Mark's Musings

As part of my occasional series on organisations which think they can tell you where and where not to link to them, I found a classic of the genre at easyJet’s website. Not only are they under the entirely mistaken impression that they can insist you only link to their front page, but they devote an entire page to utterly spurious conditions under which you are permitted to make that link.

Incidentally, the reason I discovered this page is because of a discussion in uk.legal.moderated about easyJet’s telephone number. On one of their websites, they present it as +44 871 244 2377, which, while technically the correct full international format, is somewhat confusing to UK-based customers who aren’t familiar with that format and try dialling it as presented, without the leading 0 necessary for national calls. As a result, many calls are going to a residential telephone line that happens to consist of the first six digits of easyJet’s number.

Obviously, that’s primarily the fault of the numpties who can’t understand a telephone number in international format, but, given that easyJet seem to want to make it hard to find (it doesn’t seem to be visible anywhere from a link on their main website, which may possibly be a reason why they don’t want people linking to it directly from the outside!), I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’ve deliberately used that format alone in the hope that it will deter their less-intelligent customers from calling them. After all, it’s not as if they don’t have the space on the website to display the number in both national and international formats.

Incidentally, the number above is, of course, for easyJet Holidays, not the airline. The number for the airline is 0871 244 2366 – and please don’t forget that leading 0!.

Mark

August 2nd, 2010 | Category: Digital Lunacy | Leave a comment

I bought a copy of the Daily Mirror today. I don’t normally read it (except when I’m in the Chinese takeaway waiting for my order), but I bought it today in order to get hold of the new album by Prince.

I do think that Prince is a bit of a plonker in many respects, not least his rather bizarre attitude to the Internet, but I also think that distributing his music this way is genuinely innovative and worth taking seriously. What it does, of course, is cut out the big record companies who whine incessantly about piracy while lining their own pockets at the expense of both artists and consumers. Prince is almost certainly earning more from this deal than he would by going through the usual channels, and we can buy the album for the cost of a daily newspaper. That’s good news for him, good news for us (and, I presume, good news for the Mirror, who stand to benefit from the publicity and extra sales). And what’s even better news is that it makes the antediluvian attitudes of the record labels look even more unsustainable.

I’m not convinced that releasing music via newspapers will ever be the most common form of distribution, and it’s clearly not going to work for everyone. But it will work for some, just as Radiohead’s equally innovative “pay what you think it’s worth” digital release of In Rainbows worked for them. There are artists out there who are prepared to think outside the box when it comes to making a living from their art without screwing over the consumer, and the more successful they are the more obvious it becomes that the record companies are getting it wrong. For a business sector which relies on creativity for its product, the music industry is more often notable for an extremely unimaginative and narrow-minded approach to marketing and financing. Experiments like this one by Prince are, therefore, to be applauded – even if, as I do, you think that the Mirror is a naff newspaper.

July 10th, 2010 | Category: Music | Leave a comment

So, it’s the end of 30 days of music. I’m not entirely sure what to make of “my favourite song this time last year”, since if you mean “all-time favourite” then it was still the same as my choice for day 1. So I presume I’m supposed to pick the song that was my then-current favourite a year ago, if that makes sense.

So, what was I listening to this time last year? Being back in an office where we listen to music communally, on the radio, rather than sitting is silence or with headphones on, meant that this time last year I was hearing plenty of new stuff. Some I liked, some I didn’t, and some I really loved. This song fell into the final category.

I could leave it there and just play the song, but as it happens I’d never seen the video to it until I looked it up for the sake of this article. And, oh gosh, what a load of pretentious nonsense! OK, so the song itself is a bit pretentious as far as the words are concerned – I presume the main lyrical question is supposed to be rhetorical, but I still have no idea what it means. But the video takes pretentious guff to an entirely new level – it’s almost as if it’s a deliberate parody of the kind of “meaningful” videos that were popular in the
80s. Then again, maybe that really is the intention. Who knows? And what is Brandon Flowers wearing on his shoulders? Are we human, or are we dancer?

The Killers – Human

Incidentally, for a wonderfully subversive version of this song, Robbie Williams’ Live Lounge cover is worth a look!

June 30th, 2010 | Tags: 30 Days of Music | Category: 30 Days of Music | Leave a comment

For all that music means to me now, I don’t have much memory of it from my childhood. Partly, that’s because we weren’t a particularly musical family – we had an ancient gramophone with some old 78s (I kid you not!), but they didn’t get a lot of needle time and for most of my childhood music was just something that happened in the background – the radio playing in shops, or on the school bus, and once a week Top of the Pops on TV, but only the occasional song piqued my interest. It wasn’t until my teens, when I got a radio of my own and discovered Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline, that I realised there was plenty of stuff out there that I actually liked listening to. Effectively, my musical knowledge began in 1978, which for me was rather late.

Having said that, I do have one very vivid musical memory from my early childhood. In fact, it’s the earliest memory that I can put a precise date on. My mum used to listen to the radio in the kitchen while she did the housework and, though I don’t remember much of it, this song somehow managed to implant itself in my memory. Actually, my memory is playing tricks with me a bit, since I was convinced before starting to write this article that I heard it announced on air by Jimmy Young – he seemed to be ubiquitous on the radio when I was a child. But, in fact, that’s not possible, at least not if my other memory is correct, and I’m more certain of that side of it.

What I actually remember hearing is the announcer (not the DJ – this would have been pre-Radio 1) telling us that he was going to play the new record by The Beatles. And this is the song he played:

Yellow Submarine

Footnote: This is a story that I’ve told several times, since “what’s your earliest memory?” is a fairly common question and hence I’ve had plenty of opportunities to give the answer. And when I do, people younger than me always seem to respond with “oooh, you remember The Beatles!” as if being old enough to hear their music while they were still making it is some kind of badge of musical honour. But the truth is, I barely remember any of it. In fact, other than this song, the only other Beatles track that I can definitely recall from my childhood is Octopus’s Garden, which is hardly one to be proud of remembering. I certainly had no idea, at the time, that they were the biggest band in the world. And, if I’m perfectly honest, I don’t really think I missed all that much.

June 29th, 2010 | Tags: 30 Days of Music | Category: 30 Days of Music | Leave a comment

I don’t think there are any songs which make me feel guilty, at least in the sense of being associated with something I’ve done wrong and feel ashamed of. But this song always reminds me that I don’t do as much as I should to make this world a better place.

Ralph McTell – Streets of London

June 28th, 2010 | Tags: 30 Days of Music | Category: 30 Days of Music | Leave a comment

So, England are out of the World Cup. Never mind the dodgy linesman’s decision which wrongly ruled out Frank Lampard’s goal. The fact is, the team just weren’t good enough anyway. So, what went wrong?

I blame John Terry. No, really. Hear me out.

England breezed through qualification. They didn’t become a bad team, and Fabio Capello didn’t become a bad manager, overnight. So what changed?

What changed was Terry sticking his dick where it didn’t belong. That cost him his authority in the team, and cost him the captaincy. Then Rio Ferdinand got injured, and the armband ended up with Steven Gerrard.

But Gerrard isn’t an England captain. He can’t lift a team when it’s down, and he needs someone else on the field to tell him to play for the team instead of himself. He needs a captain to lift him out of himself when he’s playing badly. With the armband, he drags everyone down to his level when he’s not playing well.

And he didn’t play well. Maybe the weight of the captaincy itself contributed to that. But, whatever the reason, the team also played badly as a result. And that’s why they’re on the way home.

A good captain could have made a difference. But the best captain in the team had thrown it away through his own stupid behaviour, and the second-best captain got injured through no fault of his own. Ferdinand’s injury wouldn’t have mattered in that respect if Terry had kept his libido under control. But it did matter, and the team paid the price. I only hope that Terry realises that he did to England’s chances in the World Cup exactly what he did to Vanessa Perroncel.

June 27th, 2010 | Tags: World Cup | Category: Football | Leave a comment

After yesterday’s songs that I can play on the keyboards, it doesn’t take much observation to guess that today’s song is going to feature an instrument that I can’t play. Or, at least, can’t play very well. I can manage about three and a half chords on the guitar, which, while it may be more than adequate for the truth, isn’t enough for most of the guitar-based music that I like listening to.

In particular, I’d love to be able to play this song. I’d love to be able to sing this song. Although it’s a classic stadium-rock anthem with some great guitar chops, the lyrics carry a darker side about love lost, ambition failed and nostalgia for a time that’s better seen through the eyes of hindsight than it probably was when it happened. While it doesn’t have the same heartbreaking intensity as the song I chose for day 4, there’s still a bittersweet taste here which means this isn’t an undiluted celebration song. And it’s all the better for it.

Bryan Adams – Summer of 69

June 27th, 2010 | Tags: 30 Days of Music | Category: 30 Days of Music | Leave a comment

Speaking as a musician, there are obviously plenty of songs which could fit this category. In fact, it would be harder to find a song which doesn’t fit this category, in one sense.

But there’s a difference between playing a song and playing on a song, if you get what I mean. I’m a keyboard player, and, contrary to what a fair number of non-musicians think, that’s not the same as either a pianist or an organist. Other than when I’m at home on my own, I rarely play solo – 99% of my “performance” music is as a member of a band. In a band, I can play pretty much any song, because all I have to do is provide the keyboard part – which, for the stuff I generally play, just means the bog-standard chords, phrases, pads and stabs. Occasionally I find myself called on to provide more of a piano-style lead, but that’s not really my scene (although if I get the chance to indulge in a bit of Hammond-organ style improvisation, I’ll take it!).

What that means, though, is that although in a band I can play almost any song, as a solo musician there aren’t all that many songs I can play in a way that would be instantly recognisable as the song in question! It doesn’t help that I find it quite difficult to play and sing at the same time – I can manage backing vocals when necessary, at least on songs I know well, but you won’t find me giving an impromptu performance on a pub piano, for example.

However, there are a few songs that I’d say I can play. Mostly, they’re the songs that inspired me to take up keyboards in the first place, rather than any other instrument. I’ve mentioned before in this series that I was very much into 80s electronica and synth-pop, so as soon as I could afford it I bought myself an analogue synth and taught myself to play it. This was one of the first songs I managed to pick apart:

Depeche Mode – Just Can’t Get Enough

June 26th, 2010 | Tags: 30 Days of Music | Category: 30 Days of Music | Leave a comment

I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. I don’t generally laugh at songs, unless they’re deliberately intended to be comedy songs (and, in those cases, they’re often not very good). But I can’t think of any other songs that make me laugh. But, then again, there are comedy songs and comedy songs. This isn’t a comedy song as such, but I have to confess that I laughed out loud when I first heard this cover version on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny…

Smells Like Teen Spirit

The really funny thing about this is that now, when I hear the Nirvana version, I can’t help thinking of this.

June 25th, 2010 | Tags: 30 Days of Music | Category: 30 Days of Music | Leave a comment