poke a stick and see what happen – ibiza

i’m all for this – there is too much complacency sometimes

i got hauled up by peter mench for something i did over def leppard at polygram – result mench 0 ade 1 then a few years later ignition had a go when i worked at sony music europe – noel gallagher 0 -ade 1

the worst thing about attending the ims conference is that nothing really has changed since i left 10 years ago – i left because they wouldnt accept the world was changing and they wouldnt listen

the last 2 days ive heard arguments that were happening TEN FUCKIN YEARS ago but some people still dont get it

if i was an artist i would either aspire to be diane warren or the biggest live band ever – cos thats your choice

digital darwinism, the ims and wifi neanderthals

went to the ims, ibiza this morning to find that the panel i wanted to see has been moved back to this afternoon – so listened to the speaker andrew keen (author of cult of the amateur) speak about the internet – web 2, myspace, youtube, etc – a friend afterwards said that he wasnt surprised i liked it because we were both “singing from the same song sheet” – i’m not sure a number of people in the audience got what he was saying… one guy got up at the end and called him an old duffer who’s in the stone age (or words to that effect) and that myspace, youtube etc are the way forward – he didnt realise that he just gave complete credence to what andrew keen was talking about – myself and another person behind almost simultaneously turned to this guy and said “thats exactly whats he’s saying” – although i did add “you idiot”…

another guy reckoned he was getting decent revenue out of youtube but when pressed on this he kept diverting the argument – ergo he didnt have an argument

the essential point of his talk was that its all very well talking about web 2 etc but whats the business model ?

i do it as well – i poke a stick at people and go: – so whats your reaction ? what do you think? have you a comment? have you an idea ?

so i’m in this music conference at a 5 star hotel with a guy talking about the internet etc – so i take a photo on my iphone, connect to the hotels wifi and try and send it direct to the blog – a sort of, yes this is what can be done – except it just wasnt happening

an aside – at atzaro yesterday morning they had 3 wifi zones and all were free and it worked great – in the afternoon however the iphone just wasnt picking up the ip that the router was supposed to be dhcp’ing – i went to reception to ask for a static ip or at least the range and got fobbed off – in the end i got told what the router range was – so i spent the afternoon having to change the static ip every 5 minutes since it wouldnt last – i gave up

so anyway, ive taken the photo, wanted to upload it straightaway but nothing was happening – so i pulled up the old standby – google – sure enough up pops a login page to access the hotels wifi

ok, i ask the nearest ims person “whats the login” – “dont know ask at reception”

go to reception

“you have to pay”

fuck right off – we’re in a 5 star hotel at a music conference thats discussing the future and the hotel is charging for wifi access – strange days…

so i go back to the little local bar that has free wifi and upload the photo

the other annoying thing is our audio and video of probably the most interesting meeting thats ever happened on ibiza – we cant use it – arse….

however once the ims stick up their podcast and video of that panel and the others i guess we’ll be free to put ours up.. sorry jaz, i’m not holding my breath…

(what was it that andrew was talking about ? )

it reminds me of last year when the arctic monkeys played ibiza rocks – at all the other gigs there were 5 of us in the pit taking photos of the first 3 songs – hunky dory – but the arctics wouldnt allow that and insisted on only their preferred, vetted photographer – so sony ericcson’s photographer (their sponsor) couldnt take photos and neither could the rest of us – the result was one picture in the sun and one in the mirror – both in black and white and grainy in print

it became a farce obviously when they got on stage and 300 mobile phones and digi-cameras all took photos and videos – so instead of 5 people taking a bunch of decent photos and spreading them you had 300 taking grainy phone images and spreading them…

hopefully tonight i’ll have captured the 5 video interviews we did and put them up and i will deffo put the video of the clubs panel in the vault since i cant broadcast it

some pics of this morning:

you may have noticed that i havent mentioned the name of the 5 star hotel – a 5 star hotel that charges its guests access to wifi is ridiculous

as another aside – apparently there were too many people accessing the paid wifi internet for there to be a decent connection… do me a favour…

update: i went to the hotel for the next days afternoon panels and so asked how much the wifi was: “21 euros for 24 hour use” – “but i’m only here for a couple of hours” – “sorry, there’s computers over there” – “its for my iphone” – ” oh sorry”

so surprisingly i decided not to pay 10 euros an hour for internet access…

bizarre

when i first came to the island in 98 i had wanted to get away from the camden crowd and the incestuous music biz – i was bored and pissed off – after a year or so i here started to moan that there was no live music here – that dance music is f***ed and rock is on its way back

*laughs* – no one listened then

back in the day the nme (post melody maker and sounds which are another chapter) i was working for sony music europe – we were caning it at that time and i got friends with .. oh fuck they might read this

anyway (it was a nice observation btw if you do) – the nme tended to be the paper i looked for since i knew someone who was (insert whatever title you want ) – and worked there – and also another friend sorted out their initial contact with the then scary world of the internet and ….

so anyway 10 years after i leave london the fuckin nme are doing nights here – on this here fookin island – something i wouldve gone to at a drop of a hat – and i read it on their site – i think i’m going to have to walk around with long hair, a beard, talk about how i’m not a clubber but i love music before people think “oooh would he like to know?”

it’ll be interesting to see what they do because the nme have been doing stuff in l.a. for awhile (indie 103.1fm) and somewhere else i cant remember – so someone is obviously thinking that the paper is er dead

International Music Summit, Ibiza

Spent a brilliant first day at the start of the IMS here – too much to say right now but its been very interesting – i’m not going to duplicate the stuff so it’s all going to be on www.ibizaa-z.com/blog

blogging pics from my iphone direct to the main blog using atzaro’s wifi, recording audio, and then weve got video interviews with 4 of the days most entertaining and contentious? panel – andy from ibiza rocks, andrea pelino from dc10, daniel magdalena from amnesia and the man from the government Paco Medina – as well as full footage of that panel….

all ive got to do now is edit the bleedin stuff

tempering my sarcasm & mars lander strange photo

there was something i was going to be extremely scathing about but i’ve decided to hold off until after the weekend

after a reasonably nice day its bloody raining again tonight – not that i care that much since i hardly get away from the fuckin net

i looked at some of the mars lander photos today (in case you didnt know nasa successfully landed on mars yesterday in the north polar region looking for signs of water (ice)

theres one photo which a paranoid/ufo person would probably love – in one of th photos theres an object in the background which sticks out a mile –

this is the one on the site thats actuallly at 50% zoom – the object on the horizon about 2/3rds in from the left

this is at 100% – wtf is that then ?

if i was nasa i’d be wanting to know wtf that is – is it part of landing stuff or an artifact on the image ?

phreadz

My old mate kosso has been hard at work (as usual) and has come up with phreadz.com which is a multimedia threaded conversation thingy – its probably easier to give a link to techcrunch and their take on it

At moment its in closed alpha stage but koz gave me an invite so i tried it out today using my jailbroken iphone (apple dont include a native video recorder – ejits) – its good fun – not sure the world wants to see my ugly mug but whatever – at some point i guess i’ll get a webcam and mike as the one i have at the moment is a network camera thing and is fixed on the balcony

nice one jon

indiana jones new film – i sort of lied

how can i put this

i said that i thought the new indiana jones film was shite – but i said to a couple of friends today that if i’m fair i have to watch the whole thing because i hadnt watched the whole thing and therefore i couldnt have an honest opinion unless i did

so i watched it from start to finish tonight and got through the first 15 minutes of quite frankly shite (which is where i gave up yesterday) – then once i had suspended belief in what was going on in it, it became actually fun (shades of national treasure spring to mind but hey – its a film)

on balance, its a fun film to watch and i’m glad i took the time to revisit it and make the effort to watch it

tons of bollocks in it but there is tons of bollocks in everything in life…. on balance its a film you’d watch to suspend belief in all the shite around you

ibiza makes it to billboard & bob lefsetz

Back in the days when i worked for the corporate nasty majors i had a subscription to billboard magazine & music week – basically they were the 2 mags that anyone who bothered to give a shit in the music industry read. so it was with fascination that i read this morning on billboard about their take on ibiza this morning – ok, so it was written by a london based journo but still – they even mentioned ibiza rocks favourably

for all the doomsayers out there its not going to be a pleasant read

billboard article

bob lefsetz has a newletter about his take on the music business – you get on average 1 a day and they are thought provoking – sometimes he doesn’t talk about the industry – sometimes he just waffles on about a trip to some obscure part of america – although my big problem with his newsletters is that he thinks that only the u.s. has music – anyway today/yesterday he went on about market share of the majors

i remember in about 95/6 i did an analysis of the uk’s market shares (i worked for a vp at sony music europe) – it didnt make pleasant reading for the majors – what i pointed out was that the cash cows (the likes of mariah carey etc) were on the way out and that the independants were gaining market share and since they didnt have the overheads and the shareholders to please they were always going to be better off

i take great pleasure in seeing my former employers namely polygram (now universal) and sony (now sony/bmg) bicker and moan and fall flat on their arses with regard to talent

indiana jones new film – bollocks

its so bollocks its not even funny

some part of me says i shoudnt even acknowledge it by talking about it – i liked the indiana jones films – this is absolutely fuckin awful

i havent even finished watching it to make this post – its that bad

daft question of the week – and the winner is:

as im moving over in a couple of weeks can you buy milk in ibiza eg. blue top like in england im addicted to the stuff?

good god….

no, we are still in the stone ages here – all the pirate towers are still manned in case of invasions and we use smoke signals to send messages… there are no banks (forget atm’s) and we still use donkeys as the wheel hasn’t turned up here yet

“can you buy milk ?” – wtf ????

/scarcasm…