Just read an interesting article about the Information Generation on website called Faster than Light. It got my attention because a) it showed up as a random post on my other WordPress blog, and b) because it talks about a world where there is only “online”. It made me think about my own world – blogging online, making music and relying on the “online” world to tell people about it and share my creative talent (or lack of it!). Big record companies are finally realising that they need to get on the “online” bandwagon, and even high street stores (shops) are succumbing to the the online presence of smaller, more individual retailers that cater for the specialist buyer. I am “too connected”, as the author puts it. I do rely on uploading my new tracks and remixes to Soundcloud and Myspace, and don’t spend enough time trying to come up with a new live set and getting some gigs. Or making a cd and selling it via the mail (post). What happens when it all goes down and someone pulls the plug? What happens when my kids can’t get online? I saw an interview on Youtube recently with Midge Ure and Warren Cann from Ultravox, who are making their first album in nearly 30 years. They’ve been recording the drums in Los Angeles, and said that the live takes will be uploaded to a server and available for the producer in London to listen to long before the two band members have even boarded a plane back to the UK.
On the same note, I’ve surprised my kids by doing something “analogue”. Just something that I did that involved buttons on some old-fashioned device. Can’t remember exactly what. Maybe it was putting a record on a turntable. Not a “USB” turntable. A real turntable. I loved it and want to do more analogue stuff. I’m tired of dropping loops into tracks on Acid Pro and want to get back to using analogue cassette tapes to record onto, and my old “non-digital” keyboards. No midi, no USB. I want my kids to experience “analogue” too. One of them recently did a school-home project, and a load of his friends handed in Powerpoint slides and other modern resources. I actually felt smug when mine took in things that had been glued into a book. A book? Glue? Proper drawings. A hand-drawn map.
I guess that I’m suffering from techno-boredom. Give me analogue please. What I guess I’m saying is that I don’t want to lose the old, but I rely too much on the new.
Here’s the link to the original Information Generation blog post to read more…
