I remember buying my first set of Technics SL 1200 turntables and a cheap Behringer mixer ages ago and learning to DJ on that. Since then I’ve tried a number of more modern hardware alternatives – starting with CDs, then looking at computers and even iPod mixers. Nothing compared to my turntables. Will the iPad change that? I think not.

But when it comes to live production, which is more of what Rana is doing, then the iPad undoubtedly offers some advantages, especially given the low price of software for the device when compared to their hardware equivalents.

Before the launch of the Apple iPad many potential uses were postulated for the device. The most prominent of these was in publishing as people perceived new applications and media delivery to tablet devices that would impact on the world of magazines and newspapers. Movies, textbooks and social networking were all correctly predicted to be the kind of things that the iPad would be good for. But few guessed that the device would mean big things in the world of music.Within two weeks of launch the iPad app store had over 180 music-related applications with many of these being committed to actively using the iPad for making music.

The most obvious of these applications were virtual piano apps like Virtuoso Piano and interesting DJ apps like  iTurntable. But more sophisticated applications have turned up such as AC-7 Pro Control Surface that allows for the iPad to be used as a control interface for professional audio applications and hardware.

There are even guides sprouting up online for more complicated setups, like using the iPad to control Ableton Live. And, as is obvious from the video above, it’s possible to use the iPad as a serious instrument.

Music apps made their way onto the iPhone originally and some pretty impressive things were achieved – like being able to use the iPhone as a virtual flute or as a unique instrument in itself using the Ocarina application.

While rudimentary music production was possible, and even mastered, on the iPhone, the iPad with its larger screen and more powerful processor is taking things to a new level. The device has only been available for two weeks, so I look forward to seeing what musicians and producers manage to pull off with the device in the next year or two.

Here is my take on things:

I spent a number of years in the music industry and at first I would’ve agreed with Rich about supply and demand on the point of bands playing shows for very little money, or even free, in exchange for exposure.

But having lived the industry as a band manager, emcee, radio presenter, music journalist, DJ and even band member, I was exposed to our local industry from just about every angle.

What Coke Fest and many other organisers in SA do is straight-up exploitation of our local artists.

Sure, there are bands that agree to play for free or very little, like the local bands lined up for Coke Fest. But there are many more bands who won’t. It’s the guys who need the exposure and generally aren’t very professional who agree to being exploited. Self-respecting professional musicians won’t do it. It damages the perceived value of their shows, how the market views them and enforces the misconception that bands make money from selling recordings – and that it’s OK to get them to play for a pittance.

It isn’t OK. And album sales are not how musicians make money. Surprisingly, many of our local artists don’t even understand this.

The music industry in South Africa is fairly rotten and the ecosystem of events organisers and multinational labels have created a paradigm where artists get paid far less than they are worth, and have to be overly thankful for every booking they get, to the extent that it costs them more money to play a gig than they make from it sometimes. When anyone complains the organisers will say, “we didn’t force them to do it.”

But they don’t tell you how many bands turned down the offer.

And just because someone is willing to do something for free or very little doesn’t make it OK for them to. That’s why minimum wage exists.

Our younger bands will also get starry-eyed at the idea of playing along side their international heroes. And this is what makes the exploitation stick.

It’s pathetic that organisers have millions to throw at international bands, but nothing to give local performers. Not because the internationals don’t deserve the money – they do. But our local guys don’t deserve to be treated like second-class musicians.

I resent Coke Fest and its ilk. It, along with music stations like 5FM, contributes to both the celebration of mediocrity and lack of respect that keeps South African musicians down. They give exposure to mostly middle-class acts who don’t mind, or even know that they are being exploited. Some self-respecting bands will jump on the bandwagon because they have no other choice given the realities of our industry. But many just won’t – and as a result they won’t get played on radio or approached by event organisers.

The assertion that bands make money from album sales, and that concerts are like book tours for authors, is also completely wrong. Musicians do not make money from album sales – record labels do. Even the biggest acts in the world make much more money from live shows than from their album sales. This is why independent artists are increasingly giving away their music – because albums and radio play are a way to get people to shows, not the other way around.

The keyboardist from one of the world’s biggest rock bands told me that his band pocketed more money from two weeks worth of live performances than they did from the sales of their last album, which was on the Billboard 100. I won’t name him because I know he won’t appreciate being dragged into the debate.

In South Africa bands, and especially rock bands, will never sell more than a few hundred copies of any given album. Now and then someone will break the 2000 mark and in very rare occasions things will push into the tens or hundreds of thousands – but never in the rock genre. The reasons for this aren’t important, it’s purely illustrative of how much money albums bring in.

The artist will receive a few rand off of each album if they are signed to a major label, which must be split up with the album producer and all the members of the band. The label will make a number of deductions for marketing and other things too, depending on the artist’s contract. And it is rare for bands to do more than one album per year. More like one every two years.

We’ll use another friend of mine as an example – someone who played in one of the biggest SA rock bands of the late nineties. To date he has made under R10000 from album sales and royalties. But his band would cut him an average of around R3000 per live show, depending on the size of the gig and what they were paid for it. You do the math. Even then, he was being paid far less than he was worth – but that’s how we do things in SA.

We have amazing talent in this country, but it gets kicked down so that other musicians who don’t deserve the publicity, but are willing to play for free at festivals, get all the attention. We have also created a situation where South Africans somehow feel that international bands are worth more than South African bands.

I’m not suggesting that every band played on 5FM is mediocre, or that bands who want free exposure shouldn’t be allowed to get it. But the current situation allows for more mediocrity than anything else. And it damages the entire industry, because musicians don’t have to be anything special to get gigs or airplay – they just have to be happy with being poor and selling out. The fans think that SA bands are inferior, which they often are, and musicians won’t speak out because they don’t want to limit their prospects.

The best bands in the world make music they love without thinking about money. I know, because I’ve asked them. You can’t be awesome without believing in your product. Too many bands in this country produce what they think will get them airplay, and ironically get nothing for it.

It’s not cool. And it needs to change.

Until it does I will continue to boycott events like Coke Fest.

One may, quite naturally, think that I have a chip on my shoulder from my time in the industry, but I don’t. I had a ball, learned some hard lessons and achieved everything I set out to. I was never at the end of any raw deals – in fact, I was sometimes the person handing them out and I regret that now – but I didn’t know any better.

I’m commenting as an outsider, who still sometimes dips my toes into the industry.

For the second time on board an aeroplane I found a piece of music that just nailed the milieu for me this week. I was on my way to Japan, flying between Hong Kong and Osaka, when I watched the movie ’21′ based on Ben Mezrich’s book ‘Bringing Down the House’ that tells the story of the MIT black jack team. The intro to the movie features a piece of music that intrigued me, so I tracked it down.

The group is MGMT. The song is ‘Time to Pretend’.

MGMT is a Brooklyn-based hippie duo that describes their music as “surf / jungle / country”. It puts a glitch spin on hippie surf rock, paying tribute to the Summer of Love – and it just works for me. MGMT sound fresh and fad-proof. The kind of music I could get lost in. I won’t disservice their art by drawing comparison. But I will thank them for it.

They’ll be playing in Osaka four days from now – the city I was on my way to when I discovered them.

Where is my bayou paradise? Nice.

Check out MGMT’s Myspace page.

Some will say that this is a global problem and I would agree to an extent, but my commitments lie in South Africa, hence my focus on the local situation.

A side-effect of being involved in a medium such as live radio, as I am, means that you are constantly aware of criticism. At the talk radio station where I host my shows we have an SMS line that runs 24 hours a day where listeners can send their messages to add to the on-air conversation. This channel is more regularly used to abuse presenters, however.

On the SMS line I have been called everything from useless to racist. Black listeners have called me a ‘euro pest’ and white listeners have called me an ‘armchair liberal’. The abuse is unrelenting and flows throughout the show. On the flip side, other listeners compliment me. Fortunately the good outweighs the bad. But the bad is very, very bad and often includes personal attacks adorned with expletives.

Now I could let the negative criticism I receive get to me. I have on occasion. And it has dragged my whole being down, along with my show. But I prefer to try seeing it as something positive. My view on life is that negativity is self-perpetuating and unproductive. I have never seen a negative person solve any form of problem. So I’ll have no part of it. Instead I look for the positive in any situation. As such, I see criticism as a seed I am being given by someone. I can swallow it and choke on it, or plant it and unlock the energy it contains. Criticism is fuel. The more I receive, the greater my incentive becomes to improve, to prove the criticisers wrong, to show that I am not shaken. I see my ambition as a fire; there is good fuel and bad fuel but they both help the fire to grow.

A colleague of mine in talk radio, Udo Carelse, has a good take on this. He says that he goes into shows with his “core” and a commitment that it won’t be shaken. I like this description and I am continuously amazed at how Udo manages to remain positive and upbeat at 4 in the morning – even when I know he has had the kakkest of days.

But I digress. My point is that South Africans need to learn to both give and take criticism. And to see it for what it is and accept it from whence it came. And don’t refrain from labeling something as banal, mediocre crap if that’s what you think it is. Alternatively, when criticism aimed at you comes from a drunk moron mouthing-off at 3 in the morning, merely toss it on the fire. But don’t engage. As my friend Daniela always says, “When you wrestle with a pig you both get full of mud – but the pig enjoys it.”

Without criticism creatives in South Africa will continue to be just OK with the few odd exceptions, when they could be great if pushed – or stop what they’re doing if they really are hopeless at it, which would be a desirable outcome too.

Some of our music groups are poop, our official political opposition party is a joke while our governing party is beyond adjective description in its inabilities, and our blogosphere is full of link-loving morons who love marking their own homework. Are you going to sit back and say, “well, at least they’re doing it” or are you going to mouth off? If you aren’t going to target your criticism at individuals, then you can’t whine about the collective.

But make it constructive and try to execute your criticism in a way that encourages the target to grow and improve. Unless that target really needs to be stopped in its tracks.

And give credit where it’s due. We have some good politicians in South Africa. Not many, but some. There are some excellent bloggers in South Africa and musicians that are world-class, to say the least. South Africa has given the world its most expensive female artist and the greatest revolutionary leader of modern times. We are not short on talent, but it needs encouragement. And sometimes it needs to be guided in the right direction with some positive crit.

Post your criticism below

At launch the iPod Touch will be available in eight and sixteen gigabyte models using flash memory as opposed to a platter-based hard drive. This is a good thing. We like flash memory. It doesn’t break.

For those users desiring higher capacities Apple has re-branded and refreshed its flagship iPod product, formally known as the iPod Video. Now called the iPod Classic these devices sport a new operating system with added functionality and come in capacities of 80 and 160 gigabytes.

The iPod Nano has also been refreshed and now supports video playback. The new, short and stout Nano is available in a variety of colours and capacities of four and eight gigabytes.

The new range of iPods should be available in South Africa before the end of the month of September 2007, but will definitely be here in time for Christmas. Local pricing is currently unavailable.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and I accept that in general our bands just can’t afford quality videos. But the few who can have not produced anything better than described above and the reason the rest of them don’t have money has more to do with the fact that they are rubbish as musicians and less to do with the “kak local industry.”

But recently, thank god, we’ve started to see some quality creeping into the local music video industry, thanks to some highly talented individuals who have decided to stick around in South Africa instead of pissing off to first world countries to make advertisements.

The Springbok Nude Girls video for ‘Illuminate’ was a solid piece of work – produced by Star Productions, who are now working on the reunited Nude Girls’ next video single.

Lightning Type also had a rad video for their song ‘Mercy’, produced by Room 5 in Johannesburg.

And I have just finished watching the best music video ever to come out of South Africa, in my humble opinion. It’s for the song ‘As Long As I Am Here’ by Prime Circle, remixed for the latest Cafe D’Afrique compilation.

It was directed and produced by Morgan Dingle, stars Tanya van Graan and was shot by Willie Nel. Witness a music video the way they should be done.

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing Saul Williams and CX perform at the recent Oppikoppi Rock Paper Scissors festival, where myself and Richard III were spinning beats and where we recorded episode 10 of Seedcast live. I also drank too much, slept in my car and got roped into announcing on the Sipho Gumede Stage. It was pleasant.

Saul Williams was included in the line-up as part of a recent South African tour. It’s been a while since I’ve heard something really original, but Saul blew me away; especially with CX handling the beats – which were completely unlike anything I’ve ever heard before and certainly too good to be carelessly dumped on with genre-comparing.

After the show Saul was chilling back stage and CX disappeared (probably had to fetch more Pepsi in the spaceship). Kenny (DJ Kenzhero) asked me to take a pic of him and Saul with my mobile phone, which, as you can see, takes grainy, kak pics – especially at night.
Respect Saul – your music and poetry is amazing and it was an honour to meet you.

If you aren’t familiar with Saul Williams, look for his self-titled album, Saul Williams and find out what I’m on about. He also has a book available called The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip Hop.

And, of course, if you can see Saul and Tronic performing live, don’t miss it. You won’t be disapointed.

Other aliens I saw at this year’s Oppikoppi: The Real Estate Agents, Lark, A Blunted Stuntman, Fletcher, Teba, Goldfish, Obita, Jacob Israel, DJ Kenzhero… and all on the fattest sounding stage I’ve ever heard, thanks to soundmen Rasta, Lito and DJ Bob.

Created by the Music Genome Project, Pandora is streaming radio with a twist. Using the data generated by the Music Genome Project, Pandora will let you create customised music stations that play high quality recordings and adapt themselves to your musical tastes. The idea is to expose yourself to new music, see.

It’s really difficult to describe until you’ve tried it, so check it out. And if you need an invite, email me and I’ll hook you up. Maybe

Pandora is in testing phase now and is therefore free for users who crack the nod. When it is launched though, it will cost in the region of $36 a year (peanuts). Obviously they have music royalties to cover.

Radness has reached new heights. Damn, I love living in 2005.

I also can’t wait until we have Internet connections in our cars – imagine a customised radio station playing you new music that you have a good chance of actually liking; and the end of listening to some tool in a studio telling you what you want.

I’m looking forward to being on the air again, so I’ll see you tomorrow! Things are also going well for Episode 1 of the Seedcast podcast, so lets hope it doesn’t suck…