How, when, where and why was the label set up?

Krookz Inc and Krookz Digital were set up in early 2009 by Midlands DJs, Devize & Shookz. They both wanted a label to release their joint productions on.

Where did the name come from?

Devize and Shookz say they both agreed the word Krookz sounded good because they use a lot of samples in their tracks (and it just sounds cool). Then they added Inc to the end of it because they wanted it to be different.

Which artists are on the label?

Apart from their own drum and bass tracks, Devize and Shookz have also release a vocal track by Jah Screechy on Krookz Inc and there are tracks with MC Spyda coming soon on the label.

Any releases/gigs coming up?

There's a Krookz Inc label night at Deez Bar, Derby on 4th February where Devize and Shookz will be doing their first ever back-to-back set. They've got loads of good music lining up for release this year, but the next one will be their own MP3 single Acid Format, with B side Intallect, out on Krookz Digital on 10th February.

If the label could sign any artist past or present, who would you pick and why?

The Krookz boys say Notorious BIG, because he made a classic album and there hasn't been another artist since with such charisma, charm and extraordinary wordplay.

What's the favourite office snack at the label?

Shookz is into Cajun chicken wraps, but Devize prefers tea & chocolate HobNobs.

If the label were an animal, what would it be and why?

Devize reckons they'd be a bulldog because they're proud, bold, loyal and very distinctive, with a touch of class. Shookz says they'd be half meerkat and half iguana.

Links

https://www.myspace.com/krookzinc

Don't miss this week's Huw Stephens podcast, featuring two tracks from the Krookz label.

Website of the Week this week is the grandly-named Internet Archive - a non-profit digital library founded in 1996 with the impossibly ambitious goal of providing "universal access to all knowledge." And, actually, it already does provide access to the world's largest creative-commons resource of software, videos, books, audio recordings and websites from across the years.

Its collections are available to researchers, historians, scholars and the general public who can upload or download material at no cost. Many musicians permanently archive their live recordings, or find inspiration among its vast visual resources - which include the complete NASA images and the celebrated Prelinger Archive of vintage Public Information films - to name but two.

Best of all in many ways, you can go back in time to view websites and pages from the earliest days of the World Wide Web. Being a non-profit publicly funded organisation you won't see fancy graphics, cutting edge web design design or slick PR campaigns telling you how great it is. But the fact remains, it's a fantastic resource for creative artists of every kind, and one of the nost underrated wonders of the online world.

All of which is why I have no hesitation in making Archive.org my Website of the Week.

Tom Robinson presents BBC Introducing - Fresh on the Net on BBC 6 Music on Sunday and Monday nights.

Read Tom's previous Websites of the Week.

How, when, where and why was the label set up?

DV8 is a community organisation based in London and Brighton which specialises in training projects for young people in creative and media. The label was set up in 2009 as part of their music production course; the young people on the course are responsible for everything.

What's the ethos of the label?

The ethos of the label is to help promote young artists who may otherwise struggle to make music and get it heard. The label gives allows them to take control in everything from producing a track to marketing and releasing it.

What releases are coming out soon on the label?

The 'DV8 Music Collective sampler' is out on the 15th of February and there's a showcase on the 17th of February in Brighton.

What's the favourite office snack at your label?

HobNobs!

And finally... if your label were an animal what would it be and why?

A monkey - because they're energetic and make loads of noise.

Links

https://www.dv8training.com

https://www.myspace.com/dv8musiccollective

Eurosonic happens every year in the pretty university town of Groningen in the Netherlands. It's a few hours by train from Amsterdam, and the first thing that hits when you come out of the station are the millions of bikes everywhere. The town is perfect for a festival of this kind, where around 140 bands play every day.

The festival brings in not only a lot of music fans to check out new and exciting European bands (including ones you'll know like The xx, Marina and the Diamonds and so on), but also a host of festival bookers and music industry types, too.

They come to see who is worth booking for the festival season ahead. As I learned from Robert, one such booker, this is how Franz Ferdinand got their European break. They played their first gig outside of the UK at Eurosonic and then went on to play loads of big festivals over the following summer.

This year, I was only at Eurosonic for one night, which started with checking out Ellie Goulding playing live. She's tipped for big things, of course, and her live gig is very good. She plays guitar and has a backing band of talented musicians who bring her more electronic songs to life. Tunes like Starry Eyed, her next single, sounded massive.

Jaakko & Jay come from Finland and are a punk rockin' drums and guitar duo. Their chugging riffs were awesome live, and they're off on tour with Frank Turner soon. They were probably the best thing I saw at Eurosonic this year.

Representing BBC Radio1 at the festival were Everything Everything. They played the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds last year and were good, but they were AWESOME in the Netherlands. With a sound of their own and haunting three part harmonies, full on electronica wig outs and an appetite for experimenting without scaring away, they played the huge Grand Theatre and got a massive reaction. They'll be gigging loads again this year and have their debut album planned, so make sure you check them out.





See more photos from Groningen and listen again to live highlights - including tracks from Everything Everything - on Huw's Radio 1 show.

I don't know about you, but it sometimes strikes me that the idea of 'The Next Big Thing' is overrated. Often, once a buzz gets started among a few key influential tastemakers, everyone else desperately pitches in to make sure they're seen as keeping up with the times. The result is that all too many music blogs, mags and (yes) radio shows end up banging on about the same handful of new "hot" artists.

We all then further inflate the hype - either by repeating it - or else by rebelling and telling everyone how rubbish the artist actually is. 9 times out of 10, it turns out the happening band of the moment is, actually, not bad at all. But at the same time, they may not be as mindblowingly, insanely sensational as the tastemakers would lead us to believe.

Disillusion quickly sets in, this year's 'in thing' becomes last year's in thing and perfectly good artists end up dropped and tossed aside through no fault of their own.

All of this is why I like anewbandaday.com, which cheerfully disregards the trends, tipsters and whatever the music mags say on their front covers, to offer an eclectic mix of artists its writers happen to like.

Some of those artists end up rising to wider prominence, most of them don't. But pretty much every act they feature is interesting for its own sake: whether or not you agree with a particular pick, another one will be along 24 hours later.

Best of all, you can recommend any music you like (including your own) directly to the editors. They listen to everything and everything they like ends up on the site. So that's why anewbandaday.com is my new Website of the Week.

Listen to Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music.

See Tom's previous picks for Website of the Week.

Our new Website Of The Week is the new fan funded investment platform that's just raised 60,000 Euros for Tina Dico to record her new album. Just as the American site Kickstarter allows small investors to fund artists, designers, filmmakers, journalists and inventors, the UK's Pledge Music offers a service tailored specifically to recording artists.

Pledge Music is the brainchild of Benji Rodgers from the band Marwood who became tired of playing great shows, selling a good amount of CDs and having no money.

Surely, he thought, there must be a way that people can just make music and get it out to their audience without accumulating huge debts.

Benji's best mate, Rupert, came on board with the technical coding know-how, other friends got the financial and legal angles covered while A&R veteran Malcolm Dunbar joined the team to bring musicbiz acumen to the party. Their aim was to create a funding system for musicians in which nobody loses.

Bands agree their fundiing target with the company, and decide on a range of benefits to offer their fans, according to how much money they're willing to pledge. For five pounds you might get a pre-release download of the album. For five hundred they'd probably come and play the songs live in your living room. All through the making of the record, the investors get exclusive updates, rough mixes and studio footage that no-one else will ever see. And unless the financial target gets reached and the project goes ahead, your credit card doesn't even get charged; everyone walks away as if nothing had happened.

Best of all, from the musician's viewpoint, it's a music company run by music people. At the end of the deal, the artist retains 100% of their publishing and recording rights, which is where it scores over platforms such as Sellaband, SliceThePie and Bandstocks. Pledge Music takes a flat 15% of the capital raised, and also encourages performers to factor a charity donation into their margins.

Practising what he preaches, Benji's own band Marwood has just released its 5th album, donating a quarter of the proceeds to Amnesty International. All of which is why Pledge Music is my new BBC Introducing Website Of The Week.

You can hear Tom's interview with Benji from Pledge Music by listening again to last Sunday's show.

Happy new year!

Wouldn't it be cool if you could see an artist's entire tour history, or a list of all the gigs that a legendary venue has ever hosted?

Well, two years ago, Ian Hogarth, Pete Smith, and Michelle You founded Songkick.com with the goal of doing just that: building the world's definitive live music resource.

They've since amassed data on over 1 million gigs, to which concertgoers are now adding posters, photos, videos, setlists and reviews.

Users can share their personal gigography of every gig they've ever been to - and see who else was there. You can track your favorite artists, venues, festivals and concert buddies and be notified when they have upcoming events. If you already use Last FM to track your music listening or iTunes to organsise your collection, you can simply connect Songkick to your library and in a matter of seconds you'll be tracking the live movements of the acts you listen to most.

With most major ticket outlets across the English-speaking world indexed by Songkick, it's pretty comprehensive. But what if gigs by your own band or your favourite artists (past and present) aren't listed? Why, you can add them yourself.

For these reasons, musicians, promoters and gig-goers alike (not to mention obsessive collectors of music memorabilia everywhere) Songkick is my BBC Introducing Website Of The Week.

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