frequently given answers
0 vital [at] vitalweekly [dot] net is the
one and only contact e-mail address for Vital Weekly. Addresses
mentioned otherwise have nothing to do with Vital Weekly. Rightly so, they
are extremely annoyed if you contact them for issues dealing with Vital
Weekly. So, please don't.
1. You can send your material for review
to:
Frans de Waard
Acaciastraat 11
6521 NE NIjmegen
The Netherlands
2.
Vital Weekly handles all physical formats: vinyl, CD, CDR, cassette,
vinyl, DVD - and we can't handle video's. We accept nothing that is
non physical, no MP3, flac, waves, no download codes or links to share
sites. But if
you intend to send your entire label's catalogue, please don't. Pick
your highlights. No more than three releases at a time. Also stuff
should not be older
than six months. If older we will not review it. This is not subject to
discussion. Please send the real thing (i.e. as released), and not a
CDR copy of vinyl, CD or cassette with bad
xeroxed artwork, just send the real
thing as released. So, also no CDR of something that can otherwise only
be bought as a download. Marked promo is fine (but keep in mind, and we
are
honest about this, everything we get is offered for sale, so we can
devote all our working time to reviewing, so scratching the word promo
on every inch of the package doesn't help). Also there is no point in
sending a e-mail with 'your review download copy is here' - we won't
look at it.
3.
Ok, so not everything. We don't review
demo's. We review stuff that anyone can buy, no matter how small the
edition is. A demo will not be
reviewed. But we review only physical products, stuff that people buy
and can keep in their hands. And we understand that labels release
label-samplers, to promote their label. Give them away to your
customers, but rather not send them to us. We simply are not fond of reviewing
label samplers.
3. Postage is a bitch, everywhere (almost), we are very well aware of that. feel free to remove any jewel case, obviously.
4. If the postman rings
our doorbell and says 'here's a package and you need to pay taxes and
duties', then we kindly refuse to fork out the money. Always mark your
parcel with a value of no more than 5 euros/dollars/whatever and
hopefully it will slip through. Refused packages will be returned by
the postman. We know that sounds harsh, but we simply don't have the
money to pay for this.
5. We don't review any MP3 releases. But maybe I said that already?
6. If for whatever reason you send an item for the second time (maybe
because you missed out on the review for the first time, or the label
mailed it already etc.), we can not pay for the return postage. We're
sorry about that.
7. If you want to be a writer for Vital
Weekly, then mail a couple of your reviews to vital [at] vitalweekly
[dot] net. If you are accepted, you must arrange your own promotional
material
8. Staalplaat hosted Vital Weekly for ten
years, but Vital Weekly is an independent newsletter. We have no ties
to Staalplaat, nor are we the buyer for Staalplaat. There is no point
in asking us anything about Staalplaat. Sending material for review, is
for review in Vital Weekly only, and not to be placed on the Staalplaat catalogue.
9. Vital used to be a paper magazine,
from 1986-1995. We'd very much like to make these accessible in some
form on the net. Anyone with a good idea, please come forward! write
to: vital [at] vitalweekly [dot] net
10.
We select material for the podcast,
but we always ask permission with the label (not the artist). If the
permission arrives too late, than it's too bad. We send Vital Weekly
out usually on Tuesday (give or take), and prepare the podcast Monday
afternoon. Podcasts do usually not include cassettes or vinyl; only
when there is a possibility to use a download cosde, we will include
them. We are not equipped at ripping from other media than CDs.
11. Material for announcements should be
with us well in advance, say a week before the event (or some such)
happens. Don't place us on regular mailings, as we usually ignore them.
Also please don't send any JPEGs, PDFs, we will trash them right away.
Language should be english, all other languages will be ignored.
12. Vital Weekly is a labor of love and
devotion. No label pays us, we don't have adds, we pay postage to send
out material to other reviewers, we pay for our server space. The
editor has more or less a full day job doing Vital Weekly, but does
that without any extra income. Therefore we don't keep everything we
get, we sell some of the stuff to devoted musiclovers. That's how we
can preserve our independence. This is not a thing that is open for
discussion. Basically if you read this after you have found this 'half hidden garage sale', then you
should have read this page sooner, for instance when you were sending a promo.
Like it says in every Vital Weekly, read this page, means you agree
with these terms. Feel free to make a donation!
13. Feel free to communicate, but usually
people get in contact after what they feel is a negative review. There
is really no point in starting your discussion with: 'You get too much
music, so I doubt wether you heard my thing more than once' - I can
only reply: 'how do you know we played it at all?' Sometimes once is
enough and sometimes a dozen is not. And, no, we don't keep record of
how often we play a certain release before reviewing. If you don't like
reviews to be bad, then don't send anything for reviewing, or simply seriously
try to blackmail the reviewer.
14. Vital Weekly holds no copyright. Any
review may be published anywhere. Please be kind and tell where it came
from. If we do run a review with copyright, we'll tell you.
Use:
vital [at] vitalweekly [dot] net