Archive for January 2008
I Never Thought It’d Be So Difficult to Score a UK Show, but…
…I’ve found out (to my dismay) that it is like pulling fucking teeth. Is there anything in this fucking country that isn’t indie or that fucking electro bollocks???
In the meantime, my head has been busy with this latest goings-on at the RIAA. Could someone please tell why it is that the RIAA is seemingly run by Daffy Duck.
Basically, they are pushing for a law that could see though who copy compilation albums sued for $1.5 million. While the rest of the industry is making (slow) strides from this kind of threat tactic, once again the RIAA think that threatening their customers will stop folk uploading, downloading and copying music. And I’m sorry, but any company that hires former principals of the FBI (Kathy Leodler) to track down global pirates can fuck right off…
I (like many others) know that the recorded music industry is fucked and has been for a long time and in a sense it explains the shift by a lot of record companies towards what are known a 360 deals.
Essentially a 360 deal is a contract where record companies claim a percentage of profits from merchandise, tours. fan clubs and other material – this means of course that prices for gigs will rise, but it is also an acknowledgment that there is less money coming through the recorded industry. Prince’s move of giving his latest album away with the Mail on Sunday last summer and then going on to do 21-date residency of the O2 arena was one of the working nods in this direction.
In reality though, both Madonna and Robbie Williams are leading the charge with regards to 360’s. In 2002, Robbie Williams scored an estimated $80 million dollars with EMI, while last year Madonna left Warner Brothers and netted around $120 million with her deal with LiveNation – a concert promoter (the artist wing has now being renamed Artist Nation).
Surely there will be more to follow, but I can’t help but feel that any artist that signs an old style record contract now will live to regret it. Anyway while I’m here, enjoy the cartoon below – I stole it from some site…
Current Listening:
The Adverts “Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts”
Sweet deal,
Leigh
Jeremy Beadle (RIP)
Hmmm,Unfortunately, light hearted TV scam-bot Jeremy Beadle died tonight at the age of 59 of pneumonia. Much Leigh sadness to go around.
Currently watching:
Doctor Who “Spearhead from Space”
Leigh
Dreams like Water
Hi everyone,
Current Listening:
BBC Radio6 Music “Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone (TX: 27th January 2008)”
Sweet,
Leigh
There’s Nothing Quite Like A Myrka and other Phobia’s!!
Hoopla Hoopla Hoopla,
It is technically no surprise – this is the horribly stage of mid/late January and seeing how’s winter, the weather is supposed to be bad, but I am always in what it does to some people’s moods. If I fell into a coma and awoke at a completely random point in the year, I might know what month it is due to my house-mate’s facial expression (slight exaggeration, naturally).
This year’s January has brought something different for me – exam time!! Like many people I hate exams and really despise that kind of exam hall atmosphere and experience. I have always enjoyed the more contemplative , planned and organised approach to education (long haul assignments and things). I really don’t believe in cramming information into my head for one two-hour session, however I did it and I think I passed.
(…take a breath…)
One thing about the final exam that I did enjoy though (Intellectual Property Law – sounds fancy, but it really isn’t) was the thunder. About the twenty minutes in, I heard (ohhhhh…. the experience) the loudest, most ferocious bit of thunder I have ever come across (unfortunately being inside I missed the lightning, but I am led to believe that it was impressive). The room felt as if it was shaking (probably was – shaky school, etc…), but it was strange seeing people have proper mini-freak outs (squirming and quivering in their seats while grappling with their table as if it were some safety blanket or a teddy bear).
It got me thinking about strange, difficult and (often) bizarre things to be frightened of. Personally I’m scared shitless of spiders and associated creepy crawlies (but that’s for another time), however I also get completely freaked out about heights and cutlery (especially spoons).
There was always one venue that I find really difficult to play at and that is the Voodoo Lounge in Dublin – don’t get me wrong though because I do like playing there, but I can never go near the edge of the stage. It’s completely ridiculous because it’s only about four feet high, but I just get really freaked out by it. Next time I’m there, watch me as I tip toe around trying hard not to fall off. About six years ago, I did a bungee jump for charity and I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my entire life – it took me about three days to realise that I had actually done it (there’s nothing like waking up in a cold sweat on Sunday night). Never, never, never, never, never….
Cutlery is my ridiculous bit – I have my spoon, my fork, my knife, as well as my cup and plate (it took me an hour to choose the plate… it had to be right!!) and no one touches them, but that is quite simply my thing…
Anyhoo on to other things – I picked up the “Beneath the Surface” box-set of Doctor Who and just stuck on “Warriors of the Deep” earlier (I haven’t seen it in years). To be honest I very vaguely remember the episode and I know it has garnered a very bad rep amongst fans, but I couldn’t remember exactly why. I know the Myrka costume is brilliantly awful, but nothing could ever prepare me for Ingrid Pitt’s drop-kick on a pantomime horse.
Even though I am a dedicated lover of the show, I don’t think that I could ever give the thumbs up to an embarrassing production – I’m just glad I watched it alone if only to avoid a good rubbing by my house mates.
Before I split down to the local record shop, I’m going over to On the Record to stream Hot Chip’s new album. Should be somewhat interesting (…I hope).
Current listening:
Buzzcocks “Spiral Scratch”
Woopla-hoopla!!
Leigh
LPX interview on Off Her Rocker
Hi everyone,I’ve just had an interview posted up by Naomi McArdle from “Off Her Rocker/Hot Press” about the “Seventeen” release – check it out here.
Sweetness,
Leigh
The Day the Weekend Blurred Into One Ominous Blob and thus I got Saturday and Sunday mixed up!!
I must apologise to one and all for my absence over the last few days, but I’ve been enduring the wonderness of exams (…oh yayyy and all that shite), though what happened afterwards is something of a mystery… (ish, I think). One thing that definitely stuck in my head was horrible the weather was everywhere, but before I go into this I ought to explain where Ii stand when it comes to such mundane material. I don’t mind the cold at all, in fact I rather like it!!
However, as I’ve said before rain annoys me deeply. But there is nothing more horrible, soul destroying or just plain shitty than that drizzly misty bollocks that spends so much taunting you by quietly pouring semi-soaked words into my ear, whilst all the time encouraging the humidity (even in winter) to creep sneaker-wise through my jacket.
In a sentence, I can briefly describe the feeling as “ugh… ugh… ugh…”
Current Listening:
Blitz: “Punk Singles and Rarities, 1980-83″
Shazwha’,
Leigh
Last Night, I Broke My Bed!!
Hi folks,
While not the most interesting blog entry in the world, I just thought it’d be nice to share this with you all.
Cheers,
Leigh
Rain, Cabaret and Empty Streets – reports from a rainy last night…
Morning all,
As I sit here (reading and writing, reading and writing, etc…) with the pub cat to my left (seriously, he’s called Jack), I actually ponder on how nice it would be to have a TV right now. As much as I don’t particularly watch the thing (bar Doctor Who and Formula 1), I feel somewhat compelled to want one if only to cure the boredom – there’s only so much music I can listen to every day and my head isn’t geared towards studying at the moment.
(Actually, no. What I just said (wrote) is not entirely true! It’s more a case of “we have a TV, but we choose not to fix the cable is case it interferes with our studies.” Actually, no. That’s a complete fallacy. It’s actually that “the cable is knackered and we can’t be bothered to get it fixed…” and that’s fine with me. It’s only in cases of extreme boredom that I wish I had a TV. I’ve tried to catch the radio this week, but I’ve just been disinterested – I’ve other things on my mind right now.)
But back to now and Jack has just dropped off and the music in the pub has stopped (at least it’s not cover bands!). Thankfully, cover acts are in somewhat short supply in High Wycombe (they make up for it with shit “nite klubs” throwing the latest in bangin’ urban numbers while also playing token chart R’n'B). There’s a bar a couple of minutes down the road from my house that positively dig cabaret acts – Elvis Pesley, Crusty Springfield, Cruddy Holly – they get all the dead stars (minus the charisma, but with a brilliant blandness topped off by a dodgy wig). Everyone in rock ‘n’ roll to country music history gets a roaring tribute and is immortalised by someone with an expensive speaker system a crap Yamaha keyboard, but I have been led to believe that that is where the money lies…
If, per chance, you have seen the 1971 version of “Get Carter” (with Michael Caine), check out the scene where he arrives at a bar and takes a phone call (near the start of the film). The scene has some slow band knocking out the hits whilst some lady in a sparkly dress croons and all the men leer much to wives disgust (this is of course of different time). Well, that’s the kind of place High Wycombe is!!
I wonder if Joe Dolan is as popular here as Katy French (don’t be afraid to say “who???”), personally I aim not to find out, but I offer some little advice – don’t knock wedding bands as I’m told those mullets are lethal and can grip around a persons neck and strangle at a thousand paces.
In this particular place, we have the pub jukebox, where heads who are a lot more intoxicated than I shimmy on down with rhythmic styling’s to various beats and bobs and whatnot. But even now there are still very few people about, so there is not much in the way of booty rattling going down. It’s not that this particular place is quiet, but more of a deadening lull that currently blankets the entire area – I just figure that people are inside watching television… bastards!
At nearly an hour later (I decided to read a while), Kim Wilde is lashing out some eighties wonderness on the pub-box (get used to it) and Jack is still asleep to my left with sharply attired “indie” girls (bollocking on about how bored they are) sit to my right and so I decide to take stock…
- Still pissing down – yep
- Still wishing I were somewhere else doing something else – yep
- Still pissing down – yessss…
- Still wishing the TV was working – depend on what’s on really (if it so happens that Alan Titchmarsh is the only thing on, then TV can fuck right off!!)
On a side note, I had another “angry spell” tonight and as far as I’m concerned Dream Theatre are the new enemy (just the most pompous, arrogant wanker of musical styling’s since Yes and various other 1970’s prog-rock-wank). Alas it’s now 11pm and Jack has just woken up. It’s time to finish my beer and grab a quick burger from the kebab van (it’s the only thing open here). I jolly march all the way home, quietly aware that I still talk to myself rather loudly in public. I need a holiday…
High Wycombe loves you all,
Leigh
Great Inventions, Part One: Vilcus plug dactyloadapter
Heads up!!I found this (and bulletined it on MySpace) the other day, but I thought it deserves a blog entry all its own as I really think it is brilliantly nuts. I can only imagine it being used for some sort of bizarre sexual practice, but I can see how people may get some sort of kick out of it….eh…
Sweet-a-majig
Leigh
So anyway, I woke up one night….
Thus thus thus….
With that in mind, I grabbed myself three bowls of dry Rice Krispies (funky, funky, funky, funky, funky, but not in a John Woodvine sort of way) and chomped away with my favourite spoon before knocking back four pots of tea while watching M*A*S*H whilst contemplating a world where Larry Linville is the President of Earth (some 20 years into the future of course – it doesn’t matter that he’s already deceased a long time, we’ll only need his head).
Unfortunately I’m stuck with that horrible feeling of really wanting to go to the shops, if only to have a look around, because quite simply there is nothing to do at all (to be honest I also wish I was quite drunk right now). Compounding this feeling of wretchedness is the fact that I discovered today that I left my copy of “The Rain” by Ghazal before I flew out from Ireland on Monday (great music to lose my mind to) – even if I was a rabbit, I wouldn’t be a happy bunny!!
However at the moment, I am currently watching Tom Baker read out some rather chilling late night horror stories (see “Late Night Story”, re: BBC Television 1978) on a DVD (tis indeed archived extra’s on disc two of “Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor”) – it’s great, but I just want to go outside and drink polish now while using my fourth and fifth hands to turn the lights out. By the way Late Night Story has, indeed, one of the creepiest intros of all time.
And thus it is now 7.26am and it is getting somewhat brighter while outside the rain bitterly drops and dashes against the window-sill and so I’m going to make some tea and watch television (I’m not going out yet into that weather). I need a jacket…. a nice jacket, but I’m not willing to spend!!
Currently watching:
Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor
By the way, I hope you enjoy the garden gnome… we have one sitting in our living room beside the TV that’s not connected to anything – pictures later.
Leigh
