The face of music is changing. Quite literally. It used to look like this: :o$ but now it looks like this: :~) You see? Seriously though, the music industry is not the same as it was when Backstreet Boys were all the rage and the Hansen boys actually seemed attractive. Vinyl will probably always be around, but tapes are fast disappearing and it is likely that CDs will soon be a thing of the past as well. I mean: musical CDs, not the financial ones, just so we’re all on the same page. If you are looking for advice on investment banking, the best I got for you is: “Stay far, far away.”

So, where is auditory entertainment headed? I’m coining that term, by the way, “auditory entertainment.” Or as my friend Cyrus would say, I am going to run it by the word-sanctioning authority and get it sanctioned as a word. In any case, the answer here could be, who the H-E-double-hockey-sticks knows? However, answer there is, and it’s three twenty-somethings in Montreal, Canada. These three twenty-somethings may or may not include someone very near and dear to me, but we won’t talk about that (wink, wink). Because, whether or not I have been dating one of them for six years, they’ve got something pretty special going.

You pirate music. Do not lie to me. I watch Lie to Me and I will catch you. Because you pirate music (and you, and you, and you get the point), the music industry is not earning a whole lotta benjamins. Hence the loss of the money mouth on the face of music. And, hence the ingenuity of our beloved twenty-somethings, the true heroes of this story —who took their love of the pirate’s life, and turned it into something greater). Yo-ho!

The scurvy crew is Chris Ploss, Scott Nelson and Mark Sanford, and their organization is known as 1616 — basically, it’s a “record label,” that emphasizes as community of artists, releases music for free downloading online, and records acts in a home studio at 1616 Rue de Champlain. The website is sixteensixteen.org. The game is music. HEY! That’s my game too! Now, 1616 is just starting out, so they’re small, and they probably will always be small. They want to be small — that’s part of the idea. As of now, they host seven musical groups, and three visual artists, all of whom are coming out of Ithaca or Montreal. (If you are reading this, and you get together with the same group of people to produce pleasing sounds with instruments on a regular basis you may want to look into this website).

I am always a little skeptical of my wonderful boyfriend’s “notions,” because he tends to get fired up about a lot of things that don’t work out (sorry babe!), but 1616 has impressed me. Several bands from the site were featured in Syracuse University’s 20 Watts blog. Our fearless founders were interviewed for Dead Sexy Magazine (you can find the video on YouTube), and one of the bands is a finalist in the nationwide SchoolJam USA band competition. Vote for them on the SchoolJam site before Dec. 5! The website itself has got a musical blog (though it certainly doesn’t rival that of yours truly) with a news section with musical links, and of course the art and music of the members for your free downloading pleasure.

So I know this maybe feels like a shameless plug for my significant other but he didn’t know I was writing it until after I finished, cross my heart. I really think they’ve got the right idea for the future of music. It’s the digital age, and we are here to embrace it, and now, with the help of 1616, instead of resorting to the Jolly Roger profession, you can download music you love from the people who made it for free! What’s better than that, eh? I mean besides five-for-a-dozen-bagel-Tuesdays at CTB? To use their own slogan, 1616 is “a creative space for the new underground,” so I for one would suggest you start digging. Keep on singing, faithful fans, and in the meantime, MORE COWBELL.