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::Monday, November 24, 2003::
㉦
i-Tunes, Apple backlash and How To Make Best Use Of The Internet If You're A Record Company
"With iTunes I don't feel guilty when I download music- Apple and the record labels handle the screw job for me."
Link via Mike
This is the second anti-Apple spoof I've seen today. Check this iPod related consumer dissatisfaction. Not to mention the twattishness if buying up Logic Audio and stopping all development for PCs. Why do companies always get so greedy? Because if they don't then someone else will?
How can record labels continue to make money with the advent of the internet? By becoming conduits for mp3s in the same way they are conduits for CDs. The internet represents the distribution part of the supply chain - someone still has to pay to get a band in the studio, someone still has to pay for marketing, someone still has to pay to put a band on tour etc...
Yeah - I'm not sure the internet is even the right place for advertising/marketing - there just isn't a captive audience, and there's always a way round internet ads. But then, quality word-of-mouth advertising is a real possibility. What if a record company pays Simon Reynolds or k-punk to keep talking about how good some record is? How do we know this isn't already happening..?! Huh guys..?
I'm sure that record companies need to get hi-tech with mp3 distribution or start paying Apple 35% of each sale. Something that makes best use of the most universally agreed protocol: the internet. We should have music distribution in the spirit of blogs (including equivalents of RSS feeds and comments somehow). I think every company that deals in information on any scale (where music=information) needs to be expert - visionary - in IT.
Why not one-to-one sales? Directly from musician to listener? Sure, the internet makes this more feasible than it could ever have been in the past, but would it enough to fund the purchase of pro-audio equipment (especially if there were so many musicians about)? And space to set up equipment? And vehicles to drive it around to play gigs? On top of big piles of drugs and prostitutes?! Doubtful.... No - I sort of think we need a lot of the things that corporations (*co-operation*) can make easier. I don't really don't like the idea of a world swamped by music made on Playstations and Fruityloops by self taught house DJs...
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1:52:21 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Music Smunk Techstuff Otherblogs
㉵
'Nonce-sense'
Oh dear.. Just as I'd been giving him the benefit of the doubt, due to his exceptional musical ability and inevitable isolation as an excuse for being nuts, here's a disturbing statement from
a boy he allegedly fondled:
"The next step was when Michael Jackson put his tongue in my mouth. I told him I did not like that. Michael Jackson started crying. He said there was nothing wrong with it. He said that just because most people believe something is wrong, doesn't make it so."
Ckee-rist-on-a-bike.
I bet Jesus never did that...
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10:28:27 AM :: permalink
Keywords: Observations
::Sunday, November 23, 2003::
㊙
Dizzee on TOTP
Did anybody just see that?! Dizzee Rascal was just on Top of the Pops! With Basement Jaxx, looking not particularly out of place. With a song at number 23 (they don't even count down anything outside the top 20 these days!).
Now, it may or may not be significant, but he failed the litmus test we used to use in cases of uncertainty as to whether a band/artist was any good. Do they look into the camera? If they do then they're not good, according to the test. Dizzee did. Lots. But then he was also wearing a jumpsuit-thingy with his face all over the back, and there aren't many people that I wouldn't dis for doing that...
What does this mean? Will music get better? Or will Dizzee get worse?
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3:00:32 AM :: permalink
Keywords: Music
::Friday, November 21, 2003::
㊠
Consumption
When was the last time you saw an advert for a product as you were consuming it?
I'm thinking most Sunday evenings are good first guess (Channel 4 film sponsored by Stella Artois)
It's cos my house mate was eating Nik Naks and a Nik Naks advert came on the telly.
We may have to disqualify Microsoft from this enquiry...
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10:18:48 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Observations
::Wednesday, November 19, 2003::
㊇
Darned Racist Phone
My girlfriend is overworked this week because one of her colleagues is on holiday. I just started texting "Ooh, that Brian!" and it came out, initially, as "Ooh, that Asian"... Lovely smesserism there. Him being Indian and all. (You know - as in SMS autocomplete variations).
Other good ones (if I can remember any):
"Coming out for a #shot?riot?pint?#"
"She's #good?home?gone# #good?home#"
#eat?fat#
[blast - there are many more - I'll post them as I think of them]
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1:40:23 PM :: permalink
Keywords: TechStuff
::Tuesday, November 18, 2003::
㊚
Communication
What's worse then... Superficial friendliness, meaningless smalltalk and unthinking agreeing, or relentless ironic/sarcastic confusion and obscure mind-reading expectations? Extroverts and introverts can both end up not caring whether people understand what they're saying, or thinking that people understand when they don't. In a casual engagement people are reluctant to cross the line of saying 'can you explain that more clearly please?' or 'I don't understand', especially when confronted by the piledriving smile-pleading jocularity of the extrovert or the insular reluctance to explain and expectation that 'if you don't understand, you're stupid' demenour of the introvert.
Can't we just make talking about communication? Can't we just admit when we're confused? Since when is everyone infallible?
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4:42:59 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Life
::Thursday, November 13, 2003::
㊧
Angel and Nanotechnology
I've been watching the new episodes of Angel as they come on in America via www.buffy.nu (not sure how that site is allowed to do that though!). This was episode 7 and it's finally given me that 'whaaaaa! how good is that?!' feeling.
One of my favourite episodes is "Happy Birthday" from Season 2 - a story that has sudden rekindled resonance since I bought myself a copy of "Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition" by Ed Regis the other day - the book that made me feel I had to learn about physics and hence took it as a degree. Also, I was at an electronic government conference today that hammered home further the frustrations of trying to help people through technology, not in the problems with the technology itself but with the suffocating beaurocracy and ignorant inflexible regulation. A physicist elatedly discovers a way to freeze a bubble of time, but then finds out his girlfriend is going to dump him and freezes them in the throes of break-up-sex, but it goes wrong and nearly engulfs the universe. (Demons were responsible for the breakthrough and the plot to destroy the world of course, and Angel saves the day by killing them and unplugging the machine).
There's a paradox: Scientists need to be trusted to do their work - we can't just ignore the logical technological developments - someone's gonna do it all sooner or later. But scientists/technology people (doctors!) are endlessly drowned in ethical concerns, often utterly ignorant, reactionary, fear-of-change-driven and unbalanced perceptions of the implications of what they are trying to do. It's new, but people have this misguided expectation that it should be perfect and safe, perceptions distorted by the fact it's not been done that way forever. The Angel thing shows (in its metaphory way) that with the best will in the world, we may not be able to control our creations - that we're only human. Maybe that's a reason that legislation should be imposed. Are scientists the best people to be making social and ethical decisions, considering their usual aloofness from society at large?
I just want the development to hurry up. So much is possible: nanotechnology... Nanotechnology is perfectly feasable, and then, atom by atom, you could build anything that's physically possible. From buckets of goo, with no labour... The real potential to eradicate disease, pollution, hunger, to move out into space - to live forever... And physically possible in this generation. How am I supposed to plan my life when I have the genuine belief that is not beyond the realms of possibility that I could be given an extra 300 years of life? In a state of perpetual youthful constitution! Yeah - it sounds crazy - just read the Mambo book. That or "Engines of Creation" by Eric Drexler. Richard Feynman presented the idea too, in lectures decades ago!
The progress has been stultifyingly languid. I'm waiting for the AI's to start emerging (estimated about 20 years from now by many) that can design these little robots. I'm waiting for doctors to be able to grow me some new lungs in a vat (or print them out!) so I don't have to stop smoking. I'm waiting for a decent film about this stuff! Man - I push this to the back of my mind but it's always a weight!
Regis' advice, and I'm still digesting it, goes like this:
"I also question the common assumption that we have to "prepare for it." I see no reason why we cannot simply wait until it happens, and then accommodate ourselves to it then and there, after the fact, when, if, and as it occurs. I think a lot of this before-the-fact worrying, handwringing, theorizing, scenarioizing, worst-case and best-case planning, etcetera, is a waste of time, especially in the event that the hoped-for revolution does not occur, or does not occur in the time frame envisioned by its prognosticators."
Am I an extropian? I guess so. A latent extropian. As suggested by Ed. I pretty much expect the Singularity within my lifetime. I'm interested in what lies beyond. What, of our current concerns, will still have meaning after an event like this? So far the only thing I'm sure of is music.
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3:21:30 AM :: permalink
Keywords: TechStuff Religion
::Wednesday, November 12, 2003::
㉳
Music time better worse dots what's going on?
If you're unaware of the 'Last comment by...' feature of the Cinestatic homepage then you might have missed the bubbling activity lower down this page (By repeating things...) - a discussion of the relationship of music to time...
Thanks to Bruce for your superhumanly diplomatic dot-joining - I can begin engage with the subject once more now that you have reigned it in a bit!
"... But how you think about things will affect where you end up, so the wider the range of schemas you can employ the better, surely?"
My initial reaction to this question is "NO" - things are confusing enough already... Abstract philosophical schemas couldn't be further from my mind when I'm trying to get an idea into the computer before it evaporates - trying to keep a retain a simple tune becomes a nightmare when scrabbling around for a working jack-to-phono lead or synthesising an appropriate sound for preservation of a particular dynamic. However, sometimes I realise that some part of a track in some way achieves/demonstrates some theory I once had, and that influences my decision to keep it. So we can use these as schemas for deciding what to keep alive and what to kill... Seeing this, I would have to conceed that a musician's philosophies strongly affect the music they create (for 'create' read 'keep').
So: Does 'more' necessarily mean 'better'? When will an ever-growing pile of concepts become more of a hindrance than a facilitator? What if you end up with a philosophy that allows you to justify anything? How will this effect the music you produce? Freedom is not necessarily a Good Thing. Confinement can be valuable - maybe the less you are free to do, the better you will do what you can! Hip-Hop (so the story goes...) emerged from the constraint of "two turntables and a microphone" yet oddly seems (one of?) the freeest forms of music around - free to use all and any sounds (from the nigh-on infinity that has been produced) in a way denied to more traditional forms (eg. the orchestra, the 3 piece guitar band). Because there is no privileged scale* (particularly in music) there is always some axis along which music can expand, even under the tightest constraints. For musical philosophies I would say 'the simpler the better' - that shit's got a life of its own anyway...
My philosophies have a strong hand in what I show people, where I grimace, where I smile with satisfaction... But there are plenty of other factors. Other people's reactions, the things Bruce mentions (libidinal, social, economic, political (fucking politics)) also go into the mix - a wholly internalised way of perceiving music is not something I find appealing. I'm not sure enough of my own opinions for this to be an option anyway. I don't want to be justifying music with words - I want you to absorb it without the need for any caveats! Of course this is rather ambitious, and possibly reactionary (I saw an old Pinstripe (the first university band I was in) tape that I hadn't seen for years and I'd written "Recorded in 9 hours at X studios"... 9 Hours! Imagine that! That makes it seem better! Feh. A contemptuous 'Feh'...Why do I hate my former selves so much? A subject for another time maybe.)
Posting this now... I already lost it all once. (Grrr.)
*See Spotting things on scales for what I mean by 'scale'... can anyone think of a better word? Resolution? Zoomed-in-ness? Closeupitude? Magnification? I dunno...
If you want line breaks in your comments you need to put "<br><br>" - careful you don't put "<b>" or something though - this whole page will go wrong! Use HTML tags responsibly.
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8:15:49 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Music
::Wednesday, November 05, 2003::
㊮
News
So I had a meeting yesterday at Evolve Records / First Avenue Management / n2 - I was supposed to meet up with Oliver Smallman (manager of Louise, Eternal, Honeyz and Dina Carroll), but he was across town for some reason so I met with his business partner Trevor. When I say 'I', I mean 'we', because it was me and my sister who they wanted to talk to about graphic design, having seen the rather impressive packaging that we put my CD in, designed by her (it's available to look at here) (as well as being emblazoned all over this page!).
He hadn't heard it yet, and his first comment was 'I hope the music can live up to the art work...' and I said 'It does.' and then we sat there with the CD on twice while he looked through Ann's portfolio. He ended up giving Ann a big stack of work to do - artwork for Michelle Gayle and some classical CD designs. And when he saw her Jimmy Cliff CD packaging (done as part of her degree) he said he'd give it to some people he knows who are just about to release a Jimmy Cliff CD. So that was handy!
I was the 'difficult one'. He said my music has a 'magic' to it (so he needs to 'live with it for a few days to work it out'). He says it has international potential. He said we won't need to do singles as it's the sort of thing that people come across by themselves, and we can promote it through DJs. He said it's a Paul Oakenfold record of the week thingie, and maybe I could support him on a tour. That he could give it to Carl Cox, Pete Tong and Norman Cook quite easily (does that count as selling my soul to the devil...?) and that my record company choices should do it (Warp, Domino, Ninja Tune, Rephlex). For marketing purposes it's 'electronica'. There's no point trying to do anything in the run up to Christmas, but after that we should be able to press some 12"s and give it to DJs for club-based market research. And produce and album.
Yeh - Trevor's sold 4 million CDs in his time (in the dance market) (to Oliver's 20 million pop records). He's got distribution deals in 34 different countries. He said I would probably make £20k off an album and that everyone that comes through their agency is now a millionaire (though I neglected to ask him if he was one...). So. Well. It was basically - 'give me more stuff as you produce it and we'll do something after xmas, probably through Pinnacle - the UK's largest independent label'.
No closed deals or nuthin, but the Ann connection should be a strengthener (and I'll probably end up working on their web site anyway).
What does this all mean? That I have a license to start thinking 'albumways'. A bigger canvas. The demo stage is out of the way (more or less) and now it's time to produce my first beast. I will know what it means next time I sit at my laptop.
Yeah - it wasn't the explosion I was sort of hoping for - I'm not gonna be the next pop sensation (undoubtedly a Good Thing!), or get immediate access to a fully equipped recording studio, but I have an avenue now. A wide bastard of an avenue.
Makes coming into work today seem pretty damn pointless, so I am trying to be strong.
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1:34:56 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
㊉
Electric Tremolo Machine
Can anybody make me one of these please?
:.
12:53:31 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
::Monday, November 03, 2003::
㊃
Where I Have Been
Sorry - I've not been here for a few days - I should have music news tomorrow...
In the meantime, have a look at the places I've been on the online:
Hooger Brugge - mongy and kinda Lynchy and present in great quantities. You should make sure you've got sound before embarking on this journey. Check the "MODERN LIVING / NEUROTICA SERIES" (under 'I').
Kevin Fox and his meme-o-matic
A sarcastic 'thank you' to Kevin for introducing the badgers (Don't bother if you don't have sound). Pure solid stone cold Evil.
Where else..? Oh yeah. If you haven't seen this then it's about time you did: Vector Park. Some Whoever's responsible for this Flash stuff is in a league of their own. It's all rather beautiful.
With that, I shall return to my day job. Watch this space.
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10:08:04 AM :: permalink
Keywords: OtherBlogs
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