mostly on a music tip

Steve Knopper - Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age

I saw Steve Knopper interviewing Daniel Spotify at the Great Escape in Brighton, and so I bought his book on my way out. I finally finished it today, having interrupted it midway to real Clay Shirky's book, blogged below. As I said in that post, anything music/techy/social networky is grabbing my attention at the moment, and Steve's book obviously ticks the first two of those boxes.

As you can probably tell from the title, Steve builds his book with an opinion that greed is at the heart of the decline of the Record Industry. Though he offers little in the way of personal comment until the very end of his piece, the narration from industry insiders, the bent of his writing, and, most importantly, the facts, most definitely point to the major label's greed, stubborness and unwillingness to adapt as the reasons for the recording industry's current collapse. I think that's been pretty obvious to all for as long as I can remember. Majors have always been slow, but it's never really hurt them before. This time, it looks like it will.

Right now, all major labels seem to have left to offer this business is the catalogue they've built up - and so desperate are they to retain the profits they've known of old, they're stifling the future of the recorded industry by using that catalogue as leverage to spoil deals and try and halt progress. Without that leverage then existing artists, all future artists and the recording industry as a whole would be better off. Music and people who like music would all be better off.

Their alternative is to stop making more enemies, face the inevitable, go through the pain of it hitting them hard, and then work in the new world. The inevitable is that all downloadable music will be free to the consumer. I'd wager that. Stopping free music is like trying to stop water flowing through a dam with just your finger. It's easy to move music about now, and it will only get easier and easier as broadband speeds increase, internet access increases and storage capacities shrink. So face up to it. It's going to happen. People want to share music, they always have shared music, only now it's easier to share it for free than it is to buy it. That wasn't the case before. It is now.

If people are getting it for free, or as 'feels free' then there's room for there to be the necessary income to pay artists and music writers. That might be a licence (like a TV licence, everyone would have to have a music licence), through a tax via computer purchases or via ISPs. It's just that that tax or licence needs to be reasonable. It can't equate to £9.99 an album, or even 79p per track - all prices fixed to try and retain old profit margins. It needs to be close to free - or feel free - much like the £142 per year TV licence now - think how much 'free' content you get for that - all the channels, iplayer, downloadable content, radio content, web content etc etc - HUGE amounts of content - probably far more than all the back catalogue of music you could wish for).

I would urge the majors to embrace this and shake up. Suffer the closures and the job losses and the huge downsizing but come out fighting. I would very much like there to be major labels in the future. The kinds of labels who can invest money into new acts, take a chance on pop music, push an act harder so I can find them easier, give me bands who I can love for a short time (Keane, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Coldplay) before I begin to tire of them, and give me the acts who really know how to write songs that sound good on the dancefloor. They need to recognise that this is what they're good for. If they do, they have a future. Their catalogue is worth something now, but it'll be worth nothing once everyone chooses to trade music illegally because of their stubborness to move with the rest of the world. Their bands will have the right to break contract if the label's can't protect their work, and they will have nothing upon which to build a future.

Clay Shirky 'Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations'

I picked up Clay's book from my girlfriend Lisa and have devoured it over the past two days whilst on holiday. At the moment I seem to be absorbing any material on social media / new technology and/or the music industry as music is where I principally work, and its future is so unknown and I love the uncertainty about what's coming. I'm so fascinated right now.

Clay's book is a thumping read - in many parts it simply opens out the though processes I've already been having about social media. The real-life examples give new depth and context, and in many cases were brand new stories to me. In a shrinking world it's still amazing how much you miss because of geography; what is a talking point in, say, New York (ie the Stolen Sidekick), is completely overlooked in the UK.

Small points resonated too. When Carl and I started our Sleeveface Facebook Group I used to look at every new picture added and, usually, add comment. I did this because I loved the pictures and I was appreciative that people were taking time to add their snaps and upload them, as well as being amazed that they loved the idea as much as we and our friends did. What I didn't realise is that my posting was one of the reasons Sleeveface caught on - Clay talks about how this behaviour is often done deliberately by new groups or businesses - to make people feel welcome and included. What a revelation to realise that something I did out of genuine appreciation was actually contributing to the group's success. I had no idea.

What I did realise was that Facebook was the main reason for Sleeveface's early success. Clay would love Sleeveface as an example in his book. Here's a perfect balance of new tool, promise, group formation and interest all neatly weighted. I got the first pictures up onto Facebook before nearly all of my friends had Facebook accounts. As they joined, they explored and so they easily found Sleeveface - something fun and easy to pass on and be involved in. If Sleeveface happened now, when they are familiar with Facebook, used to new groups, less interested in exploring or passing on fun things with quite the same enthusiasm, I doubt it would catch on in the way that it did. Likewise, we've since found versions of Sleeveface from many years ago, pre-Facebook. Other peopl had small groups of pictures of each other holding up record sleeves. Why didn't they catch on? Well in part, they didn't have the catchy title that Carl came up with - 'Sleeveface' - but they also didn't have the right tool - Facebook. We were alerted to some groups sitting on some forums which had all the right kinds of photos, but they sat on forums waiting to be found by new members to that forum, often being forums of something quite specific with low membership rates. Facebook made Sleeveface easy to find and easy to share.

That's definitely one of the reasons why I enjoyed Clay's book, because its those kinds of moments I truly appreciate with emerging new forms of social media. For example, though I love Twitter as a tool for personal updates, I find it to be an incredible promotional tool for my work (as my work and my personal life are so intertwined I don't have any problem with this - though it's often a discussion about whether one should have two Twitter accounts - one for work, one for personal stuff. It's something I should look into and comeback too.) When I first joined Twitter a few years ago I wasn't sure what it was for, but I realise now that's because very few of my friends were on it (infact only one, @tobiaspeggs which is how I learned about it). As more friends have joined I've found Twitter has found its purpose, for me at least. I think Clay would like that way of working.

HMV and Virgin killed music retail.

Ok, so that's a big bold statement. But anyone who has engaged me in a discussion about dwindling music sales will have heard me argue this one : That I believe that HMV and Virgin, once record stores, lured record buyers in from the independents and turned them onto other products such as DVDs and console games, and in so doing, began the decline in music retail in the UK.

Of course, digital music will be the ultimate player in the whittling down of the high street, and there's nothing the megastores could have done, or should have done, about that. But it was interesting at The Great Escape festival last month when an HMV employee continually referred to music as being at the 'core' of HMV. That's laughable. What will HMV be selling in five year's time? There'll be no DVDs and no CDs. They've inadvertently cut themselves out of the future of music retail.

I'm blogging about this because Charles Arthur wrote this piece in last week's Guardian, which, in a roundabout way, backs up my HMV/Virgin argument, as well as rightly criticising the major players in the music industry for their continuously hilarious cries that file-sharing is killing music. 

Here's his piece :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/11/charles-arthur-filesharing-piracy

Fanfarlo - buy their album for $1 until July 4th...

Right now it feels like bands and labels are beginning to get creative again when it comes to selling records. Here's Fanfarlo posting on their website :

"Hello. Because we want everyone to hear our album, and in the spirit of “why not”, we are now letting you download it, along with 4 exclusive bonus tracks, for a mere one dollar until July 4th (or, if you like, Independence Day.) After that, the madness will end and you will be able to get the CD, the vinyl and a beautiful new special edition at normal prices. "

There's no obvious reason why Fanfarlo should be celebrating Independence Day - it doesn't theme to the record or to the band other than the album was recorded in the US. Arguably, it could be a marketng ploy to further the band's recognition in the US. But I'm not here to be cynical. It's a nice, neat idea, and one I've just taken advantage of - I'm downloading it as I write this. A quick twitter has already alerted some friends to buying a copy too. Hey, for $1, why not? Go to http://www.fanfarlo.com and grab your copy. Oh, should I leak that they'll be playing this year's SWN Festival too? Maybe I just did....

Why I love Spotify, free music and the internet

It's nearly 4.00am. I came to bed around midnight with my macbook in hand, some Safari windows open with articles put aside from today's tweets - my regular way of catching up on some reading before I sleep. Whilst reading, I tend to open up some music on myspace or Spotify. Tonight I started with myspace, having read a piece on The Field at www.drownedinsound.com (excellent music, by the way, and I've basketed the album).

On my phone I keep a rolling notebook of tracks or albums or artists I want to hear. Usually the notes come from magazine reviews or articles, but sometimes from friends or elsewhere. The list used to be huge. I could never whittle it down - trying to find the records to hear was often too difficult - I might find a snippet of a track, but that's never enough to make me commit to buy. I flirted with limewire, but found that lumbering and erratic and still a lot of work for not enough reward. Myspace has always been great, but of course you can only do one band at a time and the player often sticks. Regardless, the list always grew longer - I'd find new bands quicker than I could listen to the ones I already had written down.

Spotify has changed everything for me. Since I got hold of it (this year? last year? It seems like I've lived with it forever) I can find and dump about half the bands straight into a rolling playlist that sits with me as I work. I listen to far more than I've ever done - finding more albums by a new band than I thought existed, or listening to albums in full rather than rushed snippets. I sit with some music longer, rather than flicking and moving on. It's brilliant. And get this - whilst I'm exploring, all the bands are getting paid. How perfect is that?

My list is shrinking. I can listen faster than I'm adding, even though I'm listening to more, for longer. I'm still buying records too, of course, because I want the vinyl in my hands and the mp3 download code so the album can go onto my ipod, but Spotify is helping me discover more new music than ever before. I love it.

Record Store Day / Spillers Records

Yesterday was Record Store Day and so I spent the afternoon in Spillers Records in Cardiff. Ashli had invited Truckers Of Husk to do an instore so the band squeezed into a corner of the shop with a shopful of fans behind them and then proceeded to tear up the place in the best way possible. It was a cracking set, as ever, from one of the most interesting bands I know. They closed with forthcoming single 'Awesome Tapes From Africa'. That songs is going to be EVERYWHERE. It's so infectious.

I got to Dj in the store after their set . I picked records with personal stories behind them - here's what I played...

Black Moth Super Rainbow 'Milk Skates' : This was the most recent record I'd bought from Spillers.. on Wednesday of this week. It's a cracking 10" from one of my favourite bands.

Stereolab 'Lo Boob Oscilator' : A gem from Stereolab which I'd found on ebay a few months ago. It's what the 7" was designed for - a brilliant, wiggy, hypnotic beauty.

Rotation 'Rotation' : A song I'd first heard played by Gary from Monkeytennis at SWN in 2007. It's a charity shop find (I bought mine off ebay - the postage cost more than the record) - the kind of song Gary loves to play and relishes when people come to peer at what nugget he's found. This is what DJing is all about - sharing music you love. Amazing stuff.

Mr Bloe 'Groovin With Mr Bloe' : Thanks to 6Music for this. I'd NEVER heard this track before until February when it was played on 6Music. I was like, 'WHAT IS THIS?!' and Leah and Spike, who I was with, looked at me like a fool for not having heard it before. I can't believe i didn't own it. I love it. Recently I've been playing it at The Dudes Abide - it segques seamlessly out of Peter Bjorn And John's 'Young Folks'.

Nancy Sit 'Love Potion No 9' : sent to me in the post many many years ago by Carl Morris, before we even began working together, when I think he was promoting his Reload night. I'm not sure if he knew this track was on the b-side or not, or whether it was seeing this track that made him think of me. It's an awesome cover of the Coaster's song hidden on an otherwise terriblelooking and terribly spelt 7".

Canned Heat 'Let's Work Together' : This was one of my earliest memories of discovering that the version I knew of a song wasn't the original. I just assumed Roxy Music wrote it. Oh no. It's why I have such a penchant for covers, and I why I like contemporary acts doing covers and ultimaty directing people to the originals.

Let's Wrestle 'I Won't Lie To You' : Playing in an indie record store surely is the right time to warrant a play of this song from one of the UK's best indie bands, with the great line "No matter how many records I buy, I can't fill this void"

Ungdomskulen 'Surfs Up' : This is what record shopping is all about. I was browsing a small store in Bergen, Norway, when this 7" caught my eye and I took a punt and I've since bought more of their stuff. I'd never have done that online...

Queen 'Football Fight' : The first album I owned was Queen's 'Flash Gordon' OST. It's pretty dire as a record, but I love this song, which was also the b-side of the 7" single 'Flash'...

Goodbye Kate, Goodbye Point

I knew today was going to be rough, but I didn't realise how rough.

This morning was Kate's funeral. Her family had organised a beautiful send off for Kate - everything seemed fitting - the horse-drawn carriage (she was a keen and accomplished rider); members of Cardiff's Jif cycling club following the coffin to the crematorium (in November she had joined their club, and as we heard later had quickly made a lasting impression on the whole team); the wonderful speeches; the songs; the wake; the pic-n-mix (somehow Kate balanced her incredible fitness regime with a love of sweets). It was as wonderful as it was saddening to see the things I knew about Kate magnified by so many other's shared experiences, and all the gaps that I didn't know about her filled in with more brilliant stories, sharp Kate witicisms, smiles and tears. Her family and friends did her proud and I thank Huw for introducing me to her and letting me share a little of her amazing presence.

After I'd left the wake I went home to change and grab some late lunch before going to The Point to work. I've been working as Commercial Director for the venue since July, taken on to help the venue with programming and the like though the first three months of my job were occupied with closing the venue for a whole month to carry out soundproofing work as a result of a noise complaint from a new neighbour, and all the build up and fallout that entailed. The venue hasn't been able to recover from the impact of that last year. As I was about to eat lunch I had a call from the venue owner to tell me he'd put the business into voluntary liquidation.

This was a shock. I knew, of course, that the business was struggling, but not that this was going to happen today. We'd been working so hard over the past two months to get the business on track and we'd been making great progress. In fact this month we'd begun turning the corner - having enough data together from the past six months to restructure and change forecasts. But last year wiped the venue out - from early in 2008 (before I was properly working there) when the noise complaint became public knowledge the venue was forced to become preoccupied with all that entailed - legal meetings, promoters becoming hesitant in case the venue shut, some of the public believing the venue was already closed, more marketing spend to try and combat this and so forth. Eventually the decision was made to soundproof the venue, but the work was to take a month - which means closing for four weeks, losing income, losing shows, promoters going elsewhere and, again, the public believing the venue was closing for good. All that hit the business, and though we bounced back in the autumn with strong runs of shows, a bill of £65,000 for the work is too much for a new business of that size to stomach, and losing 4 weeks out of 52 in order to do the work doesn't help either. There were other factors on top too driven by the current economic climate - some promoters falling by the wayside or downsizing shows, and the credit squeeze from the bank giving the business no room for manouvre. Sometimes you can ride through it - and we thought we had a chance - but it wasn't to be.

It's another blow for Cardiff's live music scene. Some of the shows can relocate - we had many tribute bands who should find a home at The Globe, and some of the shows that might only top 200 sales can house in Clwb Ifor Bach or Barfly or Buffalo perhaps, so long as there's schedule gaps. But many other 200+ shows aren't big enough to make the jump to the University, and in trying to help a few agents or promoters move their shows today, they have had no option but to go to other cities. These are touring bands or new bands or international bands who, now, can't play Cardiff. That's a big blow for the live audience in Cardiff and for the music scene in Wales, but the impact will go further - without diverse entertainment options people won't relocate here for work (many people move to Cardiff because of it's musical heritage and it's live music choice), and whilst Wales sells itself on Duffy's Brit and Grammy's success, then all those who trade on that success outside of the music industry (tourism, capital of culture bids and the like) should be worried about the Welsh capital's ability to nuture that future talent. When Wales wins gold at Olympic cycling we build velodromes and inject money into cycling. For over a decade Wales has produced international class musical acts - from the Manics in the mid 90s to Duffy today, but there's been no equal input to help contemporary music.
The story of The Point follows a story earlier in the week when The Toucan Club (another live music venue which programmes and specialises in world music) had its planning application for a late licence turned down, and therefore cannot open; and comes at the same time that Clwb Ifor Bach, the city's strongest independent live music venue, with a capacity of 200, face threat of closure as a planning application looks set to go through to build a backpackers hostel on an adjoining building (fast forward to the backpacker hostel opening, the clientelle complaining about the noise, a noise complaint being served, and Clwb already recognises that it couldn't afford to carry out the soundproofing work which would be required.).

So, it's been a rough day. People have lost their jobs, and that hurts. But after watching one of your best friends have to say goodbye to one of his best friends, losing your job seems like a walk in the park.

Morrissey

Quite often I find myself spending time concentrating on listening to many records by one artist. Usually it's because I am working my way into someone whom I know little about or have no records by and I want to make inroads into their catalogue. Over the past couple of weeks the artist has been Morrissey.

I got into The Smiths quite late, but when I did, I devoured their whole output pretty quickly. They've a few duff tracks but there's no single album I don't listen to. When they disbanded, I stuck with Morrissey, buying a tape of Viva Hate and believing it held up to much of The Smith's work. I bought his solo singles too. Bona Drag followed, a compilation of those singles, still strong, though a little foppish. But then came Kill Uncle and that was that. A terrible, terrible record that I hung onto for years, hoping that somehow it would improve just by sitting on my shelf. It didn't, and it got binned. I didn't return to buy anything until his 'comeback' album You Are The Quarry. I can't recall what was happening in music at that time, but there was no-one else singing a lyric as startling as "I've been dreaming of a time when the English are sick to death of Labour and Tories and spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell and denounce this royal line that still salutes him and will salute him forever." as he did in the song Irish Blood, English Heart.

So now I'm working through those missed albums and I'm finding plenty of good material. Southpaw Grammar is a great piece of work, and so far everything is holding up. Now I feel a little guilty I abandoned him so swiftly.

Kate Auchterlonie

I had a call tonight from Huw to tell me that our friend Kate had died today. Apparently she had been cycling, her bike was clipped by a car and from the injuries she sustained she died upon arrival at the hospital. I know little else at the moment. She turned 28 just three days ago.

I'd got to know Kate because of Huw and I was very fond of her. She was extraordinarily funny - a dry, sharp sense of humour delivered by saying very little but deliberately very precisely. When I found out she'd run the Snowdon Marathon last year and was a keen runner we'd talked alot about running together once my knee was fixed. Just last week we had been chatting about going on a first run together in the coming weeks, and as usual the banter from her had been typically dry and funny. I always enjoyed seeing her or speaking to her.

Her accident is tragic. She'll be missed. x

http://kateauchterlonie.blogspot.com/

Royal Bangs

As a DJ I get sent a fair amount of music serviced by promo companies targeting people like myself in the hope that I'll play their records upfront and build a buzz in the clubs. Over the years you get to spot which tracks are likely to be good, and which aren't, but I'm one of those people who just *cant* throw something into my charity box without giving it a quick listen first. Listening to these tracks takes up so much of my time. I've spent all of today working through piles of CDs on my desk, and links to downloads in my email. I've still a small pile of about 30 CDs to go, and I'm on my last download link. Most of the records have gone into the charity box. All of the ones that have made it into my cd case, or into itunes to be burnt to CD to be taken out, have been ones I've already known about, or heard good things about. But there has been one surprise, and it's these surprises which really make it worthwhile.

Today's belter is a track 'Brother' from a band 'Royal Bangs'. I'd never heard of them before, I've just had a flick through the band's myspace, and nothing matches the quality of this - maybe it's just a one off, but maybe it's the beginning of something. See what you think.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=13579813