Curious Disconnect

"Sales of digital downloads dropped a whopping 13 percent in the first quarter of this year after falling 5 percent in 2013, which was the first year since the debut of iTunes that sales of digital music dropped. Apple has certainly noticed; Less than two weeks ago, it announced it would buy Beats Electronics in a $3 billion deal that includes a fledgling streaming music service. The acquisition also included the expensive Beats headphones — $300 and up in a variety of colors so they also serve as fashion accessory. People will still pay large money for devices, and this weekend, thousands of people will spend at least $250 for three-day access to the Governor’s Ball Music Festival in New York. It’s a curious disconnect: Fans will pay top dollar for a music accessory or a music event. They just won’t pay for, oh yeah, music."

David Carr

Nunn On Shakespeare

“'He was not of an age, but for all time’ — so, in memory of his friend, wrote Ben Jonson in 1623. What prescience! Today, many of us still turn to the plays of Shakespeare as a kind of Bible of Humanism, a depository of the most penetrating insights into our complex and contradictory condition. The plays remain searchingly relevant, as the priorities of different ages find new and unexpected emphases in his language, characters, dramatic situations and underlying themes. In addition to having invented and understood the principles of psychology hundreds of years before Freud, our national poet has not only defined the British, but seemingly created us, our ideas and our ideals; who we are and who we aspire to become. It’s our species that’s under his microscope, as he reveals the beast and the angel in man, capable of unspeakable violence and/or spiritual perfection. Above all, he identifies our capability to find forgiveness. Four hundred years before Nelson Mandela, Shakespeare gives these words to a man confronting an enemy who has repeatedly tried to destroy him: 'The power I have on you is… to spare you.’ All that’s left to say is: 'Shine forth, thou star of poets’—right again, Ben!”

Sir Trevor Nunn

Understanding Animals' Talk

Pablo's Method

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

Pablo Picasso

Academically Confirmed

Professor Andrew Leyshon, a Professor Economic Geography, examined the effects of digital advances on the studio sector and found the industry to be in a more serious condition than anyone thought. The implications are grim and wide-reaching; affecting emerging talent, employees and record companies alike. Once synonymous with the creative talents of artists like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Oasis and Coldplay, the recording studio sector is today becoming better known for closures and redundancies. A number of iconic London recording studios, including Olympic Studios, Townhouse Studios, Whitfield Street Studios (formerly Sony and, before that, CBS Studios) and Eden have closed in recent years. "We all know that the music industry has been radically transformed by software," Professor Leyshon says. "We understand the impact that software formats such as MP3 and problems like internet 'piracy' have had on intellectual property rights and distribution. We also understand the knock-on effects for record companies. But the impact on the recording studio sector has passed by with very little comment." Even the famous Apple Studios are in crisis. They already are rather a tourist attraction today than a birthplace for new pop music.

Studio Demise

Sylvester and I are back in London to do demo recordings for our new Marie Antoinette musical which is scheduled to open in Seoul in October. London offers us the greatest choice of first class singers who not only have a a theatrical background but are also able to sing pop (which we usually prefer). To our disappointment we found the studio we usually book, Sphere Studios in Battersea, run out of business. The ongoing crisis in the music industry and the technical development of desktop recording are seriously depleting the recording studio sector.

Blues Is The Foundation

"If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music."

Keith Richards

Donny Hathaway

35 years ago he took his life, but Donny is still one of the greatest soul and blues singers of all times! Listen to him and he's alive.

Books

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard
by the time I read them.

Arnold Lobel

A Library Worth A Trip

Above the entrance to St Gallen Abbey Library, one of the oldest of its kind, is a Greek inscription which translates into English as "pharmacy of the soul". The monks who founded the library considered books as medicine for the spirit. The 150,000 strong collection, now part of a Unesco World Heritage site, continues to inspire visitors and scholars today. The visitor is immediately struck by two things – the vast quantity of books and the beauty of the room. Remodelled in the 18th century, using the monastery's own craftsmen, the library is a heady mix of rich woodwork, ceiling paintings and stucco. The whole room – even on a rainy day - is illuminated by light from 34 windows. It is said to be one of the most beautiful Baroque libraries in existence. Only 30,000 of the library's collection – books and manuscripts – can be seen. Some volumes are considered simply too precious to be shown in public.