Simon Little

Hello folks,

Let’s face it. You all knew this post was coming. The inevitable travel-based rant about the London 2012 Olympics is officially posted today. I’m writing it now as as many of you know the dreaded Olympic lanes have come into force this morning and I have a gig in Soho tonight so you may never hear from me again.

 For those of you unfamiliar with the Olympic lanes, allow me to explain. TFL in their infinite ignorance have allowed over 30 miles  of our already congested roads to have little rings painted all over them which mean that only official Olympic vehicles can travel in them when they are in force. The main issue is nobody really knows when they are indeed in force. I’ve already witnessed some appalling driving over the last few days as people veer back and forth between lanes not sure whether they’re about to incur a whopping £130 fine or not. I have heard various stories from the Powers That Be as to when the lanes will be in force. Apparently they will only be active when Olympic vehicles are actually using them, but I will believe this when I see it. Frankly, it looks to me as if the majority of London motorists are too terrified to chance it.

And we are supposed to watch out for the little electronic signs to see whether the lanes are in force. Most of the signs I have seen merely direct drivers to look up the Get Ahead of The Games website or Twitter feed (!) for up to date information. I think once you are actually on the road it is rather irresponsible to direct drivers to get their phones out to see whether they are breaking the law or not.

I am already seeing news reports of travel chaos on our streets. The traffic light phasing has been drastically altered over the last few weeks to give priority to main routes (chiefly those with Olympic lanes) which has caused vast tailbacks throughout the capitol. And the road layout has also been meddled with to the point where nobody (including our black cab drivers) knows how the get about in a sensible fashion. I have also been informed that certain roads (including the Kingsway) have gone from having one normal lanes and a bus lane to simply a bus lane and an Olympic lane. So it is more than likely that you could find yourself unwittingly choosing between fines. I would suggest the bus lane in this instance as the fine is less…

It is insane for TFL to allow this to happen. I was not at all in favour of the games coming to London in the first place. The city is already too crowded and the transport network is unable to cope with passengers at the best of times. I know it’s only for a few weeks, but telling Londoners (the majority of whom couldn’t have got tickets for the games even if they wanted to) to avoid traveling in central London (by road OR public transport) during the games is simply not on. Nobody wants to drive through central London. I will have to make to journey a few times during the games to work with my bass and am not massively looking forward to the chaos. The majority of motorists in town during the day are there because they have to be for work. Londoners have paid on average £1200 each in additional taxes to pay for the games and now they will be contributing an extra £130 every time they mistakingly veer into the wrong lane. Not on I’m afraid.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Carmageddon!!!

See you on Twitter folks. Expect heavy use of my #traffictorture #sodtheolympics hashtags and the introduction of #carmageddon into the regular rantings.

That’s it. Rant over. See you at a gig soon. I’ll be the one who’s late…

Hello folks,

Today is the official release of the Oldie Composers EP. With over 250 submissions, the four finalists had their songs recorded at Maida Vale studios in April (you can check out my photoblog from the sessions) and today sees the release of all four songs on iTunes and the Charity Goods website. I’ve just got home from the launch with Sir Terry Wogan at the BBC and we’re all very excited about the project…

The EP features performances by Anthony Head, FTW, Clare Teal and Andrea Ryder; with a stellar band including Marcus Bonfanti, Nick Mason, Ian ‘Squeezy’ Watson, Steve Rushton, Grant Windsor and Bond. And me on bass obviously…

You can buy a CD of the EP if you prefer from the Charity Goods website (there are a limited number available), but the best way to support the charity is to download from either iTunes or their site. The songwriter with the most downloads will win the Oldie Composers competition so you’ll be voting with your downloading! Although this is a charity EP, so if I were you I’d just download the entire thing…

You can have a listen to the tracks on iTunes (just click this link) and grab a copy of your favourites. At the moment it looks as if FTW’s version of Loves Forever is in the lead, but I’d also highly recommend checking out Anthony Head’s version of Cry by Marina Florence and Clare Teal’s Peace For The Child by Maggie Duffy. Not that I want to influence the outcome of the competition, obviously…

Big congratulations go out to all the finalists. The songs all sound great thanks to the sterling work of our producer AD Chivers. And as always big thanks are due to Hellen Bach (@HellenBach) and Norman Macintosh (@BigNormski1) for all their hard work in making this happen. Between them they have raised millions for children’s charities. You should follow them both on Twitter immediately to keep up to date with their various projects and see how you can help.

So please do share this post, tweet about the EP and tell your friends on Facebook. All proceeds from the downloads will go to Barnardos and we need your help to spread the word. Hopefully Radio 2 will be playing some of the tracks over the coming week so you may well hear us on air at some point too. It was an absolute pleasure to be involved with this project and I hope we can build on it for the future to make this a regular fund-raising event for this great charity.

Enjoy 🙂

Good morning everybody,

Earlier this month I asked the good people of Twitter whether they preferred downloads or physical copies of albums. The main reason behind this is that my third solo album (#soloalbum3) is coming together nicely and will soon be ready for release. So it’s that time of year once again when I agonize over whether to get a load of CDs pressed or just stick to digital distribution.

A lot of artists and bands are struggling with this question now so I thought I’d drop a quick post here to share my thoughts and hopefully hear some of yours.

With two albums out already I have experimented with both formats. My first album Mandala was released in 2010 on CD and download. It was my first dalliance with Bandcamp and also the first time I’d been through the process of getting a physical product manufactured. So all very exciting. It was important for me to have CDs pressed for my first album, whether they sold or not, because it was something I’d always dreamed of doing. Sad but true. So I had 1000 copies made.

Which is a big issue for a lot of people. I didn’t need 1000 copies. I am well aware that if I choose to make particularly esoteric music I won’t be selling vast quantities of CDs. And given the kind of music it is (and if you haven’t heard it yet but are reading this blog post I have no idea how you got here!) a download would be preferable to most people.

Here’s the rub. It is the same price to get 1000 copies made as it is to get 500 made. And the price per unit is extortionate for anything less than 1000 copies. I have a lot left folks! Fear not if you don’t have one yet; I shan’t run out any time soon. Most people that did buy Mandala from my website (or iTunes etc) bought the download. I tend to sell the CDs on gigs but not so much online. I guess buying a CD from someone you have seen perform live is a very different and more tangible experience than going home after a show and downloading their album.

So when it was time to release my second album The Knowledge of Things To Come last year I decided to release it purely as a download. This meant that the audio quality of the music was higher across the board (24bit as opposed to 16bit squashed down for CD) and I had no production costs. I sold more digital copies of Knowledge than I did of Mandala.

But I can’t sell it on gigs. As a result I’d say that I have sold far fewer copies of the last download-only record than the one which is available on CD. After a chat with Grant Windsor on one of our long car journeys across the country with Ms Teal (#tealtour) I have been considering the idea of selling download cards at gigs instead. Now this is not a new concept. Bandcamp have been offering this facility for years and I know CD Baby also offer them to users. Basically I would be selling a little printed card with a unique download code which would enable people at gigs to go home and download the album. I like this idea because although you can tell people to go home and look at your website in nine times out of ten they won’t. Or more likely they will have forgotten the address. Having a physical thing that you have paid money for to actually take home and utilize makes a big difference. I think..

So. It’s over to you. I had a very mixed response form Twitter (@simonlittle). I was expecting the vast majority of Twitter users to prefer downloads. But a significant number of people stated they would much prefer a CD. Something to touch, keep, play in the car etc. I have started buying much more music as downloads, purely because 1. It’s normally a bit less money, 2. I have so many CDs and I have very little room and 3. I listen to virtually all my music via my iPod wherever I am anyway. I haven’t used a CD player for years so all the CDs I buy only ever get played into iTunes anyway. I do always buy CDs from certain artists. Peter Broderick, Kate Bush, Bjork and Tom Waits have all prompted instant trips to Fopp.

So which would you prefer and why? Do leave your comments here so we can have a little discussion. I’m intrigued to hear your thoughts…