Year: 2005

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More of file sharing and the multi-nationals

From BBC news –

“The US Supreme Court has ruled that file-sharing companies are to blame for what users do with their software.”

This was apparently a surprise, because a similar case happened with the advent of home videos, where people could record off the TV. Then, the ruling went in favour of the Video manufacturers.

This time, I guess because the inventors of grokster, morpheus, limewire etc. aren’t mulitnationals themselves, the increasingly erroneous US Supreme Court have ruled in favour of the millionaires.

Now, the interesting thing here is, does this mean I can now sue Sony if someone uses a Sony CDR to copy one of my CDs? Of course not, because Sony have more money than me, so naturally they are in the right. But it’d be a fun test-case – I’m sure I could argue quite convincingly that they were facilitating the exchange, at least as much as limewire facilitate the downloading of my MP3s. Limewire can be used for legal exchange as well as illegal.

But no, Sony were happy to sell CDRs, because then they were making the money. The artists weren’t, but who gives a shit about artists? They claim to, but clearly don’t. When the blank CDR/cassette/video market became an obvious source of funds, they stopped protesting and started making blank media. At least they’d make the money. if you had shares in Sony, you’d still win, even if the artists they claim to care about so much didn’t make anything.

But file sharing is different. No-one’s making any money off it. The programs are free, the files are exchanged for free. So because they can’t take over, the prosecute. Any illusion of recourse to the law is pure BS. It’s all about control, nothing to do with artist’s rights. How many of these companies are fighting for fair trade laws? How many are fighting for the rights of people who work in CD plants across the developing world. No, they are talking about hardworking pop-stars, who might not make that extra few million quid, about hard working video directors, who might have to start charging as little as $200,000 for a three week shoot, instead of their customary cool million.

If anyone is wasting the artist’s money it’s the labels. The deception is huge, and the logic flawed. Who is going to get the money when the file sharers are sued? The artists? the little labels, the little venues? yeah, right. More money for the multi-nationals. That’s what the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll is all about.

Bollocks to them all.

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Guy Pratt's Edinburgh Show

Last night was the preview of My Bass And Other Animals – Guy Pratt’s Edinburgh show. Guy’s a fantastic bassist, with a CV any bassist would be hugely jealous of – he’s played for Pink Floyd, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Coverdale/Page, Jimmy Nail. Oh, and Fat Les.

His show is a collection of mad stories from his life as a musician, with a little bit of bass playing – no solo tunes, just bits to demonstrate the gags.

It’s all very funny, some of it very familiar for anyone who’s toured or played festivals, or stayed in hotels with drunken rock stars. If Guy wasn’t such a skilled musician, a lot of his jokes at the expense of bassists would seem a bit bitter, but as he is a marvellous player, and fine composer too, they just draw you in to the gag.

It’s great that he’s going to be at Edinburgh, as it makes the ‘one bassist on stage doing a show’ thing seem slightly less freakish. His is more talking, and my show is more playing, but I’m sure I’ll get him up to guest once or twice during the run.

Definitely not a show to be missed if you’re anywhere near Edinburgh during August, and definitely not a show just for bassists – he’s been fastidious in removing any hint of muso-ness, to the point of not using one of my favourite Whitesnake stories of his. But it’s to his credit and the show’s benefit that he keeps it on a more general level.

Soundtrack – M83, ‘Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts’; Soulfly, ‘Soulfly’; Kris Delmhorst, ‘Songs For A Hurricane’.

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Read this book.

Last night I finished one of the greatest works of non-fiction I’ve ever read.

I first heard about ‘Father Joe – The Man Who Saved My Soul’ when its writer, Tony Hendra, was interviewed on Danny Baker’s show on BBC London. My interest was piqued because Tony played Ian Faith in Spinal Tap, and Danny declared it straight away to be one of the greatest books he’d ever read.

As the interview went on, it became clear that Father Joe was an extraordinary character. He was a Benedictine monk at Quarr Abbey on the Isle Of Wight, off the south cost of England, who Tony met when he almost had an affair with a married woman, at the age of 14, and was sent to Joe for penance. Thus began a lifelong friendship, the story of which unfolds in the book, bought for me a few weeks ago by TSP.

It’s a truly remarkable story – Tony’s story in many ways is similar to a lot of people in the media – one of vocation, compromise, and hurting the ones nearest to you. The big difference is that always in the background are his visits to Quarr Abbey, and letters from Father Joe.

The end of the book is utterly heart-breaking. I finished it on the tube last night, and I’ve never sobbed on the tube before now – the odd tear as a sad part of a book, but never like this. I’m rather glad the train was pretty much empty.

When I got where I was going, I must’ve looked like I had the world’s worst hayfever, with my swollen red eyes…

Anyway, buy it, please. It’s amazing. A life-affirming, heart-warming inspirational story.

oh, and we SO need to get Tony Hendra for Greenbelt – The Cheat, get onto it.

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The Co-Op caught in a moral quandry…

Question – does it constitute discrimination to exclude someone based on them being discriminatory?

Such is the problem facing The Co-Operative Bank, who have terminated the account of Christian Voice, over the ‘homophobia’ in their stance and literature. Those odious Christian Voice people (the ones who came to prominence by protesting Jerry Springer – The Opera, and have since become, rather tragically, the self-appointed spokes people for ‘the church’, or at least the tiny proportion of the churc that they wouldn’t consider apostate.

The Co-Op bank have a history of banning people under the terms of their ethical policy, and in a rather bizarre and hilarious twist, Christian Voice have found themselves with some, I suspect, rather unwanted support… from the BNP!

The execrable racists have issued a press release (I was going to link to it, but you can find their site if you want to – I don’t want to give them traffic. it’s dated June 24th) coming out in favour of the Christian Voice, and against the horrible political correctness of the Co-Op. The BNP has previously had it’s accounts closed by Barclays and the HSBC (slightly ironic given barclays refusal to terminate dealings with apartheid-era South Africa, but we’ll let that one slide for now…)

So Christian Voice may have found a fitting bedfellow for their crazy ranting.

Either way, I’m glad I bank with the Co-Op.

Soundtrack – Charlie Hunter Quartet, ‘Natty Dread’.

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and on a lighter note

Had a fun weekend, though not got as much work done as I should have.

Starting Friday lunch-time, it was yet another ‘last ever’ gig for the RFH Foyer as booked by JazzShark. It was a particularly fitting booking, as it was Rebecca Hollweg, a fabulous singer/songwriter, with a great lil’ quartet, featuring Andy Hamill on bass – one of my favourite bassists in the country. It was a lovely gig, with yet another ‘thanks, Sue!’ speech at the end, and a great rendition of ‘How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You’, with Winston Clifford changing the words to ‘How Sweet It Is To Be Booked By Sue’!

Friday night was a Soul Space meeting, planning the next service, which I won’t be at. They’re doing a Labyrinth service, which are always fun – see labyrinth.org.uk for more on what they are (and do the online version – it’s very chilled and lovely.)

Saturday started with teaching, and then in the afternoon it was Malcolm’s ordination at St Paul’s Cathedral. Malcolm (and his other half, Meryl) have been at St Luke’s for ages, and have had a pretty huge influence on the way the church looks, feels and thinks. Very lovely peoples. Malcolm has been at Vicar Hogwarts for a couple of years, and was ordained on Saturday. I got there 10 minutes before the service started and already all the seats were gone – seems there are lots of people in London who like the high-camp of some C of E pomp and ceremony on a Saturday afternoon. So I stood at the back, gave Malcolm a wave as he came in, and left after about half an hour, and headed over to The RFH, to go to the Patti Smith gig at Meltdown.

Was there very early, so was following the score in the Tennis. Murray was two sets to love up, looking good for another upset. Fell apart in the third, lost it 6-0. Was a break up in the fourth, all going v. well, but the length of the match got the better of him, and he still lost. It was a very odd experience just following the score – no news, no report, no audio. Just the score changing on my phone screen as I hit refresh… Very sad to see him lose.

Anyway, Juliet turned up, and we went in to see John Cale – who was on startling form. The opening tune was a spooky surreal monologue in the style of Velvet Underground’s ‘The Gift’, which some fantastic spacey noises.. and a very recogniseable bass sound… …which I soon recognised as being Flea from the Chili Peppers. I’m still not sure if I really dug what he was doing… it was a lot more pentatonic/obvious lick-based stuff than the rest of the band, but maybe in needed that to ground it… hmmm

Anyway, the rest of the set blended so many fantastic elements, from the spookiness of the opener, to some really straight ahead piano-playing singer-songwriter stuff through to full on Neil Young stylee guitar-rage in the last track. A sublime set. Always good to see the old guys rock out!

during the break, we realised we were sat next to Roy Harper, a genial chatty bloke, for sure, who amusingly kept throwing plastic cups at the losers in front of us who kept blocking our view by standing in stupid places.

Patti’s gig was very fine too – she played through the whole ‘Horses’ album, start to finish, and then did ‘My Generation’ as cover at the end, not wholly convincingly, with a ‘rise up and take the streets’ rant in the middle… A fine sentiment, but a tricky one to deliver in the middle of a song without looking like a raving polemicist. Discourse works better than shouting, methinks. Or am I just getting old?

Anyway, I was very pleasantly surprised by her set – most of Rock’s sacred cows have no place, in my humble opinion, being on the throne they are on, but she was entertaining, engaging, intelligent and captivating.

Sunday – church in the morning (sermon was way too long and I can’t can’t handle full-on exegesis on a Sunday morning…), followed by coffee in Highgate with Steve and Lorna, after which the three of us meet up with Harry, Karen and Juliet for more cakes. Too much cake.

And finally, last night, called round to Orphy’s to drop off a copy of Jazz Review (he does the blindfold test this month), and ended up helping him register orphyrobinson.com and getting orphyrobinson.blogspot.com set up as well, so he’s now got a news page, and an atom feed – here.

Soundtrack – Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder, ‘Talking Timbuktu’.

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The beginning of the end for the BBC?

Today the sale of BBC broadcast to “an Australian business consortium” was finalised (subject to government approval).

I’m against the idea of selling off any public services, but some of the quotes in the article above are particularly disturbing –

“But new owner Creative Broadcast Services has agreed to a one-year moratorium on compulsory job losses.”

and

“As well as a moratorium on compulsory job losses, Mr Thompson said the consortium had also agreed to protect workers’ contracts for three years, continue to recognise unions and offer a “broadly comparable” pension scheme.”

one year? what kind of bogus short-termism is that? ‘it’s OK, we’ve sold you down the river, but you’ll have your job for a year’.

And I’m not sure what the second quote means – does that mean they’ll recognise the unions for three years or permanently? And what’s a ‘broadly comparable’ pension scheme? I really don’t like the sound of this at all.

Compounding this is that the sale was for £166 Million, even though “BBC Broadcast has contracts with the BBC up to 2015, worth over £500m.”

Why are British public services sold off in this way? I so cannot understand it. For some reason, the government/governing bodies seem to think that to sell of a public service we have to give the investors 10 times what they’d get in any other low-risk investment, and then make sure that even that low risk isn’t there. If these morons are going to try and play at being in business, the least they could do is make those who are making the money shoulder some of the responsibility and risk.

It’s like these insane PPP schemes where the investors are guaranteed super-high annual returns on their investment, so if they bollocks up the job, the government has to bail them out via the terms of the contract. How else are Jarvis still in business? How else did the contractors get away with putting lifts in Coventry’s PPP hospital that are too small to get a hospital bed in???

It makes no sense whatsoever, and it’s ruined my day, given that our last hope is that the government blocks it. Sadly given their track record on getting things right, there’s about as much chance of that happening as there is of Blair admitting that the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqis is illegal and he really out to be up in the Hague on war crimes charges.

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CD piracy…

So, 1 in 3 CDs sold worldwide is a pirate copy. I wonder how that stacks up against the percentages of money made by record companies vs artists. Are the pirates ripping off the labels more than the labels are ripping off the artists? I suspect not.

From the article –

“Jorgen Larsen, president of music producer Universal Music International, said the livelihood of the artists and music industry workers was at risk if piracy continued to rise.”

I think the livelihood of the artists is put more at risk by signing to Universal than it is from piracy. I very much doubt anyone is bootlegging my CDs. In fact, I’d be slightly flattered if they were. I’m sure there are some CDR copies kicking around, and I hope that they inspire the owners to turn up to gigs. There’s certainly enough MP3 material of mine around to make up a whole CD of extras (moreso if you’re in the street team), but people still buy the CDs, come to the gigs, and everything’s ticking along quite nicely. I’m certainly more scared of one day having a breakdown and accidentally signing a record deal than I am of discovering 100,000 copies of Grace And Gratitude for sale in a Delhi street market – in fact, if they did, I’d probably just go and do a gig there!

Perhaps the markup on CDs is to blaim? If the labels are still trying to charge £16 a CD to music buyers in India/China/Mexico etc, how on earth do they expect them to come up with that kind of money? Maybe they should look at ways of making it more attractive to buy the real thing, rather than just blaiming the pirates for filling a gap in the market. If the record companies weren’t so obviously rapacious in their dealings with artists, and such a rip-off in terms of what they charge the end user, then people might feel more generously disposed towards them. How about if they started to give away 20% of their profits to arts projects in developing countries?

No, instead they blame ‘organised crime’ – I’d be interested to see the evidence for this. It’s quite possible that ‘organised crime’ units are somehow involved, but it’s equally possible that there are a bunch of opportunists who see a gap in the market created by the greed of the majors.

It’s like the Metallica/Napster debacle – I, along with 10 million other people, found it very hard to feel much sympathy for the multi-millionaire Lars Ulrich in his claims that he was being ripped off by Napster. If every single item of Metallica merch was fair trade, if they were pressuring their record company to encourage staff to unionise and putting pressure on for fairer wages around the world, if they implimented a scheme in Metallica PLC where the top paid person could only earn 9 times what the lowest paid person could earn, I’d be feeling a little more generous towards his claims that kids in colleges downloading Metallica albums were destroying his livelihood.

Soundtrack – Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder, ‘Talking Timbuktu’ (heard a piece on Radio 4 last night about Ali, and dug out this CD again – fantastic stuff – brings back marvellous memories of sitting at Rick Turner‘s house in Santa Cruz, discovering amazing new music from around the world, and listening to Rick’s remarkable stories.)

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Celebs in need of a wake up call…

OK, so Oprah Winfrey was stopped from going into a paris shop after-hours because they were getting ready for some press thing. No big deal? Not to Oprah. According to ‘a friend’, it was “one of the most humiliating moments of her life”.

Hold on – so not being treated like a puffed up overblown star demanding luxury and special treatment is ‘humiliating’. How about being stopped and searched for just for being black? How about being forcibly strip searched, or arrested and tortured? How about suffering from panic attacks or epilepsy and having an attack in a crowded place?

Good God, how to these celeb losers sleep at night??? How can anyone get worked up over not being let into a chic shop? So you can’t get in – so what, it was closed anyway!! Ah, but you’re Oprah. Sorry, nobody still gives a shit.

another choice quote –

‘Winfrey’s friend Ms King said the TV presenter has no intention of shopping at Hermes again.

“Her position is ‘I will shop where people appreciate my business, and I don’t believe that any longer includes Hermes’,” she added.’

Oh please! just PISS OFF. No-one wants to hear multi-millionaires whinging about not getting the star treatment, you sad out-of-touch waste of oxygen! Go and work in a homeless shelter or do relief work for a few months to get some perspective, you tragic spoilt showbiz mannequin!

Loser of the week, methinks…

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