…and I ain’t talkin’ about the Sade song which changed me life back in ’81. What I’m talkin’ ’bout is an article by ‘ethicist’ Randy Cohen of the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04FOB-ethicist-t.html

I have problems with this article.

First, his conclusion is that it is somehow ethical to download an illegal copy of any software (aka ‘intellectual property’) if you already own a legal copy. That’s rubbish to me. To me, the problem with all such arguments is that they don’t pass JC’s Hardware v. Software Ethical Smell Test (JCHVSEST®) which, as you already know, says the following:

If it smells fishy for hardware, it’s probably just as ethically cod-like for softwares

Look. You buy a great looking pair of jeans that really make your butt look great. You go on holiday to some totally bitchin’ place. On the first night out you reach for those go-to trousers only to find (to your horror) that you forgot to pack them. Do you…
a) Go to the local shop and purchase another
b) Go to a local […]

This is an update on what I’m doing to try to get back to play for you. It’s also a comment on the music biz. A couple of old saws come to mind:

You meet the same people on the way up as on the way down.

…and…

People never really grow up.

(That second one is mine, by the way.)

Bass Player/Vocalist

I have to say that re-purposing myself to sing and play bass is turning out to be not only a challenge, but something of a drag. First there is the issue of playing the bass. Yeah, I can play, but not this much. Were basses always this heavy? 😀

And secondly, there’s the problem of actually…er… singing and playing (rubs tummy and head at same time to demonstrate.) Frankly, I dunno how guys like Sting do it. I know that I took the Frank Zappa approach; ie. I consciously arranged the tunes to make it as easy as possible for me to play guitar and sing. And much of the time that meant not […]

I woke up dis moanin’… W-o-o-o-h and I felt so low I had to play dat bass

Tom Waits had a great song called ‘Step Right Up’ about marketing pitches. There’s a line in there

Change your shorts. Change your life. Change yourself into a nine year old Hindu boy.

That’s how I kinda feel after 2.75 years fighting the tide. Like the great Irish warrior Cuchualain. Or maybe it’s more like one of those Labrador Retrievers that try to retrieve a brick thrown into the ocean.

But I am now officially a bass player, first and guitar player third. The reason is simple: after meeting with three hand surgeons and five physical therapists it’s clear that my thumb will never return to proper form. It works for about five minutes at a time, but after that? The stamina ends. And that makes playing full shows, either for myself or anyone else, pretty much impossible.

But after much experimentation, I’ve found that the skills one needs to play electric and upright bass are still intact. […]

“Submitted for your approval…”

Jaron Lanier Speaks To Canadian Music Week

Anyone remember Rod Serling? He hosted a little show called ‘The Twilight Zone’ which started every bizzare-o episode with the above. I use it because I’ve been trying to tell people since I got started doing my little sideshow that the world the ‘Internet-Empowered’ world they think that they live in is as surreal as anything Rod ever cooked up. In fact, ‘surreal’ isn’t really the word for it because far from being merely an entertaining alternate reality — like believing in Santy and the North Pole, this illusion is specifically designed to delude, control and exploit pretty much every one of us. So perhaps the analogy I’m looking for is actually ‘The Matrix’.

As Jaron points out, the story that there are lots of indie musicians out there making tons of money through self-promotion is just a myth. It just doesn’t happen. Well, actually it does but in such small numbers as to be statistically insignificant. Pretty much every […]

I wanted to comment a bit on the kinds of gigs I play and why you haven’t seen much of me lately.

I just got back from Santa Fe, NM where I played a gig at a convention for psychologists studying the effects of various music-based therapies and the unique emotional challenges and personality disorders which tend to affect people in the creative arts.

And let me just say, you’d have to be nuts to play in front of a bunch of shrinks.

<rimshot>

I’m keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeding. I booked the gig months ahead based on a recommendation of a fan who also happens to be a psychologist. If it had been a ‘normal’ gig and I had not already committed, I probably would have backed out. But it wasn’t normal in any sense of the word.

What I do is targeted. When people come to see me they know what to expect and they expect me to docertain things. Because of the nature of this gig, meaning that people had no idea who I was, I […]