Something I enjoy doing is celebrating the ridiculous in an artistic way. Charity Shop Film Guide was something that I abandoned a few years ago, (and now can't remember the log in details for the YouTube channel), but it was born out of an obsession with obscure crap films. At the time, I planned a podcast based on the weird selection of vinyls albums that you see in charity shops, which would have fallen under the Charity Shop Guide umbrella. At the same time as attempting to pitch a regular film club, I was kicking around the idea of doing DJ sets with these shit records, but wasn't going to take a financial risk on hiring a venue for it. Incidentally, good luck to Cinema Diabolique, who are going with the 'bad film screening' idea in Nottingham. Doing CSFG as an audio podcast was an idea I had to bring it back, but the problem is that now I'll be accused of jumping on a bandwagon, when it's my fucking bandwagon to start with. I only wish I still had the email correspondence from when the idea was turned down.
Anyway, as a continuation of the celebration of the ridiculous, and to exercise the 'conceptual artist' that is always fighting to burst out Hulk-like from my body, I had an idea for a song. I've written two songs in the past, neither of which have actually got further than a drawer full of ideas, but this new idea is one that will take literally (proper use of the word) minutes to pull off. In fact, it could be the basis for an entire album, an album and single that I could almost guarantee (to the point of maybe making a bet on it) wouldn't sell a single solitary copy. That is the whole point, to release an album that not one person in the whole world would want to own, and would go down in history as the biggest flop release ever. The idea came to me recently, and the only slight concern would be that people might not get the joke and try to ridicule me for it. Not that the opinions of others bother me too much, I got stick for CSFG from people who didn't quite get the concept, the biggest critique being that people don't buy video tapes anymore. To be honest, I don't pander to such idiots, so I might just go ahead with it and if you don't like it, ignore it and don't let it worry you.
Now that I know how easy it is to upload individual songs and albums to Bandcamp, there is no financial risk involved. This is good news as the chance of it making money is zero. If I was to release it as a physical CD, then I might as well find an open drain to drop some cash down. The songs are based on existing, (and very well known) pieces of music that are still protected by copyright, so any money that is made will probably be swallowed up with legal implications anyway. That said, I'm sure the writer of the music will have sufficient sense of humour to not bother with setting the lawyers on to me. I might end up giving away a percentage of the earnings, which is great because a percentage of fuck all is fuck all, and I'd love to write that on a cheque.
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