A pressing problem. The Times They Are a-Changin'

I have never made any secret of my love for the archaic music format that is vinyl even when extinction, in the sense of new releases, looked inevitable. An obituary after the towel was thrown in, maybe.
I certainly never expected to write a post including an apologia like this.

Even before it got to this point, with almost no investment made in new capacity and equipment, the strain that was being placed on the remaining presses of which many are forty years old would prove to be a limiting factor.  Just keeping them running at all, but now almost flat-out, was causing issues all of its own. Spare parts were a physical one but so too is the knowledge of how to maintain and repair such equipment in an efficient manner. The rate of change is quite astonishing as this article, written about the problems facing the industry shows. It was written late last year and first appeared in The Wall Street Journal. It was probably behind the curve even then...

Independent label Fat Possum Records had already taken a big decision... to enter the manufacturing market by establishing its own pressing plant, as Memphis Record Pressing, in Bartlett, TN.  To do this it sought and purchased redundant presses and then found ways and means to restore them to full working order. It wasn't easy.
To write off the CD, as this article conjectures, looks like a mistake to me. Many of us have have about a quarter of a century of music stored on nothing else and I can't see us giving up that aspect of nostalgia either. What is more is that CDs are (now) cheap, light, transportable, ubiquitous and often surprisingly robust. That is not to mention the home-recordable aspect that was lacking, at least in readily affordable terms, for the first twenty years of their existence.
This is as true now as it was then:

• The Times They are a-Changin'

It was released by Bob Dylan fifty-one years ago today and only on vinyl (monophonic and stereophonic).

Some thoughts - aside from the music.

This has been in my mind for a couple of months now.
I have been more engaged with music than ever before. I have learned some things and to some extent in ways I had never been aware of before. New music, heard simply as a consumer, is not half as interesting as it is when you can get to see at least some parts of the bigger picture. And that picture has certainly changed dramatically over the time that I have been writing.
One of them is that the more you seek then the more you find - that much is rather obvious and was always true.  The other side is that the more you seek the more you become a target; musicians are ever the optimists! A couple of years back somebody asked why I didn't write a daily post about music. My answer was what would, or indeed could, I find to write about?
This change is something that is more recent. I could quite possibly find things worth writing about now. If I were going to do that then time management would become more important and I really should because embrace that because it would not spoil my enjoyment. It is something that I am now much inclined to countenance.
Three or four posts a week remains my current target: That is to include new music, live music, local music (either local artists or any others that play live locally) and as much photography as I can muster within that roster. Add to that anything else, such as festivals, that I decide to travel to.
As always, please tell me what you like (artists or my writing) and especially what you don't. All comments are moderated (so you know I really have read them) and I don't bite!

Thoughts on Music 2014; what it means to me.

This weekend, as the weather finally turned autumnal, my mind strayed to the topic of the music - artists, LPs, gigs, festivals and all - that has made an impression on me in 2014. I know the end of the year, and the inevitable lists that go with it, are both still a long way off. I learned long ago, however, that leaving it all to the last week or two is not the way to do it. I accept that at least some items that make my final lists have not even been released yet - indeed I can think of several contenders that fall into that category. That does not however invalidate starting to consider those that have already been released or indeed that I already have to listen to. It is a sizeable task but a wholly enjoyable one and not least because it requires a degree of comparison with things that I chose in the last couple of years; if only to remind myself why that was and what may have changed since then. I also have the comforting knowledge that nobody can now try to tell me that I should go to Glastonbury 2015.
Yesterday evening, with the rain falling steadily in the darkness outside, I started that quest. I made sure that I was in front of an open fire with home-made pizza, garlic bread and a glass of wine to hand. I do this for my own pleasure, lest you forget, and that is where I have a problem with Glastonbury. It is an institution - and still a wildly popular one as the very recent sales statistics show - but it is not for me. I would implode. Before I even got inside.

I have a pretty good idea of which festivals I shall go to in 2015 and have a ticket for one of them already. I'm planning, as is customary, to go to one that I have never been to before and I know that which I intend it to be. It has been on my list for a couple of years and, thanks to a chance meeting of music and minds at EOTR 2014 it is going to happen.
That said, I have no intention of spending the rest of 2014 merely in contemplation of recorded music, released or forthcoming. Live music matters, whether it is ten minutes walk from home or not.
The next question, and it came quickly, was 'do I listen to the old ones any more?' The answer is, more or less often, yes I do. This is one of the first albums I ever mentioned in 'Thoughts on Music' back in 2006 - and it was Americana albeit that the artist is from Canada...

Honey From The Tombs - Amy Millan (2006). The picture was taken about twenty minutes ago. This album did something that no such other had quite done before. It made sense [to me].

Thoughts On Music - plans for 2014 and beyond.

I have taken a fortnight-long break from posting, something I just need to do from time to time. In the meantime I have still been listening and reading, no doubt about that, but also doing a little plotting and planning. It is now a few years since 'Thoughts on Music' has had anything other than organic changes, some of which simply reflect my interests in that time. Well, while there is nothing wrong with that I think it might not be all that is worth changing.

The first change is actually a reversion to something I did for a long time until the feature became frustratingly unstable.
As of about five minutes ago you should see the return of the "link list" to the top of the side bar. It has been a "simple list" for a year or more and, while I'm quite sure you can use well known search engines every bit as well as I can, this reinstates my ability to link to the particular reason I am listening and therefore a quick route to the stuff of the moment that is catching my attention.  If I haven't provided a link to an item in this list you will see <about: Blank> and should hit the 'Back' button. I'm currently unconvinced that running two lists, one for items with links and separate one for those without, would be any more helpful. If I can find a way of combining the two, along the logical line of 'if no link given then don't try to go there' then I will and all hints and suggestions to that end are welcome!

Beyond that all feedback, positive and negative equally, is very welcome and so are suggestions. I have some other changes in mind but they will take more expertise in the way of implementation than I currently have, and so may take more time. There is nothing wrong with planning or dreaming and I'm quite sure that there are plenty of ideas that have never even occurred to me at all.
The only constant remains, as I said at the start, that I shall only review music that I like. I will not wallow in destructive criticism: I shall use negativity very sparingly, so as to make a comparative - there is too much to like for me to spend resources of whatever kind in doing otherwise. You might very well persuade me to try new music, and I hope you do just that, but you will almost certainly fail to dissuade me from that which I already do, even if it is done differently...

For some reason I have recently given much thought to the subject of cover versions and what I think they might add to the canon. My view on this has evolved very much over time and not least because I am now far more aware of songs that are actually cover versions but that I didn't realize previously!
This is one, that I did know from the original, and that I had the good fortune to see live, in 2010 when it was one of the first times they played it. Somewhat later, with Jack White and Third Man Records, it was recorded live.

I don't actually buy many 7" singles these days but this is the latest addition to my collection.

I'm not saying that this a blueprint for a new direction, radical or otherwise. The many shades of transatlanticism has possibly already told you that.

This evening, whilst thinking some more, the theme continues, about how much traditional music Europe  exported to the US, then Canada and elsewhere directly or otherwise, over the last four centuries. It is important - we would have lost much had that not happened and that is why Cecil Sharp (1916-18, in particular) and others headed west across the Atlantic in the early 20th century. On the other hand it would be astonishingly vain not to admit that what we have received in return is every bit as generous, and quite as remarkable...

Then there are the influences that came from the east and particularly from Asia Minor via south-eastern Europe. That all started with the Celts themselves a couple of thousand years ago because it is thought that they expanded west and north; only subsequently to be marginalised in the far west of Europe.
Much more recently the bouzouki took a similar trajectory: it had certainly reached Greece, again probably from Asia Minor, and was common there by the start of the 20th century. Sixty years later and it was widely used in modern Celtic folk music in the UK and, particularly so, in Ireland.
Of course all these things intermingled over time, and in vicarious ways, before some of it was than taken, in a many-stranded form and over a long period, to the Americas by people of diverse origins. What we tend to forget is that the interesting muddle that is English folk music has age-old influences but it too incorporates influences that more recent immigrants bought with them and once again from eastern Europe: Romani and Klezmer are just two that come to mind.

A weekend unconnected.

This is just a quick note:
A computer failure; a local one as it was a malfunction of my main home computer, has seen me off-line since the Easter weekend. I'm back now.
The interesting thing is, however, the amount of time I spent delving into my physical music collection in those few evenings...
Not only did I rediscover much music that I had (at least almost) forgotten I had by listening to it, I made a simultaneous virtue of reordering the shelves that contain it. It is certainly not perfect, and you would most likely not understand the system as it is now. It was a huge game of pelmanism (played with approximately 880 CDs) and it was far more complicated than simply matching identical pairs, although there are four of those as so far discovered.
I'll tell you this; it is now a far better situation than it was last Saturday! What I decide to do next, in the sense of ordering them, is still a mystery and not least to me. The point is that playing music was actually the original aim - the re-organisation just came out of that and finding things that I wanted to play. While that process has yet to visit my collection of vinyl, a great amount of that got played too!
The effect on me, of losing my connection to new music, was salutary. My New Year Resolution 2014 was to listen to at least eight hours of new (to me, at least) music each week and until now I was well up with that. I'll catch up in the next few days but now I have another, which is to rediscover all the recorded music I already have.

Thinking ahead...

Last weekend it occurred to me that, with so much live music to see in the last week of October and much of November, it would be wise to start considering all the new music that I have acquired during 2013 so far as it relates to those inevitable end-of-year lists. I made a start then and then during the week made a long-list that actually turned out to be rather scary even well before Hallowe'en!
I'm not listening to it all over a few days, which would be like an alternative Glastonbury but without the crowds. Nevertheless my neighbours, if not actually Mendip District Council, might have something to say about that.
If all that were not enough then suddenly my in-box seems to have become filled with enticing new prospects for the months ahead.
Another slight problem is that in order to keep a sense of perspective about all the new music it is necessary also to revisit some that was in that place in previous years. That must include things that I still listen to regularly and also consideration of that which, however enamoured I was at the time, now languishes in the racks of LPs and CDs and is rarely listened to.
   
This is an impossible ideal.
[And a 'Black Box Recorder' lyric - you need to imagine it with Sarah Nixey's crystal diction.]
  
It is however the continuation of a very improbable journey. Seven years ago I could never have foreseen what that first post would lead to and, looking back, I wouldn't change it for anything.
The next issue is all those 2013 albums and EPs that I haven't heard but intended to do so and all those that are still to be released in the next six weeks or so. Arrows - Polly Scattergood, released October 21, being a case in point but as it happens it arrived here today. 
This is not only unfinished business but actually impossible to finish. Back then I would never have imagined that albums such as this, which is another I need to hear, would even be under consideration but one thing leads to another. 

It is a concept related in some ways to "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"!

The EP category was traditionally where I used to start as back in 2007 it seemed a format doomed to extinction and I had few to choose from. I got that idea well and truly wrong, I'm delighted to say!
Fast forward six years and nothing could be further from the truth for - whether digital or physical - it has become the calling card for new artists and existing ones wishing to explore another side to their music. I could spend the whole of the rest of the weekend listening to nothing but EPs released in 2013 that I have come upon during my travels both virtual and to festivals and some of these rank amongst my most listened-to and prized recordings of 2013.

Just to recap, all of this, including the wonderful people I have met along the way and the 1000 or so live acts I have seen, happened simply because I was bored one weekday evening and wished to comment on a blog post. At that time to do so I had to create my own account and, once that activation barrier had been overcome it seemed a waste of effort to not then put it to further use.

EOTR 2013 - its not just about the live music...

The main reason I go to festivals is almost certainly quite apparent; it is to listen to music live and also to take photographs of that. It is not the whole story however, and this issue was thrown into sharper context at EOTR when I was asked how (festivals aside) I came across new music to listen to...
The truth is that I hadn't really thought about that in the "business-like" sense that this question implied I might. That was something of a shock. My first thoughts were "it just happens" and then "much of it finds me", but neither is a satisfactory answer to the question, although to me it might appear to be that way.
Indeed this is the point when it occurred to me that this is exactly how I had seen it. The truer answer, in so far as I have thought it through, is this. Listen, talk to people (I'm good at talking - like I need to say that - but I can listen too) about everything and anything they have to say, remember stuff and the apparent links between them. Then just go explore...
This is no real answer either, if only because of its generality, but I'll attempt a little more detail in a forthcoming post.
The other thing is to watch not just the acts but their audiences and indeed the festival milieu in general. At festivals such as EOTR you have already selected yourself to be part of a somewhat like-minded subset of the population, even the festival-going population! By that last comment I'm thinking that the EOTR subset of festival goers would be rather different to that at, for example, Leeds/Reading and it would be interesting, at least to me, to know more about that kind of social phenomenon. I expect it either has been, or currently is, the topic of several Ph.D. theses or research papers.
I'll leave that to someone else, as it all sounds like hard work, but please feel free to send me links to any such research because I'd love to read someone else's thoughts.

Here instead are images from EOTR 2013 that don't actually include any artists performing but are of other aspects instead. There are five such images, presented in the the order that they were taken between Thursday evening and Saturday evening. The caption with each is just a snapshot on my thought at the time that I took it. That has reminded me of another issue - always take a pencil and paper - a combination that can survive wet conditions although this was not a necessity on this occasion.

'Home for the next few days'

'The shadow audience at the Garden Stage'

'Sunshine always makes things better'

'Waiting for Warpaint'

'Watching Joe Gideon and The Shark'

You can add your own thoughts too [all comments to this blog are moderated by me - so at the very least you know I have read them] and start a cloud-thesis...

A strange retrospective...

It is strange, the things one ends up discussing at work.
Here is one from today and it is anything but new music! (This album was released on September 18, 1970 in the UK: Reprise Records, RSLP 9004). Here it is...

Album artwork and design: Christine McVie.

I don't expect you saw this post coming and... the above picture is one I took, of my example of RSLP 9004 about an hour ago! It is music from the days that I am too young to remember, but I have owned this LP for twenty-three years now, and I love it to bits.

Just the silly season... but more seriously.

I didn't intend to add anything until Friday but something, and in this case people who came here searching, was to pique my curiosity. I've been looking through the photos that I have taken at festivals over the last few years - and I'm still open to suggestions for ones I need to go to, preferably in late June, July or early August 2012.
I'm going to state some of my recent opinions here but please feel free to disagree. Weather aside (of course it didn't help but it is beyond anyone's control) I was faintly underwhelmed by Latitude 2011. I have always gone there for the music and, in 2011, I think that the emphasis had moved too far away from that. There was much good music, no doubt about it, but not the same attention to detail. The Lake Stage is a good indicator: in 2008 it was amazing, in 2009 mostly unused, while in 2010 it was stunning again but in 2011 little thought had apparently been put in to it. Some of the acts were good, if you could find out when they were on.
The other music stages were pretty good but, as the competition in both UK and abroad improves, things are going to get tougher still. Micheal Eavis has hinted at this and, surely, he is one with the least to worry about. I can see his line of thought however; Coachella 2012 is to be a 2 x three-day festival over successive weekends at the same location and with the same acts at both. Imagine this: you go to both and, unless you chose to do so, see nothing twice. And that is not to mention that the Coachella 2012 line-up is to die for!
UK festivals might have to learn from this and fast - while there is nothing that we can do about the weather (and we are not alone as the extreme horror of Pukklepop 2011 and Indiana State Fair 2011, both caused by extreme weather that could not have reasonably been predicted showed) except to take better steps to mitigate at least the reasonably foreseeable downsides of it withoute stifling the whole scene. Everything is dangerous - its just a matter of degree.
  
I'm not wishing to sound too serious here, indeed I think that being over serious (about the content) is actually part of the problem.  
This was the Obelisk Stage at Latitude 2007 and not half as silly as the performance became... unforgettable for all the right reasons, just as festivals should be.

CSS Roxxx!

Pulling the trick off, year after year, has often eluded both bands and festivals.

2010 in Music - Albums - Part 2

***[In progress  ---  further links and comment to follow in the next few days]***

Following on from what I wrote yesterday this is the second instalment of my lists of 2010.  I decided to tackle the albums in two tranches, for the reasons I outlined earlier.

These are not necessarily any less worthwhile (and this is of course subjective) than those that will appeared  in '2010 in Music - Albums - Part 1', which is one reason I did not choose this format in 2009...

To imagine that compiling this list must be in some way easier than doing so for the former would be a major misunderstanding.  It is shorter than the previous part but had I gone beyond ten, and I tried, it became a matter of simply sticking pins in an, admittedly rather pleasant,  map of music. The problem I had was that there was so much worth choosing...

• Anaïs Mitchell - Hadestown [link1]
• Beach House - Teen Dream
• Best Coast - Crazy For You
• Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart
• Blood Red Shoes - Fire Like This
• First Aid Kit - The Big Black and The Blue
• Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me [link1]
• Lauren Pritchard - Wasted In Jackson
• Nicole Fermie - Babel In Three [link1]
• Trash Kit - Trash Kit [link1]

There is also an honorary inclusion:

•  Jessica Lea Mayfield - With Blasphemy So Heartfelt [link1]

This is actually a 2009 release but, in the UK at least, might as well not have existed until 2010. It could equally well have been included in my first list for that matter.  It is an album that illustrates very well an issue to which I will return soon.

Some will, can and should question why there are what many would see as blindingly obvious omissions in my listings. That is how it should be but, equally, I don't think I want a list that is just the same as any or every other.  If that were the case then it would be more than a bit boring.

Please feel free to comment, argue and suggest additions/deletions by comment or e-mail. I will add links and further comments as and when I get the time through December.

Artists highlighted in green are those that I have seen live in 2010 or, if in orange, those from before but also mentioned in 2010. Items/artists highlighted in red are those on which I have commented in 2010.

Now over to you and please feel free to comment.  I'm not scary, I'm merely curious to know what you think!

2010 in Music - Albums - Part 1

***[In progress  ---  further links and comment to follow in the next few days]***

Following on from what I wrote yesterday this is the first instalment of my lists of 2010.  I decided to tackle the albums in two tranches, for the reasons I outlined.

These are not necessarily any better (and this is of course subjective) than those that will appear in '2010 in Music - Albums - Part 2, which is one reason I did not choose this format in 2009...

• Arcade Fire - Suburbs
• Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo [link1]
• Besnard Lakes - Are The Roaring Night
• Caitlin Rose - Own Side Now [link1] [link 2] [link 3]
• Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea
• Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II 
• Ellie Goulding - Lights
• Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can [link 1]
• Lissie - Catching A Tiger
• School of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire [link 1]
• Smoke Fairies - Through Low Light and Trees [link 1] [link 2] [link 3]
• Warpaint - The Fool [link1] [link2]

The above however define the contours that have sculpted my musical landscape in 2010.  I could easily exchange several items between this list and the forthcoming one but ultimately I had to make a final decision. Albums released in December 2010 are clearly eligible for addition too, as are a few that I have recently acquired but have not, as yet, listened to sufficiently to form a stable opinion.

There are no images in this post because I don't want to prejudice anything. On the other hand I have already mentioned many of these artists in 2010... if you want to see what I wrote then please use the search facility in the side-bar.

Please feel free to comment, argue and suggest additions/deletions by comment or e-mail. I will add links and further comments as and when I get the time through December.

Artists highlighted in green are those that I have seen live in 2010 or, if in orange, those from before but also mentioned in 2010. Items/artists highlighted in red are those on which I have commented in 2010.

Now over to you!

Thoughts on vertical integration...

This is something of a service announcement, I'm afraid, but it will be followed by some more real thoughts.  For some months now I have been considering how I might improve 'Thoughts on Music' within the constraints of my resources, both financial and temporal. I have some ideas of my own already but all realistic suggestions are always welcome. I must add one proviso, however; at this stage I am not planning to add downloads to the blog.

Vertical integration  - the interaction and accessibility across the various modes and platforms of social networking -  is certainly something that has crossed my mind and it is one aspect that I would like to improve. It is early days, and the time to implement and monitor it is still something of a limiting factor; furthermore it is going to take considerable effort and a steep leaning curve to make it work seamlessly. There will without doubt be some trials, tribulations and false starts along the way, and this is on a not-for-profit and just-for-satisfaction basis, but I think it worth a try and the first real steps were taken this evening.
 
You can now use Twitter to comment on blog posts: @ThoughtsOnMusic or see my tweets for that matter.
Let me know how it works, or doesn't, for you.

The Eutectic Point...

The MTV and Mercury Music awards are now both shortlisted, so it is that time of year again. I imagine that many in the major labels are wringing their hands although it is likely that they will score some successes in 2009 even if the personal cost might have been high for music industry executives in terms of bonuses.

Hiya!

'real world' --- aka 'the rest of us' --- because we've known exactly that for ages and were not paid a penny for our wisdom.

I'm happy living with my thought that that the industry is, finally, undergoing some kind of corporate cognitive therapy, resulting in a very slow transformation in terms of both self-awareness and of the changing situation. The issue is that depite (maybe even because of) the riches the-gravy-train that recorded-music history granted them for almost fifty years the magic has finally worn so thin as to have as-wide-an-appeal as a dried-out-tea-bag, awaiting its second-coming, in a student house.
It took, however, the better part of a decade for the industry to wake-up to, let alone make attempts at full engagement with, the new reality. My experience is that students learn such things much faster and probably because they simply have to.

The four major labels are certainly not out of the woods yet but at least they are trying. The real issue is that the decades of sycophantic hegemony are over; it is now a long-established industry under attack from more directions than merely those posed by the rise of illegal downloading alone. That is, however, a phenomenon that both they and the High Street music stores handled catastrophically: a case of corporate self-denial, in the face of a blindingly-obvious rapid change in circumstances, if ever there were one.
Many of the new threats are, and have every reason to remain, valid as they are quite legal and that too is largely a massive failure on the part of the existing players in the market. It is hard to say for sure but, had things been done differently and I'm not talking Draconian measures here, I can't help but think that the 'big-four' might not be in the situation in which they now find themselves.

Good luck independent labels - you are amongst the forces of the future!

Hello, June Fool.

It has just struck me that I've recently spent a lot of time posting about new artists and/or new releases that I want to listen to but then provided precious little feedback on those that I have heard live or acquired as physical recordings. I'm still adding new ones, as ever, and I'll keep adding those but what I intend to do next is a resumé of the 2009 music that has caught my attention so far. I'm not sure of the format yet; perhaps it could be like an 'Amazon List' or maybe not, as that format doesn't allow much comment, but I can see certain points in favour of both approaches.
My inclination is to take the 'Ash' approach in reverse and to review my current six favourite releases from the first six months of 2009 at the rate of one a week. I don't know if I can do it but surely there would be no harm to at least try. They may not even be albums and some items may not be by UK artists or even readily available in the UK.
It is not, as such, a change of plan as I intend to continue adding the usual random 'Thoughts On Music' but rather a just a new challenge and if I only achieve one such each fortnight then I will still reach the end of 2009 in even time. That said, it might be good to slip in the occasional older one from time to time too, if only by way of comparison or contrast. No promises...

Hello June Fool is also the title of an album by East Coast indie rockers Madder Rose, which is a decade old now. I have mentioned it before and it still seems relevant to me but the self-titled Saint Low is just iconic.

Thank you, everyone.

When I added a counter to this blog in early 2008 my dream was that, within a year, it would tell me that I had reached a thousand distinct readers. That is something over which I have no control whatsoever but I didn't need to worry - you made it happen and then some.
What I couldn't possibly have imagined is that, a couple of days before the start of 2009, it was set to reach 10,000.
I am quite stunned; my humble thanks to everyone that has visited this site, returned to it, left comments (always appreciated even if critical) and everyone else that has directly or indirectly helped with it in so many ways. I started 'Thoughts On Music' tentatively in September 2006 and I could not then conceive of writing a dozen posts. I can hardly believe that this, when I publish it, will be my 285th post to this blog!

For me the importance doesn't stop there. If I had not started this I very much doubt that I would have decided to go to Latitude 2007, a venture I repeated in 2008, or seen so many other live bands, read so much about music or even bought so much of it. There are also all the people that as a result I have had the pleasure to meet or talk to, most of whom are at least indirectly a result of this.

Just now, and purely for fun, I've taken out the limiter in the 'I've Just Listened To...' sidebar. Of course I've listened to more than this since I introduced it (I couldn't possibly include everything) but for now it is complete and as compiled.