Okay, I’m getting e-mail from here to Colorado re last night’s venue.  Yes, it’s the ICA, otherwise known as the Institute of Contemporary Arts.  The homepage is: ICA and a page about the Concentration game is at: Memoryplay.

After writing to you last night, I went to bed.  Went out like a light into one of those dark nocturnal worlds where you’re completely blacked out, you can’t remember a thing.  But, after waking up and lying in bed for half an hour I fell back asleep and had this nightmare involving my mother, sister, ex-wife, girlfriend and the police.  Why do you always have the weirdest dreams when you travel?

After doing my back exercises Richard and I took the Mercedes A to West London, for lunch with Robert and Gordon.

It’s so funny.  The A class is TINY!  Looks like a little shoe.   Mercedes-Benz A Class  But it’s a Mercedes inside.  With wood and all the classic Mercedes instrumentation.  But, it’s properly narrow in order to navigate the squeezed British streets, which weren’t built for cars, never mind the Detroit behemoths.  Actually, Richard told me he was thinking of trading the Mercedes in for an electric car.  He said they cost about 8,000 pounds.  But, you can beat the automobile tax and can park at meters for free.  AND, you beat the congestion charge.  You see the mayor has instituted this fee to enter the center of the city.  I think the sign said 8 pounds.  It’s all computerized.  But Will said at first it didn’t work.  Meanwhile, speaking of computers, Americans would never put up with what’s going on here on the "freeways".  There are cameras that take pictures of you if you’re speeding and issue a ticket.  There doesn’t seem to be much of a right of privacy.  God, if they want to control that much of my life why don’t they just drive the car FOR me!

We parked near Baker Street.  It was Sherlock Homlesville, but I couldn’t help but think of the Gerry Rafferty song.

The lawyers’ office was on St. Christopher’s Place.  Fascinating, it’s like an alley.  There ARE no cars.  You get the impression that the structures were built HUNDREDS of years ago.  You can see your predecessors, without their mobiles, going through their daily paces ages ago.

One of the reasons I’m in London is for this event on Thursday entitled "The Chat Room".  About fifty or sixty heavies get together twice a year for a debate of the major issues in the music business.  Tomorrow, with Richard as moderator, I’m debating John Kennedy, head of IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry).  Go to IFPI to brush up on the organization.  Actually, the lead story is Mr. Kennedy’s pronouncement re the formation of an anti-piracy coalition.  Hell, I’m all against physical piracy.  Lock the bastards up!  But this P2P thing…  I don’t want the scumbags like Grokster to profit from it, but I don’t want the technology eviscerated.  I want it monetized.  Hell, you can’t kill it, why not CHARGE for it!

This is one of the issues we’re going to tackle tomorrow.  It’ll be amongst the three of us for an hour, and then the floor will be opened to questions.  It’s Chatham House Rules.  Which means…well, it’s kind of like that "Seinfeld" episode.  What’s said stays in the vault, so people can speak honestly, not worried about repercussions with regard to their companies.  We debated at lunch whether this means I can write about it or not, and we didn’t come to a conclusion.  Hell, I only need to write about myself, it’s not the end of the day if I can’t let on what happened, but I’d like to tell you about the experience.  It seems generalities are okay…I’ll find out.

Turns out Mr. Kennedy was the lawyer for Live Aid.  And the original lawyer for London Records.  Oh, Robert Horsfall, organizer of the event, a partner in Lee & Thompson, told a great story about Roger Ames and royalties.  Robert said you KNOW how labels hate to pay royalties.  Well, they were due, and Kennedy asked Ames what to do.  Roger said to PAY THEM!  That it would INCENTIVIZE the artists, show them they could make a living playing music.

As opposed to what’s going on now.

God, I’m getting an earful here.  Oh, it’s so different from the U.S.  You see there are all these breaking acts!  Ones you’ve heard of like the Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party, and others like James Blunt that mean nothing in the U.S. yet, and ones I can’t even remember the names of.  They break the records via TV, but the acts have to kick in for the advertising.  (Actually, it’s a bit like the Sunset Strip of yore here in London, I’ve seen billboards for Jamie Cullum and Streisand and other bands all over town.)  Turns out a guy at Atlantic took a chance and invested in a big TV campaign for the unproven Mr. Blunt and at first nothing happened and now he’s caught on and the Atlantic dude looks like a GENIUS!

But, most of the conversation during lunch was about how the record companies DON’T pay royalties anymore.

Actually, Robert Lee told us in the firm’s office that you can’t even negotiate a record contract anymore.  It’s take it or leave it.  And Robert Horsfall said at lunch he’s resorted to mockery, trying to get labels to change clauses.  Almost always to no avail.

Used to be if you hit, you could renegotiate, or get a lump sum payment.  Now that’s passe.

Listening to the labels’ business practices was FRIGHTENING!  Mr. Horsfall represents (legendary seventies act) and his label is selling his product digitally and there’s NO underlying agreement.

And it turns out the MMF is just joining with the publishers in the tribunal as to digital payments.  So, there’s no big money involved for attorneys.  God, if it goes public, if the world hears that artists only make 4 1/2p per 79p download…this is the labels’ worst nightmare.  And I agree with Tony Wilson, there should be no public performance fee for selling a digital download, but it turns out that’s the LAW, and the publishers are scraping to get a fair share, especially since the majors want a REDUCTION!  From 8.25% to 6%!

Furthermore, I heard the inside story on the Robbie Williams deal.  Turns out under British tax law they can write off the FULL VALUE of the deal in the year it’s inked.  And then the revenues are booked as profit when they finally come in.

I know, it all might sound arcane.  But here in the U.K. they’re INTO the arcanities.  Discussing penny rates.  Chart numbers.  It’s almost QUAINT!  It’s like the record business of old.  A bunch of insiders splitting the pie.

Actually, it’s almost like they don’t understand OUTSIDERS are going to invade their turf.  Just like Apple owns digital music, unheard of players are going to own the new acts, and purvey them in new ways, while the old players argue about the old model.  It’s FASCINATING to watch.  It’s like being at a Smith-Corona typewriter convention and hearing how they’re going to profit from the new computer world, and do so by slowing down the machines themselves, and not allowing people to print the same document again and again and again.

And it’s so different from L.A.  Lunch in L.A. is purely business.  What I mean by that is it’s about keeping up the relationship, so you can get work in the future.  People eat lightly and dash out.  Back to the office to slave away.  But we sat there in excess of two hours.  They had wine.  We had a far-ranging conversation.  I LEARNED things.  I don’t learn anything but gossip at lunch in L.A.  Which is one of the reasons I don’t go.  God, people only want to lunch to get ahead.

And I felt a bit out of it too. Robert and Gordon were in suits.  Oh, they sported no ties.  But I couldn’t stop theorizing on their backgrounds.  In America everybody fights for a position in law school and tries to rise to the top out in the field.  What does it even TAKE to get into law school in the U.K?  Can anybody go?  If you went to a public (i.e. private) school and come from the right family does it pay dividends?  It was the pin-striped suits and dignified accent that had me mesmerized.  Like law was a noble profession.  It’s not that way in the U.S. anymore.  And if you’re not going to court, you don’t show up in a suit.

After discussing how Eric Clapton’s fishing shop was nearby we exited back into the neighborhood.  Which was strictly commercial but had a small town feel.  This is the England Americans fall in love with.

On the way back we drove through Hyde Park.  It was romantic.  It got your mind thinking.

That’s what great music does.  Sure, it might get your body moving, but it also opens your brain.  Changes your mood.  Makes you think of the possibilities.

Follow the music and you could end up anywhere.

Yup. listening to all those records in my bedroom and dorm room got me here.  To London.  Oh, what a long strange trip it’s been.