how does that one go again?a tumblelog

Wild Bunch Recordings 001

The first record from Bristol’s Wild Bunch Recordings was the original Wild Bunch soundsystem, Massive Attack’s Daydreaming 12”. The flipside, Any Love, was also the first record self-released by the band in 1988 on Massive Attack Records.

I now feel a bit paralysed as to what to write next about Massive Attack.  Maybe a list is best:

Blue Lines, debut album, huge record for me, they had to change name to just Massive at this time because of the first Gulf War and the sensitivities of the nation!

Main players were Mushroom, Daddy G and 3-D plus Tricky.  Tricky is a bit mental though.

Shara Nelson was the female vocalist, she had a half-baked solo career after she left. Down That Road ring any bells anyone?

Horace Andy is the reggae/dub singer with the vibrato-y voice that you hear on a lot of their records but not this one!

Protection, follow up to Blue Lines, was great too.  Still feel duped about buying the Mad Professor remix album of Protection though - he’d just played the whole album through a reverb effects pedal!

Saw them at The Arches in Glasgow when they were touring Protection - they did a Soundsystem gig.  I wanted a full band.  We had to agree to differ on their approach.

Kinda went off them a bit, didn’t buy any of their later work but toyed with Mezzanine.  Maybe I should go back to them.

Jerry Fuchs, the drummer from !!! and LCD Soundsytem, who tragically died when he fell down a lift shaft recently, played on Massive Attack’s latest ep, Splitting The Atom.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/indie_rocker_tragedy_vzvH9sBXvWVA5hjdDPaR0I

(Fuchs was the second !!! drummer to die in tragic circumstances - Mikel Gius was killed whilst out cycling.)

Summary:  Massive Attack used to be one of those bands that I would buy their records unheard.  Not anymore, but I’m still interested in what they’re up to.  And, I suppose no-one really buys records unheard anymore as we don’t have to!  Take a bow blogs/iTunes/Spotify, etc.

g.

http://massiveattack.com/

posted 1 day ago

Hush-hush, peer-to-peer

The deplorable Ben Elton would say, “Topical! Topical!”  I say,  interesting Vic Keegan article from The Guardian:

Stand by for the death of illegal music downloads. It is already gathering pace, being one of the fastest growing – or contracting – activities on the web. It is not happening because of the music industry’s rough justice (such as suing customers); nor because of Lord Mandelson’s variant of “three strikes and you’re out” for people caught downloading illegally – though doubtless they will claim credit.

It is happening because of an explosion of new companies offering tracks free, legally, without having to go to peer-to-peer sites and thereby avoiding the risk of getting bogus tracks or viruses. People are flocking to them simply because it is a much easier way of listening to music. None of these sites were started by the music industry, which has diverted energies, until recently, into propping up the ancient regime instead of preparing for the digital revolution. Virtually all of the payments systems for digital music – from iTunes to Nokia’s Comes With Music – have come from outside the music industry. What a wasted opportunity.

Two of the newbies, Spotify.com and We7.com, alone have gained at least 5 million new users in their first year, mainly people who previously downloaded illegally. They use so called “freemium” business models offering streamed tracks for free if you accept an advert or for nothing if you take out a monthly subscription. We7, a London company which is web-based, gets a lot of traffic from people who don’t know it’s there – they have found it by typing the name of a track into a search engine. This model could have a bright future as long as the music industry doesn’t snuff it out by extracting too much income from licences from each track, something that hinders scaling and worries Spotify and We7. Steve Purdham, CEO of We7, points out that different music services are popping up based on the context in which they operate. He calls his service “better than free” because it is easier than downloading illegally. Other music services launched or in the pipeline include Rdio.com from the founders of Skype, Virgin Media, Sky Songs and mog.com, which plans a $5 a month inclusive service.

The moral is simple. We are not a nation of thieves, but if a supermarket leaves its doors open and shuts down the tills, it should be unsurprised if people help themselves. The music industry lets illegal downloading thrive because it didn’t provide an easy, affordable way to pay. That was left to Apple’s iTunes, the likes of Last.fm and now a new generation of sites, which offer music at prices that reflect more fully the near-zero cost of distribution. While the music industry was lamenting that users wouldn’t pay for tracks, the same people were paying up to £3 a pop for ringtones on their phones. Why? Because phones have an easy payments system.

The music industry still complains of a billion illegal downloads every year, but has yet to prove that any significant economic damage is inflicted on it. This is partly because lots of those who have – and will continue to – illegally download wouldn’t be buying them anyway and may not be listening to many of those they do download. It is often easier just to listen to the radio or internet radio (where you can tune into a track playing at that moment anywhere in the world). And some of the heaviest downloaders are the biggest buyers of new music.

While the music industry has been complaining – successfully – to the government and the EU Commission that illegal downloads are destroying it, something rather curious has been happening. Are you ready for it? This year is the most successful in the UK’s history for singles sales. More than 117m have been sold – comfortably beating the previous record of 115.1m, set in 2008. And this is with Christmas to come. Yet the industry is still belly-aching about illegal downloads. I rest their case.

posted 1 day ago

It's Immaterial

I had this mobbed as one hit wonders but it seems they were there or thereabouts and released lots of stuff during the mid-80s.  Admittedly some of it sounds like the bastard offspring of Mike&The Mechanics and The Thompson Twins.

Driving Away From Home (Wicked Weather For Walking) 7.10 is a Balearic classic I’m told played on the terrace at Space as the sun rises.  I’m being pedantic I know but the song title on front and back covers does have the time of the track, 7.10, on it as part of the title.  To add further confusion there were other version known as Driving Away From Home (Jim’s Tune) and Driving Away From Home (I Mean After All It’s Only ‘Dead Man’s Curve’).

It’s Immaterial were formed in Liverpool by three former members of Yachts - Mancunian John Campbell vocals, Martin Dempsey guitar  and Henry Priestman keyboards - in addition to Paul Barlow, drums. By 1984, the band had been reduced to a duo - Campbell and Jarvis Whitehead, guitar and keyboards, who joined in 1982.

g.

posted 4 days ago