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WHAT IS The Big Time Music Magazine?

The Big Time Music Magazine started in Courtenay, BC, Canada, in 1983, and went into suspended animation after 4 editions in 1985.  .  The purpose was to give a voice to the voice-less.  The idea was to get good tunes from not very well known song writers, especially those with a message, out to the bigger world.  

Marketing was done by word of mouth, contacting KEYBOARD Magazine which had a back-log of frustrated composers, a hitchhiking trip to San Francisco with stops at radio stations all along the way to give interviews.  Sales were modest.  I paid the unromantic printers, who refused credit, from “day jobs” selling vacuum cleaners, and later a retail music store.  Many trees gave their lives to fill my garage with high quality paper.  Notation was done by a 1,000 dollar keyboard which printed out notes that were played, assuming one could play in perfect robot rhythm.

Many musicians complained that they could not read notes, putting themselves in the exalted company of the Beatles and Erroll Garner.  “Can’t we hear it?” they complained.

Then along came the computer age and the internet. A generation later, the BTMM awakened from its long sleep, and came to life with sound and color.  Most of the not well known musicians remained not well known, but the first four print editions are collector’s items.  The musicians who allowed me to photograph them, and puzzle out the notation for their often free style tunes, “made the Big Time.” 

WHAT IS IN THIS EDITION?

            This 5^th edition has a song by a former professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy on being “Politically Correct.”   Here about value of fatherhood by a lady who sings at libraries in an epic battle against voluntary illiteracy.  You can learn a song about automobile addiction leading to endless war.   The Beer Mats from Ireland charmed me with their name alone, and of course their music is even better. Where else could you find a song about “Wal-Mart”, or “Bad Cholesterol”, or “Privatization”?  My former singing partner, Judy Norbury, chose her song about the sex appeal of the working class.  From Africa, there are 8 Kenyans who will make you jump, a singing postman from Canada, and songs about problems with Saab automobiles, and a lighthouse in Maine with harp music, and you will hear about struggles of coal miners on Vancouver Island.

WHAT ABOUT MONEY?

The problem was, as of old, how to get paid for the labor.   “Pay per view,” solves the problem.   “With so much free music available to download, why would anybody pay you?” skeptics asked.   In one word –Convenience.  I search the world via internet for musicians with something interesting to say, so you don’t have to.

My short life as a business man convinced me that we consumers are not rational robots.

If you can have fun, and meet musicians from other parts of the world, hear counter cultural ideas that are excluded from mass entertainment, some people will click on “download now.”

HOW DO I GET IT?

PayPal makes it painless and safe for you to pay, (for less than a pack of the killer weed,) to expand your musical world.   Click below and have fun!