Is there any point?

Shalom beloved reader,

I sometimes wonder if there is really any point in writing this blog.

After all apart from you who is reading? I don't know and although Google are smart people I am sure they don't know either. Perhas more to the point I don't think they care. But I do. I really do.

So punters galore please tellme what you think. Even if you hate it. Say something.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the biggest problem with our new internet world is that no one has any responsibility so no one gives a shit. It's so easy to ignore everyone and everthing if its virtual and the problem with that is that it is begining to infect our daily interactions.

If you want to get ahead inmusic you need fans. To get fans you need to make a connection and lets be honest here you are not going to connect with a computer in the same way you would conect with a person are you?

If we continue to ignore each other and react like real people we will be consigning ourselves to a future of electronic banality. I promise you - as an old old man - that if you don't get involved you will end up being shown the way by people who have. I will also promise that you will hate what they give you.

It is your world. Your future. Your now. So please get up and say something. If not to me then to someone else. Make life active and you will make it better.

Hype still has a place in the pantheon of pop but as a rule the music that makes it is the music that is accessed in person.

For example, today I spoke to someone who has 16 new bands to plug. 16 - and thats just one plugger. If you add all the others up thats a lot of noise out there drowning out your sound. So you need to out play - out perform and most of all out meet every other musician who crosses your path.

I realy hate it when bands come over all "I AM SOOO MUCH MORE TALENTED THAN THEM" and send the night slagging off the other guys on the bill. If you look at successful musicians you will see that the best of them listen and learn from their peers. You need to know what works and it's no damn good pretending you are brillinat when you aren't. There is no such thing as an overnight success. It has to be worked at.

When you run a label it can be really depressing to see talent waste itself just by being stupid and belive me we see it every day. There could be so many more happy and productive people if they just got up off their backsides and JUST DID IT!

So, my apprentice send a reply to this. Tell me I am wrong and see if you become famous by blogging or.... say hi and get your arse off the sofa and play a gig in your nearest bus stop. It will change your life if you do it every day.

Salaam Bretheren

Lies Damn Pies and Statistics

Goede Morgen,

in this infinately fascinating world there are a few things that pass by each of us that are guaranteed to make your hackles rise.

There are of course the politicians and self important numb butts that grace our TV screens each day. But they are on on-going problem, rather like genital lice: Annoying but hardly life threatening. Then there are the bullies and aggressors who can make your life so uterly miserable that its not worth a damn but lets be opitimistic ans say that they will get their come-up-ance. Karma works that way. But there is one more insidious creature that stalks the dark recesses of humanity.

I present the BUROCRAT.

As you are avid readers of my latest news, views and drivel you may already be aware of the potential disasters that await all of us who are trying to break out from the normal 9-5 routine. But have you ever been sucked into the machine that 9-5 really entails? I just have and it is horrible beyond compare.

You see the various governments we deal with all have their own particular way of trying to make you conform and woe betide you if you don't. I am sure that it all began as a well meaning experiment but that's no excuse; isn't that how Frankenstein came to life?

In the UK we now have new laws designed to prevent money laundering. These laws are so stupid that they almost stop anyone doing deals at all.

For Example, In order to borrow money you must provide a whole raft of I.D. Fair enough. But once you have done that you must then produce it again and again as each step of the process proceeds. It isn't enough that the bank is legitimate and they have known you for 10 years. They must hire a seperate, 3rd party, team to verify your existence. Why trust your own systems when a quick squeeze of the nether regions will determine if you are who you say you are. For this you are charged money which is then added to the debt and interest is added to that as well. No wonder efficiency is going to hell. No one can fart without paperwork being filed in triplicate with the complaince officer (noxious gasses) in Room 101 - The Stinky Building, Ponderous End, PO E.

America is even worse becuase of the damn federal system of taxes. Califoria sales tax, state, federal, IE something or other and so on. Paperwork is a real headache.

As for Aus it is so overgoverned that 98.3% of the population are employed filing and the other 1.6% are filling in forms.

Even so despite all this people are still trying to have a good time during their short sojorn on earth. But even as I write the clever bastards are maeouvering to make life more difficult. Not by letting us get on with our lives and concentrating on the important things in life like health, respect, and music but by inventing new kinds of taxes and fiddles to keep everyone on the treadmill.

Did you know that between them Bill Gates and Warren Buffet own as much as the bottom 30% of American society? That really makes their "generosity" plain. You can be generous when you own every fucking thing!

Have you also noticed how thin they are? Personal trainers - not cheap.

Bill and Buffett are two of the guys inventing things that slow your mind like spreadsheets and formatted documents. Thanks to them we can communicate but we can't spell. Carrier Pigeon anyone? The new net age has given us the option of talking directly to each other whereever and whenever we want to but it has als resulted in some unexpected side effects. Like BARIATRIC products. Piss taking buggers are using our name to promote chairs for wider people. (Something which America no longer has a monoploy on). You should see their stools (sic).

We have an obesity epidemic across the Anglicised world. What was once confined to the suburbs of Washington D.C. has now reached the extremities of the American empire. Thanks to Big Mac and Burger King and their helpful and ever dynamic allies at Coke.

NO FUCKING WONDER EVERYONES GETTING FAT! Who can get up and dance when you are forced to spend your days ticking boxes and undergoing examinations dictated by anally retentive accountants? (I bet there are some men who would pay good money to act out that scenario! Oh yes MR Tackle. Please inspect my Anal retention! etc)

Tick
Sip
Tick
Sip
Munch
Tick
Sip

So the purpose of this little rant is to try and resurect - with a minor alteration - the old slogan that made me get active. (I recently weighed 400 lbs due to middle aged spread - a Margarine substitute made by Nabisco. I only use organic lard and whale gristle on my Mighty White toast these days and the change is remarkable.


Here we go, then. Raise those knees and open that mouth. Now sing along.....

FUCK WORK LETS DANCE!

Via Condios funsters

Beck to Basics

Once again enconsced in the bosom of my homeland and I am investing most of my time in negotiations that could well alter the structure of our little empire forever. I can't tell you more about that right now but I can say that we have been approached by some very nice chaps who want to get into the business.

In many ways that's reassuring - knowing that there are more lunatics about with the same dementia as me.

As a part of our "discussions" there have been long winded conversations about what strategy we should be employing in the face of the new digital world. I am happy to report that no one has any idea but everyone pretends that they have. How do we deal with CD sales falling through the floor and peer to peer and all the stuff that everyone else writes about? Well, frankly I don't care anymore.

The latest conference was too much for me and if this deal doesn't come off I am announcing now to you - my dear music lovers - that we are going to revamp the entire label and dump a whole load of ancient practises. It is time for us to be leaders not followers.

Change is always a real problem but thankfully there aren't that many of us and we are all pretty flexible so it won't really hurt. I wish the same could be said for everyone.

America is a tough place at the best of times but when the cash cows are being slaughtered there is inevitably going to be internecine warfare. Here in the UK the ripples are spreading. Warners have dumped the UK CEO this week and all is not well at EMI (as we have learnt already). God knows what happening behind closed doors in LA right now.

I will bet you as soon as the redundancy notices land in Hollywod Boulevard that will be a whole load of "OH YEAH DUDE - FOR CERTAIN" arse lickers out there who have suddenly developed an unhealthy interest in the new kids on the block - DAVE AND VIC; otherwise known as Posh and Becks. These people are called vultures and should be avoided at all costs.

Maybe there will be an entirely new entertainment industry founded by the King and Queen of Europe that actually pays attention to what the rest of the world finds interesting but if these chaps get innvolved I doubt it. Self interest and creativity do not make good bed fellows but with Posh and Becks I think they know the game better than anyone. Beware America, the European self obsessed are getting pretty good at playing that game. The rules are changing.

In case you don't know - the entire globe (including North Korea and excluding Australia and the USA) has an obsession with soccer. Without doubt the greatest stars of this sport are the players of a few select teams - Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Barcelona and Liverpool. These guys earn money on the field that is staggering - try $250 000 a week for a rough guide. Then add on the merch and other rights and you can soon see that they are individuals who are industries in themselves and of all these chaps the biggest is by far DAVID BECKHAM. A very smart boy who speaks English, Spanish and style fluently. He is also talented, handsome and a walking sexual fantasy for most of the gay men in the Western Hemisphere.

Becks is married to a Spice Girl and now he has signed to play for the LA Galaxy for £125 million for the next few years. Thats about $400 million in your American dollars! Even if America carries on ignoring everyone outside of the 50 states I promise you this guy will make an impact on your lives. He is bigger than General Motors and much more profitable.

All this is a great example of how to make change a great bonus if you have the foresight to try something new. hats of to the Galaxy. They can't fail to make their money back.

So I am hoping that simply by think about what Becks has done will, by some osmotic process, help us to create a new way of working that is massively profitable and also kind of fun. Hope after all is another thing we are all short of.

So there you are. Think big - Think different and maybe look at places where no one else will go and there may be a golden opportunity awaiting.

Like Starbucks signing McCartney it is all about associating yourselves with a big image to grab the attention and then hoping you haven't backed the wrong name. I think LA Galaxy have it right and Starbucks are about to eat the bitter beans of a balls up.

Cali nikta