Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

But who cares when we have such lovely tasteful decorations in the office?

Even Elgar's getting into the mood!

One in the eye for The Man

The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property has been published (if you can't face wading through the whole thing there's a good precis here), and it's good to see that it rejects the recording industry's argument for extending copyright on recordings, as well as making some other recommendations that nudge copyright law in a more enlightened direction. There's still a long way to go - I believe that the whole concept of intellectual rights needs to be radically re-thought - but, assuming the government follows the report's recommendations, this is a significant victory for creative freedom against corporate greed. And of course Mick Hucknall.

On an altogether less worthy note, here's a splendid tribute to Paris, Britney and Lindsay.

Captain America cheers me up

Some days you just wish you hadn't got out of bed. We have this irritating Nazi phone system at work which works on the assumption that all we do is sit around waiting for the phone to ring. So when you're busy doing something it sometimes feels impossible to make any headway, as you're constantly interrupted by phone calls from people who want things doing NOW! NOW!. We also had a visit from a large group of librarians today (god knows why) who spent a long time milling around right in front of my desk drinking tea, which made it impossible to concentrate on work for the feeling of being in a goldfish bowl. And also made it impossible to get at the kettle and make tea for myself. Oh, and they've put this new door in the office which you need one of those fob things to open, but as i haven't yet been given a fob thing whenever I leave the office I'm locked out and on my return have to stand at the door knocking and looking through the glass trying to capture someone's eye like an abandoned puppy. GRRRR! At least I had the mighty Fall in the CD drive to channel the irritation. And I have this splendid picture on my desktop, which makes me laugh, in that way that only rude words can :

pitch slack

A friend sent me this article about Robert Johnson today... I'm not sure how convinced I am, but it's an intriguing theory.






On a completely unrelated note, isn't it great once again to hear "Soul Limbo" as the theme music for cricket on telly? :)

Damo Suzuki

David Cronenberg's Wife want to be the Fall. They really want to be the Fall. Except for the bits where they want to be early REM. But the singer can't sing quite well enough to carry that bit off.

Kontakte take their name from a piece by Stockhausen, and have a heavy Eno influence. It's a bit like shoegazing performed by competent musicians, which is not meant as a sleight. They have moments that suggest brilliance. They need to have the courage to do less. The opening of their set was magical, then the drum machine kicked in and it became a bit more ordinary, albeit with flashes of magic.

I mention the support bands partly because they're worth mentioning, but mostly because members of them form Damo Suzuki's band. This is how he works: he turns up in whichever city he's performing in, picks up some local musicians, and then, in the fashion of a krautrock Mickey Rooney, does the show right here.

I'm being flippant. I shouldn't be, because this show was one of the best gigs I've been to in ages. I can't really describe it, because there's no set list, just a free-flowing stream of consciousness, the band flying while Damo sings, burbles and growls at whim on top of it all. It all ought to be a disaster and self-indulgent nonsense, but it isn't. It's magical. He's a shaman, and I find myself drawn into his sound-world, my mind in a trance, my body moving instinctively to the music. I feel as I think I might at some primitive ritual, where the sheer force of sound transports me from my physical existence to another plane. If you think this sounds pretentious, I don't care, really, because this is how it felt. It's primal, gutteral stuff, a relentless, hard rocking beat underpinning a welter of sound from guitars, one-string bass (a strange looking contraption that looks like a broomstick that's been strung and plugged in) and violin that's almost palpable in its intensity and volume (my ears rang all the way home). He played for an hour and a half, and I'd have been happy if he carried on all night. When he eventually draws the evening to a close (more at the behest of his band than any desire of his own, it seems) he is applauded rapturously by the audience. I'm at the front, and I get to take his hand, and bow to him in a gesture of gratitude. He bounds beyond me into the audience, and proceeds to hug pretty much everyone, as far as I can see. That doesn't make me feel less special. This is a man of huge generosity of spirit, and to him we're all special. This is the only show he's playing in this country this time, I have a feeling we'll all be back for the next one though.

Fuck it, this is how music should be.

Hucknall the idiot

Ginger Charlie Drake lookalike, ageing lothario and all-round twat Mick Hucknall wrote this article in the Guardian the other day. It's worth reading for the comments posted after it comprehensively demolishing his "argument". Go on, read it. Read it and laugh at the stupid ginger tosser. And then tell him what a stupid smug wanker he is. Do it. Do it.

Some random thoughts on No Music Day

Avoiding music's very difficult. I'm not sure if it's harder in a music library or not. the obvious course would have been to take the day off, but I've already used up my holiday allowance for the year, and anyway, where's the challenge if you take the easy way out?

Here are most of the incidents of inadvertent hearing of music that happened to me:

tinny sound leaking from iPod/Walkman headphones: 2 (less than I'd have expected)
colleague playing CD in stock room: 2
whistling: 12 (much more than I'd have expected)
sounds from colleagues' PC: 2
singing: 1
inadvertent playing of music by Resonance FM: 3
Mobile phone: 2 (much less than I'd have expected)

I found myself putting Resonance FM on the PC headphones for most of the day, just to block out the noise in the office. it really drove home how noisy the place is. This is what I use music for normally during the day. I feel very bad about this, but I'm not sure I could bear to sit here without that shield. Maybe I'm just basically intolerant and antisocial. I don't think I am, though. This is one to ponder at length. Is it just the lack of control over sound that grates?

Spoken word stuff doesn't smother ambient noise nearly as well as music.

It's much harder to listen to non-musical sounds and work at the same time. Does this mean that my mind can absorb music on a more basic level, or just that I'm not really listening?

I heard some very interesting things that I would probably never have listened to otherwise.

I really, really, hate the sound of whistling.

When you're trying to avoid it, hearing music can be rather painful and stressful.

If I'm using spoken word and ambient recordings to the same purpose as music, does that make them music?

Conversely, if I hear music and treat it as unwanted noise and avoid it, does that stop it being music?

How would my experience have differed if I'd stayed at home, in an environment I could control? Would it have been calmer, or more stressful?

I've always been aware of the way music is imposed on us - it's different from other art forms like that. If there's a painting in the room you can avert your eyes, but if someone is playing music you can't really avert your ears. Today really rammed that fact home, it's that imposition that robs music of its meaning, it just becomes more noise.

Why are we afraid of silence? If you read the statements on the No Music Day website, there are some extraordinarily aggressive posts against the idea of going for a day without. I had a mini-argument with one colleague who really seemed unable to comprehend the idea, and could only make smug snobbish comments along the lines of "oh well, I suppose some music's very easy not to listen to." I found myself thinking what a small world he inhabits, and how awful it must be to have such a blinkered outlook.

I think I've become more aware of a very fundamental need/desire for music as a result of spending a day shunning it.

Throughout the day I had various pieces/songs pop up in my head. If I have music in the front of my imagination, even though I'm not physically hearing it, am I really experiencing a day without music?

I've gone straight back to listening to music today. Am I really any better than a junkie?

There are too many unanswered questions here. I'm going to have to do it again next year.

Anyway, Hail! bright Cecilia, and all that.

No Music Day

Tomorrow is No Music Day. No music will be posted here tomorrow, nor anything on the subject of music. Please do not look at or attempt to perform or in any way interact with any of the music here, or anywhere. Thank you.

release the music

Copyright's a subject I've long had mixed feelings about, and indeed it was partly thoughts about it that prompted me to start this blog. The pieces I post here are intended to be free for anyone to use as they will for any non-profit making purpose, in the spirit of the creative commons principle, and I've long thought that current copyright law is not only inadequate to cope with a world in which sampling exists and the presence of the internet is making national differences in the laws governing creative activity unsustainable, but actively harms composers' (and any creative artist's) ability and freedom to create. Think of J.S. Bach's arrangements of Vivaldi or Mozart's rewriting of J.C. Bach, and you'll have an idea of the kind of thing I'm thinking of as work which is vital to a composer's development, but which is rendered illegal by current law.

Now the recording industry seeks further to limit artists' ability to react with the culture around them by campaigning to have the duration of copyright on recordings from 50 to 70 years. They claim this is in the interests of the artists, but the truth is that all they are really interested is maintaining their grip on a cash cow. I believe that to change the law in the way they propose would be not just capitulating to corporate greed, but an act that would actively damage the cultural life of this country.

I won't bore you with facts and figures, you can find all the information you need here. What I will do is implore you to go to the Release the Music website and add your name to their petition.

Of course it's important to protect artists' livelihoods, and record companies are entitled to profit from their business like any other. But it's also important that creative work be allowed to pass into the public domain, where it can become the seed for new work. because if we can't do that, what on earth's the point?

Fast N Bulbous

I love Captain Beefheart. Let me make this clear. I need to convey how much I love Beefheart before I talk about this gig, so please bear with me.

When I was about 15, I liked to think of myself as someone who could get all the weird shit no-one else got. I listened to the Mary Chain, I listened to 8 Songs for a Mad King... I took pride in finding sense and truth in sounds others dismissed as noise.

And then, in the space of a few weeks, I did 2 things: I borrowed Bitches Brew from Birmingham Central Library and bought Trout Mask Replica.

These two albums were like nothing I could conceive of. There was nothing I could hang anything on, they were both just so far out. But I could hear, somewhere in this confusing noise, SOMETHING. Something very important that I knew I had to grasp, no matter how long it took.

In the event, it took me the best part of 10 years to understand those records. And it was worth every second when I reached that point when suddenly everything clicked and they became as clear as the simplest nursery rhyme to me. Since then I've always harboured a suspicion that any really great music takes a decade to understand, and if it doesn't, it's not really worth it.

Anyway, the point is that I love this music beyond reason. So when I heard that ex-Magic Band guitarist Gary Lucas was coming to these shores with a new band dedicated to performing the Captain's music, I was intrigued, but also wary. I've seen Lucas perform before, both in his own right and with various collaborators, including the reconstituted Magic Band, so I knew that at least the evening would be a well presented, respectful display of Beefheart's music.

What I wasn't really prepared for was that the band would do something I'd have doubted possible: they didn't just play the tunes, they worked them to create something new. Everything they played was familiar, yet also sounded as if it were being recreated right in front of me. This show was presented under the aegis of the London Jazz Festival, and it succeeded purely in the terms you might expect from that: it presented Beefheart's music as a living, breathing thing, no museum exhibit.

I went expecting some good musicianship and some rekindling of memories. I got that - Gary Lucas played Evening Bell and Flavor Bud Living about 2 feet away from me, for chrissakes! - but I ended up buying the album, and more importantly, I went home dizzy in the joy of having been reminded in the best possible way why I love this music.

Do I sound lime a raving fanboy? I don't care. This was one of those rare evenings when I really felt the full force of what music is capable of. Did I mention that I LOVE Captain Beefheart?

Bowmans update: They're nearly there, but they still need your votes, and all your friends, people! Get on over to the Deli and do that voting thang! And then make your friends do it. And their friends. (&c.)

Seems a while since I did one of these... there's always a slump when you've finished a piece, when suddenly something that's been in your mind for weeks or months (or longer) is no longer there, so this is the time when it's important just to write stuff, without worrying about quality. Keep the brain working.

Hail! Herbie

Herbie Hancock took the stage at about 8.10, and looked about 20 years younger than he actually is. God, I hope I look that good if I reach that age. Seaton and I had me up in the aptly named World's End pub down the road at 6-ish. He was early, I was late, a first for both of us, I think. When we got there they were playing Guns N Roses as if the '90s had never happened, and Strictly Come Dancing was on the big screen, which led to some touching male bonding as we admitted our mutual addiction to the programme. Things got beyond parody when they started playing Spinal Tap.

Anyway, we moved on to have a very nice Vietnamese curry, then to the Roundhouse, the first time I've been there. If it had been a rock gig, I'd have said it was a small, intimate venue. But for a jazz gig, it was a cavernous barn, and this was a lot of the problem with this gig. The half-hour of African-influenced ambient stuff would have gone down very well in a venue like Ronnie Scott's, but in the roundhouse it was just a cue for many in the audience to have a very loud natter.

If I'm giving the impression that I didn't enjoy this gig, that's not right. I loved parts of it. There was a certain amount of Weather Report style noodling which tested the patience, but there were also moments of transcendence. Herbie is of course renowned for what he's done to make the synthesiser an acceptable instrument, and there was plenty of evidence to support this, but for me the best moments were those when he sat down at the piano and let rip. He's done an awful lot of groundbreaking things in his time, but at the heart of it is the fact that he's a phenomenal keyboard player, and it was in the moments that I heard that, unencumbered by sound effects or stylistic statements, that the force of the man was truly to be felt.

I took my camera along, but way at the back as I was, I couldn't get a decent shot. Them's the breaks.

p.s.: today's obligatory Bowmans plug: Please go to the Deli Magazine and vote for the twins in their Band of the Month poll. They're currently second, and they really should be first. Let's make it happen!

more gigology

Tonight I went to the Bedford in Balham, where a lot of fine people were playing, but I was mainly there to see the excellent Bowmans, whose album (which you can, and should, buy here) is one of my very favourite things at the moment. In fact, I rate them so highly I skived off my orchestra rehearsal to go. I was lucky enough to nab them for a quick chat, and I'm pleased to say they're as nice as they are talented. And their album's ace, did I mention that? Really, buy it.

sound and vision

Tonight I went to see the Photophonic Experiment at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The basic idea of the show was the interplay between light and sound, using light sources to generate noises. If that all sounds rather esoteric, the result wasn't: There's a very simple delight in hearing sounds resulting from flashing or moving light, and the sheer playfulness of the project came across wonderfully. Well, I enjoyed it, anyway. Sometimes it's good just to revel in sound.

The Joy of Colds

One of the advantages of being ill, as I've been for the past few days, apart from the fact that it forces you to stay sober and go to bed early, is that your brain goes haywire and dredges up old things you'd forgotten about, which makes for much surfing fun. And oh joy! I see that finally, the excellent Police Squad is coming out on DVD. I first saw this at some ungodly hour on TV in the '80's and it remains one of the funniest shows of the past 25 years, absolutely stuffed full of gags that demand and repay repeated viewings.

While I'm on the subject of obscure things that are about to become available again, Vivian Stanshall's bizarre and insane Sir Henry At Rawlinson End finally resurfaces very soon. I can't really describe it in any way that would do it justice, really, suffice to say that Stanshall was a comic genius in the same league as Spike Milligan, and you really should watch this.

Oh, I've just updated Big Dog's Kennel, so go along and have a look at that. I was looking over sketch books and the like the past couple of days, and I didn't quite realise how many unfinished ideas I had sitting about, so with any luck I may get back into the habit of putting new stuff up a bit more regularly than I have done recently.

Finally, because - hell, I don't need a reason - here's a picture of my nephew:

"The complete consort dancing together"

Last night Kensington Symphony Orchestra celebrated its 50th anniversary with a concert at the Barbican.

We'd been worried about the risk of booking a hall like that - what if nobody came? We'd have been in a very deep financial hole, for one. Fortunately everyone worked incredibly hard to sell the gig, and over the past week or so, it became clear that far from struggling to minimise our losses, we were looking at the possibility of a sell-out. The last few days I lost a lot of time to regular visits to the Barbican website, willing those last remaining tickets to go. When I arrive at the hall yesterday lunchtime to set up, I was told there were only 25 seats left unsold.

It felt very strange, almost surreal, to stand on that stage as we hauled percussion instruments into place and look out at the empty hall, and to think that we'd be on this side of the performer/audience divide in a matter of hours. As the players arrived, and we began to rehearse, there was a palpable air of excitement, but more remarkably a kind of serenity. No sense of nervousness, just of expectation, that after all the work that has gone into preparing for this night, not just in rehearsing these particular pieces or haranguing anyone and everyone to buy tickets, but over many years to raise the orchestra's standards and ambition to the point where playing the Barbican seems appropriate rather than hubristic, this was a defining moment, the top of a mountain from where we could look back at where we'd come from, and out to the peaks that stand ahead.

Perhaps I'm being a bit over the top here, but what the hell - I'm damn proud of this band and what it's achieved, and of the fact that I get to play in it. As our conductor Russell Keable said in the article in the concert programme, an amateur orchestra can exist for the indulgence of its members or it can try and make a difference, and that's what makes KSO such a rewarding thing to be part of.

Strangely, the size of the audience doesn't really register, I think partly because of the steep banking of the seats in the auditorium. And anyway, the audience tends only to register peripherally when you go onstage - there are too many things to think about without getting nervous at the thought of all those people waiting to hear you. What did make a powerful impression, however, was the sound of the applause. In the places we normally play, the couple of hundred or so people sitting there certainly make a noise, but there are always hints of individual pairs of hands. Here, there was a kind of whooshing sound, like waves on a shingle beach. It was a noise that utterly transformed the evening, and suddenly brought into focus the specialness of the occasion.

Afterwards, we drank in the bar until midnight, and everyone shone with giddy joy at what had just happened. And the next day we got ready for the next 50 years.

Origins

I went back to Birmingham this weekend, for my parents' golden wedding anniversary. It turned out to be a good do, it was just the immediate family (although that's still 15 people, including my brother's newborn). It's always a source of mild anxiety when we all get together, as there's we're not a particularly close bunch, and there can be tension between us (especially the older ones), never explicit, but always hanging in the background. But there was relatively little of that, everyone behaved themselves, the food was great (courtesy of Syd the chef, who was absolutely lovely as well as being a wonderful cook). The bombshell came at lunch on Sunday, when my 2nd brother announced he was getting married. I'd had an inkling this was coming, but it was still a shock to hear this actually said. It's a complicated situation for all sorts of reasons, but I'm certainly not in a position to criticize anyone else's love life, so I can only wish them all the best.

In a parallel universe of awkward family ties, 2000 AD is currently running Origins, which will over the course of the next 6 months or so lay out definitively the tale of how Judge Dredd's world came to be. It's written and drawn by Dredd creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, and is well worth anybody's time. It's only up to Episode 4, so there's still time to jump on board. What Wagner's done with Dredd over the past 30 years is little short of miraculous, it's still one of the finest pieces of social satire you'll read anywhere, and this story promises to be a landmark, so you really should take out a subscription to the comic.

On a sad note, one thing that's missing from this tale is the lettering of tom Frame, who died recently. Lettering is the Cinderella job in comics, often un-noticed, but essential, and tom's work was as much a part of Mega City One as Wagner's prose or the drawing of Ezquerra, MacMahon, Bolland, and all the artists who've contributed to the strip over the years - in fact, even Wagner himself takes second place to Frame as the most prolific talent to work on Dredd not to mention the many other stories he worked on in his career). Please remember him by contributing something to this excellent charity: www.mariecurie.org.uk/supportus/waystodonate/

Vworrrp! Vworrrp!

Today I felt more excited than I ever have about where I work when I found out what's lurking 3 floors below my office.

In case you're not a spod, I should explain that the title of this post is the rendering of the tardis's dematerialisation sound that they use in the comic strips published in Doctor Who magazine since the late '70s. Some of these strips are quite brilliant, and there's one in particular that's reprinted in this book featuring an old-school cyberman beautifully drawn by the great Mick McMahon.