Blocked again

I've only been blocked on Twitter once before, that I know of.  That was by Helen Razer and to this day, I have no idea why.  I only know that I was blocked, because I went to follow her one day and found that I could not.

But I thought I'd regale you with this tale of more blockage.  This time, it came about in a record quick exchange with some tetchy Belgians who run an online magazine that goes by the name of Side-Line Magazine.

Specifically, it was this article that suggests reasons why you can't re-sell electronic media files once you've bought them.  It reads as a defence of DRM, because the reasons given is that once you have the file, you might copy it before you re-sell it.  Just "might", mind you - we're not all pirates.

Dikkii re-enters the blogosphere?

I've been a bit quiet of late. A bit of work. And, for some reason, I've started studying again.

Plus I'm doing some more stuff on the music front - I recently joined another band, and apparently I'm going to get more work with another one that I haven't played with for a while.

The new band is relying on me to write arrangements which is quite a lot more time consuming than I remembered. Some might ask, "Well why don't you just do that the jazz way where you just write a 'head' and then let the music form around that?"

Sorry, my mind doesn't work like that.

Songs to me are little planets all of their own and need to be fleshed out with their own little microcosms before you let the natives trample all over them. I find it really unfulfilling when you leave a tune as a kinda 'Argo City' thing and expect it to add its own surrounds. Particularly when you have dreamed up a great intro or ending. Or even a good middle 8.

I don't even write my own stuff: Imagine how time consuming this would be if I did? All I do is arrange other tunes - although I think that I have a pretty good ear for what works and what doesn't.

Summer is hectic down here, and I'm finding that I simply don't have even the time to read the blogs I love reading. So sorry all you folks who write great stuff - you know who you are. Eventually, I will come back to the blogosphere with a passion.

We've had heatwave after heatwave here as well as particularly nasty bushfires, and I work with someone who lost their house to the fires. It's goddamned nasty that the fire authorities believe that most of them appear to have been deliberately lit.

I have a bit of travel for work lined up in the next few weeks, and I know that this will keep me from blogging as well.

But do stay tuned - I will be back out there, eventually. I just have to try to find some kinda space.

Party on, y'all.

Rock epic of the month: "Glósóli" (Sigur Rós) 2005

Rock epics of the month is a series of posts where I'll look back on classic examples of what I think is the greatest excess of rock and roll - the rock epic.

This month, I'm really stretching the bounds of what can be considered "rock".

Sigur Rós burst out of Iceland in the mid-nineties, and some said at the time that they probably would have been long forgotten if it wasn't for a fascination with Icelandic culture that was brought to the world's attention via the work of former Sugarcubes frontwoman Björk Guðmundsdóttir, an Icelandic singer who probably would be better described as a performance artist. Or even a complete nutcase.

But where Guðmundsdóttir mined a genre all her own, Sigur Rós were probably better described as riding the wave of a peculiar genre known as post-rock.

Post-rock really was lazy journalist-speak for "How the frig do we categorise this?" It included acts like Tortoise, Mogwai and Don Caballero, and has since been used in arrears to describe some of the work by bands such as Public Image Ltd and the later work of Talk Talk.

Things that post-rock bands seem to have in common is a complete disregard for structure, as well as using their instruments in different ways to provide textures that would otherwise not make an appearance in rock music.

Sigur Rós started in Reykjavic and were named after Sigurrós, the sister of singer and guitarist Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson. Completing the band were Georg "Goggi" Hólm on bass and Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson on drums.

(Fair dinkum, there's a reason why keyboards in the anglosphere don't have accented letters, not to mention Þ (thorn), ð (eth) and Æ (ash). It's because these letters were replaced in old English by different combinations of letters that do the same thing. I am getting so tired of typing these, but I'll struggle on.)

Anyway, not long after their first album, Von, Birgisson, Hólm and Gunnarsson were joined by Kjartan "Kjarri" Sveinsson on keyboards. They soon released Ágætis Byrjun, an album that introduced the world to Birgisson's penchant for playing his guitar with a cello bow.

Gunnarsson left the band soon after to be replaced by Orri Páll Dýrason who joined the band to lend his skills to the outrageously, pretentiously titled ( ). ( ) featured eight untitled tracks guaranteed to send you barmy, and introduced Birgisson's new fascination with singing gibberish which he called, "Hopelandic".

Their previous groundwork could be described as parts that were either truly "cutting edge" or straightforward wank. In 2005, Birgisson, Hólm, Gunnarsson and Sveinsson lay down tracks in the studio for the album where their experiments with sonic textures finally coalesced into something that, while still pretentious, hit the mark musically. That album was called Takk... and was, just like its predecessors, extraordinarily well received by the critics.

Unlike Takk...'s predecessors, though, you got the distinct impression that this time, the effusive praise from the critics was a bit more sincere, rather than, "Oh shit, I better give this one top marks, because I don't know what the hell is going on and I'll look like a philistine if I don't."

The towering "Glósóli" (6:15) was the apotheosis of this album. Featuring a nice rhythmic groove, courtesy of Hólm and Dýrason, this just moseys on down with rather lovely keyboard cascades from Sveinsson.

Over the top, but nicely buried in the mix, is Birgisson's completely weird-arse falsetto, which almost certainly relegates Guðmundsdóttir's to the top of the "normal" heap.

And it builds. Oh my sweet FSM, how it builds.

By the time that this tune finally unleashes a full-blown scary monster, Birgisson has put his voice away and is blasting out klaxons on his guitar, turning all atmospheric on us at just about the right time.

Oh, and the video is absolutely perfect too.

Be blown away by this. It is frightfully good stuff.

Devo at Festival Hall Melbourne 31 July 2008

OK, so on Thursday night I went and saw Devo at Festival Hall, otherwise known as Festering Hole. I had a great time.

For those who don't know, Devo are my favourite band ever, and for those who do, you're probably sick of hearing about it. But having never seen Devo live before, I didn't really know what to expect.

I got into Devo quite young - I suppose that to a kid in second grade, a band wearing red hats that look like flowerpots (yes, I know that they're called "energy domes") is sensational - but it was only when I reached university age that I suddenly put two and two together on some of the songs. Particularly the really snigger-worthy ones such as "Uncontrollable urge" and even "Girl u want". Or even the single-entendre of "Penetration in the centrefold".

And having not been to a gig at Festival Hall for close to 10 years (yes, it's been that long) I suppose that I had forgotten exactly how loud the PA in there actually is.

We tried to get there early enough to catch Eddy Current Suppression Ring but sadly we missed them. It's a pity - I hear that they did a great set.

Next up was Regurgitator, who are always good live. And even though they mixed up their set to include old and new, they chose to concentrate quite a lot on their second album, Unit. Not really surprising, given that Unit was so incredibly 80s sounding. The all-white Abba look was strikingly effective as well.

Devo came out and ripped into "Good thing" after a short spiel by General Boy, and a few snippets from their back catalog of music videos. It was pretty good.

I suppose that I was expecting something more synth heavy, and something more approaching a greatest hits package, but what I wasn't prepared for was the sheer volume of the gig. It was brutally fucking loud. They also managed to get the more synthy songs out of the way early so that Jerry could pick up his bass and Bob #2 could transfer to guitar and just spend the rest of the set rocking out.

But anyway, in as best an order as what I remember, here are as many tunes as what I can remember they played:

• That's good
• Peek-a-boo
• Girl u want
• Whip it
• Going under
• Smart patrol/Mr DNA
• Uncontrollable urge
• Secret agent man
• (I can't get no) Satisfaction
• Gut feeling/Slap your mammy
• Jocko homo
• Blockhead
• Mongoloid
• Devo corporate anthem
• Freedom of choice
• Beautiful world

I was most surprised that their cover of "Secret agent man", as well as "Uncontrollable urge" and "Going under" got played. And they worked quite well.

Sadly, though, they chose to close with "Beautiful world" with Booji Boy on lead vocals, which didn't really work. I admit that they needed a Booji Boy slot for completeness, but it should have been a different tune. "Beautiful world" is probably the most sarcastic song ever written, and maybe it occasionally needs Booji Boy to accentuate the sarcasm in some parts of the world. But the Australian sense of humour is largely rooted in sarcasm so handing this to Booji Boy to do might have been a little over the top.

But you know the best part of this gig - no mosh pit!

Anyway, it's two days after the gig and I still have a ringing in my ears. So I must have enjoyed it.

Here's a few videos of the gig as posted to YouTube:

1. Collage of various tunes (sound quality OK)

Includes bits of "Uncontrollable urge", "Mongoloid", "Jocko homo", "Devo corporate anthem", "Freedom of choice" and "Beautiful world"

2. "Whip it" (sound quality passable)

3. "Going under" (sound quality barely rateable)

4. "Mongoloid" (sound quality rubbish)

5. "Girl u want" (sound quality not much better)

Hope that you enjoyed this.

Rock epic of the month: "One Of A Kind" (vSpy vSpy) 1984

Rock epics of the month is a series of posts where I'll look back on classic examples of what I think is the greatest excess of rock and roll - the rock epic.

Recently, I got in touch with an old high school buddy through Facebook. He posted a link to a video in a message to me, which was of this band which we were all huge fans of. The video in question contained footage from a gig that he was at. I thought that was pretty cool.

I lost touch with him not long after I moved to Melbourne. A bit of a shame, because he was quite a funny guy.

I have fond memories of this band myself, because one of the earliest all-ages gigs that I went to was of vSpy vSpy bringing the house down with an absolute ripsnorter of a gig. It would have been probably 1986 or 87.

I lived in a part of Sydney known as the Northern Beaches, near the suburbs of Manly and Dee Why. There was this youth club in Manly, called the Kangaroo Street Youth Centre, which was in, funnily enough, Kangaroo Street. Every few Fridays, it hosted a night called "Kangaroo Rock" which was a series of great all-ages gigs involving great Australian bands. And one of these was a vSpy vSpy gig.

Oh what I would have given to have been a little bit older in those days. In the eighties, Sydney was the undisputed live music capital of Australia. Almost every inner city pub was a venue. Bondi Lifesavers, the Trade Union Club and the Hopetoun were legendary and the Cammeray Hotel was still known as the San Miguel. Bands played every night of the week. Sydney's live music scene was killed off in the early nineties due to two events: Pubs were allowed to get poker machines, and the ABC radio station Triple J went national and thus could no longer focus upon the Sydney live music scene as closely as it used to. By the time the yuppies and nimbies moved into inner Sydney in the middle of the nineties, the scene was dead.

So after this old mate of mine reminded me of this band, I had to check things out for myself. Somehow, the bassplayer/vocalist in this band has uploaded their entire back catalogue onto Vuze for easy download, which I was thrilled to bits with. And, given that most of their old stuff is well out of pressing, I had no scruples about downloading the entire lot and listening to them from beginning to end.

VSpy vSpy formed during high school in Newcastle, New South Wales, when bassist Craig Bloxom met guitarist Michael Weiley. Later they moved to Sydney where they met drummer Cliff Grigg. They started off as Spy vs Spy, but had to change their name just prior to releasing their first EP, Four Fresh Lemons.

Originally they oscillated between a kind of rocksteady-paced reggae and full tilt Oz rock. This was popular at the time that they formed - there was this whole ska/reggae thing that permeated the Australian music scene at the time, probably due to the influence of Madness and The Specials.

The Spies' music had this potent rhythmic reggae twist initially, no doubt thanks to the lovely skins work of Grigg. It wouldn't be long before some of their signature sounds started to emerge - particularly Grigg's drumming. Eventually their rock side would prevail over the reggae side.

Bloxom eventually became the lead vocalist, singing tales of inner suburban squalor. I recall this tale of Grigg (I think) being busted for squatting illegally, which was probably fairly routine for inner suburban Australian musicians at the time.

Anyway, to the song. "One Of A Kind" was recorded on their Meet Us Inside EP, which came out in 1984. They still hadn't recorded a full length LP at the time, although Meet Us Inside included not one but two bona fide rock epics in this and "Mugshot", which clocked in at 6:28 and 7:20 respectively. Not bad for a five track EP.

I don't recall them ever doing a rock epic again.

"One Of A Kind" was released in truncated form as a single, but as always the EP edit is far superior. The son itself starts with some nice rimshots by Grigg followed by the bass of Bloxom. Eventually the signature riff of Weiley's is sighted - an amazingly simple one.

Bloxom had this rather earnest vocal delivery which worked for a lot of their tunes and had progressed from the more weedy delivery on their earlier work. It would beef up further in years to come.

On this tune, as with some other Spies' tunes, Bloxom's vocals are punctuated by these little spoken rants delivered by Weiley, which scared the poo out of me when I was younger. Presumably, this is a tune about mental illness, but Weiley's vocals don't seem quite so threatening now.

Eventually, Weiley's signature digital delay pedal shows up. Weiley loved that pedal, and with good reason - nothing symbolised the Spies' sound more than that pedal. The Digital Delay was to the Spies what Robert Smith's Chorus pedal was to The Cure.

The Spies went on to record a trilogy of extremely strong albums in Harry's Reasons?, A.O. Mod. T.V. Vers. and Xenophobia [Why?] before returning to their reggae roots a little with Trash The Planet in 1989. Trash The Planet wasn't nearly as strong as the previous three, and the Spies found themselves without a label. Grigg left about this time to be replaced by Mark Cuffe.

Somehow along the way, they'd picked up the tag, "Poor Man's Midnight Oil", no doubt due to both the political content of their lyrics and the fact that they shared a manager with Midnight Oil.

They changed their name back to Spy vs Spy before recording Fossil, and around this time, I have this memory of them discovering religion and becoming committed Christians. I didn't hear much from them after this, although I remember reading something where Cuffe moved out the front of the band to share lead vocals with Bloxom and Weiley and they got another drummer.

Bloxom appears to be a chef in Mexico, now, judging by his profile on Vuze. No idea what Weiley, Cuffe or Grigg are doing.

Anyway, here is the video for "One Of A Kind". It is a single edit, but you might get the idea.

Apparently, they were big in Brazil.

Vale Tokin' Blackman

Tokin' Blackman, better known to his parents as 'James Paull', and confusingly, to fellow members of TISM as 'Jock' (TISM's bassplayer had the pseudonym of 'Jock Cheese') has died of cancer aged 51.

Blackman joined TISM in 1992 in time for them to record their Beasts Of Suburban EP under the pseudonym of 'Tony Coitus', replacing guitarist Leak van Vlalen, who had left the band.

It was for TISM's glory period, if they had one, that Blackman was a member of TISM. After another EP (Australia The Lucky Cunt which was soon retitled Censored Due To Legal Advice) TISM released the album Machiavelli And The Four Seasons which went gold, won an ARIA award for Best Independent Release and included the massive hit '(He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River', which parodied fans' fascination with celebrities who die young.

A follow up record, www.tism.wanker.com also went gold and Blackman was to remain with TISM for the rest of their days and two more albums.

On the website of TISM's management, Smartartists, lead vocalist Ron Hitler-Barassi had this (amongst other things) to say about the death of Blackman:

He always had the licks, just never the poses. James Paull – Jock to
nearly everyone – was one of very few who could say "I spent a year
composing in Amsterdam" and not sound like he was on Radio National.
After a gruelling sound check, having waited patiently for the bass
player to tune, the lead singer to have another fold-back wedge placed,
the keyboardist to not show, and having been told that the rotating
pig-spit (tonight’s gimmick) would mean his guitar amp would have to
practically face the ceiling, he declared, "I sound like I’m playing in
Banjo Land." It stuck. From then on stage-left was Banjo Land.

Banjo Land won't be the only place that misses him.

RIP.

Rock epic of the month: "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" (Creedence Clearwater Revival) 1970

Rock epics of the month is a series of posts where I'll look back on classic examples of what I think is the greatest excess of rock and roll - the rock epic.

I've just been to Bluesfest in Byron Bay and the closing act of this five day extravaganza was John Fogerty. And rather than review this particular set - which was excellent, by the way - I'll just cover this particular song. If I get the time, I'll do a review of Bluesfest itself.

This song was originally written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records. By the time it got recorded, it ended up getting done twice by both Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1967 and by Marvin Gaye in 1968. Both of which are pretty good versions.

The tune was covered by two other acts from the Motown roster - The Temptations in 1968 and by The Undisputed Truth in 1971. Which pretty much goes to show that songs being covered to death isn't just a 1990s phenomenon.

But when Creedence covered it in 1970 for their album Cosmo's Factory, it was turned into an all round great big monster of a tune which they managed to stretch out to 11:07.

Where Knight and Gaye merely alluded to the impending doom of the relationship in their versions, it was clear from the outset that Creedence's version was to be a different kettle of fish. Slightly faster, the dual guitar attack of Fogerty and his brother Tom and bassist Stu Cook set the pace from the outset.

Hirsute drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford comes in to set the thing ablaze after the 8 bar intro and it's off chooglin' away down the track, possibly down to New Orleans. "Chooglin'" was a unique Creedence word which probably means something in the neck of the world where they came from - California, funnily enough, and not the deep south - but it appears to me that chooglin' as applied by the band, refers to the part where they nestle into a groove and milk it until the cows come home. Oh that was a clumsy mix of metaphor and cliché.

The main riffs in 'Grapevine' would appear to be perfect examples of chooglin'.

It's often said that white folks have no soul. Whoever dreamed up this stupid saying was one racist fuck, because it's clear from Fogerty's howling vocals that this ain't no ordinary tale of love gone wrong. Fogerty's not only screaming blue murder, but lashing away with his axe during the extended solos like the offending partner in this tale is on the receiving end.

Clifford is obviously in tune with this theme as he slashes away at the crash cymbal at the perfect moment all the way through the chorus ("I hoid it through the grape*smash*vine") and the rest of the tune throughout. Even the fills seem murderously well placed during the solos.

Yes folks, Fogerty had soul. Still does, in fact, but I'll come to that in a future post.

Tom Fogerty left the band the following year after the release of their Pendulum album and they recorded one final album as a three-piece before breaking up in 1972. Tom released some solo stuff before dying in the early nineties of an AIDS related infection contracted from a blood transfusion.

John Fogerty went on to have a weird solo career where, amongst other things, he was sued for plagiarising himself and he became known for his expertise on bottleneck slide guitar. He released an album called Revival last year.

Cook and Clifford played with a number of different bands, and Clifford released his own solo release, before reuniting in the 90s to form Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

Anyway, here's a snippet of this classic track. Do enjoy, but please check out the full eleven minute version. It's just wrong without the extended soloing.

The Big Day Sell Out

Once a year, a few friends and myself scrape up some cash and head off to the Big Day Out.

The line up is usually pretty good, and for about AUD $120 or thereabouts, we get to see an enormous line-up of bands. Normally about 20, if we really push it.

And this years' line up is no different. The early names announced look a little like this:

• Rage Against the Machine
• Björk
• Grinspoon
• Arcade Fire
• Hilltop Hoods
• Billy Bragg
• Paul Kelly
• LCD Soundsystem
• Sarah Blasko
• Faker
• Midnight Juggernauts
• Dizzee Rascal
• Something with Numbers
• Battles
• Cut Off Your Hands

Good or what?

I missed the 2007 BDO through general slackness - I just didn't get my shit together in time to buy a ticket. But it normally doesn't sell out until late December, or early January.

This year, 40,000 tickets went on sale on 12 October. And this week, it sold out.

What is disgraceful about this, is that this early exhaustion of tickets can only be driven by one thing.

Scalping.

I've been critical of concert promoters in the past. They're a disgusting lot who have the solution to scalping, but have the nerve to say that they don't have the answers. Or worse:

"We think scalpers are disgusting and we are taking steps to ensure that they don't spoil the fun for everyone else."

Or words to that effect. Which is just disgraceful lies on their part, because the answer is plain as day - put purchasers' names on the tickets.

The theory behind this is a very easy one. At the gate, when they check your ticket, they can also check to see that you're holding valid photo ID confirming that you're you.

Yet they (being promoters Lees and West) won't do it. Why not? They already confirm your ID when they verify your drinking age?

Now I have to decide if I'm going to cough up the cash and go for a scalped ticket. This is a 24 carat DISGRACE!!!™

Right now, I am really, really, pissed off and looking to take my frustrations out on something.

Maybe I'll have a barbie that day, and call it the Big Day In.

In any event, I'd love to hear any stories from anyone who has been bitten by scalpers. Or just plot some revenge.

Has Kylie Minogue finally been exposed?

So I was reading MX on the way home, as you do, and I came to the bit about the recent Q Awards in Britain.

Ian Brown, former singer in what I regard as one of the greatest bands ever, The Stone Roses, had just received an award. Inexplicably, so too had Kylie Minogue.

Brown allegedly had this to say about Minogue:

"I don't think she's cute. I don't think she's good-looking. Her music's rubbish - she makes music for little kids.

"I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm putting her down, but there's a lot of great minds out there making music and she's not one of them."

This is truly one of those moments where, one would think, that the music media turns and says, "Hey, that kid's right. The Empress truly has no clothes on," before turning on this media darling in a spectacular bloodbath of stinging criticism and unmitigated censure.

Minogue somehow gets away with particularly grievous musical crimes against humanity, and I'm tipping that her next album, due in November, is one of the world's truly memorable musical disasters. Or at least holding my breath.

Incidentally, for the pair of you who regularly read this blog, I do plan to finish off my gratuitous character assassination of Minogue soon. Just getting around to it, is all.

The day the music industry died

There are some industries that just make your blood boil with rage. Some are exploitative. Others just plain nasty. And some are morally and ethically bankrupt.

Some will happily sell out their own parents for a buck or two, before moving on to their siblings. Others will happily market to kiddies, the less able and true bleevers.

The worst will hypocritically defraud their employees while using hamfisted tactics to ensure that no one is defrauding them. And if no one is defrauding them, they will simply invent scenarios where such fraud is still being perpetrated.

But when it comes time at the end of one's career to sit up and declare to the saint who guards the entrance to retirement heaven that they've been diligent and ethical workers in the service of all things fair and good, there will just be some who, in an ideal world, should be on their way to retirement hell. And usually, it will be for having taken a flying leap and clearing that thin line for each and every single sin in the first three paragraphs by a country mile.

Yes, it's been a long time, but it's time I handed out another flogging to the music industry, an industry that is consistently setting the limbo bar lower and lower on ethical activity.

In this landmark case, a woman was fined USD $220,000 for sharing 24 songs. This will send her to the poorhouse. At the Sydney Morning Herald online, this blog post prompted 386 responses over the space of a weekend.

I suppose the first question is, just who, exactly, was she defrauding? This is the central question when it comes to this case.

Copyright infringement is based on the underlying principle that intellectual property, such as music, may only be played if you've paid for it. But let's be perfectly clear here, if you've paid for it, you still don't own it.

The rights to the music itself is still owned by the copyright holder. Which means that the CD you just bought can't be played over loudspeakers in shops, or podcast. You really only own a sort of licence to the software. And this is over-simplifying things quite a bit.

The whole thing is massively overcomplicated and it's really only the manufacturers who benefit. Really, it could should be simpler than this. If you have paid for it, it should then be yours to do whatever you like with it.

This includes uploading it to the net for everyone to access.

So somewhere along the way, someone has let the side down, and sold all of us out.

Let's go back to this case. 24 files were illegally shared. Who was being defrauded? The article doesn't say what Jammie Thomas was doing in this case, so let's just make it up and say that she was downloading and not uploading. (She was downloading, incidentally)

In this case, Thomas would have downloaded a file that would have been sitting there to download or not. The file itself doesn't move, it is only copied.

Would she have been depriving the entities who created and manufactured these files of any money? One would have to prove that by downloading these files, Thomas definitely didn't intend to pay for them.

Yet in none of these cases, as far as I can tell, are any of the plaintiffs/"victims" being asked to provide evidence of this. This is morally dubious - although legally, this may be enough to demonstrate a prima facie mens rea of dishonesty, whoever said the law was moral?

More importantly, where's the gap where the stolen goods were and aren't any longer? For theft to exist, surely someone should actually be deprived of something?

Oh, OK, so that missing thing is the right to benefit financially from something. This takes us back to the previous question - how do we know that our downloader didn't intend to pay for the downloaded files?

So now we've gone circular, let's look at the next item on the agenda.

What is the actual idea behind copyright?

Copyright is supposed to ensure that the creators of artistic works are adequately compensated for their efforts. The copyright itself may be sold and if it is, it’s usually to the record company in exchange for certain things, such as recording and marketing costs, all of which appear to be surreptitiously charged back to the performer eventually. Even if the performer doesn’t end up losing money.

So musicians (and other creators) get shafted, eventually.

If a musician doesn’t use a record company, they’re a lot better off morally, but they don’t usually sell. Mainly because there’s a lack of several things:

1. Marketing. Record companies exist to market ready-made product. And not a lot else.
2. Recording. Record companies can fund recording facilities and provide a red carpet to skilled personnel that would normally not be available to mug wannabes.
3. Distribution. An area under threat by the internet. Regardless, record companies do this.
4. Payola. We know that record companies still do this. Denial only makes you look silly.

But here’s the thing. Do musicians need any of the above?

1. Marketing. Musicians like to get their product across to as wide an audience as possible. Apart from the musician’s own megalomania and vanity, is there any reason why this desire needs to be satisfied?
2. Recording. Is there any reason why a one-stop access point to the personnel and facilities above is required? Wouldn’t this kind of arrangement be considered anti-competitive in any other industry? Why can’t musicians arrange this sort of thing themselves? Wouldn’t it be better if musicians sourced their finance through commercial arrangements outside the music industry, as they’d be arguably better off?
3. Distribution. It’s the 21st century, people.
4. Payola. Really, payola is just a kind of marketing. So is it required, as I pointed out when I looked at marketing?

I’m now going to throw the baby out with the bathwater by suggesting a fifth one?

5. Compensation. Music and other artforms are hobbies. What specifically is being compensated for that doesn’t exist in other hobbies? Should musicians, for example, be compensated at all? Given that record companies own the rights in quite a lot of instances and still claw costs back from musicians, isn’t it a complete and utter lie to suggest that musicians are actually even getting compensated?

So it is looking increasingly bad for record companies. On the one hand, they do actively market the goods they sell, and should probably expect to be paid for this.

On the other hand, when what is being marketed heavily is the Britneys and Justins of the world, aren’t we rewarding general rubbish by even contemplating paying for any of this in the first place?

The world would certainly be a better place if corporate juggernauts like the Pussycat Dolls had no chance of recouping their marketing costs by selling CDs to kids. They’d be forced to tour instead and make their money the old-fashioned way.

And as for struggling up and coming musicians, shouldn’t they work a day job and practise their hobby at night, like every other hobbyist out there?

And this goes for creators of other artforms as well, although the effects of file sharing will be less.

I’d like to go all the way and lump musicians into the same basket as other entities in the music industry. Really, I would. It’s just that you can’t make a case that they’re as consistently evil as the record companies themselves, no matter how hard you try.

However, by frequently doing deals where their rights are assigned to record companies, they’re almost complicit.

Musicians should just sell their wares. If it gets copied, this is all well and good. There really isn’t a case that can be made where copyright holders get preferential treatment over anyone else selling round plastic discs that have stuff on them.

One big-name act has actively embraced this philosophy, and has recently made the announcement that it will now "sell" its next album online. It won’t even come with Digital Rights Management, it will just be regular, glorious MP3 files. The best part is that these particular musicians have even gone so far as to make paying for the download completely optional, and the end user can choose how much they pay, if they pay at all.

In this article in The Times Online hysterically titled “The Day The Music Industry Died” it is pointed out that Radiohead’s strategy is not even new. However, they’re the biggest band to have tried it to date. Hell, the Brian Jonestown Massacre has made their entire back catalogue available as downloads in Ogg Vorbis format for years.

The best part, though, about this strategy, though is that it cuts out the record companies all together. You have to love that.

We are at the dawn of a new era. One where one group of social parasites – artists, or at least recording artists - is forced into legitimacy and another – record companies – is wiped from the face of the earth.

I would be savouring and enjoying this, however, it will all come just too late for Jammie Thomas. And this is really upsetting.

Disclosure – this blogger is a musician in his spare time while he works a day job. So there.

Happy blogiversary to me again!

Dear friendly blog readers,

At the start of the year, I celebrated one year since I rejoined the blogosphere.

I'm now going to celebrate an even bigger milestone, chronologically speaking, that is. This month marks ten years since Dikkii's Diatribe originally launched itself on to the net. Without repeating myself too much from my post in January, I began Dikkii's Diatribe out of my ground floor front bedroom in September 1997, not long after getting my first computer and internet access.

After a few days of feeling smug, I printed out a copy of this complaint and pasted it up in the bathroom of my house next to the toilet.

Thanks to the Wayback Machine, this is my first post, which I have reproduced here at the new, Blogger facilitated Dikkii's Diatribe.

Lots of stuff has changed since I first started blogging, but in the meantime, a lot of stuff has stayed the same.

And it's somewhat topical that some of my favourite bloggers have started questioning why they started blogging in the first place. One of my favourite bloggers is Bob the Austin Atheist Anonymous who writes an excellent blog called Hot Dogs, Pretzels and Perplexing Questions. He's just retired from the blogosphere.

This immediately prompted his brother Bronze Dog who writes The Bronze Blog (another excellent blog, by the way) to review why it is that he blogs again.

So I thought I'd do a little review myself, and guess what? I'm going to put the broom through here a little bit.

For a long period - in fact, going right back to this blog's inception, this was the spiel that explained my blog:

"This page is an outlet for my own hate-filled vitriol and spiteful opinions. Uneducated as I am in the ways of the world, it's still necessary to vent my spleen at the media, the music industry, the AFL and anyone else who could have offended my sensibilities. I plan for this to be updated occasionally, depending on my state of mind. So you can either look forward to, or avoid my one-sided, uninformed and dangerously unbalanced opinions on the state of the world and everyone in it."

I'm dumping this. Not because it's inaccurate, but because I do other stuff on this blog, now.

So what is Dikkii's Diatribe about?

1. Woo.

I have a particular fascination with anything that falls under the umbrella title of "woo", be it the paranormal, pseudoscience, quackery, religion, or anything else that can be so labelled. I tend to also place things like postmodernist/deconstructionist/post structuralist mumbo-jumbo, management doublespeak, legal flummery and quack economics/finance under this umbrella title too.

Why?

The ultimate aim of these is to obfuscate and deceive, and it's no different to the mischief of woo merchants such as your John Edwards, Sylvia Brownes and Allison DuBoises.

Fighting these is the least that the world's one and only militant agnostic can do.

2. Politics.

I regard myself as politically, the most average bloke out there. I strive for political mediocrity and normality. I consider myself the yardstick by which everyone else is measured, the social median, if you like.

My economics may be slightly on the right, but my social justice meter counter-balances this by being slightly on the left.

Consequently, I think that there is no better person than myself for pointing out the foibles of the politically conservative or politically progressive.

3. Economics.

I love economics and I have worked in finance for pretty much all my working life.

One of my key complaints about people these days is that they don't see the need to be fiscally literate. This leads people to be exploited financially, so it is my aim to see the balance redressed by providing the odd piece of commentary on economics and finance.

Hopefully in a simple and straightforward fashion.

4. Science.

Science is an area that I wish I knew more about. People appear to only know slightly more about science than what they do about economics, so I'm schooling myself to know more as well.

And along the way, a bit of scientific knowledge helps stave off all sorts of charlatans peddling woo.

5. Law.

The law is an ass.

6. Music.

I love music but hate the music industry. I might just quote TISM here from "Jesus pots the white ball" off their Beasts of Suburban compilation:

"Why play rock and roll? It's a question fundamental
Take Jimbo from The Doors, you'll find which ones incidental
Take the music from the industry, you're left with grasping bankers
Take the industry out of music, you're left with childish wankers"

It says it all.

7. Sport.

I am a spectator. I was routinely bad at sport, but I love to watch it. I also love to watch the sheer amateurism of sporting administrators in professional sport.

I also like to get in any chance I possibly can to poke fun at the Collingwood Football Club and their president, Eddie McGuire. If they win a flag this year, we should all reflect on what we all could have done to prevent this from happening.

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So there you go. Over the next few weeks, I'll progressively change the look of my blog to reflect where I'm going with this.

But I'll leave you in the meantime with my blog's new motto, from Public Image Ltd's "Rise":

"Anger is an energy."

Hugs and kisses to all, Dikkii.