Longing for the day ...

Thick crusts of barnacles

Mental note: you can't just pick up an instrument having not played it for several years and expect to play recordably on it. That's been my frustating experience playing the drums over the past few weeks. I'm sure I wa a lot better than this the last time I was in a studio, but everything just seems slow and sloppy at the moment.

Still, after a couple of weeks of bashing away and practicing those good old rudiments, things have improved to the point of reasonablness - just as well I'm only recording a "live" feel set. Much improvement will have to be made before anything is releasable as a recording.

I've gotten about four songs out of the 10-song live set started and will work on them solidly for the next few weeks ... It's coming together slowly.

The fatigue has returned a little, which is slowing me down. Sleep patterns are also ... unrewarding ... at the moment. But the project is up and running, which feels great and I'm enjoying the challenge.

Explaining suicide terrorism

Keith Suter says it far better than I ever could here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3707. It works nicely with an article in the Australian Financial Review, in which Scott Burchill examines the way proponents of the "War on Terrorism" use a false 'us against them' depiction in most counter-productive politics. Life is never that simple. We are never attacked if we have no part in the play ...

This is a great understanding and it's one that the advocates of the "War on Terrorism" just don't get. If only everyone understood that violence against desperate peoples is counter-productive.

Bring on the day when vengence is forgone in favour of understanding.

An industry in crisis.

Last night I was reading a book called The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, which quoted the following figures: in 1985 the US music industry made a pre-tax profit of US$200 million on gross sales of US$4.5 billion - a lousy 2.5% return (pre-tax!). Even worse, they did so with expenditures of US$60 million on "promotion, some of which, everybody knew, was kicked back to corporate vice-presidents".

Obviously, in that era some people got rich - Madonna and Bruce Springsteen leap to mind and some really great music was made (not necesarily by the same people). But pair that data with figures like those from Phil Tripp and Alex Malik: in 2004, in the USA, there were "30,000 album releases. There were only 100 certifiable hits. Albums that made a hefty profit. Of those 30,000 titles, only 1000 sold over 5000 copies. Only 5000 sold over 1000 copies. In other words, 25,000 releases sold less than 1000 copies each" and "a 42% decline in the number of titles released over four years is a fact". I don't have any figures for the years in between, but assuming the pattern holds (and there's no reason to think it doesn't), you see a picture of an industry in which the costs of corruption have forced the risk of album release unsustainably high - and the result has been a reduction in production. This is clearly an industry in trouble.

Thank God alternatives are now available for people who want something other than low-risk, low-value musical wallpaper.

What am I up to??

This blog is supposed to be about music and stuff but it hasn't featured much of that lately. So, what is going on?

Well, several things, really. I'm planning to re-record "State against State", which was ignored by everyone except Bill Riner at the ABC (who couldn't use it), with the guys from the Australian Creative Resources Online. That could be fun - and the UQ Business School said they might try to get it some attention next year.

I've just done a photo shoot for Lizard Drinkin', my pop covers band. This is in a bid to get some easy bucks out of the technology I've invested in. Not expected to be going on for long, but it would be nice to have it cover costs. Lizard Drinkin' is a covers duo I do with Paul Taylor, a many-splendid guitarist.

There's Bun Ber E's third album. Last night night I found this review, which is pretty much right on the mark. I think what we're doing on this third album, however, will be more interesting and varied. Doing traditional stuff the traditional way bores me, frankly, but there's an audience for it. The next effort will be very different.

Finally, there's the Genre Benders, which is coming along painfully slowly. I have put together a 45-min live set and am in the process of recording all the backing tracks for it. I hope to get this up and running before the end of the year. The initial set includes two covers: Sammy Hagar's "There's only one way to Rock" which opens the show with reggae, country and metal choruses; and Jon Bon Jovi's "U.G.L.Y.", which is a song I dedicate to my best buddy, Gumby.

Apart from that, the set looks like this: Dancing with the Stones, Cry to Heaven, Long for the day (accoustic - to dispell any detractors about backing tracks), Hey 21, Maniac, Simplicity, Astral Traveller, and finishing with Heart's with you. Obviously, some of these are still works in some sort of progress.

Still, that's the way I want to head - to get the Genre Benders up and running and see what might come of it. Experiments in music, that's the life for me.

They just don't get it ...

I don't often agree with The Australian's Foreign Editor, Greg Sheridan, but on July 9, just after the London bombings, he said this:

There is a persistent desire to pretend that the war on terror is an American exaggeration, or something, at worst, equivalent to an occasional passing storm.



But London shows us, once more, that the war on terror is going to last for a long, long time, and that the enemy is determined and resourceful and resilient.

I have to agree, but what proponents of the latest Iraq war, and of the "democratisation" of the Middle East in general don't understand is that this policy and the process of interference is just making things worse. The proof of this comes with the identification of the London bombers as suicide bombers who were UK-resident, England-raised, well educated Muslims who were "off the radar" in terrorist terms.

What this tells us is that the cause of liberation of the Middle East is driven, as I have said all along, by a deeply-held sense of grievance that people of like minds all over the world can identify with strongly. As long as the West's intereference in Middle East matters continues this sense of grievance, the terrorists will continue to strike back in the only way they know how.

Imposing Western democratic values via military conquest is just another slap in the face to people who lack a sense of self-determination. The perpetuation of conflict in Northern Ireland, Palestine and the Balkans is ample evidence of the way the cycle of violence works: the current generation take a particular, by nature one-sided, view of the origins of the conflict; they strike against the enemy; the enemy have an equally strongly held view - they feel wronged and strike back; this retaliation is seen as further aggression and is responded to in kind.

And so it goes on, like two kids fighting in the playground - but far more complex and deadly for all concerned. In the Middle East, the history of Western interference is hundreds of year old.

I just hope the war-mongers get removed from positions of power (and soon) and that the "war on terror" becomes a "struggle for equality and peace".

Again

[This space left blank for the victims of the London bombiings and their families]

Well, that makes sense, I guess ...

It's absolutely despicable - and clearly indicative of the mindset in this country - that the Live 8 concert won't be shown live. Instead, Channel Nine will show Wimbeldon - featuring no Aussies, BTW - with a potted Live 8 version with local interference and interviews on Sunday night. Pathetic! Gutless!!

Of course, this is a nightmare decision for any programming director and I (sports nut that I am) would hate to confront it myself. However, the result is a clear indication of priorities. Where we could wach a genuine attempt to change the world and make life better for millions, we will instead watch the bastion of teh establishement - tennis - being played by millionnaire Western athletes for not reason other than self-aggrandisement and broadcast for no reason other than profit.

I remember sitting up to watch the original Live Aid concert in 1985. I even bvorrowed mum and dad's spare tv and put it in my room. I don't remember much of it but I remember the atmosphere, the feeling of optimism and the young Madonna (and U2, though I couldn't figure out what they were on about at the time). The experience helped shape my worldview and define my sense of what was right, what was wrong, and (in the long run) what was possible.

It's a tragedy to realise that young Australians 20 years later will not experience the same wonderous, eye-opening event. Typical of John Howard's myopic, soulless Australia to show the potted version, with local talents who missed performing because of a stuff-up ...

Personally, if I'd been the Wimbeldon organisers I'd have postponed all games scheduled for tonight for 24 hours. I hope it arins and washes out the day's play ... that would be some justice.

Reasonable point that

My dearest darling hit me with a home truth last night. I've been away for a few days taking the kids to their grandparents' farm and when I returned, she announced that she'd watched Big Brother uncut, late and live, or whatever it's called.

She reckons that it's no surprise that the kids in that house are getting it on, given what they're made to do by the producers. Backrubs, showers ... lots of close-contact stuff designed to make horny young singles keen to misbehave. She thinks they should be cast as saints for getting more invved ...

I'm not sure. I reckon that's all part of the non-reality part of "reality" TV. The producers could have taped tham getting it on a million times in graphic detail and we'd never know. Still "reality" TV has long been known to be a misnomer.