Well perhaps not 'Penny for the Guy' but as sure as 5th November comes around once a year, so too does an email from WeTransfer to inform me that the annual subscription is due on 18th July. Just to recap, to support the site uploads I use the WeTransfer platform's 'Ultimate Plan'. The Ultimate Plan gives me an upload capacity of 5TB (of which the current total content of the site, as of today, takes up 859.9GB - so there is no risk of running out of upload capacity). In the past I, like many other blog owners with music content, used file storage platforms that were shut down. A great number of owners of such sites ceased to operate after this, leaving the internet littered with what initially look to be promising sites, but in fact all the links are broken and there is nothing to be shared. Aural Sculptors has weathered that particular storm. The available data for my WeTransfer account indicates that I have used the platform since 2019. In that time I have found it to be stable and very reliable. There was a brief period at the beginning of 2025 when they decided to place an expiry upon all uploads, but thankfully this policy was short lived, so that provided the subscription is up to date, the uploaded material will be available until such time that I either stop paying or remove it.
The good news is that the 2026 annual subscription (12 months from 18th July) cost is unchanged from 2025 at €228 (£198). Should you be so inclined, contributions towards this critical element of the Aural Sculptors site you can do so via the PayPal button located on the right hand side bar of the site, below the Aural Sculptors logo (see below). I don't think that I necessarily need to repeat this but I will. I make no money whatsoever in running this site. The subscription contributions, whilst very gratefully received, have never completely covered the total cost each year and I have made up the shortfall. The site is not monetised in any way - there are no ads. A shared joy of obtaining live recordings that filled in the gaps between official releases is the only reason wht this site exists. People who headed over to Camden market days after a gig to see whether the men with the cassette laden trestle tables had it on offer will understand this. How we loved those tapes, with their pastel coloured sleeves and badly typed track listings!
In terms of site usage, visits to the site have increased this year. I believe a typical daily tally of visitors runs to around 1,500-2,000. Site hits are becoming increasingly difficult to gauge though. For example, the total number of visits last month was in excess of 365,000! Clearly this is nonsense, a figure that I put down to bots harvesting data for AI purposes. For the first time I took a look at the downloads recorded for the WeTransfer account. I counted the download total for audio posts only (i.e. downloads of associated artwork were excluded) from today going back to the beginning of 2026 and I was surprised by the data. There have been 8,397 gigs (concerts not GB!) downloaded in that time. This means that in the last 12 month subscription period around 20,000 downloads of material from the site. I knew it was a lot, but didn't think that the figures were that large.
So, my ask of visitors is to continue to enjoy the site. Interact in whichever way you can whether through comments or sharing recordings that may be of interest and/or make a contribution to the upkeep if you wish. I know that the way that blogger is set up does not make it easy for people to interact with the site through comments, but for those that do comment, I do read them. Overall, there is not a great deal of feedback or active engagement with visitors to be had so sometimes I feel a bit like a lonely lighthouse keeper posting stuff to a remote readership!
The site has some very good friends whose generosity both in terms of subscription contributions but more importantly in their willingness to share recordings, many of which appear on the Aural Sculptors site exclusively and I am sure that this will continue.
I will use this opportunity once again to appeal for any Stranglers or Stranglers related material (preferably in lossless format - but beggars can't be choosers). It is still intended to be a site focused on the music and career of The Stranglers first and foremost. My thinking as punk marks its half century is let's get as much stuff our there as possible. Put it this way, my kids are not bowled over by the prospect of inheriting several thousand bootlegs of old punk bands... 'Listen Son, promise me that you'll take good care of this Johnny Moped bootleg when I'm gone'. We are the people who appreciate this stuff, so let's listen to it and enjoy it whilst we can.
Thanks for you attention. End of public service broadcast.
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