Kester Brewin

As part of the book I’m writing at the moment I’ve been reading and thinking quite a lot about the idea of what ‘property’ is, and how this relates to the arts – and music in particular. Just the other day a new legal ruling was passed that ensured that ageing crooners like Sir Cliff [...]

Interesting piece in The Independent yesterday, asking why people bother going to festivals when the sound quality is crap, there’s mud everywhere, you can’t sleep, and people push and spill beer all over you. I visited Glastonbury once, many years ago now, and left utterly mystified. Why, I wondered at the time, did so many [...]

Interesting piece yesterday looking at why kids might play their crappy, tinny music through their stupid phones when on buses on trains. And why good, responsible adults might find their blood boiling when it happens. With mobile phones in many a teenager’s pocket, the rise of sodcasting – best described as playing music through a [...]

Spring always makes me look back. Been listening to quite a lot of music recently, some new, some old… Reminded of my times way back playing in a band, Caned and Able, which took the Bristol jazz-funk scene by storm in a hash-enveloped cloud for a while. Recorded with Massive Attack, supported James Taylor Quartet [...]

I love what’s happening with the attempt to get a charity recording of John Cage’s 4’33″ to Christmas No.1 – thereby ousting the almost inevitable other contender – some X-Factor manufactured product who we’ll struggle to remember this time next year. This video has been released documenting the recording of the piece – with the [...]

Interesting piece on the Black Eyed Peas, who are releasing their forthcoming album with a deliberate view to listeners mashing it up, uploading the results – which could then be released as an ‘upgrade’ in the future. Another example of how piracy has actually energised bands and the music industry to innovate.

John Tavener has been ill for a while following two major heart attacks. In an interview in The Times he reflects on his faith, and finds that he doesn’t sense things that he used to. “Closeness to God has always been connected with writing music. At the moment there’s no music.” Pray for him.

Interesting piece on Radio 4′s arts flagship Front Row this evening, concerning etiquette at classical concerts. There has been some consternation among the classical faithful that a new breed of concert-goers are filling the seats, and they simply don’t know when to applaud. Etiquette has it that one doesn’t at the end of movements, only [...]

Not content with starting a whole new business model for selling music, Radiohead have also now worked to subvert the remix business by making the stems of one of their tracks, Naked, available here. Nice touch. Release the DNA, see what evolves. See what people have grown, and vote, here. Technorati: Naked

A quite brilliant piece of TV on BBC 4 tonight. Worth the license fee on its own, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives traced the journey of Eels front-man Mark Everett uncovering the life of his father, the eminent physicist Hugh Everett III. Everett Snr, in a radical challenge to the Quantum Mechanical orthodoxy of the day, [...]