When I was growing up records (of the vinyl variety) used to come marked with a skull and cross-bones and the legend, “home taping is killing music”. Twenty years on, music is still with us and, without home taping, I would never have discovered many of the artists whose CDs now fill my racks (Tom Robinson, Michael Jackson, The Housemartins, The Smiths … all of whom I originally “borrowed” from well-meaning friends).
Forward to 2001. I hear a track on a TV programme and discover it’s At Seventeen by Janis Ian. Napster is in full swing, so I get an mp3 and listen to it over and over on my office computer. Today, I own several Janis Ian CDs.
Today I was browsing the Janis Ian web site for the first time and came across this article. It’s now about 12 months old but it still stands up. It’s one of the most interesting pieces of writing on the subject of music downloads that I have read – particularly because it comes from a singer/songwriter with an extensive recorded library and a record contract. In fact, it’s written by one of the people the record industry says they are trying to protect when the want online music outlawed. If, like me, you haven’t seen it I urge you to read it.
And I still don’t believe that home taping is killing music!
On this day…
2004: Mayor Of London
2004: What Version Control?
Ah the sun. It brings the males of the species into the park and makes them take off their shirts! Is this the first day of summer?
Jackson works in a record store and he lusts after Billy who he met at an orgy. Billy, however, likes it rough and prefers being beaten. Then cousin Jed arrives and Jackson shouldn’t really fall for his cousin, should he? Now a customer at the record store falls for Jackson (but he’s too clean cut for the poet/songwriter). There’s plenty of sex, a rock-star who feeds off the talents of others (and administers some of the beatings), a lesbian who also finds Jed intoxicating, and, ultimately, a more-or-less predictable ending.
Justin Herwick as Jackson is reasonably good and 
So, I am having a little bit of a spring clean around here and you may notice that there is a new design. Over the coming days I guess I will have to make everything work properly so apologies in advance is something isn’t working.
At the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival I saw Endgame. It’s a unique take on the London Gangland film genre – in this gangster/sugar daddy (Mark McGann) keeps his rent boy housed in a plush apartment to turn tricks for those required to be kept onside. Without wanting to spoil the plot, rent boy Tom (Daniel Newman) escapes his prison, befriends neighbourly Americans who come to his aid and escape to a remote country cottage.