God Save The Clientele

I wrote a belated review of a gig by The Clientele that I went to in April.

I just wanted to start using last.fm's journal space for gig reviews.

6 Mix Dumbs Down

6 Mix is a really cool slot on 6 Music, where a special guest is invited to program an entire show and is given free rein to play whatever tracks they like. I’ve discovered many new artists from the show in the past. I normally only listen if I’ve heard of the guest and think they’ll play something interesting. They’ve had sets by Jose Padilla, Lamb, Coldcut, Ladytron and loads of other interesting people. However, the last one I listened to (Richard Colburn from Belle and Sebastian) was ruined by the playing of jingles and redundant comments from the host (Asha), IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TRACKS.

I haven’t listened for a while, but the last time I did, the guest had control over the output and could decide whether to back-announce tracks one at a time, or maybe play three in a row, or even not make any comments at all (the playlist is on the web next day if something piqued your interest). Now, the guest is seemingly not allowed to talk directly to the audience at all, but is ‘interviewed’ by Asha every few tracks.

The last straw on this show was when Asha blathered on about nothing for about a minute right in the middle of Yello’s electro masterpiece “Bostich”.

I don’t have any objections in principle to track announcements, or even the odd jingle reminding me what station I’m listening to (even though that can be irritating). But they should be kept strictly near the beginning and end of tracks. On this kind of show, a particular personality and flavour is communicated through the music itself – that’s the whole point of it. It feels patronising, like they think we can’t handle some free creative output without having to have it continuously explained.

This comes on top of the axing of Radio 3’s Mixing It early this year which was another tragic episode of killing off unconventional and diverse programming. You can read a slightly sinister account of the presenters’ experience of the cancellation here.

EMI give away music?

EMI have struck a deal with Apple to offer their tracks through iTunes with no copy protection (albeit at a higher price). The commercial reason for this is to open up the user base to those who use, or would like to use, digital music players other than iPods. Currently tracks bought through iTunes are locked into the iPod.

This all makes sense for the parties concerned - EMI and iTunes get a wider audience (although Apple are taking a risk that people don't stick with iPods). But I'm sure they've all done their maths and they think that overall they will both benefit.

However in the Guardian's reporting of the story they state that "you will also be able to share tracks with friends". While that's undoubtedly true, I am pretty sure that it would be illegal. Just because the music has no technology to prevent copying doesn't mean that you have the right to make copies of it for others. I'm sure the Guardian is either mistaken on that, or are advocating illegal file sharing.

Of course those of us in the know would never buy copy protected music anyway, as we want the freedom to listen to the music we've paid for wherever and however we like, for as long as we like. That's why we use music download sites such as Bleep, eMusic, and Calabash to name but a few excellent examples.

HMV website goes rubbish

The service offered by the HMV online store has gone seriously downhill. This was one of the first online shopping sites I ever used, and until recently have always found them to be excellent. Good stock, efficient searching, reasonable prices and quick accurate delivery. But my last two orders with them have been far from satisfactory.

In the first of these two, I ordered about 8 CDs. They were all listed on their website as “Normally despatched in 3-5 days”. As I had selected a budget (free) shipping option I took this to mean that the CDs were in stock but would be sent out less quickly than express shipping. However, three of these CDs were assigned the status “On Special Order With Our Suppliers”. That didn’t sound like something that is going to be sent in a few days. The other 5 were sent within a few days, but one of them was a completely incorrect CD. For the “Special Order” discs, I waited 2 weeks before giving up and cancelling the remaining order. During this time I received one vague eMail about their supplier ordering process in general, but with nothing specific about my CDs or how long they were expected to take.

The second order consisted of 3 items. Again, all items were listed on the site as “Normally despatched in 3-5 days”. And what a surprise, all three items went into the status “On Special Order With Our Suppliers”. A week later, nothing had progressed, apart from the same waffly eMail about their internal ordering system. After 9 days I was about to give up again, when the status of one of the CDs changed to “Complete, will be despatched in accordance with selected shipping option”. What their definition of “complete” is, I have no idea. I don't think it’s complete until I have the CD. It hasn’t even been shipped, so in what sense is it complete? The other two items are still on “Special Order” with no information whatsoever about how much longer it will take.

So I’ve had enough of HMV now. I think I will wait for my complete CD to be really completed, then cancel everything else, and never go back to the website again. It’s a shame because they used to be so good. Maybe there’s just too much competition now and they can’t keep up.

It’s not having to wait for deliveries, that’s perfectly understandable, if you know before you order. But their published delivery times are ridiculously optimistic, maybe even wilfully misleading. In fact they clearly have no idea at all about how long things will take. Obviously they keep very little stock at all, and just order everything as and when the customer does. This is great for cutting their warehouse costs, but unfortunately damages their reputation as a reliable place to buy things. I buy a LOT of music, and as from now, sadly, none of that will be going to HMV. For their sake I hope their cost savings cover their lost business.

Deerhoof - London Scala, 27th March

The cover of Deerhoof's latest album "Milk Man" (left) shows a figure being injured by pieces of fruit. This image is not that disturbing in itself, it's plainly ridiculous because we know fruit is good for you. But the image did take on a new sinister edge when at the end of their recent London show they started throwing bananas into the crowd!

That's one example of the fairly high levels of interactivity that were evident. People at the front of the crowd got to play some cowbells, and right at the end there was a full-on democratic process to figure out whether t-shirts would be sold from the stage, or in the bar.

So what about the music? Well I've put off talking about that because it's difficult to explain. By turns they reminded me a bit of The Fall, Cardiacs and Trans Am. That covers the experimental, multi-tempo, art/punk side of the sound which is undeniable. But quivering next to that is a delicacy of touch that really confuses things. Their tiny Japanese vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki makes effortless leaps between sounding innocent and childlike to wailing banshee without warning. The overall effect is disorienting but not unpleasantly.

The San Francisco band seem to revel in juxtaposition and throwing diverse ideas together to see what survives the impact. They have a wilfully obscure and confusing website. Animals seem to feature heavily in the titles, suggesting a cartoon-ish, fairy story element (Rabbit Dog, Trickybird, The Pickup Bird, Holdy Paws). But then so does the vaguely horrific and nightmarish (Gore In Rut, Dead Beast Queen, Heart Failure). Dadaism does come to mind, especially as they make no attempt to explain themselves.

It was a very enjoyable night, and I always like the Scala for an intimate venue. I can't give a setlist because I don't know their stuff well enough. They have a bunch of MP3s freely downloadable, take a listen and see what you think. But watch out for the killer fruit when you walk past those market stalls...

Free Music

Kristin Hersh, former vocalist with Throwing Muses (one of my favourite bands of all time), has been fronting a new band called 50 Foot Wave for a while now. They have a sound that will be familiar to Muses fans, a bit harder edged though. Anyway, their new EP is being made available to download freely, and copying/sharing is encouraged. It is called Free Music and you can get it here.

Partly this is being done as a 'thank you' to fans, but also an experiment with a new way of distributing music - there is a PayPal donation link where you can contribute, if you want. I think this home grown approach is a wonderful thing, and is increasingly being taken up by artists especially people who have had plenty of experience with the music business, not all of it positive!

Kristin says "Money has so polluted the music world that my overwhelming urge right now is to divorce money from recorded music ... So we're sending free recordings off into the world to do their work. If people enjoy these songs and are excited by them, we ask that they share them with others. The music business is about fame and huge profits -- egos and greed -- music itself, is not."

Kristin still records and tours with solo material, and last year I went to see her perform an evening of Throwing Muses tracks with just her and an acoustic guitar. That was a rare treat, some songs that I haven't heard live since I first got into Throwing Muses about 20 years ago.

You're so Vanian

I feel sorry for The Damned. I mean the band, not the actual damned. By definition, we don't have any sympathy for them. And even if we did, nothing good would come of it.

Anyway, The Damned. They seemed to inhabit too many musical worlds at once for their own good, and I feel they never quite got the recognition they deserved in any of them. Too melodic for punk, too experimental for pop, too witty for goth.

Listening to The Black Album yesterday, I decided that it's one of the Best Albums Of All Time. It has some incredibly strong songwriting on it, which isn't something you readily associate with punk, the genre they are normally plonked in. Well it certainly brightened up my rainy trudge to Ealing Common station yesterday evening.

Hot Runes?

You may be wondering what the title of this blog means. Well, it is the name of a track by The Fall, from their album The Unutterable released in 2000. It's not the best track on the album by a long chalk, that would be "Hands Up Billy".