Stilgherrian » Music

The 9pm Edict #4

Stilgherrian — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:54:10 +0000

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is episode 4 of The 9pm Edict. Finally.

You can listen to this episode below. But if you want them all, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Update 6 March 2010: I really should link to the material I discuss. That's the Harold Park redevelopment plan and the local residents' objections, the Vivid Festival, Laurie Anderson's Language is a Virus, Dom Knight's The Premier, the portrait and the paedophile and NSW Premier Kristina Keneally's video A New Direction.]

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

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Mark Thomas on UK Digital Economy Bill

Stilgherrian — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:23:08 +0000

The movie and music industries have been lobbying governments globally to introduce so-called “three strikes” laws. Three accusations of online copyright infringement — “accusations”, mind you, not proof — and you lose your internet connection.

Copyright-holders reckon this will help prevent copyright infringement. But the concerns are that we’re entering the realm of guilt by allegation, and potentially punishing innocent people by denying internet access to everyone in a household, not just the guilty party.

The internet is now central to everything from health and education to banking and politics, so that’s one heck of a big stick.

As this 10-minute video by comedian and activist Mark Thomas explains, the UK version of this proposed law, the Digital Economy Bill, has a nasty surprise. Section 17 would give the Secretary of State the power to amend the copyright laws without having to run them past Parliament first.

Um hello? “Parliamentary democracy”, anyone?

If the embedded player doesn’t work, you can watch the video on YouTube.

At this stage, the Australian Government is not yet considering laws like this. But that could change.

Earlier this month iiNet, our third-largest ISP, won a case in the Federal Court where Justice Dennis Cowdroy ruled that ISPs are not responsible for the copyright-infringing acts of their customers. I covered that for Crikey and in the Patch Monday podcast.

Since then, communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy has said he wants the copyright-holders and the ISPs to work out a code of practice on their own. However I reckon that’s just a delaying tactic to avoid discussing such a controversial issue in an election year.

The movie and music industries are fighting hard on this one. France and Japan already have three-strikes laws, to name just two. And the industries are devoting plenty of resources.

Mark Thomas points out they were late in using the internet to make money from their assets, and now they’re looking for someone to blame. Yes, the big players may well be making less profit that before. However the bulk of their profit was from distribution. Now the costs of distribution are almost nil — yet somehow they’ve managed to end up making less money. Fools.

They also reckon that if no-one can make money from their creative acts, it’ll be the death of creativity. But in the video, prehistoric musician Billy Bragg points out that while a few artists at the top end may be suffering, the internet has proved a boon for lower-ranked artists, allowing them to reach new markets at much lower cost.

This is a big issue. It’s a complicated issue. It won’t go away. We should all stay informed.

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Al Jazeera: Email is “old fashioned”

Stilgherrian — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:36:35 +0000

I continue to get blown away by the quality of material coming from Middle Eastern media network Al Jazeera.

I’ve just watched the latest Listening Post podcast and have learned more about Yemen in a few minutes than from a lifetime of watching, reading and listening to Australian media.

And fascinatingly, this is how Listening Post presenter Richard Gizbert explained how you can take part in the program.

We are now closing in on four thousand viewers following us on Facebook and Twitter. They check in to find out what stories we’re working on and in case they want to weigh in as one of our Global Village Voices. If you’d like to do the same, just go to either of those sites and search us out. Or you can get in touch with us the old-fashioned way on email. We’re at listeningpost@aljazeera.net.

Yes, that’s right. Email is now “old-fashioned”. Love your work, guys.

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Talking Australia’s new Internet censorship policy on 6PR

Stilgherrian — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:57:12 +0000

Yes, Australia will have a mandatory ISP-level Internet censorship system. It was announced earlier today by Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy when he released the final report of the recent filtering trials.

According to the ABC News report, legislation will be introduced into Parliament next year which will require all ISPs to block material hosted in other countries which has been refused classification. That’s actualy not quite correct. It will block material which, in the opinion of an ACMA staff member, would potentially be refused classification if it were actually submitted to the Classification Board.

Provided, that is, that a concerned citizen went to the trouble of complaining about the material in the first place.

I’m still ploughing through the final report from Enex Testlab for a couple media articles I need to write tonight.

Meanwhile, have a listen to this 10-minute interview I did earlier today with Jason Jordan on Radio 6PR Perth.

[The radio interview is Copyright © 2009 Radio 6PR Perth Pty Ltd, but since they don't archive these interviews it's fair enough putting it here provided you just listen to it and I link back to 6PR and encourage you to listen. If you're in Perth. Or if you want to stream it.]

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Does 50 Cent have a heroin problem?

Stilgherrian — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:07:44 +0000

These two posters are currently on view on Liberty Street, Stanmore, near the railway bridge. I can’t help but think there’s some sort of connection… but what?

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The Future was 1993

Stilgherrian — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:33:15 +0000

Back when I was cool (roughly 1990-1995), I was executive producer of a four-track vinyl release of new Adelaide dance music: The Core EP, named after our magazine The Core. The lead track We Are The Future was by DAMC (Dave McCann) and DJ Brendan. And here it is.

If that YouTube player doesn’t work for you, try directly at YouTube.

Dave writes:

[It] then got licensed to Rabbit City Records UK, released on the Australian EP 12″. You can also find it on a Vicious Vinyl CD compilation. Carl Cox gave this track a lot of spins in 1994.

Dave has also posted a list of all the music he made as DAMC.

Other tracks on the EP were by Aquila (Matthew Thomas), Quantization (Mat Farrington) and Maas Unconscious (a duo whose names escape me just now).

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Safely home in Sydney

Stilgherrian — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:57:06 +0000

’Pong and I have returned home safely from Cowra, a 655km round trip, thanks to the wonders of Matthew Hall and the Success Whale. All hail the Success Whale! (Except Stephen Stockwell, unbeliever.)

The journey home was enlivened with an interesting experiment. Instead of me broadcasting Stilgherrian Live — bright TV lights in a moving car at night would be a plan full of FAIL — we created an inside-out radio station. Some of my followers on Twitter took up the offer to send us links to music — which we streamed live from YouTube. The audience chose the music and we listened to it.

This experiment in crowdsourcing a playlist was remarkably successful. I’ll publish the music later. But even more remarkable was the power of the hyperconnectivity. Even though we were driving through rural New South Wales, we were still in touch with our friends — wherever they were too — doing the usual things we do of an evening, like swap links and tell each other bad jokes.

I’ll have much more to say about this soon. But for now I must rest.

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My week through Twitter

Stilgherrian — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:02:52 +0000

As we begin a new and somewhat rainy Monday here in Sydney, it’s worth reflecting on my world as revealed through Twitter.

If only cats ate cockroaches my two most significant household chores would cancel out.
The only thing a VCR is good for is to watch old porno movies.
“Luxurious possum fur” is an oxymoron.
Twitter is (like all networks) just an amplifier. Natural news-bringers bring news. Natural wankers wank.
Total Eclipse of the Heart has the most sensible music video of any song ever.
“Wynyard Hotel, the sign saying ‘restrooms maintained to highest standard’ doesn’t stop stale urine smell.”
As we all know, cardio fitness is improved through gin.
“Do not insert in ear canal” is sage advice.

Now what sort of impression of me does that give? And what will this week bring?

[Credit: Cartoon Twitter-bird courtesy of Hugh MacLeod. Like all of Hugh's cartoons published online, it's free to use.]

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Eurovision at the Pub tonight!

Stilgherrian — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:03:32 +0000

Only hours to go! Eurovision at the Pub is tonight at our local “Irish” pub, Kelly’s On King, 258 King Street, Newtown. The SBS broadcast starts at 7.30pm, but we’ll be there from 5pm or so to, um, ensure sufficient fuel for a long evening of big hair, tacky costumes and dodgy choreography.

There’s a Facebook event page, but even if you don’t use Facebook please RSVP here or to my Twitter stream or somehow. The more confirmed guests, the more free stuff the pub gives us.

I’ll be Twittering the event, as will many others, with the tag #eurovision. If I have enough bandwidth, I’ll also provide an audio commentary via Ustream.

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Vale Tristram Cary, 1925-2008

Stilgherrian — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:27:44 +0000

The godfather of British electronic music, composer Tristram Ogilvie Cary OAM, died on 24 April 2008. He was aged 82.

Cary’s story is told in his Wikipedia profile and the Times Online obituary. If anyone outside the “serious music” world knows him, it’s usually for writing the soundtracks for early Doctor Who episodes and films (which he hated talking about), or the Hammer Horror movies Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971).

However Cary was also a pioneer of music synthesisers. Trained as a radar technician in WWII, he co-founded Electronic Music Studios (EMS), which created the first portable synthesiser, the VCS 3.

I worked briefly with Cary one summer as a programmer. He was director of the electronic music studio at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide. I wrote a digital filter in PL/1 (!) for what I think was the Synclavier synthesiser — though it may have been something else, because as a hardware hacker Cary was well wicked. In his studio, it was difficult to see where one machine ended and the next began, they were so cross-linked.

I remember he was particularly fascinated with the sounds of bells, which then were starting to become achievable through digital synthesis. It was the first time I’ve ever found my applied mathematics knowledge of Fourier Transforms to be even remotely useful.

If you enjoy any kind of electronic music, you should take an hour of your day to learn more about Tristram Cary. He made your world.

[Footnote: I found out about Tristram Cary's death from a most unusual source: the end credits to Shaun Micaleff's program Newstopia. The more I discover about you, Shaun, the more I think my initial assessment of you as an arsehole was a mistake.]

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Music industry internetz FAIL

Stilgherrian — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:57:20 +0000

Ah, the music industry really doesn’t grok teh intenetz. Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), who coordinated the Australian Music In Tune propaganda flick I mentioned on the weekend, didn’t know their website was offline until phoned them. Meanwhile I’ve written a piece on this for Crikey, to appear a couple hours from now. [Update 1.20pm: It's being held over until tomorrow. Apparently Crikey found something more important than me.]

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Oh you poor, dear record companies…

Stilgherrian — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:32:34 +0000

You’ve got to hand it to “the music industry”. This week they released a propaganda film Australian Music In Tune which asks us to sympathise with musicians because they’re all poor struggling artists. Diddums.

The only reason musicians trying to “make it” are poor is that as soon as they do get that sought-after recording contract they still pay for everything from there on. Before they see a single cent from their music, they have to pay off the studio hire, recording engineer, video director, stylists, set designers, editor and dozens of other parasites — including music company executives with their nice lunches and their BMW leases.

An entire industry — “the music industry” and their retail outlets — sits between the musicians and their audience, sucking out something like 90% of the money in the process.

And they have the gall to rope musicians into their propaganda film under false pretences, telling people like Frenzal Rhomb’s Lindsay McDougall that it was a movie about life as an artist.

He said he was told the 10-minute film, which is being distributed for free to all high schools in Australia, was about trying to survive as an Australian musician and no one mentioned the video would be used as part of an anti-piracy campaign.

OK, so who are the guys in the photo? Jared Madden (left) and Adam Purcell (right) have created tune-out.com in response to the industry crying poor.

They know that thanks to teh intenetz, we can distribute that music from musician to audience for a fraction of a cent. They know that the audience is deciding for themselves what’s hot or not through this social media thing, and that the entire music industry is becoming irrelevant.

You the Music Industry have failed to move with us in our discovery of new and exciting ways to interact, collaborate, and communicate. We have embraced the digital space and the opportunities it affords us, and we have changed because of this. We are developing new forms of entertainment which have transformed the way we interact with each other, with you, and with music. This is an ongoing process, and we are excited about what we will discover tomorrow.

For some reason you assume that we are the same as yesterday, and you are kidding yourself.

You wrongly place the blame of declining CD sales on others. Our source of entertainment has diversified, and we are no longer as interested in the concept of the ‘album’.

There is no digital music battle or piracy war. That is a figment of your imagination, and, every time you preach our digital crimes to us, we ‘tune out’ of your deranged ranting. Your declining profits are the symptom of a business model that is fast becoming irrelevant.

You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

Hear hear. I have signed their letter. I look forward to the video they’re producing this weekend.

Meanwhile, read Mark Pesce’s essay, Unevenly Distributed: Production Models for the 21st Century. I’ve linked to it before, but it’s especially apt today. Or read about 1000 True Fans.

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Page 161

Stilgherrian — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:15:32 +0000

I noticed this blogging meme over at Quatrefoil’s place and thought I’d give it a try. The results are surprising.

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 161.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Use what’s actually next to you.

And the sentence is:

“Sensitive site exploitation will continue.”

That sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense by itself, but the next one adds all the context you need:

So far there had been no WMD stockpiles found.

The book is State of Denial: Bush At War, Part III by investigative journalist Bob Woodward. It’s been months since I read it but for some reason it’s still on my desk.

This afternoon the BBC reports that unnamed “US officials” have evidence that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor. Here we go again. I think I might listen to some classic Detroit techno instead.

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Apple becomes biggest music retailer in US

Stilgherrian — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:05:54 +0000

Apple is now the number one music retailer in the US, surpassing Wal-Mart in January 2008. Apple now sells 19% of all recorded music in the US, Wal-Mart 15%, Best Buy 13% and Amazon 6%. Hat-tip to Daring Fireball.

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The Real Brendan Nelson

Stilgherrian — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:00:10 +0000

Will the real Brendan Nelson please stand up? Is it the man Annabel Crabb saw on Tuesday, the mild-mannered doctor with “substantial empathy for those suffering from misfortune” whose “attention is drawn disproportionately to the Gothic end of the human suffering spectrum”? Or is the rabid Bon Jovi fan?