...Pat Kane, actually.
I am a musician (with Hue And Cry), a writer (here's some stuff from the Guardian, and The Play Ethic, book and blog), a consultant, a theorist and an activist (look, in full flow, with hair! And without). There's a more comprehensive CV at the 'continue reading' link below.
For music-business matters, please mail here. For non-music-biz matters, please mail here. Peace, love and creativity, pk x
Did a review of a deeply patronising and frankly tendentious new policy book, doing the rounds of the political classes at the moment (particularly the New Tories), called Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, for the Independent last week. The printed version is online here, and the unedited version (with some interesting comparisons with other writers that didn't make the cut) is in 'extended post' below. In so many ways, Cameron is the heir of Blair (who was the heir of Thatcher)... here's more scholarly proof.
An unrepentantly praiseworthy review of my friend Christopher Harvie's new book, A Floating Commonwealth, published in today's Independent (books section). Here's an extract:
The unity and dissolution of West Britain shows how "high politics" (strategy steered by statesmen, moguls and civil servants) and "low politics" (the adaptations of civil society, artisans, local government) can interact fruitfully if they share a sense of "world" together. Harvie's current adventures - advising a Scotland government which not only aspires to the same concertation between high and low policy, but aims to do so within a "world" defined by independence within Europe - make him a remarkably consistent member of the "avocati".But as the under-resourced rail infrastructure of Wales juddered me to my coastal destination, it seemed possible that this floating commonwealth - or at least a Celtic alliance of nations and regions - might revive its linkages, for mutual benefit. For one thing, a hydrofoil down the littoral would have been an easier trip. As the break-up of Britain continues, Harvie has provided a new mental and historical map for these islands, which could have more than scholarly consquences.
Back to the music business... here's the next 18 months, at least:
Visit Hue And Cry Music Club
And here's the business model:
This article from the Big Issue Scotland might also be of interest.
Visiting my Mum in Coatbridge, I take myself out on a jog down the 'the Lochs', as we know them round here - a crystal clear day, and a stack of podcasts in my iPod, to distract me from my aching forty-something joints.
In the 'Recently Updated' playlist I select In Our Time, the Radio Four ideas-fest with Melvyn Bragg, with the far-too-appetising title 'The Multiverse'. I think I'll have to listen again... but the gist of it is that science (or physics) is on a journey of expanding viewpoint - we used to think Earth was the centre of the universe, then we realised there were other solar systems, galaxies (billions of them), all coming from a "Big" moment (whether Bang or Bounce, they weren't agreed). And now, the physicists have some reasons to believe that, now they can approach the originating moment of the universe, they can describe what that originating moment took place in or alongside. One possibility is that this founding moment, which established the physical laws of our universe, that leads to us, is only one among many founding moments - which might create other universes with different laws of physics altogether. (Frustratingly, Melvyn never asked them the obvious sci-fi question, 'can you imagine what some of the different laws of physics could be?' Telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, what?) So then we'd live in a multiverse, and we'd have to rename our 'universe' as a 'meta-cosmos' (said Sir Martin Rees. Neologasm!).
Problem is, they kept telling us that it would be literally impossible for us to apprehend any of these parallel or alternative universes, due to the absolute violence that causes each of these universes to be - the defiance of which fuels Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. (Though Pullman has clearly been talking to physicists: two of them today talked of their hopes of establishing the true 'granularity' of the universe, the ultimate 'atoms' of existence (below quarks, I think) - which is exactly what the Subtle Knife in the second book does: so finely made that it finds its way between the granules of matter, and opens its way into other universes. I so completely love those books). Another mind-blowing image from one physicist is that other universes may well exist with incredible proximity to our own - 'barely a millimetre away', said Rees - yet still fundamentally inaccessible. I know a few spiritually-adept people, and they'd throw their heads back and laugh at the mechanism of all this ('as if we don't know alternative worlds and forces and consciousnesses live among us!'). Sorry folks, but I'll still hug close to verifiable science, edge right out on the only branch I can trust...
And as I'm jogging up the park road, laughing to myself at this conjunction of the intellectually enormous and the domestically quotidian (my other thought is to remember to get my mum's Daily Record), I look over at one of the cars that's driven into the heart of the grassland - and there's a placid, contemplative woman, sitting next to man who is inhaling deeply from a foil tray. And what's the immediate thought? Well, are we both looking for the same thing - an escape from mental limitations, a connection to something bigger and more profound, an intimation of peace, harmony and coherence? Me with my iPod and my conceptual orgies, this guy with his crack cocaine?
Problem is, I was scared to ask. And there's enough of a gulf between social universes to be getting on with.
From the Moleskine, on the topic of 'New Economy or Not?', at the WES.
PAT KANE:
Yes, it's a new economy - but maybe more like a new political economy.
I'm a musician, been in a band for 20 years, and I'm about to bring some new music to the world
The net and computation changes everything for us
- it makes it cheaper to make, distribute and promote music
- it puts control of these processes in musicians' hands, not major record companies, who have relied on selling physical objects for too long
- the Net also changes the economics of attention - people will pay more for the epiphany of live performance, the more digitally available the music is. What John Naisbitt once called hi-tech/hi-touch. Or: You give away what is abundant (recorded music), to control what is scarce (access to live performance). Live performance, under these conditions, benefits musicians directly
Continue reading "Notes from my talk at World Entrepreneurs' Summit, 10 Jan '08" »
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Recent Comments