Friday, April 10, 2009

Fabchannel is dead.

Nothing lasts forever, I suppose. Fabchannel.com, the Dutch music site, shut down last month.

Fabchannel streamed hundreds of full-length concerts in high-quality video... concerts recorded mainly in Amsterdam.

I posted 16 of those shows on this blog... by artists such as Living Colour, Ani DiFranco, Marcus Miller, the Brand New Heavies, Amp Fiddler and Michael Franti.

Evidently the Fabchannel folks couldn’t figure a way to make money providing all that superb free content. And most major record labels never embraced Fabchannel as a promotional platform.

Fabchannel can’t even afford to keep its archive online. So it’s all over.

Fabchannel still has some clips up on YouTube. Here’s one featuring Nona Hendryx, Joyce “Baby Jean” Kennedy, Lalah Hathaway, Sandra St. Victor, Indira Khan and Simone:

3 comments:

Destruction said...

"Ain't no free"

Hopefully the content will resurface.

DeAngelo Starnes said...

Wow. I really dug that Living Colour concert and meant to come back to that Marcus Miller one.

Wish I could see more this concert. Joyce and Nona haven't gotten their due. They outsing, and compose, better than any of these video dancers posing as singers. Nona is still fine. Joyce, too.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ If I remember right, DeAng, Nona did "Transformation" during this Fabchannel gig... as a solo showcase. Only time I've ever seen her perform that song.

The major thing for me with Fabchannel was the video and sound quality. And the freeness!