Kinda busy at the moment, so will leave you with a brief musical interlude courtesy of The Levellers, from their current album ‘Static on the Airwaves’, which I can recommend to you without hesitation. It is available on iTunes, in all good music shops and some rubbish ones as well.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide what message to take away from this. . .
Well folks, that’s going to be it for me until after the big day, I’m off to the outlaws to see how long it will take for the inevitable argument to break out. Indeed, I may even try to hurry things along this year.
Just remember to drink too much, eat too much, smoke too much and generally go against everything you’ve been told. In fact that holds true for the other 364 days of the year.
Make your Christmas to yourself the embracing of your inner awkward, obstructive, obstinate bugger. It’s free and is hugely therapeutic.
I’ll leave you with a classic, yet modern, Christmas song reproduced in a most touching fashion.
The term ‘flash-mob’ usually conjures up images of people stripping a store of its contents en masse, or a lightning strike demonstration by a group of concerned individuals.
I like flash-mobs, I may not agree with something they are demonstrating against or for, I certainly don’t agree with a pack of criminals picking some poor sod’s shop clean, but I do like the dynamic, especially in terms of demonstration, where a group of people can turn up and leave the authorities completely exposed and unprepared for the crowd. There’s something energising about it, even if it can result in destruction of property and vandalism. I suppose my delight comes from the fact that some people still realise that they can get together and organise themselves without the all pervasive hand of the State coming in to co-ordinate.
There are many motivations for flash-mobbing, and the below is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen, or more correctly perhaps, heard. The motivation here is commercial, it is clearly a low-cost, viral ad. But it is a thing of rare beauty.
Sit back, watch, listen, enjoy and think how thrilling it must have been to have had that going on about you with no warning at all.
It was my very good fortune to attend the Muse concert at Wembley Stadium last night. I’ve been a fan of theirs for years, damn good tunes, well played and certainly in respect of the last few albums (although there are a number of incidences throughout their work) a very strong Libertarian feel to the lyrics.
By my reckoning there must have been about 70,000 present in the stadium. They opened with this number:
To hear that many people sing the lines:
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
was kinda cool. I wonder how many people from last night, and the other dates on the tour, get the message?
My thoughts for what it is worth.
Some of his music was sublime. Some of it terrible. Jackson was a pioneer and possessed genuine talent, towering when you compare it to some of the arse gravy churned out nowadays.
He was a victim of fame he didn’t really have a choice in taking on, not akin to one of the idiots who queue up to go on X-Factor, or attempt to emulate the man on Britain’s Got Talent, who wish to be famous for being famous. Jackson was pushed into his life as a young child. One need only look at his siblings to see the lasting and negative effects this childhood had on them as individuals. He knew no other life.
He made some bad choices, and doubtless had some bad advisors and hangers on who probably wanted to squeeze every last cent out of him that they could.
For all his faults, and irrespective of his musical talent and fame, just a human being, I hope Jackson can now have some peace. It is sad that his children have lost their father and that his many millions of fans have lost an important part of their lives. That sadness pales into insignificance when set alongside the tragedy of a person who was destroyed before he even had a chance to grow up.
If ever there was a stark warning of the cult of celebrity, it is Jackson.
Rest easy, you mad, mad, mad, amazingly talented creature.
A little American-centric, but the spirit is the same. . .
This from Al-Beeb
Lyn Ball was preparing for her next customer at Mane Connections, the hair salon she runs in a market town in the South West of England, when a man, looking not unlike a sales rep, popped into her shop.
But far from trying to sell her anything the visitor introduced himself as being from the Performing Right Society (PRS) and promptly issued her with a demand for a £200 music licence.
What had Ms Ball done to warrant this notice? Turn on her radio.
Oh for crying out loud.
OK let’s look at the business angle.
You’re sitting down having your hair done when you hear a tune that you like very much. On your way back home you stop off at the supermarket, and having heard the tune, buy the album of the artist you heard in the hairdresser. It’s called advertising. Should libraries be forced to pay a surcharge (for this is what this is) to publishing houses for all the books and magazines that have been loaned?
The PRS claim on their website that they are a ‘not-for-profit organisation, enabling you access to the world’s music in the most efficient way.’ Really? Does all the money go to Romanian orphans, or to Hug-A-Polar-Bear? No? Then how is this not for a profit?
Oh, you mean the PRS doesn’t make a profit. Right then, who administers it? Well, with ten board members being from music publishers, I think we can be certain where most of the cash that gets collected goes. Not for profit, my arse.
Is it any coincidence that as music downloads become more popular that the PRS start hounding more people for money? I’m betting it is the publisher that is driving this, a real artist wants recognition more than renumeration, they can play live, charge good money for entry and sell merchandise and make a very nice living indeed. The publishers can only rely on sales of recordings. Besides, how do they know which artists to dole the cash out to?
This is the classic behaviour of a cartel that finds the landscape is changing and that finds they are incapable of dealing with it. So, they’ll chase the little man and threaten them that if they turn their radio on and don’t display one of these licences that it may ‘result in civil action against you for copyright infringement and you may be liable to pay damages and costs.’
Of course, if it is only civil action, any representative from the PRS coming into my own place of business would be shown the door pretty bloody quick and told to come back and collect his evidence when it was a criminal offence.
One final question, if I was listening to the radio at work, it would be talk radio. Now, tell me, who should I be handing the cash to in that instance?
And they have the nerve to call bootleggers ‘pirates’.