Corporate rock sucks #10: When major label money comes in the door integrity goes out the window…

Posted on November 8th, 2006 by Andy

I sort of hate how I keep picking on The Decemberists because deep down I think they’re probably a good bunch of people and what’s happening is just the standard shit that happens when you sign to a major label. A few years ago I signed up to a “a relatively unobtrusive once a month email missive” from Decemberists. It was irregular but when the posts came it was clea that they hand-crafted with love and humour and genuinely interesting content.

When I signed up I was told

This is a hidden list, which means that the list of members is available only to the list administrator.

this was clearly a lie because today I recieved my email not from the Decemberists but from EMI Capitol so obviously the list was available to the list administrator AND the PR department at Capitol Records

This was no lovingly written news missive but just a puff for the album, it had no content of any note and certainly no humour just a horrid dry email with pictures/adverts and a couple of links to more pages of puff.

Maybe there is a very good reason to sign to a major but I must admit I find it very hard to believe that there is and so does Steve Albini. So, if there are any bands I love who happen to come past here (oh I’m sure they all do!) please think that maybe having a bit of integrity is worth a little more than whatever it is that the major label is offering you.

Posted in Music, corporate rock sucks, idle nonsense, politics | 1 Comment »

Football and music

Posted on June 19th, 2006 by Andy

Pat Nevin introduces Camera Obscura
(originally uploaded by cadd)

Football supporters were always notorious for their bad taste in music. It was always very depressing when the matchday programs had those player profile questionaires…

Politics: Tory
Meal: Steak and chips
Superstitions: None (touch wood)
Music: Luther Vandross

It was always the same - until pat Nevin mentioned listening to The Cocteau Twins on a bus to the Chelsea training ground. It was such a relief that there was one (and it may well have been just one) player who had half-decent taste in music.

In 2005 Gaizka Mendieta (of Middlesborough) became only the second (to my knowledge) cool footballer when he mentioned Luna in an interview in the Sunday Times.

Posted in Music, idle nonsense | No Comments »

Lullaby of Broadway…

Posted on June 14th, 2006 by Andy

This on Should It Stay or Should It Go? comments on a lack of quality control when you get stuff for nothing and it got me thinking about my own past and similar quality issues…

I didn’t do “college radio” mostly because I didn’t get to college but also because I don’t suppose it exists in quite the same way over here. And yet I understand the quality control issue.-There was a record shop, “Lullaby of Broadway”, tucked away in a side-street in West Ealing which was, I’d guess, a chart return store and so all the record companies would dump their second rate products there and the place would be full of boxes and boxes of 7″ and 12″ singles with poorly handwritten signs declaring that the contents were available at “20p each or 6 for a £1″ or some equivalent ridiculous “bargain”.

I’d guess I bought hundreds of singles in that place for any number of half-baked reasons: cool name; cool sleeve; might have heard of them in the MM or NME; needed to make up numbers to get the discount…

Most were played just once, if at all and most are an absolute embarrassment. When it comes to sorting through my past I will do it alone so that no-one will ever find some of the crap that I bought in “Lullaby”…

Posted in Music, idle nonsense | 1 Comment »

Cycling to work

Posted on May 26th, 2006 by Andy

Swans
(originally uploaded by grange85)

Over the last two days cycling to and from work I have seen (and heard!)…

• A family of swans - cute/fluffy/grey
• a heron
• mallards
• tufted ducks
• a family of coots - cute/fluffy/black
• caterpillars
• moorhens
• geese
• bunnies
• lots of different birds - magpies, tits, pigeons etc.
• snails

I love cycling because in all the years I drove to work I never saw anything but traffic and heard nothing but traffic noise.

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I (heart) Gmaps Pedometer

Posted on May 10th, 2006 by Andy

This (via Beatnic) is just great for the stats and maps obessesive in me…

My cycle to work along the canal this morning and my ride to the Broadcast Centre yesterday…

Posted in I heart/I hate, blogs and the internet, idle nonsense | No Comments »

More MySpace venting

Posted on April 18th, 2006 by Andy

This article from the New York Times seems to suggest that MySpace is acceptable because of it’s democratic nature - it’s because anyone is allowed to create ugly, hateful pages that the site is so popular. That would be so sad if it were true. I’m not convinced - I think its popular despite that. I think its popular because of some strange freak of nature/timing/luck and that its popularity is the ONLY thing that keeps it going - there’s almost an obligation to embrace MySpace merely because everyone else is - it makes me want to cry.

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It’s about time

Posted on April 18th, 2006 by Andy

As much as I hate the way that the big companies want to own the whole of the Internet I seem to have become some sort of Google apologist. It seems that they can do so little wrong (although the Google China censorship is a little disappointing). I love Google Mail, I love that they have made Internet advertising less intrusive and ugly, I love Google Maps and Google Earth and now I adore Google Calendar - I’ve been waiting for this one for a while in the knowledge that they WILL do it and they WILL do it better than anyone else has managed an online calendar.

I love Google - I just hate the way they make me a hypocrite!

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Corporate rock sucks #8: Is there no end to the desire to be a part of something bigger?

Posted on March 17th, 2006 by Andy

This week I discovered that social networking horror MySpace is owned by the atrocious News International (which already makes my love of The Simpsons, Futurama, The X-Files etc. difficult). Not, of course that I’m anywhere near being a a fan of MySpace. The very lovely Flickr jumped when Yahoo clicked their fingers, the Decemberists happily took the money that EMI/Capitol waved temptingly in front of their noses, The Body Shop (admittedly a pretty ugly global company already but at least one with a semblance of ethical integrity) have just jumped into bed L’Oreal (who have less of that ethical integrity and are part owned by Nestle who have absolutely NO ethical integrity at all).

It seems that anything small MUST aspire to be part of something bigger - you see it all the time - I’ve particularly noticed it around the Internet where Yahoo (Flickr, Upcoming, Delicious, Webjay) and Google (Deja, Blogger, Picasa) and AOL (Winamp, ICQ) are snapping up any even mildly promising operation - and it seems that the owners of these independents just swoon and take the cash as if that was the aim all along.

Posted in corporate rock sucks, idle nonsense, politics | 1 Comment »

Shhhh

Posted on February 10th, 2006 by Andy

Adam came home from school with a sponsor form. They’re trying to raise money for a couple of class trips at the end of the (school) year and I applaud them for that - particularly as my contribution to class fundraising rarely goes beyond cooking some lovely shortbread for the occasional cake sale. However it seems that years 4 and 5 are going to have a Sponsored Silence!

This is 8-10 year old kids - sponsoring them to keep quiet seems such a pointless and unconstructive way to raise money. There are so many ways that could pull in the money and yet stimulate the children - sponsored…walking, running, jumping, hopping, joke-telling, story-writing, reading, painting, singing, dancing, nature-watching, brid-watching, tree-identifying, traffic-surveying, catching, throwing, juggling.

Possibly what’s even more disturbing is that the sponsor form invites us to sponsor the children per hour - how long do they want these kids to keep quiet for! I think it’s a teachers ruse for a quiet afternoon…

I wrote a whingy letter this morning but haven’t sent it in yet - maybe I won’t because frankly it seems a bit rich kicking up a fuss when I make so little effort myself.

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I despise MySpace

Posted on February 6th, 2006 by Andy

So Damon & Naomi have signed up with MySpace - it seems an intevitability of modern music that any (indie) band worth their salt (and a billion others not worth the time of day) have to have a page on the social networking nightmare. The site is built on false and forced friendships that would be better established in more apprpriate fora. Sign up and wait for the “girls” to invite you to look at their webcams. Enjoy the poorly laid out and ugly pages. Keep having complete strangers ask to be your “friend” without any introduction or relationship build-up.

Maybe it is a valuable tool for the struggling indie or a way to communicate with the fans for those feeling out-of-touch but I can’t help feeling that this sort of fake social community built on imaginary relationships is a sad way for the Internet to be going.

I’m signed up, hypocrite that I am, because it means I can call The Clientele and The New Year and now Damon and Naomi my firends - maybe I’m the sort of shallow sad-sack that ought to really embrace MySpace.

Posted in I heart/I hate, Music, idle nonsense | 5 Comments »