Leave talent spotting to the suits!

Leave talent spotting to the suits, says EMI boss | News | guardian.co.uk Music
In a stinging attack on the 260 A&R men employed by EMI, he said: “The power and the decision has sat with the A&R man, who is someone who gets up late in the day, listens to lots of music, goes to clubs, spends his time with artists and has a knack of knowing what would sell.”
Hands added: “What we are doing is taking the power away from the A&R guys and putting it with the suits – the guys who have to work out how to sell music.”

How many months before EMI will be for sale again?

I enjoy watching this VC move about the music industry like a bull in a china shop. He does not understand the relationships that were established over decades. The A&R person is the contact point between two worlds. Higher Octave did not have A&R and I hated talking to the suits, because they didn’t get it and they didn’t speak my language, whereas my A&R person at Epic Records was somebody I could relate to, strange as he was…

I suspect the saga at EMI will continue to be entertaining to watch.

Enjoy

‘Enjoy life while you can’ | From the Guardian | The Guardian
n 1965 executives at Shell wanted to know what the world would look like in the year 2000. They consulted a range of experts, who speculated about fusion-powered hovercrafts and “all sorts of fanciful technological stuff”. When the oil company asked the scientist James Lovelock, he predicted that the main problem in 2000 would be the environment. “It will be worsening then to such an extent that it will seriously affect their business,” he said.

“And of course,” Lovelock says, with a smile 43 years later, “that’s almost exactly what’s happened.”

Don’t read the whole article if you are depressed as this gentleman has a brutal view of the future. He does have the credentials:

Working alone since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all climate science.

I disagree with him regarding carbon-offsets, recycling and windmills. I think personal production of electricity is where it’s at. Let 10,000 windmills bloom!

I think even if his predictions should be correct we need to move forward and if nothing else teach the next generations, among whom the survivors will be. Which leads me to another question. When will the first politician dare speak about population control? My guess is 2015. The first one mentioning it will sacrifice him/herself as s/he will be shouted down. The second one will most certainly not be elected, but one day it will become obvious that the rate of human reproduction is responsible for many of our woes.

Beauty

He who seeks Truth
Shall find Beauty

He who seeks Beauty
Shall find Vanity

He who seeks Order
Shall find Gratification

He who seeks Gratification
Shall be Disappointed

He who considers himself as the servant of his fellow being
Shall find the joy of Self-Expression

He who seeks Self-Expression
Shall fall into the pit of Arrogance

Arrogance is incompatible with nature
Thru the nature of the universe
and the nature of man
we shall seek Truth

If we seek truth we shall find Beauty

Moshe Safdie, Architect

Friends as well as Enemies

Antaiji: Kodo Sawaki – To you
Perhaps we can save our friends with atomic and hydrogen bombs – but not our enemies. Only zazen is capable of saving friends as well as enemies.

A few weeks ago I set this post up to publish today… and then forgot about it. Fun to time-release stuff and be surprised by the words… (time-release is nice feature of WordPress, I think)

Reading the quote today I think about the funny temporal nature of friends and enemies – friends today and enemies tomorrow or enemies yesterday and friends in two weeks. The evolution of mankind has to point to peace, beyond a doubt. Evolution will weed out the violent as they kill each other eventually. The future may indeed be inherited by the meek. If humanity continues for a thousand years, what will they think of the people of the 20th and 21st century? It was a stage. They couldn’t help it.