As usual, Popjustice speaks for us all…

Very sad to hear about the death of John Balance from Coil.

Impatient youths of the sun
Burning with many colours
Flick combs through hair in bathroom mirrors
Fucking with fusion and fashion
Dance in the beams of emerald lasers
Mating on suburban duvets
Come-splattered nuclear breeders
What a time that was…

“Theme from Blue”, Coil.

—

John Peel, Greg Shaw, Dave Godin, ODB, now John Balance… It seems like there’s a cull of maverick genius in process.

A couple of people have already jumped our gun and mentioned the now-eerie combination of source material in the track “Bite” from Hip-Hopera (link via the ever wonderful Waxy).

Suffice to say that rumours of us making a new version of the track with a Robbie Williams vocal and crossing our fingers really hard are as yet unfounded.

Sorry.

We miss you, John.

You don’t bring us flowers any more.

Another day, another report…those crazy statto guys, they just don’t stop polling, do they?

Today, it’s a report on the drop in high street record sales which almost exclusively seems to focus on the rise of downloading shops, while unfairly sidelining the continuing rise and rise of online mail order. Which is weird considering it’s the cheapness and breadth of stock available that is really pulling people from the high street, in contrast to the current rather limited major-label-heavy range of downloadables, although there are a growing selection of indies that are trying to do something about that.

So… off to the virtual shops we go…”Sweet Smell Of Success” on DVD? – a quick google and there it is…£5.99 including p&p. Flux’s seminal “Uncarved Block” album, re-released on CD…£6.99 and a quid for p&p. Find me those as quickly, as cheaply and as easily, Mr. High Street? Didn’t think so…you’re too busy trying to lure me with your 3-for-2 bulk buys and loss-leading sale stock.

And of course if Google fails to deliver a decent vendor, there’s good ol’Ebay for out of stock and deleted stuff – although I still can’t see how some people can get away with charging £2.50 to pack and post a CD or a T-shirt – gripe, gripe…

And you don’t even have to buy from the online chain stores, you may be able go direct to the label’s site or even the artist’s site to buy, thus bypassing even more middlemen and putting sufficiently more beer in the artist’s fridges…

I know I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know, but it’s yet more conclusive proof that t’Internet is “Better Than The Real World”(tm). I mean, try knocking on Norman Cook’s door with a tenner in your hand at 3AM demanding a copy of “Palookaville” and see how far you get…

No smart comments from me this time – just pushing a good article about one persons perception of the impact of the iPod et al. (needs a login – get one from Bug Me Not)

A similar article would probably have been written about 20 years ago regarding the Walkman, but there are still a couple of strong points that resonate through, as they would have done 25 years ago, or 50 years ago, come to that…

“…Brant admits to the pressures of such superrichness. He feels obliged to listen for all he’s worth. He doesn’t deny that he may not be listening as well as he once did. If you can listen to everything, you may end up hearing nothing. I sometimes wish half of Brant’s iPod were filled with blank spaces. Music cannot begin or end without silence in front and behind. Unending music is not music.”

I recall Ralf Hutter from Kraftwerk making similar comments in an interview once; he made a point of ensuring that he listened to no music for a period of each day – something I do too, I have to say, although maybe not so consciously: It surprises me sometimes when I notice I’ve been working for a few hours and have completely forgotten to put any music on…

In the continuing “downloading is killing the music industry….and remember, it’s just as illigal as everything else you do” debate, which always inspires more flippy-floppy than Brighton Beach on an August Bank Holiday, the BBC announces that downloads ARE harming US CD sales after all…

And this new report is based on a survey carried out on…

412 students.

Woah, talk about mining the edges of a nation to get an accurate cross-section of the country’s purchasing power. That’s one lazy research team.

C’mon, NBER guys, it could have been one of a million things…Lack of a new Weezer album, too many keg parties (insert Keane and pub crawl respectively, there, UK Readers), higher proportion of girl/boy friends with more-expensive than usual tastes, inability to shift the 200 dodgy Mitsi’s they clubbed together to buy last year before that big all-nighter…anything.

But now these 412 will surely be hanging their head in shame as they realise that they’re being used by the RIAA to justify the idea that it’s cool and right to sue the arse off all their classmates.

…I mean, if the 412 are buying less music, it means they must be getting it from somewhere else, right? Cos they need their fix of the ol’ Chilli Peppers…that must mean that…unh….ummm…..their classmates must be those “serial uploaders” that we’ve been looking for. Aha!

Gotcha!

Naturally this also means that all other reports are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Cause they’re the old reports…and this ‘un here is the new report. K? K.

Or rather it would be if the site worked and you could read it…odd that it should suddenly become unavailable, isn’t it?

*plays scary church organ descending minor chords*

I said “ISN’T IT???”

*cough*

Sorry. Got carried away there.

[added note – okay, it’s now available again, for a fee, but you can’t deny me a moment of Hammer Horror, can you? Thanks. I knew you’d understand.]

But on a happier note, the report also finds that:

“…over 80% of Britney Spears album owners said they had grown tired of her records…”

Remember that this, again, is polling 412 students. Do they really think that any of them actually bought the albums for any other reason than to get drunk girls dancing at their parties?

—

And back in the real world (remember that?), it’s good to see that some US students are doing something about it.

NME.com’s sassy “artist-recognition” advertising deal with Ebay has some unfortunate side effects – as they announce the sad news that the new U2 album has been leaked online a whole two weeks before the release date, the Ebay link at the bottom of the page happily directs the NME reading fan to the sale of several U2 bootleg CD releases they might like to purchase as they wait on Kazaa for their download of the new album to complete.

I know it’s an extremely ripe case of the pot calling the kettle, but every time I hear Goldie Lookin’ Chain’s “Yer Mother’s Got A Penis”, I find it more and more difficult believe that Ryuichi Sakamoto from Yellow Magic Orchestra allowed them to use the riff from Behind The Mask – a track that has already been put through the mincer once before, by some wannabe blues guitarist on the Phil Collins-produced, long-playing nadir of his 80’s career, “August”. Despite the fact that everyone seem’s to think it’s his track, which is largely attributable to the new set of corn ball lyrics he grafted on (apart from MSN, who think the track may be attributable to Michael Jackson, of all people), but If I was YMO, I’d be keeping my head down too…

(Although do check out the pristine remix of the YMO original that Orbital delivered for the tribute / remix album Hi-Tech No Crime – possibly one of the P&P Bros finest moments.)

*stands up and walks to the front of the group*

Hi, My name is Eric, and I’m here because I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to start writing a blog.

It started off just reading the odd post now and then, then I found a couple that were really interesting so I bookmarked them and kept going back.

Then I started posting comments, and my comments started getting longer and longer, and I kept finding things that, even though everyone else was already blogging the hell out of them, I just felt like I had to chip in and “add my own personal spin”, y’know. Even if it didn’t really add anything.

So this is why I’m here. I need to nip this in the bud before it becomes a habit.

I mean, it’s not too late, is it? I can stop whenever I want to… Can’t I?

*walks back to seat, sits down, puts head in hands and cries*