so I’ve finally got myself a Flickr Account. And, unusually for me, it’s not just another example of shameless online self-promotion. It’s called ‘Steve’s Panoramics’ and it’s all the photos that I take when mucking about with the panoramic setting on my phone. It’s weird, but when you stick three slightly crap phone cam pictures together, they look kinda arty and fun, and if you weren’t looking at the screen when you took them, there’s a charmingly random element to them…
so there you go.
here’s today’s random iTunes generated playlist…
The Works – Say Yes
Juliet Turner – Falling (Live)
Juliet Turner – Doctor Fell (Live) (two in a row from the same album? what is random up to?)
Gillian Welch – Everything Is Free
Madonna – Oh Father
Ingrid Laubrock and Liam Noble – We See
Sophia – Another Trauma
Eric Roche – Faja Grande
Bill Frisell – Cadillac 1959
John Martyn – I’d Rather Be The Devil
Yup, I think I’ll listen to that lot again…
this photo was doing the rounds at Greenbelt – it’s a self portrait, taken with a timer. Oh, and it’s also a picture of a chubby naked bloke diving into a swimming pool. It’s very well timed, though why the bloke in question (a church youth worker with a frankly baffling lack of concern for job security, posting naked pictures of himself online) didn’t put some shorts on for the photo is anyone’s guess.
So yes, there’s a naked bloke in the photo, but no, it’s not even remotely sexy or disturbing, unless you’re just entirely disgusted by the concept on nudity and get undressed in the dark.
No need for me to upload my lame videos, there are already plenty of StreetBox clips on YouTube
A fun evening last night – a Greenbelt chum was having birthday drinks in town, so ’twas a chance to catch up with her and other greenbelt chums in town. Fortunately, two of them were people who’d been so busy over the weekend I hadn’t had a chance to see them at the festival – Emma and Chris, both delightful and lovely. I’d arranged beforehand to go for dinner with The Cheat at the end, and Emma, Chris and Emma’s friend Sarah-who-thinks-she’s-met-me-before were going as well, so a delicious Thai feast and much hilarity followed. Yay.
plans are a-foot for a post-greenbelt curry in the next couple of weeks – email me if you’re a greenbelter who’s interested.
However, that wasn’t the most exciting thing of the evening – that prize goes to StreetBox – a beatbox/voice duo who were busking at the top of Carnaby street, and the beatbox dude was out of this world. They did a kick ass version of Billy Jean, which I’m going to try and get uploaded to YouTube cos I videoed it on my hires phone (riiight), but I’m hoping their website will be updated soon with info/MP3s/CD buying options. They had a CD for sale there, which I saw Howard out of top pop singing sensations Take That buy. I stood next to Howard watching them, us both smiling incredulously at what the beatbox monkey was capable of – drums, basslines, scratch effects and bleeps all merged into one incredible sound. Well worth keeping an eye on…
In my post-Greenbelt blogging frenzy, I forgot to blog about the NT gig with the lovely Theo. It’s amazing that we keep getting booked there, given that most of the music there is either solo classical guitar, or standards. We seem to get away with playing original spacey ambient loveliness in a straight setting. Still, the audience seem to like it, we like it, so what’s not to love?
Anyway, the gig went really well – it’s always too quiet in there, thanks to the powers that be complaining about the volume, but that aside, it was such a joy to be back playing with Theo – he’s an exceedingly nice bloke, and a fantastic musician and improvisor. It’s a really natural musical hookup. Most of the gig was freshly improvised stuff, with a couple of ‘Open Spaces tunes thrown in’ (Flutter, Bernie and Lovely), a solo tune from me (Behind Every Word) and our duo arrangement of ‘All I Know’ from Theo’s excellent Heart Of The Sun album. All in a most enjoyable gig, with a mix of friends and strangers in the audience, many of whom were most complimentary about the music afterwards. We even sold a pile of CDs, which is fairly rare for a foyer gig…
No doubt we’ll be back there soon.
I’m a little late on this one, news-wise, but someone mentioned to me over the weekend that U2 have moved a load of their business affairs to Holland To avoid paying tax back home.
I’ve always found this kind of tax exile behaviour pretty reprehensible. You choose where you live, and render unto caesar what is caesar’s. Taxation isn’t the great evil – it is, until someone comes up with something better, the least-worst way to redistribute the wealth a little, based on the assumption that no-one makes money on their own, we’re all beholden to eachother to some extent, and if you’ve got a shitload of money, there’s zero evidence that having an even bigger shitload of money will make you happier. In fact, the misery of bitterness over how ‘unfair’ it is to be taxed is likely to make you more miserable if you’ve got loads of money.
So, when a band famed for their campaigning stance on the insidiousness of certain aspects of global finance, to do something that so clearly directs wealth away from their country of birth, of residence, of nurture seems not only fiscally suspect, but displays a scant lack of gratitude…
I just asked BDB about this via MSN, and his comment was ‘it depends what you’re planning on doing with the money’, which seems to be the american ‘compassionate conservative’ argument against higher taxation – let people earn more, and choose where to donate it.
the problem is, free markets are never free, and we’ve already got a world where charity fund-raisers are paid daft amounts of money to access all that financial goodwill that is out there. When individuals take it on themselves to do the redistribution themselves, certain hot-button charities do incredibly well, and others fall apart, regardless of how vital their work is.
The role of governments in this is to redistribute based on need, not on how effectively an advertising campaign tugs at the heartstrings. Yes, central government can be deeply inefficient, beaurocratic, non-sensical etc. etc. but it is still the least-worst option.
Within this web of life, the rich do bear some of the responsibility for the poor – neither riches nor poverty exist in a vacuum, and sharing the love benefits everyone.
So shipping your business dealings off-shore strikes me as complicity in the worst two tier-ism of globalisation. The rich end up paying a much smaller percentage of their wealth in tax than the poor, so those trying to feed their kids on one crappy McWage are struggling, while U2 and the Stones get to keep a few more million a year… yeah, that sounds like compassionate conservativism to me. What a crock.
Anyway, has anyone seen a response from the U2 camp on this? I’m certainly open to the notion that there’s a reasonable excuse for this, but I’m buggered if I can tell what it’s going to be…
Should’ve blogged this ages ago, but was using it a lot at Greenbelt and introduced quite a few people to it, so here it is –
if you need to either a) extend your battery life or b) see the screen in a really sunny place, you can invert the colour of the screen (like a negative of a photo) by holding down the control, alt and apple keys and pressing number 8. If the screen is predominantly white space, it saves lots on the battery, and you can then turn down the brightness of the screen (with the two buttons in the top left of the keyboard) and save lots of battery life.
I was shown this in LA in January by Janek, and used it a lot when trying to jack wifi from outside cafes in Hollywood. :o)
I told quite a few people about this over the weekend, so thought I ought to post a link to it – David Byrne’s blog – some great stuff here, thoughts, reviews, comments. Well written and interesting.
Let’s face it, he’s the man who brought us ‘Stop Making Sense’ – I’d read his shopping lists.
