03/03/09 - u2

today i wiped my bum on u2. it was the advertisement for their new lp and was the back cover of the sunday times culture magazine. i took great pleasure in the simple action of the wipe. i just don’t like u2. i am sure that bono and the boys have done lots of good in the world but not enough to make up for bono’s smug mug, or their tax avoidance schemes.

strangely before and after i wiped i was reading some articles in an old copy of wired magazine about open source computing, downloading and sampling music.
it was not strange that i was reading on the bog, i do that a lot. in fact i do a large chunk of my reading on the porcelain throne. nor was it strange that i was reading a magazine that was several years out of date, as i seem to have many magazines that are both out of date and unread.

no it was strange because of the u2 connection. as the rock band cleaned my crack the articles about downloading and sampling referenced a band called negativland, the self-proclaimed kings of kut up kulture. years ago negativland did a version of u2’s “i still haven’t found what i’m looking for”. it was very funny. it also resulted in u2 taking negativland to court. bad bono, humourless bono. every cloud has a silver lining and later there was an album with various versions of the naughty song on it, the album is the classic “these guys are from england and who gives a shit”. it is very funny. a little like the first tenacious d album it is hard to explain why it is funny, but each time i play it i laugh.
there was a moment in metallica’s career when they went from being heroes of speed/thrash metal to corporate suits when they were involved in the move against napster and illegal downloading.
it is a hard to respect someone’s championing of the little people when they are busy defending their own bottom line. (though i guess that is easy for me to say as i have no intellectual property to defend.)
the articles on open source and sampling/ downloading pointed to the potential for a new model of business and creation, back when (2004) the articles were written we were all living high off the hog. now in this time of financial crisis there is even more scope, and perhaps, even more need for such new models.

what makes the whole thing worse is that i quite like u2’s new single. the shame of it.


(for those interested in buying u2 cds go to play.com)
(for those interested in buying negativland cds go http://www.negativland.com/)