Where Worlds Collide

There seems to be no end in sight for the grounding of all aircraft over most of northern, central and eastern Europe because we seem to have upset a Norse volcano-god. Living close to Manchester airport, it’s strange to look up and see an empty sky. I did see one small low-flying light aircraft this afternoon, but you can’t fly commercial jets at treetop height.

Although this natural disaster hasn’t killed anyone, it’s still causing a huge human cost. I know people stranded in Canada, Ukraine and The Maldives at the moment, someone else putting up stranded Americans as houseguests, and someone who runs a cattery who has six customers currently stranded abroad. One wonders what the economic might be if this goes on beyond a few days. It’s quite likely we’ll see some airlines fold.

I’ve heard people saying the government “must do something” to bring stranded passengers home. The trouble is that nobody really has any idea how soon the airspace over Europe will stay closed. If it’s just a couple of days, the best thing is for people to wait and travel as soon as the planes start flying again. If it lasts for weeks, or in the worst case scenario, months, then people are going to have to get home by alternative routes; short-haul passengers by rail and ferry, long-haul passengers to whatever airports are still open just outside the cloud to continue their journeys by land.

I’m wondering how rapidly the rail and ferry operators can increase capacity in the short term if the grounding of aircraft is prolonged. Virgin Trains were operating additional Anglo-Scottish trains on Friday using their Voyager fleet which isn’t fully-deployed on weekdays, and I see that Network Rail have cancelled some weekend engineering blockades on the East and West Coast main lines, to carry the passengers displaced from internal British flights. What about Eurostar? I don’t know to what extent their train fleet is deployed at present, or whether they have the trains or train crews to operate additional services. As far as I know there’s no technical reason why French TGVs or multi-voltage German ICE trains can run though the tunnel into St.Pancras; the sticking point is the possibly over-strict fire regulations for the tunnel (rules that don’t apply to cars and lorries on the shuttles), and presumably the lack of drivers with both route and traction knowledge. And of course there will be plenty of demand for these trains in France and Germany as well.

Time will tell if becomes necessary to start reinstating mothballed rolling stock and ferries to increase capacity.

In The Costs of a Terrible Mistake, Doug Richard expresses all the same concerns as in my previous post. Only rather better-articulated. And he doesn’t mince his words in the conclusion.

There was no need to rush this legislation through except that someone, somewhere wanted to get passed under the wire. Someone wanted a bad law in place, and in the wrapping up of parliament it happened.

That is devastating.

And people think I’m overreacting when I call for a boycott of the “Big four” record companies (Sony, EMI, Warners and Universal). While I’m sure there are other vested interests in play, especially the cynically calculated evil of Rupert Murdoch, there does seem to be smoking gun incriminating the major labels, who may have given us some great music in the past, but are now dinosaurs willing to trash the future in order to postpone the extinction they so richly deserve.

There are many lifetimes’ worth of great music released by smaller labels and independent artists - we don’t need the majors any more, and a boycott is far less than they deserve. Not as dismissal of ‘mainstream’ music as an act of musical snobbery, but a refusal to give any of my money to businesses who act in such a disgraceful way.

So the government has railroaded through the deeply-flawed Digital Economy Bill in the dying days of a Parliament with completely inadequate discussion or consultation. It’s being sold as an urgently-needed measure to tackle widespread internet piracy, but I see it as a massive power-grab by old-media giants who want to destroy those parts of the Internet they don’t like.

Nobody apart from the major media cartels and a bunch of corrupt and/or technically-illiterate politicans are actually in favour of this thing as it stands. Even the strongly anti-filesharing Featured Artists Coalition opposes the bill.

I have always maintained that the major labels overstate the losses caused by file-sharing for largely self-serving reasons, and their real agenda has always been about maintaining market share. There are still people who claim that every illicit download represents a lost sale, which is so transparently ridiculous that they deserve to be slapped repeatedly with the proverbial Very Large Haddock until they see sense. They ignore the multiple studies concluding that file-sharers actually spend more money on music and other media than average, and frequently use file-sharing to guide their legitimate purchases.

Even if you believe illicit filesharing is a terrible thing, the whole collective punishment aspect sticks in the throat. This bill targets households, not individuals. I know I’m going to risk Godwin’s law saying this, but from occupied France in World War Two downwards, collective punishment has always been the last resort of the authoritarian thug with no moral authority. So we will see parents losing internet access due to the actitivies of their teenage children, or similar things in shared houses. That lodger you kicked out last month because he didn’t pay the rent? Turns out he’s cost you your internet as well. And that’s before we get into how cafes and libraries providing free wi-fi are now going to be expected to police their customer’s activity. No, small businesses are certainly not exempt, and many people are predicting a sharp decline in free wi-fi facilities.

Then there’s the whole ‘guilty unless proved innocent’ thing. How are they going to determine what’s a legal and what’s an illegal download? What guarantees are there that whatever data-mining or traffic analysis they propose to use isn’t going to generate significant numbers of false positives? What happens if you listen to an Internet radio station or download free songs from a band’s own website, and those sites don’t appear in some major-label approved whitelist? I’ve asked the bill’s apologists about this, and all I get is bland assurances that “it’s only going to be used against a hard core of persistant file sharers”. But there is nothing in the bill that states this.

The bits in the bill about site blocking are just as bad - again the wording is so vague that it can end up being used against virtually anything that the big media companies don’t like - much like Britains hopelessly broken libel laws.

But perhaps the most toxic thing about the entire bill is the way it undermines public support for the notion that creative artists deserve to be paid for their efforts. From the sleazy way it emerged from a meeting between the unelected twice-sacked-for-corruption Peter Mandelson and label boss David Geffen while being wined and dined on Philip Rothschild’s yacht in the Med, to the cynical way the government rammed it through Parliament without proper discussion, the whole thing has the effect of making file-sharing look like a righteous act of civil disobedience. And that will persist even if the DEB fails.

There’s still an outside chance that the House of Lords will see sense and kick the bill out, but I wouldn’t bet on it. In the meantime, if your MP voted in favour of this travesty, be sure not to vote for them in the election.

Photo © Howard Rankin

When Heather Findlay announced that she was leaving Mostly Autumn after thirteen years to embark on a solo career, the band announced there would be one final chance to give her a send-off. The show at Leamington Spa was originally intended to be the launch gig for the new album, but with the need to regroup delaying the album it was the ideal location for a farewell gig. It’s a superb venue, a central location accessible from all over the country, with a big stage, decent capacity, and far, far nicer than the grungy old Astoria in London.

While one or two people feared the gig might turn into a wake, it wasn’t like that at all. What we got was a powerful, impassioned performance easily up to the standard of any of the electrifying shows of 2009. If it was a punctuation mark in Mostly Autumn’s history, this was nothing short of an exclamation mark. Heather sang her heart out for something two and a half hours, pouring her heart and soul into the performance. Everyone else was on top of their game, of course, but tonight was really Heather’s night.

There were no real surprises in the setlist, which was pretty much the same as the greatest hits set they’d been playing towards the end of last year, combining old favourites such as “Passengers”, “Shrinking Violet” and “Mother Nature” with some of Heather’s most recent songs like “Above the Blue” and “Unoriginal Sin”. A very bittersweet experience, since we all knew we were probably hearing her sing many of those songs for the last time.

After the final encore of Heather’s signature tune “Evergreen” and the final bow, Heather gave heartfelt hugs to the other seven members of the band, several of whom were visibly in tears by that point. As were a good proportion of the audience.

The end of an era, indeed. The next chapter begins in just a week’s time with former backing singer Olivia Sparnenn taking over at the front of the stage.

Tomorrow, in less than 24 hours time, Heather Findlay will be on stage with Mostly Autumn at Leamington Spa for one last farewell performance, as she prepares to embark upon a solo career. Two days after that at the Robin 2 in Bilston, Olivia Sparnenn will be on stage with Breathing Space for the very last time, before she leaves to take over from Heather in Mostly Autumn.

I don’t think the reality has really sunk in yet.

I’ve seen Mostly Autumn something like 40 times now, and Breathing Space something like 20. These two bands have been a major part of my life for the past few years - I’ve based holidays around the legs of tours, stayed in dodgy B&Bs to watch Breathing Space play before 50-odd people in working men’s clubs in the east midlands, and stood in the rain watching Mostly Autumn support Bryan Adams at Murrayfield Stadium. I’ve been to so many gigs in York that the city has stated to feel like a second home. And I’ve become personal friends with one or two band members.

I expect Friday in particular is going to be a very emotional night. There are plenty of songs in the Mostly Autumn songbook that bring a lump to the throat at any time - “Carpe Diem” and “Half the Mountain” will be particularly poignant.

It may be the closing of a chapter, but it’s certainly not the end of the story. On the following weekend Livvy will be performing her first gig with Mostly Autumn at Gloucester Guildhall. Heather hasn’t announced any tour dates as yet, but I hope to be at her first one, wherever and whenever it may be. I’m sure there is plenty of good times and great music still to come over the coming months and years.

And Mostly Autumn’s next album Go Well-Diamond Heart, which will of course feature Livvy Sparnenn on lead vocals, is now available for pre-order. It’s going to be recorded over the coming months, with pre-ordered to be shipped around July. I’ve ordered mine already.