Little Horse is by now on her way home for two nights and one whole day.
Behind me Soundscapes from The Painted Bride (first night of two) December 11th. 1997. Earlier today: The Birchmere from the 10th. with discussion / Q & A. And THE Ted White was there.
Responses to the Guestbook ... continued.
1. Thank you to Steve Smith for the Lisa CockRell Theatre, and apologies to Lisa.
2. Dean Estes:
Are "honest and well-intentioned customers ... due some consideration?".
Very much so. Dean has my personal apologies. If he would be kind enough to fax me his friend's name and address to DGM in England (44-1744-781042) I'll take care of it from here.
I appreciate Dean's reasonable concerns. Practically, it is not possible for any of the DGM staff to personally discuss / correspond regarding possible remedies when mistakes occur. I know, and see, the workload which the Team deal with on a daily basis; like, in America, sending out 1200 Club releases in addition to the "normal" daily concerns of being a record company. This is not an excuse, but an explanation.
Hopefully, Dean will see himself able to continue as a customer. A hardnose business operation would, on simple cost analysis, figure it cheaper to lose one customer than seek to remedy the customer's (legitimate) concerns. DGM is softnose, and we hope that when glitches inevitably occur our listening community will be generous where possible, as has Dean.
A company which sets itself ethical aims also sets itself problems: expectations are generated that its functioning might be as perfect as its declared aims. Operations I've known which claimed high aims have generally reflected the unrealistic & impractical aspirations of inexperienced, even dopey, semi-airheads who have little or no notion of the business world. And I've been personally involved in such airhead & dopey ventures for almost 25 years, or 30 if you include King Crimson.
Bright ideas, of how the world should operate between reasonable human beings interracting in a mature fashion and a spirit of goodwill, get to be put into effect among people who (if I consult my experience as a working musician) are often bitter, drunk, drugged, unreasonable, self-serving, manipulative, greedy, angry, cynical, seeking to dump their negativity onto anyone with aspirations, and / or voicing opinions based on an extensive ignorance of the matter under discussion. And that's just the players. Competence and reliability alone are huge achievements.
The gap between the possible and the impossible, between the sad mess we make of our world & what is valuable and available to it, has to be filled by someone. DGM, its artists and listening community are, for me, some of these someones.
3. Eric Blair:
There are wrinkles in the US booklets for "Sometimes God Smiles".
But not in the UK, as far as I've seen, and the quality of printing for this is NOT a budget concern. Recent ET postings on the Virgin KC-catalogue sleeves' mix-up demonstrates how majors even have difficulties with their printers. A recent English "ITCOTKC" cover has more shades of purple than red. Declan the Hero is dealing with it, but I doubt that the entire run will be scrapped. Someone makes a mistake, and we all lose.
4. Several posters:
Q. Why the copyright notice on the DGM pages?
A. Because Abbey Road, who initially set up the site, put it there.
Q. Why did Abbey Road put it there?
A. Because this is a standard notice for standard business in a fallen world.
Q. Why did DGM allow the website to post this notice?
A. If DGM were in the business of creating websites, it wouldn't have been posted in the first place. DGM is in the business of being a record company, and our formal & declared position on copyrights is trumpeted daily from the minarets.
Q. Why hasn't the dodgy copyright notice been removed yet?
A. The quick answer is time (we have only recently managed to take advantage of Dan Kirkdorffer's generosity & talent).
My assumption is that our position on copyright is well known & established, and that our customers have sufficient perceptive capacities and intelligence to have already figured out the answer to this question.
I hope for critical goodwill in our listening community, but my priorities rank above pre-empting anyone who wants to sniff out seeming contradictions in our operations. And cynicism has no place in my life.
This is one simple, shining example of how difficult it is for DGM (and any other eco-ethically aspirant company) to operate alongside the Standard Operating Procedures of the existing business world.
Discipline doesn't operate in a vacuum. We act within existing conceptual, cultural & business frameworks while subscribing to a different value structure. Or, to put it slightly differently: Discipline is building a bridge while crossing it, and defending ourselves against attacks from behind.
We survive only by the support (and generosity) of "customers" who have (my hunch) almost as much sympathy with our aims as with the music.
Posters to a public bulletin board (e.g. letters to The Times) may reasonably be presumed to have granted the newpaper / bulletin board (at least) a non-exclusive licence to reproduce the letter / posting. So, DGM maintains the copyright in all the pages of its website, acknowledging the copyright interest of the posters in their postings (which is itself protected as part of the Website), and has a non-exclusive licence to make use of those postings.
When Dan K., DGM Hero Webmeister, has time no doubt there will be a modification of the existing notice. Until then: Hey! mellow dudes.
"Life is too short to take on the unnecessary."
