Know Your Enemy

"The decision on how tickets are allocated and sold lies with the promoter and the band. No phone company is going to have 48 hrs pre-sale access to any events I may put on. Priority would go to the bands' mailing list and my mailing list."

Fighting talk from Alan Day of local promoters TCT Music, responding to the news that the Oxford Carling Academy will be renamed the Oxford O2 Academy from 1st January (even though to me and most music fans, it'll still be the Zodiac) and that O2 claim this will mean all kinds of benefits for their customers.

Alan's to be applauded, of course - this would set a very dubious precendent and I'm with 3, for a start... But I don't really see that there's much he can do by it - promote gigs in an O2 venue and surely you have to play by their rules, no matter how damaging? The problem he faces, though, is that there really aren't many other venues of a comparable size to host his gigs - and to this punter at least the Regal certainly looks like a far less attractive alternative than it did only recently (see above).

In other music news, the distributor Pinnacle has gone into administration citing the "sudden and steep downturn" in the economy. Very bad news for the 400+ independent labels whose products it proudly distributed, Rough Trade being one of the most prominent. The problems started with the collapse of Woolies and its music distribution arm Entertainment UK, and could quite possibly now result in the demise of some of the nation's finest indies - and what that and the correspondingly greater concentration of power in the hands of the majors could mean for less mainstream, marketable music doesn't bear thinking about.

One industry that certainly is booming is that of stocking filler books (or, less charitably, toilet reading). All goes to show how much my finger is on the music and internet pulse that it took it being turned into one such book for me to even hear of the Sleeveface phenomenon. Great to discover that the genius concept was dreamt up by a couple of Cardiffians who I think may be involved with promoters Plug Two and the Swn Festival.

Lastly, am I the only person with absolutely zero interest in the fact that Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon have patched up their differences in the expectation of a shedload of cash? Can't believe Coxon in particular, signing on the dotted line just six months after making some of the most out-there (and admittedly rubbish) music I've heard in a while in support of My Bloody Valentine. In the words of RussL, "the correct answer to 'Who’s Bestest: Oasis or Blur?' is still, as it has always been, 'Pulp')"...

(Russ was reviewing Paul's CD as part of the Shuffleathon - my review of his to me to appear shortly...)