Andrew Dubber     

Things to do in Dublin

I spent the last 48 hours in the Republic of Ireland. I was there as one of the keynote speakers for the IAMIC (International Association of Music Information Centres) Future of Music Conference, held at Dublin Castle.

It was an interesting event – not least for me because it was the first time I’d shared the bill with Swiss ‘Media Futurist’ Gerd Leonhard – known (among other things) for his support for a ‘Music Like Water’ blanket licensing model that treats music recordings on the internet as if they were a utility, rather than a product.

It’s something I’ve disagreed with for a long time, and have written about in the past – but this was a chance to both challenge Gerd on it, and synthesise a lot of my ideas that have been developing over the past couple of years, with respect to media ecology.

I picked a fight (or two)

Gerd – being wrong about stuff

Gerd spoke about what he saw as ‘the future of music’ (his presentation’s online here), and it was very well received. Then, after the coffee break, I gave my presentation entitled ‘The Future of Music (and other fictions)’, which explained not only why you can’t predict the future, but also why simply talking about recordings of music misses the whole point.

I did a blog post about this a couple of years ago on New Music Strategies, but it’s nice to return to these ideas once in a while.

The whole point of my talk was pretty much entirely to refute everything that Gerd talks about. And that’s a pretty confrontational thing to do, I guess – but it did get a pretty good response.

Not sure anyone ‘won’ as such – but it was good to present more than one side to a debate like this, and open it out, rather than close down discussions with ‘answers’. In what I assume to be true Dublin spirit, the confrontation ended good-naturedly – and Gerd even suggested that he and I take the debate on the road. Regardless of whatever conclusions were drawn, it was generally regarded to be entertaining stuff.

The panel discussion at the end of the day was a bit firey too. I found myself at odds with pretty much everyone there over one thing or another. I think I made the man from IMRO cross. He ended up not saying very much at all. I think I may have hit a nerve – or possibly the rest of us just didn’t leave much space for him to talk.

Friends, poetry and reminiscence

There are worse places to have a music industry conference

It was also great to meet and talk with Professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, whose presentation was evocative and poetic; and with Bill Whelan (known for composing the Riverdance music), whose speech was a personal and nostalgic reflection on the importance of music in the lives of people – and again, it was infused with poetry.

One of the most interesting thing about this event for me was that it was one of those rare music industry events that was primarily not about popular music – rock, pop, hip hop, indie, etc. The vast majority of music represented was what you might refer to as ‘serious’ music – and primarily, contemporary classical music. Music like this:

It was amazing to speak to so many people from all over the world – most of whom I’d never met of course, though it was good to catch up with Carlo from the Flanders Music Centre, who’d invited me to speak in Brussels last year – and Jutta from the Finnish Music Information Centre, who I’d met at an event in Helsinki.

At dinner, I spoke extensively with John Davis, the CEO of the Australian Music Centre – who knew a lot of the same New Zealand and Australian jazz musicians I know and worked with – and with Matthew Greenall – the Executive Director of Sound and Music, who works closely with my friend and mentor John Kieffer.

I drank Guinness

High on my list of favourite people in the world…

My friend Nick from Belfast (who runs Penny Distribution) came down for the day, and we spent the evening together along with some friends of his.

He introduced me to a local whiskey (it has an ‘e’ in it, if you’re in Ireland) called Paddy – which was, we decided, ‘quaffable’. But we made a particular point of being in a proper Irish pub, drinking proper Irish Guinness and spending the evening in pursuit of ‘the craic’.

At one point in the evening, we intersected with the conference people, who were on a traditional Irish pub crawl. It was after 11 when we found them, and they were only on their second of six establishments.

When I saw Carlo and Jutta at breakfast at the hotel this morning, their 3am finish was certainly showing – and they had another full day of conferencing ahead of them.

Eve and Jonathan from the Contemporary Music Centre are brilliant hosts and great company – but that’s a gruelling schedule.

And then there was Joyce
My flight was mid-afternoon, so I had a couple of hours to kill in Dublin. I did consider an open-top bus ride, to have a look around the city, but opted instead for a walk. I found myself in a bookstore, confronted with the fact that I’d never read – or even owned a copy – of Ulysses.

I’m a bit of a Joyce fan. I love Finnegan’s Wake and return to it from time to time (though I don’t pretend to understand it, as such). I studied Dubliners as part of my 20th Century Literature course at University all those years ago, and that (along with Beckett and Pynchon) gave me my best marks of my brief Arts undergrad career and a bit of a taste for Modernism, which was to later work itself out through jazz.

But Ulysses is, supposedly, his masterwork. To some, it’s the greatest novel ever written. And I’ve never even picked it up.

So that’s what I did. My last hours in Dublin were spent sitting in a pub, sipping Guinness and reading the further exploits of Stephen Dedalus. I felt like that rounded off my first trip to Ireland nicely.

I’d had Guinness and whiskey, picked had a couple of fights, appreciated some literature, music and poetry – and enjoyed great craic with good friends old and new.

Plenty more photos from my visit to Dublin here.

Tagged: Books, Ireland, Poetry