http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/07/20/peter.gabriel/

Here's the bit I found interesting (emphasis added)

Anderson: Do musicians then become retailers themselves?

Gabriel: Well, I think you'll have options. I think for your specific group of hardcore fans, you'll be able to sell them all sorts of things, as some artists are already doing. For the groups that I love, I would love to hear the whole creative process -- not just a piece of product that someone in a record company has decided is the only thing I should hear. I want to hear them scratching away trying to write the songs, failing to get the mixes and arrangements right, doing things in different ways, hearing different live versions, acoustic versions -- whatever it is. That whole process should be something that is available, where artists are comfortable opening it up to the public. You know, I feel fine about that and that sort of thing artists should be able to sell directly to their audience, you know once they've produced a piece of product as the business would call it, then it should go through all the normal commercial channels and all the normal retailers and there may be some special collaborations that people can do with different retailers because they have some marketing experience, they have some of their own music lovers that they will get to, that you won't. So, I think we all need each other in some way I'd like it to be a level playing field.

On a completely different note, you might want to check out the demolition of a sight perhaps familiar to Harold - the Seattle Kingdome.  Here's a quote from the guys who did it:

"It has to be the right job in the first place, the right explosive, the right pattern of laying the charges, and sometimes, which sounds odd, the right repairs to bring it down as we want, so no one or no other structure is harmed. And by differentially controlling the velocity of failure in different parts of the structure, you can make it walk, you can make it spin, you can make it dance."

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/default.asp?reqLocId=7&reqItemId=20030317140323