Rants
Biz Talk: Sliced or Dazzled? Get slowly baked in a dud franchise
REGULARS Sliced or Dazzled? Get slowly baked in a dud franchise By Julius Grafton. Dominos Pizza is in trouble with its investors who loved that the stock hit $80 a share and now cry as the stock is falling under $40. Led by a charismatic CEO, Dominos painted a pretty picture of rising profits and…
Read MoreDuncan Fry – Sounds Like Teen Spirit Pt 2 – Sounds more like a Can of Worms!
Sounds Like Teen Spirit Pt 2 – Sounds more like a Can of Worms! Computers creating music, computers driving cars. Houston, we have a problem. Duncan Fry. Regular readers of this column (Who they? Ed) may remember that last month’s edition discussed the imminent commercial appearance of a new musical phenomenon – the computer generated…
Read MoreTech Tidal Wave. Strap yourself in, the surge has started
Singapore has commenced its autonomous taxi trial this week. A startup called nuTonomy got the jump on Google, Uber, Apple, Tesla and Mercedes Benz who all desperately want to own the self driving car ‘space’. Uber didn’t exist in Australia three years ago and is now the largest ‘taxi’ transport entity there, but it lost…
Read MoreMasters of nothing. How to lose a lazy billion
Biz Talk, By Julius Grafton About fifteen years ago McDonalds brought a US concept restaurant to Sydney called Boston Market. They built nine stand-alone restaurants and quickly discovered Aussies like their roast dinners different to Americans. What? No roast LAMB? What kind of place is this? They also had a revelation that costs here are…
Read MoreGoing for broke. Guide to Bankruptcy
By Julius Grafton Somehow I found myself talking to a couple of friends who are recently bankrupt. One just filed, the other was recently discharged. I thought their experiences were worth sharing. “I went home and told my wife my business was collapsing”, Andrew* said. “Her first reaction was ‘oh my God, we’ll lose the…
Read MoreThe Solo – Fun times on the road
Bands – ya gotta love em. Some of them take themselves so seriously – it’s not entertainment, it’s art. Others are far more pragmatic, seeing a pub gig simply as a means to an end (and whose end, you may well ask?), a way to keep a room full of drunks happy for three hours.…
Read MoreTHE MILL REPORT: IMPROMPTU ACOUSTIC TREATMENTS
Often it’s the lack of experimentation with room treatment that leaves many a home recording sounding thin, resonant and harsh. Left unchecked, untreated room reflections can severely impact upon the clarity and focus of direct signals into a microphone, though initially this may be hard to judge. It’s often only when mix compression is applied…
Read MoreUsing WHS as an aggression tool
It was long enough ago but still flashes into my mind whenever I’m being actually pure and nice and someone is being directly mean and nasty in return. We were doing an outdoor gig at Katherine in the N.T., and at the end the modest fireworks display absolutely delighted the indigenous kids. They were amazed,…
Read MoreM F Lights – The world’s shortest lighting career
The downside of having a nice big truck to drive the PA around in was that bands always wanted you to go and pick up the lights from the lighting company for them, and take them to the gig in your nice big truck. And then, of course, take them back the following morning.…
Read MoreTHE MILL REPORT: GRADUATE OF THE INDUSTRY – QUALIFICATION ZERO
What do you say to someone who values your work at zero? Do you laugh them off and tell a dismissive joke to avoid confrontation? Do you calmly explain that your work is as valuable as that of any other professional or do you chuck a wobbly? If you haven’t experienced this insult first-hand you’re…
Read MorePEACE UPON YOU [from a great height]
LL, the drummer for the Harris Tweed band popped into the factory the other day, and over a coffee we started reminiscing over funny things that have happened in the course of earning a living. Mine have been well documented [some might say ad nauseam!]in this column but he has had no-one to write his down…
Read MoreHow I started the Bathurst Bike Riot of 1980
Well it wasn’t me alone. Grub had a lot to do with it. I collected him and the bass player from Littlewing at their place in Five Dock. We loaded their stage gear into my production truck, a Ford F350, and we drove the three hours out west over the mountains to Bathurst. It was…
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