STILL GOT THAT DAY JOB?
"The excellent free peer-reviewed net-journal First Monday has published an exhaustive survey of the earnings made by British and German musicians. Their conclusion? Copyright doesn't give creators a living, and in many cases (such as clearing samples) it costs them more than they can afford.
According to a GEMA (German collecting society) insider, only about 1,200 German composers can live from their creative output. Only a small minority of artists reaches ordinary living standards from copyright income... If an artist wants to include a sample from another record, major rights holders often insist on a controlling interest of 50 to 100 percent of the rights in the new track."

Link (via Boingboing)

and here's the flipside...

"This may come as a complete shock to the people who forget that entertainment is a business, but writers, like musicians, get an advance and then have to pay back that advance with royalties from book sales. What is the average advance? One small, non-scientific survey put it at less than US$6,000 (not adjusted for inflation)." Via Coolfer.

Neal Stephenson interview here.

Deal to ban 'homophobic' reggae. "The reggae industry is to refuse to release or stage concerts featuring homophobic songs under a global deal struck with gay rights groups." BBC.

Also from the BBC's site... "homophobia in Jamaica goes far beyond songs lyrics, with gay men and women "beaten, cut, burned, raped and shot on account of their sexuality", according to Amnesty International. It says while no official statistics are available, according to published reports at least 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered in Jamaica since 1997. And at least five Jamaicans have been granted asylum in the UK in the last two years because their lives had been threatened as a result of their sexual identity."

Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll out now. Kanye tops it - no surprises there, he's one of two hiphop CDs most critics bothered to listen to last year - that and the Grey Album.

Via O-Dub - "Lizz Mendez Berry's Vibe story on how hip-hop silences the issue of domestic violence is an important, important piece - one of the few examples of real investigative, issue-oriented reporting you'll find in today's urban culture mags.

Alas, what I think will be the ultimate fall-out is a much public hand-wringing but business as usual otherwise. As Lizz points out: that's not on hip-hop alone, but it's fascinating to see how fast people circle up the wagons to defend a batterer. If you're talking the talk, i.e. "kick in the door/wavin' the 44/all you heard was 'Poppa don't hit me no more'" at least be man enough to own up to it."

'Are you lesbian?' 'No, I'm making music.'
From Aaron Wherry... "Here's a little tip for the kids. If you're going to be interviewing Miss M.I.A., be sure to tell your editor you're going to need at least a half dozen pages to squeeze in all the good stuff. If your editor finds this unreasonable, get a blog and just reprint everything there. That way, everybody wins.

So. Today we talked to the delightful Maya Arulpragasam. The 800 word version of our encounter appears in tomorrow's National Post. [Read it here] If you'd rather just read a couple thousand of her words without ours getting in the way, this post is for you. Laughs have been edited out. But they were frequent. And wonderful." Read it all here.

UPDATE XL Recordings (MIA's label) list her album as coming out April 4 in the UK, but will be out February 22 in USA/Canada. Check Amazon.com for audio previews, cover art etc.

And have a look at Whinin' Simon, examining the notion of Kiwi music failing to churn out any 'standards'.
"it occurred to me [while he was drinking Belgian beer and eating mussels, bless him] that New Zealand, as a songwriting nation, for all the classic performances (and there have been countless) hasn’t yet matured sufficiently to produce standards as Australia, for example has. Perhaps it’s the result of a largely moribund recording industry for many years and the lack of any airplay...." Go on Simon, drink yourself more bliss, forget about the old songs, sing yourself a new one...
what about that Michael Murphy tune? Hang on, some Yank wrote that... (Just kidding about the whining thing, okay Simon?)

ADDED Simon suggests that there are plenty of Kiwi classic songs, but how do you define classics as different from standards? The two seem so closely interlinked. The term 'classic' is one that is so overused on relation to Kiwi music - as Simon notes, "we might have a recording history going back fifty years but we’ve only really had a mature recording industry for a decade or so." thats' not nearly enough time to generate standards.
Even worse are the music reviewers who label a new release an 'instant classic' (and no, I have never done that). I guess you could argue that a standard is something deeply ingrained in the national psyche, a tune that everybody knows. The one tune Simon missed out in his list was the Ka Mate haka, as used by the All Blacks. I think you'd call that a standard, yeah?

JAH DIVISION
There's this godawful album floating round called Dub Side of the Moon, someones wack idea of doing reggae versions of that crap Pink Floyd album. You should avoid it at all costs. Trust me on this. Instead, try this for size - dub versions of Joy Division songs. I first heard about this via the knowledgable Southerners at The Joint, and now you can grab a slice for yourself via Suburbs Are Killing Us.... Love Will Tear Us Apart, dub style. Tee hee.


M.I.A. performed in LA and NY at the weekend, here's a few reviews...

Give Them What They Want but Keep It Sort of Cool
By KELEFA SANNEH,
New York Times, Published: February 7, 2005

M.I.A. was raised in Sri Lanka and lives in London, and she has established herself as one of hip-hop's most exciting new voices, rapping and chanting and sometimes singing over hard-thwacking electronic beats. Sounds exotic, right?

Yet the thrill of her hugely anticipated sold-out concert at the Knitting Factory on Saturday night wasn't the thrill of the new - it was the thrill of the familiar. M.I.A. has a keen ear for the various mutations of hip-hop that fill clubs on both sides of the Atlantic, and she scrambles these styles in a way that sounds both fresh and inevitable. Some new acts take a while to sink in, but M.I.A. makes sense from the first time you hear her.And for 45 minutes on Saturday night, she made wildly entertaining sense, playfully calling out her playground-ready couplets ("Somewhere in the Amazon/They're holding me ransom"; "Pull up the people/Pull up the poor") while bouncing her slim limbs in time to the beat.

Backed by Diplo, her D.J., she rode tracks new and old, bringing together old-fashioned electro and futuristic dancehall reggae, London grime and Atlanta crunk. Maybe that's why her music sounds somehow inevitable: because sooner or later, these like-minded genres were bound to find one another.

Late last year M.I.A. and Diplo released "Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol. 1," an excellent unlicensed mixtape that paired her vocals with a smartly curated set of beats, most of them from other people's songs. (That's why it's not available in stores.) The mixtape helped earn M.I.A. a fanatical cult of listeners, even though her debut album, "Arular" (XL), won't be released until Feb. 22.

It's great fun to watch M.I.A.'s cult expand, and it will only expand further once there's an actual album for people to buy. "Arular" has a loose, infectious energy, and it seems likely to appeal to the indie-rock fans who tend to ignore similarly adventurous beat-driven albums when they come from, say, dancehall reggae producers - indie bloggers didn't exactly flock to Stephen (Lenky) Marsden's sublime "Dreamweaver" compilation - or even foul-mouthed American rappers (Ms. Jade's ecstatic debut album, "Girl Interrupted," is currently languishing in a bargain bin near you).

Part of M.I.A.'s appeal is that she borrows from rough-and-tumble, slightly-out-of-control urban genres while leaving behind the parts that may make hip listeners feel uncomfortable: gunplay and crude sex jokes and drug-dealer boasts and all the rest of it. Not coincidentally, "Arular" is missing some of the rambunctious energy that gives those genres some of their power. Nothing about "Arular" feels at all out of control, and maybe that's the reason it sounds a bit slight: it's the work of a canny young performer who has learned to give her listeners nothing they don't want.

Still, M.I.A. has created a handful of devastatingly good singles, and she left no room for skepticism at the Knitting Factory. During her thunderous underground hit "Galang," the crowd sang along to the wordless refrain that comes near the end, bellowing as if it were some sort of mutated soccer chant. (Who knows? Perhaps it is.) And near the end came "Bucky Done Gun," which began with a clever bit of reverse psychology: she chanted, "Manhattan, quieten down, I need to make a sound! / Brooklyn, quieten down, I need to make a sound!" She didn't look surprised when, for the first time all night, no one followed her directions.

Another take on MIA...
"It would seem that once in a generation we get a musical figure that co-opts the best elements of the underground, injects them with a healthy dose of sexy, and turns popular music into something you've never heard before. Watching M.I.A. last night at the Knitting Factory in Los Angeles was like seeing Madonna on American Bandstand. It was just bananas. You take one the hottest djs in America and pair him with a pint-sized ball of Sri Lankan sex appeal spitting fire and you've got yourself one hell of a show.

I fully expected to be disappointed. Seriously. But I wasn't let down. Not one bit. It lived up to the hype. There was a visual loop from her "Galang" video running in the background, one backup singer and Diplo on the tables. She played pretty much every track off the new album, but $10 was clearly the standout, and when Diplo mixed in some Eurythmics beats underneath the place went crazy. Such a great show. The soundsystem was fantastic and the beats sounded so good live."
From Music For Robots - they've got a MIA tune over there for you to have a listen to.

CAN YOU PLAY SOMETHING I CAN DANCE TO?
DJs hate requests. If you think that you know better than the DJ what the people in the club want to hear, you are wrong/stupid/drunk/all of the above. Any DJs out there got some stories? Please leave em in the comments.
Heres some goodies from Soulstrut forums, more over here...

"Are you going to play any hip hop?" (As hip hop is playing... they just don't know the tune. This usually happens when i'm playing Jurassic 5 for some odd reason).

Do you have anything thats like...not old?

"You're not even a real DJ. The DJ last week* was SO much better than you."*That was me.

At this past New Year's desi party, a fifty-something Indian guy walked in, heard the bollywood hits I was playing, and immediately told me "Play some Punjabi." I told him I would, and soon played Sukhbir & Daler Mehndi - that's Punjabi bhangra that pretty much never fails with the the older folks.
He and his friends dug it, going nuts on the dancefloor, so I got out a real bhangra oldschool classic (about being drunk) from probably the late 70s or 80s. Immediately the dancefloor stopped to commence ice grilling me. The guy came back with two other of his cronies, looking like they'd just eaten 15 sour lemons.
"That's TOO Punjabi."


The New Zealand Dance Chart - JANUARY 05
1. Chemical Brothers - Galvanize (Virgin)
2. Soulwax - E Talking (BMG)
3. Soul Central - Strings of Life (Defected)
4. Roni Size - No More (Full Cycle)
5. Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll (Breastfed)
6. Deep Dish - Flashdance (Positiva)
7. Dillinja -Thugged Out Bitch (Valve)
8. Slam - This World (Soma)
9. Chab - Closer to Me (Saw)
10. Evil Nine - Crooked (Marine Parade)

The Charge New Zealand dance chart is compiled from 12” sales through independent record stores, radio station play on participating dance-music stations and club play from a broad cross-section of DJ’s around the country. A weekly radio broadcast featuring the official top 10 is played weekly on the following NZ radio stations:

National: George 96.8 (Radio broadcast in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Ohakune, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin & Queenstown, plus internet stream and Sky Digital)

Local: Auckland, Up 107.3 (FM & internet stream), Julia 107.5 (FM & internet stream), Fleet 88.3 (FM), Twisted 107.7 (FM & internet stream) - Wellington, Firm 107 (FM & Internet stream), Munt 88.5 (FM) - Christchurch, Pulzar 88.7 (FM & internet stream), Mofo 107.4 (FM) - Tauranga, Blowhole 97.4 (FM) - New Pymouth, The Most 92.3 (FM) - Palmerston North, Control 99.4 (FM) - Nelson/Blenheim/Motueka, Fresh 95.4 (FM) - Dunedin, Radio One 91.0 (FM & Internet stream) - Queenstown, The Studio 96.8 (FM), -Invercargill, Aural 107.3 (FM) Via Ms Behaviour



from The Internet Museum of Flexi / Cardboard / Oddity Records...
"Once bound by cereal boxes, held in the pages of a magazine, wrapped up in envelopes sent through our postal system or given away casually with some product, these bits of paper and plastic yearned to be set free to fulfill their destiny as... PLAYABLE RECORDS
Come and take an aural and visual journey through a partial history of these strange but true recorded anomolies." via BoingBoing


Valentines day cards a la Simpsons... remember the episode where Lisa gives Ralph a valentine that says I choo choo choose you, with a pic of a train? Well, here it is, in downloadable form. Hot Dang. Don't say I aint looking out for your best interests, okay?

CELEBRITY PLAYLISTS AT iTUNES
Dubber's been harping on about iPods again, some interesting ideas on possible radio shows (fronted by himself, of course!) "People who recognise the white cables dangling from the ears of other joggers, commuters and strollers-in-the-park are unplugging, and 'jacking into' each others iPods.
It's kind of like a hit-and-run mixtape for a stranger, and there are things about it that I find really appealing. But the etiquette of it worries me slightly.
Surely not every iPod user has a reliably diverse and fascinating collection of music. " He points the finger at Dido and Chris de Burgh fans. Too right.

So, anyway; celebrity playlists at iTunes.... they've got a million songs to choose from, but... "Most celebrities listen to the same music everyone else listens to on the radio or sees on MTV. The most popular celebrity song selections include OutKast's "Hey Ya,'' Kanye West's "Jesus Walks,'' Coldplay's "Clocks'' or "The Scientist'' and tunes by such acts as Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, Prince, U2, Jay-Z and Eminem.

Mischa Barton might think her taste is pretty eclectic, but her playlist - think Jay-Z, the Rolling Stones, Guns N' Roses - is more mainstream than anything you'd hear on an episode of [her tv show] "The O.C.''
Full article here...

DEEP FUNK
Keb Darge is easily the most entertaining DJ I have ever seen. His set on friday night was so much fun - sure, he's not flashy with it, no fancypants scratching, beat juggling or mixing, just one incredible tune after another. He gets on the mic too, not to MC, but to talk to the crowd like a radio DJ, with some fairly colourful language. "That's a classic by... now here's a new discovery for you, you lucky f*ckers..."

He played old and new funk, a bit of soul and r'n'b (old school); he even played one tune twice, a new release by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. When it finished he picks up the mic and says, "that's a gorgeous little f*cker, let's hear it again, I'm just gonna keep talking til the record starts cos I havent cued it, oh here it comes..." He DJed for 5 hours nonstop, which is pretty amazing when you consider he played 7" 45s for almost all that time - they only last about 2 and a half minutes before you have to start the next one. That's a lotta work for a DJ. Top bloke. Heard some good stories about what he got up to after the gig too...

I caught the Feelstyle at the tail end of BFM's Summer Series (and avoided all the angsty young men and their guitars, of which I hear there were plenty, sigh) and man, he was good. Joined by the Submariner on the mixer and Camillia on backing vocals - he introduced them, saying "they make me look good!" Singles Su'amalie/Ain't Mad At You and Outside Enclosure both sounded great, and Submariner got cheeky on it and dropped his remix of Bic Runga's Something Good, with Camillia singing Bic's part. She has a great voice, and sounded better than Bic Runga, no kidding. She may have come third in NZ Idol, but she has more talent in her big toe than Ben Lummis and that Murphy kid combined. When she drops some solo ish, it's gonna be huge (and memorable).


"These stories from the dark side of record digging veer between disgusting and funny. Usually at the same time. [Look out for the Kiwi entry, mentions intermediate school]

New blog alert (well, new to me anyhow): Promo Copy, an anonymous site by someone clearly in the deep belly of the music industry beast. People outside that sphere may not find much of interest here but for those of us who deal with this world day in, day out, this guy/gal speaks what we dare not say most of the time." Both the above via O-Dub... check his latest audio posts, new tunes from Prefuse 73, MIA, Lyrics Born and more.

from Coolfer...
"Another musician has become ensnared in U.S. visa rules. DJ/producer Laurent Garnier has cancelled three U.S. tour dates because of problems with renewing visa. He wasn't denied entry, though. He cancelled the dates because he refused to comply with the demands of his local U.S. Embasy.
In his own words:

"I am very sorry to have to cancel my forthcoming U.S. tour due to what I consider to be completely unreasonable demands by the U.S. Embassy in France in order to renew my work visa.
In order to obtain this new visa, the rules have once again changed since November 2004 and I would now have to not only fill out an exceedingly probing application form, but also be interviewed by a member of the Embassy staff, and provide proof of ownership of my house, details of my bank account, my mobile phone records, personal information on all my family members and more. I consider these demands to be a complete violation of my privacy and my civil liberties and I refuse to comply.
I am horrified by these new regulations and feel really sad that this is what some call freedom and democracy.
It has now become almost impossible for an artist to come and perform in the United States. And until this new proceedure changes I will unfortunately refuse to comply with this nonsense.
Thank you for your understanding.
Laurent Garnier"

Just last week, the Village Voice covered the many visa denials of such beloved Cuban musicians Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Los Van Van and Chucho Valdez. Writer Larry Blumenfeld called it a "Cuban music crisis—-a development that has more to do with the Cold War than the War on Terror."

MUSIC OF SMILING NOISE!
This Friday at the monthly Turnaround night (hosted by stellar local DJs Cian, Manuel Bundy and Submariner), you can catch the undisputed heavyweight champion of deep funk, Mr Keb Darge. Hailing from Scotland, Darge has spent most of the past 25 years fighting giant cockroaches in dust-filled record warehouses around the world searching for those rare nuggets he now spins to his global audience of admirers. He’s collaborated on funk compilations with the likes of DJ Shadow, Kenny Dope, Pete Rock and the RZA. His off the hook DJ sets, along with his deep funk club nights have made him into the favourite DJ of the UK’s hottest dancers.
Starts 11pm and goes til daylight, at the Rising Sun, 373 K Rd, $15 on the door. (Stolen from the Turnaround flyer, one of the coolest little reads in the town).

Ghetto Postage outta Toronto has some good ish on the MIA/Diplo "Piracy Funds Terrorism" mixtape, which was released as a teaser/promo for her album due out in late February. I've heard a rumour that she's been dropped by her label XL, something about being too difficult to work with...

"i can't help but feel that the whole M.I.A. project is kind of an effort on the part of a large label to sell "world-y" sounding music to an audience that hasn't really pursued world music up to this point. you can't find any of M.I.A.'s singles at record shops that cater to the underground... M.I.A. confides in a recent interview that she want to be an alternative to norah jones, that she wants her music to be played in the most boring places imaginable..."
GP's take puts forward some interesting points, noting claims that M.I.A. is making UK Garage tunes are well off the mark.

ADDED: A special hello to the person who arrived here after typing tyna robertson ex boyfriend andrew into Google. Nice work. A few other visitors Googled "Starbucks Coffee Terminology" and "Jamaican dancehall porn". Gee.

ARE WE THERE YET?
... is the latest film from Ice Cube, and its opening weekend topped the US box office, taking in $US18.5 million. Check the trailer here - Steriogram's song 'Walkie Talkie Man' features on the soundtrack. The video for that song by Steriogram is up for a Grammy Award - its directed by Michel Gondry, who also directed the excellent film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The script is by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and I think it's easily as good as John Malkovich. Check it. But it does feature Jim Carrey, which is okay, cos he's not pulling silly faces, he's acting and he's really quite good. I used to think he was crap til I saw the Truman Show.

Another Kiwi, expat Alan Broadbent is up for his third Grammy nomination in Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, for his jazz recording What's New off the album 'You and The Night and The Music' released by A440 Music Group but there aint even a bio or any news there about his Grammy nomination there, which is weak - BAD record company! (Scratch that - I emailed them and just got a reply apologising for the oversight, and saying they will correct this mistake immediately. Good.)

Broadbent left Aotearoa in 1966 to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, graduating in 1969, alongside Howard Shore (who later went on to work as LOTR composer) . Berklee have a handy little press release highlighting all its graduates in this years Grammys (39 in total) - from Melissa Etheridge to Bob James, John Mayer to Mr Broadbent.

"In 1997 Broadbent won a Grammy for his arrangement of “When I Fall In Love” for Natalie Cole. In 2000 he earned his second Grammy Award for best arrangement accompanying a vocal for “Lonely Town”, which he wrote for Charlie Haden’s Quartet West featuring Shirley Horn and strings." He's currently musical director for Mrs Elvis Costello - Diana Krall. Costello is off making an opera based on author Hans Christian Andersen's impossible romance with a Swedish woman. Gee. The Grammys are on February 13th.


'The Tsunami Song' controversy has been spinning round the hiphop blogosphere for a few days now, it's probably gonna hit the mainstream media any minute now. New York hiphop station Hot 97 played it on their morning show... The New York Post has picked up the story... "A popular hip-hop radio show is in hot water over a parody that mocked victims of the South Asian tsunami catastrophe, calling them "screaming chinks" and "little Chinamen." The station's apology is up here.

Jay Smooth has more background over here, plus audio of the incident. "On this tape you hear them introducing the "Tsunami Song," then Miss Jones and co-host Todd Lynn launching into an abusive tirade against Miss Info when she voices her objection to it. Miss Jones finally tells Info she's only complaining because "you feel superior, probably because you're Asian." Then, after Miss Info has said the song is offensive to Asians, co-host Todd Lynn informs her: "I'm gonna start shooting Asians." Yes, he really says that. It's at 3:37 on the mp3."
Have a listen, it's just incredibly stupid. The tune they use is... oh, just listen.


Dubber has some comments from Bomber (a man never short of an opinion!) on the changes going down at Channel Z, as it mutates into Kiwi FM.


"Greg Tate set it off a couple weeks back with his article about hip hop at 30. Now his contemporary Nelson George jumps into the fray with a look back at hip hop's development and 25 moments that defined the music." via Different Kitchen.


ADDED: Vote for Bizgirl at the Bloggies! Via Noizy... " For some unfathomable reason, bizgirl has made the shortlist for the NZ/Australian section of this year's Bloggies. As far as I can see, Natalie is the only NZ finalist in any of the categories (the rest of the NZ/OZ category short-list is Australian-based). So, yes, if you're feeling all patriotic (and are, in fact, a New Zealander), or are just a bizgirl fan, get on over there and vote."

BIG DAY BLOGOUT
Gareth has some good reasons not to blog about the Big Day Out, such as...
-If the reader of your blog was there, they already know what it was like, if they weren't then they probably just want to hear that it was bad so they don't feel like they missed out on anything.
- Teenagers are too easy to make fun of - it's like shooting fish in a barrel, so why bother?
But then he adds... "maybe I'm deluding myself - maybe the real question should be: why blog about anything?"

The answer to this tricky question came from that erudite journo Paul Little, in his incredibly witty column on manners in the SST yesterday. He tackled bloggers and their innate need to write endlessly about any tiny thought that comes into their heads. His arguments against blogging were so stunningly convincing that I am sure he sent hundreds, no, thousands of bloggers racing to their computers to delete their blogs. So, all those bloggers out there who think they got it down, leave it to the professionals like Mr Little. Thank you.

Also in the SST, an interview with The Feelstyle (archived here if SST is offline), who released the best local album of 2004 - no freaking contest.

And on the MP3 blog tip, Dubber already beat me to this, but Tofu Hut has a great roundup of some new sources for sound, including NZ's Bigcity, and fine reggae blog Mr Bassie.

MUSIC FOR YOUR EARS
check the Bubblegum Machine audioblog... "If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, toothy teen idols or candy-based metaphors for carnal acts, it's in." Someone suggested this is the kind of site John Waters would love. Get the picture?
Also on the musical tip, Locust St features scratchy old jazz tunes -discovered via this story. For more audio blogs, check Tofuhut's list of links, organised by genre, etc. Niceness.

David Thorpe from Something Awful went to his local bookstore and picked up ten music mags for a critique.
"This week, a near-fatal whim struck me. I decided to go to a local bookstore and buy every single music magazine I could get my immaculately manicured hands on.
All in all, I picked up ten magazines representing a wide base of styles and genres. Well, by “wide base of styles and genres” I mean “eight boring white-people rock and roll magazines, one hip hop magazine, and one that seems to be some sort of a death metal magazine. Here’s the full list: Rolling Stone, Spin, NME, Magnet, Pit, The Source, Q, Uncut, Alternative Press, and Filter.
If you’re an astute follower of music journalism, you probably recognize and hold a deep contempt for at least five of those..."

Yes, it's a fun game that you can play too - try this (free) variation. Go to your local magazine shop, count how many music magazines you see, then count how many you would buy.


One for any UK readers, catch "The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith" on BBC4 on Friday at 9pm. There's a great interview with Mark E Smith at the Guardian's site...

"My grandfather used to stand outside the local prison and hire lads who were coming out to work in his mill,' he replies. 'That's kind of how I recruit musicians. It's like, "You're on bass, so get cracking." Seems to work, mind,' he muses, lighting another fag and taking a long swig of cider. The combination of the fag and the cackle produces a rattling cough, which he deals with by hawking up and gobbing in the ashtray. 'The thing about most musicians,' he continues, oblivious to the aghast looks of our fellow drinkers, 'is that they are not very interesting company. Don't tend to read much. I like to make sure they know from the start that the Fall is a job of work like any other. It's the same deal whether you're playing to 20 or 20,000. Discipline, that's what counts.'" The Fall - 28 years and still going...