Improvising on cardboard keyboards

Posted on September 27th, 2007 by Andy

Now that would have been a better last day at school…

The music lessons when I was at school involved sitting in a portakabin “playing” tiny cardboard keyboards. We’d only get the opportunity of playing one of the five real home-made two octave keyboards if we showed a proficiency on the cardboard ones…I also remember getting told off for improvising a little during one piece…improvising on cardboard keyboards should surely have been praised and encouraged…

Hazel, Adam and I took our first tour around one of the local secondary schools (they call them high schools now) that Adam may go to and I found the experience by turns moving and depressing. The school looked great, the staff were so enthusiastic (and young), the classrooms seemed comfortable and appropriate, they had a drama studio, two music rooms, rehearsal rooms, computers and “interactive whiteboards” in (as far as I could tell) every room. The students who showed us around and spoke seemed to genuinely enjoy being a part of the school…and they did appear to be a part of the school – not just there to be taught at.

I HATED school, it was something I just couldn’t wait to get through, the teachers, for the most part, also seemed to hate school. School failed me or I failed school, either way looking around Elthorne Park High School yesterday only made me sad that I couldn’t have loved school. I’m sure that given the facilities and enthusiasm and a bit of encouragement, given teachers who seemed to be enthused by their subject matter and with the ability to make what you learn seem real and useful, I might not feel like I wasted those years…and I certainly did waste them.

Posted in idle nonsense, my family | No Comments »

Corporate rock sucks #12: It wasn’t supposed to happen so quickly…

Posted on June 5th, 2007 by Andy

Less than a week ago I whined about the very lovely last.fm becoming a media corporations trendy new lapdog rather than trying to go it alone and expressed just how unlikely it was that I’d be prepared to shell out money to them. This morning my blue icon had gone grey and my last.fm page was sprinkled with ads and I was unable to snoop on who’d been viewing my profile. As of today I’m no longer a “subscriber”, I’m just a “user”. I was looking forward to coming to terms with last.fm’s decision – having time to ponder what they had done before I had to make the “do I stump up the cash” decision.

When I first paid money to last.fm/audioscrobbler I was unaware of the perks (maybe there weren’t any) and the site was unreliable and the charts were infrequently updated, but I LOVED the concept and was happy to give up my money because when it worked it was beautiful, clever, useful and (for the stats obsessed) a hours of fun.

Last week they got $280 million – I think they can live without my 18 quid.

Posted in corporate rock sucks, idle nonsense, last.fm | 3 Comments »

Corporate rock sucks #11: Last.fm succumbs to the desire to be a small fish in a big pond…

Posted on May 30th, 2007 by Andy

Once again it’s sad to be reminded that the Internet is nothing but a bunch of sharks cirlcing every promising start-up with a desire to “buying credibility” rather than establishing it. Last.fm have now succumbed to the desire to be a part of something bigger rather than carrying on being something special and unique in their own right. Like the lovely Flickr before them (and countless other websites I don’t love as much) they have snapped up that lovely big cheque that was waved in front of them and suddenly, rather than having the feel of a community owned (spiritually if not financially) website it is now nothing more than a marketing arm of a corporation.

I was happy to regularly donate to last.fm but I suspect I won’t be stumping up cash to CBS and you know what, I’m not sure they’d care because they don’t care about the user – they care about the money they can make and 20 quid a year (or whatever) from me is not where the money in last.fm is to be made. That money will be made by selling chart data, and demographic data, and listening behaviour, and the myriad of other ways of exploiting what the last.fm community has built.

Shame on you last.fm, or maybe just shame on me becaues I believed (just like I believed with Flickr before you) that you were maybe different.

I have to admit that I do still stump up cash to Yahoo for Flickr and maybe, like Flickr, they may be able to cling onto the part of them that does make them unique – but I shan’t love them the way I used to…just like I don’t love Flickr any more…

It seems a shame that I seem to write one of these posts every few months.

Posted in Music, corporate rock sucks, idle nonsense, last.fm | No Comments »

On reaching 43

Posted on May 17th, 2007 by Andy

Sonic Youth @ Northsix, Brooklyn NYC
(originally uploaded by Geeeeeeeeeenta)

I reached 43 today. When I hit 40 I rattled off some words that convinced me that I’m not too old really…pointing out the rock stars that are older than me and (surprise, surprise) they’re all still older than me – and if Kim Gordon can behave like this on stage at her age then I guess there’s a bit of life left in me yet.

This year I have probably noticed my age more than before – stupid things that pop into my head remind me that I’m getting on a bit things like…

• my wonderful son will turn 10 in a couple of weeks
• my beautiful partner and I have been together for 16 or 17 years
• I’ve been working for the BBC for more than half my life
• the life expectancy of a man in the UK is 76.9 years – that’s not so far away
• Getting out of bed seems so much harder these days
• Staying at home and browsing the Internet is often a much more attractive proposition than going to a gig!

I am scared of death, but then I think I probably should be because life is so bloody good at the moment I don’t want that to end! OK work’s a pain in the arse but everything else probably couldn’t be better.

Posted in Music, idle nonsense, my family | No Comments »

The end of the fan site?

Posted on May 9th, 2007 by Andy

Being the loving parent of a fan site it saddens me to see the demise of this venerable Internet institution. The corporate sites never really cared about the band – they mostly just cared about the latest release they had to promote. Damon and Naomi for a while had three corporate web sites on the go one for each of their (then) three most recent albums (thankfully their latest web site has a little bit more of the “fan site” feel about it).

The fan site was the baby of the dedicated individual who lovingly hand-crafted huge lists of tour date archives and setlists, photos and audio, reviews and interviews painstakingly transcribed by hand from magazines and newspapers, and a discography that included the most obscure and pointless of releases just for the sake of being complete – only a real fan could possibly care that the album version of Superfreaky Memories was given away on a Mojo coverdisc…

I recently headed over to Chairkickers – the official Low site. The site had started as a fan site but the band made it the official site, that must have been such a buzz – to be recognised by the artists it so lovingly represents. For years after the move from fan to official not a lot changed – it still had the feel of a site that was run by people who loved it and loved what it was about. Sadly that isn’t the case any more, Chairkickers today looks like a corporate site and like so many corporate sites with the change things went astray. The list of past shows, the setlists, the pictures, the band’s past, it’s history…just slipped away with it (the discography doesn’t even seem to have links for the bands first three albums!).

Maybe it’s because the vile MySpace has become the home to the fan page (and, laughably, the corporate page as well) or maybe because Wikipedia is now host to all the facts and release information that anyone could want, or just maybe the potential fan site builders are too busy blogging. Whatever the reason it seems the days of the fan site is over and all that’s left are the few excellent sites run by the few dedicated individuals (saddoes??) that will remind the world what things were like in the days before MySpace and Wikipedia and blogs…or we can always go have a look on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine!

Posted in Music, idle nonsense | 4 Comments »

What’s to become of Everything’s Swirling…

Posted on April 23rd, 2007 by Andy

I’ve decided to move all my music related blogging into last.fm – which sort of leaves this blog with a rather big hole to fill. It never was meant to be a music blog – but that’s pretty much what it turned into.

Last.fm is a fantastic website and while it’s blogging (journals) are still a little bit lacking in features (no decent archives, no import and export etc.) I think that as I spend a lot of my time over there it seems to make sense to write my barely read snobbish rants over there.

So…what to do with Everything’s Swirling…I do have a life beyond music – a family, television and films I watch, photos I take and photos I like – so there’s plenty that I could be doing with it – but over the last couple of months mostly what I’ve done with it is just ignore it – I’m just about ready to change that but we’ll see how things pan out.

In the meantime you can see my last.fm journal or profile or check out the A Head Full of Wishes group over there.

I’ll probably turn the A Head Full of Wishes site into more of a blog than just news so for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta bits keep an eye over there…

Posted in Music, blogs and the internet, idle nonsense | 1 Comment »

A cautious welcome to the brave new world

Posted on January 25th, 2007 by Andy

100_2179
(originally uploaded by Naufragio)
Defective by Design

I made a post four months ago to the Galaxie 500 Mailing List (I thought I posted it here as well but I guess not) about the dilemma of downloading music rather than buying CDs.

I’ve always bought records and CDs – I see it as a physical representation of an arrangement between myself and the music I love. It is something that you can see and touch and smell and that says – I LIKE THIS or I LOVE THIS or THIS MOVES ME.

BUT I also love digital audio files – there’s less (NO) environmental impact that the manufacturing process of a CD entails – no little plastic disc that will fill up a landfill for thousands of years, no transportation, no politics of oil sitting behind it all – it liberates artists from the financial restraints of “making a record”.

BUT I object, with a vengeance, to the DRM that most retailers place on the digital files they sell – I object to “leasing” music rather than “owning” it – I object to the way that retailers think of me as a thief. I worry about the quality, I worry about the longevity…

My head tells me go digital – there is too much that is bad about the manufacturing process – but my heart tells me that I want something I can hold…

Shortly afterwards I signed up to (DRM free) download site eMusic and dipped my toes into the new era with mixed results. eMusic makes it so much easier to embrace this new era although I still had problems. One of the albums I downloaded was Joanna Newsom’s awesome album Ys – and within days I’d bought myself the CD of it – for something that beautiful it didn’t seem right not having a physical object to support my love (or infatuation as Hazel seems to think it is!). Downloading still seems such a non-committal form of music love. I’ve “bought” other albums through eMusic and for most I’m quite happy with the not “owning”, but for music I really LOVE I need to go all the way!

Yesterday I “bought” the new Decemberists album from iTunes (technically it’s on Rough Trade over here so I didn’t break my new years resolution to not buy major label records!) and in this instance I feel fine with not “owning” it (and I own this less than most because of the evils of DRM that iTunes music has), maybe because it’s just a little too polished for me to truly love it.

After nearly four months of a more committed relationship with downloading it seems that I might be able to get on with it – with exceptions for the truly exceptional.

Posted in Music, idle nonsense, politics | No Comments »

Snowy blanket

Posted on January 24th, 2007 by Andy

(originally uploaded by ~Misty~)

We woke up this morning to find the world covered in a beautiful snowy blanket. It’ll all be gone by now but on my cycle in to work I couldn’t help but smile and feel good about things (well at least until we got to the noisy and slushy and cold A4).

Posted in idle nonsense, photography | No Comments »

xmas trips out..

Posted on January 2nd, 2007 by Andy

Locked out
(originally uploaded by grange85)

We went to Tate Modern just after xmas – we’d planned to go to the British Library but it was closed. Tate Modern was an awful experience, it was packed and there’s no way you can even begin to appreciate art when there are people shoving and milling around (and screaming kids running around waiting their turn on the slides). We all came out tired and grumpy and only chocolate could revive us.

A couple of days later we managed to get into the British Library – the London maps exhibition was fascinating even if we couldn’t help but spend time looking for Hanwell (or Hanuell) on the maps that reached as far west as us. The permanent exhibition was really interesting as well (although I can only cope with so many illuminated manuscripts! The whole atmosphere was so much more pleasant than the nightmare of the Tate!

Posted in idle nonsense, my family | No Comments »

Resolutions…2007

Posted on January 2nd, 2007 by Andy

Canal Walk
(originally uploaded by grange85)

• Lose weight (yawn) so I can fit into a Galaxie 500 T shirt.
• Work much harder at my piano practice and music theory.
• Read more – and not just comics…proper books as well!
• Go to bed earlier – over 2006 it went from being just after midnight to close to 2am!
• Write more – NaNoWriMo was an interesting experiment but I need to keep writing because it needs to get MUCH better!
• Improve myself – I need to find myself a “direction”.
• Not to buy a record on a major label – maybe childish petulance but I don’t see why I should throw my money at the big four when there is so much really great indie music around.
• Get better at blogging – 2006 was an improvement but I still could get better!

Posted in idle nonsense | No Comments »