I’ve been on a Viv Stanshall kick (again) recently because a kind listener (reader? what is the collection noun for podcast and blog listeners? poggers? pistener? err..anyway thank you Julian it made it through the snow!) sent me some Viv rarities as a result of the ‘Viv and Neil’ podcast I did last year inc the excellent 2002 radio documentary ‘Canyons of His Mind‘ which of course is referring to the above track, recorded for ‘Colour Me Pop’ in 1968. Apparently they did the whole show, which I really want to see.

Also read a great piece about Viv by his second wife, Ki Longfellow about how they met…I mean I fell in love with him reading it, so in person the effect must’ve been greater . She as mentioned in the text SHOULD write a book about him. If she or anyone relating to her is reading this, please give her a prod, because reading that I would buy a copy, and I have a feeling a lot of people would feel the same way…and also because of his mysterious/insane/wonderful/maddening/glorious lifestyle there are a lot of wrong rumours out there – one of which is that he set himself alight with cigarettes when he died (no, coroner said it was electrical wiring, apparently). Would be great to have a book that comes closer to the real Viv (well dunno if that’s possible actually, but closer than the people writing ones who never met him!) and fills in that gap post Bonzos in the mid-late 70s.

Also did they ever record Stinkfoot? I’ve always wanted to have a copy, either on DVD or audio – and missed hearing about the short revival on Thekla last July…bah!

Oh a few of you might not know who Viv Stanshall was, you poor petals. So here’s a good intro, a show produced by the BBC and introduced by John Peel with Viv on himself and his history in his own words and music (the original piece in 1991 was called ‘Crank’, it seems to have gained the name ‘Diamond Geezer’ somewhere?).

It explains how Viv was just Viv ‘Well I don’t do it, I’m merely being myself, as near as dammit without frightening the housing estates…and her question was absurd rather than fatuous, as if I’d decided one day to wake up and decide I’m going to be a giant squid for the weekend or that’s it I’m going to be a wardrobe for the rest of my…err..word. Well strap me to a tree and call me Brenda! I’m whatever you like just don’t expect me to join in….You see I’m not different for the sake of being different, only for the desperate sake of being myself” Great words, indeed

…although I have no idea why an obit from 1995 has the roman numeral date of 1993 (I suspect it’s been edited together from Crank?) – EDIT: it is from 1993, someone added the ‘Diamond Geezer’ in 1995, seems like many layers of ‘Late’ show, I’ve got a headache.

Bonus: One Man’s Week, a 1975 film about Viv seems to have escaped from the BBC’s Gormenghast Colditz Vaults by means of 1975 quality video…such a shame Viv wasn’t let loose more often on the public with a camera, that would’ve been a great TV programme. Also in part 3 you can see him working on ‘Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead’ which was heavily African influenced and years before it’s time.

via Podcasting News

‘Before The Music Dies‘ is a 2006 documentary about the state of the music industry without the shrill discussion about filesharing and that particular RIAA Weapon of Mass Distraction and very welcome because of it. Made by music lovers FOR music lovers; it interviews many people from Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, a wonderfully on form Erykah Badu, Dave Matthews, Branford Marsalis and many more known and unknown. It covers the main reason that the music industry is changing and it’s not filesharing – the major corporations and their conservative management and lack of artist development and swallowing of radio – the homogeny of culture (monoculture) created from that.

The big 4 would like you to believe the 800-pound gorilla is filesharing and the internet, but largely it’s a convenient excuse for a bland-ishment and lack of support for artists and focusing purely on the bottom line – I mean how many major groups and artists you hear now have been dropped, still big/known ones which surprise you? It’s quite a lot – because unless you provide the hits then you’re out. People will support the music they love, and will fall in love with new music – but if you pump 80’s channels and the same old crap at them then yes they will switch off and treat it as background. It’s not the video game nor is it the internet that is killing music for the youth – it’s lack of innovation, creativity and support from the modern likes of John Hammond and Ahmet Ertegun that is killing music. Push bland Beyonce and Britney and tried and tested retro ‘hits’ at people and don’t provide anything new, of course the kids are going to drift off and do something else, or treat the music as wallpaper. For it IS wallpaper. Aural brainmulch candyfloss wallpaper.

But also this culture of fame, celebrity creates something far more worrying – something I’ve been talking with John recently is that people expect more and more instant feedback, they’ve become X-Factor fame junkies, it’s devalued in their eyes unless it’s somehow BIG and SUCCESSFUL. As far as I can tell it permeates all fields – not just music; many places where business has a grip on the cultural psyche – from the modern social spaces such as social media, to the older spheres such as broadcasting and education.

The worse thing about that is it can make artists devalue their own work in their own eyes, this drip drip drip brainwashing that X-Factor Pop Idol Heat magazine type successes is the benchmark of what’s good – or people don’t even try or embarassingly like the first auditions of X-Factor think they don’t have to practice or learn…the myth of the overnight success is very dangerous (and false – as people have pointed out their 5-10-15 years of ‘day’ working at their skills previous to that ‘night’) It’s turning yourself into a brand and product, and the alienation that entails – which as in the film if you are your own boss and company can be liberating, but most often than not you are a corporate puppet.

And when you have the likes of Cerys on BBC 6Music – a niche music lover’s radio station on DAB, publicly funded and thus removed from the need to be commercial – stressing that she might not get away with playing an 18 minute tune as I heard a few days ago, then you know something is extremely wrong in the state of Denmark (St). The idea of advertiser-friendly 4 minute songs has trickled into areas that shouldn’t need to care about them, in fact it’s in the remit NOT to be like other commercial radio, well that’s worrying.

The metrics the BBC is using – of RADAR and RAJAR figures – to justify it’s programming is the same as commercial radio, so to keep the ears they employ the same tactics and the same people, even if it goes against the very same idea of public broadcasting. They should be serving the niches and areas that are increasingly not filled by commercial interests, it’s not elitist it’s what their public remit is. Again and again though they defend their increasingly populist programming (even in the case of the newer digital stations there is no need to be) with audience figures. It’s meaningless. It should be more about audiences served and their happiness that they have some home and diversity in the bland homogenity of stations, rather than Strictly Come Dancing ratings war replicating the worst of commercial broadcasting. Worthy and treating your audience as intelligent is not wrong; and it’s dumbing down which is the real crime.

And it’s not just in media – the Success Factor plugs into so many things, people won’t watch or value a video unless it has 100,000s of views, won’t value someone’s contribution as ‘official’ unless they have 1000s or 100,000s of friends on Twitter or Facebook, won’t think a website or blog is big until it gets a lot of comments (although ironically most readers are passive and don’t comment). The celeb magazines are just a glamorous if inane symptom of a much deeper cause; what I call the numbers game. And most of the numbers game is actually faked as much as that BalloonBoy – people puffing up figures, fake sales, payola, fake comments, fake hits, SEO trickery and bullshit, autofollows and fake accounts. Why can’t we evaluate something on it’s own worth? And conversely work at stuff without expecting immediate reward or placing value systems on it that eventually suffocate the creativity? Is that so hard?

Branford Marsalis says it best in the video, 1hr 4mins in:

“What I’ve learned from my students is students today are completely full of shit. That is what I’ve learned from my students is that much like the generation before them the only thing they are interested in is you telling them how right they are and how good they are.

That is the same mentality that basically forces Harvard to give out B’s to people that don’t deserve them, out of the fear that they’ll go to other schools that will give them B’s and those schools will make the money.

We live in a country that seems to be in this massive state of delusion, where the idea of what you are is more important than you actually being that.…yeah my students all they want to hear how good they are and how talented they are. Most of them aren’t really willing to work to the degree to live up to that”

Shiny new post on a shiny new host, and something that’s been in my torrent download queue for ages – the film Steal This Film II – a great freely downloadable documentary about file sharing, information sharing in cultures (like teaching) and the social and legal issues within and looking at past technologies like the printing press and how a ‘pirate culture’ helped the French Revolution along.

It’s made by and for the people on the side of angels ie. the pirates so you won’t get a totally ‘balanced view’ (which usually means one biased to the mainstream media and corporates) but the MPAA and heads of Hollywood do get their say and their arguments countered. The strongest impression you get from this is how this struggle of information freedom and ‘piracy’ has been going on a very long time and is constantly on going; how the real fear of the major corporates is probably that the audience becomes the creators and cuts them totally out of the loop, and that the file sharing wars are pretty much lost despite setbacks after this film was made (Pirate Bay and the like).

It’s also much better than Steal This Film I which was a bit of a mish-mash (and out of focus in parts – ouch). Apparently they are expanding both bits into a full film, and then going for a release, which I’m hoping is still officially torrented, unlike RiP: A Remix Manifesto‘ which although very professional looking and interesting sadly seems to be going through the age-old Hollywood distributor/release model – requires different release dates for different world areas (apparently I can’t download it cos I’m ‘not in the US’ – DOH – no release dates for the UK either). Given the subject of that film, it is rather ironic – it may be about remix or online culture in the 21st century but that particular medium is most definitely not the message. Maybe it’s because the film is evolving they’re not officially torrenting it (someone else has put up an unnofficial torrent).

Anyway it has Girl Talk in it, in fact so much the whole film is basically a Girl Talk promo, and y’all know how I feel about him. The Brazil bits showing baile funk are really good, and Cory and Lessig are always brilliant, but it pretty much covers the same areas as Steal This Film I and II, but with more flashy animations/production.

It does have this great funny remix at the end pulled from YouTube seemingly uncredited, but I recognised the Eclectic Method logo:

For those wanting to get into the issues around musical remix/cutup I’d rather recommend Sonic Outlaws by Craig Baldwin, which was created about 15 years earlier and covers the same ground sans some of the later ‘Napster/bittorrent’ stuff covered in STF, some of the footage by/of Negativland is used in ‘RiP’! At the very least you then won’t need to look at a naked Greg Gillis…:-P

Anyway I think the model of Steal This Film and Sita Sings the Blues is the future though, torrenting your movie and letting the world see it in a donation model if they like it, or buying copies if they want them. To trot out my old phrase, they get it. They really do. Go support them.

For those into Joy Division and New Order, until Friday 23rd Jan, see the 2007 Grant Gee documentary ‘Joy Division‘ online. You know the one were Annik Honnore is interviewed (this is why Deborah Curtis unusually refused to take part) and interviews with all the band members, Peter Saville, Paul Morley and Tony Wilson – even Genesis P. turns up at one point…and loads of stuff I’ve never seen nor heard of Joy Division.

I don’t think I’ve ever really explained the connection with Joy Division and New Order that well; maybe it’s the roots (I was born in Greater Manchester in the 70’s) and the fact I can remember that atmosphere, that place, that feeling – what Tony Wilson talks about and others about the feel of Manchester in the 70’s is very true, people think it’s exaggeration but concrete and rain is the best thing I can say about it. Grim.

Maybe it’s the time of my life in my 20’s when I revisited and found out more about them, already being a fan of New Order, and for the first time appreciating their darkness as saying something about me.

Or maybe I’ll never know. Certainly I find it hard to hear Closer, partly because of the obvious state of Ian’smind but partly because it is a such a dark album that takes me back to a dark time of my life. Weirdly I see Unknown Pleasures as being quite upbeat and poppy LOL – I own a copy of that. Never owned a copy of Closer; even though I have Love Will Tear Us Apart on 7″. It’s not an album I can totally love, it’s too cold, although I really respect it.

Anyway what this gets over better than Control is the otherworldliness of Ian Curtis and Martin Hannett’s production – the weird noises, the clangs, the echoing squeaks and the wails. It is a little bit like Sci-fi on the Manchester Ship Canal, really. And the ending is far less bleak.

Nice to also see the band and others saying how angry they were at Ian’s suicide, it wasn’t something that was said but everyone just thought ‘you prick’ rather than putting him on a pedestal, which unlike Kurt or Richey shows the fans weren’t buying a brand personality but a person, well four people in fact, someone who broke that barrier – that front – and genuinely, distressingly and destructively meant everything he sang.

If you don’t know of my love of Delia Derbyshire and the mostly unsung heroes of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, well then start here.

She produced and engineered the famous Dr Who theme (and if you watch the great Alchemists of Sound documentary, Ron Grainer asked  ‘Did I really write that?’ when he heard it, “Most of it” she replied, as she added a lot to his tune and was almost completely unrecognisable) and worked almost purely with tape, not synthesisers. So I’m amazed to find out via many blogs about the tapes she recorded, being catalogued by Manchester University which several excerpts the BBC has posted to hear – including a track which sounds like modern techno:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7512490.stm (someone tell the developers at the BBC of this new technology, it’s called ‘embedding’, it’s all the rage at this young whippersnapper upstart called YouTube).

Amazing stuff, so I want to call for this music to be released – either on CD or publically free – Delia deserves better than stuck in some library somewhere for the odd music historian to come across and the odd clip in TV shows. Sort it out! None of the posts or articles I’ve read, with glowing remarks from many people such as Phil Hartnoll from Orbital – mention what will happen to these tapes. In fact there’s been a dire lack of re-releases of all of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop tracks apart from a double CD set a BBC Records CD (which you can now buy for 85-100 quid it was so limited!) and some Warp 10″s which are equally rare in the early 00s – and some very limited re-releases on small labels such as Electrosonic or the Tomorrow’s People OST. No wonder people don’t know about her.

Isn’t it about time there was a full retrospective compilation CD of all her work? Say a Double or Triple CD Best of – surely all these radio plays, plays, tshirts, documentaries, songs and several sites about her should indicate there is a market for that? Add these new rare tapes and you could have a beautiful tribute to one of the most talented electronic musicians this country has produced. (And ignored).

Oh and Firefox 3 can suck my balls – doesn’t work with the editor in LJ and now WP 2.6. Crap. HTML links put in manually? How, err, sweet. Bless. So RETRO. *eyeroll* Sort it out Moz-developers!