tantramar

Sister Slayed

I read on the Londonist recently that Sister Ray has gone into administration. While I obviously don't know all the details on this and it might be a political move to save taxes (or something) it seems an easy fix.

They have said they are looking for a quick investment. Surely this is where crowd sourcing could help here.

Say they need 100k or so (wildly guessing). That's 5000 people giving £20 each. So you get someone like Peter Blake, or some other British institution (in terms of art / design) and get them to knock up a poster stating 'you've just saved Sister Ray'. Everyone who donates gets a copy plus a voucher, for say £5. Sister Ray and Peter Blake would raise enough press to get you some significant coverage and you should easily get enough footfall (I imagine). Sister Ray then obviously get more money as a result of the £5 voucher than simply the £5 itself.

Yeah I know, this is a bit of a 'slap a plaster on the problem' and not really heal it, but I'm just angry really...

I've been record shopping there for years. It used to be Selectadisc and then it turned into Sister Ray. It's about the only record shop in central London that sells independent music since Rough Trade flew east. This is pretty significant.

Something should be done about central London shop rents and discounts for independent businesses. They're all having to close because the chains shops are destroying the streets, driving up rents.

Sharp Ol' Beckham

Is anyone else remotely annoyed by this? I like Sharpie pens and I don't have the slightest interest in David Beckham. OK, I don't hate him but how is this a good brand / ambassador fit?
Are Sharpie fans and David Beckham fans the same people? I'm thinking not.

Or is that the point? To get all the David Beckham fans to buy a Sharpie for him to sign his autograph with? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe all pro athletes have Sharpie pens in every pocket and this is an adoption that has passed me by...

But if Ashley Cole starts advertising Vans I'm gonna lose it.

Stupid Packaging

I just bought the best of Allez Allez, which obviously, is great. Now what perplexed me is the packaging. It comes with a CD, which, you know...is nice but could probably have been a download code.
Putting a CD inside the sleeve of a record will never really make me that cross but sticking it onto the sleeve, now that is silly.

So I have to remember that this record came with a CD and that I have to file that CD along with all my records... I'm sorry that is insane. What possible benefit is there for having the CD on the record?

Right Then

What's the problem here? The damn salad, that's what. It seems like in the UK every half arsed cafe or pub will give you salad with everything and it really pisses me off. I don't mind salad but I mind it when I didn't ask for it. This is not adding value for me. It's annoying. Free stuff (or apparently free) isn't always worth having. Case in point; lame salad.

It's always a bit limp looking like it's been sitting around for days - always cucumber, large uninspiring tomato and lettuce. No avocado, pine nuts or sweet peppers, it's the same old same old and it's pretty much tasteless.

You get this with sandwiches too (when you eat in) as if that's a bonus! Ahhhhh, it's not. Who decided that salad went with a panini? Who? Honestly, I'd like to shoot them. If you're gonna serve me salad, maybe ask me, I might be allergic to it. I might prefer it on the side or not at all.

Why do we continue this free stuff is good mentality? Ohhh look this was free! Yes but it's damned useless. Goody bags at parties aren't goody bags, they're baddy bags, nothing in there is any use at all. Oh yes great, I got a T shirt which I can never wear in public and a whistle. Wuppy do. Everything sits on a shelf until you throw it away or give it to a charity shop a month later.

We need to stop this madness of free physical things (connected with business or service) being seen as good (if you didn't request them). Free is generally wasteful and simply there to trigger a temporary flood of seratonin at an event / establishment to coerce us into thinking we're enjoying ourselves or we got a good deal. Bad.

Is Good Service So Much To Ask For?

I needed to print some business cards recently, I've needed to do it for about five months but you know, I'm doing now.

So I went looking for printers. I wanted them lithographically printed if I could afford / justify it. I started talking to printers and getting quotes. They all messed me around. Four different printers told me prices, then changed their minds, found new charges to add on and generally were pretty damn rude to me. I like that when someone gives you bad service you can go somewhere else but I was getting tired of calling up new people.

Then I spoke to Steve at Aldgate Press. This reads like an infomercial doesn't it! Anyway. He was super nice, despite my lack of knowledge of recycled printing stocks.

He was certainly not the cheapest printer I found but he treated me the best and so he got my business.

Why are we so bad at service in this country? Everywhere I go outside of England I get better service and people are generally helpful. We really are a miserable disagreeable bunch. Oh yes sorry, that's just London isn't it.

I now have more cards than I need. Way more. I tried making a tower out of them but that didn't work so well. The other alternative is to have lots of meetings, so I'm going to try that. Anyone want one? A meeting that is.

If you need litho printing in London and you can find him maybe you can hire Steve (too).

Out Of The Frying Pan - Hot Chip Live

I was one of the lucky 1000 who had tickets to go see Hot Chip in Camden at the Electric Ballroom last night. The first wave of tickets sold out very fast fast and I was simply in the right place at the right time to get in on the second wave.

They are touring next February when their new album, Made In The Dark (left) is released. So obviously this is a good event to attend. You may never seen them in a venue this small again and you get to hear new tracks off the album way in advance of the release. So why were people talking?

This selfish behaviour continues to baffle me at gigs.

Hot Chip were really good, as you might expect, playing many old classics and some new treats. After an hour they went off for 5 minutes, apparently this is common practice at their gigs. They then came back on and played two more songs. Then they left again. So the encore is coming up right? No encore.

Several people round me thought this was because no one was listening to the quiet songs, everyone was talking. Most people seemed to simply want to hear the Over And Over style anthems.

There are signs up in lots of venues, I can think of the Luminaire and the Vice pub for starters, that say 'if you're going to talk, go away'. This nasty trend isn't getting better. I think we need some kind of anti talking bouncers... or something.

Tangents And The Interent Journey

I sent someone a link the other day and they told me how it took them onto another ten pages. Essentially they were intrigued by the journey an internet user goes on. This is something we all do everyday, it's quite intriguing.
Dan at Innocent Drinks posted a call for questions on his blog, I asked one and it got answered. Someone asked who his favourite Muppet was. He said it was Statler and Waldorf.

They're obviously great so I looked them up some more. There was a show on Disney called From The Balcony in 2005 (!) which doesn't look so good on closer inspection. It won tons of awards but that doesn't much much these days. It was made in 2005, so clearly an attempt by Disney to reinvent something to gain credibility. I watched a few episodes and it was just too much to take, sadly. It was just trying too hard.

The TV and film industry seems to be obsessed with remaking things these days, things that they know will work, tried and tested. Why can't people leave things alone. I was happier having not seen the new Disney show. Damn.  This makes me sad, there are so many good ideas out there for shows, these guys need to grow some kahunas.

Kahuna is Hawaiian for priest or expert. How did that word come to be used for the idea of having balls?

A ha: (Wikipedia) One who has "Big Kahunas" - Aussie Slang - denotes person who is known to be brave, without fear. Possibly derived from Spanish cojones.

Anyway yeah, tangents are interesting.

Praying For A New Beginning

As everyone knows the music industry has been in a mess for some time. I've heard a few things recently that just me me sad, angry and praying for change.

The first was about Miracle Fortress a band I've written about here a few times. They have (in my humble opinion) made one of the best albums of the year, in my top five, without any doubt. I was in Rough Trade chatting with the manager the other day and he said that they've only sold 800 copies in the UK, so they aren't releasing the vinyl edition (which what I was asking for). This to me was incredible. People just aren't finding out about them, they aren't on a big label and they've not been used on an advert or been in a reality TV show. Grrrr. He also said that day they played the album in the shop and sold ten copies. It's that kind of band.

The second is about The Eagles. I think The Eagles are pretty poor. I have listened to most everything they've done and I think they have maybe three good songs (no, Hotel California is not one of them). They have a new album out which just sold over 711,000 units...in Wal Mart - the exclusive retailer. This is wrong, all wrong. In the TV sting the Eagles were described as Americas best band! My mouth literally fell open.

Why are people harping on about music discovery (online) when people obviously don't want to discover new music, people are lazy. They want to buy the song from that advert or buy a new album by a band they used to listen to ten years ago. There's a lot of great music out there to reward the searcher but no one can be bothered to search...that's sad.

NB: Miracle Fortress are playing Cargo with Black Mountain (also amasing) in December.

Loved And Lost

This is my iPod, there are many like it but this one is mine.

I love my iPod. I can wonder around in a completely separate world with my own life soundtrack providing aural links to my daily activities. You know, just like my Walkman, Discman and minidisc player did.

My Nano has just died, or rather become crippled. It's three months out of warranty, naturally. If it was completely broken I would go out and buy another one. I do so hate this disposable culture we accept so readily, where goods are only designed to work for one year. Why is this accepted?

The really annoying fact is that it plays fine and charges fine but will not mount on any computer, it's become celibate, if you like.

So it works fine but I'm stuck with the same music on there forever. Sadly I didn't have time to load on the complete works of Neil Young or something useful, so it just has my current listening which after two weeks is already becoming a little old. I find myself needing to replace something which technically works pretty well. This pisses me off more than if it was completely broken. The Nano will go into a  box of things which 'kind of work' but I can't justify throwing out.

The new iPods seem to get progressively uglier as well which makes me even less keen to 'upgrade'. Nothing has touched the first one. Design-wise I really feel Apple is not improving very much.

The little Nano, was I (think) £150, 15 months ago. So the iPod has cost me £10 / month. If goods really do only work for a year and there's nothing we can do about that, then perhaps we should be renting items like this instead of purchasing them? The need for ownership does seem to be slowly dying in some markets (recorded media for example).
Food for thought.

Old Dog, New Tricks? No Chance

I've never really understood ring tones and why people get so excited by them. I'm pretty good at understanding behaviours, this one has always confused me. What confuses me even more is why people pay for them. It's really really easy to convert any music file into a ringtone.

Two little events have just occurred around ring tones that bemuse me even more, if that's possible!
Firstly, iTunes recently started offering ringtone downloads. Then lots of websites (like Engadget) demonstrated that all you had to do to alter an iTunes bought track was change the end tag and shazaam, it works as a ring tone. iTunes then rapidly ungraded the iTunes software to get around this. Then a day later another fix was announced. Apple, could it be you're not learning the lesson here?
To me this seems like an IP issue. I have bought the song, why can't I then use it as a ringtone, or an alarm clock wake up or whatever I choose. 

Then even more amazing than that is the announcement that the music industry has come out with a new format idea - the Ringle, which yes, is a physical CD! Each CD will sell for an insane $6-$7. It'll feature one track, one remix, one older track and one ringtone. The thinking being if a customer will download a ringrone maybe they'll buy a CD of it.
Oh my God.

Indeed is it true, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

I'm Sorry, WHAT!

OK, I'll try and keep this short as I could probably rant for a while on this.

I read recently that Google are paying the MCPS-PRS (via a blanket fee) for the royalties of artists who feature on YouTube. This is great right? All those artists featured on YouTube who have not been getting (due) royalties will now do so.
Well no, not exactly.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Andrew Shaw (MD of the MCPS-PRS) said he would only be paying "the top five or ten percent that attract the highest audience", and wait for it "The long tale is not worth calculating."

Hang on there sunny.
Anyone that knows anything about the long tail (and I'm sure Andrew Shaw does) will know that it can easily account for a bigger market share than the big name artists. So the likes of Coldplay (who get lots of views) get a  big chunk of money and the likes of say David E Sugar won't get any. Now I'm not saying that everyone should get the same but everyone should get something. How hard can it be to devise a scale for this. Not so hard I think.

This is pretty unbelievable from a company such as the MCPS-PRS who are meant to act on behalf of artists. 
They are basically saying if you're a big star we'll send a car for you and if you a little upcoming artist you can walk. What a nice way to support the industry.

Hopefully the MCPS-PRS will remedy this soon.

Need To Get With The Program

Two days ago I wrote a brief piece about VMware, the 'new Google'. They were about to float and everyone (in the tech and finance markets) was excited. Their stock floated and leaped up 86% on the first days trading. Nuts. Why didn't I buy any?
No more watching, time to participate.

You're Going To Do What?

Sometimes I love the Internet. It's so young and naive and because everything is new every day some companies think that common sense doesn't need to exist.

A case in point is Obeo a service run my mp3tunes. This service gives you as much server space as you need to host all your digital music collection. You can then stream it from any computer you like. So this is the dream right? It would seem so.

I thought I'd get an account to try it out, so I started reading the terms and conditions. Normally I wouldn't do this but with the whole 'DRM doesn't exist now but we're gonna watch your Mp3s and see if you stole any of them in the past' campaign I though it would be prudent to check the state of play.
I'm glad I did.

In their terms and conditions quite near the top it states this:

We reserve the right at any time at our sole discretion to:

• Change, modify, add or remove the terms and conditions of this Agreement;
• Change the Site, including eliminating or discontinuing any content on or feature of the Site; or
• Change any fees or charges for use of the Site.

Good grief, you've got to be kidding. So I need to read these and click that I've read and understood them but they actually mean nothing as they can change them at any point, including charging any amount of money they like, or rather try to.
I don't believe for one minute that this would stand up in any court of law but you have to wonder what the hell they are playing at.

I read recently that if an Internet company changes its terms and conditions at any point, it legally needs to write a (physical) letter to all members explaining the changes. Just so you know.

McBull

I hate the way brands cross platforms into arenas which they have nothing to do with. I really don't get it, well ok, I get it, I just don't like it. McDonalds is about food, quality aside, that's their field.
So why are they organising a load of free gigs in McDonalds car parks across America? Ok, yes I know why they are doing it but damn it, it's wrong.
You don't go to Boots to tell you who the best Formula 1 driver is and I don't want McDonalds trying to tell me about music. They are desperately trying to get down with the kids, like so many brands and it's obvious and lame.
Do something about food not music, and while you're at it, do something about your food.
I do quite like the 'chips' graphic equalizer though (animated on the site), but that's it.

Damn It, Hooked Again

Ok look, I'm kinda gullible. I like believing fun little stories.
I wanted to believe the one about the pygmy warriors getting killed by the lions that was faked on the BBC site a while back, just because it was pretty nuts and I like things that are a bit hyper real. (Yeah Baudrillard, eat your heart out.)
So it seems the Blackle thing is rubbish as Nick 'kindly' pointed out in a comment, which I'll publish here:

Ah, what a nice story... if only it were true! It's actually only really true for CRTs, and who still uses those now? Regardless of whether you're viewing a black or white screen, the backlight on your LCD is always on, so the amount of energy consumed is pretty much constant. I read it on wikipedia, so it must be true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackle.com Also, "Blackle" was not created by Google at all. It uses Google search, and the people who made Blackle derive ad revenue from this. No wonder they want everyone to know about this, and would like you to tell all your friends and family that you're saving energy, when actually you're not - you're just earning them ad cents...

I should have probably looked into it a bit more...lesson learned.