Search engines are dangerous things. I just found this article about Patti Smith by Kristin Hersh, from a book called Idle Worship edited by the esteemed (that’s my word) Melody Maker journalist Chris Roberts. I first read it ages ago, and by chance, found it again today:
Read more >I’ve just seen the music video of the year. It’s all shiny and bright and dark and light and it’s fabulous! It’s a deceptively simple video that oozes class, and keeps hitting you over the head. There are actually a lot of very clever visual effects in it, including one I didn’t notice until I’d watch the video for about the fifth time. Kristin and Billy’s middle son Wyatt makes a guest appearance too as a dancing loon. Those who’ve read my other posts will doubtless guess whose it is: 50 Foot Wave.
It’s a video for Clara Bow off their debut EP, and it’s currently only available for fans who’ve signed up for the Throwing Muses newsletter. So, if you want to see it, you’d better do the following:
I don’t think new newsletter subscribers get sent the current newsletter when they first subscribe. But, hey, I didn’t design the website 
So you’ll still need to click on the Preview link as I mentioned above.
The video is in three different formats. Those with ADSL will love the largest version. You can also download some live MP3s taken from a radio session.
Number 9 of 2003 — Client: Client
So begins this album by Client. “Client. We never say no.” And so it goes on in much the same vein. A synth-pop album, produced by two anonymous musicians. “Don’t touch me there.” Yes, this is the same track. All things change for Rock And Roll Machine, where we get to the core of Client, somewhere between Black Box Recorder and 1985-era Pet Shop Boys, with a cooler, more sophisticated air. “Rock and Roll is all I wanna do.”
So who are Client? On the album, and in all press material, they are Client A and Client B. So, that doesn’t help. What about photos? Oh, well they both wear sensible shoes. Hmm…that doesn’t help either.
Client sing about sex Price of Love, drugs Pills, rock and roll (the aforementioned Rock and Roll Machine), love, lust Diary of An 18 Year Old Boy and all points in between. Pretty much everything. Things go dark and murky on Happy and the instrumental Civilian, but soon recover with the stunning Sugar Candy Kisses, with its New Order bassline, and the drop-in of a gorgeous synth string pad just at the right time. Leipzig is another instrumental that seems to be based on an intro to a chilled out Underworld track.
So who are Client? The Yorkshire accent on the vocals is a small giveaway — Price of Love, or should that be “luv”, is particularly dreamy. It’s a delight to hear vocals that don’t try to be from within the M25, or from somewhere in America. The juxtaposition of the technology used and the vocal delivery is very effective. The backing tracks are typically clinical, but always bouncy, and the songs are classically arranged, in the same way that The Lightning Seeds are.
So who are Client? The vocals are by Halifax-born Sarah Blackwood, who used to be the lead vocalist in Dubstar — known really for two things: The ‘hit’ single Not So Manic Now and the infamous pencil-case cover for their first album Disgraceful. Sarah claims that Client are “a dark and filthy version” of Dubstar. The music is written by Kate Holmes. She used to play the flute in Frazier Chorus (Sue, their debut was one of my favourites of 1989), and is now married to Alan McGee, founder of Creation Records. There goes anonymity.
Watch out for a new album in 2004.
Last Wednesday, MacNN summarised the results of Apple’s first quarter of 2004. So, I thought: what is a diluted share? I just found a definition:
Earnings per share, including common stock, preferred stock, unexercised stock options, unexercised warrants, and some convertible debt. In companies with a large amount of convertibles, warrants and stock options, diluted earnings per share are usually a more accurate measure of the company’s real earning power than earnings per share.
RealNetworks proposes alliance with Apple | MacNN News
RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser has appealed to Apple CEO Steve Jobs to license its Fairplay DRM technology so as to allow music purchased through RealNetworks’s Rhapsody music store to work with the iPod. In an email sent to Jobs last week, and obtained by The New York Times, Glaser proposes that in return RealNetworks would make the iPod its primary device for the store and its RealPlayer software. Glaser cited a need for his company to find a partner in the increasingly competitive business, and suggested that should Apple rebuff the offer, as industry analysts expect, it would likely turn to Microsoft and migrate its music store from the AAC format to WMA. “Why is Steve afraid of opening up the iPod?” Glaser asked the Times, after word of the deal leaked out. “Steve is showing a high level of fear that I don’t understand.”
Is it only me that sees the real rationale behind this?
Once again, comments to MacNN are polarised between those who think Steve Jobs should do this: Licensing FairPlay so that this increases iPod sales. Others feel that Apple shouldn’t do this since it there is no need to do so. Real need Apple more than the other way around.
The fact is that iPods are one of the most successful digital audio players, and with the likely upcoming video iPods, this dominance is set to increase. Without iPod support in Real’s Rhapsody store, Real lose out on a large number of potential customers. That’s why Real are begging.
movabletype.org : Support Forum
The above entry to one of the Movable Type forums indicates one problem with making technology and tools freely available. Sure it’s democracy, but not all people can work with something once it’s been given to them on a plate. As a very experienced software engineer, I find that it’s crucial to properly evaluate something even before I start thinking about using it in a serious endeavour.
This particular user wants to modify one section of their web blog so that it looks like another section. The trouble is, it appears that they’ve not spent time examining how the blogging architecture works. They also appear to be unfamiliar with HTML and CSS. That’s an awful lot of hurdles to jump in order to get what you want.
The bottom line is, as always, to read the Movable Type manuals and read the documentation about the underlying (common) technology. No-one who has read the thread has the courage to gently persuade them in this direction. So, by the end of the thread, we’re far off the track compared to what was originally requested, and moving HTML tags all over the place.
It’s fairly unusual to review albums of the last year when we’re well into 2004, but since I’ve just started this website I do think I’m allowed the indulgence. I would have started with Sugababes’ Three, but that would have been boring, predictable, and not worth reading in a blog. So, instead Number 10 — Adult: Anxiety Always.
This is Adult’s first album, if you discount the Resuscitation compilation. If this album was coffee, it would originate from decaffeinated coffee made through a cafetier, and the album would be like the experience of tasting the gunk at the bottom of the cup. That’s a compliment, by the way.
Adult get bunched in with the (now expiring) electroclash revival. What we have here is, on first hearing, typical retro electronic drums of the early 80s, similar era synthesizers and very little in the way of melody. It’s more post-punk than post-electro. Mainly there are repetitive riffs, horribly distorted or arpeggiated, with screeching stabs and squelches from some abused electronic equipment.
However, delve a bit deeper and you’ll hear the rhythms of early Sisters of Mercy, and the detached style of Propaganda and Xmal Deutschland. Some reviewers can’t discern this, but I don’t think they know enough of these other bands, or perhaps haven’t really listened to this album. Believe me, the ghosts are there. We also have the vacant atonal voice of Nicola Kuperus. She talks her way through the album, aside from the couple of instrumentals. On We Know How to Have Fun, she clearly sounds like she doesn’t know. The standout tracks are Glue Your Eyelids Together; Nothing of the Kind – which shows remnants of Cabaret Voltaire, and includes
Is the album a masterpiece? Um, no. Not by a long way. I rate it because it’s interesting to listen to from an aesthetic viewpoint. The rhythms are interesting, and the composition in the main is good. The album wanes towards the end as the melodies (few that there are) get replaced by general machine noise, and the vocals appear more and more detached and flat. It might be intentional. The overall effect is quite wearing.
Two more of my albums of 2003 pick up on the electroclash revival, but, as we shall see are far more accessible, and one of them is a masterpiece.
In 1996, whilst I was working for a company that developed air defence and air traffic control systems, I was given the opportunity to move to Holland to work as the Software Development Manager for a European air traffic control system. I never turn down professional opportunities, so I accepted the offer, and moved in August 1996. The idea was for me to stay for six months to ‘get the system through training’, and then return to the UK.
As is usual in these cases, the true state of the system was somewhat different to what I had been lead to believe. Many parts of the system had yet to be completed; entire software subsystems were yet to be developed, and it was clear that the training activity, which was being forced ahead without much regard for reality, could not take place. The project management team, of which I was part, struggled with the political machinations of the work until around January 1997, whereupon both we and our client agreed that training would not take place. Furthermore, our client stated that much of what was being built didn’t meet their requirements. This was despite all formal requirements documents being properly signed and underwritten.
Prior to going to Holland, I’d had a fairly good experience of projects. Once you have the right people with the right skills, and everyone works competently, things generally go smoothly. However, I soon realised on this project, that my skills and experience weren’t going to help. Political and corporate priorities meant that from day to day, differing, sometimes conflicting instructions were given, and the software teams involved were also affected. I had no control over the situation, and I no longer felt empowered or obliged to make a difference. Needless to say the six months turned into two years — we spent eighteen months re-specifying and renegotiating the contract. At the end of this time, I wanted out. A new start. I was promised a new position when I returned to the UK, in a discipline that I am passionate about. I told my teams the news and prepared to move back home. I then got a phone call from one of my departmental managers who asked me to stay on the project after I had returned home. Reading between the lines, this was not a request, this was a decision. My new start had vanished. At this point I vowed to leave the company.
It took another two years for me to change jobs, whereupon I moved to Inverness to work for a specialist engineering company, with another opportunity to make a difference. For the first 2-3 weeks it seemed a good idea, but slowly but surely, the old issues of political and corporate priorities returned, and the changes that I could make within the business grew smaller and fewer.
This is one thread of my professional life up until 2000. The other starts in 1998 when I was given the opportunity to develop a website for a father of a friend of mine. I’d developed one website before as an amateur effort, and as I wrote previously, I don’t turn these offers down. I accepted the work, and developed a website, which now, six years later is still working, still bringing in business and is reputed to be the best website in Europe for its particular market.
Other work came in on the back of this first website, and I built up a small portfolio of websites. I was still doing my ‘day job’, but given the hassles with that, it was web development that gave me professional satisfaction. I could see the results of my labour, and my clients acknowledged that I had made a difference for them and their businesses.
In 2001, I was made redundant, so I had a decision to make. Was I to join another company to develop software and possibly find myself in the same circumstances again, or should I take a gamble and switch to web development? I chose the latter. A huge gamble, but I had the financial support to be able to try it for a year and see if it was working, and if not, then move to something else.
I’m still doing web development today, over three years later. One of my friends has joined the company and we work together on a number of different projects — some are software oriented, others purely web design, but mostly they are a mixture of the two. There are no political issues, no quick switches of corporate priority, no arguments, no personnel issues and in the main our clients are courteous, professional, accommodating and thankful for the work we do for them. We earn around a third of what we did when we were working for other companies, but I don’t mind. The important thing is we make a difference to the lives of the people we do work for, and this makes me very happy.
Emm Gryner:
I've had x number of endings
X number of endings
When do I begin?
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