Along For The Ride

An apologetic, yet simultaneously confident voice greets the crowd at the Academy. Like Hugh Grant in a Humphrey Bogart hat, holding a Fender. ‘Hello Brixton, we’re Ride. Thanks for coming.’

Mark Gardiner (the man in the hat - who'd have thought?) seer into a song that I’ve not heard for maybe two decades but it sounds… well, it sounds fantastic; absolutely up to date and somehow not of its time at all.  Loz, Steve, Mark and Andy are ripping through Leave Them All Behind. Possibly their finest moment. They're back together (again, who'd... etc.) and it’s a good thing that they’re back together; good for them, good for fans, good for those who were born the year they first played. I wonder what Taylor Swift would make of them. 

Ride were a good group. Notice I didn't use the word great. Somehow, the apologetic air haunts them still, although as I stand watching them this October night 26 years after first seeing them, I think maybe that adjective might start getting used. They were Creation Records’ first popstars, a band on the cusp of greatness when they got swept away on the tidal wave of Grunge then crushed swiftly by the red double decker of Britpop. 

Don't be fooled by the Starting Out (1988 - 1989) entry on Ride's Wikipedia page.  This is how it happened: 

By rights, they would have been the first band I signed. I got my first music business job working as a talent scout at East West in 1989. Within days, I was coursing through boxes of unsolicited demo cassettes that had been abandoned by my predecessors and the rest of the A&R department. Dutifully, I listened to the first few bars of each of the standard three tracks on each one and then packaged them up in pristine Jiffy bags to be returned. Such were the pre-Internet days of the record business: Tanita Tikaram, Enya and The Ginger Prince provided us with the funds to spend on the R&D and I felt we were almost offering a public service. My rejection letters were masterclasses of tact and evasion “Thank you for making the effort to send us your material… It always boils down to a personal opinion so if we’re saying no that doesn’t mean you should give up – somebody else might love it!” Or words to that effect. I’ll try and dig out a rejection letter but for now here’s a collection of all the misspellings of my name on demos sent to me, which I made into a complements slip.

Ride were, as you might expect, not discovered via an unsolicited demo cassette. I heard about them from a local Oxford music paper called Gig. I believe Ride’s future manager, Dave Newton, had something to do with Gig but anyway, it was he I spoke to at the paper. Nobody tells you how to be a talent scout so I just did the things I imagined a private detective would do: I phoned up a lot of people who I thought might know something and asked lots of questions. Without hesitation, Dave  recommended Ride and a couple of days later a tape arrived which was and remains the best-presented demo I ever came across. Ride started as they meant to go on – everything had been thought through: 

The block capitals logo, kept for their entire career, was there from that very first demo; the solid, defintive colour; the minimalism; the iconography. 

Musically too, it was amazing. Both future classics Chelsea Girl and Drive Blind were included as well as a third (and first in the running order) I'm Fine Thanks (later available on the box set, completist chums!)

I went to see them live and it was clear they had been blessed: It all. That’s what they had. A great guitarist, a charismatic, hurricane of a drummer, a stoic, monolithic bass player and a ludicrously handsome lead singer. They were young, they were intelligent and they played a cover of Tomorrow Never Knows.

I couldn’t get much interest from the rest of the A&R department but Cally (a legend who I have written about here before  and had the pleasure of interviewing earlier this week for the podcast) loved it as much as I did.  He had signed a kind of UK version of Jane’s Addiction called Underneath What who despite being signed to our multinational powerhouse, had just released their debut single Firebomb Telecom on a small label called One Big Guitar for credibility’s sake. Cally suggested we convince Ride to do the same – we wouldn’t even sign them, just put it out for goodwill and see what happened. Again, the public service nature of how some of us viewed the job is apparent. Cally told me recently that he never thought the band would happen if they signed to East West and he may have a point. But then again Geoff Travis had done the Blanco Y Negro deal with WEA and Jesus and Mary Chain were doing quite well thank you very much.

The Reed brothers as it turned out, were Ride’s favourite band.  Cally and I found this out when we travelled to Oxford to meet them. They were hugely polite and well behaved but genuinely inspiring. We suggested doing some recording with them. One thing major record labels did all the time in the 80s and 90s was offer artists ‘demo’ time. Normally budgeted at around £500 it was both a gesture of goodwill (public service!) and a way of avoiding making a foolish A&R decision by simply signing a group because you’d seen one exciting gig. Looked at another way, it was a way of avoiding making an actual decision whilst keeping your options open. 'Umming and Erring' as the perenniel  A&R joke used to go.  I did it a lot at East West because I couldn’t get my boss interested in most of the things I brought in. But that’s another blog.

The band quickly agreed to us recording them so we could put out a record. I can’t remember any other record companies sniffing around. Major labels were all looking for the next Deacan Blue or U2. Even a handful of years later, the kind of scenario where a band this good, building a fanbase locally would be able to exist without their every show being rammed full of industry chancers. But back then, when Taylor Swift wasn't even 1,  it was just me, Cally – and one other person I’d told about them, Mike Smith who was at MCA Publishing. He couldn’t get any interest from his boss either.

Cally and I paid for some demos and recorded them in Oxford at same studio where they had recorded the demos. If you look back to the pic of the demo you can see Cally's distinctive writing in pencil '16 track Oxford'. My scrawl is next to the phone numbers, where I've put Mark and Steve's names next to the numbers (I've obscured the numbers just in case). You see the slick way we worked: proper grown-up A&R man and trusty scout. We mixed it in London at a studio called Arkntide of which I have a vague recollection. There is however one crystal clear memory.  

Crucially, when it came to the final mix, the band and manager trusted myself and Cally to man the faders to get it sounding how we thought would best show off the band's brilliance. It was the first and as it turned out, only time that a band let me get my own mucky paws directly onto their work. All respect to Ride, they knew we loved them and perhaps did it out of thanks. In addition to that Cally and I got a credit for remixing it. Not in our actual names, mind but in alternative monikers based on that favourite band of Ride's you remember from earlier. They switched Jim and William Reid's names to James and Bill and lo! Cally and I were immortalised. 

What happened next happened fast. Dave sent us transparencies of the artwork, the beautiful roses artwork that I'm sure you remember if you're bothering to read this:

Cally, being an artist and sleeve designer himself helped with all this and we started setting up the release with One Big Guitar. Then suddenly...

Nothing.

We were nowhere. 

What had happened was inevitable. Just like a girl in the tentative early stages of a relationship, Ride stopped returning calls. Eventually, we were told. It was obvious really, and we should have known all along: the band had been seduced by Alan McGee at Creation. Who could blame them? If you were 19 and in love with Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine and then their manager and record label offered you a deal, would you sit around waiting for a a pair of blokes who worked for Tanita Tikarum and Chris Rea's label? 

Ride rose swiftly after the release of the Ride EP. Cally and I wished them no ill because they were great and deep down we kind of knew that Creation was a better label for them than us. As well as this, Dave and his charges remained very loyal: we got our credit on the record and even a decade later they credited us on the OX4 box set and indeed sought us both out to give us a copy each.

And now here I am watching them on stage. They play two sets, one comprising the imperial period from Going Blank Again then they return and give us the whole of Nowhere. They've just returned from the US and they're going back again after they finish in the UK. The signs of this relentless touring are not that they seem jaded and exhausted but rather they have become the band they always threatened to become in their heyday: Loz's drumming is tighter, the harmonies are more strident, the playing simply better. They are as muscular as the block capitals behind them:

Added to this the audience are not, it must be stressed, just a bunch of old blokes like me, but a healthy mixture of male and female. This makes sense because Ride were after all, the thinking women's early 90s totty alongside the Charlatans and before Blur. 

After the gig I decide not to go backstage and shake hands with them all 26 years later. It would be lovely of course, but I suspect it being a London show that there are many folk like me who will be forming an undignified queue outside the dressing room. 

I say goodbye to the friends I came with and walk back through Brixton humming Drive Blind and Chelsea Girl. After everything, those two songs from that first demo are the songs they save for the encore.

Blur: "They fit better the more you wash them"

Man who knows all the words to every Blur song: "They haven't played Charmless Man yet."

Second man who knows all the words to every Blur song: "They're not going to play Charmless Man"

Third man who knows all the words to every Blur song: "Of course they're going to play Charmless Man! I bet you a fiver they play it!"

Second man who knows all the words to every Blur song: "I bet you a tenner they don't..."

I assume by the end of the show that the slightly more laid back man behind us is £10 up on the deal because Blur don't play Charmless Man. This is not surprising considering it's the song which singularly represents their Britpop hubris from which they beat a rapid retreat. But that doesn't discourage the charmless men behind us singing along with every word of the rest of the set. The sense of warm satisfaction that comes over me when Blur play Oily Water - an underrated My Bloody Valentinish megaphone-sung thrash from Modern Life Is Rubbish is huge - here finally is something this barber's shop trio from hell are incapable of singing along to. At last we get to hear what is coming off the stage rather than out of the mouths of the Britpop students.

Hello, I am your resident Britpop Grumpy Old Man and this week I'll be taking you by the hand and telling you about how great it was back in the old days. Relax, of course I won't. Thursday's Hyde Park Blur show was great as I'm sure by now you will have read or more likely seen on Youtube. Did you see the shagging video by the way? I don't know whether the couple's frantic grass jiggery did happen along to The End but this choice of song definitely adds to the power of the clip.

Back in Britpop's heyday when I was just about young enough to still get away with such alfresco antics (although of course, will neither confirm or deny that I ever did) this is the sort of thing that was expected of audiences and bands alike - anything went. Or so it seemed. To those of us who had been going to gigs up and down the country professionally since 1989, observing terrible sub-U2 chest beaters, post-acid house baggy bands, miserable shoegazers and tuneless, right-on crusties play to near-empty venues, Britpop was a welcome hurricane. To finally go to gigs and for the venue to be packed with audiences younger and better dressed than us and, crucially, made of equal numbers of girls and boys - it was life affirming. Several times I had the hopelessly romantic notion that this was what the 60s must have been like. Quite what the 60s were like, I have of course like the rest of us, gleaned from watching Blow Up, Help! and The Italian Job because I was playing with my Lego at the time.

But for sheer exuberance and excitement, it did for one brief summer in 1995, at least, feel like the 60s again. The crux of this as far as being an A&R man was concerned was that it felt possible to a see an unknown band in a small club and within a couple of months they could quite reasonably be expected to be on Top Of The Pops. Admittedly, this probably only happened a couple of times - Menswear being the key occasion. But the fact that it could perceivably happen at all was a remarkable thing considering we were still living under the spectre of album projects spiralling into years, singles requiring many different formats, artwork and b-sides and a pre Evening Session Radio 1. Amongst many good things that Britpop did was reintroduce an element of fun and flippancy to the music business - 7"s came back, coloured vinyl, good melodies, witty lyrics, bands looking sexy, being bitchy to one another in the press, hanging out with each other in private, and very occasionally shagging. We all know what happened in Blur's case.

Damon never did say much on stage. Last Thursday his mid-song banter was truncated to the point of mid-sentence break-up. It didn't matter, no one was there to hear Bono or Chris Martin-like monologues. I suppose Damon, like Mick Jagger, is an articulate man who prefers to just be a performer on stage. Having said that, he did ramble on a bit about the 2003 Anti War march ending in Hyde Park and how we should never forget its importance. Interesting, considering it's very unlikely that he has any recollection of it as on the actual day he was by all accounts so drunk he could barely stand.

But later he mentioned Hyde Park again, this time in the context of "a song I wrote". There was a ripple of anticipation from fifty thousand people. Before launching into a Phil Daniels-led Parklife, he reminisced about how he'd lived in a flat off Kensington High St and would regularly come into the park to people watch. He didn't elaborate about this flat but it set me reminiscing - this flat - in leafy Hornton St - was owned by his girlfriend at the time and very lovely it was too. I knew it was Justine Frishchman's place because I used to leave my car in the underground car park opposite, when I worked at East West Records which was - as Atlantic are now - in the Electric Lighting Station just off Ken High St.

I mentioned in a blog last year that Justine once arrived unannounced at East West with the first Suede demo - presumably because we were local. "Got Justine in reception for you." "Who?" Unannounced strangers pitching up happened surprisingly rarely and it was usually just irritating chancers. Still, I went upstairs to relieve her of the demo and promise to listen to it. It was a good plan she'd had, she knew she looked very cool and that I would immediately check the tape out. It all would have worked splendidly if the music (which I still have somewhere) had been any good. Ironically it was only after she left the band that they got better.

Later, when I was no longer local, I visited her flat for the first time. It was to woo her RCA-wards, as she was by then in Elastica. For our meeting, she had bought some very impressive looking canapes for us. Canapes! We sat, poured tea and discussed her future in rock and pop as if we were in an Evelyn Waugh novel. It was certainly the only time I've ever had a meeting about doing a record deal accompanied by canapes - how very Britpop you could say, although this was, to be fair, 1993.

Either during that visit or another, later, slightly more desperate visit (Steve Lamacq's Deceptive imprint were clearly going to win Elastica's hand), I remember bumping into Damon. At that point he wasn't at a career high. After their initial pop success Blur had somehow got lost. A year earlier, many people, possibly including Damon himself, had given up on them. They were perceived to have jumped onto the baggy bandwagon with There's No Other Way and times had moved on. At some point during Elastica's first run of dates that myself and my mate Michael drove the band to, Damon came along. I think it was probably Guildford. Anyway, on the way back we were chatting about music and success and we got on to the subject of Top Of The Pops. Damon said of the show: "Yeah, I've pretty much done that. Don't feel the need to go back to it." At the time I thought: fair play, you've moved on, you're in a different game now, you've been Blur the pop act, now you're going to be the wayward screeching Blur of Popscene - the band who plays with My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jnr. and ignores the singles chart. How little I understood the Albarn ambition. Buried beneath this faux indifference he was obviously loathing every minute of not being in the public eye; of Brett Anderson's Suede having taken the Britain's Best Band crown; of the ignominy of being ranked alongside other underachievers like Swervedriver and Slowdive. Funny to think that despite Blur starting the Hyde Park shows with She's So High (which finally sounded like the enormous international stadium filler it always was) the band's early hits became mere footnotes after they achieved their big crossover.

Back in Hornton Street I remember standing by the window of Justine's living room chatting to Damon about how things were going. This was some time after our Top Of The Pops chat and, as I recall things were going a little better, Modern Life Is Rubbish was deservedly doing OK but it hadn't quite set their career back on track. Blur could have still gone either way. We made small talk and I asked him what he was up to. I can't remember exactly what he said but it was along the lines of:"Writing and recording B sides, the record label are always wanting more and more". I can't remember much beyond this but it struck me at the time as it strikes me now that here was a grafter; someone who has a respect for the system if it is going to get him to where he needs to be. He was also clever enough to know that as an A&R man I would appreciate the mild dig. Incidentally, I'm surprised with all those B sides that EMI haven't put a Blur box set together. I'd make an exception for that.

But back to Damon's work ethic. All those stories you hear about bands not cracking America because they can't be bothered to put the hours in, the constant smiling, handshaking with local DJs and promoters, the playing in tiny venues after playing European stadia - it makes you wonder why Blur failed to export their hugely commercial sound to the States if Damon was such a hard worker. And how frustrated he must have been to see his girlfriend rocket to the top there. After all, many of Elastica's songs sounded uncannily similar to his own, have you ever listened to Line Up and Boys And Girls back to back?

Talking of which, the blokes behind us are off again, singing along to "Girls who like boys..." lost in a sea of nostalgia for when they were 12 and Blur had just opened up the world of pop and rock for them. Over to our right stands Mark Ronson. Like so many others, he's wearing the Blur shibboleth: a Fred Perry. On stage, Damon wears one too, as does Dave. Damon once said to me, almost as if he was in the company's employ, "They just fit better the more you wash them." And he's right, I'm wearing one now as I write this although last Thursday I deliberately avoided doing so because I didn't want to look like some sad old fella re-living his Britpop years. Which of course I am and was. An old friend I bumped into who now works in fashion said to me, "Damon's wearing one of the Comme Des Garcons ones" She was right, you could tell from the single line of piping on the collar - that's the difference now, the grown ups are recreating the old look via their new access to cash. Another exec next to me is wearing a Marc Jacobs version.

The guys behind us must be mid to late twenties. It occurs to me that the crowd I had expected - the crowd I wrote about in a Radio 4 column a few months ago, who I anticipated being now more familiar with Parklife in the sense of pushing a buggy around one - is not here. Or certainly not near us. We are the oldest people here - everyone else is their 20s. This means that they probably never saw Blur first time around and which by definition means that Blur have done it; they have achieved what every artist desires - a constantly renewing audience. Like the Stones or Bob Dylan they could now carry on forever - fitting better and better like those Fred Perrys. This crowd aren't just here for the nostalgia; sure they want the hits but they're mainly here for a new experience.

As the sun goes down over West London and the moon comes up over the stage I am having a new experience too. It involves hearing The Universal being sung tunelessly from behind my left ear. But I tell myself to chill out, this is what live entertainment is all about - the audience makes the show.

Inside the record company cauldron...

"We'll know tomorrow. They're reducing all the EMI A&R teams..."

On Wednesday, a friend of mine from EMI and I sit outside in dappled Kensington sunlight eating cake on a bench in the park behind the church. It's an idyllic scene - and the cakes are unbelievable, mine a chocolate one oozing with Bailey's cream - but the conversation is shot through with dread. My friend will be OK, we think, but there will be more people out of work and those that are left will be multi-tasking and cutting corners.

Just before this, I had a cup of tea with another pal who works over the road at Warners. Truly, Kensington High Street has become record company mile: with Sony BMG moving into the old Derry & Toms building above Marks and Spencers, the full major line will be complete with EMI/Virgin at one end, leading to the Universal Building (or Death Star, as it's widely known), then Sony BMG, then Atlantic in the Electric Lighting Station just past the old Kensington Market (now decimated into a branch of PC World). But left on the High St and a short walk up Church St, is the other Warners building, housing most of the old WEA group.

I drink tea with my Warners pal in his office, plastered with the artwork trophies of a successful music industry fella. He tells me how he used to be based at the Electric Lighting Station, working for Atlantic but has been moved to the Church St office to work for all of the labels. He rarely gets out of the building until 8pm. We were going to go out tonight but he needs a night in - and frankly who can blame him? He very generously gives me a pile of Warners CDs, we say goodbye and arrange to meet next week instead. As I walk out I look around the open plan office and sense something different... what is it? It dawns on me as I'm standing in the lift going down: there was no music playing.

If there is one thing that every record company office used to have in common, whether it was Creation or Interscope or Fierce Panda, it was that everyone who worked there loved music and was excited about the roster - there was a sense of possession over the artists that were currently being developed. Even artists who were not particularly popular with the staff were supported because everyone felt part of the team. It's a cliche but like all cliches, it's true: it wasn't a job, it was a lifestyle. I worked at East West (now rebranded Atlantic) in the 90s and the excitement over a new Simply Red album wasn't that the staff were that keen on hearing the Ginger Prince's new material (although some obviously were) but rather that it was going to sell in bucketloads and it's exciting selling records, being popular. Plus, there would be a party and and everyone would benefit in some way at the end of the year; we all felt a part of it, whether this was mistaken or not. The faces on the members of staff I passed on my way out today seemed disengaged and kind of, well, disappointed. They were all attractive, young people and had probably punched the air when they landed a job at a legendary place like Warners - many of them had probably got in via the Warners Graduate Trainee Scheme. Yes, Graduate Trainee Scheme: working at a record company is now just another career option, somewhere between accountancy and retail management. When I first got my job at Warners my mum had the classic "but when are you going to get a proper job?" reaction, and that was just how I wanted it. Working at a record company was something you did for the love of it, not for the career, not for any fiscal gain - it was an extension of your hobby.

My friend Andy who's worked at record company's longer than me, was looking to take on a junior member of staff a few years ago and had amassed a number of CVs from enthusiastic fanzine writers, club promoters and DJs. He took these to his HR department, who by return gave him a pile of CVs from candidates who had applied through the Graduate Trainee Scheme. These applicants were all finishing their degrees, possibly Media Studies, and were looking for their first job on the media career ladder. "But, what about taking on someone who is already out there doing it, someone with life skills, someone who may not have a degree but has a degree of swagger and originality?"
"We'll consider it, but we'd really rather you employed a graduate, Andy."
I can't remember what the outcome was, but it doesn't matter. The proof of who won the argument was in the faces on the graduates sitting in front of computers today. They were probably all thinking: "Wish I'd gone into the film industry, this is rubbish."

Next day I found myself back in Kensington seeing a friend at EMI Music Publishing. Unbelievably, they have finally moved from their old Tin Pan Alley headquarters on Charing Cross Road and shacked up with Terra Firma in EMI headquarters in Wrights Lane - adding further evidence that there really is only one remaining address for the music business. Frankly, I was amazed they let me through the door after the Guardian article, but soon I found myself sitting next to a 8 ft high replica of a Gibson Les Paul in the reception area. Say what you like about Guy Hands and co, they know how to do reception - all the latest magazines, a water cooler, comfy sofas in bright surroundings. In the Warner Building the day before, I sat in the cramped, murky reception with it's apologetically small plasma screen on the wall and picked through dog-eared copies of Billboard and Variety. Eventually I thought I had found something - a copy of the NME. It turned out to be from February. It was like being at the dentist.

Simon and I had lunch in EMI's canteen. Actually, to call it a canteen does it a disservice. It is a splendid place to have lunch. The other EMI Building at the Hammersmith end of the road has a canteen, which is much more like what you imagine: functional, a bit lived-in. Actually, if you ever find yourself having a snack in it - and let's be frank, who knows how much longer you'll have the opportunity - make sure you have a good look at the balustrade which runs along its upper level - it was taken from the old EMI building in Manchester Square and is the very one that four young lads from Merseyside leaned over on the cover of their first album.

The canteen in the Wrights Lane building is ultra modern; an open quadrangle or piazza between the interior sides of the glass tower, it offers three choices of lunch all at very reasonable prices. I'd happily have lunch here every day, but sooner or later Guy Hands would catch on, I'm sure.

Simon's office was like my friend's at Warners only it was virtually wallpapered in 7" single sleeves from the 70s, 80s and 90s. By way of explanation, he told me how he'd been charged with procuring singles for a jukebox that the company were going to present to Mr Hands as some sort of welcome gift. Each 7" single had to be a song or artist that had been number one for EMI publishing or records - Wuthering Heights, Summer Holiday, Country House etc.

He had scoured Record and Tape Exchange and Beanos (he got paid to do this! I would have done it for free - possibly even paid some cash upfront.) and noticing that some of the singles didn't have the big holes in the middle that you need to make them jukebox-compatible, discovered that Beanos have a hole-stamping machine especially for this, which they oiled-up for him. I don't know why this warms my heart me but it does.

Anyway, the singles were loaded onto the jukebox and the staff lined up to present their new leader with his trophy. Hands walked in, expressed gratitude and proceeded to randomly select a 7". It plopped onto the turntable and Terra Firma and EMI staff alike were greeted with the dulcet tones of Mick Hucknell's voice singing his well-known choice from EMI/Windswept Pacific's catalogue, Money's Too Tight (To Mention). The Ginger Prince strikes again.

Back on the park bench eating the cake with my other EMI A&R pal, I mention the Scottish Band to him and try to tell him how well they are doing. He smiles indulgently but I sense the same slightly wistful look that I saw on the graduates' faces at Warners. He cannot care about any new music until he knows there is a point to it, until he knows if he can out there again and get something signed and make a great record with them. Until he knows he still has a job.

And maybe that's how the whole record business feels right now - do they have jobs? Is there a business? Let's hope so, for the Sb's sake.

He's in a meeting ...

Over the last couple of weeks I've been having meetings with various record company executives about a business I have. It's not important what the business does - although if you do need a one-stop, bolt-on A&R service then I am very much your man... Ahem, sorry, which hat was I wearing? Right, sooooo, I've been in these meetings and the thing I've realised - apart from that the CD and download-selling trade is in a spot of trouble - is that I'm really enjoying not being the one who's hosting the meeting.

When you go in for work-related meetings, there's generally an unspoken hierarchy isn't there? The person coming in for the meeting, the person who's driven in, or in my case, got on the bus, is the guest, who is lavished with tea or coffee - and in some cases, a little cakey treat - but he is nevertheless very much the lower status meeting attendee. Particularly when he's there to sell something. The person hosting the meeting, on whose turf it is taking place, is the high status attendee. I've worked in offices of varying size for most of my life - either for various record companies or for online ISPs and so I've been the host many times. Either I would be an A&R person, lavishing my valuable time on young hopefuls or an Editor nodding sagely as sportily-dressed website entrepreneurs would list the reasons why we should be partnering up with them.

To be frank, these 'meetings' were pains in the arse for both parties. In the case of music, the poor artist or manager doesn't want someone to listen to their stuff in an office, an office?! This is their creation; their art - it must fill them full of loathing for the person sitting opposite them behind his desk. And the A&R man, listening to the music for the first time, sitting in front of the creators, aware that they're pretending not to watch your every facial tick... I mean, if you are a fan of music it's like having someone watching you wanking.

Sadly a lot of the time, the music just didn't connect with me. The number of times I would sit listening to someone's cassette (remember them?), it would finish, and I would find myself looking at a sea of expectant faces, whilst concluding a Sainsburys list in my head. One time, I found myself getting a fit of giggles during Track 1. I had to stop the tape and apologise. I put the music back on but promptly started crying with laughter again. It wasn't that the music was funny, I think it was because I'd just realised the absurdity of our situation. Another time, whilst exceptionally hungover, I put the cassette in, pressed play and the office-full of us waited for the first song to start. It didn't. After a few jokes about the 'ambient beginning', the singer remarked that the leader tape must be a bit longer than usual as Track 1 should have started by now. I casually glanced over at my cassette deck and realised I was in process of recording over Track 1. Bugger. I turned to the band and, with minimal eyelid-batting, said, "You know what, let's go to Track 2, shall we?"

Sometimes people would come in and say they had meetings when they didn't - it still goes on and you've got to admire the pluck. Last year, whilst at V2, I wasted many emails telling some Swedish songwriters that I never took meetings before hearing music. They refused to send me any music, claiming they were concerned about theft of their ideas. A couple of weeks later, Graham on reception phoned through to announce that my Swedish songwriter meeting was here. I ended up having to go down to reception to personally take the CDR and needless pile of A4. I claimed I would love to spend more time with them but was already busy in a meeting. Actually, I was just starving and really needed to go and buy a sandwich. For some reason they insisted on waiting in reception until their next 'meeting'. If this had been Universal they would have been escorted gently out of the building but V2 didn't really stretch to a bouncer budget so they made themselves comfortable. In the end, I had to scuttle out of the side door wearing a false moustache and beard.

Whilst at East West in Kensington, I once got a call from reception that a girl was here with a tape of her band for me. Knowing full well, she didn't have an appointment but admiring the pluck, I went to reception to relieve her of her demo - after all it might turn out to be the next... The girl turned out to be Justine Frischman with the first Suede demo - she lived over the road and we were the nearest record company to her.

The worst meeting I ever had - and believe me there is some stiff competition - was when my boss at RCA dumped a meeting with Kevin Rowland on me. This was in the early 90s, long before Rowland got off whatever drugs he was doing, did his transvestite thing for Creation and turned into the fairly reliable elder statesman he is now. I'd already heard his new album, on which he reunited with ex-Dexys trombonist 'Big' Jim Patterson. It wasn't great. Mike, my boss at the time, suddenly had to leave the building at short notice and asked me to dep for him. No problem. Into my office walked The Manager, 'Big' Jim, and Kevin. The former Dexys singer was not looking his best: imagine a malnourished Robert De Niro in Cape Fear - furrowed brow, tattoos, clenched fists... frankly he looked like he was ready to do some damage.

We exchange pleasantries and start talking about the project:
Me: I'm a big fan of all the Dexys stuff - I particularly love Don't Stand Me Down, totally underrated album, in my view...
Rowland (staring hard at me): We're not here to talk about the past, we're hear to talk about the future.
Me: Good point
Rowland: I think this album is the best thing I've ever done
Me: Well...
Rowland: What do you think?
At this point I go to flick ash from my freshly-lit cigarette into the ashtray and notice that one I am already smoking is still lying there. Clearly, I'm not doing the best job at masking my fear
Me: Well, I've only listened to it a couple of times...
Rowland: I think ------ is one of the best songs I've written
Me: Well let's put it on now and listen to it
I speed forward to the track in question. We listen to it, Big Jim and The Manager both nodding along far too enthusiastically, Kevin staring intensely at me. It finishes.
Rowland: What do you think?
Me: Well, I have to be honest, Kevin, I don't think it's for me.
Rowland: Well, you're in the wrong job, then.
At this point he stands up almost immediately. Christ, he's going to kill me! No, he's merely standing up to go. The meeting is over. The three of them walk out with only the most cursory of goodbyes. I am clearly, in their eyes, Satan.
A friend of mine who worked in marketing told me later that he watched the three of them marching silently down the RCA corridor towards the exit. As they reached the end of the corridor, Kevin turned to the manager and said: "I think that went quite well."

So anyway, I totally sympathise with anyone being in the meeting host position. None of my recent meetings have been as bad as that Rowland meeting - for starters I am prone to being quite adorable when I'm in the hot chair in front of the desk. But the point I'm trying to make here is that I'm glad it's not me doing the hosting; that it's not me being the grown-up 'in the office.'

In addition to this, everyone in record company offices seems to be suffering at the moment. One independent exec told me that the residual flow of money he used to get from catalogue sales of his artists has completely dried up, there are literally no sales any more, where before there always used to be enough to keep the company afloat. Another complained of the major label he worked for, being only interested in week-one sales, it didn't matter if his albums ended up selling well over time, in the company's eyes they were finished if the Week One over-the-counter didn't hit the mark. A third told me how CD sales were down by almost half on last year's average - where last year he could sell 30K and justify the cost of production and a reasonable marketing campaign, now he sold 15K which meant his production and marketing involved doing it all himself and crossing his fingers. I asked him what the solution was and he smiled and said "Suicide?". I think he was joking but we were several storeys high at the time.

Of course, one reason all my meeting hosts could all have been complaining about the industry so vocally to me is that they wanted to very firmly state that they couldn't give me any freelance work; read my lips, Wardle: LOSE MY NUMBER. I'm glad that thought never crossed my mind as I sat in their offices, I would have have had to resort to weeping and genuflecting.

My four year old daughter Madeleine asked me the other day if she could come and see my office. I'm sure she would be disappointed if she came in because there is no swank: there's only four of us in there, no girls dressed in pink, no exciting drinks machine, bleepy security passes or wall-mounted plasma screens. She would find it dull. I, on the other hand, am punching the air.