Category: Audio
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theJazz
Have you listened to new digital radio station theJazz yet? I must admit that I haven’t much, since although I can take or leave jazz, I do need to be in the mood to spend much time listening (Mind you I am tempted to get the newly remastered Beiderbecke trilogy including a CD of the…
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Madness
Baggy Trousers was one of the first pop songs that really made an impact on me back in 1980 or so. I learnt all the words from Smash Hits (or maybe Number One). But I don’t think I’ve seen Madness live before… until last night. Wembley Arena was a heaving throng (far fewer seats than…
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Copyright Extension
I wrote at length about the Gower Review the other day, and in particular the section related to music copyright extension. Towards the end I noted that an advert had been published in the FT listing the names of 3,500 – 4,000 people who were in favour of the extension. If you don’t read Boing…
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Ed Reardon Returns
I make no apology for mentioning Ed Reardon’s Week once again. Two reasons to mention it this week: 1) The third series starts on Friday morning at 11.30am on BBC Radio 4 with an episode called The Name-Check. Listen live, or listen again! 2) BBC Radio 7 is repeating the first series on Monday evenings…
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The Gower Review
This week has finally seen the publication of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property conducted on behalf of the Treasury, and the departments of Trade and Industry, and Cutlure, Sport and Media. All the press reports have been about the need to protect intellectual property rights more rigorously from pirating and counterfeiting. There are also…
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Great Music Copyright News
Some of the best news recently has got to be that the UK is not going to extend the copyright on music beyond the current 50 years to a proposed 95 years. The rather random seeming 95 years is because that’s what it is in America. As I’ve mentioned before, record companies are seemingly unable…
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Ed Reardon Series 3 – Coming Soon
Regular readers will know that I’m an enormous fan of Ed Reardon’s Week. The paperback of what’s effectively the first series recently came out, and with any luck, next March should see the release of the CD of series one. But more imminently, at 11.30am on Friday 15 December, the first of six episodes of…
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Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band
To Wembley Arena (never a fun phrase to type, but it was pretty painless this evening) to see Bruce Springsteen. Now I’ve got to admit that I’m not a “Bruce” fan. In his heyday he was selling out Wembley Stadium, but we’re now in the somewhat smaller Arena – not that the stadium’s available of…
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How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
I don’t mention radio dramas very often here, and I should really. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is based on the book by Toby Young relating his experiences working as a journalist in America – in particular for a spell spent at Vanity Fair. In this radio version (the link works until Friday),…
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Radio Radio
This week’s Mediaguardian has two articles that are worth commenting on regarding radio. The first is a piece on the future of DAB. It focuses on the recent decision, since reversed, to lower the Radio 3 DAB bandwidth from 192kbps to 160kbps. A further drop in bit-rate occurs when either Radio 4 or Radio Five…
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Happy 60th Radio 3
It’s the sixtieth anniversary of Radio 3, or The Third Programme as it once was. It might be reaching pensionable age (well, maybe another five years to go), but in this time of age discrimination, I don’t want to see it pensioned off! I commend Humphrey Carpenter’s The Envy of the World as a history…
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Tax Breaks For Record Companies!
Seemingly, the BPI is calling for record companies to be given tax breaks! This seems to be the latest hare-brained scheme for British record companies to make more money for themselves. It seems that when they’re looking for new artists, it’s not because they might hit big and earn loads of profits, but they’re actually…
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Digital Music Awards – Vote Rigging
The Digital Music Awards are now a fixture in the world of radio, and each year they canvas for votes from the public to pick their favourites in various categories, including “Best Radio Station”. The only problem with that is that the most popular seems certain to win. And when I say “popular” I mean,…