This has been an interesting and intense day, the first day of this conference in Edinburgh has been fascinating in it's variety of approach. The first paper, the dreaded daybreak slot, was presented by Barbara Bradby, who I have always wanted to meet. It was a fascinating paper that travelled from Sammy Davis Junior to The Beatles, talking about 'the tension between atmosphere and rapport', and the importance of the talking between songs at live gigs; she showed us a film clip that demonstrated Beatles fans stopping screaming as Paul McCartney approached the microphone to speak. I discovered that she used to be a fiddle player with an old-timey banjo picker called Molly. If I play in Dublin again, I shall invite her to join me to play Memento Mori. Later, we heard a paper from John Williamson, Belle and Sebastian's manager, about LA promoters (nuff said). Another very interesting paper was delivered by Robert Kronenburg, an architect who studies music venues and who introduced David Byrne's concept of musicians 'tuning' their shows to the venue environment in the same way as animals adapt to their natural habitat. Another interesting paper in the morning session was Lucy Bennett's; she has studied the phenomenon of fans tweeting from live concerts to communities of stay-at-home fans, who post comments about setlists of their imagined version of the gig on to fan forums. Extraordinary! Twitter territorialization!
In the afternoon, John Street presented a paper that raised the question of freedom of speech and moral responsibility in entertainment, which he regards as a form of speech. He asked us to question the moral right of a rapper whose gigs are seen by the police as dangerous because people might appear with guns: should he be allowed to rap his aggressive lyrics, or not? I found this very intersting as I have been itching to write about something that happened twenty years ago, the perpetrator of which has recently written a damning article in The Guardian about the controversial teacher, Katharine Birbalsingh.
Anyway, I digress.
Dave Laing (who supervised my PHD) presented a paper about the fluctuations in income from live music in different locations across the globe, raising a roar of laughter with his final line 'Maybe we're all doomed!'.
Last paper of the day, the twilight slot, came from Michael Murphy; his paper was entertaining (as an A&R man he had been responsible for advising an Irish band to change their name from the Cranberry Saw Us). As the 12th paper, this was a welcome relief; he concentrated on coincidence an serendipity, showing us just how shaky the foundations of the record industry are, and talking about The Hope Collective.
As I sat on the bus back to McMum's, my head was buzzing with thoughts of capitalism destroying itself by eating it's own babies...
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
On This Night
On this night exactly twenty-one years ago, I was stuffing my face with chocolate, as the next day I was due to have my first baby induced at Guy's Hospital, London Bridge.
I was frightened, because I had never had a baby before, and imagined a horror-film scenario with rolling trolleys down endless corridors, screaming (me), panic and blood.
It was actually the exact opposite, and my beautiful Offsprog One was born at about seven the following evening; she is still beautiful, and it's her twenty-first birthday tomorrow!
I was frightened, because I had never had a baby before, and imagined a horror-film scenario with rolling trolleys down endless corridors, screaming (me), panic and blood.
It was actually the exact opposite, and my beautiful Offsprog One was born at about seven the following evening; she is still beautiful, and it's her twenty-first birthday tomorrow!
Edinburgh Conference
There's a really good conference coming up on Thursday in Edinburgh called The Business of Live Music; I am going to at least a day of it. It will be packed with interesting people talking about music scenes all over the world, some from a business point of view and others from a cultural point of view.
It is organised by Professor Simon Frith, whose books are so engaging that I always ask my students to read them as a first point of call in academic writing about rock music.
He is also a Cristina fan (famous for her tracks Disco Clone and the controversial Is That All There Is? which was banned because of its negative lyrics), as I discovered at The Art of Record Production conference a few years ago, and so am I.
We are few and far between, as her thin and airy disco tracks don't appeal to the more 'cool' disco fans. But there's a certain cool about being anti-cool, although nothing in this world would make me listen to Britney Spears or Lady Gaga, the Thermos flasks of pop.
It is organised by Professor Simon Frith, whose books are so engaging that I always ask my students to read them as a first point of call in academic writing about rock music.
He is also a Cristina fan (famous for her tracks Disco Clone and the controversial Is That All There Is? which was banned because of its negative lyrics), as I discovered at The Art of Record Production conference a few years ago, and so am I.
We are few and far between, as her thin and airy disco tracks don't appeal to the more 'cool' disco fans. But there's a certain cool about being anti-cool, although nothing in this world would make me listen to Britney Spears or Lady Gaga, the Thermos flasks of pop.
Photographs
Does anyone have photographs of the following bands that I could use in my book?
The Mistakes
The Bodysnatchers
The Gymslips
The Dollymixture
The Objeks
The Delta 5
The Nips
I have already contacted people from these bands, and I am aware of Philippe Carly's site: really, I am looking for informal but reproducible pictures, preferable with the women playing or holding their instruments.
The Mistakes
The Bodysnatchers
The Gymslips
The Dollymixture
The Objeks
The Delta 5
The Nips
I have already contacted people from these bands, and I am aware of Philippe Carly's site: really, I am looking for informal but reproducible pictures, preferable with the women playing or holding their instruments.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The Adventures of Sara Lund's Jumpers
A while back there was a watercooler-moment commotion when Sara Lund's famous jumper auto-reparied after being torn in a scrap. In the penultimate episode I think I spotted a continuity error, unless my eyes were deceiving me in the Danish telegloom. Was she not wearing a white-pattern-on-brown jumper when she got put in a cell, and a brown-pattern-on-white one when she was released? I can't be bothered to watch it again just to check!
What am I going to do without it? There are so very few good TV series with believable female protagonists; I hope it influences the way the Brits make TV for evermore!
What am I going to do without it? There are so very few good TV series with believable female protagonists; I hope it influences the way the Brits make TV for evermore!
Mended Module
Hooray! A summer of pop music awaits; a transformer ordered from The Netherlands has done the trick.
The shop assistant said 'It's ruined, you'll never be able to use it again'. No it isn't, shop assistant! (the same one who said 'What sort does he want?' when I went in to buy guitar strings one day).
The shop assistant said 'It's ruined, you'll never be able to use it again'. No it isn't, shop assistant! (the same one who said 'What sort does he want?' when I went in to buy guitar strings one day).
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Understanding Not Understanding Maths
Hello! It's an hour later, you know....
When I was a wee nipper at primary school, I didn't understand multiplication and it's relationship to adding, because no-one told me.
Our teacher, Mrs Llewellyn, started talking about something called 'Times Tables'. I thought this was interesting and wondered if they were special pieces of furniture that you did your sums on, or something like that, as she talked about these tables in the maths lesson.
I sat at the back of the class, while everyone started chanting a very long chant:' One-six-is-six, two-sixes-are-twelve, three-sixes-are-eighteen, four-sixes-are-twenty-four': on and on it went, till in a triumphant flourish, my classmates chanted, 'TWELVE-SIXES-ARE-SEVENTY-TWO!'
I was mystified as to how they had learned this long rhythmic chant and how they remembered it.
Mrs Llewellyn didn't understand the way I put this question to her and looked at me, baffled.
As the days went on, I used to sit and blub at the back of the room, excluded from the hidden meaning and mechanism behind the eleven long multiplication chants that everyone understood apart from me.
About four or five years later, I finally worked out that in order to join in, you simply had to add, very quickly, the starting number firstly to itself, and then to the combined total, twelve times.
I thought about this quietly for days.
This is what is called 'being a slow learner'. I am still like this in many ways. I do not understand visual puns in advertisements and frequently misread sentences and misunderstand their meanings.
It is also why I cannot read music, as its logic escapes me, though, of course, I understand Logic Audio and many other computer music programmes that are to do with organising sound.
I think slow learners are frustrating to be around and can sometimes be annoying in a group; as a teacher I have learned to say things several ways to a group of students, until all of them tell me that they understand.
It takes me ages to get angry, because I can't work out the mechanics of the provocation and trace it back to its source, and by the time I have, the moment has passed. I have had to learn to be patient with my own 'stupidity' and therefore sometimes people think I am unnaturally patient with what they perceive to be their own.
Sometimes I long to scream and stamp my feet with rage, but by the time I have summoned up the energy, I can't remember what it was that made me feel like that in the first place.
When I was a wee nipper at primary school, I didn't understand multiplication and it's relationship to adding, because no-one told me.
Our teacher, Mrs Llewellyn, started talking about something called 'Times Tables'. I thought this was interesting and wondered if they were special pieces of furniture that you did your sums on, or something like that, as she talked about these tables in the maths lesson.
I sat at the back of the class, while everyone started chanting a very long chant:' One-six-is-six, two-sixes-are-twelve, three-sixes-are-eighteen, four-sixes-are-twenty-four': on and on it went, till in a triumphant flourish, my classmates chanted, 'TWELVE-SIXES-ARE-SEVENTY-TWO!'
I was mystified as to how they had learned this long rhythmic chant and how they remembered it.
Mrs Llewellyn didn't understand the way I put this question to her and looked at me, baffled.
As the days went on, I used to sit and blub at the back of the room, excluded from the hidden meaning and mechanism behind the eleven long multiplication chants that everyone understood apart from me.
About four or five years later, I finally worked out that in order to join in, you simply had to add, very quickly, the starting number firstly to itself, and then to the combined total, twelve times.
I thought about this quietly for days.
This is what is called 'being a slow learner'. I am still like this in many ways. I do not understand visual puns in advertisements and frequently misread sentences and misunderstand their meanings.
It is also why I cannot read music, as its logic escapes me, though, of course, I understand Logic Audio and many other computer music programmes that are to do with organising sound.
I think slow learners are frustrating to be around and can sometimes be annoying in a group; as a teacher I have learned to say things several ways to a group of students, until all of them tell me that they understand.
It takes me ages to get angry, because I can't work out the mechanics of the provocation and trace it back to its source, and by the time I have, the moment has passed. I have had to learn to be patient with my own 'stupidity' and therefore sometimes people think I am unnaturally patient with what they perceive to be their own.
Sometimes I long to scream and stamp my feet with rage, but by the time I have summoned up the energy, I can't remember what it was that made me feel like that in the first place.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
My Wishful Thought
A duvet that sheds its cover as a snake sheds its skin, presenting me with a fresh one every week, with no effort at all on my part.
Definition of Wishful Thinking
A child-size motorcycle on the tiny 5th floor balcony of a tower block at East India Dock.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Day
Surprisingly good, for a Tuesday: a proposal that excited my imagination from a colleague, a visit from my Champagne Friend who sat with me watching the planes taking off and landing, and who trawled the T K Maxx at Gallion's Reach for cardigans and kitchen things, and a student who, against the odds and much to my great pride, found himself a work placement.
There are pages and pages of lists of undone things, still a hangover from the Autumn when I was working double my normal quota of hours, but at least I'm not doing that any more. I have a new drawing on the go, and ideas for new songs teeming in my head.
What can I remember from the weekend? Not much, although I have fresh chords in the arsenal and an idea of tuning a twenty-quid guitar from the Cancer Care shop permanently to a happy Hawaiian tuning and playing it with a bottleneck, which Offsprog Two will find annoying.
I am reading a little Everyman Classic version of Trollope's The Vicar of Bullhampton which will probably replace Foucault's tangled anarchy in a lecture I am doing in a month or so about Hip Hop Honeys. It's a jolly good read because Trollope is particularly good at come-uppances and subtle unsettlings.
That, and an unmitigated diet of detective shows, makes life quite enjoyable.
Been watching The Killing? I am an iPlayer catcher-upper and it's intriguing to sympathise with an incompetent police force; you get so used to expecting the detectives to get it right, or at least, to be in control. The script is almost like a Patricia Highsmith story with its slipping morals and mistakes that make the whole story change tack. What will happen next?
There are pages and pages of lists of undone things, still a hangover from the Autumn when I was working double my normal quota of hours, but at least I'm not doing that any more. I have a new drawing on the go, and ideas for new songs teeming in my head.
What can I remember from the weekend? Not much, although I have fresh chords in the arsenal and an idea of tuning a twenty-quid guitar from the Cancer Care shop permanently to a happy Hawaiian tuning and playing it with a bottleneck, which Offsprog Two will find annoying.
I am reading a little Everyman Classic version of Trollope's The Vicar of Bullhampton which will probably replace Foucault's tangled anarchy in a lecture I am doing in a month or so about Hip Hop Honeys. It's a jolly good read because Trollope is particularly good at come-uppances and subtle unsettlings.
That, and an unmitigated diet of detective shows, makes life quite enjoyable.
Been watching The Killing? I am an iPlayer catcher-upper and it's intriguing to sympathise with an incompetent police force; you get so used to expecting the detectives to get it right, or at least, to be in control. The script is almost like a Patricia Highsmith story with its slipping morals and mistakes that make the whole story change tack. What will happen next?
Monday, March 21, 2011
More About the Guitar Weekend
It was a humdinger of a weekend; the Friar's Carse was a quirky and welcoming as ever, and there was the usual bunch of puzzled guests as twelve middle-aged men, an enthusiastic sixteen-year-old and myself settled into the Chesterfields with guitars, soup, pints of lager or coffee, depending on what time of day it was.
Martin took us through voicings of chords up the neck; Brian got us to tune our guitars to different tunings and play them with bottlenecks (Hawaii the lads!) and Paul, a new tutor, made sense of the theory side of things and showed us some unusual capos that automatically created a dropped D, amongst other things.
In the evening, in spite of shredded fingers, we managed a concert. The three tutors played first, and then we followed one by one or in groups, slumping into audience mode afterwards. At the end, Brian played Falling in Love Again, the song made famous by the great Marlene Dietrich, and I sang it in German. I had forgotten that I knew it but Brian started picking out the chords earlier in the day and it all came back to me in its entirety.
As usual there were a lot of funny moments and a lot of poignant ones too. Martin mimed along with a brass bedpan to Brian's banjo playing at one point (bedpanjo?) and there were the usual crappy jokes, banter and quips. I wish I could remember them but I left them in Carlisle as I crept home exhausted and happy!
The guitars had a nice time too, and many new friendships were forged between them.
The Songwriting Weekend is between 17th-19th June, when Galloway is spectacularly beautiful. I work on that one, but it's still huge fun; I will put more details here closer to the time. I think there are still places left on it.
Martin took us through voicings of chords up the neck; Brian got us to tune our guitars to different tunings and play them with bottlenecks (Hawaii the lads!) and Paul, a new tutor, made sense of the theory side of things and showed us some unusual capos that automatically created a dropped D, amongst other things.
In the evening, in spite of shredded fingers, we managed a concert. The three tutors played first, and then we followed one by one or in groups, slumping into audience mode afterwards. At the end, Brian played Falling in Love Again, the song made famous by the great Marlene Dietrich, and I sang it in German. I had forgotten that I knew it but Brian started picking out the chords earlier in the day and it all came back to me in its entirety.
As usual there were a lot of funny moments and a lot of poignant ones too. Martin mimed along with a brass bedpan to Brian's banjo playing at one point (bedpanjo?) and there were the usual crappy jokes, banter and quips. I wish I could remember them but I left them in Carlisle as I crept home exhausted and happy!
The guitars had a nice time too, and many new friendships were forged between them.
The Songwriting Weekend is between 17th-19th June, when Galloway is spectacularly beautiful. I work on that one, but it's still huge fun; I will put more details here closer to the time. I think there are still places left on it.
Walking in the Woods
Every time before I put it on, I think how happy I am.
Then I button it up and think "Heaven Knows, I'm Miserable Now".
I am clutching a bunch of daffodils out of the picture, a small miracle as the West of Scotland is a month behind England and still decorated with snowdrops.
The river Nith is full of tiny brownish-grey fish that flash silver from time to time when the sun catches them; the trees are full of birdsong and there are hundreds of rabbits rummaging around in the sphagnum moss. It is a very beautiful place.
Photo by Martin.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Guitar Weekend
Been in Dumfries at the Guitar Weekend, completely knackered, played guitar for almost seven hours yesterday, what a great bunch of people!
Tell you about it tomorrow.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........
Tell you about it tomorrow.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........
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