GOOGLE THE NEW STASI

Right. thats it - I am off for good now.

I heard yesterday that Google is launching a whole load of new stuff that is deisigned to make life better.

One of these things is the ability to walk a virtual street in any major city in real time. Right now it's Denver and Vegas - soon it will be your house on that screen.

I don't often worry about security and all that kind of stuff. If you are bad you are bad and should worry about it - right? But this is fucking terrible!

I'll say that again.. FUCKING TERRIBLE!

This is what Stalin did.

Do you seriously think that Google is going to be the big philantropist forever? Like hell it will. It will be just like every other multi-headed hydra that ruins peoples lives.

Get this - Google will track your searches and report on them - but who to?
It will allow us all to look at every street in every city in the world.
It will be the ultimate big brother and you will get fucked over by it because you are active on the web, you are honest and you are not trying to be subversive.

I bet you the criminals will figure out how to get around it so who will the authorities clobber with the big google hammer.... US THAT'S WHO!

Now I know this is impossible but will someone tell me a search engine that works well and that I can fix into firefox because I want out of the google experiment. I want out now and I suggest you do too before that search for horse blankets turns into a charge for beastiality and you do 5 years inside!

Pissed Off Housewife: 250 Posts to Tell You Why I'm Pissed

Pissed Off Housewife: 250 Posts to Tell You Why I'm Pissed

मोवे on

http://baria.vox.com/

Hey there popsters

I have been getting all sorts of hassle with blogger recently and so I have decided to move the blog to that address.

Please come and join me

It is much prettier and I can post better stuff.

later

Euge

Birdy Num Num

Last night I had dinner with Roz from Women in Docs.

Good food, no wine, fine company at a Viet noshery in the West End. All in all much more convivial that a a subway "sandwich" (is that what you call food in America? Really?) in a mall in Wisconsin.

So we talked and ate well and the best thing about it was that she is a talented musician and...AND .. she understands that winning or losing in the music business is not about being a prima donna. It is about simple hard work. It was an absolute joy not to have to explain every little thing about the latest release and what we were going to do. I actually felt like I was talking to a friend and not just the "talent".

I think thats why most labels think of the acts as enemies and bands hate their labels. We both expect miracles and when they aren't delivered it is as if God just condemned you to hell.

So dear reader please remember that the guy on the other side of the table may be a bastard or he may be a saint but whoever he is you chose to join him and you should have the balls to take on some of the responsibility. It is not a one way relationship.

Eat right.

id

Oi!

One of the things about getting older is that you never think twice about being bad. Either you are or you aren't. It's a choice you have already made when you were about 15 and it is not going to change.

There are some people though who seem to think that a piece of plastic and picture are somehow going to alter your DNA.

Take last week.

I was at a big festival On Caxton Street where AS WE ARE were playing a set and so were Intercooler. Bloody excellent. Just in country, sunshine, mates and beer. Nothing better.

So in the midst of 30 000 revellers I made my way to a beer stall - the place is hopping like 6th St Austin during sxsw or Glastonbury 10 years ago. All good.

The girl at the tent tells me I can't buy beer without a wrist band. Okay. So go to the white tent inthe middle of the street and they will give me one.

Off I go. After a few minutes of doing that weird little dance that we all do in crowds - you know the one - turn side on - put your arm between people - bend knees, slidddddeeeee, stand, shuffle and repeat- I got to the tent which was manned by a youth with knock knees and a severe case of superioritis.

" have you got any ID" says Spotty Herbert

"I have got my credit cards but I didn't bring my passport, No."

"Can't give you a band then."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Whats your date of birth?

"My what? " I nearly pissed my pants laughing. Nobody has asked me that in 10 years.

"I would tell you that but you wouldn't believe me."I said. "Don't these flecks of grey in my hair give the game away?"

"What is your date of birth?"

I told him and he looked at me with disbelief ; " I look this young because I have spent the past 20 years pickling myself from the inside. "

"No one was born then: he said - absolutley seriously. Now you know why he was in the tent instead of at the party.

"Listen snot nose. I was born before your dada and I am still alive and well. Now give me the fucking band and let me get a beer!"

Thats when a nice copper came up and put the band on my wrist.

"Bloody idiot!" she said to me with a smile.

Thats when you know you made the right choice all those years ago and ID cards are just an excuse to rort more money out of us so that imbecilic youths can get a job.

Suffice to say I got really pissed, started 5 fights and robbed a liquor store on the way home where I beat my wife and shot the dog.

A good night out all round.

थे करसे ऑफ़ फॉरेन Holidays

Aloha,

as I wend my way around the globe I often meet people who say that it is a really glamorous life. "jet setter" they say and smile knowingly to themselves.

The smile tells me a great deal about what that person has experienced in their lives.

If it has a painful tinge to it I know that person has been to places far and wide and has truly experienced life. On the other hand if their eyes light up and they grin like a cheshire cat as they secretly contemplate the debauchery that they consider inevitably part of global exploration I know that they have never been further than the back yard.

Forgive me if that sounds cynical but invariably that synopsis is accurate. You see one of the deep joys of travel is to experience new things; foods, people, cultures, smells, rip-offs and all manner of human life. However one of the deep frustrations is that unless you are truly familiar with the place you are visiting you will never have a clue what is going on.

Of course there are always friendly guides who will describe how Hannibal marched his elephants over yon hill or how in 1956 the President was victorious in his campaign to oust the corrupt regime of the American lick spittle who came before him but that is about as much use as eating coal if you are constipated. The truth is you will never get to grips with what makes a country tick until you give over a significant portion of your life to it.

So it is that I sit here in Australia - my adopted home - on a dreary Sunday and wonder how the hell I got it so wrong this time.

Today is Mothering Sunday here and last week (a week later than the rest of the planet) was labour day and I have been waiting for both these "holidays" to pass before I can get on with my life.

I have had worse: I once went to Chile with my wife. The journey of a lifetime. It certainly was!

I mean, it is not as if Chile is on the way to anywhere is it? You really have to want to go there to get there. If you went any further you would fall off the world or go swimming in Antarctica and neither of those options are specially appealing to me.

So we traveled across the great Pacific ocean and stopped half way - after 10 hours from New Zealand no less - on Easter Island. What a place! Remote does not describe it. Another 8 hours and we arrived in Santiago.

The excitement rose in me. What adventures lay in this great sliver of a country? The only country on earth where the revolutionaries coined a battle chant "There can be no revolution without song" (No ai revolucion sin canson - or something like that). This was the home of Allende and all that amazing story telling and best of all it was where the infamous BERNARDO O'Higgins made his mark. A half black - half Irish revolutionary with a fantastically mongrel name. He had to be a great bloke to have a beer with. I was so enamoured with Chile that I even named my dog after O'Higgins. Finally we were here and I was ready to explore.

We had a plan to go to the Atacama desert and roam through the plains and valleys, mountains and fjords for weeks. All ready and raring to go!

So we check in and after a pleasant interlude off we went to the Zona Rosa. Streets filled with life and love, colour and cacophany. There were mariachi on every corner and all the people were dressed to the nines. I was in heaven.

There. Across the street, a restaurant. Excellent. Just the thing to get us ready for a true Chilean experience. We ordered Gambas and wine and tucked into to our well earned dinner. All was well in the world until 30 minutes in the waiter came over and asked if we would pay the bill please because they were closing.

CLOSING? Oh well, there were millions of other places to go and we were just getting started. It was only 9pm after all. So we paid the bill and wandered off arm in arm through the the streets of Santiago. More and more people - a real buzz of excitement. THIS PLACE IS AMAZING!

So we go to a bar - "Sorry Senor we are closed."

?

Try another bar

same again.

?

What's going on?

"Ah, Senor, there is a Presidential election and we must close so that there are no more riots like in the old days."

OH CRAP!

Well, you guessed it. In 40 minutes the entire city was dark. Not a soul about except for the guys who worked at MacDonalds and a few political activists tooting horns and waving flags, (YANQUI PIG CAPITALISTS have a dispensation to sell their crap apparently).

So that was it. back to the hotel. Except the Hotel was closed and we had to jump over the locked gates and buzz the concierge to get into our room.

This was a country in lockdown. Jesus! We had just come to visit a real life Graham Greene novel, except this time there were no vacuum blueprints to sell and we had no inside track with the espionage rings. We were alone in a foreign land with nothing but Big Macs for company.

To say we were disappointed is an understatement. Gutted from Brisbane and wife. Big fish have bigger guts and ours were spilled all over the pavements of Chile.

The lock down went on for days.

We tried. Believe me we tried. We walked about 10kms each way to the Bernardo O'Higgins parc only to find it was a dry and desolate field where only the homeless and horny visited. We roamed the beautiful streets for days with no one to meet and nothing to do. It was like that Charlton Heston movie where he is the last man alive and everyone else is a zombie.

We even managed to book ourselves onto a Cultural excursion around the city. Our marvellous guide and his driver were excellent but we were the only ones on the tour on a 50 seater bus. It seems like everyone else had got the message. At the end of the tour there is a big dinner and dance show where the tables are set for hundreds of merry makers to dance traditional dances and drink local wines and generally have a great time in the company of other follish travellers. On the night we went we were joined by 5 rather bemused Koreans and a Russian who was trying to sell paper making machinery. The five hour excursion was over and done with in about 2 hours.

Which reminds me - why is it that you take an hour to eat dinner with friends and 4 minutes alone?

BY day 5 we had had enough and made our way to airline office.

"Get us out of here please"

"Certainly sir. We were wondering if you would leave or stay. Only the Embassy staff are here at present. Most everyone else has gone to Argentina." said the wily airline rep.

Would you like to go to Buenos Aires for a few days? I can arrange a nice hotel but they are having some economic problems now so the taxi's aren't running to the Airport. Perhaps you would like a limosine?"

"Nah. Fuck that. Get us home asap!"

And so we left the next day.

A dream of discovery destroyed by the vagiaries of national holidays and blind expectation of perpetual motion in every country but the one you live in had managed to comprehensively destroy our plans.

This is just one story. There are many more and everyone who travels will tell you about the day that a certain country was shut. It has happened to me in Spain, El Salvador, Australia, New Zealand, Wales, America, France (which closes for the whole of August), and many more.

So perhaps now you have an incling of why I am cynical and why travel broadens the mind and expands time to fill whatever voids have been left by local traditions and cultures.

It is not glamourous. It is generally fucking boring and I wish I had a playstation or something.

via condios muchacho's

लोस्त opportunity

Ah my minnions at last we hear the news the kingdom has been waiting for: Tony Blair has given a date for departure!

I am both heartened and saddened by the announcement.

You see I have been a member of the Labour party in the UK since I was a student and Maggie Thatcher was king.

The awful reality of being in politics is that it is almost unheard of for a top politico to leave with the good wishes of the people.

There are of course some like Harold Wilson and that Aussie guy who went missing who leave a bereaved public but normally it ends in tears and Blairs departure is no exception.

Before he was elected we of the Labour old guard had a lot to cheer about. The Tories were in disarray and although we missed John Smith there was always the hope of the new. So with girded loins and renewed vigour we went out on the stump and battered on doors with gusto.

I remember knocking on a door in Islington and being chased away by a guy in a towel who was sworn member of the fascist BNP. He hated me and if he hadn't been in danger of revealing his miniscule manhood I think he may well have caused me some serious damage but that was small fry when placed under the microscope of the body politic. Small and rather wrinkled as I recall.

Anyway, on the night of the election in '97 I was a member of the Socialist Republic of Islingtons General council - which is not as good as being int he old Soviet politbureau but it has a nice ring to it. As we Red brothers sat watching the results unfold every seat won was cheered with abandon. We could not believe it - after 18 years we were going to win!

Then one momentous moment occurred: A guy who was well disliked withinn the ranks for being a pompous prig of man with no more right to be in the socialist movement than Himmler and who had plagued the Islington meetings for years - Mr Stephen Twigg - was elected; against all the odds, to replace Michael "I am not really totally gay" Portillo.


Rapture!

We had won and got rid of the pompous ass all at once, Brilliant!

So a crowd of us ran out and jumped in cabs and went to Westminster only to be greeted by deathly silence.

After a short discussion there were two options. Gloat or Gloat. I chose to gloat. the question was where - either at that overblown farce of a party at Millbank or outside the central office of the defeated Tories.

I chose the latter and so off I went - alone to heckle - jeer and release a lifetimes worth of frustrations on the poor tory boys inside.

I raged all night until John Major arrived at which point I exploded in uncontrolled abuse of all that is holy and christian and generally right wing.

At this point a rather affected and, it has to be said large, tory worker came rushing from the building and grabbed me across the crash barriers

"What is your fucking Problem?" he screamed

"YOU ARE! ALWAYS HAVE BEEN ALWAYS WILL BE!" I replied - the best reply I have ever conjoured in a moment of stress it has to be said.

At that point a scuffle ensued and the police seperated us.

He was ushered to the Smith Square sanctum and I was marched towards a police van.

"SHUT UP." said the copper
"I won't I know my rights" says I

"Look shut up !" he said again and continued, "If you do I'll let you go."

"HUH?"

"Its the end of my shift and I can't be arsed nicking you and anyway I think you are right."

Stunned silence.

He made me wait on the back step of the van whilst Korean and Swiss TV interviewed me before gently nudging me off towards the tube.

"result" was his last word to me as I staggered off in a delirious state.

I knew at that moment that worlds could change and that anything in life was possible.

Now, 10 years later I see the opportunities Blair has wasted and I bitterly regret every one but please forgive me if I also feel a tiny twinge of regret that the passing of Blair as PM marks the passing of the hopes of an entire generation of us, We are now middle aged and small c conservative and worried about our mortgages.

It could have been so much better - and - for a moment it was.

BRISBANE ROCKS! But no one buys cd's any more

Hi,

Well would you believe it?

Apparently Rolling Stone has said that Brisbane is one of the top 5 cities for new bands in the world!

Must be true then.

Bris-vegas as we locals (now living a billion miles away) like to call it has about 5 venues worth the name and about 10 million bands. It's really great to be here but hardly the cutting edge yet - or did I miss it?

Saying that, last week I was in Fortitude Valley at Rics when I came across one band that I think is excellent but being "hammered" at the time I have forgotten their name. The last time that happened the band was called THE GRATES and if you haven't see/heard them you should. Fantastic - just what music is all about.

What's really disappointing about the Rolling Stone piece is that because of it people like Peter Beattie ( the local state premier) are now on the "band wagon" pushing local acts overseas. It's a bloody shame that people won't listen for the sake of it and make up their own minds once they get past the age of 25. Some do. Most don't and it makes for sad and boring media.

The kids aren't buying cd's but they are buying live music and they know that the labels are all fucked. Radio and TV is going the same way and even the press has no influence on whats happening out there anymore - except when it comes to the dinosaurs thinking they are kool.

In simple terms it means that cd sales are falling off a cliff and the majors are totally fucked trying to figure it out.

Here is a snapshot for you to ponder:

in 2002 the sales of a single needed to be about 9000 to reach No1 in Australia (pop 19 million) and about 90 000 in the UK (pop 65 million). Today its about 9000 in UK and less than 3000 in Australia.

Now in the USA where diamond sales (over 10 million) were rare but Gold sales of over 1 million were like confetti the sales figures are even worse.

Avil Lavigne has sold about 280 000 - Timbaland is holding around 250 000 whilst old rock tossers like Nickelback are at 5 million. Modest Mouse - 250 000 - Snoop Dog did 9000 (thats all so far!! and he is banned from Aus for life so he is now officially a 2 time loser!) last and thankfully least - Good Charlotte - sales - bog all.

What that says to me is that the idea of new music being sold is an impossibilty. Only well known acts and repackaged music is selling and even then it's mostly through some weird outlets like garage's and shopping channels on TV.

We are at the end of an era. It is happening before your eyes and the only profitable entertainment is live and experiential - like fun fairs.

So if you are just getting into this business my advice is get yourselves set up as club promoters or fairground roustabouts. There is no point being the music junky anymore. You will end up like the sad kid on the end of the front row who prefers bartok to slipknot (like me!).

Now my little afficionados - rock off!!!!

the worlds smartest man

the worlds smartest man said is should do this

I am not the worlds smartest man - although I have an IQ of 8004 so I agreed.

Thank you for the advice sire

you are indeed the worlds smartest man and whilst I too would like to be the worlds smartest man I am not.

Maybe this will make me closer to my ideal

yours

not, the worlds smartest man

HOW OUR FUTURE IS WRITTEN IN CODE

Kia Ora,

Interest.

That's the key to everything.
Do you have any interest?

If you can't be bothered then there you haven't any interest.

If you have no money then you won't collect any interest.

The fascinating thing about the word is that you can only be interesting if you already have a interest of some form.

"WHAT THE HELL IS HE ON ABOUT NOW?" I hear you cry. Well , if you will indulge me I will explain.

Interest is a noun that can be used in many ways but in essence the value of it all boils down to the same thing. DOES ANYONE CARE?

If they do and they are prepared to use some of their limited heartbeats in pursuing the object of their desire then it is of interest and will by association accrue the same.

This is important because the more people care the more interest is generated and the more interest is generated the more people care. Got me?

It is called a positive feedback cycle and it is how everything develops and grows.

Mathematicians can work out feedback cycles and they can calculate the effect of changes in interest. What is really interesting (sorry) is that you can also measure that effect on the way you see yourself.

In terms of your life you can see that, if you are a person who has interest in the world around you, and in events that happen to others, your own value is increased. eg. The last person you want to see is the dullard who does nothing but watch TV and eat KFC right? But the guy who is a "jet setter" is intrinsically interesting because his life experience is something that you would like to have yourself.

That's why movie stars and pop singers are objects of fascination.

So what is more useless than a pop singer that never tours?
A chocolate fireguard perhaps?

Believe it or not Karl Marxs - yes he of the big beard and creation of communism - had this off pat - he called it the stupidity of the rural village. In other words, the less you knew the less you were able to know and therefore the less you were told.

Now if you take that idea forward and then look at how interest is seen in a financial market you can see that the same rules apply.

Every single one of us has an interest in interest rates.

Your house, your money, your job - they all depend on interest rates being set at a reasonable level for your country.

So what happens when things here get into a big mess?

This time the result is not just a fat, boring old fart sitting on a couch with nothing to say. This time it means that you loose your job and then your house and then your reason to live.

"BUT I CAN"T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT CAN I"

Well, believe it or not you can.

There are two ways:
First you get involved in politics and shape how other act and react and that in turn will affect the perceptions of bankers who set interest rates and suddenly you have made a difference.

Second you get busy and stop letting your country of birth or residence dictate who and what you are.

For example -
If you are born in Zimbabwe you currently live with 2500% inflation, starvation and a generally shit life.
OPTIONS: Leave, do nothing or change it.

You are born and live in the USA. The housing market has collapsed, your currency is falling and every other country hates you.
OPTIONS; Get involved and change it or do nothing or leave.

You are born in the UK, there are loads of jobs and lots of money about but you can't afford to buy a tiny apartment.
OPTIONS: see above.

Notice anything about this? Well, no matter where you are you have 3 options and only one of them means that you are going to come out of it a winner. GET INVOLVED AND CHANGE THINGS!

Leaving is nice option but unless you are already in a strong position you are going to be much worse off by emigrating. Countries that will take you are limited and generally a lot worse than your own. Would you emigrate to Zimbabwe?

So the way to better yourself and your life is to gather interest - both in your self and in others.

The code that you need to break is the code that has been instilled in you since birth. The code of conduct.

If you can't break that code you will never make a change and your future will be pre-ordained. From Cradle to Grave you will fit into little boxes made up by an actuary somewhere.

You will have spend 70 years taking up space and achieving bog all.

Don't do it.

Make a change.
Crack the code.

wet

Bom Dia,
welcome to the Bush Tucker Trials,

from down here. I know that should be G'day but that's far too obvious.

I am delighted to be back in the sun burnt country that claims itself to be the Lucky Country.

In many way it is.

Sunburnt that is.
In others it is extra ordinarily lucky:
Space, resources, food, mullet haircuts being in fashion for over 40 years, crap cars being cool, total obliviousness of how daft the life saver hats look, blonde girls with enormous breasts, the ability to say "look" before every sentence as if you know what you are talking about even if you haven't a clue - that kind of thing.

But I have come "home" to find that in one respect the luck has truly run out. The place is parched dry.

In the state that was until recently my home - Queensland - there are Level 5 water restrictions.
It is deadly serious. A matter of life and death.

Practically it means rationed 4 minute showers and no watering of anything other than your liver with quarts of XXXX lager. Strange then that the first night I was here a huge bowser was parked outside my flat and two guys (not the Blackburn Rovers footballer Tugais in case you made a mistake) were hosing down the plants in a rather feeble traffic island. ( I love government hypocrasy don't you?)

There is a ban of putting cigarette butts anywhere except a bin or it's an on the spot $150 fine. Smoking is banned almost everywhere and for this time of year temperatures are about 6-7 degrees hotter than usual.

In Canberra the Roo's are killing dogs again to stop them drinking the water in the lakes and even the biggest rivers are running dry.

The fifth biggest continent on Earth can't provide enough food for 19 million inhabitants. So they are importing it from China. That is really scary. It's as if the whole of Europe only had the population of Paris and London combined. The rest was desolate. NOW DO YOU GET IT?

Or if you are American imagine Wyoming everywhere but with no steers just snakes. The bad lands. Now what good are your fucking Chevrolets 67 small block's and your Hummers? Arnie was right!!

Last year when I was living here the council on the Gold Coast allowed some folks to wash their cars for the first time in 5 years but that seems like madness now. All the dams are empty and whilst no one prays openy for rain it won'r be long before they are waving sticks and jumping up and down like Sitting Bull on an ants nest.

It is Global Warming writ large and in living colour.
The colour is Red.
The colour of blood and the desert soil in the outback.
It's fucking scary.

UK was dry for 6 weeks before I left.
Singapore is supposed to be having a wet season but isn't.
Aus is as dry as a witches tit.

What the hell happened to all the rain?

Anyhow, I can't fix it. Even if I have contributed about a billion tonnes to CO2 during my travels. Its a shitty legacy we will leave for our kids.

So:

Advice number 1 Learn to sail or you will never go anywhere again when the oil runs out in 2050.

Advice number 2. Invest in property in rural Lancashire where it never stops raining.

3. Buy a shot gun and man traps to keep all the thirsty bankers oil barons and airline execs away.

4. Learn as much as you can about Aboriginal Aussies survival techniques - you will need them.

We all know about the Grub sucking and the boiled/baked/fried lizards and it has a universal reaction of YEAAACH but if this continues we will all be doing it. (I wonder if we really will need to drink our own piss before too long?)

When the cows die and your toilet runs dry you are going to be out there eating maggots and caterpillars too.

Don't laugh. This is serious!

Anyway, Today I woke - at a weird time as usual when traveling - and I am off to live the life of Nero and sample the delights of a Food and Wine festival on Caxton Street. Bands will be playing and nosh galore and we will all fiddle whilst Brisbane burns and I bet it will be fucking brilliant.

The day I arrived I went out for lunch and it ended up as a 12 hour bonanza of beer and chilli.
Lots of chat - catch up - business and we even saw a really good band from Cairns but I am buggered if I can remember their name. Cabaret or Blue something. Singer was Latvian I do remember that but after 10 hours and 10 pints of something in a green bottle you tend to forget.

I drink to forget what I have already forgotten which is shit 'cos I remember then. In vino veritas means that you end up embarrassed and hungover which is bad when trying to entice new artists to work with you.

So, there you have it. A day at the races - the race to extinction as it turns out - is neatly combined with a day at the pub.

Drink my friends drink! For tomorrow we die - but before that we have to eat worms again.

अमेरिकन Business

Godan dayin keneri,

one of the things about being alone in a foreign land is that you suddenly find that you have hours of spare time that simply aren't available at home. So what do you do with all that life that suddenly lands in your lap with no commitments to fill it?

I guess that depends on what you are made of and what is pre-occupying you at the time.

For some it involves beer, fags and a canoodle in a dodgy bar filled with ex-pat oil workers and lady boys. For others there is the opportunity to go shopping with abandon. Then again there are the solitary types who hike mountains and masturbate frantically in the privacy of their sleeping bags. Yet again there are others who take the opportunity to go sight seeing and absorb some local culture.

This time for me it has been a voyage of discovery; a vertitable orgy of indulgence; I have finally read some new books.

However, it's not all good. As is often the case I picked up the tomes ta Heathrow in the Borders shop there and not being inclined to read Jeffrey "plagiarist" Archer I decided to try and fill in the gaps regarding doing business in the modern world.

As you may know there are a plethora of books that claim to teach you how to make millions or fix companies or manage networks or any of that other corporate crap when in fact they all have one thing in common: one idea expanded and reiterated ad infinitum.

It's kind of interesting that most of these books ignore what they purport to tell us. I mean how many Internet marketing books are there? Book - Internet...? Some dichotomy there I think.

Then there are the enticing quotes on the gate folds - "brilliant.. A masterpiece .. every CEO should read this book..." etc. All total bullshit. These little nuggets are the synopsis of a book and of an entire ideology. The ideology of instant gratification.

I want to tell you that they do not and will not work for you or your organisation. They are simply another pile of pulped paper that would be better used in art classes for 5 year olds.

Take for instance the last one I read - THE TIPPING POINT by Malcolm Gladwell. The bullet points on the cover say, " fascinating" twice, nay thrice! whilst the reality is that the entire thing is dedicated to trying to justify a spurious theory that fads are akin to epidemics. He has three new terms to pontificate about and an interminable analysis of Sesame Street and Blues Clues - I kid you not.

Now that may be fascinating and relevent to the makers of kids TV but it has not the slightest bearing on how anyone else does business - although he does try tp make Hush Puppies some kind of uber-brand.

So I guess what all that means is that most of the stuff you read is totally irrelevent and/or useless.

Sadly there are sufficient numbers of graduates in big companies who rely on these kinds of books so that they can impress their bosses with the new ideas. Unfortunately the bosses are too damn busy to read them for themselves so experience is subsumed in a wave of "modern" thinking which is 99% useless.

Which brings me on to the basis of this rant and that is that American / Western business practises are about to be dealt a body blow by the East.

In the past few days in Singapore I have read a lot of stuff about various markets that I have little knowledge of and I have to say that I am massively impressed with what I have come across.

Did you know for example that Singapore, The Philippines, Malaysia and India are all in the middle of huge property booms? Singapore has more than doubled in the past year alone.

Now there is a great deal of action by foreign companies here - Citibank - HSBC and so but there is an equal amount of action going the other way. Did you know that the ousted PM of thailand is trying to buy an English soccer club? Just like the Americans are doing? Perhaps that will be the battlefield where the lines are first drawn - America v Russia v Asia using African and S American troops. Sounds ominously like 1984 to me!

The difference I have seen on my many visits to Asia is that people here are ready and willing to learn about how we Westerners think whilst Westerners are almost all in the dark when it comes to figuring out what makes Asians tick. That is a legacy of empire and the unwavering belief that we are right.

We aren't. At least not always.

So the business school models that teach us all about profit and loss and corporate legacy and so on are going to have to change and change quickly. Much as Microsoft will loose out to Linux and ipods so will Citibank fall to the claws of an emerging and dynamic asian tiger where longterm planning take over from short term gain.

You can already see it in the UK where the richest man is Mr Mittal - an Indian, followed by 2 Brits and a Russian, and an Iraqi Jew and 2 more Indians. Pretty soon you will be amazed to find that 7-11 in downtown Montana now sells shells made in Amritzar, beef jerky from Phnom Phen and the latest Chinese chart hits for download on your Tawaniese made cell watch and nano computer. (wanc for short - made by the wanc corporation of Dubai).

America and the West have an unflinching belief in their systems and methods but I can't see why. they don't even work in the home states so why on earth would they translate across continents?

There is a definitive list of certainties in this world and it is this:

DEATH
TAXES

I would also like to add one more vital element to this combination; shit.

You will die; you will be taxed; and you will continue to shit until it is all over and even then you will probably manage to squeeze one more turd from the passage of time.

All else is maleable and transient.

So before you get too concerned about your career and life aspirations take these items as the basis of your creed and try to adapt to the new world. It could be better than you think and I for one would rather eat a curry than a Big Mac anyday - even if the last turd before my passing requires a loo roll in the fridge.

see you in paradise parishioners.

singers while you are winning

Aloha

today's blog comes to you direct from Sunny Singapore.

Well, I had almost recovered from my encounter with the slippery stair case before I had to leave. It's kind of annoying when you get older and aches and pains seem to be more debilitating but I guess there is a pay off for all that experience!

Anyhow, I had to leave the homestead to continue on my journey through life and today has brought me to the centre of Asia.

I must confess I love Singapore. It's a first world island in the third world. The things these guys have done over the past 20 years is amazing. There are new buildings all over and the hotels are first rate. Not to mention the nightlife which is - despite the tales of draconian legislation - brilliant.

I flew in - 13 hours not including the farce that is the British public transport system - 5 hours to go 80 miles no less - on the night flight and as is always the case I ended up with the stiffest neck in the history of stiff necks. It happens all the time because the airlines insist that 17c is a reasonable temperature for human beings. It is if you are an eskimo but for us normal mortals its just plain freezing. This is one of the downsides of globalisation that never gets mentioned in the other blogs.

So having added my bit to global warming I rocked up at the hotel in one of the ubiquitous Toyota Crown cabs that are all racked up and ready at Changi airport. I always use the same hotel - just off Orchard Road - and crashed out for a few hours before going out to see what Singers is like at present.

Well, the aching neck was no better so after a fine feast of gargantuan proportions I made my way to the Orchard Towers where I knew there would be a masseur available.

For those of you who don't know the Towers it is locally known as "10 floors of whores" but they are interspersed with some really useful things like a supermarket, tailors and massage dens - not dodgy for the most part.

Anyway, the lady who gave me a massage was about 45 and had hands that were as strong as a bricklayer. She damn near broke my neck before moving on to the spine - which has not been twisted and shaken so much since Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper were all the rage. Let me tell you it wrecked! But somehow I feel better for it. (Thanks for asking.)

Now none of this has anything to do with music does it?

No, but there is one interesting musical diversion that i have already noticed in my 12 hours in the tropics. That is that Pink Floyd are still HUGE!

The cab driver - who looked like an extra from apocalpse now - was playing Wish you were here on the way from the airport; a 3 piece band of American ner-do-wells was bashing out a terrible version of Money and as I lay on a table with a small asian lady turning me into a human pretzel the strains of Dark side of the Moon wafted over the aromatherapy couches.

It all seemed a bit weird - especially considering the fact that on my everlasting train journey to Heathrow there was a Polish family on the train taking pictures of Battersea power station and chattering about Dave Gilmour. What is happening in the world these days? Have we returned to 1975?

In my bag I have a demo from a US band called Band of Thieves. The weird thing is that they are so retro its incredible. The sound, the look, the hair - everything screams 1975. Question is - should I sign them and if so for what territories? Poland and Asia look pretty good right now.

I'll let you know.

yours

Aching stevens

CD's for $1

Good morning,

I have run out of steam a bit today but in the spirit of co-operation I have decided to sell off our last remaining copies of the Lovemakers debut album in Australia.

So, here is the deal. As avid readers of my rants I am giving away the last remaining copies. I just need a $1 for the postage so that it doesn't cost me too much.

paypal me at info@bariarecords with your address and the record is on its way.

As we go through our stock list I will let you know whats going to be available.

There are a few vinyls from Glovebox and a very few from Heavely States, Gasolineros and Blue Eyes son available as well so if they are your faves let me know.

We won't be pressing them again so I guess they are by default limited editions.

Cheers

WEB 2.0 we have a problem

Hola,

I have been thinking again about how the new world of WEB 2.0 is going to affect us all and I am a bit worried by the whole thing.

There are a few things about the way it all developing that are causing us real problems and I can only see it getting worse.

Web 2.0 is supposed to be the new way of the world and whilst I am no expert I have had a few discussions with people that make me wonder if anyone has the faintest idea of what is going to happen next.

For us at the label the web has been a bloody nightmare to deal with. Let's be honest for once. Peer to Peer is screwing every label on the planet and anyone who says different is a liar. The genie is out of the bag and now we face ruin. I mean it.. RUIN! It has become a better business idea to give away music and make money on the shirts. The same is about to happen to movies and TV and print and god only knows what else. Even retail is about to fall of a cliff when more of the high end purchasers move away from shops and online.

The thing with beig in business is that you are suposed to make a profit and if you don't it's all over. All that are left are amateurs and dreamers. Like the guys who repair steam engines for fun. Maybe 2 of them make aiving from it but it isn't an industry anymore. Music is like that, It is raidly becoming the preserve of the gifted amatuer and rock stars are a thing of the past. We had better get used to it. From global industry to cottage industry in 10 years. That is some change in the landscape I think you will agree.

Of course there are winners from this new dynamic and new models are emerging all the time but they only last a few months before being bettered. Look at Myspace - who seriously thinks that works any more? Or Money Supermarket or or friendsreunited or lastminute.com or Napster or any of another million sites. They come and go with abandon and all they leave behind are cached pages and memories. facebook will last until 208 before it become passe and goes the way of all others.

What will happen is that there will be a few local phenomena and maybe one or two big acts that break through the chaff and become household names but before the decade is out there won't be any bands just individual songs.

It's logical when you think about it. There are millions of tunes already out there and you can pick and choose whatever you want at will and for zero cost. Where is the upside in that?

Of course the "industry" is talking to itself and saying there is a future and all that but I woke up today with a feeling like its all over so I have no regrets in annoucing that we are no longer going to release CD's anymore. We will do digital for now but frankly I am looking for a new job. Who needs it? I don't want to be a sad lonely cyber individual bleating on about the death of my lable when I know in my guts that I have joined in too late and with too much optimism.

OK, you say, there is no brand loyalty anymore and who cares where you buy your stuff from so long as its cheap?

No one.

There.

What matters more these days is getting a bargain. Ok fair enough but where does that leave quality and service?

These issues are not irrelevant.

For music it means an ability to sort the good from the bad - talent from hacks and only experience and energy will figure that out, It also means that lots of people were inevitably consigned to dead end jobs in Wal Mart. But what if there is no Wal Mart any more?

What then?

The fact of the matter is that in our time the rules of life are changing so fast its unprecedented.

Expertise is worthless. Quality and innovation are devalued and intellectual gain is a by word for useless loser.

Plato said in THE REPUBLIC that there should be an elite who are tasked with governing the minnions. they should be selected on merit and not on birthrite and that they should be a class above the rest.

Our new version of democracy means that we have disbanded any pretence of having an elected elite who are able to make decisions based on rational self interest and instead we have reverted to the tyrany of the masses where the simplest things are open to debate and argument and that in itself is seen as a good thing.

IT IS NOT.

If we spend our entire lives arguing about everything then only the loudest voices get heard and being the pack animals that we are the loudest voice invariably belongs to the biggest biggot.

I am really worried that we are going to loose everything that makes our lives livable, The NSA will take over the internet and we who rely on the net so much will find ourselves in a murky world of half truths and lies. If you have the time and energy to promote a political agenda you will prevail and the search engine tyrany will mean that we come to rely on WIKIPEDIA or some other half wit resource rather than looking at the original material for ourselves. There is a value in the old paperbased systems - libraries I think we call them. The value is that they mean we are forced to physically look for information and copy and read and think about what we are seeing. Its much slower and harder work than googling but it means that the quality of research is better and more refined and it also means that it isn't open to falsification. (Red ink underlining is much harder to believe than a careful editon You Tube.)

The people are not always right. they don't have the information to be right. If they did we would never have bought the Birdy song and Concorde would still be flying. People power inevitably means the rise of the right and draconian repression. Communism bythe back door if you like.

If you take an average day in the life and wake up, get out of bed and drag a comb across your head you haven't much time to figure out if Melody 1.0 is better than melody 2.0. You want someone else to do that for you. But if you want to decide id a guy should hang for a crime you can make that call in 5 seconds flat and without the information or evidence. Thats how it works, Death is an easy judgement to make but choosing that video is much harder. That's what the new world will lead to.

Another thing that freaks me out is that there are only American values in place. America sees itself as the greatest nation on earth and its institutions as infallible. They arenot and they simply don't work anywhere else. You can't exort democracy to places where there is no tradition or demand for it. Thats why Iraq ia such a mess. No one wants the goods you are exporting and in a weird way its like trying to sell Trabants to Toledo. There is no demand and the whole thing is a bust. But what happens when some enterprisig despot gets hold of the web and manipulates it in his own image. We don't just loose bpower - we loose the whole civilisation . It is a dangerous game they are playing these designers.

We need to filter and refine our lives to make them better not open them up to more crap.

I for one will not trust anyone who hides behind a corporate screen and who pretends to have my best interests at heart. He doesn't know me and he doesn't care and in the great western tradition of recent times if I can screw him over I will. I expect nothing less from him. These are the real lessons America has taught me. Screw or be screwed.

And me a European socialist!

VIVA LA REPUBLIQUE!

IRAN and the Lost Sailors

Recently the Iranian navy arrested and detained 15 British sailors and Marines.
14 men and one woman.

The Iranians claim that the Brits had crossed over into their territorial waters.

The Brits deny it.

Guess who was reading the map.

61.7% of Radio Stations are run by Robots

THE RADIO PD AT CLEAR CHANNEL

Feliz mi amigo's,

time to get back to the music business. And what a business it is.

There are a few things that have sprung up this week that are worth a look.

First of all there is the news - old though it is - that a deal has been struck with US radio networks to ensure that a couple of thousand hours of indie music is played on commercial stations this year.

I will believe that when I hear it!

What a load of hockum. The promise is about as realistic as the promise made by Catherine the Great when she told her mum that she never even kissed a boy. Yep, the same Catherine who died whilst humping a horse!

If radio ever really got itself involved and started investing time and energy in street level music there would be an almighty disaster that would shake the very foundations of commercial broadcasting throughout the western world.

Radio is not what it seems. It is programmed according to focus groups and small playlists. The key to success is getting onto the playlist and making sure that there is something happening for people outside of the industry to latch on to. Most stations are now programmed by a computer that picks similar beats, keys, rhythmns etc and the probablity of a machine having any artistic intergrity is pretty close to zero. In fact it is a certainty that it is zero but I have seen Terminator and Matrix and I don't want to annoy my metal masters!

Indie and street music is explicitly not something that adheres to the major label - radio friendly - melange that bores everyone over the age of 10 to tears. In fact you are much more likely to find interesting and exciting music choices on network TV. At least someone there has to combine visuals with audio to create a scene. No chance of that on 99% of radio stations these days.

There are some real pluses to that system though.

I saw a weird show this week that has the Promoter - Harvey Goldsmith acting like Donald Trump. For some bizarre reason he was asked to go and take a look at a small radio station in outback UK - somewhere called Frinton on Sea. Now I live in the Uk and I have no idea where that is. Some Station!

The station is run by a guy who looks like he sells newspaper ads and 2 old DJ's from the seventies - Diddy David Hamilton and Mike ' my ego is bigger than your ego" Reid. What a bunch of wankers!

They have no playlist, no transmitter, no audience and no idea how to do anything other than add the platitudes between songs. They are actually losing £50 000 per month on the station but I can't see how. They don't seem to be there in person and the entire place is run by a bald bloke called Gary who looks fierce but is actually unable to have a hissy fit without crying.

These dorks all live in a big house togther where they drink expensive wine and eat spag bog every night. They share this house and spend most night telling each other how much they love the Beatles before beetling off to bed at 10pm with a copy of Razzle and some Vaseline. God knows what the blokes who are paying for all this think they are doing but to me it looked like a close approximation to a gay porn movie from 1973.

Before I get criticised for not haveing a clue about Radio let me tell you I was a founder member ofteh team that set up Radio Wombat in Manchester in the late 80's - my first pirate radio station - costing us about 12p a month for electricity. The trasmitter was converted from an old pub amp and the antennae was makde from wire wrapped around some himney statcks. We had no idea how it worked but we broadcast to about 10 square miles of manchester for months until the amp blew up and set fire to the roof! So now I see these imbeciles who have worked their way through to the heights of the BBC and been thankfully they have been fired. Boy, am I glad I never got that job at Radio 2! Imagine how much more up my own fundament I would have been by now!!!

The trouble is that they are also the guys who know how to make an impression at an interview and then end up running your local network. For all you Aussies I give you Richard "encyclopedic knowledge but bugger all charisma" Kingsmill at Triple J.

Once upon a time radio was new and vibrant and had something to say. The rules were unknown and so it had feeling about it that was exciting and worth listening to. I am sorry to say that the rules are now so established that there are core "sectors" to every show - Weather - Time - Traffic - ads - Chat - sponsors etc. And because of that - much like life itself - there is no scope for anyone to experiment or make a difference on commercial radio.

So what happens is we get a set playlist of maybe 10 songs when it should be 20. We get vile and incoherent broadcasts that project the views of a tiny minority of the population EG Rush Limbaugh - Chris Moyles and John Laws and we the audience are desensitised or revolted to such a degree that music is totally devalued and made a pointless commodity.

This industrialised model of broadcasting has led to the mass migration of listeners away from music as a part of everyday life. It has become just another widgit that you can buy if you really need it. Like a new front door. Why buy a new one if the old one works well?

I say you should get new music if for no other reason than it makes new synaptic conections and increases your brain power.
Music makes you stronger - better looking and inreases your sexual prowess. It makes girls drop their knickers and boys open their wallets. It makes your dad mad and your mum edgy. MUSIC MATTERS!

So now the deal has been struck who says what constitutes indie music? Is a record released by Cherry Tree via Interscope with all its major label clout an indie or is it the guy at home with his Mac and keyboard? Bet you guess the same answer as me. Sorry mate - not our thing!

Plus ca change mes amies

Salut!


PS. - I wonder why the major labels haven't bought as many stations as they can? If I had their money I would.
PPS - Anyone like to offer me a job? I need the credibility.

Make millions from other peoples fear

Commiserations my friends,
I have had a few thoughts on the Blacksburg massacre. Not related to the victims or response teams - more about the mourner in chief and his cohorts.

I wanted to know who wins from this sick debacle.

Unless Sting releases a "sympathy" single I can't see how pop music has any relevence today.

Suggest you play Beethovens Requiem Mass. It suits the mood and is soothing somehow.

Here is what I have come up with.

Formula:
Psycho Kill kids.
Public buys guns to defend itself and armours homes, cars and schools.
Increase paranoia across the country.
Isolate a racial characteristic and make that a reason for allienation.
Sales of guns increase tenfold.
Shareprices of arms makers increase tenfold.
Foreigners become harrassed and carry guns for self protection.
One or two get involved and kill.
More guns bought for "defence"
Cheney - Haliburton and all Bush's cronies make money.
More guns - more deaths = more money = a virtuous money making cycle for some.

Winner - Arms dealers and manufacturers ( you don't make guns to grow food )
Winner - security companies
Winner - Paranoia councillors
Winner - Weird sects that divide people from their neighbours
Winner - Racists
Winner - Fox News
Winner - Funeral homes

Loser - everyone else

My advice:

Protest Peacefully.

Do not get freaked out.
The odds of getting shot in America are really bad but they are still only 41 gun related deaths per /1 million population

(1/1 million in UK where there are no legal guns and 3/1 Million in France. In other words you are 41 times less likely to be killed in a country that has no weapons to defend yourself with. There's not much need to shoot someone dead when you can jump back five feet and miss his fist is there? We don't carry arms so criminals don't either and crazy people can't get them so the best they can do is strangle you and I think its pretty hard to strangle 34 people without being stopped.)

Buy shares in gun companies - they are going to have a bumper year.

Another Wasted Day - Save yourselves from being murdered

Today is another sad day.

You all know about Virginia Tech already and the mass murder there. The 19th school massacre in the past 10 years in the US.

What madness is this?

I am sure that you already knw about the ones that happened in the UK and Australia as well in recent years - Hungerford, Port Arthur, Dunblane.

What about The Russian armageddon at Beslan as well? Or the last one in Lancaster County when the Amish kids were murdered.

My mind is just too battered and bruised to see what the point of any of these things are.

It is as if there is an invisible demon wandering amongst us just looking for children to slaughter.

But there isn't.

There are just lunatics who can get their hands on weapons. Nothing more. It is not some spectral emmince destryoing our world.

It is us.

When I heard about the disaster I sighed - like always - and wondered how things had go to this stage. This morning - a few hours after the event it seems that the murderer was upset because his girlfriend had dumped him for another guy.

When that happened to me I had a cry in private and then got on with my life. I didn't have a gun so I didn't kill my rival suitor. In fact, we are now friends and I like to think that we will always be so. I like him a lot more than his wife; which tells me that we aren't always very perceptive when it comes to love and matters of the heart. If I had killed him the world would have been a poorer place. He lives, she lives, and so do their 2 kids and a million happy memories that I could have snuffed out if I had lived in Virginia and had access to a gun. Thats why you don't need guns.

But the thing about Virginia Tech that has struck me the most is the way the students reacted.

They closed the doors and looked at the internet.

Not one hero emerged. Not one extra ordinary individual has been cited. There was no brave soul willing to risk trying to save his fellows. Instead they remained in their dorms googling like mad and hoping to survive.

Victims of virtual reality.

Let me tell you people. If you are one of the new ipod generation that grew up with video carnage on PS2 and HI DEF Tarrantino movies where heads are severed with Katana's for entertainment you are so desensitised that you will sit like rats in a lab until some fanatic comes and blows you away. Like all victims you are willing to submit yourselves to the ultimate sanction without fear becasue it has become a normal part of your day.

CSI is not real.
Kill Bill is not real.
Resevoir Dogs is not real.
The Godfather is not real.

You should change things. It is in your interest. It is simple self preservation.

When your skin feels the burn of real sunlight and the sweat burns your eyes you are alive.
When the shiver of cold courses down your spine and a touch makes you recoil you are alive.
When your guts ache with envy and your ears ring with noise you are alive.
When the hum form your bloodstream drowns out your own thoughts you are alive.

As Ibsen once said,
You have only one life.
Once thats gone you don't get another.

START NOW!

Ban weapons.
Switch off the screen.
Get out of your Air conditioned room and experience real life.
Buy a guitar and play it.
Make love to your lover.
Masturbate.
Eat your fill.
Drink with a cheerful companion.
Sail on the ocean and swim in the sea.
Shit with abandon.
Sleep on bare earth.
Fight with your fists and your words - eschew the mechanical tools of death they are for cowards.
Kiss your kids, your parents and your friends.
Sleep easy

Tomorrow is another day

SIX, FOUR, OUT - 21 reasons to be a cricket fan

Oh I say, how the diddly do are you old bean?

Today was an utterly glorious day in Blighty. The sun shone on the good citizens and this sceptred isle set in a silver sea truly lived up to its reputation.

The boats ghosted by in the misty waters off Portsmouth like half remembered memories from the days when Brittania ruled the waves and all in all it was perfect.

Not only that but my beloved Leeds United won a game of soccer and almost certainly saved themselves from relegation. HOOOOOOOOORAY!!!

But best off all its the start of the English Cricket season and for the first time I can remember its not raining!!

I have to confess to being a cricket nut. Now you may wonder why. Most people do but let me explain it to you.

REASONS TO BE A CRICKET FAN

1. A county season ticket has cost me £160. For that I get 45 days of free cricket.
Thats £3.50 per day.
Less than I spend in a hour at Starbucks or about 40 minutes of parking in London.
Value?
I should say so.

2. You do not need to be athletically gifted to enjoy it.

3. You do not need any special clothing.
4. You do not need to know what is going on.
You need to know who is playing - roughly. No names just geographical areas. Chances are one team is from the county you are in so that's a start.

5. The game is county / country based so there is no chance of aggro between towns.
Eg. knowing its Hampshire versus Warwickshire is enough.
(Who can act like a hooligan when it's a match like that?)

6. You can sit down all day.

7. You can drink all day.

8. There are no police in riot gear or nasty songs to sing.

9.You can drink all day.

10. The general perception is that it is a boring and slow game - it isn't . We pretend it is so that it stays perfectly civilised.

11. You can drink all day and not be called a trouble maker.

12. Posh people love it but they respect poor people who love it too.

13. You can eat all day so long as you are drinking.

14. It is not played in America, China, or South America so the competitions are not stupidly commercialised or played by cry babies who fall over when the umpire looks at them.

15. You can drink all day and talk crap with your mates and still keep an eye on the game.

16. Your wife thinks it is respectable.

17. If you are lucky you can go to: India, Australia, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Holland, Canada, West Indies, Sri lanka, Bangladesh and make friends instantly.

18. Your mates will only need to come along once before they are converted.

19. If you loose its not the end of the world. If you win you are supposed to be gracious in victory. There is a nice tradiotion of kids getting involved and playing a game at the intervals on the main pitch - imagine that at the superbowl or Wembley.

20. Even the biggest stars of the game will come over and say hello and sign autographs for your "sisters". Bouncers are fast balls not fat men in shades as far as cricket is concerned.

21. Did I mention you can drink all day?

It's all tickey boo now as far as i am concerned.

Albion is no longer perfidious.
It is perfect and I can't wait for the slap of leather on willow.

FNAAAARRRR.

Friday the 13th

Hail to thee,

welcome to the day of reckoning.

I was thinking about bring you thoughts of a diverse and conroversial nature today but it's been a bit of a disaster for me so I won't bother. All you need to know is that you should never fly on a cheap airline like FLYBE. Those buggers left me at the airport twice! Once was a delay for 5 hours and then this morning at sparowfart (thats 5am to you) I woke up to get on another flight. All went well and we even got onto the plane itself before the pilot announced that the flight was cancelled. So the rest of today has been spent in a daze of fatigue and annoyance.

Friday the 13th indeed.

Anyway onto the news.

If any of you are pianists or afficionado's of the terrible black monster you will have heard of Bosendorfer. They make the best Piano's in the world bar none. Big, beautiful, heavy and damn expensive beasts they are and every pianist worth his salt wants to have one. Our mate Greg Johnson calls his "Joanna" but I bet his bank manager calls it ludicrous.

In England there are a few successful festivals of classical music. (I used to work at one so I know a lot about the Bosendorfer Grand Concert piano's - having humped them on and off trucks for the best part of 10 years.) This tale involves a new festival called the Two Moors Festival and, as ever with these things, it is held in a remote and rather beautiful part of Somerset. It is one of those places where it is forever 1920 and the Empire has still got a grip on the colonies. Small men in black suits wander hither and thither with silver trays of cucumber sandwiches and old men with tweed coats mutter "Oh I say" whenever they see anyone with the faintest trace of a suntan. You get the picture.

The organisers of the festival recently bought a new Grand Bosendorfer and paid - get this! - £45 000 for it (That's nigh on $100 000 US). They had the thing delivered with great fanfare to the first location. Lights, Camera... ACTION!

The problem was that the movers had a bit of a comedy moment and dropped the thing as it came of the van. It then fell 14ft onto a gravel path and then to add insult to injury it committed suicie by hurling itself of an embankment.

OH BUGGER!

£45 000 - £45 000 = Headache for someone.

Well, all that reminded me of a couple of Bosendorfer tales from my past.

First, there was the time that we "borrowed" a nine foot grand and placed it on the end of the docks in Penzance / Land's End.

A good mate - Paul Coker - who is a reknowned classical pianist was going to play a recital with our other chum, Hungarian looney and serously good key basher, Andras Schiff, and we thought it would be a laugh to take the massive instrument out to sea before the gig. That didn't happen - too heavy and who was going to explain that tothe broding angry Magyar afterwards? Not me. So we did the next best thing and Paul serenaded the Cornish fishermen with the Teddy Bears Picnic, the Pink Panther and other notable show tunes as they set off into the brooding oceans.

Close your eyes and imagine the movie the Shipping News. Now add frivolity and humour. Kevin Spacey would be useless. Try John Travolta instead and you are closer to the picture. It was excellent and it made the local and Canadian TV news as there was a protest going on against European fishing policy or something at the time. Thanks' be the guys from Bosendorfer didn't see it. Still, it was pretty good effort for a fun day at the beach don't you think?

But that's not the best. That comes courtesy of dear ol' Tori Amos and her crew.

Bosendorfer had lent her a midi grand (which doubles the value of the piano) for a big tour in the states. I think it was the Choirgirl hotel tour but my memory fades.... So when the tour finished up all the gear was being shipped back to the UK and there was this big black thing waiting to be collected. Except no one called for it.

A week went by and no Austrian came to take their baby home
Another week and no news.
Then a breakthrough.

My dear friend who is a piano tech of world reknown called me up.

"Do you think it would fit in my house? It's 9ft long and 5 ft wide"

"Yeah but the floors won't take it"

"Can you fix them"

" No worries"

So the errant piano was boxed up and put on ship to go on holidays in sunny Tottenham whilst I rounded up a crew to remove three doorways and a living room floor and replace them with concrete and wider portals.

Job done the piano duly arrived and was installed.

It has become the worlds most expensive beer table - none of us can play the thing even if it is tuned to perfection at all times - so it serves very well as a piece of furniture.

So on this day of disaster and futility I would like to thank the dear Austrian chaps who crafted it with such love. One day they will have made my friend a very handsome donation to his pension fund. I hope they don't mind.

He sent it by sea after all and we all know that's eco friendly.

In fact he is a very Dolphin friendly tuner!

ta ta

BLACK EYED PEAS - Bloc Party - Sting and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are HYPOCRITS

Oh what a bunch of hypocrits there are in the music business!

I fly all over but I know I am burning carbon. At least I don't pretend to be a good guy about it. Not like these imbeciles.

Have you got into the Live Earth thing yet? Well if you haven't you will. And what a crock of non-sense it is.

Imagine this; Bring a load of self centred, ego-maniacs with their entourages half way across the world. Put them up in 5 star, expensive and non-eco friendly hotels. Ferry them to and fro in big Limo's and then charter the most expensive helicopters to get them to the gig. Make sure that whilst they are there the tents are air conditioned and filled with chilled Champagne from France and Grapes from Guatemala- clearly defined on the rider these items must be of original provenance and it doesn't matter if you can make do on Sparkling wine and a packet of Jaffa Cakes. The celebs must be looked after!

Now get 50 fat radies from Arkansas and Alaska to fly and rig and turn on a 50 thousand watt light rig and the biggest PA that money can buy. Make sure that they are all trucked there on large flat bed - diesel powered lorries. Power the whole thing on generators fuelled by Diesel. Leave them running even when there is no need.

Then invite 200 000 of your closest friends and make sure that they need to travel to the most far flung places in the world from London, to Sydney and Japan, Shanghai, Brazil, South Africa and New Jersey ( where of course you won't be able to smell the stink from Elizabeth because they will turn fans on to re-direct the fumes from the chemical plants).

Add in the global TV execs and the sponsorships and the added air miles and congestion and you have a recipe for Live Earth.

Has anyone thought this through?

Live Earth? More like Kill me quick.

No wonder we are worried. Our stars are burning so brightly they can't see how toxic they can be!

Wankers.

Bill Gates bitten by Apple

Howdy,

I guess you have already heard about the great DRM fiasco with EMI and Apple. Emi gave in and at last music downloads are open to all to copy.

That means a big kick in the head for Zune and Microsoft.

All the fake Ipods can now put in AAC format downloads instead of WMV (Microsofts crappy system).

Looks like Microsoft have been well and truly bashed in the battle because if you think about it - who wants to load up software that costs a lot to licence and then can't interact with 90% of the downloads out there?

"AIN'T NOBODY BUT ME" (oh no not more bloody Supertramp!)

By Bill. See you in Liberia

THE LONG TAIL WILL SMACK YOUR BUM

Kem Cho,

as avid observers of the business you will no doubt have heard about the "long tail".

This is a description of the way numbers of sales drag off into infinity after a product is released. We used to call it back catalgue but the Valley techies have to have their own vocabulary.

There is also a misconception that the long tail may end up wagging the dog.

It won't.

The long tail is a chimera invented to win someone a PhD and convince all those of us hanging on by the fingertips that there is hope if we just play by the rules. It is bullshit! I can sell you a single CD and that will be part of the long tail. The question is how long is the tail and how big is the body?

I can see that the old fashioned Wolfhound is being bred out and we are going to end up with a Daxhund before long. Yip Yip Yip. There is not much meat on that tail.

What you need is to be a part of the body not the tail.

Preferably the head. The bit with teeth.

Ponder this for a moment.

When the world fall out of love with America the break up will be bloody and bitter. Not everyone wants to dream about California and its concommitant smog. Some like to imagine a beach without Muscles and dippy blondes. Some of us already have that.

Why would we want to race on Route 66 in a Mustang when we can travel across Asia on an elephant?

Why should we relate to Ghetto murders when we can stay at home and see our own people being slaughtered in such new, efficient and imaginative ways?

Why is NYC called the big apple when its losing its pith?

Beware of your assumptions people. What was once certain is no longer. America isn't the dream it once was. You bombed too many people too many times. The empire is dying and so is the rock business.

It is time for a new Weimar Republic.
Lets all get hammered and create frenzied orgies of creativity.

Or, maybe we should have a cup of tea and meditate.

If you don't believe me ask these guys:

Julius Caesar,
The Queen
Jesus,
Buddha,
Stalin,
George Bush,
Houdini,
Alexander the great,
Herod,
Beaver,
Donny Osmond,
Chairman Mao

tot ziens

96.4% of Musicians are Idiots

The other 3.6% aren't trying.

Happy Holidays people,

In previous blogs I have mentioned manners - or rather the lack of them - as being one of the major reasons for a musical career in the doldrums.

Today I wanted to remind you about how important manners are and also how important it is to make sure that your message is getting across.

It's really quite simple but it bears repeating. You must remember at all times that the guys on your team are also ON YOUR SIDE!

(The number of times I have come across the kind of "everyone is trying to screw me," paranoia is making me think that there is a a conspiracy of silence on this issue. Why aren't we being told?)

In order to elborate a little and get my message across I brought you firstly the list of the most offensive words - as compiled by the BBC. I am sure if you look at the list you will see words that you come across in everyday useage.

Now, I may sound like your Mum but these words are fine if your "gang" uses them on a regular basis. That kind of common repetition devalues the shock element and neuters some of these words until they lose most of their meaning. BUT... and this is big but ( like J Lo's but not so attractive!) Outside of your peer group the words are still offensive and must be used with care.

Let me give you an example of how dangerous your ambivalent attitude to words can be.

I was on a plane travelling from Indonesia to Papua New Guinea once. The flight is 5 minutes long and lands in a town called Vanimo. There is one plane a week and it is a big deal for the customs boys there. Now, as you know I am a Western Imperialist who cares nought for the social niceties of foreign lands and so when we landed I thought that my British Passport would carry the same amount of credibilty as having a Black Amex does in Saks 5th Avenue. Boy, was I wrong!

The customs officer asked me where my visa was and I pointed to one in my passport. It transpired that this was a single entry visa and that I had not got the correct stamp. When the large and very aggresive gent behind the counter pointed this out to me my reply was simply - "Oh you are joking: which means I can't believe I made such a stupid and elementary mistake and could you please lok kindly on my ineptitude in small town England. In Papua New Guinea it is a major insult to question the veracity of a government official and if he were able to my interogator would have turned puce, Instead he ordered my bags off the plane and me onto a small bench where transgressors could be humiliated in plain view of the other departing - and legitimate guests.

I was totally bemussed and not a little scared They still have cannibals in PNG don't they? Was I going to be the main ingredient in Missionary stew? Would I be deported to Jaiapura after a week in the pot. Would he turn my skull into a new bongo? Why was he looking for the salt? This was not funny.

The plane was turned around and ordered to taxi to the end of the runway whilst my colleagues bartered for my safe release. There was a lot of grovelling and a lot of stern looks and waving arms going on and I was powerless. Every time I moved he shouted at me to stay put or there would be "CONSEQUENCES"!.

Eventually, after a good deal of bowing, scrapping, promises of virgin brides and praise of the locals virility and no small measure of personal ego massage the customs guy agreed to release me for 400 cigarettes and 2 cases of beer. He then scribbled a small note on the visa in crayon and took 20 Dollars for his trouble before releasing me into the foetid air of a Papuan Rainforest airstrip.

The engines were already running and the pilot waved at me to hurry up as I ran down the ever-lasting runway with my suitcase and heavily bruised ego in hand. The sweat ran of me like Niagra but my relief at getting out of there was enough to power a small aircraft carrier and as I hauled myself up the steps I gasped a last breath of swamp before slamming the door shut behind me and swallowing as much air conditioned, farty aeroplane air as I could get into my burning lungs. As the plane cranked up the power and took off I crawled to a seat and started shaking with relief.

The comlimentary nuts were a bit of a let down on that flight let me tell you.

So, the moral of this story is be careful what you say and who you say it to.

If you are a musician be nice to your fans, your manager, your label, your family and especially to people who may weild power over you that you are unaware of. If you don't it may cost you more than $20 and a case of Pacific Ice beer

Andiamo

NO MUFF TOO TOUGH

Genuflections at this time of the resurection my brothers and sisters,

(see how I am really getting into this thing about saying hello in a really posh way)

In this little missive I bring you two thoughts.

First of all if you are able to see the picture you will already know that I am really impressed by this womans brilliant adoption of inuendo and sleaze in the noble cause of selling T-Shirts. This is marketing genius and it almost makes me want to buy one of her shirts. If you can't see it here is the link;

http://www.bodyasbillboard.com/

The second and more music thought is one that has come to me the more I delve into the inner recesses of the blogosphere. It is this:

What a huge morass of sad and weird people there are with access to the Internet.

(AM I ONE OF THEM?)

Now, I know that porn was the foundation of this information super highway but I thought that by now there would be more than just pimps, wimps and pervs online but if you look at the blogs that are out there I doubt it.

There are tons of them that have not been updated since aboout 1994 - look up Melanie Griffiths blog if you don't believe me. Then there are the mentally subnormal ones like Perez Hilton. Somewhere inbetween though lies the truth of the blogsphere. It seems to be populated by a million cooks, whingers and shit musicians who are trying to flog MP3's by pretending they are going to donate to the latest charity. BULLSHIT THEY ARE!

So now you know.

If you are at all discerning you will filter out the insane quite easily but triping through the fields of average ability bloggers such as myself is nigh on impossible. It's rather like being in a pub and chatting to a nice guy at the bar. Its great for a few minutes but then you want to get back to your mates in case he mentions that he is a member of the local chapter of Slavers for England.

Sometimes its best not to know who is out there. Just in case.

It is safer and it is certainly better for your mental health.

I suggest that as your first step on the road to mental health you only read blogs that have typo's in but who do not write the first person singular as "i". These people are lazy and will probably come to your house demanding free board and lodging the next time you post a comment.

Adieu

RCA COLUMBIA - COMPUTERISED HELL

Incantations of Despair my afficionados

This has just appeared in my world and its a warning shot across the bows for all those pirates and buccanners that are trying to forge new empires in the wastelands of musical creativity.

Here is an exerpt from a "Blog" I just read on Vox.com



"SonyBMG Music Entertainment UK has just announced that starting April 2nd 2007 it will no longer accept demos from new artists on physical formats such as CDs for consideration by the company’s Columbia Records or RCA Records labels.

In fact, the only way RCA and Columbia Records UK will accept new music or demo submissions is via Vox! How cool is that?

We think it’s very cool to see entertainment companies embracing the multimedia aspect of blogs, and the way that Columbia and RCA UK are embracing Vox is exceptional. They explained it like this:


“We don't want demo CD's anymore, that's what part of this is about. It takes ages for you to do, they get lost and it's a waste of plastic. Register your blog and be part of our on-line community. You will be directly connected to us and everyone else who's in the community. That's the other reason for this, the artist community being closer to the labels they want to be involved with.”


WHAT THE HELL IS THAT APART FROM A COP OUT CHICKEN SHIT EXCUSE FOR A LABEL?

Oh what a great scam! Now we have a major that can't be bothered to go out and look for decent bands. It looks like the perfect way to keep the mystique going and hide behind a screen of green pseudo pretence without ever needing to employ another A&R guy again. No Artist and synthetic repotoire for all! Can't wait. 

Cd's aren't ever going to get anyone signed to a major - except by idiots like us in the indie world. We love music for its own sake and if the Majors want to get some credibility back they need to listen to music in all forms. CD, Live, MP3 or even in sheet form. They need to work at the front lines and not in an office somewhere.

It is just too important to leave to some computerised scanning machine to filter which is what this will mean before long.

Welcome to the machine age of creativity people!.