Orange Juice: Why Twitter is an amazing place to be

This alone would be worth excusing that bit yesterday where everyone was pushing a Vogue cover like it was worth looking at:

There was a time before all new albums automatically received four stars. Sounds' Dave McCullough lets rip in 1982: pic.twitter.com/EPe5gTKz1w

— bob stanley (@rocking_bob) March 19, 2014

But the response is jaw-dropping:

@rocking_bob Re' Dave Mc? Poor Old Soul' fact!!!@@!!!!!-Edwyn,

— Edwyn Collins (@EdwynCollins) March 21, 2014

You might want to compare and contrast this with the Stereophonics' Mr Writer; it'll allow you to measure the actual distance between an artist and a hack.

MySpace allows Edwyn Collins to share his own music

After the publicity started to stir around MySpace's refusal to allow Edwyn Collins to give away his own music, things have changed. Grace Maxwell has posted an update:

After 30 odd fruitless emails, A Girl Like You is now available in full on the myspace player! So, todays lesson is simple:

THE MOST POWERFUL DEPARTMENT IN ANY ORGANISATION IS THE PRESS OFFICE.

The whole sad world runs scared of bad publicity, especially from a righteous source like Edwyn Collins.

Warner Music Group has no connection with Edwyn whatsoever and yet they are still corporately arrogant enough to steal Edwyn's copyright and God knows what else from others. A guy from myspace advised me to treat their copyright department with kid gloves if I wanted a result. It didn't work. If the shoe was on the other foot they'd have been down on us like a ton of bricks. The next time a major tries to take ANYONE to court for copyright infringment, I'm volunteering my services as a witness for the defense. What's sauce for the goose....

So, a happy ending. Although the record companies flogging the tracks they don't own is still outstanding...

[Thanks to Francis for sharing the update in comments]

What's a nice Girl Like You not doing on a MySpace like this?

Huge thanks to Robf for tipping me off about the post of Edwyn Collins' MySpace by his manager Grace.

It details the struggle Edwyn's had trying to offer his music for download:

At the beginning of this year I noticed that Edwyn's myspace had gone bit wonky and I tried to upload the tracks back on to the music player. His most famous track, which he owns the copyright in, as he does for most of the music he's recorded in his life (preferring to go it alone than have his music trapped "in perpetuity" to use the contract language of the major record company) is called A Girl Like You. It's quite famous. Lo and behold, it would not upload, I was told Edwyn was attempting to breach a copyright and he was sent to the Orwellian myspace copyright re-education page.

It turns out that Warners was claiming copyright and - despite repeated attempts to persuade them - nobody has yet relinquished the false claim.

I'm not sure how one would even go about getting an ISP to punish Warners for this claim, even although falsely claiming ownership of something is a crime at least on a par with sharing an unlicensed file. At least unlicensed downloading doesn't preclude the legal owner from using their own material.

But it's worse than that:

A Girl Like You is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him. Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done.

Now, people swapping files for free on the internet, they're perhaps breaching the letter of the law, but at least they're not doing it for financial gain.

Even when Edwyn was really skint at the fag end of the eighties, I remember being in Camden market and seeing some tapes of a couple of his shows on sale. I tried to buy them but the stallholder somehow knew who I was and said "free to the management." I failed to see how that guy selling tapes of Edwyn or even U2 or anybody on the list of signatories above could harm their career. But anyway, as an earlier post said, this is not really an argument worth having. The gig's up. You might as well take a position about when you want the sun to come up in the morning. It's over. Now let's get on with working out a wonderful new way for music lovers to enjoy music for free or for a small subscription that makes it legal and easy to hear ANYTHING and allows the artist to reap the rewards of such freedom of access. Viva la revolution!

Spot on. And yet the Featured Lily Coalition still seem determined to believe that if they make enough people miserable enough for long enough, they can make the sun rise in the South.

Grace Maxwell talks strokes

It's Stroke Awareness Week this week, and Grace Maxwell - Edwyn Collins' wife, who knows what she's talking about - gives an interview to the Daily Record about his illness, to promote a "it's not easy, but it's not the end" attitude:

"We could really do with more understanding of aphasia [ the communication disability]," said Edwyn's wife, Grace Maxwell, who has helped him battle back to health. "People think that if you have it you are stupid but it is not that at all. There is a breakdown between the connection of your thoughts and your language, so the frustration is immense.

"It would be good if people could understand it better because they tend to think you are daft but it is not an expression of what is going on inside your brain.

Edwyn has emerged with his intellect and his judgment intact."

There is, of course, a bunch of websites and phone numbers associated with the week - UKConnect.org provides support for people with aphasia; the Stroke Association has nationwide branches and activities.

The past's future: 1981 10 - Orange Juice

This weekend, we're revisiting the Smash Hits Reader's Poll 1981 "Most Promising New Act for 1982" results, counting down from 10 to 1. We're still debating if we should skip over number 5.

What's really interesting is that, with probably just one or two exceptions, the ten bands chosen by Smash Hits readers to shine in 1982 all feature band members who are still doing quite nicely for themselves in 2007, which might be a warming thought as to the wisdom of crowds (or Smash Hits readers, at least) or perhaps unsettling that bands tipped 25 years ago are still hanging around now.

So, without further ado: Number 10 - Orange Juice. This is Simply Thrilled Honey, from the 1986 Dada With Juice video. Which they're doing in an Orange Juice factory:



[Buy The Glasgow School, 23-track Orange Juice best-of]