Boss Radio

According to Wikipedia, "On this day in 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer, the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform was introduced.”

1981?? That was the year I bought my first Micro Computer. It doesn't seem possible. Still, as we all know, the IBMpc was just a market gap-filler whilst IBM worked on the microcomputer to outshine all microcomputers so it was cobbled together out of easily obtained parts and they didn't even bother trying to patent it.

Someone should have guessed the rest. Bosses who were reluctant to introduce micros saw the name IBM and declared 'this is the one we want', and there was nothing we could do to dissuade them. Then someone noticed that the design was in the public domain and started making cheap clones. You could almost picture the bosses watching and waiting to see if anyone else would buy one so they could see if it was any good.

They were, naturally, identical inside.

Then the genie left the bottle and refused to get back in. It set the world of personal computing back by about ten years and made Bill Gates a very rich man.

You wanna know where I got that estimate of ten years from?

Around 1990/1 I bought, at great expense, an Acorn RiscPC because it was really (really) fast. Fast enough to play back sheet music in real time. It could also do other clever stuff like playback movies and had extraordinarily high screen resolutions in its armoury, but none of that was of any interest to me, I just wanted to hear what my music was going to sound like before I handed it to the actual musicians. The Mac was right behind it of course, but it took the PC quite a while to catch up, and in speed terms it took a jump to another century for the PC to catch up.

It had a 233 chip.

What've you got in your PC?

...or to be more exact, it's not the aniversary of the day the music died; but it is close enough that it makes no difference.

Or not.

Read more...

Well maybe.

It seems that when that overenthusiastic presenter babbles on about all the contestants in X-Factor competing for a million pound recording contract, that's not strictly true. They get a contract all right, but the advance is only £150,000, they have to earn the rest from record sales. Not dificult with the power of Simon Cowell behind you you might think, but out of your record sales you also have to pay your expenses.

"What expenses?" I hear you ask. "Surely everything is paid for if you win the competition?"

Well, yes, it is, but then you have to pay it back out of your earnings.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking not a chance, you'd be out of that one like a rat up a drainpipe.

No you won't, sunshine, because the last 12 contestants all have to sign a contract or leave the competition. This contract not only covers the whole of the world, but it actually expressly covers the rest of the galaxy. What Sony intend to do about it if it turns out that the Snorfaffians of Uranus have different laws to ours I don't know, maybe they just won't let them listen to your records. That'd be a turn up for the book. The military would be allowed to use your music as a weapon of torture, but the peace-loving denizens of Uranus wouldn't be allowed to listen unless they agreed to the rules as laid down by Simon Cowell.

There's more to this contract, should you be so stupid as to sign it. Even if Cowell doesn't take up his option, and let's face it, he's unlikely to want to sign up all of the last 12 contestants, the suckerartist is still tied to the contract for 3 months after the end of the series. Just about long enough for the public to have forgotten them in fact.

Oh, and one more thing, if you should still be thinking this is a really good deal and you'd be willing to sign your life away to get on the show, it also expressly forbids you to say anything derogatory about Sony or Simon Cowell.

Now that's the bit that I can't handle.

Actually they call it the 'Electric jam' now because so many people (Me included) were taking enormous liberties with the term 'blues'. Anyway, we got ourselves all ready - Eventually - and wandered our slow but merry way down to the venue, me clutching a little case with a couple of pedals I needed because I'd decided I was going to play a little Frank Zappa tonight, and 'The Les Paul with no name', which is the best guitar for playing Zappa on, and mum clinging on to my arm because she's a little wobbly on her pins at the moment.

I sensed that something was awry as we walked alongside the pub. There was no sound from inside. We were almost half an hour late and even without me there there should have been some kind of music going on. Hey, I may be good but I'm not Mr. Anello.

Sure enough, when we got to the doors they were locked. One of the bars had a single solitary light on, the other (The music bar) was in total darkness. The only other illumination came from an upstairs window. Mum wanted to bang on the door but I decided the locked doors made it obvious enough that nothing was happening tonight, and we set off home again. Of all the nights for us to be late...

Once safely home I clambered onto the internet and looked up the venue's website. It simply stated that 'The PRS has won' and that the venue was closed for the foreseeable future.

This seemed a little odd. The PRS like to get their money, but they're not in the business of closing down music venues - that's a little counter productive when you're very existence depends upon music venues - so I had a look through the pages of the local music magazine. The forums there were alive with opinions, but all they did was to confirm to me that human beings are their own worst enemies.

Years ago when I had a living to earn out of music I well remember pointless discussions and wasted hours of my life at the Musician's Union as various members complained about being asked to fill in the PRS forms by the management and how the Union should do something about it because "It's not our job". I still remember the eerie silence that followed when I finally opened my mouth on the subject and pointed out that as a musician a large part of my livelihood depended upon songwriters writing songs for me to perform and that I didn't see it as a chore having to fill out a form that would mean that those songwriters got paid for doing it. Indeed, after being told by a couple of promoters that they always filled in the form with a list of their favourite songs irrespective of what had actually been played I was even more determined to fill the things in myself. I obtained some forms, filled in every song that we knew, then Xeroxed them. After that all I had to do after each gig was to cross off the songs which we hadn't played...

A few years ago the rules got changed as a result of so many people not wanting to be bothered writing out those danged forms. In future the PRS would guess what you were playing and divvy up the proceeds accordingly, so all most venues (That would be the discos...) would have to do would be to hand over the dosh once a year. Had I still been an active member of the Union I would have objected to this since it seems to me that this simply means that the money would now be distributed unfairly with a 'big star' bias. Of course in live venues some, make that 'most', of the artists would be performing their own material, so, unbeknownst to me, the PRS still required the affected venues to keep a list of the cover versions played.

It seems that while the owner of the venue was good at the public house game and excellent at the music game, she was pretty crap at the businesswoman game, and she hadn't been keeping the list, so the PRS did what they'd always done and guessed. The bill was quite a bit higher than expected. The promoter asked for a rethink on the grounds that blues nights and indie bands used very little music of interest to the PRS, they, of course, were unable to oblige. If they had everyone would have been trying it on. Meanwhile the promoter had spent most of her money making the venue a better place for music, and also in providing an area for the now outlawed smokers to go and smoke and still hear the music, so she couldn't pay the bill.

The months passed and the PRS just followed their usual course and issued court proceedings. For reasons known only to herself the promoter chose to ignore them until, two days before my electric night, she found herself, with the absolute minimum of notice, in court. By now she couldn't even afford a solicitor, and, apparently unaware that this could really be serious, tried to represent herself. The court, of course, had no choice but to find against her, and when she pointed out that she couldn't pay the courts declared her bankrupt. Nothing that the PRS could do about this even if they wanted to.

Now here's where it gets convoluted. Because she was now a bankrupt she was disqualified from running a business, so her only means of paying off the bill, her venue, had to close down.

It's a weird world. She was in the wrong, no doubt about that, but I can't help but think that if my fellow musicians weren't so bloody-minded about filling in those forms, we might still have somewhere to play...

You probably won't know most of the names, but I found these quotes from Criteria records and some are funny, some were very true, and some are still true today...

“I am just not doing it. I just got over going 16 track. How many tracks could you need?" - Mack Emmerman, frustrated and angry in an impromptu staff meeting in the lobby discussing 24 track recording.

“Old Chinese Proverb- A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.” (regarding multiple monitors) - Steven Klein.

“One day there will be consoles that remember everything, and digital boxes that can produce any effect or duplicate sounds. Tracks won’t be a consideration and we will change songs at the push of a button. Besides the fact that there won’t be rewind.” - Steve Klein talking about the future of recording sometime around 1978.

On the bathroom wall…”Here I sit broken hearted, paid $150 an hour and only farted.” - Bobby Caldwell

“Remember what an expert is. Ex is a has been and spurt is a drip under pressure.” - Steve Kimball

“If it is adjustable it will never be right.” - George Terry

“It takes a little time for the before 6 vibe to go away”. - Harper Dance talking about the magical transformation at Criteria after all the business people left at 6pm.

“Find out what the client wants and give it to him.” - Jerry Masters after the staff were asked to write their own job descriptions.

“I just played the coolest guitar part." - Albhy Galuten after recording the guitar riff on Staying Alive.

“It’s gotta weigh enough to sound good.” - Don Gehman talking about the rise in popularity of vintage gear.

“Four echo devices in every studio! Are you nuts?” - Mack Emmerman discussing equipment needs.