well, from the jus' ‘cause.  i mean, bourgeois and highbrow speculation alone shall never suffice, especially for the folk who'll almost never encounter such philosophy anyway…but who am i to say, right?  maybe more authoritative for you, and certainly more elegant, is James who asserts it this way:

 “the thinker starts from some experience of the practical world, and asks its meaning.  he, then, launches himself upon the speculative sea, and makes a voyage long or short.  he ascends into the empyrean, even, communing with the eternal essences.  but whatever his achievements and discoveries be while gone, the utmost result  they can issue in is some new practical maxim or resolve, or the denial of some old one, with which inevitably he is sooner or later washed ashore on the terra firma of concrete life again.”  — WILLIAM JAMES (“Reflex Action and Theism,” 1881)

yeah…that says enough, I think

me

To hear The Young Knives’ Live From Leicester Square session for London alternative rock radio station XFM from March 7th, go to http://www.xfm.co.uk/the-young-knives-live-from-leicester-square. At that session, the band performed “Up All Night,” “Terra Firma,” and “Stand and Deliver.”

For additional information on The Young Knives, go to:
http://www.theyoungknives.com/
http://www.myspace.com/theyoungknives

The FT quoted a Terra Firma executive who asserted that the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) "will effectively replace Wall Street." While sovereign funds do have the capacity to provide debt financing, it is crucial to remember that they approach debt as principal investors, not as financial agents. When engaged as genuine co-investors -- rather than as a new flavor of "banker"-- SWFs can make private equity firms more effective and enable higher levels of return for all.

Private equity firms have long tapped sovereigns, like other large institutional investors, as investors in their funds. SWFs have the core attributes that private equity funds seek in their investors: deep pockets, sophistication, risk tolerance, and the patience needed to accept the illiquid nature of PE investments. Now, PE firms are looking to SWFs for the debt financing of individual investments.

Typically, the debt component of private equity transactions has been provided by large banks. These banks have the ability to either syndicate the debt to clients or otherwise mitigate their own risk through client funds. Wealth funds providing debt in buyout situations, however, generally do not syndicate the debt. Instead, they hold on to it.

Holding the investment is consistent with sovereign funds' mission of being principal investors but, at the same time, it does expose the sovereign to the full credit risk. In other words, SWFs lend their own money more than banks do.

Therefore, a more appropriate way for private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds to approach their collaboration is as co-investors. Not only does this reflect the reality of SWFs' "principal risk," but it also highlights the importance of collaborating in areas where the co-investors bring complementary capabilities and skill sets.

(For more on the increased sophistication of Gulf investors, see "Chapter 8 -- Capable Capital: The GCC as a Source of Capital" of Dubai & Co.)

In today's environment, sovereign wealth funds can insist on a genuine partnership with private equity firms by which they are more than merely providers of debt. At the same time, private equity firms can benefit from sovereigns' increased investment savvy and their ability to help portfolio companies grow. Since SWFs share a principal investor mindset with private equity firms, seeing them as a "replacement" for bankers misses out on the benefits of a more holistic relationship.

Guy Hands (is he having a laugh), originally uploaded by pete_bug.

Paul Birch sent this around the other day and I thought it was hilarious. For those who don't know, the chap on the left is Guy Hands who runs the company that has recently taken over EMI, Terra Firma. The guy on the very right is Ricky Gervais performing with Colplay's Chris Martin. Coldplay is (was?) signed to EMI. Actually, you have to check out the TV show 'Extras' (which is very funny by the way) to understand the irony of this picture.

So first of all, who is this Guy Hands bloke?

Quite simply he is an incredibly successful business man who has a rather impressive track record of turning failing businesses (which EMI currently is) into profitable ones and then flogging them on for a massive profit. Thanks to this nifty gift he owns, he has now amassed a personal fortune of over £200 million.

His serious dyslexia has appeared to be as much of a help as a hindrance to his career as close friends of his describe his condition to be one of the main driving forces within him. With reports of 18 hour days and no personal weekends flying around the press; he really does seem quite the man for the task.Previous highlights have included buying Angel Trains which he sold for a £390m profit, becoming the UK’s largest landlord and earning an estimated £1.5b profit for his bosses at Terra Frima. So good at what he does, he even spurned cheeky northern Tory William Hague to say that if he’d become a politician rather than a business man, then he’d be prime minister by now.

Oh, and he also owns Winston Churchill’s house. Means nothing but still interesting.

Although coming across as some sort of superhero-esq businessman, he has brought in a few other folks to help him out with this gargantuan task including; former British Airways chief Mike Clasper, former BBC Director General John Birt and former Northern Foods boss Pat O’Driscoll.

Do we see a recurring theme here? No one from the music industry.

So what have they changed so far?Well Mr Hands has announced he wants to cut costs by £200m which means around 2,000 jobs are at stake worldwide. He’s also announced his main strategy will be to develop new partnerships with all the artists based on ‘transparency and trust’. He pointed out that EMI currently have around 14,000 artists which he believes is far too many and wants to cull a number of them. He wants to cut out costly advances, start paying artists per days work and also to stop rushing out albums by artists who only have 1 or 2 good tracks to their name and make them focus on the digital side of the industry until they become more established.So why is he doing all of this?Well 2 of the most staggering facts are as follows:

85% of what EMI release fails to make a profit

Lets think about this figure for a moment; for every one hundred artists that are released, only fifteen of them actually make any money for the company. In any other industry, that figure would be completely unacceptable and because of the decline of the tangible music market, it is now also finally becoming the case within the music industry.

30% of artists who receive an advance never actually produce an album

Three out of every ten artists who are given an advance to record their music; don’t. Eh? I believe the technical term here is ‘to piss it up the wall’.

What do the artists think?Quite simply, they’re not chuffed. Robbie Williams has rather majestically gone on strike for some inexplicable reason. The Rolling Stones have signed with Universal, Coldplay are thinking about jumping ship and Thom Yorke described Hands as ‘a confused bull in a China shop’ (I do love the fact that Yorke felt a regular bull in a China shop wasn’t good enough of a simile for him and therefore he had to add the prefix of ‘confused’. How often would you find a bull in a China shop that wasn’t confused? Is it a regular occurrence for them?). Hands did retort quite correctly to Yorkes statement however:"We definitely are not a bull in a china shop, we do know what we are doing and we know that what we are doing is trying to build a business that gets back to its former glory, that is world class and to do that we are clearly going to upset a few people but we are not in a popularity contest".

What about my humble musings?

So to summarise; we’ve got a bloke in charge of the fourth biggest record company in the world who openly likes Meatloaf and who has brought with him three other blokes (all of whom have no experience within the music industry whatsoever). The first thing he’s done is told a 3rd of his staff that they’re getting fired and has told his artists that he wants to pay them per day. Also, 4 of his biggest artists potentially buggering off as they believe they’ll be neglected with regards to marketing budgets.

Sounds like a bit of a mess yes?

Well I think it’s a rather beautiful mess from my point of view. We hear time and time again that the music industry is dying on its arse and it would appear that someone is finally doing something about it. He’s being radical and evidently he is not averse to taking risks. He’s already lost some of his biggest artists, but this hasn’t resulted in him being usurped or losing his bosses confidence (they’ve actually just given him an extra £500m to invest in EMI) and he’s looking at the music business for what it actually is: a business.

It might take time to see if his business seed bares money fruit (what the hell does that mean?), but if it succeeds it’ll cement his place in entrepreneurial history. If it fails? Robbie Williams comes off strike and we all lose...

What I’m listening to this week: The Cubical and The Joy Vegas

What I’m reading this week: A rather interesting read from the Yardbirds manager Simon Napier-Bell

Stay tuned

sP

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De acuerdo con esta información, los Rolling Stones tienen un contrato de 14 millones de libras (27 millones de dólares) por cinco años, que vence en mayo.

EMI se queda sin música 

Tras la espantada de Radiohead, el ex Beatle Paul McCartney dejó la empresa este verano (boreal) y la calificó de "aburrida". También están en duda los contratos con artistas como Robbie Williams y Coldplay.

La pérdida de los Stones, que aportan a EMI unos tres millones de libras (casi seis millones de dólares) al año, sería otro duro golpe para el sello discográfico.

El jefe de Terra Firma --fondo de capital de riesgo que adquirió EMI este verano--, Guy Hands, es acusado una y otra vez de no entender nada del negocio de la música. El pasado martes, la discográfica anunció recortes de hasta 2.000 puestos, después de que la empresa registrara números rojos el año pasado.

Esta discográfica recortará un tercio su plantilla y se quedará sin muchos de sus artistas después de unos años de dificultades por el escaso número de lanzamientos, la piratería en Internet y el mal comporamiento de las ventas digitales.

Próximo disco: Universal 

Aunque un portavoz de EMI rechazó de plano esta información y afirmó que no hay indicios respecto de un cambio de discográfica, los incombustibles Stones ya han firmado un acuerdo de grabación en exclusiva para sacar su próximo disco con Universal Music.

Un comunicado emitido hoy, la veterana banda señaló que había firmado un acuerdo para la grabación de su próximo álbum, que está previsto salga en marzo y que es la banda sonora de la película de Martin Scorsese llamada Shine A Light.

Un portavoz de EMI dijo que el acuerdo sólo cubría un disco, pero fuentes de la industria indicaron a Reuters que el acuerdo de EMI con los Rolling iba a expirar pronto y dijeron que el grupo estaba considerando sus opciones.

Shine A Light recoge imágenes de dos conciertos de los Stones en el Beacon Theatre de Nueva York a finales de 2006, que incluyó invitados como Jack White, de los White Stripes, Christina Aguilera y Buddy Guy.

La película también muestra escenas de archivo inusuales y entrevistas e imágenes más recientes de entre bambalinas.

Los Rolling Stones, una de las bandas de rock'n'roll más importantes de la historia, con ventas de más de 200 millones de álbumes, se embarcaron en una gira mundial de dos años en 2005 que terminó en Londres en agosto pasado.

http://www.publico.es/038107/rolling/stones/abandonan/discografica/emi

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Financial Times reports the ROLLING STONES plan to abandon their EMI home, releasing their new CD "Shine A Light" in March under the UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP brand. The move to Universal only covers the new album, and does not extend to the Rolling Stones’ catalogue of previous recordings. The Stones have been with EMI since 1977, leaving briefly for VIRGIN RECORDS in the 1980's. Virgin was later acquired by EMI.

An spokesman for EMI says, "They've not signed to Universal and they've not left EMI. This is just a one-off thing." Can you say denial? Please! Why would a band of such magnitude want to stay with a label group that won't commit to marketing or promoting their new release. Personally, I haven't been a fan of anything the Stones have done since their early 90's, and Mick Jagger looks like death on stage. But, their CD debuted at #3 in 2005 and led to the highest grossing concert tour of 2006.

What's next? Expect the ageless Stones to sign a deal with LIVE NATION, similar to recent signings by MADONNA and the JONAS BROTHERS.

Listen Folks...I will say it over and over and over....if you are in this business for any other reason besides the love of it first....Get out. It is not an easy road....you have to have passion for this....you have to have persistance....you have to have a purpose.....you even sometimes have to be willing to work a 9 to 5 just to give you the freedom to do it! No one....I mean NO ONE...will care about your music more than you.....and if they do.....then you dont deserve to be here...so make room for others.

Seriously...this is a note to all my past artist I have worked over the years....if you never ever ever learned anything from me...or listened to my words....maybe you will now from someone else. People still love music. Creativity and hard work will still win in the end. But the way it looks...the way it is delivered...and the value we allow people to give it is what we need to decide. Keep freaking moving....real artist and artist development is needed in a big way!!! Stop being LAZY...no one said it was going to be easy.

Ok...here is some more news...enjoy:

From Jupiterresearch.com

"EMI to Cut Its Cloth...

<>
Mark Mulligan | January 14, 2008, 01:03 PM

According to the WSJ Terra Firma will announce today that EMI will shed up to a third of its staff. Though EMI have the unique catalyst of VC ownership, this illustrates as point I’ve made a few times before in this blog i.e. that the declining revenues of the 21st century are a realignment process rather than a dip in fortunes and the industry will need to cut its cloth accordingly.

The music industry is becoming a smaller beast than the halcyon days of the 90’s and business models and strategies will have to focus on preparing labels for being competitive in this new environment. This process will impact the industry across all aspects of the business and digital will be a key asset for implementing the change. For example not all artists will warrant the risk of full album deals, so many will increasingly be offered digital only agreements that will focus on more immediate, bite size release deliverables with the option to expand dependent on performance. But it is also likely that tiers of artists will emerge, with some only ever suited to digital.

EMI is not about to die. Nor is the music industry. But both are mid way through a difficult transition process. European music revenues will pick up again (modestly) in 2010 due to digital spending, but even by 2012 total revenues will only be where they are now i.e. at their all time low. Terra Firma will be hoping this will make EMI better placed to compete in that smaller market."

"Thousands of staff at troubled music group EMI will lose their jobs in a wide-ranging cull by the troubled company's new private equity owners.

EMI, bought by Guy Hands' Terra Firma group last year, confirmed today that worldwide headcount will be cut by between 1,500 and 2,000 as it slashes costs.

Confirming EMI insiders' fears, the company said ahead of staff briefings this morning that it was launching "a series of wide-ranging initiatives within its recorded music division to enable the group to become the world's most innovative, artist friendly and consumer-focused music company".

Former bond trader Hands and his fellow EMI board member John Birt declined to comment to the thronged reporters and camera crews as they entered the west London briefings wearing white security wristbands. Hands had to be man-handled through the massed media by bodyguards.

Coming out of the first staff briefing, which lasted just under an hour, EMI employees seemed eager to avoid reporters' comments and shuffle back to their offices.

"I don't really have a comment. We have all just got to get back to work," said one.

Another said: "To be honest, this is what we have got to do."

Others echoed the feeling that changes were inevitable.

"He's a businessman, he's got to do what is best for the business," said one man, standing with a colleague. "But we have worked in this industry for a long time, we have seen this before. At the end of the day, we just want to know if we have still got a job and if we are going to get f%$#@g paid."

Their comments follow a year of dire news from EMI, which issued a series of profit warnings, reshuffled management and failed to get the sales it had hoped for from various big albums.

Under its new private equity owners, the home of Coldplay, Kylie Minogue and Lily Allen hopes that by merging divisions, weeding out duplication and slashing jobs, it will be able to shrink costs by up to £200m a year.

Like other big record labels, EMI has been battling falling sales as digital downloads have failed to make up for a slump in CDs and rampant piracy has devalued music around the world.

Hands told staff he plans to fundamentally reshape the business to "reflect the rapidly changing nature of the music industry".

A spokesman for the company pointed out that the current business model at EMI was unsustainable. He noted that 85% of what is put out does not make any money while 30% of artists who get advances never produce an album.

"Compared to that, Robbie Williams is a hero," he added.

The overhaul of one of the world's oldest record labels will happen over the next six months and follows Terra Firma's intensive review of the business it bought for £3.2bn.

"Many of the measures being implemented have come at the suggestion of staff, artists or their managers," it said.

Hands added: "We have spent a long time looking intensely at EMI and the problems faced by its recorded music division which, like the rest of the music industry, has been struggling to respond to the challenges posed by a digital environment.

"We believe we have devised a new revolutionary structure for the group that will improve every area of the business. In short it will make EMI's music more valuable for the company and its artists alike."

Hands' briefings to staff will be followed by meetings with artists and their managers at a secret location this afternoon. He will then fly to New York to brief staff there.

The measures announced this morning are likely to be viewed with scepticism from music industry insiders who will question the merits of running EMI with managers taken from outside the business.

Hands has set up a board at EMI that includes former BAA chief Mike Clasper, former BBC director general and notorious cost-cutter John Birt and former Northern Foods boss Pat O'Driscoll.

There have also been fears that EMI's new owners will alienate successful artists with its new approach to selling music.

Just six months after Terra Firma acquired the label Radiohead quit, describing the new regime as like "a confused bull in a china shop" and last week Robbie Williams went on strike, refusing to deliver his new album. Kylie and Coldplay are said to be considering their options and Tony Wadsworth, the man in charge of the UK arm and widely respected by artists, was last week ousted after 25 years." Article from Gaurdian