Shifty Lies

Between the years of 1997 and 1999, I worked for a University. I worked on an EU funded research project. Someone took a shine to me and asked me to. It felt like an honour. A group of super intelligent individuals, and me, examined institutional adaptation to droughts and floods; all in the context of climate change. I hung out with Oxford University boffins, Spanish intellectuals that smoked from dawn until dawn, and Dutch academics, for whom all of the world’s problems can be resolved with a series of regimented, straightforward and practical solutions. It’s a long way from how I earn a living today. Life is but a journey.

Back in those days, accessing the internet from home was slow, cumbersome and expensive. Dial-up connections charged you by the minute and failed to load pages. Back in those days, organisations were still coming to terms with firewalls, and search engines didn’t filter out porn. These were the days when Napster, and file sharing, was still an underground entity. As well as revolutionising the way that we hear music today, it revolutionised my life.

On a lowly wage, after many years of being a student bum, a new album was something that I discovered in wrapping paper, and live music was a rare and groovy treat. Napster came along, lovingly provided by the university’s T1 connection, and it changed my life.

While the climate changed in the Herb Garden outside my window, my hard drive filled with music and my ears bubbled with delight. One particular Napster user had the best album collection that I have ever encountered. It is of this person that I think of today. This unknown person enabled me to hear music that I still listen to, and gain immense pleasure from, on a regular basis. This is the person that allowed me to fall in love with ’The Southside of the World’. I now own most of Bonnie Prince Billy’s back catalogue. I now own most of the music that I downloaded from my Napster Guru.

I used to fear the day that Napster would no longer be a part of my life. “The revolution has happened and there is no undoing it”, I was told, “Underground cells will always bubble up and allow file sharing in new formats. They will always be ahead of the authorities. The internet is near impossible to police. It’s like an anarchists dream.” While, the internet has changed, and Google Ads now reign supreme, my advisor was absolutely bang on. “But”, I would retort to these pearls of wisdom, “If Napster goes, I will lose my bookmark to the best album collection on earth. I will never be able to find my Napster Guru again.” I was right too.

From the age of fifteen, I began to fear the death of John Peel. From the age of twenty five, I began to fear the loss of my Napster Guru. I stuck with them both right to the end, but ultimately all good things must come to pass.

Eight or nine years after downloading Bonnie Prince Billy, I saw him last year. Nine years after downloading the Radar Bros, I saw them last night. Like John Peel, the Napster Guru has had a lasting influence on my life.

All those years ago, I was paid to think about how corporations, governments and society are simply too stupid to take note of that old adage ‘prevention is better than cure’. What will be the biggest impetus for societal and institutional change, in terms of salvaging our delicate climate? Crisis; and crisis on a large scale. THE END.

All those years ago, I sat at my desk with my eyes shut whilst listening to ‘Shovelling Sons’, and drifting away into far off dimensions. Shovelling Sons was the first song that the Radar Bros played last night. Sat amongst a sold out audience of fifty people, I felt myself go back in time.

I would love to find the Napster Guru again. I would love to meet them in person and to share a firm handshake. I always wanted to meet them. I have a feeling that we live on opposite sides of the pond.

When I finished working on the research project, I told a lie. “I must borrow the hard drive from the computer”, I said, “There is research material on there that we may need for future papers. There is simply too much to email to my terrible dial-up account.” All the music came with me. The music always comes with me.