Did Womex, the “World Music Expo” depress me or enervate me? Well, neither really. I must be losing my touch. Although not, perhaps, when it comes to pissing off editors and publishers of ‘world music’ magazines.
The last sight I had of one of them (until I apologised the next morning) was his back as he stomped off across a rapidly emptying hall shouting: “You’re talking SHIT! I don’t have to listen to this rubbish!! I’m OFF!!!” And so he was. And so I might have been.
My memory at the time was of me trying to get a word in edgeways, and there were only the two of us, no witnesses; but as my mind later curdled under the effects of too much Belizean rum I’m prepared to plead guilty and take the rap.
The other was more complex, and it was after Womex, so perhaps doesn’t count. But it’s worth telling.
A well-known author chose a track I co-produced and own, to go on a magazine covermount CD as one of his personal choices. Fair enough. In this area it’s become customary that the record company gives the track to the magazine free-of-charge and, as I no longer have the publishing and so can’t claim any of the mechanical royalties, there’s no direct gain.
So I do my usual moan about covermounts helping to destroy the industry, the child that ate its parents etc. etc., but , when it comes down to it, I’m flattered that this author should chose a 20 year-old track as one of his favourites, willing to make it work and happy it’s not been forgotten.
And there’s the rub. Having signed the deal and rushed a master to their mastering studio, I get an email from the magazine’s publisher next morning to say he’d just realised the album wasn’t available any more and so, he’s very sorry, but they can’t include the track.
What? Not available any more? Well, it’s certainly true that physical CDs of this particular album are thin on the ground and just as true that I’m not about to rush out tomorrow and manufacture some more. It is, as said, 20 years old. But not available? Deleted? Bollocks.
Click on any iTunes, on eMusic, on Calabash ( ... OK, maybe not them), click through from this site for God’s sake - and what can you buy? Easy. Cheap. 30 seconds and it’s there.
The explanation from the magazine was that they (I paraphrase): ‘can’t promote an album that their readers are unable to purchase and, as the majority of their readers are still purchasing music in its physical form, then digital doesn’t count.’ What can I say?
The record industry’s in a really strange place at the moment. It’s called melt-down, and one of the few icebergs that's left still floating is digital. To ignore this seems wilfully stupid. Almost beautifully so. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I, my partner, my children; artists and musicians, their partners and children, and a whole host of other people, depend on selling music in order to eat, then I’d probably applaud the beauty. But not the stupidity.
In the meantime, just for fun, here's another gratuitous Scottish beauty pic. This one is of the full moon rising across the Clyde from where we live, and taken by my son a month or so ago.
______________________________________________________________
Monday, 22nd October, 2007
Welcome to our remodeled site: full album audio streaming, buy-links to digital downloads on iTunes and to physical albums on Sterns, big cover pictures available for download ... slowly but surely I accept this digital age.
There's also (fairly obvious, as you are reading it) a "diary" section. And just as obviously or at least typically, having finally got my own soap-box I can now think of nothing to shout about. However, no doubt I will and in the meantime I'm off to Womex, the "World Music Expo". This experience usually either depresses me entirely or enervates me embarrassingly so, in anticipation of surviving those emotions, below is a scene of gratuitous Scottish beauty: looking across Loch Awe a winter or so ago, on my way back from Oban when I got slightly lost ... but that's another story.
