effort and has become a model of public-private sector cooperation in an agricultural setting.

• In 2002, we helped establish the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), an independent foundation aimed at eliminating the worst forms of child labour and forced labour on cocoa farms.  By working community by community, the ICI is raising awareness and seeing a reduction of hazardous child labour in cocoa farming in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

• We’ve been working with the Rainforest Alliance™ since 2003 — started with coffee and expanded into cocoa in 2005.  We chose to partner with Rainforest Alliance because it’s rooted in sound agricultural and social programming — helping ensure farmers and their families get fair wages, decent housing, access to schools, health care, transportation and training.  Our partnership has been growing over several years — in 2009 we were the world’s largest buyer of coffee and cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.

• Since 2008, we’ve been empowering farmer organizations through the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership  where our aim is to create thriving cocoa communities.   In 2009, we achieved Fairtrade certification for Cadbury Dairy Milk in the UK and Ireland. We have expanded this commitment and now Fairtrade Cadbury Dairy is available in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.  Under the Fairtrade system farmers receive a guaranteed minimum price for their product and a Fairtrade social premium.  We’ve quadrupled the volume of cocoa sold under Fairtrade terms in Ghana, helping generate £2.7m in Fairtrade premiums to help improve farming communities’ livelihoods.

• We are also a member of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), which aims to help cocoa-farming families develop and manage effective, sustainable farming practices.  Examples of WCF activities supported by us include The Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) and Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions (ECHOES).  STCP focuses on the social and economic well being of cocoa farmers.  ECHOES expands opportunities for youth living in cocoa-growing communities.

• In February 2009, Kraft Foods, along with other companies and organizations, joined with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in a $90 million program to boost the income and productivity of cocoa and cashew farmers in Africa.  The projects aim to strengthen the long-term viability of the West African cocoa and cashew industries through education and market opportunities.

Kraft Foods is the largest purchaser of Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance cocoa and coffee.  Our commitment continues, in 2010 we purchased roughly 19,000 metric tons of Fairtrade cocoa and approximately 11,000 metric tons of Rainforest cocoa. In total we have paid £2.7 million in social premiums to Kuapa Kokoo the Fairtrade co-operative in Ghana.

Thank you for taking the time to let us know how important this matter is to you.  Please be assured that Kraft Foods remains committed to working both with others and independently to improve living and working conditions on farms to help farmers and their families have a better life.

This Fairtrade fortnight I’ve run a session with the CU in school (you can download it here) on Fairtrade and encouraged them to think about their own buying habits and why Fairtrade is such a good thing.

In my last post I said that I’d blog last week on what my Fairtrade step was going to be however in the midst of sending e-mails, sorting artwork and ordering physical CD’s for my album (which is out on the 19th March – pre-order details here) I didn’t get around to it so here we go…

My step for Fairtrade 2012 is…

To only buy Fairtrade chocolate bars.

This means that there will be no Creme Eggs for me or Cadbury’s Caramel or Mars bars (my favourite 3) but also means that I have e-mailed both Mars and Cadbury with the following:

Dear Mars,

As you may be aware the Fairtrade foundation have been challenging people to ‘Take A Step’ for fairtrade as part of Fairtrade fortnight. As part of this I have decided that I will no longer be buying any chocolate that isn’t certified Fairtrade.

I know that you are working on introducing Fairtrade to your product line with the introduction of Fairtrade malteasers however I’d like to see you do more as the Mars bar in particular is my favourite chocolate (which I will no longer be eating) and wouldn’t it be fantastic if Celebrations were the first UK selection box to be certified Fairtrade?

I hope you will take on board my comments and work towards a completely fairtrade product range

Thank you

Mark

That’s the Mars letter…here’s the Cadbury one.

Dear Cadbury,

As you may be aware the Fairtrade foundation have been challenging people to ‘Take A Step’ for fairtrade as part of Fairtrade fortnight. As part of this I have decided that I will no longer be buying any chocolate that isn’t certified Fairtrade.

I know that Cadbury is already miles ahead of the leading chocolate brands in offering Fairtrade and it’s been fantastic to see Dairy Milk, Buttons, Bournville Cocoa, Highlights and other products of yours become Fairtrade certified over the last few years however I believe that Cadburys could be doing more. For example the Freddo chocolate bar is Dairy milk yet not Fairtrade and shockingly none of your easter eggs are certified Fairtrade.

This means that I will no longer be buying Creme Eggs, Cadbury Caramel and Heroes until they are Fairtrade certified. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if Heroes were the first selection box to be certified Fairtrade?

I hope you will take on board my comments and work towards a completely fairtrade product range

I look forward to hearing your comments

Thank you

Mark

Fairtrade is an absolutely cracking idea for so many reasons. It pays people properly, invests in communities, treats people fairly, means no child labour and lots more besides.

I urge you to get involved in Fairtrade. Buy Fairtrade tea, coffee, bananas, chocolate, clothing. Pester your local shops to stock more Fairtrade items. Ask your supermarket to make their own brand stuff Fairtrade (Sainsburys is really leading the way in this!).

Check out the 2012 campaign video below and get involved here. I’ll be posting my step for Fairtrade later this week!

I’ve basically taken the album back to the start and re-recorded guitars, bass, keys and vocals. On top of that I’ve fully re-mixed and fully mastered it. I’m incredibly proud of how different this album is compared to the original release and the addition of the previously unreleased ‘Hopeless Romantic’ and studio version of ‘Secret’ really makes the album for me.

But don’t just take it from me…

On listening to a mostly mastered version Ben tweeted

Today I’ve been sending off press releases (oh yes!) and doing all sorts of publicity type things. I’m really excited about the new album!

Finally here is the new track listing and cover artwork

1 – I Need You
2 – Make You Smile
3 – All Fake & Just So Selfish
4 – Station Girl
5 – It’s Not Right
6 – Summer of 2005
7 – Marry Me
8 – Escape this Town
9 – Something So Unbreakable
10 – Violence Doesn’t Bring Salvation
11 – Trading Your Faith
12 – Pleading Insanity
13 – Hopeless Romantic
14 – Secret
15 – Joanna

Over the next week or so I’m going to begin e-mailing out press releases to various websites etc for the release of ‘Escape this Town’ and that’s pretty exciting!

Watch this space for new blogs and news in the coming days/weeks

Here is is…

Don’t forget: Escape this Town released 19th March 2012!

Tonight I’m playing an acoustic cover song with Rob as part of Beverley Minster’s Youth Fundraiser event ‘Minster’s Got Talent’. There’s a whole host of other acts and all money goes towards the Minster’s Youth Ministry.

The event starts at 7:30pm and tickets are £5

Come along and have a listen to our cover song!

In other news…

I spent the tail end of this week writing press releases for ‘Escape this Town’ which is pretty much finished and will be released on the 19th March. Watch this space.

If you like it please share that you like it via Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc.

Here’s the lyric video for the song

Tonight the awful X-Factor will announce the winner of their 2011 karaoke competition and it’s more than likely that this time next week some depressingly unimaginative cover of a song that’s not really old enough to be covered properly will be released however the Christmas number 1 slot of no longer a given to the X-Factor winner following the success of the incredibly exciting campaign in 2009 which saw Rage Against the Machine get the number 1 slot (and raise a lot of money for Shelter (not Simon Cowell) in the process).

Last year’s attempts were more copies but this year there seem to be 3 equally credible and deserving contestants to go alongside the X-Factor and so here’s a summary.

1 – Alex Day – Forever Yours

My favourite of the contestants is Alex Day (pictured above), I’ve been following his YouTube channel for a while and he posts amusing videos and is also a full-time independent musician…the bookmakers William Hill have given his catchy pop-song ‘Forever Yours’ 16/1 odds of getting the slot.

Forever Yours is a fun, catchy electro-pop song which will easily get stuck in your head…on top of that Alex Day is independent which means that actually his growing YouTube and music popularity is because he is a genuinely talented guy and not some karaoke singer auto-tuned to hell in a studio.

On top of that Alex all money raised for the song goes to providing water to people in Africa!

You can listen to the song here

 2 – Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

Following in the footsteps of ‘Rage Against the Machine’ a Facebook campaign is aiming to get Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ to number 1…with currently over 100,000 likes on Facebook and the promise of a vinyl re-issue of the single from the record label this campaign seems to be growing with momentum.

On top of that the campaign is raising money for charity ‘Rythmix’ who (as the story goes) protested to the X-Factor girl group stealing their name only to be told ‘you’d better find some lawyers then’…although since the name has been changed.

You can check out the campaign on Facebook here and Twitter here

3 – Military Wives – Wherever You Are

The Military Wives who have been coached by Gareth Malone are releasing their song ‘Wherever You Are’ also in contest for the number 1 slot raising money for the British Legion….the song isn’t to my taste but I think they’re equally deserving of the slot.

Conclusion and Buying Info

So…there you have it. 4 options for Christmas number 1 in the form of X-Factor, Alex Day, Nirvana and Military Wives and all but the X-Factor are raising money for charity so there’s clearly 3 out of 4 which are better but which will get it?

Personally as a fellow independent musician I’d love to see Alex Day get the top spot but only time will see!

You can buy the Christmas number 1 songs from the 18th December for them to count but only buy a song once or none of your purchases will count.

Get involved, raise some money for charity and let’s make music about music and not winning some competition!

So after yesterday’s post about Orange and various calls to them I decided it was still worth complaining to Ofcom simply because ifenough people complain then this clause in a contract which allows them to put up prices based on inflation may be looked into.

Here is the full e-mail response from Ofcom. Hopefully it’s useful…to make your own complain to Ofcom go to this page

(Also thank you to everyone who’s commented on my last post…it’s great to get some discussion going)

Dear Mr Tiddy

Thank you for contacting Ofcom on 29 November 2011 about increasing line rental charges.

I understand you have been told that Orange can increase their line rental charges from January but you were not made aware of this at the point of sale. When a provider sells a contract it is unlikely they will explain every term of the contract and will only explain core terms i.e. minimum contract period. Also, whilst costs may be increased during a contract, this may also not happen. Any provider is able to make changes to a contract at anytime.

However, it may be of interest to know that, if a provider intends to make changes they should give at least one months notice – as per Ofcom regulations. If the change could make a substantial increase in your bills (and thus a material detriment) it is possible you could cancel your contract without penalty. However, if the change will not have a substantial impact it is likely you can be held to your contract.

If Orange will not let you leave without penalty, you may wish to follow their complaints process at:http://www1.orange.co.uk/documents/about/Orange-complaints-code-20110118.pdf.

If you exhaust this process, or if your complaint has been ongoing for over 8 weeks, you may be able to take your complaint to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme. An ADR scheme is an important piece of consumer protection as they are free and independent for consumers like you. Orange must abide by their decision but if you remain unhappy you are free to consider legal action

Orange’s ADR scheme is CISAS (Communications & Internet Services Adjudication Scheme). CISAS can be contacted at:

CISAS
24 Angel Gate
City Road
London
EC1V 2PT

Phone 020 7520 3827
Email: info@cisas.org.uk
Website: www.cisas.org.uk

Although we do not deal with individual disputes I can confirm I have made a full record of your experience. This feeds into statistics we collate to help monitor trends and, where appropriate, the information can inform future policy in consumer enforcement and investigations.

I hope this explains our position and is useful to you.

Yours sincerely

Consumer Contact Team

So Orange sent me a text this morning stating that:

Hi, from Orange. We’re increasing the price of your monthly plan by 4.34% from 8 January 2012. For more information please visit orange.co.uk/planupdate

Other than the rather cheery greeting to pass on some bad news the text didn’t tell me why and so naturally annoyed me…clicking to their link I found this:

Why are Orange introducing these price rises?

We know that price increases are never welcomed by our customers. Unfortunately, with inflation at a 20 year high it has been necessary to increase our monthly service charges.

Can I cancel my contract because you’re increasing my monthly service charge?

Five Iron Frenzy had this habit of drawing you into the music and then hitting you with the most profound God-lyric ever! We even had the worship band at our wedding adapt their song ‘World without End’ adapted to be played as a worship song.

Over the last few months the bands website contained a mysterious countdown and their Twitter and Facebook came to life, building hype around something that would happen at 2am this morning (or 7pm in the USA!)…having toyed with the idea of staying up or sleeping through and checking out twitter in the morning I opted in for a 1:55am alarm and hoped that it would be something worth disturbing my sleep for.

And it was!

I’d spent my day telling myself that it would be a greatest hits or rarities album and not a reform or anything new but how wrong was I?

Five Iron Frenzy announced (with a slightly bizarre video of Reese Roper in the desert) that they were getting back together and would be recording a new album (to release in 2013…10 years after their break-up) and possibly playing some shows….oh and they put a new song online!

Now the latter doesn’t excite me as much unless they venture to the UK (I wish!) but the thought of a new album and a chance to hear a new Five Iron song really got me excited. To make this new album the band were asking for pledges in return for a variety of things ranging from a CD of the new album to the band writing you a song…I went for the former and amazingly the band aimed to get $30,000 to make, master and release the album and amazingly they got that within 55 minutes and less than 24 hours later they’re on $80,000.

Turns out I’m not the only one excited about the new Five Iron Frenzy.

I was also pretty excited about the new song titled ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ and it’s so good! It’s like a mix of ‘Electric Boogaloo’ and ‘Our Newest Album Ever’ and I think will please all FIF fans.

So why the blog?

This blog is simply to express my burst of excitement…share the word and tell you to listen to Five Iron Frenzy…they’re amazing and so much fun but also seriously challenging.

Go listen, support and download at: www.fiveironfrenzy.com

Note: I also had a worship blog in mind to write which also included some stuff about FIF so this blog might end up a little FIF obsessed for a week or so!

Having had the last theme for a while I fancied a change to something a little more creative. This one takes slightly longer to load but I think it’s nice…Hope you like it!

New Song!

Over the last few months I’ve been re-recording, mixing and mastering ‘Escape this Town’ to fix some of the things that slipped through the net last year and I released the first new single from it a few weeks back.

You can download the fully re-mastered track ‘Escape this Town’ for free here or if you’re feeling generous it’s on iTunes and Amazon (You can also listen for free on Spotify)

Geography Rocks EP

Finally in half term Dave came up to stay and we spent 2 days trying to record, mix and master and EP of Dave’s geography songs (which he actually sings to his classes) and we did it!

Geography Songs is available to download here or on iTunes here

They’re pretty catchy and it was great fun to try and do something of good quality in 2 days…and I think we managed it. I also got to play drums and record some bass and guitars on the record.

You can watch a ‘Making of Geography Songs’ video below

The Making of Geography Songs from Mark Tiddy on Vimeo.