It's all about the money honey

Faced with another night alone in this luxury Swiss "retreat" with its specially made vulcanised wallpaper, I tuned into ITN news last nighton the ol' puter.

Guess who is still stuck up on a ledge on the fucking Eiger with a TV camera and no fingers to switch it off? You guessed it the mighty RAN Defenestration!

This dick wad is hanging about and getting in the way of real news again. Tonight he has persuaded some public school brain death to follow his progress by hiring a helicopter to film him in a precarious state half way up a mountain.
Last night they were at DEATH BIVOUACK. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Is that any place for a sane person to spend the night?
I dearly hope that the bugger falls off that hill and bangs his head on the way down. At least that will mean we only have a day of misery - like when Sharon didn't quite die - and then we can get on with more useful things.

Anyway I though rather than blatter on about him I had better show you what happens when an athletic, artistocratic man with a the brain power of a lemming is let loose on the unsuspecting world.

Now, I guess you are asking what the hell is he on about this for? Well, let me tell you. People like Ran are in charge of the world. Idiots with more money than sense (not hard in this case). They are born lucky and get to spend their days wasting time on pointless activities like Polo, Lacrosse, Rugby, climbing mountains and making investments in things they don't understand.

Imagine if you will, that you have a billion dollars. What are you going to do?

OPTIONS ARE:

1 Playboy lifestyle,
2 MONASTERY
3 Quiet life out of the public eye
4 Newspaper columnist
5 Sportsman
6 Property developer
7 Author
8 Antique dealer
9 Restorer of old cars
10 Cunt

RESULTS

Most opt for a combination of 1, 6, 8 and 10

If they have testosterone aplenty and IQ points a lackin' they will inevitably opt for 5 and 6. That's why all buildings in the old world since 1940 have been built by committees of dullards with no more skill than the guys who are shovelling the yoghurt down my throat every hour.

Some, tried option 1 - found out they were shit, selfish lovers and in all likelyhood perverts and so reverted to option 7 and 8.

Which leaves us with the successful failures like Ran. Famed for being daft.

Old money does not "do" creative things unless it involves Nanny and a wetsuit. Old Money is only involved in keeping old money in old families. Think of it like this;

If you are Roman Abramovich you can give your ex-wife $1Billion and still have $10 billion spare to goa n do interesting things with like run a football team or build the worlds biggest yacht. If your name is Gates or Buffett you can increase the GDP of African nations by writing a cheque and save millions of lives. But, if you are "old money" you are under strict instructions to keep every last penny in your own clammy hands until your death, aged 102, by preventing anyone doing anything innovative and new.

In England they say that is being "preserved in aspic."
In Switzerland they say ... nothing and just take the cash.

Now then, here is why this makes musical difference.

Old money marries new money. New money becomes old and settles into jello senility.
(I give you "THE DAILY TELEGRAPH".)

Your TV , press and radio is run entirely by old money. (Myspace has been bought by old money Murdoch).

You listen to them every day in your car at work and on TV and it changes your perception of right and wrong.

You vote Tory, Republican, Liberal because it feels safe and they told you too. They will never remind you why it suits their own interests to run with the herd and put all your energy into consummerism.

Once in a while they have a feud and some new/old money upstart like Conrad Black takes it up the rump but, generally they are happy to hide their shame beneath a lambswool sack (UK readers may get that). (See Robert Maxwell - Hungarian Saint, or Ken Lay - my papered life in the arms of Princess Anne)

Then one day one of the old school chums doesn't like the look of someone -say this week it is the Chinese - because the bird at the Karaoke wouldn't let him play tonsil tennis with her and he hits a sell button on his Taiwanese computer whilst telling his mates to do the same.

Old money - which has never been used to do anything is safely locked up in bullion, property and stuff like that, but yours - which is in a pension or something, controlled by the mate; you know, his friend, the guy with a stately home in Berkshire, that one, yeah him, the same guy who just told his boys to sell - isn't. It is fucked.

New money, like ours, is lost before you even know about it and they make a few dollars for their efforts.

Now people have to sell to avoid bankruptcy.This means that old money is more valuable because it buys more.

It buys your house for buttons whilst you languish in a Motel 6 somewhere near Fresno. You spend 50 years paying off a debt they created and then wonder where your life went. Meanwhile Ran is up a hillside with a cozy toe sleeping bag and wall to wall adulation. His contribution to the world is zero but he will earn millions because you want to read about him to escape from your shitty life.

And because you are so tired and poor you will never play that gig that will make a difference and you won't be able to inform a generation of your brilliance and a dream will die.

Meanwhile on the radio James Blunt and Mika get A rotation and you are singing "Smile" as you wipe another geriatric arse and wonder where it all went wrong.

It went wrong baby when Momma got frisky and your old man got lucky.

Sweet Dreams

Maldroid and the great mountainering monster

In England there is a famous explorer - Ranolph Fynnes - who is currently half way up the North face of the Eiger. The man is reknown for tramping across deserts and arctic tundra with nothing but a tootpick and a pair of Damart thermals for protection. He is the sort of guy that eats polar bears for breakfast and eskimo's for lunch.

A genuine throwback.

He is also a total twat!

Thanks to Sir Ran (as he likes to be known) there are corpses of young men scattered across the globe. Most of them were trying to help with some madcap escapade and got just got caught in the cross fire.

Promises of glory, fame and self achievement all amounted to nothing when the chips were down and Ran needed to run.

These days he makes a living from motivational speaking and from the accounts I have heard 80% of the men (it is always men) who hear him think that he is an icon and the other 20% think - like me - that he is a tit.

Which is worth thinking about for a minute. Why would there be such a discrepancy?

Well, it all comes down to experience.

You see, if you have been on one of his "trips" and got out alive you would no doubt have realised that Ran and his kind are ego manical toss pots who only do things for their own self gratification. Oh, of course there is the pretence that its all for science or to test mans endurance bollocks but really its all about having a collosal ego. Once you have breen bruised by that kind of obsession there is no way you want to go near it again.

Which brings me on to signing new bands.

You see the thing with finding new acts - or A&R as we oldies like to call it - is that you need to find acts just before the masses do. But at the same time they need to be "bubbling" and building a fan base.

The latest one to cross my path is Maldroid from San Francisco.

These guys popped up on my screen last year and we have been following them since. They have really worked the system well and have won you tube video competitions and have created a bit of a buzz around the bay and beyond.

So when I spoke to Ryan from the band at first a few months ago it all seemed great. I liked their work and wanted to release it for them with an eye to taking them on if things worked out well. I was quite excited about the prospect and I thought we could do something with them that would be productive and let's be honest lucrative.

Since then the massed ranks of A&R have found out about them too and now I hear from a birdie that in the line at sxsw they are one of the buzz bands of the festivities.

Now for us that's bad. It means a bidding war and there is no way we will get close to a band I really rate. For them its excellent and I wish them all the best but it also means the inevitable "Ran Ego" will be growing deep in the brain of at least one of them. Sooner or later someone will get their fingers burnt / frostbitten or gnawed off by beavers and that will be that.

The monster that is music has reared its ugly head and if it's like this now it will only get bigger and bolder as time goes on. Either they will emerge as monsters of rock themselves or they will be chewed up and spat out. Who knows?

Anyway, all that means that we aren't even going to try to compete. We can't offer what the others offer. There are no big cheques or groupies on draft. We aren't climbing the north face of the Eiger. We are sitting on a pretty terrace with a pot of herbal tea and a copy of the Times crossword as the sun sets over the Matterhorn.

I know where I would rather be right now.


How about you?