Welcome to my World
The Sartorial Festival Goer
Filed in Welcome to my World by Tom Artrocker at 13.11pm on 15 April 11Artrockers,
Having just come across the first ‘what to wear at festivals’ article of the year, I thought I might impart a little wisdom on the subject. Now, the feature in question broke it down into; the bag, the shoes and the rest and, as you might have concluded, contains no advice for men. Let me put that right. And let me begin with the highly contentious issue of shorts, my advice is NO – NEVER – NOT EVEN FOR A LAUGH. But if you have to expose the lower limbs (you really don’t you know) then whatever you do don’t go for those three quarter length horrors which lead all right thinking males to assume that the wife does your clothes shopping. Apart from the fact that all shorts are a sartorial nightmare it is important to bear in mind that at some point it’ll all get too much for you, the drugs will wear off and you and your mates will settle down in front of the camp fire as the sun comes up and fall into a post – raving slumber. As the sun reaches its midday peak you’ll all wake up to discover that the aforementioned orb has burned the flesh from your legs thanks to the shorts that seemed like a good idea at the time. From here on in your leg covering of choice is calamine lotion, a lovely pink.
And just because you’re in a field there’s no excuse for running around in a t-shirt, grown men don’t wear t-shirts anymore, I mean, when was the last time you saw Jarvis in a t-shirt? Never? Leave them to the under 5s, it’s just a vest after all, and vests should be worn beneath a shirt.
Which leaves bags and shoes. Thankfully I don’t need to warn you about sneakers, I mean, nobody wears sneakers anymore, not when there’s a good Tricker’s brogue in the shops. Wellington boots are a must have but if you where them with shorts expect much derision. Bags? Well you’ll need somewhere to keep the calamine so I suppose you must have one, my preference is for a Tesco’s bag but Sainsbury’s will do just as well.
Tom Artrocker
The Medium Is The Massage
Filed in Welcome to my World at 11.17am on 04 April 11Artrockers,
Last week I left you all speechless, open -mouthed in amazement that I was predicting a future, any future, for the music industry. I pointed out that the turning points in the history of the business were all related to formats and that while the mp3 has caused much damage it is at best an interim format and that another, better and easier to monetise format will be along in a minute and the rule book will be re-written once again.
In the meantime, while we wait for the next bus, have a think about this: as Marshall Mcluhan said many years ago: 'The medium is the massage'. Now, I've never really understood what he meant by that, like the guy in the cinema queue in Annie Hall I've always chucked it about to impress women without understanding it myself*. But I think it may apply to mp3s. Is it possible that the present crop of pop-mongers out there actually create music which is defined by the limitations of the compressed music file, consciously or unconsciously? In other words, has the format dictated, or at the very least informed the music that's being created right now? A brief flit through the radio1 playlist reveals that the soft-synth reigns supreme, be it grimey, souley or simply poppy, the same synth presets are present time after time prompting calls of 'Not that bloody synth sound again! It's on 5 of the top 10 singles. You'd think they could use a different sound once in a while wouldn't you?' Well maybe you would think that, but you're a purist and you believe that anything electronic after Man Machine is rubbish. The man / child / idiot on the street couldn't give a toss, it all sounds great on his iPod. And that's the point. Synths sound good in an mp3 format, guitars, orchestras and other assorted 'real' instruments less so. And if you've got any brains at all you'll use synths and drum machines. They cut through, probably because like the mp3, it's all digital. When CDs came along there was a mad rush to buy Yamaha DX7s, simply because the 8 bit technology involved was a precise match for the 8 bit CD player, the medium was dictating the process. It still is, probably always will.
Of course the way we record has also informed the music we hear, now that you can set up in the bedroom with a digital recorder and produce amazing stuff why would you want to bother with miking up drums and amps and giving next door a heart attack? Not while you can record the entire thing with soft-synths and drum programmes without ever taking the headphones off.
But I return to the point, has the mp3 defined the music we hear, has the medium become the massage? I think so, how about you?
Tom Artrocker
* McLuhan described key points of change in how man has viewed the world and how these views were changed by the adoption of new media. "The technique of invention was the discovery of the nineteenth [century]", brought on by the adoption of fixed points of view and perspective by typography, while "[t]he technique of the suspended judgment is the discovery of the twentieth century", brought on by the bard abilities of radio, movies and television.
respond to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)Welcome To My World
Filed in Welcome to my World at 15.41pm on 24 March 11Artrockers,
Being, as I am, a media superstar I'm often asked to answer questions for journalists and such-like about the state of the music industry; 'Is there a future? Can you make money from it? Hasn't the digital age finished off the biz?' - that sort of thing. The answers to the above tend to be; Yes. Yes and No.
Of course there's no denying that digitisation pulled the rug from beneath the majors, or they pulled the rug from beneath themselves by allowing greed to overrule common sense by trying, Canute like, to hold back the inevitable, but the characters who believed that they could keep charging whatever they liked for CDs, the characters behind scrapping the single release so you had to buy the over-priced CD album whether you wanted it or not, the characters who drove the consumer to acts of piracy, they've mostly gone, retired to Beverly Hills to smoke fat cigars. They won't be missed. There's a new realism about the majors, well there should be after the remorseless kicking they've had over the last decade, they haven't got a choice in the matter, this is the way of the world now - deal with it. And let's not kid ourselves, no majors = no music biz to speak of, the entire industry is dependent on the existence of the majors, take them away and you can say goodbye to the blanket coverage music gets from the media because, I'm afraid, it's all about the Benjamins. So it's in the interest of us all that the majors succeed, there is no Plan B that I'm aware of short of state subsidy...And nobody, surely, wants that.
But if I'm optimistic about the future of our industry then that optimism is predicated on one simple fact: things change. The MP3 certainly changed the business - totally - as did the CD in its time, and there is no reason to believe that the next new format won't do exactly the same thing. And make no mistake, there are scientist type folks all over the world working on that format right now, and for all we know that format will be irresistible to the consumer and, whisper it, a physical product. Why, we might even see the return of the music retailer to the high street, who knows?
There's everything to play for, nobody (that's nobody) knows where this will lead, the field is open, the MP3 is substandard and the prize will go to the quick. Vinyl, cassettes, 8 track, CDs, they've all come and gone and pretty soon I predict the MP3 will be joining them on the scrapheap.
Digital music caught the industry on the greedy hop, but they won't make that mistake again, they've been humbled, they've been the laughing stock of the western world...Rightly so. But the new breed of slimmed-down major is cuter than those old swine, they know what they have to do and they know that they have to invest in new formats rather than £10m parties.
So, just in case I haven't made myself sufficiently clear, It's all about the format stupid.
Tom Artrocker
PS Have a look at this:
3D sound without headphones, a clue to the future? Maybe.
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)Welcome To My World - 17 March
Filed in Welcome to my World at 13.23pm on 17 March 11Artrockers,
I was reminded recently of The Bootleg, and I wondered if new manifestations of this naughty art-form are still being created. Where does the Bootleg album fit into the digital age? First let’s define terms, a bootleg album is an illegal record release of a radio session, live performance or unreleased studio tracks. There are many classic examples, and I may or may not, depending on whose reading, have many examples in my collection. My favourite is probably The Sex Pistols at the Armadillo, famed for Lydon’s cowboy baiting and for Vicious failing to play one single correct note for the entire set. Bootlegs used to be much sought after – what kind of Bowie fan were you if you didn’t have a copy of The Thin White Duke? A friend of mine was desperate for a copy, so when we went to see Iggy, with Bowie on keyboards (support came from The Vibrators, we’re going back a bit here), he was made up to find a ‘legger’ standing outside the venue selling copies of this most sought after rarity. He handed over a large wad and we hit the bus home to listen to his illicit gem. We ran up to his bedroom, dimmed the light and placed the holy platter on the turntable. And guess what? Yep, it wasn’t the Brixton boy, it was Nana Mouskouri. The ‘legger’ had simply stuck a couple of photocopied labels onto a MFP (Music For Pleasure – we’re REALLY going back) greatest hits collection by the Greek songbird and sold the result to a mug. My mate. How we laughed...Well, how I laughed, my mate was really quite unhappy about being fleeced and Adios My Love by the aforementioned chanteuse, whilst charming, did little to sooth his savage brow.
But I digress. Are there still new bootlegs about in an age when folks seem to help themselves to everybody’s work anyway? Is there a point to bootlegs anymore? I need to know, so tell me.
Tom Artrocker
Responses to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)The New Snobbery
Filed in Welcome to my World by Tom Artrocker at 12.45pm on 17 February 11Artrockers,
The first daffs and crocuses are blooming on the small patch of Brixton paving I like to call my garden, the goldfish in the tub I like to call a fishpond are up and about, having a nice swim in what was, 'til fairly recently, a block of ice. So here we go again, the cycle of seasons is doing it's business and life is returning. Amazing isn't it? The weather may have improved and the blossom may be on its way but make no mistake, the storm clouds are gathering. This year much of our populace will take an almighty kicking one way or the other, if they manage to keep their jobs they'll still have to deal with a massive increase in the cost of living with no proportionate increase in earnings. Of course they deserve this because they did...Nothing, that is to say they blithely got on with their lives, working hard, contributing to their communities, bringing up the kids...Bastards! So when it all goes off the rails it makes sense to take it out on those who played no part in the derailment, or more truthfully those who have no voice to complain because they didn't get a private education (very remiss of them, feckless some might say). I recently attended an event in the more well-heeled part of Brixton - it was a real wake-up call. You see, they assumed that I was one of them so they spoke their minds (I use the word 'minds' loosely). And what came out was a river of bile, snobbery, elitism, classism and hate for everybody who didn't own a second home. The word 'feckless' was bandied about, along with 'idle', 'thuggish', 'slatternly' and a whole host of words I thought we'd left behind in the pages of Dickens. But this class of person has no problem chucking them about because, you see, the working class are too thick to understand them, and even if they could, well, they hadn't been invited. I found the whole thing rather terrifying, like a Muslim attending an EDL meeting undercover. But here's the thing, these people weren't The League Of St George or some shadowy part of the establishment, this was a meeting called by the local Lib-Dems.
The evening concluded with a motion to sterilise the working class and remove childrem from parents too stupid to send their kids to Prep school. Maybe not, but I came away from the evening a wiser but sadder man, recalling Derek Jameson's (Oh dear, nasty working class oik) query: 'Do they mean us? They surely do!'
Tom Artrocker
_thumb.jpg "Atari Teenage Riot")
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