The Nothing Revolutions ... Getting Lost in Morals and Politics

Even as I put my finger to keyboard I'm still unsure about writing this. I am not going to back any of this conjecture up because you now have at your disposal the sum of knowledge that is the world wide web and internet, and by writing this I am implying that my ideas have some worth, and maybe carry some weight. They do for me, but you can take it or leave it , on what you think. I'm going to get a bit political , and a bit moral about this and am going to include a controversial talk by possibly the only plutocrat I admire Nick Hanauer.

There have been a number of revolutions that have advanced society usually in a tangible way, two examples of this are the industrial revolution and more recently the communication and computer revolutions. These have all provided tangible benefits for mankind , enable the production of quality goods , creating economies of scale and eventually benefiting a great many of the world's population, bringing down the prices of goods through mass production , increasing profits for companies , providing employment, growing markets and dragging a great deal of the western world on an upwardly mobile path.

Horrible side effects of these development caused World Wars , and the greed of an unchecked banking systems caused the Wall Street Crash , which required the planning instigated by Roosevelt in the thirties to get the world back on course , part of which included very tight controls on the banking sector again. This was again hit by War , but then in the fifties and sixties the world grew like hell , though war and conflict was still with us. The rise in living standards meant people could even buy houses , subject to strict lending criteria , but money was always backed by the property people were buying. If you wanted luxury items then generally you saved or at least put down a hefty deposit. This enabled growth backed by stability. One of the problems in Britain was the unions becoming too powerful , there always needs to be a balance, but then the power swung the other way with the toies coming to power and on the back of that a deregulation of banking and credit which allowed lending with virtually no checks or controls.

This fueled and inordinate amount of spending , coupled with mortgages being lent to people who couldn't afford to repay them. This was the first Nothing Revolution , all it created was debt , which provided huge earnings for the financial sector as people hocked their life for the latest things whether they could afford them or not. By Inflating the debt the financial sector creamed of the money from high interest repayments from people who could not afford to keep up. This model worked when wages were increase , but the cracks began to show when wages started to stagnate. People still needed the latest car or iPhone or a new house, because that's what the financial sector told them they needed , and the financial sector needed them to believe it. Fall out from this is that more and more employment is in "service" (call centres and the like) and less and less tangible goods are being produced in the west , shrinking the spending power of markets, to the point where people are running to keep still, and lots of them drop. Money gravitates towards the rich and the poor get poorer. The lack of union power means that people don't have the clout to take on Corporations which are buying governments off to serve there own ends.

The only solution to this is for a Roosevelt type figure to bring Corporation and the Financial Sector to heel increase taxes , implement a real living wage and work towards a full , highly paid employment. People who are on benefits should have enough money to effect the economy in a positive way but should also be helped into work , not beaten with sticks and vilified.

Appy Now?

The next Nothing Revolution is digital media. I see walls of cards to but stuff off Google Play , Amazon and iTunes , and when you buy the items you don't have anything you can touch. It's a collection of zeroes and ones on a card . You can't show it to anyone , it's in the ether , it's nothing. Yes it's convenient , but it doesn't make people appreciate the media, be it film or song or books, often people with download and forget, because it feels like they got nothing.

OK sorry for the lack of laughs and music , but though I would just let rip about this. Hope it made you think.

Why Pay For Music?

For years people have said this to me, and now there's a generation that has grown believing you shouldn't have to pay for music , films or anything really. It's a sad situation and a lot of it was casued by the greed of the already rich , when they saw how they could rip off their fans with the advent of CD (Elton John and Metallica I'm pointing the finger firmly at you). Also a little at Led Zeppelin with yet another round of remasters.

When music became digitally copyable (Is that a word) , it was the first time that everyday media could be stolen over and over again. Taping from the radio was always subject to interference and copying from vinyl had to be done in real time. But ......

Just because you can do something doesn't make it right ....

And just because a band is playing in a pub you shouldn't expect it to be free.

There's costs involved , they equipment , getting there , fuel and the graft put into to learning the music.

As for CDs , while recording can be done relatively cheaply and with digital distribution you don't need to risk a costly run of music that may not sell.

Spotify is not a good model for artists as it's based on a pay per play basis , so new artists , at the best, will just get exposure.

And this is what it means, every time you don't pay for something you are effectively shoplifting if
you don't have permission to take that item. Some artists give away their music and make their profit by charging a modest ten or twenty pounds for a gig . I have recently seen Nadine Shah and Du Blonde playing less than a tenner for tickets , having a brilliant night , and I bought their records too. In my small way keeping these people going. So this is really like the opening scene to Reservoir Dogs where the guy won't tip the waitress and the other guys take him to task, I'm one of the other guys.

So if you want to support music , get down to your record shop and buy some records, and get to see a band and pay to see them.

Would you work for nothing ? I think not ... so support music .

I thought the Smiths song was appropriate for this post.

From Newcastle To Cairo

This week has been odd. I've been feeling weirdly sort of down . I have absolutely no reason to be. Also I've been sort of getting a little annoyed about things that might happen. This is not me so I sat down and thought it through and decided maybe I'd being invaded by the spiteful spirit of a red top reader. Doing that seems to have done the trip , I am feeling more like my normal self and hopefully this will just continue.

I mean I'm now working in a great job , close to home. This week I've had meals with friends , family, and loved ones, seen some great films , read some good stuff , heard some great music , a lot of it new, so as you can see , i have nothing to complain about.

I see friends doing great things , helping others and making life good for others , and I suppose I see all this and then get exasperated by the attitudes of a society that worships possessions and money. So that is probably the thing that I was letting get the better of me, and I wont to that.

I have great friends all around the world , all of whom make my life so good , who continually turn me on to new things or make me remember old good stuff like the Lime Spiders , Trillians has reopened with a bang , and things are just cool.

Over Cairo

And today I was listening to some of the great music than I have had the privilege of allowing to Django Django's  "Skies Over Cairo"  come into my house and was amazed by the fact I'd missed it , as I do love the band.

I suppose it's in the same universe as "Night Boat To Cairo" by Madness and could probably have been slipped onto a Black Grape album as well.

Well I am going to bed with that spinning round my head , looking forward to tomorrow, next week , next month  , and enjoying life.

Sleep well my friends

Guilty Pleasure?

Pleasurable

Often people talk about guilty pleasure, usually about some record that they shouldn't like but do. I'm
probably repeating myself on this post but what the hell. If you like a song then it's good. As a kid and even into adulthood peer pressure can stop you enjoying what you like. I always go on the premise that 95%  is rubbish and it's your job to find the good stuff, and there is a lot of good stuff about.

So I don't feel guilty about any of my pleasures , good music is good music, and rubbish is rubbish, I've just realised I can build an MP3 sampler on Amazon of music I think is excellent  but you may unfriend me on facebook for, So here is a list for you to sample.


The main song I'm going to choose is the Bay City Roller's take on Tim Moore's Rock and Roll Love Letter, which is rather excellent. I remember the NME deciding that Eric Faulkner was the greatest guitarist ever as he could sol and wave at the crowd simultaneously . Also ironically the only Bay City Rollers track in my collection is on the soundtrack to The Filth And The Fury, Julian Temple's film about The Sex Pistols.  Enjoy your weekend my lovely friends

A Bejewelled Case of Regression or Progression

I don't know if you've noticed but the tendency for CDss these seems to be more and more shying away from the jewel case. The jewel case is actually a great idea in that the cover , CD and any other stuff fits in a standard size box. There were a few deviations , but essentially it means that if the box gets damaged you can easily replace it.

Now That's Thick

I don't know if it's due to vinyl's resurgence, but more and more CDs are now coming out in customer sleeves and boxes giving artists and designers free reign to be almost as inventive as they were with the 12" LP. Who remembers Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" which came in a full broadsheet newspaper , a copy of the St Cleve Chronicle , and Hawkwind's "In Search of Space" and "Space Ritual" in their intricate Barney Bubbles fold out covers with booklets. They made you really want to get the album , and the packaging was a huge part of the experience.

Recent CDs that seem to echo that are David Bowie's "The Next Day" ,  the Led Zeppelin reissues and Prefab Sprout's Crimson / Red, all of which are gorgeously packaged although the do break the uniformity of your rows of CDs.

You also have the Rhino Originals which give you 5 CDs in beautifully renderd facsimiles of the original album covers and retrospective boxes look absolutely wonderful.

It may be that vinyl has given CD a kick up the arse giving the public the delight of interesting  music packaging to complement what you are buying. There's a few examples under here and maybe we should choose Tull's "Thick as a Brick for the music. Sleep well and have a great weekend my friends.

Springing Into June on The Coast Road

The last couple of days has seen some of the most mental weather for a long time , blue skies , rainstorms , high winds , hot sun . Yesterday I was sitting in work and one side of the building was in bright sunshine and the other side looked like snow , but was slow falling rain.

Also yesterday was feeling remarkably disoriented and demotivated by the evening , just coming home and going to bed. I haven't a clue why this was. There was a thing at work where I was told I was doing something wrong , when in fact I was just doing something that no one had thought of before and saving a couple of hours of drudgery. The rest of the day was really positive as well, I am loving all aspects of the job and life at the moment , maybe I'm o/ding on happiness , I really REALLY cannot complain.

The Coast Road

This morning I'm looking through the window as I write this at blue skies , white clouds , green trees and bright sunshine and tonight will be going to to see The Coast Road (the band not the tarmac construction). I looked for them on youtube but the main thing that came through in the feed was the beautiful acoustic piece "The Coast Road" by Stuart Ryan. I've never heard of the buy before but this is absolutely amazing. This means I will definitely go to see them tonight at the Tyneside Bar and Cafe and tell them about this.


It's quite amazing how good  things can happen that you don't expect and this is another one for me.

Have a good day.

Going Forward - Digging The Past

It's the last day of may and the last blog post I did was the 888th on this this blog , I don't know if that's significant but there's probably someone who knows and old saying that means something but it was a precursor to a pretty amazing week for me personally, and that week it still continuing to throw up thing that are good , make to think , and make you enjoy life.

A friend had mentioned to me about a project to record  some unrecorded Bob Dylan lyrics from 1967 around the time of the original Basement Tapes when Dylan and the Band were jamming in a basement and the tapes were bootlegged and eventually released. I read a blog review and that inspired me to get the album and to write this post.The copy from Amazon says all about it:

Going Back

"Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is a music event 47 years in the making. It's an historic album project from five of music's finest artists -- Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons) -- in unique collaboration with a 26-year-old Bob Dylan. Produced by project creator T Bone Burnett, the album was recorded in March, 2014 at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, where the artists and Burnett convened for two weeks to write and create music for a treasure trove of long-lost lyrics handwritten by Bob Dylan in 1967 during the period that generated the recording of the legendary Basement Tapes.

 The collective completed and recorded dozens of songs, 20 of which appear on this deluxe edition."

T-Bone Burnett has lots of experience delving into the history of Americana , and his work on the soundtrack of the Coen Brothers' "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" (Itself based on Homer's Odyssey)  , is testament to that.

It got me thinking of other times people had effectively scramble under artists' beds to dig out and create  a contemporary vision of their music . When Jimi Hendrix died , unfinished tapes were taken to produce the albums Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning with varying amounts of success. You couldnt help wondering what would have really happened had Jimi lived.

War .... What Is It Good For?

Country Joe McDonald set the poems of Robert Service to music for his "War War War" album which is similar to what Burnett and Costello have done with Dylan's lyrics. I first heard "The Twins" in the seventies and it's still with me today as we see governments send men to war and abandon them when they return.

Again this is a great example of a contemporary artist, taking worthy material from the past and spreading the word to a brand new audience.





Billy Bragg and Wilco completed recordings of Woody Guthrie's unrecorded lyrics on their Mermaid Avenue triumvirate of albums. Again there is an excellent synopsis this time from the BBC that tells you all about the history of this:

"Thirty years after his death, Woody Guthrie was a distant memory when Mermaid Avenue came out in 1998. But he’s never been far away. You can hear the original Depression troubadour in the dustbowl romanticism and blue-collar unrest of every alt-country band that’s picked up a guitar – and the recession of a new century seems a good time to be remembering that.

Bob Dylan has come almost full-circle, back to the folk and blues with which he first channelled Guthrie as a teenager, and Springsteen has turned out This Land is Your Land at SXSW. But nobody has picked up on Woody as effectively – or unexpectedly – as this transatlantic get-together. Back in 98, the idea was simple: winnow out the best of the thousands of lyrics Guthrie had written without music, and turn them into songs.

The first album’s success spurred Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in 2000. And this package adds in the unreleased, more-ragged final 17 tracks from the sessions (including some non-Guthrie folk standards), without dimming the charm of the original. Wilco’s languid, dogged strumming and Jeff Tweedy’s now yearning, now rabble-rousing vocal perfectly capture the Guthrie that has seeped into every crack and crevice of Americana.

But it is Billy Bragg – the one who is an anachronism, really, a banner-waving socialist in a 21st century world of indie brats and pop divas – who guards the soul of this resurrection. The Englishman can spit the word “fascists” with rare contempt, even if few listeners will feel the political charge the word once carried.

But he brings a British folk lyricism, too, that deepens and sweetens the brew. The words show Woody’s range, from inspired poetry to rhyme-free rambling. But like a time-machine Basement Tapes, the free-flowing musical clamjamfry buoys up the folk icon in a way that makes a virtue out of inconsistency. There are memorable contributions from Natalie Merchant, Eliza Carthy and Corey Harris. And at root, really, it isn’t about musical taste any more than it’s about politics. Bawdy, smart, big-hearted and mischievous, Mermaid Avenue is simply all about a personality that is rich with life.

--Ninian Dunnett "

The Costello / Burnett project is unusual because Dylan is still with us , but it's great that Dylan can hear the results of this. There are many more examples of this sort of thing , but it's good to get your hands on something of this quality. Enjoy your Sunday