Recent times have seen seismic movement in the music industry. Mergers, job losses, reductions in artist numbers all point to a fundamental failure in the music industry’s business model. And why?  Technological change, both recording and the Internet, have changed everything, and threaten the industry’s four big players in ways they don’t care to admit. Of course the familiar issue is thatof piracy. Illegal music is shared in vast quantities, with some estimates of around a billion tracks downloaded in the first half of 2005. This obviously has been of great distress to the larger international record labels, and they have deployed PR companies and lawyers to attack first websites and program makers, and then individual file sharers. The real turnaround, however, is coming with legal downloads. While illegal downloads are thought to be at fairly stable levels, legal download revenues have tripled in the first half of the year. They now represent six percent of industry revenues, while CD sales are in secular decline and music revenues are slowly but steadily falling. This success can only continue with more and more people using the Internet and with the ever-diversifying selection of gadgets to play music, including iPods and mobile phones. So, the big labels may ask themselves, is this it? Will we see a turnaround back to the good old days of high sales, albeit in a different form? Maybe sales will recover somewhat. But there is a more fundamental challenge to the status quo on the horizon. This comes not from consumers, but from individual artists. The traditional idea of a record label is a large firm, hiring young talent, providing recording, distribution and promotion, and in return receiving a considerable part of the revenue. The greatest ambition for many young artists was to be signed, because it let them access vast audiences, unimaginable for the sole trader musician. Throw in a load of cheap, home computer technology for production, marketing and distribution, and suddenly it all becomes feasible. Anyone can set up a website and sell their own music, with tiny overheads and complete creative freedom.Mercury nominee Seth Lakeman followed this route. For three hundred pounds he recorded his album of Cornish folk songs in his kitchen (after unplugging the fridge), set up his own label and website, and sold his album to the masses. This type of achievement is by no means confined to the technology- savvy world of Cornish folk music: in the newer industry surrounding rap and R&B the same is true. The winner of the Best Hip Hop Act at the MOBO awards, Sway Dasafo, remains unsigned and chooses to distribute his music himself. While the Internet isn’t as important for distribution, cheap production technology allows him to produce thousands of copies of a mix tape, essentially cutting out the corporate middle man. These two musicians have proved the extent of what you can achieve without the backing of a large and powerful label.At the same time amateurs and new artists are able to put up free downloads and be heard by as many people as can find their site. Already commercial ventures such as amazon.com run free download pages, aware of the value of such a service. The quality of the free downloads available varies widely from the ludicrous to the sublime and from experimental to retro, but it means that anyone can explore different genres of music like never before. Of course taking this direct route to fans has its limitations. There is no vast marketing machine available to reach every single music lover in the land. But then is there ever? Most of the successful artists (outside pure saccharine pop) tour to make their name. They rely on word of mouth advertising, slowly increasing sales and a good reputation. It’s just how quickly they get up the ladder.It is not just the artists who could benefit from this. Music fans now have arguably their greatest ever choice. Already there is a vast reduction in pop sales, lost to rock, jazz and folk-styled artists. Why should we continue to watch Top of the Pops when we can access whatever we want at the touch of a button? With the live scene on an unprecedented high, there is no shortage of dynamism and creativity in Britain. For the first time these artists have the opportunity to pursue this for themselves. Even if the industry faces challenges, we stand at the beginning of an extraordinary time of opportunity for the young and talented, which can be only be good news for the music-loving public.ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005

The Zodiac8 October4/5Non-stop is certainly a word that could be used to describe the lifestyle of this team of four from the Midlands. Having carried out one tour around the country back in late spring, Editors just couldn’t resist the draw of continental festivals and other large-scale events, including Oxfordshire’s very own Truck Festival. Now the touring continues as sales of debut album, The Back Room, are turning heads and stirring up murmurs of interest throughout the indie scene.A drizzly, chilly night saw a capacity crowd huddled inside the questionably moodily lit Zodiac. Although upstairs, make no mistake: this was a big one. Even New York pop punk trio We Are Scientists, the main support act for the evening, have been vying for attention from the media all over Britain in recent weeks. There would certainly appear to be some pent-up energy available for release from them at least. The half an hour we were treated to had fun, jokes and laughter fused with schizophrenic lead guitar, jerky drums and varied bass lines; from reggae styles to high paced funk. One certainly cannot deny their live presence. These boys created the buzz around the venue that everybody had hoped for. Come nine o’clock and all thoughts turned to the four well turned outnear-Brummies that are Editors. Upon their arrival on stage, there was less of a cheer, more of an anxious expectancy. Could they live up to the critical acclaim they have been receiving these last few months after Leeds, Reading and sold out shows thus far? Of course they could. Opening track Lights began with barren looking spotlighting and frontman Tom Smith strumming sullenly, belting his voice out over an echoing Zodiac, perhaps thanks to some aid from a particular soundman. But before the audience had a chance to wipe any welling tears from their eyes, the rhythmic bass of Russell Leetch carried them through to an all crashing, all flashing chorus, containing the beautifully self-deprecating line, “If fortune favours the brave, I am as poor as they come”. Fantastic. The song moved through several moods, speeds and rhythms before finally ringing out and soaking up the crowd’s applause and cheers. This theme continued throughout the night, with each track the boys pulled out of their bag of tricks making the crowd shake, move and bounce that little bit more. Even celebrity visitor, Radio 1’s Edith Bowman, was dancing uncontrollably over in the corner, all eyes on Tom. This man could be the next Chris Martin, attracting a wealth of interest with his spasms of energy: a good contrast with the calm collectedness of bassist Leetch, his distinctive guitar swinging style and limitless passion in his lyrics. Slower keyboard number Camera was a clear enough place to draw parallels, and whilst his lyrics are ambiguous at best, his facial expressions and attention to detail show just how much he cares. The singles Bullets, Blood and Munich allstirred up frenzy as expected, led by a ringing lead from Chris Urbanowicz. The only downside was a relative pit thrashing about in front of the stage.Between set ballad Fall, which ended in an engulfing crescendo, and closing track Fingers in the Factories, Editors proved that they can do all aspects of their genre with aplomb. A night that will leave an impression on Zodiac visitors for some time.ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005

With Love and SqualorWe are Scientistsout 17 October2/5Do not be surprised if by the end of the noughties music critics suggest that the greatest invention of the decade is rock music you can dance to. For years this has been the music world’s equivalent of the Rubik cube: it looks easy, but the only simple solution is to cheat and swap the stickers around. This is what we saw in the nineties when, after the charm of pogoing on a stomach of Skol beer to the school disco charm of Girls and Boys and Roll With It went flat, millions of rock fans flooded to dance music and bought Prodigy and Chemical Brothers records. But it just wasn’t quite the same.Now in 2005 we can’t move for rock bands that want to shake your booty. When Franz Ferdinand arrived on the scene eighteen months ago the floodgates opened, and now all the kids are getting down to “Future Dogs Die in Kaiser Ferdinand’s Hot Hot Car Party”, as Andy Partridge from XTC recently remarked. Add to this the already existing American wave, Interpol, The Bravery and The Rapture, and you  have to feel slight pity towards the latest New York band to try and make it big on this side of the Atlantic, We Are Scientists. The Scientists certainly look the part, in the sense that they look exactly like most of the other bands mentioned above who are all equally guilty of stealing the geek chic look from Seth off The OC.The first track on this, their debut LP, is also their first single, Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt which sounds so much like the watereddown glam of nineties nearly-band King Adora that the lawsuit must be in the post. Things fail to pick up with This Scene Is Dead as immaculately coiffed singer frontman Keith Murray sings in a bored voice, “I shouldn’t even be here/much less drinking myself into excess”. For posturing and lyrics, hang out with Morrissey. What quickly becomes inescapable about With Love and Squalor is simply its enormous derivativeness.The album could be neatly autopsied and the composite elements of this hybrid given back to their original owners. Such is the way with scenes in music that an idea develops which is recycled into something vaguely new, in this case Franz Ferdinand updating XTC and Orange Juice’s spiky pop for the modern dancefloor.Then what seemed exciting quickly goes cold through the horrendous number of parasitic bands that follow. This, sadly, is the fate of thisband. There are some neat touches: Can’t Lose has a good slap bass and Lousy Reputation plateaus nicely to create the sort ofgiant sugar rush that Bloc Party have perfected. It’s A Hit has the album’s best chorus, but the bassline has been shamelessly  pilfered from Queens of the Stone Age’s Feel Good Hit of the Summer. If there was ever an original idea on this album, it was soon embarrassedly replaced by another bouncy Franz bassline to fill the quota. Ultimately whether We Are Scientists make it or not depends on how much more of this stuff listeners can stand. Their recent sell-out tour with Editors suggests they’ll be around for a while, but as Murray himself predicts, this scene is dead and soon his clairvoyance may be in greater demand than his music. ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005

A digital edition of the oldest surviving manuscript of Euclid’s Elements, the founding document of Mathematics, will now be available to the public on the internet. The manuscript has been displayed in the Bodleian Library since 1804. When asked whether such developments may result in fewer visitors, Martin Kauffman, a curator at the Bodleian said “for rare things, digitisation is unlikely to make a dramatic difference to visitor numbers, and could even help to whip up interest.”ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005

St Edmund Hall have launched an investigation after an attempt made to kick down the Junior Dean’s door following the college bop on Saturday of Freshers’ Week. Teddy Hall JCR President, Celine Tricard, confirmed that “after the Golf Pro’s and Tennis Ho’s Bop on Saturday evening, the Junior Dean came back to college to find that her door had been broken.” In an email to the JCR, Tricard warned that “[the Decanal Team] are threatening to cancel any future social events until the person/ group responsible has been found.” Tricard added “I genuinely believe that it was due to a student(s) over-drinking and simply taking a rash decision,” rather than direct agression against the Junior Dean.ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005

Oxford has received three grants to fund research into the influences and effects of civil resistance movements of the 20th century. The project is a joint venture between the University’s Centre for International Studies and the European Studies Centre of St Anthony’s College, and will be holding workshops and a conference over the next two years. Professor Sir Adam Roberts of Balliol college, who is chairing the project, said “it’s an interesting subject because the question of whether, and if so how, major change can be brought about without war has been a central concern of writers on politics and international relations for centuries.”ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005

Organisers of the inter-college JCR Association Football League are searching for the forgotten winners of what may be the oldest football trophy in the world. For more than 120 years, winning colleges have had their names engraved on silver shields attached to the cup, seven of which have now been lost. Richard Tur, Senior President of the OUAFC, stated “there is a challenge in finding out which colleges won the trophy in the missing years” Since Magdalen first won it in 1883, the trophy, worth over £5000, has been competed for annually in Cuppers by 28 different Oxford colleges. Andy James, captain of the Balliol football team who won the last Cuppers competition, said “we were very happy when we won the cup. Because of its history and prestige, we felt really proud.”ARCHIVE: 1st wek MT 2005

The Blues had a very mixed week, with a convincing 25-7 win over Japan’s Kanto Gakuin University on Satuday followed by a weak performance by an inexperienced team against Bohemians of University of Limerick, Eire in a 26-5 defeat on Wednesday.The team have set their stall out for this season to play adventurous rugby, moving the ball wide at pace early on. Against Kanto Gakuin, the sheer speed of passing along the line was enough to overcome the opposition’s defence and only poor ball handling prevented the Blues from gaining an even larger victory. Against the harder-hitting Limerick side, however, the Blues were taught a lesson in hard, tight rugby, the creativity of the backline of little use with a shortage of quality ball and ineffective recycling. The game against Kanto Gakuin, who beat Cambridge 21-14 in Tokyo during the summer, was never a thriller. Initially, the teams were reasonably matched, and Kanto Gakuin actually enjoyed the best of the early opportunities. However, Oxford went ahead with a fast flowing move which is becoming the team’s signature play, Huw Jones getting over after some great team work created an overlap. The game continued in this style and every time the Blues had the ball, they tried to outwit the tourists with their speed and agility, so it came as no surprise that Oxford went in 15-0 up at half time with another rapid move. Ross Lavery broke through the Kanto Gakuin line and Adam Harris fnished off the move. Jon Fennell continued his good day with the boot, adding the conversion to his earlier penalty.The second half showed Oxford’s superior fitness and the forwards started to dominate in the scrum. Winger Jonan Boto broke through for a try and Fennell kicked another five points. However Kanto Gakuin did put up some resistance and a period of strong play from them, with their forwards turning the tables, lead to number 8 Tosa putting the ball under the posts for the final points of the game.A very different team played against semi-professional Limerick, with only four Blues named in the starting line up due to the game against Leicester Tigers three days later. It definitely showed in a performance which started as a closely fought game but turned into a second half nightmare. The same tactics were on display but the visitors were able to repulse the fast attacks the pacey Oxford backline tried to put together. Limerick’s Fergal Lawlor scored three penalties in the first half, but prop Sean Brophy reduced the deficit after Ali James went close. Bohemians did have a try disallowed due to an unnecessary forward pass which let Oxford off the hook and left the match very much alive at half time with the score at 9-5.The second half was anything but close. The Blues lost any momentum they had going into the break and appeared lacklustre. The lineouts were overcomplicated and Oxford put themselves in danger on many occasions by losing their own throws. Limerick were smashing in the scrum and James O’Neil went over after the home team were driven back over their line. With the Blues forced to commit in huge numbers to rucks, Limerick were able to create large overlaps of which they took full advantage. There were a few good breaks but these petered out as the Blues’ recycling let them down. Coach Steve Hill summed up the performance. “We didn’t perform as well as we should have done.”Saturday’s match showed once again  that the Blues have real potential this year to play some devestating and effective rugby. However, Wednesday’s game showed that it could all come to nothing if the Blues do not get their basics right. An admittedly inexperienced Blues side struggled with scrummaging, line-outs and basic handling. These aspects of their game will have to improve. ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005

St Peter’s started their new season just as they left off nine months ago as the reigning champions played to the top of their game to whitewash a disappointing Exeter.The home side came off convincing winners in the first match of the college campaign and set out their intentions for what they hope to be another successful season.The two strongest sides in the First Division – Exeter finished second last season – looked well matched at first, but it was Peter’s who prevailed with the pace, skill and discipline that Exeter could not match. Robert Unwin and new boy Bertie Payne were the pivots in the Peter’s team who enabled the side in green to stretch out the lead to 52 points over their red-and-black hooped rivals, while James Clayton-Payne playing at number 8 and Joe Stewart added the edge for the home side.That Exeter, blessed with one of the largest front rows around and the terrific Luka Gakic at number 8, could barely keep up with the brilliance of Peter’s sheds light on what the rest of the First Division can expect this term. Despite the departure of a number of the Peter’s pack at the end of Trinity Term, the influx of talent among first-years has made up for any such losses, as David Poraj-Wilczynski, the Peter’s captain, was quick to point out.“We’ve got some good freshers in,” he noted. “We lost our whole pack. It needed a bit of regenerating. Luckily we’ve got three or four really sharp freshers including Bertie who was playing at flanker, and a couple of others. We’ve filled our gaps.”If Peter’s play as they did on Tuesday, surely their real ambition – Cup success – is possible. “The Cuppers loss [to St Edmund Hall in last year’s final] has obviously hit us hard,” Poraj-Wilczynski admitted. “It shows our bouncebackability! To come back and put a performance in like that is quite special.” A special season too, perhaps.Exeter were certainly not mediocre; just unfortunate to be playing Peter’s at their best. The visiting side started aggressively, if sometimes illegally, with Gakic trying to assert Exeter’s physical advantage that their size would normally give.But it was their sloppiness that prevented any fruitfulness from their attacking start, and Peter’s took advantage 15 minutes in when Tom Rayner’s interception led to a try for David Conway. Unwin, magnificent with his kicking all afternoon, converted it and then put Peter’s into a 10-0 lead with a penalty.Payne added another try by the corner flag ten minutes later. Unwin’s outstanding conversion in the severe wind put Peter’s 17-0 up before Stewart ran through a hapless Exeter defence to stretch the lead to 22.Exeter were fortunate at times not to slip yet further behind. Clayton-Payne would have scored but for a forward pass on the try line and Exeter’s Will Cochrane put over a 30-yard penalty in injury time at the end of the first half to go in 22-3 down at the break.If Exeter thought they could launch an unlikely comeback, they would be disappointed. Dan Lowther’s top-class tackling meant the Peter’s defence was never breached, and Bertrand Perrodo pushed the greens further with his powerful running.Unwin added three more tries – two of them after running through a line of Exeter defenders – and passed to Clayton-Payne for his score, as well as converting four second-half tries to give Peter’s a 50-3 lead. Ben Jones scored by the right corner flag four minutes from the end to complete the rout.Exeter can take heart from the fact that they will meet fewer teams stronger than Tuesday’s opponents. For Peter’s, however, anything but perfection would be a let-down after last season.“Last year [the Teddy Hall match] was the only match we lost,” Poraj-Wilczynski said. “I’d like it to be the same this year, but I think the quality’s going to be quite strong. We’re just going to see how it goes. But we’re confident.”Confident, but not complacent. “I don’t think they were the fittest or best side we’re going to play,” the captain added. “We’re not going to rest on our laurels.”ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005