Fake Problems

Hello, my name is Luke and this, you’ve probably guessed, is my blog. I’ll tell you something that happened to me today: I was trying to eat, (a cheese and pickle sandwich and a plate of soup [cream of tomato] if you must know…) should’ve been enjoyable enough, am I right? Well it wasn’t, I’ll tell you why…
I’m trying to eat and right outside my window all I can hear is just my fucking sick-making neighbour using her fucking sick-making voice to call on her fucking sick-making cat that has mange and hangs around my garden all day, presumably to get a little respite from the old lady, who probably makes the cat as sick as she makes me. Anyway, all this going on, and I’m trying to dine. Put me right of, sure it did. Almost made me fucking sick. That, I promise you, is the most interesting thing that happened to me today. Actually come to think of it I heard this band called Fake Problems for the first time, they're very good. But anyway...

Is this what blogging is? ‘cos honest? It’s not grabbing me by the balls just yet. “hi, my name’s Luke and here’s a stupid fucking story about something stupid that happened to my stupid ass today and while we‘re at it here‘s what I had for lunch…” No, I don’t think so either. So forget that, and starting right now, here is my first real blog post…

I read this thing today all about downloading music for free, whether it’s acceptable or not and it got me to thinking, downloading music for free: is it acceptable or not? Well frankly I’m not for getting into that at the moment; it’s an issue of jurisprudence at it’s heart, and I reckon it’s something for another day and a lot more words than I‘ve got the will to lay down here. What I do want to get into is artists getting uppity about the issue, as if their decision to be an artist (and that’s all it is folks, just a decision) somehow puts them on a pedestal above the rest of us.

Andy Falkous of Future of the Left wants “to make the music we love and play it around the world without living in poverty.” Well I wish he could do that as well, really I do, but unfortunately for both of us things just don’t work that way. Art is not a job; you have a choice to make: either you create something you want to create and you’re proud of or you do something that’s guaranteed to make a profit. Needless to say which is the more admirable option; if you only want to make a profit you might as well get a job in a fucking call centre or something. I just don’t understand the argument that FOTL “poured a year of [their] lives” into this thing and that somehow entitles them to make money from it. Those two guys on Dragons’ Den who invented road kill toys probably spent ages, that doesn’t mean they should be entitled to have a ton of money stuffed up their arses. Not that I’m in any way equating FOTL’s record with half the shit on Dragons’ Den, the point is the fact that they’ve made a record they’re proud of should be reward enough. In the field of artistic endeavour profit should be a happy by-product, not a goal to strive for. That’s the way I see it anyway.

So what am I trying to say here? If you make the decision to step outside of what might be called mainstream employment, quit your job and focus yourself on a career in music you are taking a massive risk. That Andy Falkous might not make enough money to justify the year he spent making his record is a terrible shame, but it does not make him any more or less qualified to talk about the rights and wrongs of illegal music downloading than anyone else. I don’t think he’s been severely wronged here: I truly believe that most Future Of The Left fans will buy the album and will support the band in other ways besides (buying the aforementioned concert tickets, merch etc.) So the problem for Falkous, as far as I can see, is that his band doesn’t have enough true fans to be viable. Not because they’re a bad band, far from it. In a vain attempt to sum up an infinitely complex issue that goes straight to the heart of society I will say this: people are morons. Most people would rather just listen to Calvin Harris than bother to find out what music truly is and can be, so the record company makes sure that Calvin Harris is the next big thing with advances and marketing budgets and tour support and so on, and Future Of The Left, who have the principles to stay away from that kind of thing, get left to rot. Like I say, too complex to get into right now but for fuck’s sake, file sharing can’t prevent a band from being successful because in music profitability is not the yardstick of success.

There, that’s my first blog. Now fuck off.