Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/27
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Hi all
All the turkeys around here (Europe) are celebrating surviving their
American cousins, but that's only because they take a short term view, just
like that modern human turkey, The Manager. If they only could see a little
further, they'd be digging tunnels, sending out deputations to negotiate
with the abattoirs and organising resistance to being the species of choice
for the annual mass sacrifice that helps bind our primitive society to its
collective will.
Oh well.
So many things have happened to me in the last couple of weeks that all
point to a vacuum created by the loss of importance of quality in our
'culture' - education has become more about getting bums on seats to pay for
a top heavy but weak management structure (to the point where I try and run
a darkroom at a college on less money than I run my own darkroom).
Increasingly my portfolio is seen by overworked, inexperienced people who
are 'menu commissioning' - if I don't have exactly what they want for the
next job and they can't say 'I'll have one like that please', you get no
work. Not very perceptive.
The film bill of a Sunday newspaper I occassionally work for has halved over
the last year (this reflects the number of jobs they are commissioning
rather than a shift to digital cameras everyone shoots on film then scan
into EPD). The new style is to call in 3 pictures from the cheaper stock
libraries and pick the 'best' one. Not very inspiring.
I am thinking of ending my subscription to the British Journal of
Photography - it has too many mistakes in it, reading like it was
spallchucked but not proof read. It is more and more just a collection of
press releases and some quick articles. Well, it's a bit better than that,
but I have come to expect a lot from this ancient and venerable publication
that is supposed to be the last word on its subject.
I don't watch television, so I can't comment on that, but I do listen to the
radio a lot in the darkroom and have developed an allergic hatred of middle
class quiz shows in the place of researched and considered comment and analysis.
This is a list dedicated to certain aspects of quality, so I know that I am
preaching to the converted. Like le Capitaine Francky I don't consider
myself a fogey, I just try to be concerned with 'reality' and 'truths'. The
way that these issues have consistently manifested themselves recently makes
me feel that margins have been stretched and budgets squeezed to the point
where many things are just too mean and cheap to bother with, and we have
reached a turning point where the current balance between investment and
expenditure, value and cost is no longer viable. The seemingly total
dominance of money as the arbiter of value in society has hopefully reached
its limits - too many ambitious, talented and capable people have had
enough. At this time, I have to be optimistic (so please Leica, don't start
making plastic lenses!).
I'll chuck in a couple of bits of writing that are utterly off topic; an
article Pete Lawrence wrote in September on the Big Chill website
(http://www.bigchill.co.uk/) about the music business and the internet that
I think presents many interesting analogies to other areas, and a rant that
I wrote to the Big Chill mailing list. These are long and I'm sorry if it
bumped up your 'phone bill to download it. It's my protest against the
endless discussions about cleaning lenses - I think that some of you should
concentrate on pinhole photography.
I really enjoy reading this list as I wake up in the morning, there are so
many interesting and knowledgeable people here, but just recently I've woken
up with my face on the keyboard a few times. Just a swing of the pendulum I
suppose.
Next time I'll do my best to write something about Leica equipment. Please
feel free to flame me, but please, only in public!
All the best
Alex (in the mood to be bitter and twisted)
Here's the long stuff
__________________________________________________________
Manifesto 98 : Consuming Passions
ON's occasional look at the prevailing winds of change in music and
popular
culture.
1 Major labels are dying. Hardly surprising really, after investing the
bulk of their money milking back catalogue through the early 90s,
and then
being temporarily saved by the short lived Britpop phenomenon. Now,
with no
major lifestyle or fashion movement in force, the conventional
mainstream
music business, which is now turning over a reported 3bn a year, has
finally had its day. The charts mean bugger all, except to reps
offering
'one for one' deals to chart return shops. Niche markets, of
course, will
still thrive. Those that are not driven by fashion and bandwagon
jumping,
such as world music, folk and certain areas of dance music will
survive and
prosper because they've got their respective acts together and
painstakingly targeted their audiences, who will remain loyal and
hungry
for the music, providing that they are given access to the
information and
that their mortgages rates don't become totally prohibitive .
2 Record shops and conventional distribution are dying. Let's face
it, who
really enjoys browsing in record shops anymore? The last few years
has seen
the closure of many dance specialists such as Fat Cat, Quaff and
Unity in
central London alone, where, at best you would get good personal
service
with a very specialised and restricted number of 'behind the counter'
records. At worst, you'd get an avalanche of attitude, especially
if you
were unfortunate enough to be female or wrongly connected. And
really, who
thinks that £14.99 is the right price to pay for a CD album? Going
into the
supermarket record shops is akin to...well, going into a supermarket.
I used to be an Our Price shop manager years ago and I realised
that the
writing was on the wall when they started to slowly sift out 'music
people'
in favour of business people. I left back in 1983 and things were
already
going down hill fast. But recently, I decided to go into Our Price in
Crouch End, as it is my nearest record shop and I needed to buy another
copy of Global Communication's '76:14' for a friend who I thought
needed to
own it. I suspected that they would no longer stock it. When it
came out it
had a brief spell near the top of the Independent album charts and
recently
it was voted 'best ambient album of all time' on the Hyperreal
Digest on
the web, but still I thought I'd try. On asking at the counter, I got
laughed at with chortling comments of "Well, that's this week's
obscurity
of the week request and other such merriment. The fact that their
counters
are now elevated so that all customers are looked down on only
added to my
embarrassment. The personal service in Virgin, HMV and Tower in the
west
end may be a little better, but that's central London and we still have
many record shops in London, if you are prepared to suffer the
tubes and
the crowds to get to them. Pity the music loving resident of Honiton,
Matlock or Dumfries.
3 The music industry is terrified of the internet. And justifiably
so, as
it's exposing the profiteering racket that has been going on with
shops,
distributors and labels all creaming off the lion's share of the
profits
(after paying their lawyers and accountants, of course) leaving the
artist
with a very small percentage - around £1.50 - £2 per album. With a
suggested web selling price of, say £10 per album (still expensive, say
some), the artist would look at netting at least half of that
amount, with
distributors and retailers suddenly redundant. Others go even
further and
argue that there is no real role for the label, as it exists, other
than
'branding' and marketing. Optimistically, it looks as if the music
business may well soon be back in the hands of the artists and the
music
lovers, helped of course by the all-conquering computer geek. As
Alan McGee
said in a recent landmark issue of the NME "it's the best thing to
happen
for years. The music scene is going to contract and serve the
people who love music instead of the people who just buy it as a
fashion
accessory. Everything will contract...it'll be healthier because
it'll be
realistic." The majors failed to comprehend the aesthetics behind dance
music, or simply chose not to want to, as it contradicted all the rules
about career, personality and exploitation, not to mention its
stance on
copyright liberation. The mini Brit Pop boom just put off the
majors' hour
of reckoning for a couple more years. Now they're facing the reality.
That's why EMI and Polygram are selling up - fast. A lot of people have
been holding punters to ransom for far too long.
Inevitably, certain factions in the industry refuse to accept that
you can
ever replace "the real thing" - that is to say the conventionally
packaged
CD complete with its artwork. Notwithstanding that many consider the CD
jewel box to be aesthetically ugly (wide spine creating storage
problems,
drop em' and you break em), this defence possibly holds water for the
rock'n'roll aesthetic, but ultimately fails to address the growing
feeling
that the new punk spirit, if it exists and can be classified as
such, is
more attuned to internet and multi-media software, modems, news
groups and
lists, and covert worldwide communication, freeing artists from the
grip of
record companies.
A recent Observer feature, based around the waves made by the NME
alarmist
report, quoted Dire Straits manager Ed Bicknell "The argument (that the
internet is killing record companies) is nonsensical, alarmist and
simplistic. The very young may access music via the internet, but
most of
us will go to record shops. It's inconceivable that Sony Music or
W.H Smith
would see the internet coming along and decide to go and sell bananas
instead."
It's comments such as these, naive and short-sighted in themselves,
that
ably demonstrate just how out of touch the rock'n'roll business is
with the
new movers and shakers in the music industry. With large
corporations such
as Sony and multiples such as W.H.Smith seemingly having less and less
involvement in the grass roots music and preferring to do business only
with those companies prepared to play their marketing games, they
have long
since alienated real music fans. Bicknell's comments concerning
only the
very young using the net is as hopelessly misguided as it is
presumptuous.
While the rock'n'roll industry panics, the electronic community quietly
gets on with it, eschewing conventional high profile marketing in
favour of
a more word-of-mouth approach. In this scene, there is little hero
worship,
star status, and artist-consumer divide. many of these people were
using
the internet four years ago, and by the nature of their music making
methods, have a clear head start in understanding and exploiting
the myriad
technological developments that are transforming society.
4 Corporate festivals and large venue events are dying. Who would have
believed the former statement a year ago, with the general festival
fever
and enthusiasm for the large club experience? 98's a different story
however. Despite Glastonbury's rather glib press campaign to paint
itself
as the new Glyndborne in all the quality papers last year, it allegedly
still hadn't sold out a month before this year's event - a very
different
story to last year. Look further afield and there are reports of DJs
playing to less than a hundred people in a main tent at
Creamfields, and
then the horror and massive embarrassment of Universe being
cancelled after
selling only a fifth of its break even a month before the event -
and after
all their grandiose claims ("the ultimate festival of the future....the
most spectacular event to date, a mind blowing dance marathon that
you will
remember for the rest of your life and beyond").
The surrogate indoor Universe, booked in for the same date at Brixton
Academy by another promoter to cash in on the cancellation, was lucky
enough to confirm Roni Size and Reprazent as headliners, and had a
rather
strong support cast too, but even that was cancelled a week before the
event because of a reported advance sale of just over 100 tickets.
There is
no artist loyalty any more. Even The Mean Fiddler, kings of the live
promotion in London, had to pull three large events - the huge four day
Phoenix festival, Lighthouse Family and New Order - due to take
place at
Finsbury Park this summer. In a recent NME - an issue devoted to
"the Great
Rock'n'Roll Dwindle' (ouch!). Mean Fiddler's Vince Power won huge
respect
for being honest and coming clean " It's not pride, it's ego. Ego
keeps the
music biz going. And promoters, including myself, are very good at
making
excuses for what's happening rather than facing the writing on the
wall.
The truth is that the acts that are around just aren't big enough."
But is
it the 'size' of the acts, or the number of acts on the bill, or is
it the
way they're being promoted? Who knows. All we know is that there's
something afoot......
5 Clubs are dying. There are many who would take issue with this,
but what
we're talking about is the larger type of corporate club with expensive
lagers, sponsorship and a rigorously enforced anti-drugs policy.
Yes, Barry
Legg and the Criminal Justice Act seem to have succeeded in moving
'unofficial' parties out of the warehouse into the club, and now
out of the
club..er, onto the coffee tables and into the pubs. Witness the
number of
people who would rather stay in and chill than go out and get searched,
fleeced and discarded. Pub bars are now offering a whole host of free
nights with DJs, and in the process they have facilitated the
demise of the
more adventurous clubs that relied on a small admission fee to
cover any
visuals, flyers, staff and quality DJs and live acts. Current talk of
fixed penalties for stop and searching for soft drugs will finally
ensure
that no-one, bar none, leaves their home - ever. Welcome to cool
Brittania
folks!
6 Drum'n'bass is dead. Speed garage is dead. Categories are dead.
They had
a good run for their money. Drum'n'bass ultimately went nowhere, in
most
cases extremely fast. 4 Hero recently said that drum'n'bass was dead in
Muzik, so it must be true. We suspected it anyway. Speed Garage
died when
the major labels started to get excited by it and fucked it up.
Categories
have been an obsession of dance culture since day one. Check the
glossies -
all the tabloid mags have their reviews split into house, garage,
handbag,
speedbag, raggage, speed ambient and so on. It's no longer wise to
ignore
those who suggest that to categorise is to kill....
8 Music has no soul anymore. Or so Alan McGee's argument goes. He says
"Great music, like Elvis or The Stones, is created when there is a
generation gap. With no ideological point of view, ultimately music
has no
soul." Yet more evidence, say we, that rock'n'roll is finally lying
down
and dying. McGee's comments assume that we have to have stars, role
models
to look up to, and that rebellion, whether it be James Dean's
image, The
Beatles long hair and electricity, David Bowie's sexual ambiguity,
The Sex
Pistols's speed fuelled antics or the illegality of the rave. McGee
misses
the point that DIY culture has now enabled a scenario where anyone
can make
music, and distribute and sell it. And not only music, but their own
artwork, films, whatever. The coolest events in the late 90s are less
geared to watching and worshipping, more to collaboration and meeting.
Celebrating the diversity of life and the collective consciousness
rather
than celebrating a pop star's ego.
McGee is right in suggesting that laptops are now more sexy and
culturally
significant than any pop star. If there is a common thread that runs
through all of these issues and changes, it's the widespread
availability,
affordability and increasingly varied possibilities offered by the
computer. It may be the emancipation of the enslaved pop fan, but
it's also
the tool by which the whole music business is already being overturned.
9 Most importantly : Football rules the world. No questions asked,
John.
Know what I mean?
More fuel for the fire : The worldwide recession in the music
industry is
just a telling glimpse of what's about to happen in the wider economy.
Entertainment and other 'luxuries' are always hit first. Rising
interest
rates, inflation, economic disaster around the corner in Asia....
But for
the politics and mechanisms of the newly stripped down music
business (and
video and wider art) consumption, it's fantastic news. The real
revolution
in the late 90s didn't come with this decade's answer to punk or acid
house, but with something much more fundamental and far reaching -
the very
core and infra-structure of the music business and the way it all
works and
is consumed. Exciting, or what!
© 1998 Pete Lawrence
____________________________________________________________________________
_______
These Ambiguous Times
1998 has been a grey and pivotal year. A dreary Summer in Britain and a
newly fashionable fear of the immediate future is making great demands on
our ability to read our world and feel that we can plot a course within
rapidly changing currents. There is a general lack of excitement in the arts
where it seems that opportunities and budgets are more limited than ever.
The culture, popular or not, seems to be in a bit of a rut. Somehow a
weariness has fallen upon this New Labour Britain, but there is also a
strong and strange optimism in the air with few clear opinions as to what it
might signify.
What’s going on? Is it just a bit of a flat year in some ways or, in these
final days of the century are we seeing fundamental shifts and changes far
below the surface of our daily lives that will soon affect us all? The
surface ripples that we are now seeing are ambiguous and overshadowed by a
strong sense of normality and habit. There are of course lots of great
things going on, however it’s the apparent absence of cohesive trends that
make the current situation particularly interesting and confusing.
We live in a time of marketing where all available lifestyles have now been
processed as market segments and sold back to us. Resistance is useless
because it too has become an accepted lifestyle choice. We were incubated in
an ‘alternative’ culture of resistance that was strong, fun and felt
important. That hasn’t changed on an individual level, but out there there’s
now a feeling of ‘anything goes’, a limp cynicism. The tonic of a common
purpose has been diluted in a distracting froth of never ending novelty.
The ‘post-modern’ 1990's have seen a frenzied pace of novelty, repackaging
and a drastic shortening of the time between the creation of an idea in the
'street' and its successful appearance in the 'marketplace'. We have all
become so defined as consumers by the money obsessed society in which we
find ourselves that gradually we have become separated from the
significance and origins of what we consume. Like a supermarket shelf,
Kenyan green beans next to English chillies in identical packaging with no
sense of season or geography, things can be equally chosen and consumed. At
first this blurring of boundaries is exciting and liberating, but the appeal
of exotic combinations of influences, yet another fresh retro-look, or the
next buzz-in-a-pill, can only last so long.
The launch of digital TV feels significant because suddenly choice - and the
cost of choice - has been stretched to new limits. Margaret Thatcher
famously said, ‘In a free country everyone has to choose’. But freedom is
not choice. All this freedom and choosing has only made us busier and
shallower, unable to empathise with a world behind glass.
Packaging has become divorced from content, content has become divorced from
meaning, and meaning has become divorced from intent. The legacy of 40 years
of youth cults is an overawareness of packaging and branding, an essentially
adolescent trait that has been endlessly exploited. It is a neurotic
fascination with tiny differences that maturity will leave behind as the
perception is trained to look beyond comparison, at the nature of things
themselves. Britpop was the final straw. It is time for this society to grow up.
Adam Smith, 18th century champion of self interest, said that in a
capitalist society ‘excess growth leads to the pursuit of unnecessary things
at the expense of cultivation.’ The Western world is dependent on growth,
unsustainable by any measure of common sense. We have become an
uncultivated society which is now cowering before the new century rather
than welcoming it with full imagination. We are facing a contraction that we
cannot see the consequences of, and this is the fundamental shift - the
financial crises are only a vulgar symptom of a deeper, more important
process. A distillation, a refinement, an advancement is upon us. It is not
Millennial, the 2000 thing might affect us all but it’s still a parochial
event for christians and computers. This is evolutionary and for those who
are not adaptable in mind it will be painful. I’m not advocating Terence
McKenna’s Timewave Zero trajectory where the body could actually be left
behind (though some mornings I’m tempted), but I do feel that as society is
increasingly neutralised in an apparently acceptable economic slavery, the
number of people needing ‘content’ is rising even faster, and it is the
signs of this very positive tendency that point the way forward.
So, where to look for value and content? The way forward is encoded in the
past, but will require new interpretations. Forget science fiction, we’ve
been feeding off it for too long, it’s become just another part of the
novelty engine. Only look at what people are making for themselves, without
lust of result, because that’s what they want to do. Increasing numbers of
people are dropping out of good jobs to go to college or follow a passion -
not ‘downsizing’, just quietly doing what it takes. Cooking (as opposed to
dinner parties) & poetry seem to be much more popular recently. Enough ready
meals and pop songs! More young people are taking over allotments and
growing food, not for survival, just for pleasure. Fashion (in the clothes
sense) seems desperate and ephemeral, but there's a leaning towards fabric &
texture as opposed to cut and colour (or so I'm told - myself, I'm a scruffy
bastard). Exhibitions of ‘straight’ photographs are better attended than
they have been for years - with a good photograph, the packaging, and indeed
the object itself is invisible - you look straight through it to the
content. There is amazing music (or painting, or books, or film) all over
the place, more than ever before it seems to me. It is not encapsulated in
any one package. As society has fractalised under a storm of choice, there
are fewer and fewer routes which lead anywhere other than to the
marketplace. I’m not suggesting that we should all tend allotments and write
poetry, but I am suggesting that individual creativity has become a
necessity. You have to define experience for yourself, the only alternative
is Lifestyle. This is not new nor unprecedented, the difference is that now
it is unavoidable.
The key word for the new century will be ‘real’. A term that can no longer
be defined and therefore can only be known subjectively. This is the end of
the Age of Quantity.
Alex Brattell
____________________________________________________________________________
_______
We will now resume normal programming.....