The Scotsman newspaper’s edinburgh-festivals.com website has a special section for the Worst Of The Fest. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be finding it quite so funny if I was in there, but some of the reviews are mini-masterpeices in their own right, and make me want to see the shows in question! Some marvellous journalism for sure (and no doubt some bitter feuds bubbling under some of them).
Why everyone should hire Steve Brown
Over at rockandrollconfidential.com they have a catalogue of the internet’s worst band promo shots, the hall of douchebags – some of the captions are very funny indeed, and many of the pictures are hilarious with or without captions. It’s amazing just how unaware some people are of what’s needed to do promo, and for that reason, anyone in a band needs to look at the hall of fame, then head over to Steve Brown’s site, check out what proper band shots look like and pay him lots of money to make you look very cool indeed. Seriously, you’ll get more gigs, and less people will laugh at your website.
Soundtrack – right now, I’m just listening to Duncan’s songs over and over to get them firmly planted in my head for the gigs at Greenbelt.
Back to political blogging….
So, with all that Edinburgh festival stuff, I seriously curtailed my newsfeed reading, and thus blogged v. little about stuff that’s going on in the world. So to get us back in the swing of things, dear bloglings, here’s one that made me rethink my position on one of the upcoming pressing decisions of British politics – the next Conservative party leader.
George Monbiot points out in this article that most lefties would be hoping that, if the worst were to happen and we were to end up with a Tory leader at the next election, at least it could be someone who seems a bit more moderate, like Ken Clarke.
But he points out that as deputy chairman of British American Tobacco, Ken has presided over all kinds of hideously inethical decisions, pressing for tobacco importing and advertising regulations to be softened in order to make the shareholders of BAT richer, and the people of some of the world’s poorer countries more likely to get addicted to ciggies. All this while he’s in charge of their frankly risible ‘corporate social responsibility group'(here’s a tip, BAT, how about not making cigarettes at all, if you care about social responsibility? oh sorry, you don’t, it’s a whitewash. Well done.)
The tobacco industry is one of the great evils on the planet. The crop itself destroys the ground it grows on, the workers end up with all kinds of illnesses thanks to the pesticides that are put on it, and the end product, according to the World Heath Organisation, is responsible for the deaths of half the people who smoke – currently, that’s 650,000,000 people.
Here’s a quote from the WHO website –
“Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the world today. With 4.9 million tobacco-related deaths per year, no other consumer product is as dangerous, or kills as many people, as tobacco.”
In contrast, have a look at the Social Report page on the BAT website – the most ridiculous load of psuedo-concerned horseshit I’ve read for quite a while. What a great industry to invest in!
Any of you green-lefties who smoke but want to make the world a better place, the single biggest step that you can make to start that process is to give up smoking, and start encouraging your friends to do the same. There’s no such thing as a fair trade cigarette, and as the ban is hopefully going to come into effect soon, it’ll become even more of a social blight to be the smoker in the group. So go on, give up now, tell everyone it’s for ethical reasons, store up some social capital and feel smug about yourself!
In the meanwhile, read the Monbiot article, and rethink your possible good feelings towards Ken Clarke. He’s sadly as much of a scumbag as the rest of his tory counterparts…
Eric Roche update
As those of you who’ve seen my Edinburgh show or any other recent dates will know, I’ve written a tune for Eric Roche – a very dear friend who’s a breath-takingly gifted guitar player and is currently in a monumental battle with cancer.
He’s recently posted a diary entry on his website – please go and read it. Eric’s a remarkable person, amazing musician and a HUGE inspiration to me in many many ways – if you haven’t got his CDs, all three are highly recommended. His latest, ‘With These Hands’, is one of the finest solo acoustic guitar CDs you’ll ever hear.
It breaks my heart to see someone whose spirit is so strong struggling with a disease like this. Please do send your messages and prayers of love and support to Eric via the guestbook on his website, and spread the word. I’ve no idea if he’s insured or not, but as a pro musician with a family like that, the fear of illness is multiplied a thousand times – the best way to support is buy is CDs, and then play them to your friends. That way you get to hear some music that will enrich your soul and be with you for your whole life, and he gets to pay the bills in the way we musicians do it best.
God bless you, Eric.
The eternal edinburgh quandry
the huge problem with the Fringe is that there are so many great shows going on, and so many lovely people whose shows I’d LOVE to see that there’s no way you can get to do everything. What’s even harder is that when your entire team is two people (me and TSP), any time taken off to go to a show is effectively two person-hours of flyering time lost, which at this stage is pretty vital to the show.
So please allow me to apologise in advance to everyone who has invited me to their show that I don’t make it to – it’s genuinely not through a lack of a desire to see you perform, just a logistical impossibility. I am taking notes of the website addresses of productions that I really want to see, so that hopefully I can catch them at a fringe theatre in London at some point. The wealth of talent on display up here is breathtaking. TSP and I keep reading yet more reviews of shows that sound utterly compelling, but unless we added a week onto the end of the run just to watch shows 10 hours a day, there’s no way we’d get round everything we want to see!
Much more productive day today
Today was better – started off with lots of practice, which doubled up as a way to continue experimenting with the laptop looping set up. Am just experimenting with what kind of tolerance the processor has for varying degrees of looping and processing all happening at once and what the optimum buffer size (and therefor latency time) is. It’s a bit of a faff, but I think it’s coming together… Should be able to get something workable soon…
Also managed to get some nice things to wear on stage, and find out how much my programme printing is going to cost – the nice people at The Bass instutute in london sent me their ad through to stick in it, so I now need to put it together with some bio stuff and an ad for my website and online CD shop, and we’re away! That’s probably the main job for this evening.
Anyway, knowing that quite a lot of bloggers read this, I have a cheeky request, which is that you blog about my edinburgh show, and link back to this site – that way it should send a whole load of traffic my way, and get all the Edinburgh-bound readers of your lovely blogs to come and see the show, and then I won’t need to phone you up to beg for food when I lose my shirt on the show, thus posting one blog thingie will save you having to console me on my failed show for hours on end… go on, I dare ya!
the two links you need are to the edfringe.com page for my show – http://www.edfringe.com/shows/detail.php?action=shows&id=BASS where people can get tickets, and to the front page of my website where people can have a listen to some MP3s and find out a little more about the show!
and you can include this picture if you like, too!
thanks!
Be A Witness
From the BeAWitness.org website –
“During June 2005, CNN, FOXNews, NBC/MSNBC, ABC, and CBS ran 50 times as many stories about Michael Jackson and 12 times as many stories about Tom Cruise as they did about the genocide in Darfur.”
I’ve recently started reading a blog from an aid worker in Darfur, and was saddened at how little of what she writes about I’d read from other sources. I’ve heard a fair bit about the Darfur situation, but there still seems to be nowhere near enough pressure to change things there, and clearly not enough news coverage.
So the BeAWitness.org people are petitioning the news sources to cover the story more – check out their website, sign the petition and have a read of the Darfur aid worker blog too – both well worth seeing.
Friends Reunited
Got an email the other day via Friends Reunited – a fun site (for the six people in the world who don’t already know what it is) where you list yourself by school/college/workplace and let all the people you chose to lose touch with get back in touch.
I’ve met up with a few chums via that, which has been fun.
Anyway, I got this email, but they don’t include a return email address, and neither did the email, and if I want to email back via the website, it’s going to cost me £7.50 to sign up again. Yes, that’s 750 whole pence to send one email! (well, I could send loads of emails, but I don’t really want to).
So, Nicola, if you’re reading this, feel free to email me again, via this site this time!
Market Research for my Ed Fringe Merch…
Right, I’m just sorting out my merch for the Edinburgh Fringe, and am hopefully going to do tshirts. I’ll be making them available before-hand, via the website, so need to know a few things.
1) would you buy one?
2) if you would, what size would you want?
3) which of the two designs works best for you?
or
There’s a thread about it over in the forum, where you can post your thoughts, or just email me.
Bob Geldof's open letter to the G8…
Was trying to find a link to this, and the only one that showed up on google was from The Sun’s website, and I’m not about to link to them, so I’ve cut ‘n’ pasted it to here –
___________________________________________
Hi guys
Just so we’re clear …
The Live 8 concerts this weekend will be a wonderful musical occasion.
But despite the fact that the world’s greatest popular musicians are playing – they are not the stars of the show.
The 8 of Live 8 are not 8 musicians or bands – they are you, the 8 leaders of the G8.
Let this be absolutely clear before the first note is played. Everyone taking part in these concerts is there because the many millions watching will not tolerate the further pain of the poor while we have the financial and moral means to prevent it.
We are gathering for you the largest mandate for action in history. Just as people demanded an end to slavery, demanded women’s suffrage, demanded the end of apartheid – we now call for an end to the unjust absurdity of extreme poverty that is killing 50,000 people every day.
Live 8 is taking place so that you – our elected leaders – right now in 2005 make the breakthrough demanded by, among others, the Commission For Africa in the battle towards making poverty history.
You know what needs to be done, specifically:
ON AID: Deliver an extra 25billion dollars aid for Africa and make plans to ensure this aid really will be effective at eradicating poverty. This must stand beside a further 25billion dollars for other poor countries.
This is the absolute minimum required to begin to win the battle against poverty.
ON DEBT: Confirm the 100 per cent debt cancellation from the G8 finance ministers meeting and commit to 100 per cent debt cancellation for ALL the countries that need it and remove damaging economic policies imposed as a condition.
ON TRADE: Make decisive steps to end unjust rules of trade and allow poor countries to build their own economies, at their own pace. It is only through trade that Africa will eventually beat poverty on its own.
Let it be equally clear – at the same time, African governments must be free from corruption and thuggery and put in place recognised practices of good governance, accountability and transparency towards their own people and to the world.
Twenty years ago at Live Aid we asked for charity. Today at Live 8 we want justice for the poor.
The G8 meeting next week can take the first real step towards eradicating the extremes of poverty once and for all.
We will not applaud half-measures, or politics as usual. This must be a historic breakthrough. Today there will be noise and music and joy, the joy of exuberant possibility.
On Friday, when the summit ends, there will be a great silence as the world awaits your verdict.
Do not disappoint us. Do not create a generation of cynics. Do not betray the desires of billions and the hopes of the poorest of our world.
Are those 50,000 people each day to be allowed to live, or not?
Bob Geldof
___________________________________________
…good stuff, eh?