What is Radio Clash?

Genius, especially the end…I think as with Brown here, Clinton and Obama we expect the New Labour/Left wing/Democrats to ‘do the right thing’ with copyright and the internet (I’m reminded of my MP Glenda Jackson here – she’s really good and a socialist – apart from copyright; she seems to be siding with the powerful Hollywood lobby as an (ex?) actress) but as we’re experiencing with the Blairite Queen Mandelson and co. and ACTA it’s far from the truth. Not to say y’all should become right-wing gun-totin’ Republicans, but it’s a point of making ourselves heard to our representatives whatever their party…because whatever ‘label’ they have they do have to serve us – and sometimes you might be surprised.

And if we get a hung or *deep breath* Conservative parliament (touches wood, crosses self, etc.) we’re going to have to build bridges with these people, and explain why the Digital Economy Bill is not good for their blessed ‘free’ market at all, neither is ACTA, 3 strikes or any of that – actually the reverse.

via BoingBoing.

I wasn’t going to post the video from those treadmill-botherers OK Go for the HEATH ROBINSON (Rube who? Heath invented the idea before Rube, guys machine video for ‘This Too Shall Pass’ as everyone is embedding it all over the place.

But that’s exactly it – if EMI had their way, you probably wouldn’t have seen it. Bloggers et al wouldn’t have been able to embed it, and OK Go wouldn’t have had this viral hit on their hands. See the State Farm plugs during the video and the end? They sponsored the video so it could be embedded. Nice bit of advertising for them (6 million views on YouTube already) but a reflection of how crazy the industry is and how silly EMI are about embedding even though one of their acts depends on it for their lifeblood and marketing.

As Damian from OK Go wrote in the NY Times last month:

Now we’ve released a new album and a couple of new videos. But the fans and bloggers who helped spread “Here It Goes Again” across the Internet can no longer do what they did before, because our record company has blocked them from embedding our video on their sites. Believe it or not, in the four years since our treadmill dance got such attention, YouTube and EMI have actually made it harder to share our videos…

Embedded videos — those hosted by YouTube but streamed on blogs and other Web sites — don’t generate any revenue for record companies, so EMI disabled the embedding feature. Now we can’t post the YouTube versions of our videos on our own site, nor can our fans post them on theirs. If you want to watch them, you have to do so on YouTube.

But this isn’t how the Internet works. Viral content doesn’t spread just from primary sources like YouTube or Flickr. Blogs, Web sites and video aggregators serve as cultural curators, daily collecting the items that will interest their audiences the most. By ignoring the power of these tastemakers, our record company is cutting off its nose to spite its face.

The numbers are shocking: When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.

Clearly the embedding restriction is bad news for our band, but is it worth it for EMI? The terms of YouTube’s deals with record companies aren’t public, but news reports say that the labels receive $.004 to $.008 per stream, so the most EMI could have grossed for the streams in question is a little over $5,400…

In these tight times, it’s no surprise that EMI is trying to wring revenue out of everything we make, including our videos. But it needs to recognize the basic mechanics of the Internet. Curbing the viral spread of videos isn’t benefiting the company’s bottom line, or the music it’s there to support. The sooner record companies realize this, the better — though I fear it may already be too late.

Quite a damning piece from one of their bigger and more visible stars, really. EMI as we know has been swimming on the sea lost for some time, really needs to get a clue re: video embedding, social media and mashups and out of it’s short-term mindset if it wants to improve it’s lot. Otherwise talented people like Damian and OK Go will go elsewhere (I suspect people are already wary of EMI, causing the situation with Terra Firma, as rats leave the sinking ship).

Contrast this with Universal which recently gave it’s blessing to Pheugoo’s Lady Gaga mashup.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

A reader(listener?) suggested this video to me, suggested the video was like a mashup…I’m a sucker for well made videos (although the hype around the OK Go one means I haven’t posted it) but this is a new band Hold Your Horses! and their amazing video for ‘70 Million’ using a massive collection of artworks for their guide. Must’ve taken ages – and if you’re tired of remembering your Van Gogh from your Vermeer the list is here.

I don’t think it’s a mashup though…;-) To mashup would take the paintings and change them, rather than copy them in a different format, closer to a cover…still really clever though. It got me at the Raft of the Medusa, brilliant idea for a chorus!

I’ve posted about them before (their excellent and funny Canary Wharf video I think as part of their ‘Everything is OK’ series) but I love how Charlie and co. deal with the Fake Bacon (aka Hobby Bobbies, aka PCSOs). They really do seem to be a menace, as they pop up a lot in Section 44 mistakes. Love the comment about the Louis 14th beard, and it seems that even at the end the PCSO is smiling…

And here as posted on Boing Boing and other places how they deal with a Section 44 stop and search – politely, firmly, funnily and also with love…but also with all their rights intact. Shame the police haven’t been so respectful in recent shocking cases of art-school students being arrested,  forcefully detained and fined for taking pictures of buildings for their work, journalists being stopped for taking pictures of the Gherkin, filmmakers getting detained for filming their partner’s questioning on a mobile and a man getting arrested for filming Christmas.

More about The Love Police, and the disturbing State of the Nation in Britain which is getting more and more like V for Vendetta and 1984 for my liking. Sadly the ending cuts out but you get the drift.

Chasing Shadows from Charles Veitch on Vimeo.

And remember: don’t be afraid, humour is the best Weapon of Mass Destruction And resist. Nicely.

Sad news I heard via the radio today about the suicide of Mark Linkous aka Sparklehorse. Maybe not a name/band you know of, but Good Morning Spider and later Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot were an important part of my life in the late 90’s. It’s a cliche to say ‘got me through some bad times’ but yes, his music did at a time when really most UK music sucked and I felt little if at all about it…So I got into Sparklehorse, Grandaddy, Radiohead, Super Furries, Flaming Lips et al, as well as a less serious diet of speed garage and drum and bass! But it was Sparklehorse and Grandaddy’s music I’d come back to if I needed someone that expressed that particular confused/down/mid-late 20’s state of mind, where you have the long post-University come-down and realise real life is much harder, and the dreams you had might not be possible. Also wrapped up in that would be coming out and painfully falling in love for the first time…

‘Cause everything beautiful is far away’ ‘I just want to be a happy man’ ‘I’m so sick of goodbyes’ ‘There`s one thing we still got, This one last dance in this parking lot, Oh yeah, I got a heart of darkness’ ‘Summer here kids! Summer here really lies’.

And this comes a few months from the suicide of Vic Chesnutt who with Dangermouse and Mark Linkous worked on the now-to-be-released ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ which last year was embroiled in EMI politics/legals. Sad they didn’t actually get to hear it released while they were alive. Here’s a track off it – certainly was well rotated in my iPod last year when the tracks ‘leaked’ – Mark co-wrote and produced all the tracks and appeared on several, as did Vic, it is a truly collaborative work – the cynical (me!) would say that it’s interesting EMI sorted out their legal problems just as the eagerly awaited and much praised Broken Bells album is released. Hmm.

Here’s The Flaming Lips with Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse with ‘Revenge’ – a beautiful track:

And finally a track off his first LP:

And one that became an anthem of mine – Happy Man (not sure where I heard this – I think it’s a bonus hidden track on Good Morning Spider? Certainly didn’t buy the EP)

I hope now indeed you are a happy man, Mark. RIP.