I'm running late so this has to be quick. I just have to give an big shout out to the Big Pink Dress a group of the loveliest people who I met at Steffen Peddie's gig (which I will review later on Spoongig) who are raising money to fund research into preventing Breast Cancer.
The next thisng is we have reached 1963 , the year the Beatles first hit the chart but I have chosen Just Like Eddie , Heinz ' Joe Meek produced tribute to Eddie Cochran.
My friend Royston posted a link to this blog post from KFMX (Lubbock's Rock Station) about the legacy of illegal downloading. It sums it up in a nutshell. Although I'm in two minds about the grammar , sould it be Metallica Was Right or Metallica Were Right. Anyway this post isn't about grammatical correctness it's about the whole music stealing thing , and where we are at today and why we are here today musically/ It's probably best to do it roughly in temporal order so I'll do it by decades:
Vinyl became established, first in 78 format with seven inch 45's becoming the single record content delivery device of preference. 12" 33rpm Albums named because sheet music was collected in albums was the modus operandii for Classical Music because of the length of the pieces , although spoken word albums came out that played at 16 rpm . If you look at a full featured vinyl record player that's what the 16 option is for. If you do want an classic record player take a look at RPM in Newcastle.
The thing is unless you had your own recording facilities in the 1950's the only way of stealing music was to actually shoplift or resort to burglary. Music theft was limited to plagiarism and blantant exploitation like Alan Freed's co composer credit on Chuck Berry's Motorvatin' because there had to be a white presence.
Music took of in this decade, and you had a proliferation of transistor radios and portable vinyl disc players, and affordable reel to reel tape recorders were available. These allowed you to record either from the record player, radio or television. However this was not widespread so artists and record companies just saw it as another marketing opportunity, however the BBC threatened prosecution of anyone who recorded TV programs , although they then later asked for recorded copies when trying to replace lost shows . Albums became more popular especially with bands like the Beatles and Beach Boys shifting industrial quantities and incidentally albums were commercially available on tape reels. Really record companies were seeding the ground without looking to the future.
This is when supposedly the shit hit the fan for record companies. Music was becoming more portable. The introduction of the 8-Track tape and more importantly the compact cassette tape. These were introduced by record companies again to sell product, but when cheap portable recorders were put on the market you would have thought that someone would have realised that customers would not just record their own voice or birdsong.
Lots of companies produced tapes and recorders and customers started recording music from TV and radio and records and sharing it with their friends. This was countered by the "Home Taping Is Killing Music" campaign. What actually was happening was that record companies saw a threat and adopted a terrible attitude that their market was comprised of thieves. Home taping went through the roof with the introduction of the Sony Walkman , because this meant that you could take music that you had paid for with you by copying to a C90 tape. Record companies didn't like this either because they saw it as a potential loss of revenue.
Companies started marketing pre recorded cassette tapes which sold well , but in a completely odd ploy Island started the 1+1 series with the album recorded on one side and the second side blank for you to record whatever you want on. The only image I could find was for the John Martyn album Grace and Danger, although these was a normal delivery method for Island completely encouraging people to tape music. I don't know if there is a caveat or disclaimer on the tape somewhere.
The portability of recording apparatus meant that bootlegs now became more prevalent, so as well as official releases , you could , if, ironically, you were prepared to pay way over the odds for usually substandard recordings.
The record industry tried introducing a high frequency signal on the vinyl record to combat taping, and finally introduced a 5% PRS levy on all tapes.
Home taping didn't kill music, if anything it helped spread the word. Although you could only record in real time, so you knew what you were doing. Though for the first time you could put together tapes for parties , driving , bus journeys, running but you still knew that you should really buy the records. However often you would get a tape from a friend, listen to it and then go out buy the album. The record companies didn't acknowledge this.
1980s:
This was the decade that changed everything. The record industry introduced the new cure all, the perfect indestructible medium of CD. This was a cold planning campaign by the music industry, they introduced very cheap CD players, CD players were part of the all in one music centres replacing the cumbersome vinyl turntable. People bought music centres not realising that this made their vinyl records obsolete. So they needed to buy CDs to replace the vinyl , except CDs were expensive £12
compared with around a fiver for the vinyl equivalent. Mid price albums were a bargain at a tenner. Now you weren't offered a trade in for your vinyl so you were paying for the medium. Did this mean that the music had no actual value?
But anyway this was a McDonaldisation moment for music, suddenly you had remote controls , you could program the way a CD was played , you could skip and repeat tracks, it was convenience for the ears. And you could program a CD and record it to cassette to make your mixtape.
The new medium had no clicks or background vinyl noise, and the first song I played on my new CD player was The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", played loud. A mistake I never made again. Previously the song was introduced as the needle hit the groove, this time the opening power chord just hit with no warning at all. That was my first impression of CD.
But again the music industry just saw a huge cash cow, but they were selling discs containing music converted to digital signals and guess what happened then......
1990s:
CD replaced floppy discs as a medium for computers. They could also be written to. Home computers were taking off, the internet was connecting people and at this time the music industry decided it was time for another change. CDs would deteriorate and were not as indestructible as we thought. They needed replacing. Incidentally I've had CDs for thiry years that are still fine.
The music industry told us we now had to but DAT . It's tape! Tapes break , get tangled , and you cant easily change the order, and a blank tape cost as much as a CD. DAT did have it's place but just became a specialist niche and never threatened CD's dominance. However......
The CD data was copied into a digital file stored on computer , this was MP3. It was not created by the industry so there was no regulation. People could copy albums to there computer and duplicate them to CD, but more importantly could use the internet to share music using peer to peer networks such as Napster.
People were ripping , sharing and downloading music and not paying for it. The music industry had given everything to the public on a plate. Like with cassette they tried legal downloads but included DRM which limited what devices you could play YOUR music one. It didn't work. Elton John and Metallica were the biggest voices behind the movement that eventually shut down the peer to peer network Napster citing the amounts of money they had lost. The thing is most of the people who downloaded stuff were actually doing it because they could, they would never have bought the music if they couldn't download it so the figures were irrelevant , and these artists didn't give a fig about their fans when the issued old product on CD , then brought out a new version with an extra track, ten brought out a remastered version , expecting fans to cough up money each time.
However in the days of pay per minute internet connection a friend of mine spent £30 to download a Basement Jaxx album he could have bought over the counter for a tenner.
The nineties were the decade where certain people began to expect music to be free, not realising how this affects the people who produce it. This was a direct result of the music industries pushing of CD uptake in the 80s without any thoughts of impact analysis.
The New Millennium:
The turn or the century digital music became the norm. The internet has become very fast , and they perception that music is free has driven down the price of CDs. These days a new Cd will set you back around a tenner, a new vinyl album will cost you twice that. If the cost of albums had kept pace since say, 1975, you would be paying £80 for a new album today. I've used Job Seekers Allowance as a guide for this , in 1975 I bought the new Pink Floyd album "Wish You Were Here", it cost me £3.25 , now JSA stands around £70.
People can listen to music of their choice free on Youtube , Spotify and any number of streaming services. The problem with these for the artist, is that royalties are paid on a pay per play basis. So if a track is streamed on Spotify an artist will get paid a very small fraction of a penny, if their record is played on the radio they'll be paid £50 (that is completely made up but it is a reasonable amount). I don't know what the answer is to this.
But this leaves us in a world where to make money bands have to charge a lot for gigs and merchandise and kids think that stuff (music and video) should be free.
However music is still vibrant and alive, record shops are still going strong especially with National Record Store Day . New music is still being produced and I still buy a CD a week of usually new music the latest being the Wooden Shjips album "Back To Land".
The music industry is continually bleating about lost profits and stealing , but in digitizing everything they have created something that can be stolen over and over again, although as recent trends have shown , sensible pricing and convenience will actually result in sales and income, otherwise iTunes would have died a death long ago, and they still cause havoc and inconvenience with their licensing and terms and conditions.
So that's it , possibly my longest ever blog post. Hope it didn't send you to sleep.
Don't know what brought that to mind, I think it's the name of a Mott The Hooplesong, which will be somewhere in my collection because I do have quite a large one. It's actually on their first album, the one with the MC Escher sleeve featuring the paper crocodiles.
One of the things I like about writing a blog post is the way you can just ignore the rules and flit from one thing to another as your mind sees fit ... or unfit as the case may be.
As I say I don't what inspired me on this post but now as a video for this post I want an Escher animation , you would think that someones bound to have done one on Youtube, and when you look there are quite few on there but this one is very inventive and a joy to watch. The guy looks like a cross between Gru and one of his minions in Despicable Me!
So it's quite a leap from a seventise rock band to a kids animated film , although The Beatles did do Yellow Submarine , so maybe it's not that far fetched , and they have an actual Yellow Submarine in the Matthew Street complex in Liverpool.
Anyway this post has told you little although it may have joined some dots that didn't actually need joining, but I hope it stimulated you or made you smile a little. It's time for bed for me, so I hope you are having a great week and tomorrow it's Friday. Have a good one!!
Last night was in bed at 7:30. I just dropped into bed I was so tired, I obviously need a holiday (which will start with a five hour drive tomorrow). Anyway I am awake now and discovered a cover of The Beatles "Birthday" by Oasis on Youtube. I'm surprised that Oasis didn't cover more Beatle's songs , well I suppose they did but just changed the words and titles and put Gallagher on the songwriting credits .... allegedly. Just a joke. Oasis have done some excellent stuff , though my mavourites are Champagne Supernova, Step Out (a Stevie Wonder lift for a change) and Acquiesce.
Still feeling tired , but it's my last day for a week, so I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Well it's the last day of December and thought I'd best post this before the day disappears. For some reason the lyrics to George Harrison's"Ding Dong" came to mind, extremely simple and a fitting end to my seasonal song a day for this December. I don't think this song has appeared on any Now! compilation , but really I'm not bothered as I love the sentiments:
"Ring out the old Ring in the new Ring out the old Ring in the new
Ring out the false Ring in the true Ring out the old Ring in the new"
So I hope we have all learned from our 2013, and can look forward to 2014. One of the people I've been most impressed with is Pope Francis. I'm am not religious even though I was baptised, brought up a catholic and taught by Jesuits (most of who were very reasonable and always willing to hear the other persons view).
So going forward , Be Nice, be kind to others , help others less fortunate than you if you can and keep being positive. Hope your 2014 is a major improvement on your 2013 however good that was. Happy New Year!!
As I went on about in my last post, summer is still here . We've had a bit of rain but it's still gloriously sunny in Newcastle. I also managed to mow the lawn again and hoover up the leaves, so that was good.
Cat in a Window
A slightly annoying thing is that when posting to blog posts to Facebook (should it have a capital?) , it's stopped including Youtube entries as a preview picture so you are stuck with an annoying selfie of me. I've included a photo of our garden and our neighbour's cat in their bedroom window which tickled me.
My Sunny Back Garden
So I remembered a song called "I'll Follow The Sun", which I'd forgotten was by The Beatles from their Beatles For Sale album, but it's an appropriate song for another gorgeous day.
Everyone enjoy yourselves and finish the weekend with a smile on your faces, because that's what I will do , to be ready for the week ahead.
Well I've had an amazing couple of days and expecting more to come. Woke up this morning to sunshine and blue skies.
Written a bit more of my book , although Microsoft Word is being totally annoying as ever , doing things you don't want it to and then not doing things you do want it to, but a side benefit of this is that I'll probably be able to actually use Microsoft Word by the time I'm ready to publish. That's an amazing thing to be able to say , because you can e-publish you dont have to think about print runs or things like that, you just need a typing package that works and away you go. The only worry for me is the proof reading / editing of it , and maybe someone saying - it'll never sell , but in my life many times people have told me I'm wrong , but I went with my feelings and proved them wrong. I am very open to constructive criticism , but if someone tells me I'm wrong they need to be able to back it up with hard facts and 99% of of the time they can't or won't.
Anyway it's looking to be a great Sunday , Preston North End have had a brilliant start to the season and the team is looking good, have a concert from some up and coming bands (The Wave Pictures) at The Cluny tomorrow, although I still can't find any signs of the fantastic pillow case / tote bag tioting Japanese Noiseniks - Xaviers - who I say supporting Wire last week. Three of the nicest guys you could meet , real long hairs , and I didn't get a photograph . So wish I had.
Anyway an appropriate song for you (or rather me) from The Beatles . This is my favourite Beatles track of all time. All of you have a totally brilliant day. Love you all.
Just a short post. After all the fantastic weather we have had for the music Festivals such as Mouth Of Tyne and Summertyne , today we had a downpour of Biblical proportions in Darlington . It was very very wet. We are now back to hot and sweaty and obviously very summery, not great weather for work.
There's not much else to report without actually going into a diatribe about petty annoyances, although I always like to maintain positivity and starting from last Saturday it's actually been a great week for me, I just wish it could be as good for everyone else.
I've managed to watch a lot of films , about to finish a book that's going straight to the charity shop although it's full of surprisingly pertinent coincidences involving names and ice cubes, but it's continual name checking of eighties bands is very trying , but I won't let it beat me.
Oh yes I'm looking forward to August 15th when John Niven's new book Single White Male is released. His whole canon is to be recommended though I didn't really like Music From Big Pink , boringly serious for me. He's worth following on Twitter (@NivenJ1) but be warned not for the easily or even difficultly offended.
Anyway I think I will post a music video as well , which I've done before , one of my favourite two Beatles' songs "Rain" . Apparently the bass on the original single was so heavy it had to be damped down when remastered for CD. I don't remember having taht problem with my seven incher , but that's another story .........
.. and that's the name of an Electric Light Orchestra album (when they were good) . Today the computer decided not to start and the burglar alarm decided to just play silly buggers. The weather is still good , in fact very hot , so summer looks like it's here.
For the June's Tunes I want to get away from the numbers but also want to have the Bob Dorough original of Three (Is a Magic) number. I have 30 days to go for more obscure stuff , so I will actually go for it. I first heard it on an excellent Blue Note sampler.
Incidentally Roy Wood formed the Elelectric Light Orchestra because he wanted to continue the musical direction taken by the Beatles on Strawberry Fields. Whether he was successful you can judge for yourself but Roy Wood left after the first album leaving Jeff Lynne to produce some excellent stuff while Wood went off and formed Wizzard as well as producing a great body of solo work.
Was just off to bed and this question sprang to mind. Why Vinyl . Audiophiles talk about the warmth missing from digital representations and the personalisation that scratches and worn grooves bring but therein lies my argument. Vinyl is one of the most self destuctive of all media. Once the needle hits the groobve both vinyl an ddiamond / sapphire begin to destroy each other. Dust gathers on the record , heat warps the discs (remember dynaflex? The bane of my Bowie and Lou Reed collections).
Jimmy Page worked out that the optimum length for a vinyl long player was 18 minutes . Gram hold of an original pressing of Led Zeppelin I or II and check that there's no shiny spare vinyl in the label run off.
Vinnyl did enable some interesting tricks. Brian Eno's Great Pretender on Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy ran into a closed groove that effectively never ended. You don't get that on the CD version. Monty Python had a three sided album because one side consisted of two separate spirals so you never knew what track you would get when you put it on.
Then on Todd Rundgren's Inititiation , the running time of that album clocked around 69 minutes with an instruction to only play with a brand new needle. I bought mine on cassette!
However we have seen a major vinyl revival , recently The Beatles and The Who's Studio Output have been boxed at £300 and £150 respectively , very impressive they are too . Nice to see the covers in their proper size , but it's still vinyl and very expensive. Black Sabbath have also had a box out
I am happy with CD and digital , for convenience sake , but I am also glad that vinyl is here to stay as well - though I wont be part of the buying public for vinyl , well maybe the odd seven incher .....
I was quite surprised to see that the most tagged thing on my blog is the word Apple. A lot of people are under the impression that I am anti Apple , because I don't own any Apple products . Never had or wanted an iPod or and iPhone but was tempted by an iPad. My own website integrates with iTunes so thats the nearest I get to endorsing Apple.
Apple are great at appropriating other people's ideas , and produce some of the most desirable products on the market . so desireable that people oftemn don't even know why they want an Apple product , they just do , which is great for Apple.
The other thing to remember is that Apple was the label set up by the Beatles to distribute their records and anyone else they signed, resulting in some minor litigation between the two. So another case of Apple nicking someone elses idea , they couldn't even come up with an original name (Steve Job's Apple as opposed to the Beatles' Apple).
In the team of six I work with four people have iPhones , one has a Blackberry and I have an Android device , I wonder how long before I just go with the flow and get one , but then again the new Samsung Galazy looks very nice!!
Lots of people complain about the BBC and "why should I pay the license fee when I dont watch it" (apart from iPlayer , radio etc etc. Over the years , apart from the excellent David Attenborough helmed natural history programs (Frozen Planet is his current masterpiece) , the BBC has recorded numerous music sessions by some excellent bands .
This month has seen the release of some excellent collection from TheYardbirds , Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple , that latter for some reason incorporating CD and vinyl copies in the same box , surely you dont need both!!Though over the years I've accumulated ELO and Bowie at the BBC introduced by Bryan Matthews, and am waiting for a definitinive Half Man Half Biscuit compilation which would surely sell by the barrow load. Anyway this could be another reason to succumb to Orange's excellent Christmas Box package to get my hands on the Angle & Curve Headphones for a £40 outlay (with a PAYG phone , piggy bank and other extras thrown in).
Today I took a copy of the 40th Anniversary copy of Tago Mago by Can from the excellent RPM in Newcastle, on the player now , think the Stone Roses had been listening to Halleluwah!! . The Orange is calling harder ......
U2 have just released the Achtung Baby Uner Box Set. I bought the Joshua Tree one which weighed in at a reasonable £25. Remember if albums had kept pace with Job Seekers Allowance (based on 1975 figures) you would be paying £60 for a new CD. But the new U2 box clocks in at £270 , click though on the link above to see what you get.
This comes on the back of the Pink Floyd Immersion editions which weigh in at a now seemingly reasonable £100 and the Who's deluxe Quadrophenia at £70 is almost pitifully priced!!
We also have the complete box set collections nby the Smiths , Beatles and Floyd to substaially lighten your wallet , but essentially none of this is new product , just new packaging. It looks good but where will you put it? Is one enough , and what is next? Who's going to break the £500 and £1000 barrier for a reissue of a classic album? The Rolling Stomes?
I'm still tempted by Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon Immersion Edition though!!
In the middle of the Mathew Street redevelopment in Liverpool is the Cavern Walks shopping area , which is a lot better than I imagined , with some boutiques , eateries a couple of Yellow Submarines and a Beatles display naturally, I was expecting something quite horrible , but one of the cafes was even serving "scouse", which is good.
Gold Disc Wall
In Mathew (I sure it should have 2 "t"s) Street itself you have the new Cavern Club , the site of the old one , a Beatles shop , more displays and two very good wall installations. The first is a display of all the number ones achieved by Liverpool bands , in the form of gold discs , unfortunately though you get The Beatles and Frankie Goes To Hollywood , you also get Atomic Kitten!!
A section of the name Wall
The Beatles Bit
The second is a very simple idea , but still a brilliant installation , it's a wall and every brick is engraved with the name of a band that's played there , The Beatles themselves receiving individual name checks . A slight sour note on this , they have a gold plaque detail two acts who had their bricks removed , it would have been better to remove the bricks and say nothing. Well worth a visit for anyone with even a cursory interest in pop music history.
Just checking the reissues this month and it seems that everyone is going overboard with 2 CD , DVD deluxe reissues of old albums. We've had the Beatles Remasters series , where the sound has been scrubbed up and CDs augmented with a documentary which is unfortunately in Quicktime format . Why they couldnt do it as DIVX so you can play it on your DVD player I dont know, Quicktime is part of the Apple Bloatware Empire.
I recently acquired "In The Court of The Crimson King" and "Red" by King Crimson which sound incredibly great on my basic 5.1 system. These are part of the King Crimson 40th Anniversary reissues:
While this is all very well these Deluxe Reissues seem to be becoming the norm rather than the exception, very often augmented by out takes which were deemed "not good enough" for the original release. So this poses the question - "Is this just andnother money grabbing exercise by the record companies?".
Probably , but it does give you the opportunity the hear stuff that would have been lost , and hopefully doesn't affect the production and promotion of new music , but I feel that shops and companies are more likely to push a Beatles reissue than a new record by , say , General Fiasco. And that's a bad thing!!
On the ninth of September this year (09.09.09 who thought that one up - no doubt some mad Yanks will realise that 999 upside down is 666 so the Beatles are really Iron Maiden!!) the Beatles are going to have their back catalogue of thirteen studio albums reissued plust the non album stuff on the two Past Masters discs, with the sound scrubbed up along with a documentary pertaining to the relevant album. That's all well , good and understandable.
What is not understandable is that on the same day 45 songs from this excellent catalogue have gone through the processing mill for the various "Rock Band" game variations where numpties can pretend to be their idols with the aid of various pretend instrument. So who's going to be "Don't Call Me By My Stage Name"?
