Greetings From Shitsville.... London

Lets cut straight to the chase here, I FUCKING hate London!!! It stinks, its depressing, its far too overcrowded, no-one seems to have any respect for each other, its quite possibly one of the loneliest places in Britain, if not the whole world.

For some almost unfathomable reason, people actually seem to love the place. Brits flock there in search of all the excitement and opportunity that our nation's capital has to offer. People from all over the world move to London in search of a better life. Tourists and travellers are constantly drawn to the place, wanting to experience what they perceive to be the pinnacle of British culture.

There's an old cockney sing-song that goes something along the lines of "Maybe its because I'm a Londoner that I love London town." I can see no legitimate reason why anyone would love London unless that's all they've ever known, or their life outside of London is so completely and utterly shit that the "Arse-end of England" is actually an improvement. I guess there are worse places in the world to be, but there are certainly a great number of better places too.

Its true that to some extent London is the pinnacle of British culture, there are things I love about this country such as the cultural diversity, the music, the arts, our great number of scientific advancements and achievements. London has all of these things taken to extremes. You only have to take a walk along Camden to see the more alternative side of British culture in full effect, to some it looks a lot like a freak-show, but for many of those that frequent the place its the perfect location to express their individuality.

On the other hand, London is also the epitome of everything that is wrong with Britain and for that matter much of western culture. Its the hub of big business and corporate industry. A city built upon a capitalist foundation, where the only way to survive is to work hard, spend hard, conform and consume. Wherever you go in London you are bombarded with advertising of some sort. Everyone wants your money, whether that be for the latest product, fast food, memorabilia or useless tat that serves only to feed our indoctrinated need to keep spending, those that sell are unrelenting in their constant pursuit of custom.

Often its obvious and unavoidable, many times its far more subliminal. The voiceover at the mall by Victoria station constantly repeats the same refrain: "Hungry? Thirsty? Why not try one of our delicious refreshments?" (correct me if I'm wrong on the exact wording but the message is principally the same). Do people even notice it anymore? Businessmen with their laptops, mobile phones and other great technical accessories send out a clear message that social status is directly connected to the gadgets they carry around, endorse and rely upon. Adverts on the tube trains declare that the average Londoner wakes up 44 minutes earlier than the rest of the UK (6:04 am) like that's something everyone there should be proud of, a prime example of the degree of dedication only found in the capital, while the rest of Britain is populated by lazy part-timers destined to under-achieve and ultimately fall behind in our modern fast-paced hi-tech society.

Traveling at peak time on the London Underground is possibly one of the most unpleasant experiences known to man. Millions of wage-slaves packed, squashed and compressed into dirty, underground stations and dense, sweaty trains. Everyone eager to get where they've got to go with no regard or respect for anyone else. All just cogs in the great big corporate machine. No-one smiles, no-one talks, every day our self-respect and dignity is reduced little by little until we all passively accept that our lives are ultimately worthless and miserable, so we conform.

Control is such a huge part of London, through advertising, routine and misery everyone is forced to adapt to the system. London's other great weapon is intimidation, if ever there was a prime example of Britain turning into an Orwellian, dystopian, police state then London is it. The law is everywhere, the minute you step off a train at Paddington the welcoming committee is there in full uniform with sniffer dogs. What sort of enforcement is this? Are they there to protect the individuals, or simply to search and possibly arrest otherwise innocent people, guilty only of smoking a joint before they left home in the morning? In a city that brings everyone down on a daily basis, the law is there to ensure that no-one dares to consider such an illicit pleasure while attempting to lead a "normal" life.

The police presence is only one part of the authoritarian nature of London law enforcement. CCTV is in abundance throughout the capital. Cameras are everywhere, there is no privacy. Whatever we do, we are always being watched. Security in London is big business, don't believe that these cameras are passively recording you for your own protection. They exist to control and intimidate, just like the police, just like the advertising, just like the underground.

Someone visiting from one of the more civilised areas of Britain may find that people in London are rude, disrespectful and to some extent unpleasant. Its not the fault of the individual, everyone's just trying to adapt as they go about their daily business. This is the lifestyle they lead, for many that's all they've ever known. I could imagine that many Londoners would find the somewhat more laidback pace of the rest of the country dull or boring. Its a sad shame for those people. For the tourist visiting England, London offers many things to do and sights to see. It does not offer a true representation of the country. The North of England is vastly different, the Westcountry is far more relaxed and laidback. London is what it is, but it isn't the be-all and end-all.

The idea that London is the place to be is a self-propagating myth. Many talk about the music scene in London to the extent where it is the only city in which great success can be achieved, for the most part this is true, but it can also be where the greatest failures occur. Spend too long in London and one may very well lose all motivation and love for music, maybe even the will to live.

Once again, I FUCKING hate London. I could never live there, nor would i ever want to. Its a truly horrible, miserable place. For the millions of people that call it home, i have great sympathy. There's a lot of things wrong in this world, London is one of them.

Deadline EP now available

Just a quickie then...

It took a bit longer than hoped. No support from any labels so I've put it out on my own label DogManic Records. Got messed around waiting for artwork so i've done something with one of my photos from Thailand (New Year Full Moon Party 2008/09).

You can download the whole EP or individual tracks here, price is £1.99 for the whole lot or 59p for individual tracks, or theres the option for you to pay more, should you want to. ;-)

Tracks included are:
Virtual Life
Coercion
Snow
Minds Infected

If you are feeling a bit tight or skint or whatever theres a bootleg torrent of it aswell which you can find here, this is a lower quality MP3 than the paid version. If you like it please buy it or at least share this bootleg of it.

Enjoy, all the best.

Music Snobs

I hated music when i was at school! Not music itself, i've always loved that. I hated the subject of music that i was taught at school. I hated the lessons, they were boring and i hated the teacher. He was just an old classical guy who by the tail end of the 80s had finally come to accept that The Beatles had actually contributed something good to the world, but otherwise had no time for rock, hip-hop, dance or any other contemporary styles of music.

Music snobbery exists on so many levels, we can all feel united, whether rocker or raver, in knowing that that there are old-fashioned classical music snobs who just don't get what we are about and for some reason think that they are somehow superior to us. Our uncultured music with shouty angsty lyrics and/or loud guitars and/or repetitive beats is so beneath them. Its like the class system all over again.

Its not just classical types that have this snobbery though, its everywhere. There are many musicians who look down on producers because they don't play instruments, like that is the only definition of someones musical credentials. How long did it take DJs to get recognition as performers and not just human jukeboxes? Even now you have old skool vinyl DJs looking down on MP3 DJs, claiming it to be cheating. There are still a great number of instrument-playing musicians who find it difficult to recognise that triggering loops, tweeking filters and firing off synth sounds is actually a real form of musical performance.

Still it gets worse, even in the world of electronica you've got hardware snobs that look down on software musicians, claiming some sort of superiority because at least their synths and samplers are proper pieces of equipment rather than the virtual mouse-clicking USB-controlled inferiority on a laptop screen software producers use. Mac users look down on PC users, blindly believing that Apple are great and Macs are always stable even though they crash a lot and don't have that good old ctrl-alt-del that Windows users are all too familiar with. And to top it all off, the vast majority of producers that don't use Reason look down on those that do, even though there's been some genuinely great music made in that particular program.

So where does that leave the poor producer making dubstep in Reason on a Dell PC? Surely he can respect, admire and possibly even envy the skill of a talented guitarist. No doubt he would love to have a studio full of Korg and Roland synths, but simply can't afford it. Maybe he's listened to a few old Beethoven symphonies and appreciated the depth of composition involved. Theres no snobbery there, no feeling like he has some sort of musical status against his aforementioned superiors.

Its quite a humble place to be really, and possibly one of the truest. Doesn't much of the best music come from artists in the lowest places? If a bedroom producer has no-one to lord it over and feel superior to, isn't it fair to say they are doing it for the love of the music? In many ways the attention to detail and intricate level of composition in many pieces of electronic music is far closer to classical than the simple verse-chorus-verse 3-chord songwriting of many instrumentalist musicians.

Music can be the great unifier yet so often musical differences can cause so many divisions. Understandably people want to surround themselves with people whom they share common interests, yet so many times this leads to people excluding others whom they feel don't fit with their idea of whats right. I mention this hierarchy of musicians here, but lets not forget all the music lovers out there that actually just enjoy listening to good music without feeling any desire to play an instrument or write songs themselves. Are these people any less worthy of being defined as musical? Surely not. The fans are often the best critics, it doesn't matter whether they can play or not.

Music snobbery is an unfortunate reality, but it achieves nothing. There are so many tools available to people to make the music they like, there is no right or wrong. So long as people keep making good music and we all keep enjoying it, surely that's all that matters.

Music Industry Bullshit: Its All The Same

It all sounds the bloody same!!!

How many times have we heard people say that? Whether its indie kids complaining about hip-hop, metal kids criticizing dance music, junglists dissing techno or old people moaning about more or less any form of modern music, the "it all sounds the same" argument gets thrown around quite a lot. For the most part there's some truth in it.

Lets look at the pop charts, here we have an endless stream of "artists" manufactured to some extent to fit perfectly into a particular sound and sell as many records as possible. It may be middle of the road whiny alt-pop like Coldplay making sombre depressing music for people that have never really known true misery, gangsta-pop rappers like 50 Cent knocking out the same lyrics about girls, guns and money over identikit beats, obviously manufactured all-style-no-substance pop stars like Lady Ga-Ga singing generic auto-tuned hits about how sexy they are or any one of the hundreds of NME-favoured/Kerrang!-endorsed, rock/punk/indie/emo bands churning out teen-angst anthems for kids too young to remember Kurt Cobain yet treating him like some sort of saint.

Its always the same, find a formula that works and repeat until no-one cares any more then move onto the next big thing. Record company executives take no shame in their blatant destruction of music art in the name of big business.

Of course, we're all freethinking underground people, we can laugh at how rubbish the music industry is, but are we really any better? Take any genre and you will find the same thing happening on a smaller scale. Producers knocking out formulaic tunes, using the same sample packs and software synths as each other. The beats rarely deviate from the established template, the structure is generally the same. Maybe its that 4/4 techno kick with a few sequenced arps or acid loops, that current favourite that is sidechained bass or pads, the wobbly bassline and half-step beats in the occasionally original dubstep scene, reece and amen tearouts in drum n bass, i could go on.

With vinyl sales dwindling and digital downloads hardly showing much in the way of profits its not entirely surprising that record labels, both large and small, are reluctant to invest time and money into artists that deviate too far from the tried and tested. Major labels are finding that the only stuff that sells in large quantities are those indistinguishable, glossy manufactured pop acts, or those artists already well established in their own right. Similarly, independent labels are only really interested in finding acts that fit comfortably in their genre specific roster. Dance labels want tunes that will work well on a dancefloor and hopefully sell to enough DJs for it to be worth the investment, hence the focus on stuff that sounds like the stuff thats already being played. Even many of the most experimental of dance labels have found their own particular flavour of experimentation to stick to.

So, yeah... It does all sound the same. Why is this pissing me off so much?

Honestly, i have sent copies of the new EP out to all sorts of electronic/breakbeat labels, some well established, others less so. Not one of those fuckers has bothered to get back to me, no feedback at all. I spent hours listening to practically identical breaks tunes on trackitdown.net trying to find labels that might just be interested in the Infected Minds sound. Very few... And most of those were foreign. Its all just the same old shit, it really does all sound the fucking same! Actually its depressing to hear the amount of tunes being released with the same beat, the same "Brutal Electro" synth sounds, the same old Vengeance samples. Does no-one care about innovating anymore?

Well, fuck em! I thought for a while before that i wanted to release my own shit, retain full control over my music. Kinda got talked out of that mindset, but since none of the labels i've tried want to know, then i've got no choice.

And you know what, i quite like it this way. At least i can put Deadline out at a reasonable price now. Its a bit late for the summer but better late than never. I know its gonna involve a lot more work for me but thats the way it goes. I've got a few things on for the rest of the week, but if all goes to plan Deadline will be out to download very soon for a good price. I need some decent cover art if anyone cares to donate some, but aside from that its ready to go.

Ahhh, how to end a pretty angry post on a positive note.

Peace, all. Shaun. X

Boredom- The Great Pacifier

You ever get that feeling when you just want something to happen? Anything... You know you could go out and do something, make some excitement for yourself but you just can't be arsed.

That's boredom for you. I shouldn't complain really, i've had a couple of great weekends recently. Thjis year's Glade was probably the best yet, Secret Garden Party turned out to be another great festie aswell. Its not like i've been sat around twiddling my thumbs for the last month. Nevertheless there is a real feeling of boredom. I've even found it hard to muster up the energy to actually sit here and type.

I've said it before, misery breeds apathy. Its like i'm actually too bored to even complain about boredom. I could blame the weather, actually to a great extent i do blame the weather. Once again Britain is suffering another shit summer, its grey and wet outside just like yesterday and no doubt the same as tomorrow. A little bit of sunshine does wonders, no such luck here then.

Being skint sucks! I can't afford to do anything interesting, i can't afford a social life. All i can do is sit here and feel bad as my not-very-profitable business goes down the pan. Even that's a catch-22, working in a dead-end job for some faceless corporation is surely one of the most depressing, soul destroying, worthless ways to spend your time yet it seems the simplest way right now to relieve boredom and earn money.

What about my music then? Well, i'm still trying (albeit not hard enough) to get this last EP signed. I've got some ideas i'm working on for new stuff but nothing even close to finished. Oh well...

So what was the point of me posting all this, then? I'm not really too sure, to be honest. I just wanted to try and do something. Its all too easy to just sit here and follow the same routines as every other day. Its a vicious circle. The title sums it all too well, boredom is the great pacifier, a self-perpetuating sedative. Sometimes it feels like the only way to relieve the boredom is to do something else equally boring and uninspiring.

Anyway, thats enough for today. I reckon its time i got on and actually did something interesting! I promise to cheer up next time you hear from me.

Shaun

New track up for free download

Just a little freebie i want to share.

The track is untitled and is the result of some college coursework during the last year, a collaboration between myself and Danny Unkut under the name of Winalot.

The idea was to engineer and produce a track in the college studio featuring other musicians, the most notable of whom is the excellent vocalist Ruth Royall whose contribution holds this track together.

Myself and Danny did the synth parts, i did some piano and Danny did most of the scratching. Other guests are Mark Fairclough on drums, Paul Quinn on piano and Peter Richardson on the turntables. It was recorded last winter.

This is the Infected Minds mix, my own take on the recording with my own arrangement and FX. Danny Unkut has his own mix which is quite deifferent and should be up on his MySpace player at some point, if not already.

I hope you enjoy it, free download from either MySpace or ReverbNation. Feel free to share it or do whatever you want with it. This is in no way related to any forthcoming Infected Minds releases so don't expect a polished version of it to arrive later. It is what it is. Enjoy!

Is Michael Jackson really dead?

The news of Jacko's death is truly sad. He was a musical genius and a true legend, as such he will be greatly missed. He leaves behind some genuinely great music and a legacy as one of the most amazing performers that ever lived. He has earned his place in the history books and deserves to be remembered for the awesome talent that he was.

That said, and with all respect to Jackson and his loved ones, i'm not entirely sure i believe he is really dead. Call me a conspiracy theorist but it all seems a bit suspicious. I've thought for a while that if anyone was going to fake their own death, Jacko would be the ideal candidate. Like a lot of people i was doubtful that he'd be able to pull off 50 nights at the O2, and i suspect he knew it himself. If he really was as ill as we have been led to believe he could surely never have thought that he could perform anywhere near the standard he used to in his heyday. I've personally been very skeptical about whether he'd even play one night for several months now.

The public persona of Michael Jackson aka Jacko aka The King of Pop was very much a character, none of us truly knew what he was really like. We only ever saw him as either the singer/dancer or the media figure. Did he really sleep in that glass tank? Was his best friend really a monkey? The Wacko Jacko image certainly added to his mystery and intrigue throughout the 80s and early 90s. It didn't do his career any harm at the time either. Of course as Wacko Jacko transformed into the troubled artist searching for his lost youth, it all started to go wrong. People will forever question whether or not the allegations about his involvement with kids were true. No-one really knows but everyone has an opinion on it. Whatever, Jackson has consistently remained a superstar and has never been out of the spotlight for long.

But what about the real man, what do we actually know about him? Very little, it seems. In my opinion, Jackson has always been a shrewd man, he wouldn't have been as successful as he was if he didn't know what he was doing. He's made some very smart business moves in his time, the sort that just don't fit with the Jacko we've seen in the media.

Faking his own death could be hugely profitable, it seems that there are going to be some considerable problems with refunds. I don't know the figures but i'm sure that a significant proportion of those 750,000 tickets have been traded through or by resellers and touts effectively voiding their warranty. Regardless, it appears that these refunds are the responsibility of the promoters and their insurance companies, not Jackson who no doubt received a large advance. Every radio station is playing his music which will earn his estate a vast sum in broadcast and publishing royalties. No doubt we will see a wave of best of albums, tributes and collectors box sets over the next few years, maybe even a Hollywood movie of his life. I wouldn't be surprised if the Michael Jackson estate re-acquires Neverland and turns it into a Jacko shrine which will inevitably attract thousands of paying visitors every day. It could be one of the greatest scams ever pulled.

He certainly went out well. Rather than fading as a broken man or fallen icon before ultimately passing away isolated and alone, Jackson's last days will be remembered as a genuine a-list star. The sort of superstar who can sell out 750,000 tickets for a residency in London. The star who pushed himself beyond his own limits because he wanted to put on the best show he could. He may not have actually performed but its easy now to remember what a great talent he really was, to remember him for his exceptional music. And that is exactly how we should, because it's the one thing we really do know about him.

If Michael Jackson, the man, is still alive then Jacko, the superstar is dead. We'll never hear from him again, he'll never record any more music, never appear infront of an audience again. If he is still alive maybe he really does just want to be left alone now, to grow old in peace. The only way he could ever achieve that would be to convince the world that he's dead. And surely, he deserves that right. Maybe its not a scam after all, maybe its Jacko's last word, his final exit, the only way he knew he could go out with any dignity.

A lot of people feel very sad today, and those grieving for the loss of their hero should grieve, this is the only way and the only time we can say goodbye to someone who has given so much pleasure to so many people, someone who has inspired and influenced many generations.

Regardless of anything i have suggested, this is the end of an era. My full respects go out to Jackson, his family, friends and fans. My apologies to anyone offended by my timing here, it truly is a sad day. Whether Jackson the man is alive or not, Jacko the superstar, the King of Pop passed away yesterday and he will be truly missed. May he rest in peace.

The legend may be dead but the legacy lives on.

Hey, Whats Been Happening?

I've been keeping a pretty low profile over the last few months, apart from an occasional blog and the odd tweet it probably looks like i've completely disappeared. Put simply i've been busy, you may know that i've been working on a new EP, that in itself has taken longer than i'd hoped but its more or less ready now. The main bulk of my time lately has been taken up with college coursework.

In case you didn't know i've spent the last two years studying music production at Access To Music in Bristol (CMP level 3), and its finally close to finished. For the record i should be on for a distinction. :) The whole course has been truly great, my production skills have improved significantly as has my own source of inspiration and sense of direction, next year i'm going to be taking the ADP level 4 course at Access To Music BANM in London which should be interesting and hopefully equally rewarding. For what its worth though i would highly recommend the CMP course for anyone interesting in making tunes, its government funded which means it costs next to nothing to do which is even better. Visit the website here.

Anyway, the last few months have been pretty hectic with a serious amount of coursework being due, the EP i have been promising has tied in with one particular unit at college, although thats done and dusted i felt like i needed to take a break for a couple of weeks before revisiting it and fixing a few fundamental problems with a couple of the tracks, i've also taken this as an opportunity to improve upon my mastering.

Honestly, i'm really quite pleased with how this new material sounds, its miles ahead from the demo-quality stuff i knocked out on Prelude (i'll talk more about that some other time) and a lot more dancefloor orientated. The beats are heavier and there's no pianos this time. I'm looking forward to getting it out there. I won't be releasing it as a freebie this time though, i wanna get it signed and out to a wider audience, we'll see how that goes.

I have got a free track i'll upload over the next few days though, its a collaboration i did at college with Danny Unkut featuring Ruth Royall on vocals and a few other guest players, its a bit slower than everything else but i hope you like it.

Aside from that, i'm working on a new website. If you've visited the current one, you'll notice that it hasn't changed much over the last 6 months. The new website is wordpress based and will become my main blog (i'll continue using the MySpace blog but i'll probably ditch the blogspot one). Aside from that, i will attempt to finish the Virtual Reality blog series i started and semi-abandoned over the next few weeks. Finally, i've also got a little bootleg project that i'll be unleashing this summer which i hope everyone will like.

Anyway, now i've got a bit more time to chill you will probably hear a lot more from me. The sun's out and summer's here at last, no more complaining about the weather. Take it easy.

The Drug Laws do not Work

(a copy of my reply to the discussion at myspace.com/commentuk)


We all know the drug laws don't work. But the harsh reality is that illegal drugs are big business, the second most profitable industry after weapons. If drugs were legal they would be a lot cheaper, they cost as much as they do simply because they are illegal. Big business rules this world and there are powerful influential "organisations" that make a LOT of money from illegal drugs and i'm not talking about street dealers.

The big businesses running the drugs trade don't want them to be legalised because that would seriously cut their profits. Instead we have a ridiculous system in the UK, and the rest of the world that criminalizes innocent people but is never actually effective in wiping out drugs.

The first step should be to allow cultivation for personal consumption of cannabis in reasonable quantities. There is significant evidence that cannabis use can have positive medicinal use for a wide range of illnesses, both physical and mental. But of course, the big pharmaceutical companies don't want you growing your own medicines because that would ruin their profits.

Ultimately, all drugs should be legal. The current system does not work for the people. While drugs are illegal, drug related crime will continue to be a problem in society as heroin and crack addicts will still be driven to theft, violence and prostitution to fund their habits. All the while, recreational drug users, many of whom contribute much to society through work and art, are forced to continue buying drugs from street dealers and ultimately funding organised crime.

We all know the drug laws don't work, but those laws don't exist for our benefit.

Some More Thoughts on Piracy

Considering the recent verdict on the Pirate Bay trial, the subject of piracy is one of much debate currently. I'm taking a break from the Virtual Reality series to look more closely at piracy and how ridiculous this whole verdict is.

The first thing I think needs to be mentioned is that the “victory” for the music industry is not a victory for musicians, nor is it a victory for copyright protection as many of us perceive it. I seriously doubt that any artists will see a penny from this, even if the fine does get paid it will end up in the pockets of record labels and publishers, the businessmen who have been controlling the industry for too long. That's what the music industry is, a very big and until now hugely profitable business.

The whole case has been clouded in this idea of morality, that copyright needs to protected for the sake of the artists, piracy is theft and anyone who actively partakes in piracy is not only a criminal, but a hugely immoral person. No decent person wants to steal from their friends, or indeed anyone they respect, the industry has tried to convince us that we are stealing from the artists we respect and admire, and we should be ashamed of ourselves. As I demonstrated in the previous post here, piracy as a form of theft is very different to stealing a physical item from your mates.

I'm not saying that artists are not suffering as a result of file-sharing, they are. There is a lot of independent music on small labels (or even self-financed) that can be downloaded illegally. These aren't successful pop stars, or big corporate labels, these are skint people just like you or me, struggling to make a living out of something they love. But this verdict has done nothing for them, no-one has been defending their rights, or trying to seek compensation for their losses. Like I said, this is about the big corporate side of the music industry.

Artists have been getting shafted by record labels and the like for too long. You think when you go out and buy a CD you are supporting the musicians involved? The small percentage of royalties the artist is entitled to only goes toward paying off the debt that artist owes to the label who loaned them the money to record the album in the first place. That debt is re-coupable only from record sales, if no-one buys the album, the artist doesn't have to pay it back. Axl Rose's Chinese Democracy cost Geffen $13m to record, it will never sell enough to pay back that debt. But Axl has lost nothing whether you buy it or copy it. That money could have been spent on better things (although I actually do like the album), but nevertheless I have to admire Axl for turning the tables on his label like that.

Rarely do successful artists “own” their music, the label owns the recordings, the publisher owns the copyright of the songs. Artists are tied to contracts forcing them to compromise their own artistic integrity just to meet deadlines and help the big boys make money. If you ask me, its about time for the whole system to change. Radiohead and NIN have recently proved that giving away music can be good for both artist and fans. If and when this greedy capitalistic music industry does collapse I for one will shed no tears.

Its time for the artists to regain their power, advancements in technology have made it possible for high quality professional studios to be set up in bedrooms and garages, the internet has opened up many new methods for inexpensive distribution and promotion. Music is art, not business. The need for major record labels is not so great any more. Fat-Cats getting rich off the talents of others should start to worry. Nothing could liberate music and musicians more than the death of this industry.

So, was this really a victory? I don't think so. Its just Napster all over again. Nothing changes, people will continue to share information freely just like we always have done. Artists will have to think differently if they want to be successful, embrace the future and learn from the past.

Music fans should support the artists by going to more gigs, buying merchandise, donating money if they can. Request your favourite Radio Djs to play your favourite up n coming artists, not the same old manufactured rubbish. Try to pay for underground music on independent labels via their own websites when you can (digital shops often take a large cut). But most importantly love the music you download, whether you have paid for it or not. Ultimately, any genuine artist does this because they enjoy it and they want other people to enjoy it too.

Pirate Bay may be the latest scapegoat for an industry that values its shareholders pockets over its artists livelihoods, but this industry's days are numbered. Don't fall victim to these capitalist lies and dubious claims of morality. The Pirate Bay are not the villains here, record labels were ripping off artists and stealing music long before file-sharing came about, and they'll continue to if we let them.

Virtual Reality - Pt 2: Digital Thieves

Something of a late follow-on post here, due in no small part to the various real world pressures that have a great deal of control over my life.

We previously looked at some examples of the ways in which our lives have become "virtual", how much of our consumer needs are now found in digital form, as opposed to the physical existence of the past. This has a huge impact on how we value these things. Our economy is essentially based upon scarcity, we can apply a value or worth to physical items as there is always a finite amount of them. However, as the old saying goes: time is money, as workers living in a monetary system we necessarily have to apply a value to time.

Digital goods are effectively nothing more than information. Music, films, software, all of these things we consume are ultimately binary code. Information has been exchanged freely for as long as mankind has been able to. Whether that be early man using basic forms of communication to share hunting/gathering info with his kind or a group of friends discussing their various thoughts and ideas on any subject they care to talk about. Of course, we also pay for information in the form of books (physical items) or education (time-based), but no-one can deny us our right to share the information in our heads (non-physical) with anyone we see fit.

This leads us into the subject of piracy. If your MP3 collection is ultimately non-physical information then surely it is your right to share it as you see fit. On the other hand a great deal of time and money went into the recording of those MP3s, which surely should be reimbursed. And this is where the dilemma lies. Its a simple fact that most people do not see piracy as theft. But theft is not so black and white, it has many shades. No-one can deny that there is a massive difference between stealing from a big corporate shop and stealing from your friends, likewise robbing a bank is not the same thing as robbing a granny. There are many different types of theft, each with their own moral and legal status.

Piracy is a form of theft, albeit very different to the others. To put it into perspective, if i go round your house and take your new U2 CD, then the result is i will have it and you won't, even though you payed for it. On the other hand if i go round your house and copy your U2 CD, then you have lost nothing. Clearly these 2 situations are different. However, while you may own that U2 CD that you payed for, you do not own the music within it, nor do you own the right to copy it (that of course belongs to the copyright holder). Essentially all you do own is the otherwise worthless piece of plastic that the music is stored on.

Now if we remove that mostly insignificant physical element of the album, we are left with just the information. As consumers, when we "purchase" and download an MP3 we don't own anything. Even the artists rarely own their music, publishers own the copyright and record labels own the recording. Believe it or not artists make very little from the actual sales of their albums, regardless of format. Music piracy harms the music industry more than it harms the musicians, and as we have seen there is a huge difference between stealing from a corporation than stealing from a person. For unsigned artists, or those signed to independent labels, it can be a bit different, certainly as far as the morality is concerned.

By no means am i trying to advocate piracy, as a musician myself i would obviously prefer people to pay for my music which i have spent a lot of time making (my only release to date is available as free download but thats not to say future releases will be). I am certain that without the needs of the physical world and the associated costs most musicians would be happy to give their music away, but unfortunately our society is not like that. It costs money to feed ourselves, it costs money to keep a roof over our heads and musicians should be paid for their work.

Nevertheless, piracy exists. It is not a new thing, but the semi-virtual nature of our world has made file-sharing so easy and huge that piracy is no longer contained to friends taping each others music. There is in principle no difference between a legal MP3 from iTunes and an illegally-sourced MP3 from PirateBay, infact often the DRM-free tunes from the latter make for a better "product" from the consumers perspective (i know Apple have dropped DRM, but that doesn't help the millions who have paid for tunes they can't even make copies of for themselves).

Has piracy devalued music? No. Has the digital/virtual nature of our media consumption devalued music as a product? Arguably, yes. These are just my opinions, but they are based on the way i see the world around me. Piracy is a big concern for the music industry, an industry that has been ripping off artists and music fans for too long. Piracy is an issue for the artists stuck within an industry that is rapidly collapsing. The "illegal" distribution of music through file-sharing is nevertheless an example of people taking back their rights to share information freely.

The monetary system has been around for a long time, it was conceived to manage the exchange of physical goods and services. Digital goods and virtual products cannot be valued in the same way. There is potentially an infinite availability of any MP3 or digital file, while the value of money is based upon its finite quantity. Clearly this leads to an imbalance. For the sake of this argument i have focused on music, quite simply because it is the industry that is being affected the most by this new digital age. You can find pretty much anything you want online for free somewhere, but this is of course limited to virtual goods or digital information.

In part 3, i want to look further at how the principles of the monetary system cannot be applied in the digital world. For now though, i would like to hope that the collapse of the music industry is the start of something newer and better, the opportunities for artists and musicians to empower themselves have never been greater. Whatever the future holds, people will still want to listen to music and musicians will still want to create it. Until now, huge corporations have controlled music and its consumption, but digital downloading has changed everything. The future may be unclear but the potential is great.

Virtual Reality - Pt 1: The Digital Age

It seems that our lives are becoming increasingly more virtual. Not in the all-encompassing way of films like The Matrix or Lawnmower Man (although its no great stretch of the imagination to envisage a world like that in the future), rather a virtual reality that we have a detachment from that keeps us in the real world. Digital technology has replaced the need for physical items in many aspects of our lives, most prominently entertainment. For many of us our computer has become central, integral even, to our daily business. As consumers, many of our favourite "possessions" exist on our hard drives, likewise a great proportion of our social lives are spent online.

If we look at music, the days of having physical collections of CDs or records taking pride of place in their rack, shelf or strewn about the place possibly not in their correct sleeves are gone, instead replaced by some sort of organised system found in the My Documents folder on your computer. The only physical space required for an extensive music collection is the hard drive itself, which we measure in terms of Gigabytes rather than metres (or feet). The way we acquire music has changed similarly, virtual stores like iTunes or Beatport have replace the traditional record shop providing convenience (instant downloads, pick the tunes you want, no disappointment of finding out the record you want is out of stock) at the cost of the record shop experience (the excitement of looking through the artwork on the way home, the personal touch of talking to the staff and receiving recommendations).

For movie lovers, downloading the latest Hollywood titles, and watching them on your PC connected to a TV or decent monitor, is often better than renting movies from the likes of Blockbuster or LoveFilm, only to find that when its finally in stock the disc is scratched and ends up skipping at the best bit. Again, the convenience of instant downloads comes at the cost of the personal touch of dealing with the film-lovers working at your local rental store. Although the sheer size of movie downloads can also take the "instant" out of the download process.

Keeping up to date with the latest news is even easier now with the multitude of websites that provide breaking stories almost immediately. The need to sit down and flick through pages of crap and adverts in newspapers that tell you what happened yesterday is effectively gone.

MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the millions of forums and other social websites provide ways of communicating with each other that were practically impossible only a few years ago. We can talk with people all over the world at any time with costs and timezones practically irrelevant.

These are just a few examples of the sort of virtual reality that exists in our lives. Of course, we still exist in physical reality, we still need physical goods, we all need to eat, we all need a roof over our head, our computers, TVs and stereos need manufacturing and the electricity required to power them has to come from somewhere. Watching a film at home is not as good as going to the cinema, listening to music at home is a completely different experience to going to a concert or club event, reading a newspaper on the train to work is often more practical and convenient than surfing the net on a laptop. And of course, social networking sites are no substitute for real socialising and spending time in the company of your friends and loved ones.

Not everyone in the world has access to the technology that we do, while the internet is not exclusively for the rich, it is nevertheless a luxury only available to those who can afford it. For much of the world, this kind of virtual reality is the stuff of fantasy.

The subject of piracy is the root of many debates, with a great deal of differing opinions. The virtual world, not being bound by scarcity in the same way that physical items are, leads many to change the way in which they value the virtual items they "own" (in many cases we own nothing now, instead we merely purchase a license to use). In the virtual world money is not necessary, or at least not in the way it is now. Infact it is only the needs of the physical world that require any sort of financial costs to be applied to digital products. While virtual money exists, and has the same value as its paper companion, the vast amount of legitimate free music, information and software shows that the monetary system as we know it is rapidly becoming outdated.

These last points i will expand on and investigate further in my next post. For now though, i think we can see that while our relationship with the virtual world is more detached than that of the "virtual reality" concept, it is certainly true that the need for physical items has largely been removed in many aspects of our lives, instead replaced by a digital universe (webiverse even) through which we can not only satisfy many of our needs but also achieve so much more than we ever could in the real world alone.

Decriminalise Cannabis Petition UK

I've tended to avoid the subject of drugs and drug laws in this blog to date, for what its worth its a topic i would prefer to explore in greater detail rather than simple speculation and opinions.

Nevertheless, anyone with any intelligence can see that the drug laws are not effective. Not only do they fail to prevent the real crimes involved with drugs (infact most of these crimes are a result of the drug laws), they also fail to prevent the serious problems that arise from the use of hard drugs (crack and heroin). Drug laws criminalise a substantial proportion of the world's population, people who are otherwise decent law-abiding citizens.

While i personally believe that the only way we can move forward in this respect is the complete decriminalisation of all drugs, i understand that its a slow process and would require the co-operation of all the world's leading governments. However, the British government took a step in the right direction a couple of years ago by downgrading cannabis to a class C, unfortunately that decision has recently been reversed, due in part to the great media propaganda machine.

Full cannabis decriminalisation should be the first step towards a newer better system regarding drugs. Again, this is not something that can be achieved overnight. Aside from the fact that cannabis is a relatively harmless drug (unlike alcohol and tobacco), it is proven to have a great number of positive uses, especially medical. A great number of people with health issues can benefit from using cannabis, and research is constantly showing more ways in which this natural, easily cultivated plant can be advantageous to sufferers of many illnesses.

Unfortunately the current laws prohibit the use of this drug in these ways, forcing sufferers to criminalise themselves and turn to the so-called black market to relieve their suffering. At the very least laws should be changed to allow for people to grow their own plants for personal use without fear of prosecution. This would not only be an acceptance of the fact that a large number of people do (and will) use the drug regardless of its legal status, but remove the need for otherwise innocent people to have to purchase the drug from street dealers, and in doing so continue to support a criminal industry.

Surely this would be a better way to combat the crime associated with drug use than the current system of full-blown criminalisation. As we all know, the drug laws do not work.

The reason i have brought this topic up is because it has come to my attention that a petition within the UK has been launched to "petition the Prime Minister to Decriminalise cannabis cultivation for personal use only (not for profit)."

The petition can be found here: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Growing-Cannabis/. Please sign it and tell as many people as you can, email your friends, post it in your own blog, make a video on YouTube, whatever you can. If enough people can show their support for what is a reasonable proposition, maybe our government might just take notice.

This is the Last Time I Talk About Snow

I'm going to keep this post short as i have said pretty much everything i wanted to in previous posts. There's still some snow but overall it seems to be clearing up now, to the disappointment of some and relief of others. However, it appears that a large number of employers are refusing to pay their staff for the days they were unable to attend last week. This is disgraceful, not only is it unfair (it might be illegal although i can only speculate), but in my opinion hugely irresponsible. Considering we are going through a serious recession here, any companies punishing their employees for a genuine inability to attend work are showing a complete disregard for the safety and well-being of their workforce, instead forcing their employees to risk their lives (and indeed the lives of others) by traveling in genuinely hazardous conditions just so that they can earn enough money to continue paying their bills. The government run Transport For London is guilty of this aswell as many other companies, both large and small. Again this is both greedy and irresponsible.

The BBC seems to have lightened up a bit on their reporting of this snow crisis a little though, perhaps due to the situation down in Australia. Aside from the few fatalities in Britain (and by no means do i wish to devalue them), the extremely hot weather down under has been far more serious than our freak snowstorm. Kinda puts it all into perspective, the value of the hundreds of lives lost in bush-fires is greater than the cost of the weather to our economy.

Nevertheless, i have dedicated a fair bit of time to this subject over the last week. As i have said previously, weather controls our lives in ways that governments, banks and religions can only dream of, this has been an example of that. It has not been my intention to criticize those so trapped within the work system as to be effectively forced into trying to continue with their daily business, regardless of the dangers. Instead i hope to have put forward an alternative viewpoint to that which has been propagated by the mainstream media, specifically the BBC. Hopefully, these last few posts, like the rest of this blog, has provided some food for thought if nothing else.

And for those that genuinely hate the snow, at least now you can look forward to plenty of rain!

More Snow... And Buses

Its still snowing! What a fun week this has turned out to be. I guess i was wrong about it all being cleared by yesterday, its great to wake up and see my hometown of Swindon covered in a thick white sheet, certainly makes a nice change from the usual grey theme!

Of course, while we should be enjoying ourselves and making the most of this rare treat, the BBC have continued to report this as "some of the worst weather in almost 20 years", personally i would call it some of the best snow since i was a kid. The BBC have definitely taken the throne as the champions of British propaganda this time, citing huge figures regarding the cost to our economy as the main tragedy in what they surely want to call the "snow crisis". You would think from the way they have been reporting that Britain had been hit by a tsunami or something.

But who's really losing out here? Those workers that are getting to spend the day with their loved ones surely aren't suffering, they should be entitled to pay for this time off if they physically can't get to work. The big corporations have got loads of money, enough to cover them for this week. I should think most of the rich fat shareholders are too busy having fun to worry about this (if they are worrying, they shouldn't). City traders selling up their stock in public transport companies know full well they can by them back next week cheaper and make a nice profit. Perhaps some of the small businesses and tradesmen might be having a hard time right now but that doesn't exactly account for the billions that the official statistics are giving us.

I reckon the BBC and everyone else like them are just out to make us feel bad for enjoying ourselves. Clearly they want to maintain the idea that our work defines us and that our jobs and our economy are so important that we should once again risk our lives and the lives of everyone else by trying to get to work by whatever means necessary. Then, of course, they can report about how the snow is causing all these road accidents.

I think i said more or less everything i needed to in my previous post here, nevertheless snow is fun for kids, why can't us grown-ups enjoy it too. Everything will be back to normal again next week, so make the most of it.

On a completely unrelated note, i read today that a Christian alliance are retaliating against the probably blasphemous Atheist Bus campaign with their own range of adverts claiming that "There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life". While we atheists, backed up by scientific knowledge, have had to compromise somewhat by using the word "probably", its seems completely wrong to me, and many others, that the Christians can be allowed to use the word "definitely" in such a way. Considering the foundation for much of the Christian complaints were that the “no God” claim could not be substantiated, surely then their own claims are even more unsubstantiated. I would suggest, in a fair compromise, their slogan should read "There might be a God...".

Maybe we should complain to the Advertising Standards Authority, i probably will.

Snow!

Well, apparently Britain descended into chaos yesterday, brought about by that great influence on us that is the weather. Or so the BBC would have us believe (here is one of many stories from their website).

I don't want to sound like i am downplaying this, but when serious weather hits us like this there is nothing we can do but accept it, Britain is perfectly well equipped to deal with rain, we get enough of it, but snow, forget it. In fact it seems that the real problem here is not the weather itself but the fact that people couldn't get to work, and i suspect for many they chose not to go to work instead enjoying the only thing that makes cold winters worth enduring.

The BBC repeatedly asked the question "could anything have been done?", while showing footage of some Londoner complaining that the roads weren't gritted and likening the situation to being in a third world country (about 30 seconds in to this video). With much public transport unable to operate, the only way for anyone to get to their oh-so-important jobs was to drive themselves through hazardous conditions. No wonder then that there was a large number of road accidents and injuries.

The way i see it, much of this chaos could have been avoided if everyone just took the day off. All the workers for big corporations who actually contribute very little to society should not put their lives and the lives of others at risk just so they go into the office and attend their apparently important business.

Ok, i'm not saying everyone should stay at home, doctors and medical professionals are needed more than ever in cases like this, similarly people still need to eat. But in times like this, people need to shift their priorities and think about each other, think about their community, their friends and family. Apparently the snow cost our economy £1.2 billion. I don't know how they work this out but in the current economic climate thats not the worst day we've had.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on the things that the BBC addressed, i have a very basic understanding of economics at best. I just can't help thinking that if our priorities changed a little, yesterday could be seen as an exceptional day with exceptional weather, rather than some sort of small scale natural disaster as it seemed to have been reported. Life goes on, tomorrow the snow will be gone and everything will return to normal, yesterday could have been fun for everyone. I think the kids had the right idea.

Thoughts on Thailand

Its been well over a week since i got back to this cold hell-hole that is England. What can i say? To think this is the first time i've been to Thailand, it sure won't be the last.

People told me my life would never be the same again, in some respects they are right. Its not the first time i've been travelling, i did 3 months around Australia and New Zealand, albeit some time ago. Nevertheless its a good reminder of how great the whole backpacking experience is. Of course this time i was not alone, its truly a great thing to share such an experience with someone close to me.

Thailand is an amazing and beautiful country, culturally speaking the difference to the western world is immense in so many ways. To see a nation that has such a relaxed attitude toward the things that over here would be considered a health and safety risk is at first strange but soon became refreshing. At many of the beach bars there was loads of fire-based entertainment, the sort of thing that you simply would not be allowed in this country. I guess their philosophy is if you are stupid enough to try jumping a fire-skipping rope drunk then its your own fault if you get burned.

The shabbily-built wooden huts that provided most of our accommodation are again something you would never see in England, although that is mostly due to the weather here. Similarly, the vast bulk of public transport around the country consists taxis of one form or another (taxi-cars, taxi-boats, even taxi-buses!), again a lot of these seem like they have been knocked up at home and would no way ever pass an MOT. It seems that everywhere there is a kind of shanty-town attitude towards many of the things we consider to be important health and safety issues.

Its this attitude that characterises Thailand and its culture. For a country that has not really known democracy for long and is really quite poor in comparison to ourselves, they experience a type of freedom we simply can't in our "Nanny State" society. Of course, its all relative, nowhere is perfect and Thailand is not without its faults but thats not what i wish to discuss right now.

The most striking thing about Thailand for many is of course the natural beauty of the country, particularly its many islands. My own "Final Destination" voyage (see previous post) led us straight to Phuket, a place we spent very little time, it reminded me very much of any number of holiday resorts, i might as well have been in Majorca! Next point of call was Ko Phi-Phi (the place i now realise i would likely have spent my Christmas on that ill-fated tsunami year), this is possibly one of the most beautiful places i have ever been, with gorgeous beaches and some amazing scenery. I even managed to (eventually) overcome my fear of drowning (i'm not much of a swimmer) and went snorkelling, another opportunity to see much of the islands beauty.

The beach at Tonsai was not in itself a great beach but the cliffs surrounding it were spectaculkar enough to make it the next point of call. Staying in a wooden hut partway up the mountain was also an experience. We didn't have enough time to do much though because our next destination was Ko Phangan ready for Christmas and New Year and its many parties.

Ko Phangan is in many ways the most westernised of all the places we visited, with many Brits and Europeans living there for long periods. The fact that there seemed to be a party every other day (all vaguely related to the moon) is probably reason enough for many hippies and ravers to want to spend long periods of time there. Whether these parties are as good as the festivals and free-parties we enjoy in England and Europe is a matter of debate, nevertheless they are cheap, fun and warm. Thailands hard-line zero-tolerance attitude towards drugs seems somewhat at odds with this party island but, again, thats not something i want to discuss here now.

My own personal ambition of spending Christmas in the sun was unfortunately hampered by the sudden, uncharacteristic downpour of rain Christmas day which continued on/off through to New Year, alongside plenty of cloud cover the rest of the time. Guess i'll have to go back there again next year.

Following Ko Phangan, we left to visit Ko Tao, a smaller island a little north within the gulf of Thailand. This island is another beautiful place, laidback with plenty of nature and scenery. Following that we had to return to Bangkok and reluctantly prepare ourselves for the journey home. Our flight got delayed/cancelled and we had to stay at a posh hotel for an extra night, paid for by the airline. :)

Coming home was not the nicest experience, not that there was anything wrong with the flights, just the knowledge that our holiday was over and we had a particularly cold England to look forward to. Still, as for life-changing experiences, it certainly had an impact on both of us. Now, our main objective is to find a way to go back there next year.

Personally i feel quite refreshed and inspired, my creative juices are flowing and i'm hoping to get some more tunes finished soon, this holiday has inspired me in new ways. I have plenty more thoughts on Thailand, society and everything else i like to rant about but they can wait another day. Hopefully this little memoir hasn't been too long or boring, i guess its been more for my benefit than anyone elses. I might even throw a few photos up on MySpace at some point.

Anyway, if you are still reading this and have yet to visit Thailand i strongly suggest you make some plans, its not an expensive holiday (apart from the flights) and its worth every penny. Next New Year (2009/10) is actually a proper Full Moon, something surely worth celebrating in style.