Lights on, no-one home

So throughout the land the Christmas lights have been turned on to help encourage shoppers to get into an extravagant spirit. Many thanks to our leaders for paying lip service to the dangers of climate change and the need to conserve energy but turning a blind eye to all those lights that aid Christmas commerce. How many years was it again before climate change is irreversible? Ho hum… ho ho ho… 

“Support Dimas decision on maize - keep Europe GMO free”

Support the decision of the EU’s Environment Commissioner to reject authorisation for the growing of two varieties of GM maize. Greenpeace has supplied the letter, so you all have to do is click and add your name and email address.

“Lyrical terrorist” convicted

The Guardian reports: 

A 23-year-old Heathrow airport worker who dubbed herself the “lyrical terrorist” today became the first woman to be convicted under the government’s anti-terror legislation.  

Maybe they can arrest Katie Melua while they’re at it, for being a terrible lyricist?

Have you downloaded your copy of the new album yet?

After a flurry of interest immediately following the album’s release, it seems that downloads of Abominations of Yondo have slowed down. If you haven’t yet tried the album, remember that you can download individual tracks or the whole thing from the Internet Archive. There’s no tip jar or even any Radiohead-style handling fee, it really is available for free. If you like the album, please encourage others to hear it too. The number of downloads to date is quite gratifying, especially for such unusual music, but we think we can do better with your help. CDRs are of course also available, for those who want the best possible audio quality, but the MP3s really do sound pretty good!

Fans bypass wicked record labels and pay artists… nothing

If one good thing comes out of the hype about Radiohead’s new album, hopefully it will be a decline in the bleating about how overpriced albums are and how listeners would rather pay the musician direct. Because the experiment has shown that two thirds of the audience would rather have the album for free. Now, there’s little point in judging whether that’s fair or not, but that’s the way it is - and one positive result is that we are now at last seeing some sensible comments being reported in the mass media. The BBC article linked to above quotes Michael Laskow: “Radiohead have been been bankrolled by their former label for the last 15 years… How will new artists be able to use this model if they haven’t built a fan base in the millions?”. At last, pennies are starting to drop.