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.

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Lists of 2006

Posted on January 2nd, 2007 by Andy

Joanna Newsom 1
(originally uploaded by Coastal)

Albums

• Ys – Joanna Newsom
  No doubt the best album of the year – beautiful, ambtitious, unique and utterly engrossing – it deserves a bit of effort.

• II – Espers
  Sweet, cool and enveloping folkiness
• I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass – Yo La Tengo
  A mish-mash of all the good things about Yo La Tengo, probably shouldn’t work as an album but it does.
• The Cannibal Sea – The Essex Green
  I sort of missed blogging about this but I keep coming back to it.
• The Greatest – Cat Power
  Another darling of the critics – I maybe am more mainstream than I’d like to think!
• Let’s Get Out Of The Country – Camera Obscura
  Sweet, sweet, sweet Scottish pop made in Sweden.
• Visible Forms – Audrey
  Sweet, sweet, sweet Swedish pop made in Sweden.
• On Leaving – Nina Nastasia
  She is turning out such consistently great albums.
• Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain – Sparklehorse
  More of the same from Linkous, but you won’t find me complaining.
• You Are My Home – Rivulets
• Citrus – Asobi Seksu

Gigs
These days it’s hard for me to drag my old and aching body out to gigs but here are a few I enjoyed (and can remember) this year…

• Espers + Edith Frost @ The Bush Hall
• Yo La Tengo @ The Bush Hall
• J. Spaceman @ The Queen Elizabeth Hall
• Audrey + Musika 77 @ The Water Rats
• The Clientele @ The Spitz

Played artists (according to last.fm)

1. Galaxie 500
2. Low
3. Luna
4. Yo La Tengo
5. Stereolab
6. Joanna Newsom
7. Ballboy
8. The Clientele
9. Cat Power
10. Camera Obscura

Films
Some I saw and loved in 2006 (some I’d seen before, some I hadn’t)

• Corpse Bride (2005)
• Almost Famous (2000)
• Brazil (1985)
• Adaptation (2002)
• Twelve Monkeys (1995)
• The River (1951)
• Batman Begins (2005)
• A Mighty Wind (2003)
• Fight Club (1999)
• Serenity (2005)

Things that made me feel good

• Hazel
  if it’s possible we seem to be getting on even better than we ever have – even if she doesn’t get Joanna Newsom (yet!)
• Adam
  Occasionally infuriating, but funny and fun and when he tries talented!
• A Head Full of Wishes and the Galaxie 500 Mailing List
  OK – a pretty quiet year for both but I still get a buzz out of them – and it’s because of them that I ocasionally have email from Dean, Damon and Naomi – and nothing can surely make a fan feel better than that!
• Music
• Films
• The Internet

Things that made me feel depressed

• The British government
  I can’t seem to put into words just how pissed off I am with Blair and the spineless folk around him.
• The Music Industry
  Evil, greedy, selfish and rich. They don’t care about music and one day everyone will realise that they don’t need them anymore.
• My job (and the BBC)
  Slowly falling apart and being sold off to the highest bidder with little care and long-term thinking – it too will finally fall apart and become little more than a commissioning house.

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Corporate rock sucks #11: United Musicians

Posted on November 10th, 2006 by Andy

Aimee Mann
photo by Elston

Hazel and I had been discussing the sacrifice of integrity and artistic control that signing to a major label, or publishing company always seems to involve and she mentioned that Aimee Mann had managed to distance herself from the evils of the record industry. She was instrumental in setting up United Musicians which maybe has the right idea…

UNITED MUSICIANS is founded on the principle that every artist should be able to retain copyright ownership of the work he or she has created and that this ownership is the basis for artistic strength and true independence.

I could never understand why any musician needed to sign away any of their rights in order to be successful. Why sign licensing and publishing deals – if someone wants to use or publish your music why can’t they negotiate with you rather than with a third party who take a hefty chunk for the trouble. How can McCartney not own all those songs he’s written? When Northern Songs was set up Lennon and McCartney got 15% each – they wrote 50% and got 15% how crap is that?

I guess that there are a lot of artists who are willing to sacrifice some control as a downpayment on success but it seems so short-sighted.

Off course it seems to be a little weak using the richest man in the country as an example of being ripped of by the industry, particularly as his MPL owns the rights of a lot of music that McCartney didn’t write…

Ho-hum…

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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 »

Corporate rock sucks #9: I am a copyright thief

Posted on June 15th, 2006 by Andy

I recently uploaded to youtube a video of Luna playing Lovedust on the Conan O’Brien show from a few years back – and while I am of course NOT the copyright holder and therefore WAS breaking the youtube terms and conditions I thought that as it was a low res video of virtually no resale value (no offence to Luna but they’re not going to make NBC a hatful of cash from reselling their performance) and that it is very unlikely that this clip will turn up anywhere officially I couldn’t see the harm in bending (OK breaking!) the rules.

Today I received an email from youtube to say that the video had been removed because they had received “third-party notification claiming that this material is infringing”. So the video is gone. A video that was…

• not losing anyone anything
• not damaging anyones reputation
• providing an opportunity for Luna fans around the world to see something that they couldn’t see officially

Copyright fascism is a sad fact of life. I just thought that Luna were far enough below the radar to avoid the interests of the greedy and petulant copyright “owners”.

Posted in Music, corporate rock sucks, politics | 2 Comments »

Ealing council goes Tory

Posted on May 5th, 2006 by Andy

When you wake up to the fact that your council is Tory

Just remember, there are two sides to every story

BBC NEWS | Election 2006 | Seat-by-seat | Ealing council

I want to blame the people of Ealing for putting these vermin back in charge but the blame really has to lay at the doorstep of the Labour party leadership for being out of touch. It was Blair who lost this election – not the council.

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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 »

Corporate rock sucks #7: Trust me! I’m a music lover…

Posted on February 24th, 2006 by Andy

I bought the Coltrane/Monk CD last year and was disappointed that it had “Copy Control” and that Blue Note had decided to treat me like a thief. I pledged to never buy another copy-protected CD and this is making my journey into jazz all the more problematic. I went to Amazon today to buy A Night in Tunisia – it too was corrupt – I didn’t and WILL NOT buy it.

I just rattled off a whiny “feedback” to Blue Note before I realised that it was to Blue Note US and they, it seems, are not corrupting their discs. It also seems that contacting Blue Note in the UK is not so easy to do so I guess I’ll just add my whine here.

I’m relatively new to Jazz, I took up piano at the age of 39 (nearly three years now) and it was Thelonious Monk who made me realise that jazz could have the same feel-beyond-musicianship that rock music has given me for years.

Following on from that it’s been a thoroughly enjoyable journey discovering so much music that I didn’t realise was there and so much of that music was on Blue Note.

Please Blue Note (UK) reconsider the decision to sell corrupted discs and start treating your customers with a little respect – we do deserve it.

Apparentluy Blue Note in the US release uncorrupted CDs – I may just have to consider importing my jazz from now on in

update: I managed to get a nice old vinyl copy fon eBay for about £4 – fantastic album and well worth hunting down – but DON’T buy a corrupt CD from Blue Note (Europe).

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Corporate rock sucks #6: The great Decemberists rip off

Posted on February 8th, 2006 by Andy

Arghhh – having taken the no doubt substantial wedge of cash from Capitol I’d liked to think that The Decemberists heart was still with their fans but it seems that it might only be with their RICH and/or GULLIBLE fans. Colin Meloy – having just completed a solo tour apparently has a few copies of the tour only EP left over which are now for sale at the Official Decemberists Shop – smarting that I am that he’ll be charging $10 for an EP (or $14 outisde of the US) – I am absolutely bloody outraged that they should be selling a special “signed edition” for an extra $10 – $10 flipping dollars for Meloy’s signature is an outrage.

I have bought albums and CDs from many artists over the years and they have, almost without exception, been happy to sign if asked (some have been happy to sign without being asked!!) – I have recieved special “signed personal notes” from famous people – and for all of this I haven’t shelled out an extra penny. Billy Bragg will sign pre-orders of his forthcoming box set FOR NOTHING. Sonic Boom will sign anything you buy from him if you ask FOR NOTHING. But Colin Meloy will charge $10 for the privelege of his scrawl on an EP – well Colin you can keep the EP which I had gone to the shop to buy and enjoy your newly found major-label attitude!

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

Corporate rock sucks #5: Capitalism is killing music

Posted on January 31st, 2006 by Andy

I have the audio cassettes, vinyl, I upgraded to CDs, I bough the “Essential” compilation and now Billy Bragg is releasing a great big fat box set of his early releases – packed with extras and a couple of DVDs. How many times do I have to own “Talking With The Taxman…”?

And this is only volume one…It will of course be worth every penny

UPDATE: You can now pre-order a signed copy of the box set from billybragg.co.uk

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