ARTS ADMINISTRATION BLUES
A MAJOR DISCOVERY
A major research institution recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Administratium."
Administratium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Since Administratium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Administratium has a normal shelf-life of 3 years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization, in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons exchange places.
In fact, Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.
This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."
You will know it when you see it.
Author unknown
True Story - The man incharge of the local Education Action Zone plans a jazz event involving several local schools. He applies to his local Regional Arts Board for support. No they can't give him any money to support the project, but they can give him several thousand pounds after the event to analyse the success of said project. It takes a particular sort of intellectual to think that one up.
Oh, did I larf!
Alec.
A jazz promoter (much loved and respected by musicians and audience alike, name withheld to prevent a fall from grace with these tin-pot demi-gods) writes:-
I enjoyed the faeces article. I offer another example of how these administrators inhabit another planet. Some months ago I was invited to a big Jazz Development bash in Manchester. It was to tell us how lucky we were to have such people working for the good of jazz. All the great and the good were invited, arts admin people from all over the country. J Dankworth was the guest speaker. It started Friday morn so no doubt they all stayed in nice hotels on Thursday. The fee was about £70. Guess who was the only group that had to pay it themselves? Guess who were the people who had to pay their own travelling expenses? Guess who were the only attendees to pay for their own meals and subsistence? You got it in one - the unpaid jazz promoters. There is irony schmirony for you.
I was told it was a really good day and they produced a truly valuable report. I have not heard of any jazz venue benefitting from it, but it was a valuable day!
Ironically, I received today not one but two reports from Arts Organisations. I got the report entitled "How to develop audiences for jazz or Die." This runs to 152 pages and weighs about a kilo. It has probably been read by as many people who have read "Ulysses." They engaged expensive marketing companies to tell us things like"jazz doesn't get enough air time" Bet you didn't know that. It is a year since this seminar and nothing has trickled down to me yet.
Also enclosed is "New Arts Audiences" from West Yorks Arts Marketing. This runs to a mere 42 pages and covers all the usual ground. I asked Yorks Arts for help to fund better publicity material. They referred me to a nice m.class young lady who administers a fund of £100.000 called audience development. There is a deadline once a year for applicants. How did she help me apply? Of course, she sent me "the pack." This contains an application form which runs to 24 pages accompanied by a hugely expensive guide to applications which is 44 pages long. The postage was £3.05 so the thousands sent out will make my measly £2k look pathetic.
If what Glenn Hoddle said is true I am definitely coming back as an Arts Administrator..
Regards - A Jazz Promotor
Hackney OCEAN Affair
Here's a fine one going on, notes Hawkeye. Having obtained milllons from National Lottery under the premise of a 'multi live music venue - catering for over 50 styles of live music' those who are in receipt of wages for getting the thing up and running have been so generous with their wage packets, there is little or no money to underwrite the gigs when the place opens in April. Thus they have stipulated that just to open the three performance spaces they want the following amounts:
All this is most distressing for David Mossman, the owner of The Vortex - the only realistic long running left field live music venue in London.
For four years he has been acting as an unpaid consultant - for he was approached at the start of the project with the express understanding that The Vortex would move to the Ocean. He would receive a realistic wage for booking musicians - a wonderful and well earnt position having lost thousands of his own money over the years keeping his club afloat.
Whole sections of the Ocean's application document to the National Lottery used Vortex ideology and even contained signed statements from those organisations like the Musicians' Union and the Performing Right Society who have finacially supported the club.
Now it seems that those who have been in receipt of monies intended for musicians have decided that a left field jazz club is too high a risk (Heaven's - might have to take a pay cut!) and David has been left negotiating for what nights he can.
Meanwhile, Django Bate's Delightful Precepice have been booked for one of the opening nights - an excellent booking, for this 18 piece band is hardly ever heard. Upon receiving their contract Django and his manager were bemused to find a long list breaking down the expenses that will be incurred on the night. Of most interest was the fact that A security guard WOULD ACTUALLY RECEIVE A HIGHER WAGE PRO RATA THAN A MUSICIAN....
Meanwhile, over the road the wonderfully regal Hackney Empire just about survives (again) - kept alive by those who certainly don't have their own interests at heart.
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12 March 2001 PRESS RELEASE
Parting of the waves - Vortex pulls out of Ocean.
There has been concern among many supporters and musicians about the long-delayed move of the Vortex from the present venue in Stoke Newington to the new Ocean music complex in Mare Street, Hackney.
Following discussions with Mark Higham at Ocean, David Mossman (the manager of the Vortex) has severed all connection with Ocean and decided that the club will remain in Stoke Newington.
David says: ³The Vortex has been in Stoke Newington for more than 15 years and the club is very much at the heart of local culture. The proposed arrangements for the club at Ocean fall short of my initial expectations. A major concern is that, contrary to my understanding, the Vortex would not now have its own permanent space at Ocean. Consequently the clubıs identity would have been compromised. I think it is important for the future of the music that the Vortex remains totally independent.²
It is anticipated that April gigs already arranged at Ocean, and advertised in the press under the Vortex name, will go ahead.
The long-term future of the club remains unresolved. The lease runs out in March 2002 and the Vortex will close unless money can be raised to buy the freehold on the property and to carry out renovation work. It is estimated that £1 million would be needed.
Thank you to all friends of the Vortex for your loyal support. If you have any views on the future of the club (or a spare £1 million or so) please contact us.
David Mossman The Vortex 139 Stoke Newington Church St London N16 phone 020 7254 ****
From Bewildered of London
Ah yes, I was there sitting on a particular arts council panel and a particular regional arts board officer was in attendance as an observer (such is the protocol). This individual, who is now in receipt of tax payers' money, once promoted gigs, owned a club and generally, it is said, ripped musicians off (allegedly!). Seeing this person there prompted bemusement and general bewildered hilarity between myself and others. This person's reputation is not healthy to say the least.
Generally the arts council staff at the meeting were unaware of this person's colourful past, as were the people who hired the person to their new job, clearly! It never ceases to amaze me (and you'd think it would) that the last people in the world who should be in these powerful jobs are allowed to do them and be paid money for doing so.
Just thought I'd share that with you Vox Poppers...
It's the same old story - it only takes the actions/inactions of a small minority to give every useless corrupt space-wasting fuckwit wazzock a bad name.
Des Pond of Slough
From Richard
South-East London bristles with Management Ethic drop-outs and Blues Theory victims.
Management Ethic says:- in order to be a real creative artist you must know your market and your money. Songwriters therefore, must learn finance, law and accounting. A DJ should not even attempt a gig until s/he has mastered the finer points of NI contributions. A painter should study marketing, advertising, statistics and fund-raising to make anything of worth with oil and canvas.
Now, I don't know how Michaelangelo won the contract to do the ceiling at the Cistine Chapel, nor whether Shakespeare conducted costumier-surveys before he dipped his quill. I do know that Mozart, Beethoven, Van Gogh, Billie Holliday, Bessie Smith, William Blake and Whistler all died in and from poverty. And I know a number of highly creative people who won't get enough to eat this winter.
Blues Theory is where romanticised Bohemian idealism meets economic eugenics. It says:- "It's alright, you are supposed to starve."
Ethyl Moonbait
quotes Janet Daley writing in the Daily Telegraph (17/3/98)
"It is arts administrators, not artists, who are the real beneficiaries of Government spending through the Arts Council, because they are the acceptable face of state culture ... the interests of the council and those of the artists are not just different but positively inimical ... artists should resent the excessive power of this nationalised culture industry ... some do: mainly the ones who prefer to tread their own personal, non-conforming path and cannot or will not play the games of favouritism and form-filling."
Ethyl adds:-
There is a problem when an organisation that is concerning itself with the arts looks at the characteristics of the artist rather than the art, and asks;
The recent 'Creative Britain' event at the Roundhouse turned out to be an awards ceremony for 'creative arts administrators.' To congratulate each other on ingenious building of infrastructures to allow the arts not to happen, to pick up kissey prizes from Joanna Lumley and deliver speech after speech about creative ways of containing art.
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From Evil Growler
The British Council's Chairman, Helena Kennedy QC, is paid a 'modest' fee of just 35,000 pounds a year for the two days a week that she has to put in to help British culture overseas. Most of the artists whom they are trying to promote will take one, or probably more, years, working harder than full time to earn this.....
From "Bartlebooth"
How about an analysis of the ACE funded organistion which brought a fifteen piece group from Egypt to play the RFH Foyer, told no one (not even Time Out), so that only four people turned up to the gig, including representatives of the RFH and ACE Music. The RFH subsequently sued the organisation, which nevertheless received a whopping 12.6 per cent rise in its ACE grant this year. (What became of the musicians, one wonders idly?)
How many Contempoary Music Network Tour Administrators paid an entirely legal retrospective VAT bill sent them by one touring group (money they can claim back, hence no actual real work or loss of earnings involved) in 1999?
Which of the non-payers is now running the National Lottery in London, having moved from Manchester?
Which of the Adminstrators will be approved of by CMN this year?
Answers please, Vox Poppers: one out of five or fewer?
QUIZ: compare and contrast...
From Kevin Spencer
Administrators by Nature
Left Brain dominant - those poor administrators just don't think in the same way as Right Brain dominant artistes. Add to that good administrators of funds are probably ISTJ's can they expext to see eye-to-eye with ESFP's.
Frustration abounds. Tolerance no comfort. Play the game.
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See also Billy's advice for bureaucrats (written in 1999 having been so disturbed after meeting a distraught Lucy Bailey, director of the gogmagogs, only hours after funding for a tour had been rejected) in Take that pen ...
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