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09.46  II...  Morning reading. 10.06 An innocent wanders this way. On the DGM Guestbook… Thought on the Fripp interview in the Financial Times :: Posted by pyroseed13 on August 08, 2012 An interesting read though I’m not quite sure I fully understand Robert’s grievances. He seems to lament, mistakenly I think, that we have become a "market society," which he believes spoils the creation of new and exciting music. But if he really accepts this, then as the author of the article wrote, "why squabble over money with the world’s largest record label?" Why doesn’t Robert just channel his energy into something productive, like making music? I’m fully aware that artists have sometimes been treated unfairly by their record labels, but Robert already has a profitable record label of his own. He doesn’t need the assistance of the "big three" anymore. Q: "Why squabble over money with the world’s largest record label?" A1: How about: because they don’t give it to me. For example, rather than pay royalties on the 19 years of unpaid/unaccounted royalties for the two Summers & Fripp albums (I Advance Masked / Bewitched) UMG employs a top London litigation lawyer to send us a long letter on why they are justified not to. A second example: iTunes accounting, promised in 2009, for unauthorized and illegitimate KC downloads BY UMG in the US since 2006, has never been provided. Detailed enquiries from us in respect of these, and other, concerns have been blocked by the same London litigation lawyer, Mr. Brian Howard, on the grounds that he is not prepared to litigate by e-mail. This I understand to mean: UMG is not prepared to give you the information you need to resolve this outside the courts; taking this to the High Court will cost you a minimum of £350,000; so we can squash you from our petty cash because we are very very big and hope to get even much bigger than that when we take over EMI; and you are small and eminently crushable. A2: This has very little to do with money. If Mr. pyroseed13 had read sleevenotes from 1991 (eg Frame By Frame, The Great Deceiver), and this Diary since 1998 to any degree at all, he still wouldn’t fully understand my grievances but he would know better than to claim being fully aware of unfair treatment (sometimes?) and send this uninformed, albeit well-meaning, post. A3: Why doesn’t Robert just channel his energy into something productive, like making music? I have a creative and productive life, and nearly all of it is outside public view; for example, the ongoing work of Guitar Craft, the Guitar Circles and The Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists. But I find it impossible, to apply the necessary degree of ongoingness-of-attention, to lead a productive life that takes place within a professional context (ie mediated by the interests and demands of commerce) while engaged in continuing dispute with the most powerful music corporation in the world. Power Possessors know that dispute is death to the artist; so, they can do pretty much whatever they want to them. In November 2007, sitting in Blower’s Bistro where I usually read the Weekend FT on a Saturday morning and, facing repeated denials that UMG had acquired Sanctuary by Mr. Most Useless Of Smiths, the UMG Business Affairs lawyer, I took the decision to focus on addressing the UMG business. Terrible. A tragedy, at least in my life. A4: He seems to lament, mistakenly I think, that we have become a "market society…" Cf Tony Judt. In 2007 most ordinary, decent people would probably have found it churlish, and an exaggeration, if I had suggested that global financial institutions were fundamentally exploitative and corrupt; that they favoured their own interests over those of their clients; and that they were prepared to lie in order to forward their own interests. It is not much of a leap to assume that the same leitmotif that drove financial institutions might apply to the music industry. And yet, a no-doubt-decent-person, Mr. pyroseed13 gambols innocently a-wondering to the Guestbook, now in 2012. A5: It offends common decency to walk away from a bully. (Edmund Burke When Good Men Do Nothing) I apologise for adding more of this appalling account to the world’s travails. 10.35 Off on Minx Adventures. 20.11 Hotel Acceptable, Ludlow. WillyFred was checked-in to his Holiday Hotel, and we set off to Leominster with its antique shops I…  II...  … en route to Ludlow, arriving Ludlow c. 13.25. Immediately on the street I…  II...  Lunch in our hotel, catnap, and back to the street for mucho walking I…  II...  III...  … and to de Grey’s for tea and excellent coffee…  Back down the street by the hotel…  … for a happy hour at a newish, superb restaurant. Excellent margaritas. Back up the street I…  II...  … for evening walking in a quietened Ludlow I…  II...  III...  … before light supper in the hotel, and to an early gentling. An interesting point today: a significant degree of recognitions. In the UK, T is recognized everywhere, all the time. I am mostly not, unless in a specific musical context. But even for T, today was exceptional. We were walking past a hotel with a man mowing the lawn, perhaps 75 yards away: he waved. A man in a Forestry Commission vehicle stopped, turned around, drove towards us and stopped again: I don’t often see two legends walking together! T was looking in a shop. A man came up to her: You’ll have to take off your (dark) glasses if you want to see anything in there! She realized that the man’s chum was on the opposite pavement taking a pic. The glasses-comment was a ruse to get T to turn and be photographed with the character. Finally, Happy Hour margaritas of the excellent variety: the proprietor approached: Proprietor: Excuse me, but would I be correct in recognizing Mr. Fripp? RF: Probably not. However, he was a very polite and well-travelled man, and we fell into good conversing, prompted by the Minx. Well. Search Robert Fripp's diary archive. |
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