Oh what a bunch of hypocrits there are in the music business! I fly all over but I know I am burning carbon. At least I don't pretend to be a good guy about it. Not like these imbeciles. Have you got into the Live Earth thing yet? Well if you haven't you will. And what a crock of non-sense it is. Imagine this; Bring a load of self centred, ego-maniacs with their entourages half way across the world. Put them up in 5 star, expensive and non-eco friendly hotels. Ferry them to and fro in big Limo's and then charter the most expensive helicopters to get them to the gig. Make sure that whilst they are there the tents are air conditioned and filled with chilled Champagne from France and Grapes from Guatemala- clearly defined on the rider these items must be of original provenance and it doesn't matter if you can make do on Sparkling wine and a packet of Jaffa Cakes. The celebs must be looked after! Now get 50 fat roadies from Arkansas and Alaska to fly in and rig and turn on a 50 thousand watt light rig and the biggest PA that money can buy. Make sure that they are all trucked there on large flat bed - diesel powered lorries. Power the whole thing on generators fuelled by Diesel. Leave them running even when there is no need. Now pretend the bill is lower when you turn off the lights for 10 seconds! Then invite 200 000 of your closest friends and make sure that they need to travel to the most far flung places in the world from London, to Sydney and Japan, Shanghai, Brazil, South Africa and New Jersey ( where of course you won't be able to smell the stink from Elizabeth because they will turn fans on to re-direct the fumes from the chemical plants). Add in the global TV execs and the sponsorships and the added air miles and congestion and you have a recipe for Live Earth. Has anyone thought this through? Live Earth? More like Kill me quick. No wonder we are worried. Our stars are burning so brightly they can't see how toxic they can be! Wankers.
8 posts tagged “labels:music”
Hello again my friends.
I am back and the trauma of the past month is receeding slowly.
Meanwhile I thought I would pass on a few well considered thoughts from an erstwhile recording artist who has finally decided to come clean.
If you think musicians hate labels this is what they think of each other. Personally I reserve the right to comment.
Some helpful things to remember when dealing with artists
1 - the artist is right and always has been right
2 - the artist will change its mind every 30 seconds, but it is still right and always has been right
3 - if the artist thinks it knows how to do something, then it's easy, and if it doesn't, then it's impossible
4 - the artist can see black and white and no colours in between
5 - the artist is exempt from paying taxes or indeed from paying for anything
6 - the artist is a special gift to the earth, if not actually God itself, and should always be treated as such
7 - the artist does not have to do anything artistic in order to be treated specially, it is just special anyway
8 - the artist can do whatever it wants, but you have to do whatever the artist dictates
9 - the artist will demand that you do magic or transcend the laws of physics from time to time, and will be unable to understand why this is not (always) possible
10 - if the artist does something, it will be the first time anyone has done it
11 - the artist claims to be liberal and marches against the war and all that, but on closer inspection of the artist's actual acts, it will appear that its political views are more consistent with that of Ronnie Raygun or George W Monkey.
12 - the artist's special genius requires that you use short words wherever necessary, long ones being impossible for it to understand and therefore superfluous to the universe
13 any resemblance between the artist and a spoilt 3-year old brat is entirely coincidental
stolen from Portfolio.com
Monday October 15, 6:30 pm ET
As musicians and record executives descend on New York for
the annual CMJ conference this week, the specter of Radiohead looms large.
The decision by the English rock band to offer
its new album for free online has spooked the recording industry.
It will be a major topic of discussion at the conference, as experts gather to discuss the future of the business and hundreds of bands take over the city’s clubs.
Portfolio.com talked with several music executives and other industry experts about the digital challenge. Almost universally, experts say that Radiohead’s decision to circumvent the major labels is a milestone, illustrating how perilous the situation has become for the labels.
Many industry experts argue that the record labels face a stark choice: Either adapt to the changing environment by embracing new digital distribution schemes—like the subscription model—or die.
One of the most respected critics of the major record companies is Terry McBride, the chief executive of Nettwerk, Canada's biggest independent record label and management agency. McBride, who became famous by starting the Lilith Fair in 1997, is considered a visionary in the recording industry. Nettwerk's current and former artist roster includes Barenaked Ladies, Dido, Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, and Sum 41. McBride's most audacious move has been convincing the Barenaked Ladies to release individual tracks to the public, allowing fans to create their own mixes of songs.
He argues that the recording industry has failed to capture the potential revenue to be generated from digital music distribution.
McBride said he fully supports Radiohead’s move to cut out the major record labels by offering their newest album, In Rainbows, for whatever fans choose to pay.
"They will make millions," he said.
McBride is particularly vocal about the need for bands to develop relationships with fans through online networks. He says he wants to use websites like MySpace and Facebook to act "as social filters and be the marketing and promotional teams behind great new artists." McBride argues that the most effective way to market bands will be to associate them with what he calls "social causes"—essentially marketing themes that consumers can identify with —much as Radiohead has positioned itself against the record industry oligopoly and U2 has cloaked itself in the fight to end African poverty.
"It's all about having a connection," McBride said. "Fans these days need to see artists that they support take up and truly support causes they themselves can relate to. When you do this, you help turn your fans into goodwill ambassadors."
Still, albums must be sold, revenue must be generated.
Radiohead has so far declined to offer details about how many people have downloaded In Rainbows and how much they have paid. Late last week, however, the British music website Gigwise reported that Radiohead had sold 1.2 million copies of the album in its first week, citing "a source close to the band."
If that number is accurate, it means that the album went platinum in one week— no record label required.
Tim Quirk, vice president for music programming at Rhapsody, a joint venture between media giant Viacom and RealNetworks, said that when artists offer their albums for a suggested donation, the average price paid ends up being remarkably similar to what the record would have cost in a store.
Quirk has seen the music business from every angle. In the 1980s, he was the lead singer of the cult punk band Too Much Joy, which was briefly signed to Warner Music.
Although Too Much Joy had a few videos on MTV, the band never broke through commercially. Still, Quirk and crew earned a devoted following with releases such as 1987's Green Eggs and Crack and 1988's Son of Sam I Am.
Quirk is used to bucking the system. After hip-hop group 2 Live Crew was arrested for indecency, Too Much Joy immediately flew to Florida, and—in protest against censorship—played a show composed of selections from As Nasty as They Wanna Be, earning the band a night in jail on obscenity charges.
“We did it in the same club where they got arrested,” Quirk recalled in an interview. “We tried to get other alt-rock acts to join us (R.E.M., Sonic Youth, etc.), but no one would come. The idea was to see if the cops would arrest white suburban kids for singing the same words, while also protesting some fairly obvious and ridiculous First Amendment violations.”
“There was a three-day trial too, a few months later. The jury took five minutes to find us innocent, and said it would have been quicker, but some of them had to go to the bathroom. The D.A. in Broward County said he wouldn’t prosecute any more obscenity cases after the decision.”
After Too Much Joy broke up in the late 1990s, Quirk joined Listen.com "at the height of the internet boom" as a rock writer and musician-in-residence. In 2003, RealNetworks, which had been developing a streaming digital music service called Rhapsody, bought Listen.com. In August 2007, RealNetworks merged with media giant Viacom, which owns MTV and VH1.
Viacom's purchase of a 49 percent stake in Rhapsody was a major coup for Real, which now gains access to what Quirk described as Viacom's "massive marketing platform" of MTV, VH1, and their other brand outlets. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Quirk declined to offer details. But filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Viacom will contribute cash and make a five-year commitment of $230 million to the venture, in addition to migrating Urge users to Rhapsody.
As Rhapsody's vice president for music programming, Quirk is the company's chief evangelist for the subscription model. But ever the musician at heart, he also has a side project called Wonderlick with Too Much Joy's guitarist, Jay Blumenfield. Like Radiohead, Quirk and Blumenfield give their music away for free online and simply ask for donations. And it's working.
"I'm making more money by giving away my music for free than when I was a Warner Music recording artist," Quirk, a vocalist, said. Sometimes, he said, hardcore Too Much Joy fans pay as much as $150 to download a single album from the band's website. The fact that fans will voluntarily pay so much for an album has a lot to do with the goodwill that the bands generate. This is what Radiohead is shooting for.
The key to understanding the changes rocking the music industry, Quirk argues, is to see that the value proposition inherent in record sales is changing.
The idea of owning music is heavily entrenched in popular culture, as evidenced by the zeal with which music aficionados build and maintain their prized record and CD collections. But the arrival of broadband internet and the MP3 digital music format has created the possibility of a new way of thinking about music ownership, Quirk argues.
"Music is moving away from being a product and moving toward becoming a service," Quirk said. In other words, with access to massive databases of music that are distributed over the web, consumers no longer need to own individual albums and songs. They can simply access songs they want to hear at any time from a master database, for a simple monthly price, kind of like getting cable TV. This is the subscription model championed by Rhapsody.
Here's the deal Rhapsody is offering: For $15 per month, Rhapsody users have access to 4.5 million songs from virtually every artist. The company is adding 10,000 songs per day to its catalog, Quirk said, adding that over 1 billion songs a year are played on Rhapsody.
Quirk acknowledges there are some artists who have refused to license their music to Rhapsody—or anyone else. But the number of holdouts is shrinking every year. On Monday, Led Zeppelin announced that after years of resisting the lure of online distribution, it would offer its songs over the web beginning with an exclusive deal with Verizon Wireless to sell ringtones and other mobile features.
The subscription model has also been championed by Rick Rubin, the Buddha-like co-chairman of Sony/BMG's Columbia Records, who has argued that it is the only realistic alternative to the "99 cent" model championed by Apple, whose iTunes music store and iPod music player currently dominate the digital music market.
Last month, in a widely discussed article, Rubin, whom the record companies have apparently anointed as their savior, told Lynn Hirschberg of the New York Times that "the world has changed. And the industry has not." He said the industry's salvation would come through the subscription model.
"You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like," Rubin told Hirschberg, including mobile devices. "The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now."
Rubin may be exaggerating with that last prediction, but there is no doubt that the industry must find a new business model if it is to stave off disaster. For many, the subscription model, which treats music as a service, not a product, could be the last best hope. Rhapsody's Tim Quirk said Apple's 99-cent model represents the illusion of a solution, but because it still treats music as a product, it is not sustainable.
"iTunes is yesterday disguised as tomorrow," Quirk said. "For the past several years, it has given the record industry the false hope the transition from product to service can be staved off. The distinction between music you own and music you can listen to at any time is being erased."
Quirk said the subscription model dramatically increases the potential exposure for lesser-known, independent bands. Nearly 49 percent of the music sold at big retail chains like Wal-Mart consists of the top 100 bands in the world, Quirk said. In contrast, 23 percent of music played on Rhapsody is from the top 100 bands in the world.
In other words, more than two-thirds of the music that people listen to on Rhapsody is coming from independent, or lesser-known bands. This bodes well for the health of the industry, Quirk argues, because it means that young bands have access to vastly more consumers than ever before. Likewise, consumers have access to vastly more new music than ever before.
"The major labels had a business model which has been eviscerated and is now in free fall," said Bob Lefsetz, an expert on the record industry. Lefsetz is an entertainment lawyer and former record company executive who has been publishing The Lefsetz Letter, an industry newsletter, for more than 20 years. Lesfetz said it should come as no surprise that Radiohead declined to renew its contract with EMI, which ended with 2003's release of Hail to the Thief.
"The record companies are thugs," Lefsetz said. "It's like organized crime. In the old days, they used intimidation and bullying to control the means of distribution. They beat up D.J.'s and rappers in the back alleys of clubs, and never paid royalties accurately, or on time."
"They can't do that anymore," Lefsetz said.
Hola,
I have been thinking again about how the new world of WEB 2.0 is going to affect us all and I am a bit worried by the whole thing.
There are a few things about the way it all developing that are causing us real problems and I can only see it getting worse.
Web 2.0 is supposed to be the new way of the world and whilst I am no expert I have had a few discussions with people that make me wonder if anyone has the faintest idea of what is going to happen next.
For us at the label the web has been a bloody nightmare to deal with. Let's be honest for once. Peer to Peer is screwing every label on the planet and anyone who says different is a liar. The genie is out of the bag and now we face ruin. I mean it.. RUIN! It has become a better business idea to give away music and make money on the shirts. The same is about to happen to movies and TV and print and god only knows what else. Even retail is about to fall of a cliff when more of the high end purchasers move away from shops and online.
The thing with being in business is that you are suposed to make a profit and if you don't it's all over. All that are left are amateurs and dreamers. Like the guys who repair steam engines for fun. Maybe 2 of them make a living from it but it isn't an industry anymore. Music is like that, It is raidly becoming the preserve of the gifted amatuer and rock stars are a thing of the past. We had better get used to it. From global industry to cottage industry in 10 years. That is some change in the landscape I think you will agree.
Of course there are winners from this new dynamic and new models are emerging all the time but they only last a few months before being bettered. Look at Myspace - who seriously thinks that works any more? Or Money Supermarket or or friendsreunited or lastminute.com or Napster or any of another million sites. They come and go with abandon and all they leave behind are cached pages and memories. facebook will last until 2008 before it become passe and goes the way of all others.
What will happen is that there will be a few local phenomena and maybe one or two big acts that break through the chaff and become household names but before the decade is out there won't be any bands just individual songs.
It's logical when you think about it. There are millions of tunes already out there and you can pick and choose whatever you want at will and for zero cost. Where is the upside in that?
Of course the "industry" is talking to itself and saying there is a future and all that but I woke up today with a feeling like it's all over so I have no regrets in annoucing that we are no longer going to release CD's anymore. We will do digital for now but frankly I am looking for a new job. Who needs it? I don't want to be a sad lonely cyber individual bleating on about the death of my label when I know in my guts that I have joined in too late and with too much optimism.
OK, you say, there is no brand loyalty anymore and who cares where you buy your stuff from so long as its cheap?
No one.
There.
What matters more these days is getting a bargain. Ok, fair enough but where does that leave quality and service?
These issues are not irrelevant.
For music it means an ability to sort the good from the bad - talent from hacks and only experience and energy will figure that out, It also means that lots of people were inevitably consigned to dead end jobs in Wal Mart. But what if there is no Wal Mart any more?
What then?
The fact of the matter is that in our time the rules of life are changing so fast its unprecedented.
Expertise is worthless. Quality and innovation are devalued and intellectual gain is a by word for useless loser.
Plato said in THE REPUBLIC that there should be an elite who are tasked with governing the minnions. they should be selected on merit and not on birthrite and that they should be a class above the rest.
Our new version of democracy means that we have disbanded any pretence of having an elected elite who are able to make decisions based on rational self interest and instead we have reverted to the tyrany of the masses where the simplest things are open to debate and argument and that in itself is seen as a good thing.
IT IS NOT.
If we spend our entire lives arguing about everything then only the loudest voices get heard and being the pack animals that we are the loudest voice invariably belongs to the biggest biggot.
I am really worried that we are going to loose everything that makes our lives livable, The NSA and Murdoch will take over the internet and we who rely on the net so much will find ourselves in a murky world of half truths and lies. If you have the time and energy to promote a political agenda you will prevail and the search engine tyrany will mean that we come to rely on WIKIPEDIA or some other half wit resource rather than looking at the original material for ourselves.
There is a value in the old paperbased systems - libraries I think we call them. The value is that they mean we are forced to physically look for information and copy and read and think about what we are seeing. Its much slower and harder work than googling but it means that the quality of research is better and more refined and it also means that it isn't open to falsification. (Red ink underlining is much harder to believe than a careful edit on You Tube.)
The people are not always right. they don't have the information to be right. If they did we would never have bought the Birdy song and Concorde would still be flying. People power inevitably means the rise of the righteous and draconian repression. Communism by the back door if you like.
If you take an average day in the life and wake up, get out of bed and drag a comb across your head you haven't much time to figure out if Melody 1.0 is better than melody 2.0. You want someone else to do that for you. But if you want to decide id a guy should hang for a crime you can make that call in 5 seconds flat and without the information or evidence. That's how it works, Death is an easy judgement to make but choosing that video is much harder. That's what the new world will lead to.
Another thing that freaks me out is that there are only American values in place. America sees itself as the greatest nation on earth and its institutions as infallible. They are not and they simply don't work anywhere else. You can't export democracy to places where there is no tradition or demand for it. That's why Iraq ia such a mess. No one wants the goods you are exporting and in a weird way its like trying to sell Trabants to Toledo. There is no demand and the whole thing is a bust. But what happens when some enterprising despot gets hold of the web and manipulates it in his own image. We don't just loose power - we loose the whole civilisation . It is a dangerous game they are playing these designers.
We need to filter and refine our lives to make them better not open them up to more crap.
I for one will not trust anyone who hides behind a corporate screen and who pretends to have my best interests at heart. He doesn't know me and he doesn't care and in the great western tradition of recent times if I can screw him over I will. I expect nothing less from him. These are the real lessons America has taught me. Screw or be screwed.
And me a European socialist!
VIVA LA REPUBLIQUE!
THE RADIO PD AT CLEAR CHANNEL Feliz mi amigo's, time to get back to the music business. And what a business it is. There are a few things that have sprung up this week that are worth a look. First of all there is the news - old though it is - that a deal has been struck with US radio networks to ensure that a couple of thousand hours of indie music is played on commercial stations this year. I will believe that when I hear it! What a load of hockum. The promise is about as realistic as the promise made by Catherine the Great when she told her mum that she never even kissed a boy. Yep, the same Catherine who died whilst humping a horse! If radio ever really got itself involved and started investing time and energy in street level music there would be an almighty disaster that would shake the very foundations of commercial broadcasting throughout the western world. Radio is not what it seems. It is programmed according to focus groups and small playlists. The key to success is getting onto the playlist and making sure that there is something happening for people outside of the industry to latch on to. Most stations are now programmed by a computer that picks similar beats, keys, rhythmns etc and the probablity of a machine having any artistic intergrity is pretty close to zero. In fact it is a certainty that it is zero but I have seen Terminator and Matrix and I don't want to annoy my metal masters! Indie and street music is explicitly not something that adheres to the major label - radio friendly - melange that bores everyone over the age of 10 to tears. In fact you are much more likely to find interesting and exciting music choices on network TV. At least someone there has to combine visuals with audio to create a scene. No chance of that on 99% of radio stations these days. There are some real pluses to that system though. I saw a weird show this week that has the Promoter - Harvey Goldsmith acting like Donald Trump. For some bizarre reason he was asked to go and take a look at a small radio station in outback UK - somewhere called Frinton on Sea. Now I live in the Uk and I have no idea where that is. Some Station! The station is run by a guy who looks like he sells newspaper ads and 2 old DJ's from the seventies - Diddy David Hamilton and Mike ' my ego is bigger than your ego" Reid. What a bunch of wankers! They have no playlist, no transmitter, no audience and no idea how to do anything other than add the platitudes between songs. They are actually losing £50 000 per month on the station but I can't see how. They don't seem to be there in person and the entire place is run by a bald bloke called Gary who looks fierce but is actually unable to have a hissy fit without crying. These dorks all live in a big house togther where they drink expensive wine and eat spag bog every night. They share this house and spend most night telling each other how much they love the Beatles before beetling off to bed at 10pm with a copy of Razzle and some Vaseline. God knows what the blokes who are paying for all this think they are doing but to me it looked like a close approximation to a gay porn movie from 1973. Before I get criticised for not haveing a clue about Radio let me tell you I was a founder member ofteh team that set up Radio Wombat in Manchester in the late 80's - my first pirate radio station - costing us about 12p a month for electricity. The trasmitter was converted from an old pub amp and the antennae was makde from wire wrapped around some himney statcks. We had no idea how it worked but we broadcast to about 10 square miles of manchester for months until the amp blew up and set fire to the roof! So now I see these imbeciles who have worked their way through to the heights of the BBC and been thankfully they have been fired. Boy, am I glad I never got that job at Radio 2! Imagine how much more up my own fundament I would have been by now!!! The trouble is that they are also the guys who know how to make an impression at an interview and then end up running your local network. For all you Aussies I give you Richard "encyclopedic knowledge but bugger all charisma" Kingsmill at Triple J. Once upon a time radio was new and vibrant and had something to say. The rules were unknown and so it had feeling about it that was exciting and worth listening to. I am sorry to say that the rules are now so established that there are core "sectors" to every show - Weather - Time - Traffic - ads - Chat - sponsors etc. And because of that - much like life itself - there is no scope for anyone to experiment or make a difference on commercial radio. So what happens is we get a set playlist of maybe 10 songs when it should be 20. We get vile and incoherent broadcasts that project the views of a tiny minority of the population EG Rush Limbaugh - Chris Moyles and John Laws and we the audience are desensitised or revolted to such a degree that music is totally devalued and made a pointless commodity. This industrialised model of broadcasting has led to the mass migration of listeners away from music as a part of everyday life. It has become just another widgit that you can buy if you really need it. Like a new front door. Why buy a new one if the old one works well? I say you should get new music if for no other reason than it makes new synaptic conections and increases your brain power. Music makes you stronger - better looking and inreases your sexual prowess. It makes girls drop their knickers and boys open their wallets. It makes your dad mad and your mum edgy. MUSIC MATTERS! So now the deal has been struck who says what constitutes indie music? Is a record released by Cherry Tree via Interscope with all its major label clout an indie or is it the guy at home with his Mac and keyboard? Bet you guess the same answer as me. Sorry mate - not our thing! Plus ca change mes amies Salut! PS. - I wonder why the major labels haven't bought as many stations as they can? If I had their money I would. PPS - Anyone like to offer me a job? I need the credibility.
SIX, FOUR, OUT - 21 reasons to be a cricket fan
Oh I say, how the diddly do are you old bean? Today was an utterly glorious day in Blighty. The sun shone on the good citizens and this sceptred isle set in a silver sea truly lived up to its reputation. The boats ghosted by in the misty waters off Portsmouth like half remembered memories from the days when Brittania ruled the waves and all in all it was perfect. Not only that but my beloved Leeds United won a game of soccer and almost certainly saved themselves from relegation. HOOOOOOOOORAY!!! But best off all its the start of the English Cricket season and for the first time I can remember its not raining!! I have to confess to being a cricket nut. Now you may wonder why. Most people do but let me explain it to you. REASONS TO BE A CRICKET FAN 1. A county season ticket has cost me £160. For that I get 45 days of free cricket. Thats £3.50 per day. Less than I spend in a hour at Starbucks or about 40 minutes of parking in London. Value? I should say so. 2. You do not need to be athletically gifted to enjoy it. 3. You do not need any special clothing. 4. You do not need to know what is going on. You need to know who is playing - roughly. No names just geographical areas. Chances are one team is from the county you are in so that's a start. 5. The game is county / country based so there is no chance of aggro between towns. Eg. knowing its Hampshire versus Warwickshire is enough. (Who can act like a hooligan when it's a match like that?) 6. You can sit down all day. 7. You can drink all day. 8. There are no police in riot gear or nasty songs to sing. 9.You can drink all day. 10. The general perception is that it is a boring and slow game - it isn't . We pretend it is so that it stays perfectly civilised. 11. You can drink all day and not be called a trouble maker. 12. Posh people love it but they respect poor people who love it too. 13. You can eat all day so long as you are drinking. 14. It is not played in America, China, or South America so the competitions are not stupidly commercialised or played by cry babies who fall over when the umpire looks at them. 15. You can drink all day and talk crap with your mates and still keep an eye on the game. 16. Your wife thinks it is respectable. 17. If you are lucky you can go to: India, Australia, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Holland, Canada, West Indies, Sri lanka, Bangladesh and make friends instantly. 18. Your mates will only need to come along once before they are converted. 19. If you loose its not the end of the world. If you win you are supposed to be gracious in victory. There is a nice tradiotion of kids getting involved and playing a game at the intervals on the main pitch - imagine that at the superbowl or Wembley. 20. Even the biggest stars of the game will come over and say hello and sign autographs for your "sisters". Bouncers are fast balls not fat men in shades as far as cricket is concerned. 21. Did I mention you can drink all day? It's all tickey boo now as far as i am concerned. Albion is no longer perfidious. It is perfect and I can't wait for the slap of leather on willow. FNAAAARRRR.
Hail to thee, welcome to the day of reckoning. I was thinking about bring you thoughts of a diverse and conroversial nature today but it's been a bit of a disaster for me so I won't bother. All you need to know is that you should never fly on a cheap airline like FLYBE. Those buggers left me at the airport twice! Once was a delay for 5 hours and then this morning at sparowfart (thats 5am to you) I woke up to get on another flight. All went well and we even got onto the plane itself before the pilot announced that the flight was cancelled. So the rest of today has been spent in a daze of fatigue and annoyance. Friday the 13th indeed. Anyway onto the news. If any of you are pianists or afficionado's of the terrible black monster you will have heard of Bosendorfer. They make the best Piano's in the world bar none. Big, beautiful, heavy and damn expensive beasts they are and every pianist worth his salt wants to have one. Our mate Greg Johnson calls his "Joanna" but I bet his bank manager calls it ludicrous. In England there are a few successful festivals of classical music. (I used to work at one so I know a lot about the Bosendorfer Grand Concert piano's - having humped them on and off trucks for the best part of 10 years.) This tale involves a new festival called the Two Moors Festival and, as ever with these things, it is held in a remote and rather beautiful part of Somerset. It is one of those places where it is forever 1920 and the Empire has still got a grip on the colonies. Small men in black suits wander hither and thither with silver trays of cucumber sandwiches and old men with tweed coats mutter "Oh I say" whenever they see anyone with the faintest trace of a suntan. You get the picture. The organisers of the festival recently bought a new Grand Bosendorfer and paid - get this! - £45 000 for it (That's nigh on $100 000 US). They had the thing delivered with great fanfare to the first location. Lights, Camera... ACTION! The problem was that the movers had a bit of a comedy moment and dropped the thing as it came of the van. It then fell 14ft onto a gravel path and then to add insult to injury it committed suicie by hurling itself of an embankment. OH BUGGER! £45 000 - £45 000 = Headache for someone. Well, all that reminded me of a couple of Bosendorfer tales from my past. First, there was the time that we "borrowed" a nine foot grand and placed it on the end of the docks in Penzance / Land's End. A good mate - Paul Coker - who is a reknowned classical pianist was going to play a recital with our other chum, Hungarian looney and serously good key basher, Andras Schiff, and we thought it would be a laugh to take the massive instrument out to sea before the gig. That didn't happen - too heavy and who was going to explain that tothe broding angry Magyar afterwards? Not me. So we did the next best thing and Paul serenaded the Cornish fishermen with the Teddy Bears Picnic, the Pink Panther and other notable show tunes as they set off into the brooding oceans. Close your eyes and imagine the movie the Shipping News. Now add frivolity and humour. Kevin Spacey would be useless. Try John Travolta instead and you are closer to the picture. It was excellent and it made the local and Canadian TV news as there was a protest going on against European fishing policy or something at the time. Thanks' be the guys from Bosendorfer didn't see it. Still, it was pretty good effort for a fun day at the beach don't you think? But that's not the best. That comes courtesy of dear ol' Tori Amos and her crew. Bosendorfer had lent her a midi grand (which doubles the value of the piano) for a big tour in the states. I think it was the Choirgirl hotel tour but my memory fades.... So when the tour finished up all the gear was being shipped back to the UK and there was this big black thing waiting to be collected. Except no one called for it. A week went by and no Austrian came to take their baby home Another week and no news. Then a breakthrough. My dear friend who is a piano tech of world reknown called me up. "Do you think it would fit in my house? It's 9ft long and 5 ft wide" "Yeah but the floors won't take it" "Can you fix them" " No worries" So the errant piano was boxed up and put on ship to go on holidays in sunny Tottenham whilst I rounded up a crew to remove three doorways and a living room floor and replace them with concrete and wider portals. Job done the piano duly arrived and was installed. It has become the worlds most expensive beer table - none of us can play the thing even if it is tuned to perfection at all times - so it serves very well as a piece of furniture. So on this day of disaster and futility I would like to thank the dear Austrian chaps who crafted it with such love. One day they will have made my friend a very handsome donation to his pension fund. I hope they don't mind. He sent it by sea after all and we all know that's eco friendly. In fact he is a very Dolphin friendly tuner! ta ta
OLD ROCKERS
Feliz me ol' mates,
I have just returned from a hearty couple of days in the heart of the City. London City. England, Europe.
In London there is a place called Camden and I recommend it to you folks most sincerely. Camden, as you may know, is the heart of all that is indie rock in the UK. It hosts the bands that everyone has played at including Barfly, Good Mixer, the Palace and many more. It is - in short - the UK's daily equivalent of Austin. Only in camden the market is better and so are the enourmous Doc Boots that hang on the walls of the shops.
I love Camden.
I met my Missus there and I have been to more mental events in that place than anywhere else.
Apart from Crouch End. Which has no indie pubs but loads of watering holes that have been known to sell me an intoxiacting beverage or two.
Anyhow, I met up with Mark Wilson - he of the guitar slap - and his manager to have a chat and a few pints. They had just come from making a TV show for Sky and Mark was looking a bit wobbly. At first I thought it was the beer, or the TV studio but it turns out he is to become a dad. Well done! So a few whets of the babies head later and MArk has gone home to the wife. Then along comes Ray "Thunderbird" Fresh from a tour with Seasick Steve and the Gemma Ray Ritual and then along comes Steve who has just been in Brisbane and NYC with Darren Hayes (Savage Garden) so all up it was a good old night. Steve's band - THE GREAT STATESMEN - played a show at Dublin Castle with some blokes called Spencer McGarry. Not keen on them but maybe that was becasue I had been through the best part of a gallon of John Smiths finest Ale by the time they came on. Everyone else seems to be enjoying it though so lets leave that there.
So the night was going great guns. I was perched on a table chwing the fat and slopping the ale when I stopped gibering for a moment and looked up. The room wasn't quite spinning but there was certainly a flashing blue light going on inside my head. You see as I looked about I realised that the 3 blokes from Warners weren't there anymore and that everyone else was at least 35.
Oh shit! I was just another old rocker watching another band in a pub in Camden and kidding myself that I was still out there at the cutting edge. But I wasn't was I? And neither was anyone else. We were all just going through the safe rituals that we know and trust. We were the music worlds version of a golf club committee. Fuck!
So, my bretheren I ask you to repent your sins and come join with me on a quest for the new and important. This rock n roll thing isn't just old its positively venerable. When the big shows are all aimed at the 60 plus age group and the cutting edge is attended by 40 something blokes in black jackets you know that the absorbtion of youth culture into the mainstream is complete.
It is a shame really. I know there is new talent out there - like these guys I saw the other year. He is a bit ofthe blurb about them:
"The Flairz is made up of three 11 year old rockers from Perth, Australia. They are John Mariani-guitar/bass/vocals, Scarlett Stevens-drums/vocals, and Dion Mariani-guitar/bass/vocals. Their brand of no nonsence rock and roll has gained them many fans in western Australia while opening for many big name bands including The Living End. They have also played to an audiance of thousands at Perth's famous Rock-It Festival in March 2004. The Flairz released their debut CD-EP on November 15, 2004."
They are young talented and I am sorry to say stuck with Dad's dreams of superstardom.
What the hell is the next thing?
Someone tell me please because I honestly have no fucking clue and with a hangover like the one I have today it is not something I am likley to figure out any time soon.
Catch you later
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