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Tool at the Glasgow SECC Review

On Saturday, I saw Tool at the SECC in Glasgow.  I deliberately took a couple of days to write it up, as I would have been altogether too gushing, too excessive in my praise.  On re-reading the following paragraphs, I should, perhaps, have waited another week.

The music was, just by itself, wonderful.  Opening with Stinkfist and closing with Ǽnema, there were almost two hours of intense, experimental, progressive rock, with clear influences from bands like King Crimson (who opened for Tool in a series of 2001 concerts) or Yes, but heavier than either.  The influence of King Crimson was particularly obvious in the broader experience: the designs on the backdrop; the images on the four screens before which the band played; the spectacular use of that somewhat retro medium, a few dozen lasers; the lighting rig.  Each was designed by what Tool call "collaborators", highlighting the importance to the band of the elements that suround their music.P>

Despite Maynard Keenan's decision to work with A Perfect Circle when he wanted to explore more spiritual themes, Tool have always explored such elements in their music, albeit in more obtuse ways.  With the latest album, the theme is primitive and shamanistic with eastern overtones in the imagery and (as ever) in the vocal lines that Keenan <i>drifts</i> over the intense, driving dream-rock riffs of the band.  I sat there and wondered if this was the sort of removal from self, of awe and entrancement, that is experienced by the houngan in voodoo, or that one would have experienced in a holy mass before the Emperor in the Hagia Sophia.  I certainly felt an intensity of sensation that only one other public event has ever matched (my marriage).

The Beatles could never have imagined, in their most psychedelic phase, coming up with the imagery of a Tool track and its video.  For examples, take a look at the ones for Schism or Stinkfist.  Alarming, disturbing, uncomfortable, undeniably beautiful, they are strikingly different from the imagery of almost anyone else producing music and videos today.  One of my friends once sat down and watched five or six Tool videos in a row, late at night on MTV, and was worried when, by the end, she felt she was beginning to understand.  Fortunately, the moment of enlightenment passed, and by the morning she was just as "eh?!?" as any normal person.

Anyway, the support were the excellent, ultra-heavy Mastodon.  The name gives you a clue as to just how very metal they are.  As, I suppose, is their penchant for naming albums and songs after things nautical: "Sea Beast", "Battke at Sea", "Leviathan" (and about 20 others).  They played a cracking, varied set, louder and heavier than Tool (with occasional trippy, Deftones-ish passages), and I would have been happy to have gone to a gig where they headlined.  They played a bunch of tracks from their new, ultra-left-field concept album Blood Mountain, includinng "Colony of Birchmen" and "Crystal Skull", and left the place cheering them. 

Tool concentrated on playing tracks from 10,000 Days.  I really mean that they concentrated on it: there were really only two moments of direct interaction with the crowd: an eery version of the lighter phenomenon, and a short speech at the start from Keenan, asking everyone not to smoke.  Clearly unaware that nobody has smoked in indoor public spaces in Scotland for almost a year now, he must have been delighted by the 100% compliance with his wishes.

The experimental nature of Tool's music becomes even more obvious during the lengthy improvisation that they indulge in during concerts.  Listening to the rhythm changes in something like Schism (alternating between 5/8 and 7/8 time on a bar-by-bar basis) being sustained over almost ten minutes is a strange and provocative thing.  The odd thing is that i was so entranced by lasers, lights and imagery that I sometimes forgot to watch the band: in many ways I think that Tool were far more successful in distracting attention from band members as commodities than the Gorrillaz.  I have seen both live, and it is only the extraordinary stage presence and vocal quality of Keenan that belies this trait: Albarn is fun and charismatic (even when just a back-projected silhouette), but Keenan - not a big man - dominates an entire space, and has a voice that is beyond striking (just check out the wonderful collaboration with the Deftones on White Pony; "Passenger").

I have to stop myself.  This paean of praise, this indulgence in hagiography, is excessive.  But I did feel, walking out, confident that I had seen the best concert I have ever seen, or that I ever will.

Oh, and the security at the SECC was as horrendous and unpleasant as awful, trawling the crowd for 15-year-olds taking snaps with their camera-phones and throwing them out.  This is why I only go there when absolutely necessary.

Parallel Industries - Cars and Computers and Biotech

Following a link from Raph Koster's site, I recently read an article on Salon that sci-fi author David Brin wrote back in September (needs you to click on an unobtrusive "sponsor" link to get to the article).

Brin is concerned with how difficult it is for a kid today to get experience of line-programming languages, particularly in Basic.  He makes the point - rightly in my opinion - that this is the most fundamental and easily-understood primer for more advanced coding.  I simply do not know a good programmer who didn't start on a home computer such as a Sinclair Spectrum or ZX81, a Commodore 64 or a BBC Micro (my own first love).

The ability to create even a short program is a great thing for a kid: you can see the results of your work happening before your eyes, but beyond the usual circle of your control (which in early teens barely extends even to the limits of your own skin).  You are making something happen through the commands you enter.  At a time when it seems everyone tells you what to do, you are making something else obey you, and if you do it right, the machine obeys unquestioningly and without delay.  You see that you can manipulate the world.

The growth of home computing manifested in ways that would be pretty unthinkable in most schools today.  Programming, or at least sitting around toying with computers after school or at lunchtimes, became an acceptable social activity, very different from some sort of "Math Club" in US terms.  There were often queues to get at the 7 or 8 Apple IIs and BBC Micros and one ZX81 that were available, and this in a school whose headmaster (my dad) had been committed to computer studies in schools since at least the late 70's (thus my first experience with a Commodore Pet).

As a schools' inspectorate document on computer studies says (here, at point A3): "The rapid growth of home computing at this time stimulated the interest of many pupils in acquiring a better understanding of the concepts and principles behind computer systems."

Brin makes a comparison I have often talked about with others: that between computers and the cars of the middle 20th century.  Within a generation, kids moved from tinkering with automobiles to tinkering with code.  My grandfather spent many of his evenings after work up in his little garage at the top of the council estate, trying to make his Vauxhall Viva (if I remember rightly) run a little smoother.  Both he and my father could tell the problem with a car - and fix it - in a kind of instinctive way.

I, on the other hand, have only the most theoretical knowledge of how my car runs.  It is a closed book to me, largely because BMW designed it to be so.  The AA mechanic is no more able to tweak it than I am: it is a series of black boxes that require a visit to a BMW garage for work on anything to do with the engine or electronics.  As a result, if I were to break down in an area with no phone coverage, all I could do is start walking.

With PCs, however, I had a basic grounding in how they work, thanks to those early years oftaking them apart, and of coding them at the line-programming level.  I am comfortable with just about any computer, and can fix problems without ever really knowing everything about the problem: it's an instiinctive thing.  I doubt if someone who learned to program in windows, starting with something like Visual Basic, would ever develop that same easy relationship to the computer as a whole, from hardware through opsys to language and aplication.  The effects of code upon machine are obfuscated and removed a step.

As Raph says, "we have traded computer literacy for computer use literacy, a very different thing."  A kid of ten today feels relaxed and comfortable with a computer.  But they can probably only ever hope to work within the limits set by others, even if they become a coder.

This might not be a terrible thing.  I don't want to have to adjust the timing on my car.  Nor do I want to become a motor mechanic.  I would be very cautious, today, about encouraging a kid to enter my field, as it is clearly going to become similarly commoditised in the future, first through the growing eastern outsourcing markets, then (later) through abstraction of the development process.  Just as mechanics are now poorly paid, and cars only need a few highly-paid designers, so there will be a call for fewer programmers of real skill, but more and cheaper technicians.  People like myself, with decades of learning and a willingness to stay at the edge, will tend to win out over people starting out and lacking experience.  This happens already: in a marketplace flooded with graduates who entered programming thinking that the boom of 1999 was a permanent feature, a great many never used their degrees and left the field while those of us with big cvs never missed a step.

I was lucky: I grew up at a time when almost no-one already knew the things that I could learn.  My knowledge gave me a competitive advantage, and the means to start gaining that knowledge at the fundamental level of the command line, of BASIC and of assembler (and Comal, Forth et al), and of changing a variable resistor to retard the timing on the hard drive starter motor.  Today's kids start learning at many levels removed from that, and I think that those who will ever become great programmers will have to go back and fill those gaps in.  But unlike Brin, I think that for most, it is nothing more than a shame (in Platonic terms) that their knowledge will be shallower.  For most western kids of 10 or 11, the boat has sailed on this career as a fast way to get wealthy.  There will be another valuable, rare knowledge-based skill along in a while.  From the interactions I have in my work, my guess is tomorrow's hacker will work in the biotech and pharms sector.

Next Up: A Deadlands MMO

While I am in geeky Massively Multiplayer Online/Pen-and-Paper roleplaying game (or MMO/PnP RPG if you are down wid da geeks) crossover mode, yet another link between dark horror gaming and the online gaming industry.  Via Nevermore on F13.net's boards comes news that the creator of Deadlands, Shane Hensley, is leaving MMO studio Cryptic to work on a new project.  After being all tentative and hint-dropping, he just couldn't control himself and has confirmed that it's a Deadlands MMO.  Which has potential.  I didn't like Deadlands' oh-so-innovative system, using playing cards, but the setting was weirdishly fun.

Laboucherie, Iraq, Strategy and Tactics

There is an interesting article on DefenceTech.org about Lieutenant Colonel David Laboucherie of the Queen's Royal Hussars, who is currently operating in Maysan province in south-eastern Iraq.  In part, it is interesting because it concerns one of the more successful elements of the current operation in Iraq.  But I was struck by how the writer, David Axe, had made the fundamental error of confusing strategy and tactics.

He writes about how Laboucherie has gone about gaining local respect, has been tolerant of the locals', erm, alternative means of conflict resolution (occasionally, noisily shooting lots of bullets in roughly each others' direction without great effect) and how he has learned lessons from the Northern Irish conflict.  He describes the extremely mobile deployment and light logistical footprint of Laboucherie's patrols, which seem to owe a debt to developments during the North African conflict in 1942-43. But Axe then goes on to suggest that the same tactics could work in places such as Bahgdad.  This is Axe's mistake.

Laboucherie has decided on a strategy.  His ultimate strategic goal is to choke off the flow of men and materials from Iran.  That strategy involves the need to win over local authority figures in the militia, religious establishments and the like, and, by acting sensitively around locals, to garner at least tolerance from the population.  The fact that part of the implementation of his strategy includes tactical aspects such as resupply of fast-moving patrols by helicopter, limited use of only very light armour contingents, and an emphasis on proven, low-technology solutions to challenges where appropriate is less important in determining the lessons to be drawn.  In areas with less homogenous populations, or with substantial conurbations, different tactical implementations must be considered.

Robert Leonhard, in his book The Art of Manuever:Manuever-Warfare Theory and Airland Battle says that the only battlefield system which has been unchanged for millenia is the human soul.  Force protection and the attrition of the enemy - the overwhelming concerns of American military thinking right now - are not means to defeat an enemy in themselves, although they may eventually, indirectly lead to victory.  To defeat an enemy you must persuade him that he has lost.  In manuevre warfare, for example, this can mean achieving breakout and operating in the rear of the enemy's formations.  But Leonhard makes it plain that the point of such manuevre is to persuade the enemy that he has lost and remove his ability to continue fighting at the logistical and moral levels.  It is not simply to kill him in large numbers.

In counter-insurgency - as is proven in Afghanistan and Iraq right now - merely killing the enemy in large numbers is rarely sufficient.  Instead, it is necessary to deny the enemy a safe operating base, to remove his ability to rely on local populations for support (whether he uses coercion or persuasion) and to render his operations politically unprofitable.  Of these, the latter is the most important.  Lenin, a key figure in creating the ideological and political frameworks of the modern terrorist struggle, said that "the present-day terrorists are really 'economists' turned inside out, going to the equally foolish but opposite extreme"*.  He condemned as foolish acts of terrorism that did not pursue specific and well-defined political objectives, and which was not directly controlled by a political organisation.  Pursuing a strategy in Iraq that merely allows newsreaders to quote optimistic body-count figures is an insufficient response to a political problem.

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* (Lenin, Revolutionary Adventurism in Collected Works, Volume 6 Moscow; 1961; p192.)

More Property Woes

I have been more than moderately unfortunate when it comes to buying property, over the last decade.  I have forgotten all the wierdnesses and oddities which have occurred over the past few years, but it has not been a happy tale for me, nor for my long-suffering friend and lawyer Alan, who keeps applying his considerable skills ot the task of body-swerving his fiduciary responsibility to actually charge me money for his services.

I have even, in the past, been the highest bidder by a considerable margin for a property and failed to get it (the sellers decided not to sell after all).  The latest delight is even more unlikely.  In Scots law, houses normally sell at "offers over": a price is named by the seller, then a closing date is set and interested parties make sealed bids and the highest (usually) wins.  Alternatively, where a seller is keen to get a property sold, they will sell it at a fixed price: if you offer them the price they ask for, and they then accept, then that's it.  Usually, the sale is concluded within a matter of hours.

The plot of land I thought I had bought was fixed price.  Unfortunately, the sellers have had to resile from the contract on the grounds that the property is encumbered with claims from not one but two neighbours: one claims some of the land, while another claims the strip of right-of-way that provides access.  As Alan said: even if they were willing to sell, it would be crazy to buy.  Back to the drawing board. Again...

Eve Makers Merge with White Wolf

Here's an exciting one for the medium term: CCP, the developers of the utterly gorgeous space-based massively multiplayer online (MMO) game Eve-Online, have agreed to "merge" (White Wolf will in fact be a wholly-owned subsidiary of CCP).

Obviously, this makes sense for White Wolf.  In the early 90's they were a growth star, revolutionising the role-playing games sector with their Vampire product-line and the wider World of Darkness milieu.  Then they became a cash-cow, before they committed the unforgivable mistake - just as TSR had a decade before - of flooding their market with low-quality, small-volume products.  Recently they have struggled both financially and creatively.  They have a great piece of IP in the World of Darkness, and one which has been under-exploited in the computer-gaming sector (the most recent tie-in was little more than a large mod).  They are no longer sitting on their mid-90's cash mountain (or cash hillock, rather) and aren't going to get big VC input without a struggle, given a decade of relative failure.

 While the Eve-based tie-ins mentioned in the press release - an RPG based on Eve, expansion of the collectible card game work etc. - are all very sensible, the exciting prospect is that CCP write MMOs, and White Wolf have a great chunk of content.  While a Shadowrun MMO is the great dream of many a geek, a game based on Vampire and/or Werewolf would have great potential.  I'd certainly look forward to it.  And I'd have a lot of looking forward to do: a three year turnaround would be very quick.

Can CCP carry it off?  They have defied the odds (and a bad launch) by writing an obscure, post-Elite, PvP-intensive space-sim that defies most of the diku rules.  I would back them before anyone except Blizzard or possibly the nascent BioWare venture to make their next MMO launch a success.  But, like movies, it's a sector where there are far more failures than successes, and CCP may just have had that one great novel in them.