Am I the only one to completely disagree with Neil here?
From: "Neil Robertson" <belleandsebastian@email.msn.com> Organization: Banchory Management Reply-To: "Neil Robertson" <belleandsebastian@email.msn.com> Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 15:53:33 -0000 To: "sinister" <sinister@missprint.org> Subject: Sinister: Fw: MP3s of the University gig
Right. About the MP3s. Firstly, I don't think Jeepster even know the MP3s were up. It wasn't their decision to get them taken down. It was the band that wanted them removed. Put quite simply, the MP3s were a pish recording of a patchy gig. Chris himself admitted he'd plugged the mic into the the wrong hole on his minidisc.
Pickle Prince, this has fuck all to do with money or commodities or Napster or anything like that. Most of us were well in favour of Napster, and some used it regularly. I agree that ideas are free, but if the person who had the idea decides it wasn't a good one, and decides not to disseminate it, surely that's their freedom? All your talk of artistic freedom is total bollocks if it doesn't include the artist's right to decide what is a finished piece of work, and what is an experiment that isn't fit to be made available under their name.
It was a public performance wasn't it? They can't take it back. They can't wipe people's brains can they? Please, no, not the mind probe!
The point is that the band have the right to have some control over how they are presented. If we'd like something to be made available, and think it is good enough for people to hear, then we'll make it available.
Fine, but that's got nothing to do with someone recording a gig and passing it on to other fans. There's a long and distinguished history of bootlegging, with or without the artist's blessing (Stuart: if you want to swap Stereolab shows, let me know). Plus, I'm sure there's plenty of art appreciated by the Sebastians that wasn't released according to the artist's wishes and personal judgement. The Trial appears on the cover of If You're Feeling Sinister; didn't Kafka ask for all his writings to be destroyed when he died? Didn't they use the recording of the Troggs bickering as an intro tape?
For instance, there's the "Black Sessions" CD. I don't know who is manufacturing it
Um, everyone who gets a copy?
so I couldn't stop them even if I wanted to, but it's not too bad. You see it about quite a bit. I've got a copy of it. I almost wish there wasn't an MP3 of "Middle Distance Runner" going around. That's a song that's not finished, because it's not very good the way it is now.
Which is a perfect example of why you don't get to decide which songs we choose to share! The band are free to control what they release. You're free to your opinion. We're free to share whatever we want to listen to.
It will come out at some point, and it will be much better then.
We'll be the judge of that!
But we made the mistake of giving it to the BBC to play for a special.
And played it at just about every gig too, c'mon...
We put it in the public domain, and we live with the consequences of that. Fair enough. "Lord Anthony" isn't finished yet either, but we haven't gone chasing people over that, so to suggest we've gone all fascist is obviously nonsense.
It's patronising to suggest we treat the first version we hear as the best/only possible version and won't judge a future release on its own merits.
But the MP3s of last week's gig were totally shite.
Like Middle Distance Runner? Again, let us be the judge. Sure it's understandable for members of the band to be embarrassed about a poor performance, but if they're not careful, by overreacting they could get a reputation for being precious! H-ha!
It was a bit of fun on a Wednesday afternoon, which the band spent about an hour rehearsing for. It was hopefully fun if you were there, but having heard the recording of it I can safely say it's probably not something anyone would put on to listen to of an evening.
Ever thought of going into politics? I'm sure there's room in government for someone to help civilians know what they want by telling them what to do.
We don't think they're of any value whatsoever, so we don't want them available. It's an artistic decision, and if you can't respect our right to that, then hard luck.
So there's no chance of them joining Yo La Tengo for the upcoming WFMU radio charity session (where listeners phone in with requests of songs for them to cover... unrehearsed Good Vibrations anyone? - try Napsta').
I mean, it's hardly fucking Metallica is it? We don't have teams of lawyers searching the 'net 24 hours a day.
Just one grouchy Legal Man? 'Hardly Fucking Metallica?!' Hold on a minute while I scrawl that on the men's room wall...
But Chris is a friend of the band so we've asked him nicely to take it down and he's done so.
I'm sorry Chris feels like a cunt. I think that's totally unnecessary. As I said, Chris is a friend of the band, and I feel bad making him look like a scapegoat, because he has done both myself and the band several favours in the past, and we owe him far more than he owes us. No-one's angry with him or anything. No harm done.
I'm sorry to the people who couldn't be at the gig. I can understand people wanting to hear what the gig sounded like, especially since it's been so long, and people very rarely get the chance to hear the band live. But there will be plenty of gigs later in the year.
Doubtlessly some people won't be able to make these either, so if a decent recording of a decent gig gets posted up, we won't feel so inclined to have it removed.
But if they don't think they've played well enough there'll be hypno-councelling booths available after the show to reshape everyone's memories to the official ideal...
And that's how it is. Cheers for your time,
Neil Robertson neil@banchory.net
Look, I don't really mean to have a go, but you seem to have had your feathers ruffled and I just feel there's some overreaction going on. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+