Mar 28, 2010 |
Photo by Toban Black
I was sent a report by the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Institutes) last week about how the record business is so important and must be protected because – after all, who else is going to invest in new artists and new music? Here’s a PDF link if you’re interested.
I’ve been thinking about that a good deal recently, especially in the light of the proposed blanket tariff for online services. There’s an idea doing the rounds that everyone should pay an extra £5 a month on their internet bill, and then essentially that goes to the record industry. You know… because they’re so important, and we’re all stealing their stuff all the time.
It’s that old ‘music like water’ thing. Yeah – still.
Well, it occurs to me that while it’s true that the record industry has traditionally been the ones “investing” in new artists, they haven’t been doing it very well for quite some time – and nor has that investment been largely beneficial to the musicians, the audiences or to music in general.
But I’m prepared to entertain the idea that we should all contribute to the investment in new music (officially I’m opposed to a tariff, but go with me here for a moment) – I’m just not convinced that if we do that, then the money generated by those contributions should automatically go to the recording industry as a right. I have something else in mind.
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May 2, 2009 |
I’ve always wanted to have a record shop. I don’t want to sell the music, necessarily – I just like the idea of being surrounded by all those records, talking to the people who come in about albums I like, listening to music, reading books during the quiet times – and maybe having bands do in-store performances on occasion.
It’s the High-Fidelity dream, and I know I’m not the only one with that ambition.
And it’s come true. I finally have my own record shop. It sells vinyl, just like I always imagined it should. Only – it’s not a shop on a High Street. It’s on the internet, and I only have one record in stock. But it’s a good one…
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Apr 5, 2009 |
River of ice outside the hotel
I’ve spent the last few days in Helsinki at a music industry conference called Is This It.
Since I’m not that great at mingling (or at least, slow to start), I brought my laptop down to the first networking breakfast session on Friday. Coffee and email, while people settled in around me.
Since the breakfast merged into the keynote presentations, I thought I’d just post interesting bits and pieces from the sessions up to Twitter. I was the only one doing it, by all accounts, and I thought it might be useful.
But very quickly, it became clear that the messages were not those I tend to talk about on my New Music Strategies blog. This was old school stuff, entrenched. And while they were looking for new models, it was like they were looking for different ways to do more or less exactly the same things. And I started to say so.
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Feb 14, 2009 |
Today, I went to Jibbering Records in Moseley for probably the last time. They close in a week – but I’m off to NZ on Monday evening, and unless I get a chance to pop in during the day on Monday for one final cafetiere and a browse through the Funk bin, that was my last visit.
Jibbering’s not just a local independent record store that’s closing down – it was our second home in Birmingham. When we first moved to the UK, it was where we made our new friends, became involved in a ‘scene’ and spent all our spare time drinking coffee, listening to great music, surfing on the internet and hanging out.
Our experience of Britain would not have been nearly as positive and welcoming as it had been were it not for the Jibbering community and for that reason, we’re really disappointed to see it go.
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Jan 28, 2009 |
After the relatively slow start to 2009, and the lovely, restful Christmas break, I’ve started organising things for the year, and as I start booking things in, it looks like a pretty busy one. In fact… the past week or so has meant a rapid takeoff in the amount of work and travel I’ve been doing.
Clutch and I launched ‘Twhisky‘ on Sunday evening to coincide with Burns’ Night. Bobbie made an amazing dinner for seven, consisting of haggis, neeps and tatties – and we had cranachan for pudding (very simple recipe: cream, whisky, oats, whisky, raspberries, honey and whisky). In fact, it was a dinner for 18, but there were only seven of us at the table. Living on leftovers at the moment…
We did an online whisky tasting using Twitter (hence ‘Twhisky’) and had close to 600 people around the world following along. The distilleries like us now, and we’re being sent free stuff – which I happen to think is one of the best reasons to do anything (free records was my incentive to get started in the radio industry… and free trips to academic conferences was a good incentive to become a researcher).
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