Author: richard

Cheeky Films are looking for photos of the pier for a film that will be completed early in 2005. Send in your photos, paintings etc.

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Dave was in town on Tuesday, working, taking photos for
Deep Purple at their penultimate gig (of the current tour) at the Brighton Centre.

Now, Deep Purple isn’t really something we’d go to see, but Dave was in town so we were going to go along and get the Rock experience. And besides, Dave conjured up backstage passes, making it a no brainer. (We’ve now been spoilt: insist on access all areas passes for all gigs you go to).

Deep Purple put on a good show, although we’re not the people to ask, knowing only
one song, but there were plenty of people seriously enjoying themselves. It was a good experience, especially being at a gig where you’re really not overly bothered by the music: you can just experience the whole thing, detached from the event as such. Odd.

Back stage (the Brighton Centre back stage is not Rock and Roll) there was some kind of meet and greet. A group of about thirty people gathered in a room, and all were Big Fans, probably having followed the tour round the country or the world – apart from us imposters, of course. When the band showed up for photographs and autographs, we were really feeling like phonies. But the band spent quite a lot of time, making sure they worked the room and got round to see everyone. We had a chat with a couple of them, and they seem like good blokes who obviously really enjoy what they do. Impressive.

It was 3am before I managed to drag Dave away from Hotel du Vin bar…quite a trick, as that bar does stock some good beers.

There’s a nice report from The Economist on the music industry. According to some, less music is being bought. Could part of the reason be a drop in the quality of music?

How do you to measure something as subjective as that? I can’t think of an easy way, but the Economist suggests looking at the success of live tours and the number of albums sold by an artist – these measures would give you an idea of the longevity of artists, which might point towards quality. The conclusion is: “Many recent singers have toured less and have often faded quickly from sight”.

The graph drawn from the opinions of Rolling Stone readers supports this, but it may be that the kinds of people drawn to Rolling Stone magazine tend to think the best albums were written around the 70s. I don’t know – I don’t read that magazine.

It’s an interesting article. I’m probably buying more music that ever, but I’m definitely buying more singles (due to iTunes music store). “The boss of one major label estimates that, while catalogue accounts for half of revenues, it brings in three-quarters of his profits. If the industry stops building catalogue by relying too much on one-hit wonders, it is storing up a big problem for the future”.

While Liverpool are getting on with it, we’re still talking about it: the latest survey in Brighton say 80% favour a smoking ban in the city (n=3700).

The government have pretty much ruled out a national ban for now, so this means Liverpool (and other councils) will need to ask Parliament to implement local laws. In the case of Liverpool, it’s the Prohibition of Smoking in Places of Work Bill. I’ve not yet found the text of the bill, but it’ll probably be introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by the end of November.

According to the Times “many of England’s biggest cities and nearly 50 councils are lining up behind Liverpool to back a ban on smoking”. In fact, a join bill from the London boroughs will also be presented this year to allow any London borough to put in place a similar ban. With this sort of pressure surely there will eventually be national legislation.

For now, it’ll still take 12-18 months for the local laws to be passed. This might be one of those fax your mp moments.

Overheard on the radio this morning, in relation to the meaning of life: “What if the hokey cokey really is all it’s about?”

Brighton booze: The council have OKed 24-hour drinking, while the headline of the Argus is that the Sussex Police chief attacks 24-hour drinking.

The Argus headline is a little misleading, because the Sussex chief constable is actually against the sale of cheap alcohol, and would rather have tax income to help pay for the policing of binge drinking. That’s the same binge drinking that the council is hoping to control with the new 24-hour licensing.

The first licenses will come into effect late in 2005, so it looks like we’re in for an interesting, experimental, summer in 2006…

I was out of town yesterday, so I don’t have any first-hand experience of the pro-hunt demo outside the Labour conference. I’ve been catching up on the whole dead horse thing via various blogs: Jamie, Iestyn, Tom’s Blog of a nobody, Adactio, their side of the story and more importantly the Sky News report: Hunt supporters strip.

The Economist has a short write-up on how the seaside is changing with younger people moving in.

We visited Steff, Simes, Daisy and Noah over the weekend which was smashing. I’d just like to thank Steff for introducing me to the concept of serving Ben & Jerry’s in slices: it makes perfect sense.

Oh, the photo? It just goes to show that it’s hard to make a Red Panda balance on your head for very long.