I'm writing this post partially with a prod from Paul Campbell who wanted to be on Seven Days In (as opposed to Seven Day Sin). I've actually mentioned him once before and so this is the second time his name has appeared in these pages, but you can find that and this and all future posts here. Paul also has his own blog Scriptuality where you can find out about his adventures in scriptwriting and find out when his name is going to be appearing on screen. Paul and Lesley also chivvied everyone for this get together in St Andrews , so he can get people to do things that is actually good for them, ie and meeting up with old friends and people you haven''t met , forgetting real life for a bit and actually enjoying yourself. I don't expect any events from this weekend to appear in Eastenders and there were lots of people talking , enjoying themselves, with lots of smiles and sunshine.
The South Street Kids ....25 Years On
St Andrews is a University town as well has being awash with Americans as there's some golf game coming up. One of the odd things about St Andrews , or something I noticed is the number of places we visited for food which required and Marco Polo scale trek from the street to the venue. Forgans and The Vineleaf were two such examples , however they were worth the walk , and Forgans finished the njght with a Ceilidh which is basically a formalised mosh pit which ended up with several people falling over , although alcohol may have had something to do with that.
Tonight Matthew I Will Be Val Doonican
While everyone else stayed in luxury caravans we had to make to with the MacDonald Rusacks Hotel which got me £30 back on TopCashBack and was very pleasant but did have a an Arnold Palmer montage painting in reception which looked suspiciously like Val Doonican.
But I would definitely stay there again as had great service , nice staff , good breakfast and a good nights sleep
It was a great weekend and great to meet and talk people and it's always good to take yourself out of your normal routine and do something to connect with people who matter to you , because then you feel much better in yourself.
Oh I have to mention the numerous children who came along to this one and although there was a probable ten to fifteen year age spread they were all totally excellent in behavior and engagement.
So it's now Easter Monday and the music I'm gonna put for this is Big Country's One Great Thing , for obvious reasons and because me and Scott were talking a lot about them amongst other things. No go and get them Easter Eggs.
I was going to do a post on Whitby when I got back from a good weekend on Monday but due to my extreme laziness. Whitby is brilliant , I love the place and I managed to restock my Howling Goth Chilli Sauce , visit lots of place , but got the slightly bad news the the Folk Devils shop is closing in a fortnight although they are continuing online which is very good. While I was in there they were playing some Ty Segall who I've heard great reports of , but not got round to buying , so I've now rectified that with a few other additions to the playpile.
That Building
Then yesterday and my Metro to Sunderland was redirected to South Shields requiring me to go there and take a bus to Sunderland. This meant going into places that I 'd not been for years and I noticed a Barclays Bank , which was handy as I needed to drop some stuff off so that was handy . I also noticed and incredible looking red brick building on Fawcett Street. At street level there's a CEX and some furniture shop, but above street level it is very impressive.
When I went yesterday to the bank and to photograph the build I then noticed a new record shop opposite , Pop Recs.
Outside Pop Recs
Inside Pop Recs
I went in and it's very roomy and an excellent layout with a lot of vinyl , and a few CDs , settees a stage area and a jukebox, reminding of the new Rough Trade store in New York, which hosts live music.
It's run by Frankie and The Heartsrings , and I was chatting with the guy behind the counter who was telling about how they set it up when HMV shut down, and the fact that they'd had The Cribs and The Vaccines playing for free recently. The good thing about the place its that it has the space inside to support a live band. He also told me that the Red Building across the street was owned by Nadine Shah's family and that she was a frequent visitor to the shop. Nadine is a local girl and has produced two stunning albums so that was just an amazing coincidence.
Unfortunately I was in a rush so only had a short visit and didn't buy anything this time, but seriously this one shop is a reason to actually go to Sunderland. The people are friendly and you can also get coffee and a lot more there, another positive is that they obviously care about people and music , you'll know why when you visit.
With National Record Shop Day coming around in a couple of weeks (18th April) this will be the place to be in Sunderland , you really should go.
So really it's been a great start to the month and the sun is shining , I hope your month goes as well as mine is going to do.
I tend to keep this blog positive and try not to moan about things. Although one thing I have moaned about is that positive things seem to get little or no coverage , whereas gripes, moans and complaints seem to capture most of the proletariat. Always wondered about that, I would love to get on the bus and overhear something generally nice or positive that had caught someone's fancy. Having said that , most of my friends are positive and usually have good things to say about things, or tell me about good things that have happened or are happening.
Shrink wrap on CDs, Biscuits and Weetabix. Why are they almost impossible to get into, sometimes damaging the content as you try harder and harder to remove the packaging , sometimes resorting to blades to do so , potentially cutting the CD or it's cover.
Radio and TV Adverts where someone reads the Terms and Conditions but it's speeded up, meaning you can;t really take it in anyway. This is the aural equivalent of the unreadable small print that you have with your mobile phone contract , or Apple or Android apps. I just updated my iPad and there was a 37 page Terms and Conditions document that I was supposed to agree to before I could do those essential updates.
People who refuse to watch films if the have subtitles or are in black and white
Anyway after saying that the Tyneside Bar and Cafe is showing Amelie as a freebie tonight. It's French and it is one of the greatest feel good films ever. It really is a must see. Watching films like this lifts your spirit , and does talking to great friends , laughing , smiling , enjoying yourself. There is so much good in the world take advantage of it. Have a brilliant day. I'm going to include Eddie Izzard's iTunes Terms and conditions routine and the trailer for Amelie for you to enjoy and to make you smile and laugh.
I came up with the name for this blog as a travel blog about places I'd stayed, which maybe is a bit ambitious as I don't travel very far. I detest flying , not for the actual flight , but for the endless queuing and excuses for delays, plus the fact the flight is usually a miniscule part of the journey unless , say, I were going to Australia.
Anyway the place we were it was Orton in Cumbria, just off the M6 but very quiet and very relaxing. It is also about a mile away from the Tebay / Westmorland Farm Services which are the benchmark for Motorway Service Stations. The now have one on the M5 and one on the M74 planned. While the prices are Motorway Service Station levels, the service, location and food on offer is the best you will find on a Motorway (In this case the M6).
The cottage is a converted barn and can be seen here , and has everything you need although the village is still waiting on broadband and the mobile signal is a little erratic. This meant that for the first time I ran out of data on my EE contract , and due to the stipulations and expense of buying extra data I decided I didn't need it. Of and after 2 messages with a URL to buy the extra data , their app then stops letting you see your data information so you couldn't buy any if you wanted! But it wasn't a major hassle , there are lots of places that let you hook into wifi including the aforementioned Westmorland Farm Services and the excellent Kings Head at Ravenstonedale, which sounds like somewhere from Game of Thrones.
We ate at the excellent Black Swan which is well worth a visit if you are ever in the area, this is one of the meals I had , runny scotch eggs, gammon , garlic cheese potatoes, tomatoes and green stuff. There's also images of the giant meringue on my instagram feed if you want to try and fine it.
The countryside is very relaxing and great for just walking and doing not much out of contact from mobile phones and the like, and the great thing about staying in Orton is that it has a post office that sells 99% of stuff that you actually need, then there's the George Hotel which does food and drink and the people are really pleasant in there, and then you have Kennedy's Chocolate factory where you can buy almost anything made of chocolate , including boxes of chocolates made out of chocolate.
Today the weather is a bit grey and I have time to myself for a change. So I'm going into Newcastle and maybe visiting the many great places to go such as The Discovery Museum , and maybe take a coffee and cake at The Tyneside Cafe I love being in Newcastle because almost everywhere you want to go is in walking distance. And really on this day I suppose walking is is a bit of a thread going through this post.
The other thing is that since I got my Samsung Note 4 , I've enjoyed the excellent camera, but there's an app on it called S-Health which sets you a target of 10,000 steps a day to do. I don't know whether I have OCD but I find myself aiming to hit and surpass the daily target. And because the phone seems to register steps fairly accurately I carry it with me a lot more permanently that when I used to have my previous phone which didn't seem to be as sensitive. I've also tried pedometers which just didn't seem to work, and tried a gym membership , which if you look at me , you'll realise I got bored with. But this is so easy to integrate with your everyday life.
Anyway I'm going to go into town town and leave you with one of my favourite songs about walking, Fats Domino's "I'm Walking"
Well feeling abit sore after yesterdays hospital visit and they're still not finished with me , although they are very happy with my positive attitude. The thing is today is a rest day but my dad has this attitude "If you're not working , you're doing nothing , and if you're doing nothing you should be working" and I'm feeling that way this morning. I love my dad , but am sensible enough to look after myself and rest when the doctors tell me too. He once broke hi foot , drove to hospital , got it sorted and they told him to get an taxi or ambulance to get home , but he still drove back.
Anyway I have a new Rough Trade subscription album by Matthew E White called Fresh Blood , and I'd heard the single Rock and Roll is Cold on Radio 6 quite a bit and loved it and the album does live up to that song, well worth a purchase.
Also I watched the film "Good Vibrations" the story of the record label and one of the first songs I heard on it was Blood and Fire by Niney The Observer , which has an awesome chorus which I knew from PJ Harvey's Written On The Forehead from her wonderful Let England Shake album.
It's a beautiful day and as I write this now have the Hozier album playing with some wonderful gospel type call and response choruses. Anyway I am gonna have a busy day resting. You all have a great day.
Yesterday morning I couldn't sleep and posted something on here, but it caught up with me and I was not feeling too good last night. So had a sensible amount of sleep and overall probably have had what could be termed a reasonably relaxing weekend. But it's never too late or too early to write a blog post.
Ready to Rip
I've caught up on stuff , sent off some official stuff , bought some stuff , eaten some stuff , read some stuff and probably forgotten some stuff.
The weather has been cold but I think it is getting warmer.
This week is another busy week with hospital appointments, meetings and more taking up all the free time I have at the moment, but it's good to keep busy.
I also treated myself to a new Blackstar amplifier from GuitarGuitar , which I shall have a play round with tomorrow. as well as transferring some vinyl to MP3 , in particular Women In Revolt and Gary Wright's Wonderwheel after getting some seven inch adapters from Reflex which were not exactly cheap, but vinyl accessories are necessary to it's enjoyment.
Anyway I found "I Know" on youtube for you to enjoy before I hit the sack.
So goodnight , and hit the ground running for this week , and have a totally brilliant one. That's what I intend to do.
Woke up an 3AM , I haven't a clue why. It's Saturday so I know I can go back to bed if I need to. The wind is howling outside , but it isn't raining., though they say if March Comes In Like A Lion , It Goes Out Like A Lamb , so that may bode well for the end of the month weather wise. The best thing is , is that it is the weekend.
From The Back
This week I have been listening to some great music, and am fascinated by the picture of the simple mirrored arch I took in Sunderland this week , just love the disconcerting affect it has. When I look at it from the front , because of the very blue sky I don't see it at first and really have to look before I do see it. Looking from the back it is obvious but from the front , in the photograph it hides in plain sight.
When I took the picture I could obviously see it, which is why I took the picture, but then when I looked at it on my phone I couldn't actually see the thing immediately. It reminds me a bit of the effect of Anthony Gormley's "Domain Field" which when you look at a photograph or from a distance you don't immediately see the figures.
From The Front
Maybe it's my eyes and age but would be interested in your opinion. The Domain Field figures are below from an exhibition in the Baltic a few years back. Anyway I might go and grab a few hours sleep, so you all have a brilliant weekend. For a change there's no music on this one but hope you like the pictures
Despite my age I seem to be always find new music to enjoy, reminded of this by a conversation I had this morning, and sometimes those things are new and sometimes they may have been around for longer than you thought.
Music always has the ability to delight and surprise , challenge and lift your spirits.
The case in point is Baxter Dury , son of Ian Dury. You can hear his fathers mannerisms in his voice , but he has been making albums for over ten years. Given his age this isn't a surprise , but I'm quite amazed that he managed to slip under my radar, and I am a husge fan of his fathers music. Anyway after listening to the new album "It's A Pleasure" the whole of his back catalogue is on it's way to my door.
Similarly a couple of weeks I saw Man Made , fronted by Johnny Marr's son Nile. Talent obviously does run in a lot of families
Another record I bought was a best of John Mellencamp , who's done a lot of excellent blue collar rock , although I also have a sneaking liking for R.O.C.K. In The USA , he's one the artists like Chris Rea who broke free of the MOR machine shackles to plough a worthy musical furrow.
Anyway the song I have to leave you is Baxter Dury's live take of It's A Pleasure , hopefully it will persuade you that buying the album is a good idea:
I thought I was having anger problems, it's happened a few times recently and with just a bit of thought it's dissipated. I thought maybe it's old age or diabetes , and maybe it is , but , as I've said before , anger is such a negative destructive emotion I do always try to deal with it. I was even thinking of starting a Mr Angry blog to vent my spleen , and let's face it it's always the complaints and negative stuff that people seem to go for , how else can you explain X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent?
Anyway the two incidents today were waiting behind someone taking an age at a cash machine , and then a huge queue in Boots where they had one girl serving . It's the management that exasperates me , absolutely not bothered about the customer experience.
To quote John Lydon "Anger Is An Energy" but it does have to be properly directed , and I have always managed to do that and never let it control me, though I never ever queue unless I have absolutely no choice. So the obvious song to choose is Public Image'sRise from which that line is taken , and John Lydon also used it to title his latest book.
Anyway It's the beginning of March and I have a most interesting week coming up , and really need to get to bed due to an early morning physiotherapy session tomorrow. SO have a good week and always look for a way to positively channel and anger you have.
Oh by the way I took thirty seconds to walk to another cash machine across the road , and walked out of Boots because I can always call in another time and these actions left me totally stress and anger free.
In the sixties my uncle remarked that anyone would have to be an idiot to wear a T-Shirt advertising a company name. I can't remember who the company was but it always stuck with me. While I've never had a problem with discreet external labeling like Wrangler, Levis and Lacoste, this are getting quite silly at the moment.
Everyday I see people plastered with Superdry and Jack Wills in particular. No the quality may be acceptable, but wearing their clothes is only one step up from donning a sandwich board. Really everytime I see these people I don't see a style guru , I see a branded sheep. I wasn't thinking of any song in particular but the Kinks "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" should be nailed on for this.
I know that on my journey to work tomorrow I will see people advertising Superdry and Jack Wills , and when I next go shopping I will buy something that looks class and doesn't need to scream it's name like Fat Face or John Rocha , or even Next.
I can't believe it's four years since my first World Book Night. Then I had 50 Copies of Philip Pulman's Northern Lights. This year it is 18 copies of Roddy Doyle's Dead Man Talking , so one of my tasks is to finish my current book and read this before I give it away so I can appear knowledgeable about it. I always read the book I'm giving away and it's always good to engage with people about it and hopefully either get people to start reading or to restart their reading.
Thinking about this has just reminded me of one of my favourite TED talks about the joy a book can bring , better than any film or play or TV episode because books use and trigger your imagination.
Here is the World Book Night site and a list of this years books. It's on Thursday 23rd of April which is William Shakespeare's birthday and for 2012 and 2013 I wasn't sure why the day (not the date) changed each year. It's also a charity funded campaign so if you want to help click on the button
below and donate a little cash.
That was the second bit of good news , the first being that I have been offered a position of a Systems Analyst, which will be another excellent challenge as well and keeping me off the street. So anyway it's time for bed as I need to get up tomorrow to do seven and a half hours looking for jobs ..... Oh no I don't !!
SO I suggest you watch the TED talk and buy a copy of the book as it;s a quick read and will only cost you a quid.
The last four days have see three days of music and seeing about fifteen bands which is a lot even for me, although this is not so much about the music about various fringe observations , which looking back on have amused me , or made me glad I side stepped them.
On Thursday I went to see the excellent King Charles at The Riverside and all three bands were superb. I briefly spoke to the guitarist with Man Made who was a really nice guy as well as being a talented guitarist and it turned out he is Nile Marr son of Johnny Marr previously of The Smiths. That night at the end of the Gallery Circus set something started dripping through the ceiling. It turns out the toilets had got blocked , so I'm not sure what was overflowing but we managed to avoid the wet area, and the gig was totally brilliant.
While I'm guilty of posting photos on instagram, facebook and twitter I am amazed how many people see to spend virtually the whole gig on the phone or tablet. While watching The Fall , who are musically challenging , there were four ladies in front of comparing holiday and family snaps on their phones and mobile devices, I don't know if this is the normal modus operandi for Fall audiences these days.
Comparing Photos At A Fall Gig
Yesterday I was in a crush to try and see Public Service Broadcasting, but my sensible head moved me to the sides to ensure I could breathe. I'm sure there have been worse concert crushes, and I don't know what the solution is , but people forcing their way into the crush carrying multiple pints in plastic glasses and various takeaway foods on paper plates did not make the situation any better.
I thought I'd try Tesco's next day wine delivery. They've farmed it out to Yodel , split it into two parcels and keep sending me texts saying it will be delivered today. No time or anything , so they will probably wait round the corner and wait til I have to go out. After all in in a twelve hour delivery window there's only one possible time they could deliver. God I almost sound like a Daily Mail reader don't I!
However today is the day when I find whether I've been chosen as a giver for World Book Night 2015 so my fingers are crossed for that. I've been doing it since 2011 and here's a post on my first one.
Anyway I came out of it all in one piece , having seen some amazing performance, and looking forward to a totally brilliant week.
Well Valentine's Day is here and the weather is very grey. It's doesn't matter where in the world you are the grey featureless skies with te promise of maybe some drizzle do not provide for the best inspiration.
"Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia.Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia."
There's a Wikipedia entry with more information here.
Today has also been chosen for the release of the film of "50 Shades of Grey" in the UK in which a controlling male abuses a young vulnerable female. The male actor is James Dornan (who played a controlling male who abused, raped and murdered young females in the BBC production "The Fall", do you think he may be getting typecast?) and the girl he chooses is Dakota Johnson , daughter of Melanie Griffiths and grand daughter of Tip Hedren who suffered major avian abuse in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". I won't be going to the cinema to see the film , and apparently B&Q are preparing for an increase in demand for ropes , duct tape (what will rock bands do? oh they use gaffer tape so it's OK) , and cable ties which in the wrong hands could be very dangerous. This week Breakfast TV has been having features on that make BDSM very cosy and fluffy. It isn't and , ironically somebody could get hurt (and I know that's ironic considering the nature of BDSM) and there a hell of a lot of free books on the subject on Amazon Kindle. They even have 50 Shades Restraint Kits and Party Games!
The marketing machine has even caused me to buy something that I can wholeheartedly recommend to all you and that is the excellent and very funny "50 Sheds of Grey" , the follow uphas also been recommended to me by my friend Julie , so I will avail myself of that at some point. So all this hype has at least brought a smile to my face and with pages like the one below you can see that it is a genuinely funny and slim volume that doesn't exactly take itself too seriously unlike it's source inspiration.
So thats my thoughts on the whole phenomenon, but the positives are that it is weekend , and remember you always have a choice.
Also according to The Guardian the B&Q run on duct tape was a PR Ruse which has been fairly successful. The article is here .
So enjoy yourself today , and don't get to tied up in things that dont matter, make sure you smile and laugh and have fun.
There's only one piece of music we han have and that's the Motorhead / Girlshool "St Valentines Day Massacre" EP leading off with "Please Don't Touch" and I'll bet there will be a lot of people using that line later on tonight. Have a brilliant day y'all.
Some mornings listening to the radio can actually lift you day. I've just heard that all the good weather will be in the North East, which is where I will be today and also I've heard an old record "Too Tough To Die" by Martina Topley-Bird which is absolutely amazing , very reminiscent of PJ Harvey who is one of my favourite artists.
I'm going to have to check my digital library to see if I have the record , the problem is with over 80,000 songs , manually searching is not really an option. I do find it amazing that in 2015 so many organisation still use paper as a method of storing data that they need to search.
But anyway it turns out I don't have the record so that will have to be tracked down soon.
I know this has been a short post but given my outpourings yesterday I think I can be let off.
Anyway it's time for me to get off to work, so everyone have a good day today/
Today after doing a couple of hours at the excellent Oxfam Books and Music in Jesmond , I got mack into Newcastle and decided to go for a cup of coffee and a cake at the Tyneside Bar and Cafe. I was chatting with the girl behind the bar (who's name I didn't get) and she recommended the carrot and cinnamon cake to go with my coffee and I noticed the film playing. The Tyneside Bar and Cafe has a program of silent film screening every afternoon and a couple of weeks ago I caught some of The Battleship Potemkin. It's really brilliant idea to have these films as a backdrop to be engrossed in as you have your coffee or cake.
Anyway I asked what the film was that was showing and she told me it was a thirties rendition of Faust, she didn't know much of the story of Faust but was determined to find out more having watch most of the film and , like me she was impressed with it. It's a two hour film and you can watch it above. This led to a chat about German Surreal Horror and Salvador Dali's involvement with film and I was racking my brains about a film that I'd seen recently but also seen as a child with some lasting images of strange angular paths and a bearded eyeless monk through a window (yes I remembered that from my childhood). Anyway a girl a the bar called Amy who also works at the Tyneside Cinema and threw in some ideas including Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or but more intriguingly mentioned a Salvador Dali and Walt Disney collaboration. This is a short film called Destino started in 1946 and completed in 2003. You can watch it below and to me it is jaw dropping, I have to thank Amy for telling me about this absolute gem:
However I still couldn't remember the film I'd seen,
so decided to search while I had my coffee and cake. After about ten minutes I remembered it had featured in a documentary on European Horror films by Mark Gatiss and then googled European Surreal Horror and there it was "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari" , which I had discussed at some point with my friend Craig another Tyneside Cinema guy. So I had a really good day , discovering things I didn't even know about thanks to Amy and finally remember THAT film , which I'll use to finish off this post.
Have a great night everybody, because I have had a great day
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.
An interesting thing happened this morning , my website has been hacked again. Last time it was some Islamic Group who replaced my home page with an absolutely cracking one promoting their agenda, it really did look brilliant , but not exactly what people were expecting to see when they visited Song of The Salesman. So at the time changed the password and removed the pagese.
This time was a bit different , they hadn't hijacked my site as such , but uploaded a lot of files for what looked like a shopping site. Thinking about this, going off the file times , they took over two days to upload , each file around 40-60K , this would have caused my site to slow down or not be available over that timeframe. I can't really think why anyone could be bothered doing this , my site is not a high volume or high profile and webspace is cheap and you can host it yourself.
So the lesson learned is to keep an eye on things , sometimes when all appears ok , it may not be. This was something that didn't affect my website , it's abit like haveing squatters in because I've got loads of spare space.
So very little to report apart from it's a nice day and always make sure your doors are locked if they need to be. After yesterdays cold and fog we have bright sunshine which always good for lifting the spirits. Oh and my mate Keith has started another blog here. So now I'm off to do more chores , set the recorder to record some more TV , maybe set up my NOW TV box which I bought with a free Argos voucher but just haven't really needed to use. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
Wasn't sure what song to use but you can't go wrong with Junior Murvin.
Just having a peruse of my blog stats and the average number of hits per page is 93 with highest about 450 , I'm not sure about the lowest , but it's probably about 20. As I've said before I'm sometimes surprised by the people who read and enjoy the blog, as most of it is me blathering on about nothing.
Also most of the visitors seem to come from the USA although that maybe just something to do with routing.
Winter Sun
The weather today has been a lot of very cold fog, I don't know if it was freezing , but I got very cold. This was counteracted by hot chocolates and trying to stay indoors, although I wasn't too successful in staying in.
Anyway it's not a great idea to start writing a post at midnight so maybe I will just stop and choose the Judas Priest song Livin' After Midnight as the song for this post. Thank you and good night.
