The Getintothis Alternative Christmas Message
Can collaborator, electronica guru, Liverpool expat and all-round dude, Jono Podmore delivers this year's alternative Christmas message - huzzah!
I know it's contrary to the unwritten code of the music industry that says we have to be positive, smiling bunnies at all times but I'M FEELING IT!
I'VE BEEN CWEDIT CWUNCHED!
The back end of 2008 for me was scheduled to be a veritable caravan of gigs, shows, installations and international love-ins. But what did I get? Cancellations.
I stopped answering the phone, reading my mail, even answering the door but panicking promoters seemed to seek me out wherever I could hide.
As revenue from recorded music (at least for musicians) has plummeted steadily since the great CD swindle came to an end at the turn of the century, I was not alone in believing that live music would save our sorry arses from the dole queue.
Gigs and merchandising would fill the yawning monetary gap left by a population who have wised up to how massively they had been ripped off .
Shelling out for over-priced re-issues on a format that was cheaper to produce but sold at a massive mark-up (due to it amazing digital sound) was one of the great cons of the 20th century.
Gigs and vinyl would save us I believed - and a handful of music lovers at independent record companies agreed but sadly the majors who manipulate our entire business so viciously didn't. They didn't invest in anything other than what they could snort up their noses.
But is it just me? Is it my own bitterness? Have I missed something?
That's what I asked myself when I couldn't see how the stability of the world's economies should be left in the hands of anonymous gamblers and crooks in search of short-term profit.... and I hate to say I told you so.
Let's just say enough of other people's shows are being cancelled that London's major listings magazine is laying people off.
So here we are - the product has become valueless, no-one can afford to go to the gigs, and the only gigs that get financial support are tried and trusted old fools wringing the filthy dishrag of their back catalogues. Magazine? Blur? Prodigy? Weren't the 80s WONDERFUL!
They certainly were if you were in A&R at one of the majors - not a barrel of laughs in the mining industry I seem to remember.
I reckon unless we boycott this crap completely we'll be left wondering how we found ourselves in the final nightmare of corporate capitalism, with only fear of eviction, the X Factor and nostalgia as the driving forces of our culture.
Again we see proof positive of the dishonest promotion of "choice" in contemporary capitalism - the bigger companies crush their smaller competition using brutal and underhand tactics and so we're left with the choice of buying the same product from the same company that we are all essentially working for.
Paranoid? Pinnacle, one of Britain's biggest independent music distributors has just gone bankrupt - leaving smaller labels in debt, their stock in the hands of the receiver and unable to get their product into the shops.
The majors are now negotiating a way to avoid collecting royalties via the MCPS - the only reasonably fair financial mechanism in this tawdry business. They ARE out to get us.
Here's some positive advice: If you're an musician - when you get to your instrument and it makes a sound vaguely reminiscent of the nostalgic shit that's saving the man's expense account YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
If you manage to produce a sound that you've never heard before, that defies definition, that makes you wonder if it's even music at all YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT!
...and don't bother with satire - time and again I've seen komedy kitsch become the mainstream and simply lining the pockets of the tasteless bankers and brokers who run our business.
If you're a music lover, it's very simple - go to loads of cheap gigs by bands you're never heard of. If their brilliant, you've made a discovery - if they're rubbish, heckle them mercilessly.
The money you save and the entertainment you'll derive from that will make you wonder why you ever spent £25 to sit in a stadium to watch some rehashed old hacks rattle away on their manager's cash registers.
And whoever you are it's time to destroy all those clothes that symbolise a yearning for bygone age of coke fuelled record industry excess.
Burn those Converse, those drainpipe jeans, those off-the-shoulder tops.
Nothing else to wear - the wardrobe is bear? Cover yourself in leaves! Paint your legs with creosote! Wrap your head in felt! Grease your arse!
Anything is preferable than maintaining a morally AND financially bankrupt culture of regurgitated anachronistic nonsense.
Don't let the panic in the music and fashion industry replace your culture with a diluted and sanitised version of your parents'.
And lastly, HAPPY CWUNCHMAS EVERYBODY!!!!
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Peter Guy - is at the forefront of Liverpool's independent music scene reporting & reviewing on the latest sounds in Merseyside and beyond.
Merry X-mas and Happy New Year to you and your family too.
oxsabine
Was it Antony Burgess who said we live in a world of sub-art? Well that was at least 20 years ago and now we are left with pop finally eating itself. I am offically spending 2009 in 1967 and driving around south london in a mini moke so I can fit in again with the 60s man..or will it be back to the last recession chic of the eighties ( I'm still wearing a black tracksuit top and Docs). We can take over Woolies and turn it into a big art happening or storm Goldman Sachs and steal all the coporate sub rothko art they have or,, or just sit down and be glad that nice OAP Mr Cohen got some cash this Chritsmas.
Keep music live...read 17 by Bill Drummond and release the bats.
yours in a masala sauce
nick
No businesses and submerging markets...
More births more crucifixions, assassinations and whatevers. Such is life and its 2000 odd years of political histories turning over in a locked groove as the eternal return’s and please tell me something different if your anything other than a couch rebel!
Its just more media antics and more blatant subterfuge remember Kosovo and the sputnik stained dress? (sorry is this a family show?) Remember the crumbling Towers of Babel and the smoke filled streets of NY? They've blown up the deserts so there's nowhere to bury our heads anymore - Is this a good thing? Is it now a question of ethics as the patsies fall off the ‘wall,’ who is really to blame? All the kings men are returning from the desert, but I don’t think they will be able to put things back together again, do you. In the meantime, will anyone wake up to our inevitable demise as captives of a media induced culture that has taken our eyes and now our ears, bludgeoning us into false sense of security. Eye! Eye! Captain iPod and Ear! Ear! Samari Didyano - no more need for subliminal messaging sonic infiltration has us locked into an economic frequency called mp3 chaos that has been playing the same tune since stock markets have exceeded the speed of sound and since Pete Gabriel preempted the 80’s by ‘selling england by the pound.’
Consciousness has been contaminated since radio-active fallout begun and having been force fed Tony Blackburn sobbing into your cornflake bowl is no fun, but one things for sure all those clinically affected by likes of "cherpy cherpy cheap cheap" have either purged or perished since. And, for those mutated survivors that still live in a continuum of radio static on a daily basis, they will need to update their corporate identity with the latest wireless aether chip coming very soon. Noise abatement issues will of course continue to increase, as DJ's will especially have even more rubbish to talk about and at an even higher volume. What usually emits from every crevice in our environment will likewise be increased from every human orifice in our ventriloquist controlled society. Anyone know where I can source some cheap attenuators?
Communication has become a disease with which we respond with little concern, or compassion, and more and more contempt violates our way of life, the day to day struggles means bouncing in and out of the garbled barrage and clawing at the walls. All senses are now affected by the insurgent radical exploiters lurking somewhere in our bio-chemical gene pool as each generation has a similar story to tell. Control and manipulation are just paranoid perceptions, yes of course as nothing is underhand anymore as everything is out in the open, right! The fear comes with a public health warning and a ‘didn't I tell you so’ is written in small print with alerts built into the latest hoodwink devices to capture your thoughts and dreams. There is no refuge, there is no escape and there’s no need to be suspicious!
Its a non-beilef system we buy into by living on burrowed wealth and adding to these false economies, but thats okay because I hear we have another choice, there's a ‘second life,’ in which we can purchase designer clothes for an avatar if need be -WOW! The way forward in this case would be to build your own virtual venue and perform to a ready-made designer crowd. Duchamp had preempted this with his conception of the "Bride," which is representative of the state machine; the individual stripped of financial prosperity by the global conglomerates, as she stands in wake of a virtual domain with only an imagination to hide from. Well, you'll believe all else non-beilevable why not this, as it certainly comes as no surprise to someone who has experienced the wrath of money driven distributers whose aims were solely to control all worldly mechanization's and leave you destitute as part of the bargain, unless you played the commercial game of course.
"Pinnacle" is the point at which we reach and can reach no further, which does make us a sad bunch homo saps when we eventually realize all egg baskets belong to the same God. And, without getting to theological, by the sounds of it the snowblind disciples have been leading the blind up the mountain again under the guise that everyone needs snow for Christmas. Even before the pear tree has dropped its first leaf, a swarm of xmas partridges hit our TV screens with plenty advance warning us to buy! buy! buy! But, time fly's when your so preoccupied with what gig to go to, or what clothes to wear. I mean, Morrissey had this problem and managed to capitalize on it all the same, by turning up to his own gigs and moaning about why he hadn't 'a stitch to wear' and thats no surprise as anyone cool enough was wearing dustbin bags during the last market crunch (without shoulder pads of course).
Well, I think as our dear maestro has duly noted, that this ongoing symptomatic of 'throw-back' cultural regurgitation is unwarranted. It resides somewhere within the amoebic clusters of time-warped collectives that feed on aging hormones for profit. Which, in some way defines a clear divide for a culture that smolders on the rock' n' roll heap, seemingly exempt from pre-programmable instrument's and hell bent on corporate convention, where the forces of musical progression is nothing but obscene let alone live. Now, better rid the planet of this incessant money making mindlessness by making the internet freely available for a new generation of pre-encoded individuals who prefer to turn commercialism up on its head and by turning their jeans inside out. As the saying goes 'the brass is Browner on the other side!'
In todays technological climate, with 'virtual' material wealth there is no excuse not to stay at home and claim your fame by uploading your artistic outputs; music, videos and blogs. Overall, this action becomes an expression of how our inner space is being cultivated, accumulated and manipulated by the same infiltrating clusters looking for ways to churn our ideas back onto the high street. And of course this is what most people seem to want even though they won't admit it to themselves or maybe they’re to dumb to see. All the same, streaming whilst dreaming is a pleasant past time for exorcising contempt and winding down all the years of bitterness over label and distribution deals that went the proverbial ‘pear route.’ Lets face it, "De-manufacturing" is the name of the game, but all escape routes have been blocked from your internet service provider and all subscriptions for the next marketing conference have been sold out..... what a crying shame.
Well, what is the point you may ask if things are a case of same shit different venue? Its our expectations that have to change as everybody wants something in return for their efforts. What is important for anyone ‘serious’ about making "popular" music, is to play the game; that it is not commercially viable, it is a non-saleable product and is not only trying to retain individuality in a particular style, but is accessible to everyone to exploit for free. Now, if some smart ass try's to get away with sampling your track, providing you haven't already used blatant samples yourself. Then you can pursue a legal route and show them whose boss. Once you get your settlement you can buy a snowy white mountain for yourself and live in pure paranoia for the rest of your life if your initials happen to be JR.
Don't use established clubs or venues for live gigs as they are out to bleed you dry and generally after a few months of existence they have gained such a crap reputation they are likely to come to an end. The "Underground" tube system is both a good place to play if you can get a license and also a good place to sell your CD's and merchandise as well. There has been a an increased influx of immigrant workers recently, most are willing to offer there services for little in return. One key exploit is to have them sell your merchandise and CD's whilst you tantalize the passing crowds with your underground muzak, but try to avoid confrontation with artist and repertoire types they are only after your money and fame or a place on the guest list somewhere down the line.
Very little changes in the music industry and although we have seen a shift in exploitation from physical to virtual technologies it has become a perfect breeding for these amoebic clusters to continue their destruction of our lovely musical planet. It is up to us to go out and cut a crust for ourselves and make a mess as well, bare in mind you don't have to style your hair into a dustbin lid and wear jeans and a T-shirt tucked up to your chest. You can of course wear them inside out along with your hair, but naked would be far more interesting, as this could also be a ploy to generate extra publicity. Just make sure you tell the authorities its for political reasons and not for the music as no-one makes music for the sake of music anymore, they'll think your soft and fine you.
Now in order to give yourself a fair chance, claim you have a spiritual leader such as Jimi or the Shaman and that your lyrical content is purely metaphorical. And do not mention that it is linked in anyway to the present financial climate or that you are here to either move this money mountain or chop it down with the edge of your hand. It is important that everyone gets the benefit of the full force of the avalanche you intend to make. Finally, the alternative is to give up altogether, as going out to play your instruments in public is a sign of desperation anyway. Why not be a reasonable posthuman and just be happy staying at home playing with your knobs. If you have a shagpile rug waiting to be repossessed please don’t bury your head in it and if you had an empty sock for Xmas just find the nearest couch rebel and make them eat it. Then get yourselves off to Sales while stocks last, otherwise try the following link with what little spirit you may have left.......... Happy New Year!
http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?hl=en&q=seppuku&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#
Nice one, Dr. Kipper
I'm sure we're both glad I rattled your cage.
Jono
well put jono. a good read and one that makes sense of a fucked up situation. not too sure about the arse grease tho ...
Lots of stuff to think about in there. I do worry for anyone who has to make a living from making and playing music these days. The guy (Hands) who bought EMI last year talked of 'different ways' of 'monetizing' music. The great problem — as it has ever been thus — is that revenue has always been inequitably distributed, at least as far as the artists are concerned. That's the artist's problem.
What does concerns me (as a fan) is that most performed and recorded music is way too expensive; and vastly much more than it ever was. When I left school in 1979 and started working in a dole office for 55 quid a week, a big gig in a big venue would cost £1 or £1.50 max, roughly 2% of your weekly wage packet. Similar gigs these days cost at least four / five times that amount in percentage terms.
And as for recorded music - who buys music anymore when they can get anything they want on the internets for free?
Tricky.
Great site.