Geekery update…

Well, the blog is all now viewable – hurrah! And ALMOST all my website is validated – I’ve learnt loads about code-monkey-ness in the last three days, with lots of help from sarda, Lovely G, Matt and Drew – Drew was particularly interesting as the validator told me my code was nonsense, and sent me over to an article about geek things, that Drew had written, and I know Drew through Greenbelt-y things – he’s another of the lovely Greenbelt Geeks.

So, where I’m at now is that it all ‘works’, and I’ve given up trying to get everything to validate, because I was having to completely rewrite java files and bits of code to try and get round the code generated by the widget-creators at last.fm, Jaiku. I’ve managed to edit all the last.fm player widgets – the one on the front page, and the ones on the MP3s page – here’s the code for the one on the front page, should you use last.fm plug-ins and want to get round the ’embed’ stuff that doesn’t validate –


<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://panther1.
last.fm/webclient/55/defaultEmbedPlayer.swf" width="540" height="123"&rt;
<param name="movie" value="http://panther1.last.fm/webclient/55/
defaultEmbedPlayer.swf"&rt;<param name="FlashVars"
value="viral=true&lfmMode=playlist&resourceID=464639
&resourceType=10&restTitle=Best of Steve Lawson&albumArt
=http://cdn.last.fm/coverart/130x130/2420746.jpg&labelName=
Pillow+Mountain"&rt;<param name="wmode" value="transparent"&rt;
</object&rt;

the key to it is the data= bit, taken from the article by Drew. there you go, geeks!

comments are go…

Hurrah, thanks to Sarda The Wondergeek, we have comments back! Let’s see how quickly I get spammed into oblivion now… get commenting, peoples, there are now nearly 1400 posts in the blog, so plenty to go back and rant about… :o)

Blog feed at stevelawson.net

Been having a bit of a geeky time with my website of late, and thanks to the Google IPN, I’ve been able to add a feed from this blog to the front page of my website – so you can go to www.stevelawson.net and see there at a glance if I’ve updated the blog. You’ll also see there, in the bottom right hand corner of the page, a feed from my Jaiku mini-blog, which also aggregates feeds from my normal blog, my myspace blog, my Flickr page AND a feed from my stumbleupon account for websites that I’ve favourited – so if you just want one feed that’ll bring together everything that I blog about and post all over the place,

OK, how does this work??

So last night I was importing ‘Stranger’s World’ by the wonderful Patty Larkin from CD into iTunes. For some reason the CD wouldn’t read on my iBook (about 1 CD in 4 doesn’t…), so I hooked up my external drive to my desktop PC (now safely installed in new house) and burnt it on there. took external drive, hooked it back up to iBook, sync’d iPod, and listened to said album… now here’s the inexplicable weirdness – for some reason there are bits of one or two of my tunes scattered in amongst the MP3s – you get 30 seconds of ‘Dear Diary’ by Patty, followed by a load of something off one of the Lessons Learned albums… then back to Dear Diary… WTF??? How the hell does that happen? How have I managed, by sheer force of narcissistic will, to pollute other people’s lovely music with chunks of my own lovely bass noises??? that surely doesn’t make sense?? Geeks? Bueller? Anyone?

What a bizarre day of contrasts…

So, today started well – a trip to Guildford, to the ACM to give a masterclass to their degree students on self promotion and marketing. Much of it was about readjusting their expectations regarding what is likely to be an income stream and what isn’t, and where to put your energies in terms of your attempts at promotion – ie. musical contacts and gigs = good, myspace friends lists with a million bands on that don’t even know who you are = bad. Lots of talk about where we discover new music, where we find things, and what we feel inspired to buy and to go and see live. A successful morning.

Lunch with head of bass Stefan Redtenbacher, drum tutor and old friend Stuart Roberts and fellow visiting lecturer of the day, Terl Bryant. Great peoples one and all.

Home for a few hours, then out to teach. New student in east london, good lesson, but the place where he’d said I was fine to park wasn’t… AND I GOT CLAMPED!!! And not by the local council, not for blocking a drive or taking up a much needed space. No, by some venal scumbag private clamping firm, who charged a £100 release fee. It felt like my car had be broken into – there were no visitors parking spaces that I could see (and clearly even the non-car owning residents hadn’t read the signs about the parking, that’s how well displayed they were) but there were also hardly any cars belonging to residents.

If I get a normal parking ticket for running over, or chancing it somewhere, fair enough – that’s £30, you pay it, it’s a shame, but whatever. Not on private estates in Tower Hamlets. Oh no, there trainee nazis dole out clamps… Has there ever been a more self-defeating device than the wheel clamp. You not supposed to park here, so we’ll IMMOBILISE YOUR CAR – huh??? you’ll keep me stuck in the place I’m not supposed to be. Surely if I’m not supposed to be there, there’s a reason why I shouldn’t be, like it’s blocking something, or I’m taking someone’s much needed space. No, that’s all bollocks, it’s just a bunch of bastards who clamp for fun. Like wasps who according to legend sting just for fun (how on earth do you measure the fun quota of anything in a wasp? or for that matter, a clamper…)

To be fair, the kids who came to unclamp it were obviously in their first job, just trying to get on, clearly embarrassed and uncomfortable at what their role was, and the one kid did try his absolute best to get the stickers of the windscreen without leaving any residue behind. Do the firm give them any solvent to remove the sticky stuff? do they fuck.

I wonder what the legality is of carrying around bolt-cutters and removing it yourself? I’m pretty certain that their jurisdiction can’t extend beyond the private property they operate on. The stickers all say ‘it is an offense to try and remove the clamp’ – but lots of things are an offense. Celine Dion is an offense, Kevin Costner films are an offense. Neither sadly are in any way officially criminal acts.

I ought to just put a big notice on my car saying ‘it is an offense to clamp this car’ – I’m fucking offended by it! filthy scum. Why on earth is it legal? It’s a disaster waiting to happen – you need the car to take someone to hospital, to escape a mugger, to do all kinds of things, and some tosser has come round and chained a bloody great metal triangle to your wheels… grrrrrrr, it makes me so annoyed! (can you tell) – and it’s not as if I’ve got a spare £100 to just throw away on such trivial bollocks.

Anyway, the evening ended on a much brighter note (well, not that much brighter, seeing as I’d forgotten my ordinary glasses when I left home so was wandering around Brick Lane at 11 o’clock wearing sunglasses – who’s the twat trying to look like Bono? That’ll be me then…) – it ended with the lovely Showbiz (or whatever the name is that I’ve given her this week), and Chambers, then back to casa showbiz for mac-geekness and ladies’ tea.

clamped??????

Weird interview style, but great answers from Bruce Cockburn

Just found this via the ‘Humans’ discussion list (Bruce Cockburn email geekfest, a lovely bunch of people) – it’s taken from www.canada.com, and is a very odd way to publish an interview, just as a series of soundbites on topics, but Bruce Cockburn has always been great at one liners, so here’s the list –

On recording and performing at age 61: “It’s not so much wondering
how I could be doing this at this age as [the fact] I’ve actually
lasted this long. When I started out I had no idea where I was going
to go.”

On pop and songs that appear in TV advertisements: “Once I hear a
song in a commercial, I don’t want to listen to the record again.
It’s ruined for me.”

On songwriting: “It’s just that bloodhound hunt for the perfect piece
of writing.”

On artistic restlessness: “There’s a kind of feeling I have of
wanting to get onto the next thing. Sometimes even before I’ve
finished the thing I’m working on.”

On being prolific (Life Short Call Now is his 29th recording): “Every
album I’ve made has always felt like it might be my last.”

On mortality: “Once you’re past 50, the odds are you’re looking at
the downward slope . . . Almost everything I’ve written is about
death and hope. In some way I’ve written my own obituary dozens of
times, you know.”

On the cosmos: “I kind of feel like every speck is significant. And
I’m certainly a speck . . . Perhaps I owe this to experiences with
LSD way back when, but it seems to me that everything touches
everything, and everything is in an constant state of flux. And that
flux has an order to it.”

On why it’s not so bad to be a speck: “I’m also as essential to the
cosmos as anything else in it.”

On God: “I don’t have much of a definition of God these days. I like
the kabbalists’ way of referring to God as ‘the boundless who is not
really accessible.’ You have to approach God — in their view —
through angels or through imagery that doesn’t reflect the
boundlessness, because it’s beyond comprehension… I kind of feel
like that.”

On why his parents bought young Cockburn a guitar only after he
solemnly swore not to wear sideburns and a leather jacket: “They were
worried about rock and roll and teenaged gangs with switchblades.”

On being frequently summoned to support good causes: “Sometimes I get
frustrated. I’m not the only guy out there. Call up Avril Lavigne,
for cryin’ out loud. She’s going to get to a lot more people than me.”

On the phrase “tattoos done while you wait” which appears in his new
song, Life Short Call Now. (Cockburn was inspired while driving
through Missouri): “All of a sudden there’s this big white billboard
with small print in the middle of it, that says, ‘Mike’s Tattoos,
done while you wait’ and a phone number. I thought, ‘That’s gotta be
in a song.’ “

And now I’m off to get ready for my gig near Newport in Wales tonight. See you there!

How Music Gear Endorsements Work…

It’s one of those perennial questions on bass forums and in emails I get – how do you get an endorsement deal with a bass company? The latest endorsement related discussion revolved around a very friendly chap on on of the bass forums I post on sending me a message to say he was friendly with the owners of a particular company and could put in a word for me for an endorsement deal with them.

Which was very nice buy wholly unnecessary, given that

  • a) I knew the company owner already,
  • b) don’t really like what they make b) wouldn’t switch from what I’m using now just because I was offered lots of money (something that’s really not going to happen to a player in my position) and
  • c) LOVE the stuff I’m using.

Let’s make it clear, getting paid to play someone’s particular product is very rare indeed. Becoming a demonstrator happens occasionally to lesser known players, but that’s just a job like any other – it’s not really a perk, more a cool job. It involves a lot of work, and usually pretty grueling sessions at trade shows. There’s rarely a retainer, and the rate of pay is pretty good, usually, but certainly not something most people could live on…

The Big Boys (probably about 5-10 of them in the world) are on a retainer – signature product sales often incur a royalty for the person whose name is on the front, and there are all kinds of deals struck to get HUGE name players using the gear, which range from split ad campaigns (promoting the gear and the artist’s new album) through to high profile clinic tours that follow the band’s tour, and even stands at arena shows for the company.

Next down are those that get instruments – these are rarely ‘free’, even if you don’t pay for them. They are in exchange for promotional services. They are usually there because the company in question can’t really afford to pay what you’re worth for clinics and appearances and being in ads, so instead they give you gear, which is worth a lot more in hard cash terms to you than it is to them. So I’ve had a few bits of free gear, and in exchange they get the exposure for me using the gear on clinics and masterclasses… it’s more of an acknowledgement thing for what actually happens – my students get to see the gear cos it’s what I play through…

When I left my previous amp deal, and started using AccuGroove, I was offered ‘deals’ of sorts with a host of companies. It was rather nice being courted (no one actually phoned me to schmooze me, but it happened to be around the time of a couple of trade shows and at those trade shows, word got round that I was no longer using the amp I had been using, and I was told by the owners and A & R people from about 6 companies that they would like to ‘work with me’. One of them offered a paid position as demo guy as well. Most of them were much higher profile than AccuGroove, but all had one thing in common – they didn’t get close to the sound I was looking for in my new rig. I knew it had to be stereo and MUCH higher fidelity than it was before. Add to that that I already knew the AccuGroove guys and was friends with them, knew what their speakers could do, I decided to go with quality and friendship over (potential) money and exposure.

Is this because I’m some kind of puritan? No, it’s as much a longer term commercial decision as it is one of ‘integrity’. The guys on the high dollar deals with companies that mass produce cheap crap in China tend to switch fairly often – when someone comes along offering more money, they jump ship, and every time they do, their reputation slides just that little bit further. If I was play in a Nu Metal band to 10s of thousands of people a night, that wouldn’t really filter through, the kidz would just go out and buy the new signature bass and all would be happy.

However, if you’re a solo bassist, you tend to be scrutinised more by the tech-heads. I got loads of emails when I changed my amp set up, asking me what was wrong with the old one, people who’d bought the old one because of me, and wondering if they’d make a mistake etc. The geeks were watching, and I realised that if I was changing every 18 months or so, my credibility was going to disappear pretty damn quick.

So I went with the one that offered me the best possible sound. To get any better, I’d have to go to the pro audio world, and start using studio monitors on stage. Problem with that is, they’d be WAY too heavy, and far too fragile. There genuinely is nothing that could do what I’m doing with these speakers. The nearest direct comparison would be PA companies like Mackie and JBL, but they both tend to optimise their speakers for vocal projection, sacrificing low end and tonal sweetness. They work fine as PAs, not so great as bass amps.

Same with Modulus – I’ve been playing a Modulus bass for over 13 years, the only non-Modulus bass I’ve owned (still own) in that time is my Rick Turner, and their instruments do just about everything I need them to do. They like what I do, I love what they do, and the relationship is mutually agreeable. Add to that that Modulus are, as far as I’m aware, the only bass building company who are striving to use 100% independently certified eco-friendly wood, and you’ve got yourself a match made in bass heaven. it’s the same all the way round.

So if you’re thinking about such things, have a bit of a profile and something to offer a company, my advice would be to forge a friendship with the people who make the gear that you LOVE, rather than just trying to schmooze the A and R people at companies that take out huge ads in magazines.

For the record, the companies that I have some kind of ‘deal’ with [as of Oct 7 2006] are:
AccuGroove Speakers
Modulus Basses
Looperlative
East UK Preamps
Bass Centre Elites Strings
Evidence Audio cables

John Peel: A Life In Music

Just finished this book, by Michael Heatley and have come to the conclusion that, should the body of work exist to support such an endeavour, I could happily read about John Peel for the rest of my life.

I say happily – I get the most jumbled mixture of feelings when reading about Peel, ranging from nostalgia for the late 80s, gratefulness that someone like him ever existed and dread for what the music world could descend into in its post-Peel state, all underscored by an aching sadness that he’s gone, and disappointment that I never met him. (He did walk past me once, outside Broadcasting House – maybe I should’ve stopped and said something. I think I was probably lost for words though…)

I can’t think of the death of anyone else that I haven’t actually met that has affected me as much – the more I think about it, the clearer it is what an influence listening to his show had on me in Berwick in the late 80s/early 90s. You’d have to spend a good couple of years in Berwick, without the internet or freeview, to fully understand the significance.

And the weird thing with Peel – and a testament to his broadcasting uniqueness – is that they can’t rebroadcast his shows. It wasn’t about ‘legacy’ music, or playing ‘classics’. It was about playing what grabbed him now. As much as i’d love to listen again to those shows from the late 80s, filled with Cud and Bongwater, Napalm Death and the Bhundu Boys, The Pixies and Marta Sebastian, Kanda Bongo Man and BoltThrower, they aren’t what Peel would play now, and repeating them isn’t what he was about. When Ronnie Barker died, his legacy was palpable, celluloid, archived and repeatable. Peel’s is wrapped up in the experimentation of hundreds of thousands of bands through the last 50 years, inspired to say ‘bollocks to convention’ and try something new, something that mattered. You can’t turn that into a retrospective series, beyond getting endless bands to say ‘yup, without Peel, I’d be driving a van’. And they queued up to do so when he died. Genuine tributes to the man who handed them a career.

In this book, I’m reminded of how so many of those people that I listen to, so much of the music I love was launched on listener’s ears by Peel. Just about every non-jazz influence I have can be traced back to Peel’s patronage.

Anyway, it’s a fine book – read ‘Margrave Of The Marshes’ first, but get this one to fill in a lot of the geeky musical info.

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