Don't Rely on the Cloud It's so Important to Keep a Hard Copy of Your Stuff!

0:00 I'm going to explain very quickly how that all started

Right, ladies and gentlemen, don't worry about it. I have not stopped doing videos. I'm still going to carry on doing videos, but this is a bit of a vlog. Now, very quickly, last weekend I was in East Norcastle playing a part of a festival known as Lakefest, an amazing event. It's been East Norcastle for quite a few years, and I do something called the Secret Disco, which is basically a small market stall or a small tiny tent full of PA lighting and God knows what. So I'm going to explain very quickly how that all started. Now, probably about seven or eight years ago, my ex-partner, she basically sort of still to this day designs and makes children's clothing. And she's bloody good at it. And what she did, she went to Lakefest.

It used to be in another place near Tewksbury, I think it was. And what she had is a small market stall. And that's where she sold her products, which was her homemade children's clothing, made it from scratch, along with other fancy goods like sort of, I don't know, necklaces and chains and just makeup for kids and adults alike. So it was a stall full of basically bits and bobs that people could buy, some handmade and some bought in. And what I decided to do was take a bunch of DJ kit and just play some music. So if you imagine you've got sort of market pitches and in between the market pitches, there's a small gap where you could walk to and from. And what I did is I took a light console. I took a set turntables and a mixer and a PA system.

2:20 It wasn't really a dance

And I remember writing on a piece of cardboard, secret disco in between the or two of the pitches. And one evening I started playing music. Now, bearing in mind the management of Lakefest had no idea I was going to do this. I just decided to play some dance music. Now, Lakefest, when I started doing this, was predominantly a guitar orientated festival. That was it. It was guitars. It wasn't really a dance. It was festival as such. But anyway, what happened is sure enough, people started to crowd around and dance. And before you knew it, there was like 50, 60 people dancing around me DJing. And then the camera crew came along, started taking pictures. And then I found out later on that the management found out.

And I was thinking, oh my God, we're going to get booted off here. But instead what happened is they loved it. They loved the vibe. And I ended up playing on the main stage. At the end of the festival, playing a part of the silent disco. So what they did, if you're familiar with silent discos, you basically have a DJ playing music and everyone listens on headphones. Well, what they did, they had three DJs, including myself. One was playing commercial pop. Another one was, I think, playing oldies. And then I was playing dance music. Now, after that event, they loved it so much, they said, Jonathan, we would like you to have your own small little area. And I called it the Secret Disco and it was a market stall three meters by three meters.

I remember filling it full of a sound system. I had something attached to it where we had the PA. And I'll never forget after the event. This is the second year I spoke to the management. One guy by the name of Lee and I asked him, what did you think of it? And he said, I don't know, mate, because he couldn't get in. It was so busy and it just grew and grew from there till this year. Basically, we had again Lake Fest and I had my Secret Disco. So I'd like to give a big shout out. Thank you to Andy, to Jack, to Sean, to Gary Groves and to the two ladies. Sorry, Jack Goodfellows and Sean's Mrs. They're the ladies for helping as well. But anyway, put that to the side again. So last week it was the entire weekend.

4:46 Here as well really is apart

So the festival started on Thursday, so we were playing Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And hopefully you would have seen in a previous video a small clip of Lake Fest and I will be doing some form of compilation of all of the clips together in the near future, hopefully. But anyway, that's what happened last weekend. I've got a wedding very soon. And that's in Aberystwyth, so I'll be taking the camera along to that. But what I want to talk about here as well really is apart from having a sip of your coffee, excuse me, it's about how important it is to keep the music that you've got. I've talked about this before. I think it's really important because the way the system works, the system doesn't very often tell you what you do or what you should do.

It doesn't demand that you do X, Y and Z. What it does, it's very clever. It's very clever at gently swaying you towards that. So the analogy here is that the system isn't like a big storm and a wave and you're at the top of the wave and it just pushes you in the direction it's going. It's a little bit like you sat on a leaf on a very calm day and there's a gentle breeze that's slowly moving you in the direction the breeze is going without you even knowing it because you're calm and you're happy, the sun's out and it's just a nice, easy move. And that's what happens with the system. It never demands it just sort of maybe gives you an idea. It plants a seed into your head and slowly but surely it makes that seed mature without you even knowing it.

So what's this got to do with music? Well, you know, back in the day it was vinyl, then it was CD, then it was MP3. Well, of course now it's getting to be the cloud because why have a hard drive? Why have a laptop? Well, you need a laptop, of course. But why have anything where you personally physically have to store information? You have to have things. Why not let someone else have it for you? So not only has someone got all of that baggage that you normally carry around with you, but you can open that baggage anywhere you are around the world at any time without you having to pretty much lift a finger, you can just talk into a phone now and you can have that information that you've stored up there in the cloud.

Now, that sounds great. And it is great because it means you don't have to have any sort of hard drive at all. But the downside to it, and this is where it gets a little bit, I suppose, controversial, is because if you're a naughty boy or a naughty girl in the future, that can be taken away from you. So while we admire and appreciate modern day technology, we always have to be very careful on how we tread and how we use that technology. Because you see, you may think you are using the technology, but if the truth be known, the technology is actually using you.

7:43 Again, it's just a matter of how much money you're investing there

It may be something very difficult to comprehend, but that is what is happening right now. Streaming the cloud. It's all the information up there that you're using, but actually, believe it or not, everything up there is using you. You are now the product. OK? So when you download an app and you wonder how come it's for free, it's because you're the product. It's getting information from you and the information it's getting from you is how they make money because then they sell that information to other companies anyway. Again, it's just a matter of how much money you're investing there. So my advice is very simple for God's sake, if you can keep hold of physical things, especially music, do not rely on the cloud because one day it could be taken away from you.

Something as simple as you do something wrong, you don't pay a bill and it's gone until you pay the bill or you know, you do the time for the crime and then you get it back. You see also as well, what it could mean is that you have to then adhere to all the rules and regulations in the future because if you don't, you'll get that taken away from you because the more and more you rely on a phone or your computer, the less freedom you have. Very important anyway. Thank you for watching. Practice. And enjoy.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.