Of Music Blogs & Monkeys.

Ed Ritchie of Radio Protector asks:

"Dear Pretentious Hat Man,

I run a music blog on the internet - it is getting so popular that I have had to hire extra men. I wondered if you ever distributed music illegally back when there was no internet?

Regards,

Edward Coliander Ritchie."



A musical blog? I fear I have once again beaten you to the finish line, as when your fathers were mere twinkles in their fathers' fathers scrotums, I was already running the world's only musical blog - and it was not the walk in the park that you boys are experiencing today; we didn't have DivShare, we barely even had YouSendIt. My preferred method of distributing music without a permit was to mount my faithful Penny Farthing, strap an accordian to my chest and maneuvre the harsh London traffic while serenading all in earshot with copyrighted tunes.

Of course there were legal threats, even in my day. "This serenade is for sample purposes only", I would bellow as the accordian hummed and wheezed its gentle, warm tones across the streets of London Town. "If you don't pay for the sheet music you must forget this music within 24 hours." This, I thought, would protect me from the Sheet Music Industry Association of London - but alas, I received a cease & desist telegram after I distributed several hours of unreleased Bach; it was from the time he released a bunch of stuff under a fake name as a Christmas present to the fans; but my friends, what crime had I committed? The sheet music was going for ridiculous money at the E Bays, I was merely making it available to the fans! And the homeless. London has a lot of homeless.

I was eventually allowed to cycle another day on a technicality - the blog was registered in the name of Arthur Popsworth, the monkey I kept around for my own amusement. And seeing as - back in my day - it was illegal to prosecute a monkey, I took him with me everywhere I went; and that is how I invented the monkey/organ grinder combination. I don't know, I suppose the modern equivalent of that would be torrents or something? I guess - some organ grindings were invite-only, but the quality was way better. You had to grind that shit for weeks afterwards though, otherwise you'd get permabanned for having a low grind ratio.

Well, I hope that answered your question Ed! Remember, if you have a question that only a man with a pretentious hat can answer, e-mail me at my personal electronic mail address and I have it on good authority that I should receive your message within a matter of weeks.