scanner
I went to see Scanner at The Museum of Garden History on Friday. A fantastic gig. The Museum is a former church, full of assorted garden detritus from across the ages. It makes for a comfortable, intimate atmosphere and a warm, lovely acoustic. Scanner (also known as Robin Rimbaud)'s music suited it to a tee. Ambienty and enveloping but with enough ideas and sufficient tension and drive that it doesn't lapse into New Aginess. But the thing it all reminded me of was how much a city's like the internet. Scanner is not a majority taste, he's not going to pack out the average venue, but the city aggregates enough people that something like this becomes viable. So 50 or so people lounge on the floor of an old church, listen to fantastic sounds and look at old Super 8 film from Derek Jarman. In the queue for coffee/beer you hear accents from all over the world, there's even the odd person who looks slightly familiar from similar things. Very nice. Then you all wonder off, back to your other social networks. And then I got home, stuck some pictures on flickr and, within a day got a friendly email from Mr Rimbaud. Excellent. Some things just go well.
steinski and mass
Every now and then there are three little piles of vinyl I reach for and plunge into nostalgia. The first is a fairly complete selection of KLF 12s which we won't go into now, the second is a big old collection of early Go-Go stuff (also not for today) and the third is a small mound of hip-hop singles I fell in love with - headed by We'll Be Right Back by Steinski and Mass Media. Steinski was a particular hero because he managed to be both influential in the history of hip-hop and have a job in advertising. But in that way that sometimes we're all too dense it never occurred to me to try and drag that affection out of the past and see what Mr Steinski et al was up to now. But yesterday while following links relating to dj/rupture I stumbled across Steve Steinski's blog and it's a marvelous thing. I've had a marathon listening to his shows on WFMU and you might want to too.
music futures
Went to the Barbican this evening to see two bands who ended up feeling like a future for music. First was the Portico Quartet, doing a free gig in the foyer. Absolutely hypnotic. I first encountered them via a miscellaneous twitter, then saw them on a few last.fm lists, and delicious tags which led me to their myspace page for a quick listen. That took me to the Barbican, that led me to buy the CD. (And to think about buying a hang, though that seems tricky) That seems like a future for the music industry, doesn't seem a bad future. Just not a lot of role in it for large record companies.
I'd heard a bit about The Bays before too, always fancied them, never made the effort to go. I'm very glad I went this evening, it was magnificent stuff and Andy Gangadeen is my new drumming hero. They make smart use of web stuff too, you can get downloads of their sets etc, but the very clever thing they do is not record. They're entirely a live, improvised experience. Every night is different and it really feels special. It's an important lesson; in an incredibly mediated age, people will also value spectacle. I'm hoping to see them again. Lots.
a good start
The record industry has never been good at selling music. (Meaning retailing music.) They've mostly just allowed people to buy. Sometimes. Most mainstream stores are just massive warehouses with all the products filed alphabetically. Imagine if most consumer products were sold alphabetically, shows you how dumb it is. There's a prefunctory attempt at segmentation by genre but there's no real thought given to the way that people actually think about their music in the real world.
But maybe HMV are starting to get it right. They've introduced some little islands in the warehouse which introduce an editorial note, a little bit of expertise. The best one is 'if you like this...you'll love this'. It's not genius but it's a start. I wonder if this is influence of Jon and Quiet Storm.
Alternatively, you could shop at these places.