07.58
Monasterio Nuestra Senora De Los Angeles (Monjas Dominicas), Sant Cugat, Spain.
12.12 Lotsa talking at breakfast, eventually leading to The Englishman in Africa; beginning with Lord Burghley, his son Robert Cecil, moving to Lord David Cecil’s bronze bust & pith helmet (from the Red Lion House & currently at home in Bredonborough), Elizabeth Bennett, who lived near Cley Hill, a centre of UFO spotting in England, Elizabeth’s sister-in-Law who lived near Longleat & who knew Cranborne & Lord David as a child.
In response to my offer of helpful availability for the morning’s work, a request was made for my presence in the role of producer. This had not been my intention.
A female visitor left earlier…
… leaving her husband to continue on the staff of the course. For a little over a day, the female presence went up to three.
The primary work of the morning: recording in the ballroom. Preparation I…
II…
The LCG5 I…
II...
III...
IV...
L>R Mari, Jaci, Marti, Dani & Luci. The recording engineer, Alain…
The LCG5 mike-checking I…
II...
… with Wolfgang in assistant engineer mode.
Dr. Mike is auditor…
The difference between an auditor & an audient? An auditor is one who listens. This is a skill to be practised. An audient is one who exerts their consumer rights; that is, the right to demand just about anything they feel is their right to demand because they have the right. This is an assumption that is regularly exercised.
The recommendation has been made to both performance ensembles that their preparation & practising does not include the pieces to be recorded. This is a common error: by the time recording levels are set & players ready to record, the pieces are no longer fresh. So, prepare & practice suitable material, but not the material to be recorded. Then, when ready, three takes are available:
the first for energy & feel;
the second for accuracy, and energy & feel;
the third, a throwaway, in the pocket, for repairs & whatever might take spontaneously occur.
Once The LCG5 have recorded A Fearful Symmetry: Part One (Fripp, Mari, Jaci, Marti, Dani, Luci), it’s time to sign The RF Standard Contract…
I, the undersigned, acknowledge & grant any possible interest or ownership or rights in my work, life, home & children, present, future or conceived or imagined, on this or any other worlds in any universe, and food & drink, desserts and coffee, including phonographic & publishing rights, all income from any work at all in any field including office cleaning, to
Robert Fripp
my manager, record producer, record company, publishing company & friend;
Irrevocably, even if I change my mind:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
(Date to be added later)
Witnessed:
I might have added to manager, record producer, record company, publishing company & friend the statement The Good Guy That You Can Trust! but The LCG5 already know that, because I’d told them so many times.
Signing Ceremony I…
II...
III...
IV...
V...
Witnesses I…
II...
Happy Artists! The Team have a record contract & this is a cause of celebration I…
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III...
The document has the merits of being a (mostly) honest contract. The only clause that isn’t entirely straightforward is the Legal advice recommended & declined by artists because I added it after they’d signed…
But that’s my word against theirs. I have an established office & they don’t; I can afford the legal fees to go to court & they can’t; their concerns are musical & artistic and their way of living & being is completely undermined by belligerence, aggression, conflict & litigation. As their Heartless Smiling Venal Friend & Manager, Publisher & Record Company (with all download rights in any & all media yet established and/or not yet invented) I thrive on screwing them over; so, to grind them down, as well as acquiring all & any benefit from what they do, is an additional charge & rush.
In fact, the contract meets many of the criteria of the ethical company…
Recognisable features of the ethical company, in the literature and discussion of business ethics, involve these attributes:
transparency,
straightforwardness,
accountability,
owning-up,
honesty,
fairness,
common decency,
distributive justice.
You certainly know where you stand, so its transparent, and the clauses are straightforward enough. Common decency is uncommon in the music industry, so that doesn’t count. Fairness? Well, artists get screwed, so that’s fair enough. Perhaps there might be grounds for getting the contract overthrown on the basis of distributive justice, but I distribute what seems just to me, so that’s fine too. I can call all of this Standard Company Policy, and justify my position by showing a history of established trading in exactly this way. This is The Way! No one tells us what to do!
And who can prove, when I gave The LCG5 my word that what-you-are-signing doesn’t actually mean what-you-are signing, because I told you that it didn’t mean that, that I said anything at all? As an honest man, I would not actually deny it if challenged, but I would not be able to recall any such statement.
Anyway - that’s the trouble with words: they mean the opposite of what you intend.
Perhaps my next step - releasing educational DVDs: Guitar Craft – An Unauthorative Independent Critical Analysis.
The second ensemble of the morning: The House-Symetetrics playing House-symetrical. Before I…
II...
After...
A completion returns the space to its availability-for-beginning point…
12.56 When the going gets tough, the Gigster gets going…
The Board…
21.10 Bredonborough.
Left Sant Cugat following lunch.
On the way to Barcelona airport, we drove through the huge & rapid developments surrounding the monastery. The nuns had given up monastery land for a new hospital to be built, I was told. They have been informed, in the past few days, that the hospital will not now be built - the land is to be used for other development.
Straightforward checking & security procedures. A full flight with a coughing throat-clearer in the next seat, a passenger unable to sit still for the 2-hour flight. But, not a Booby as such.
Home with the Minx! Yippee!
"Nothing is compulsory, but some things are necessary."
