"Ben, it's someone called Brian from Dandelion Radio, he wants to interview the band and he's asking what time they're onstage?"
"Tell him I'll call him back"
"OK. Brian, he'll call you back, he's just driving right now..."
"Daddy, can you put on Jungle Book?"
Five minutes pass. Esther starts crying from behind us. Clearly the pointy bit of croissant we'd tried to placate her with hasn't done the trick.
"Daddy, I'm thirsty," says Maddy.
The mobile rings again. Robyn answers like last time.
"It's Kev from Radio 1, he wants to interview the band too."
"Daddy, I'M THIRSTY!"
Esther's crying gets more like The Great Gig in The Sky.
"Hang on, I'll pull over..."
The Scottish Band are at T In The Park and I'm doing my job; fielding calls, hooking people up, making things happen. But of course, I'm nowhere near Balado, Kinross. To be precise I'm now parked up in a lay-by somewhere outside Nantes, on my way to a campsite in Brittany. After this my small family car full of sweaty people, toys, and boulangerie products will finally be heading to Calais and home.
I'm actually writing this having been back in London for several days. We made it back in one piece, despite the A13 not living up to the Billy Bragg song. We sat on this infamous East London access road for what seemed like days, listening to the CDs I wrote about in the last blog entry, as four lanes of traffic squeezed unhappily into one. Never had Elbow's plaintive balladry seemed more appropriate.
And on returning home and finally looking at Email, catching up on calls and doing all the re-acclimatisation you do after a two week break it became apparent that some really exciting things had happened to the Sb while I was away. Admittedly I knew about some of them already - some more plays on Radio 1, including Zane Lowe, our first NME piece - but looking at the Glastonbury BBC footage and getting emails from people telling me they'd seen the video on T in The Park coverage on BBC 1 and BBC 3 made me realise how quickly things change in the music business
When I left England, our girl band from Swindon were a five piece, on my return they are a four piece. OK, it's easy to lose a band member but that change has resulted in new songs, a new look, a Myspace redesign and frankly, a massive improvement. All that in two weeks. Blimey, all I did was lie in the sun reading John Cheever stories.
I've also come back to discover Black Kids being everywhere. Their album went in at 5 this week and the reviews appear to be largely favourable despite what the temptation must be to lead the backlash. Musically, to me at least, they play a rather pedestrian yelpy boy/girl indie pop not dissimilar to a band called Semifinalists, who I looked after when I was at V2. The latter had already released 2 EPs before I inherited them and were about to put out a third and an album. Their press person told me how the NME had lavished praise on them, singling out band member Ferry as a genius. The album did OK and then we began the long process of making the follow-up. I was still A&Ring it when V2 got sold to Universal and the record finally came out a couple of months ago. I bet you probably never even noticed, right? Exactly. Thus are the breaks of rock and pop: one minute you're at the top ... Good luck, Black Kids.
Going on holiday when you work in music is hard but let's be honest, these days, going on holiday during the tenure of any job is hard - there is so much competition, back-biting and overcrowding in all business, that 'taking a vacation' is treated with similar sniffiness as taking a sick day. Come in even if you feel like you're about to die; you should always be contactable on your Blackberry or mobile; you never know when you might be needed. I can remember holidays in the music business before the days of ubiquitous electronic connectivity and there was only stress the day before you left: had you spoken to everyone? Had you delegated to people? Were all the artists clear on what they were doing? But once you were out of there, you were on holiday: it was like going to bed - goodnight, see you all in the morning!
Now, there isn't much stress on the eve of departure because if you've forgotten anything, or not informed anyone of your whereabouts, your mobile is assumed to be on all the time. You're never quite fully on holiday. It's like meeting friends: I used to be very organised when I went out: I'll meet you in Pollo on Old Compton Street at 7.30pm, next Thursday. Now everything is much more fluid: we'll meet in Soho next week, I'll text you on the day or you call me, OK, bye!
This is all fine of course, and frankly for those of us who tend toward vagueness, it's a massive step forward. But sometimes, this reliance on technology backfires. Particularly where there's no mobile phone signal. I'm not sure whether mobile phone culture was the problem for the Sb at Glastonbury, but no one quite knew where anything was when they arrived on Friday afternoon in Pilton; a smile and a shrug seemed to be the main body language on show. Where was the guest parking for example? They eventually got directed to a field where they could park the van, but quickly learnt that it was the wrong one and miles away from guest camping. Then the van sank into the mud. The rest of Friday night was spent waiting someone to come and winch them out. After making the call - they got through on the mobile - they waited five hours. Imagine it: FIVE HOURS of sitting in a muddy field hearing the distant sound of Franz Ferdinand wafting over from the main stage. The chasm of difference between life at the top and life at the bottom of the bill can never have seemed so apparent. I never asked them, but I wonder if the onboard PC came in handy while they were waiting. Let's hope they had something to do other than sit there cursing Michael Eavis. When the rescue truck finally did arrive, the driver said he'd only got the mayday call ten minutes beforehand. Hmm, let's blame it on Somerset's bad mobile connectivity shall we?
Hearing about this ordeal two weeks after the event makes me even more proud about the band's triumphant performance on the following Sunday. There's even footage of them handing out those triangles to the crowd. And two weeks later, they drove up to Kinross and did it all again, getting the whole tent singing along to their tunes at T In The Park. And they did both those interviews too - I sorted it out with Brian and Kev, employing the wonders of mobile phone technology, while Robyn fed Esther and Maddy listened to the Jungle Book in the back of the car.
Showing posts with label the Scottish band. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Scottish band. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Love Triangle
The London Transport guard looks at me, no doubt speculating on the level of terroristic threat I pose to the network, "So what's in the box, then?"
"A hundred triangles."
"A hundred what?"
"Triangles - you know, the ones you play..."
He looks at me as if I am insane. And it's true, it can't be very often that a passenger asks to leave a large box by the turnstyles of an Underground station these days, unless they're planning for mass panic. But I do in fact have one hundred of yer very finest Chinese 5" triangles with me. I'm on route to the West End (of London not Glasgow) to deliver them to the Scottish band, who are in town the day before the Glastonbury weekend to play a warm-up show. The triangles are part of their merchandise - more observant readers will already be making a link between the triangles and the name of the band but relax, I'm not in the least bit close to spelling it out for you.
Anyway, in true managerial plate-spinning style I have a whole load of different meetings and deliveries to make and of course given that I have so much to remember, one thing has fallen through the net - I've forgotten my mobile. However, thinking that the LU official won't be quite as forgiving if I tell him this, I have told him that I've left my tube pass at home, and asked if I can leave my heavy box with him briefly, while I pop back to my nearby house and pick it up. At this point it's worth remembering my recent experience with that bus driver, who not only would not let me off his bus but wouldn't actually even talk to me. If this fella has been to the same London Transport School of Customer Service then I'm in trouble. Not only do I have to drop off an important package for a former eighties pop star, who I'm trying to impress so he wants to work with me, but I also have to sort out the industry guest list for the night as well as smooth out pretty much everything else before driving to France tomorrow.
I'm actually writing this from France, by the way, something which may seem an entirely irrelevant piece of information but which still makes me throw my hands in the air with amazement - I can walk for the half hour it takes to get from the remote house where we're staying to the tiny village of Prayssac, find a little cafe opposite the town square and suddenly I'm back managing the band, talking to friends and writing the blog. Please forgive me if I sound like someone who's just discovered the mobile phone but this is the first time I've actually used an Internet café and I still full of the excitement of a new convert. Although it must be said that le French keyboard is exceptionally annoyment for the touch typist; I mean, if I was to type this sentence without taking into account that some Frenchman has rearranged half the letters it would look like this: if I aqs to type this sentence zithouth tqkingh into qcctount thqt so,e Frech,eqn hqs reqrrqnged qll the letters it zoulg look like this. Qnnoying eh§,
Anyway where was I? Yes, all that stuff to do before I came here. Plus I had to decide on what music to take in the car. Actually, that's the bit of going on holiday I always enjoy the most. Of course, I always take the iPod which has all the newest stuff I'm listening to on it but the car is still in the dark ages, having a CD player without the seemingly now ubiquitous iPod socket, I notice in all my A&R friends cars. Actually, this is quite ironic really, I can remember the days not so long ago when record company people used to covert DAT players in their cars in order to listen to mixes in perfect studio quality. Now all anyone wants is the convenience of the Pod, and to hell with perfect sound - everything is so compressed these anyway you may as well listen in the same way as everyone else.
But actually I quite enjoy the old school aspect of having a CD player in the car as it means I can select the holiday listening; I have to decide in advance which is half the fun. For those of you who are interested in this (and having just listened to another Word podcast where this sort of thing is discussed every week, I know there are lots of you out there) here's some of what I brought with me:
-- The latest Bruce Springsteen
There are actually some open, winding roads in The Lot region, which will finally do this widescreen album more justice than playing it in Walthamstow.
-- Five Leaves Left
Very obvious but I always pack a Nick Drake with me along with the suncream and hayfever pills.
-- Otis Blue
Not, I stress, the recently reissued, unnecessarily double CD of this album, just the original in all its unadorned glory.
-- The new Mystery Jets album
Really enjoying this at the moment. Are they the heirs to the Cure's accessible altpop crown? Sounded great driving back from Saint Cirque La Popie yesterday. And a hidden Aztec Camera cover as a final treat!
-- The new Coldplay album
Say what you want about him, Chris Martin has the songwriting chops; just when you think he's lost the tune and gone onto autopilot, he twists the song in such a clever and deft way that you have to try really hard to resist.
-- Kraftwerk's Man Machine
Along with all the other penetrating and salient stuff he says, LCD's James Murphy pointed out that kids love Kraftwerk and he is not wrong. This one from pop's finest year (1978 of course!) has The Model on it as well as We Are The Robots, which sounds great when sung by Maddy from the back of the car and makes a refreshing change from Valerie by The Monkees which we had to listen to five times in a row on the way to Dover.
-- Best of the Monkees
Which I now never want to hear again (see above)
-- Consolers of The Lonely by The Raconteurs
Time will tell whether releasing this album without submitting it to the press was a good idea, you don't get the feeling that many people have realised just how fantastic a record it is. It's the thinking man's White Stripes - with bass guitar (at last!), added Benson melody, and a whole Zeppelinesque stature to Jack White. It's pretty good at 120 kmh round bends too.
-- In A Silent Way by Miles Davies
It's the one with only two tracks on it, the first of which, Shhh Peaceful, is a beautiful end of afternoon driving home groove. Robyn finds it a bit annoying and Maddy is still shouting for Valerie but quite frankly, I'm the daddy, OK? Actually, Maddy hasn't got a leg to stand on as far as in-car music taste is concerned: the last time we were here two years ago, when she was two and a half, she insisted on hearing Monster by The Automatic the whole time. "And look where they are now!" I say triumphantly, "people are still listening to Miles Davies though!" She doesn't understand though, and in the end I relent and let her have The Monkees again.
-- The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow
I still can't get over how bad the band name is compared to how good the group are. One Day Like This is on all my compilations at the moment - I put it on the one for the famous eighties pop star who I am trying to impress - I hope he gets over the name Elbow and realises the transcendental nature of this song. It manages to do all the things they promise great music does like make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and the blood flood into your brain. I think I also put it on a CD for the Scottish band for their trip to Glastonbury in their new van. But it turns out that the van doesn't have a CD player, surprising since one of the things that recommended it to me (of course I, as manager, was the one required to part with the cash for it) was that it had a PC on board. A PC but no CD! I assume that this meant a personal computer as opposed to a police constable although given that the van is an ex-police vehicle perhaps the law requires that it does have one last remaining officer on board. Anyway, Elbow: a good album, although the opening track is a bastard for getting the volume right on - starts really quietly then explodes, then gets quiet again. Bit like Maddy after 8 hours in the car. I tell you, washing sick off the car seat whilst on the hard shoulder was not a high point.
-- Quite a lot of other stuff that I can't remember...
Give me a break, I'm sitting in a Café D'Internet! I can't be expected to remember everything - there's a bloody family in the booth next to me conducting a joint exploration of the Web in extremely audible French. I've had to retaliate by sticking on Olafur Arnalds to drown them out. Actually I wish I had brought Olafur's stuff with me for the car. He's a twenty-something Icelandic pianist with a hardcore rock background who now tours the world with a four piece female string section, playing beautiful, melancholy, orchestrated instrumentals, comparable with Eno's 70's stuff, Michael Nyman and of course Sigor Ros. I saw him headlining the Barbican last week and it was quite wonderful. And the audience was the sort of crowd you kind of want to see at all gigs - from really young to really quite old. All of them presumably having discovered Oli via the BBC's eclectic Late Junction. Here I have to come clean and confess that I actually publish Oli's first two releases - it's the first time I've been a music publisher and frankly if I can find a more talented, more amenable person to be the publisher of then I'll be surprised. Let's hope he's reading this, eh?
If the Scottish band are reading this they'll know of course that I did make it to the soundcheck of the London Glastonbury warm-up show in time. The London Underground guard grasped the concept that what was in the box was not going to endanger anyone's life unless they had a deepset trianglephobia (there must be a word for this, I'll look it up when I don't have the clock against me.)
"What triangles, like the ones you play at school?"he said, his face softening a bit.
"Yes; exactly like the ones you play at school," I quickly agreed.
"Oh go on then, I'll look after your box"
So I rush home, grab my phone and return to my guard, who hands me back the box. He's obviously been burning to ask me the question ever since I left.
"What are you doing with all them triangles, anyway, you a teacher?"
"No, I manage a band - we're selling them to the fans."
"Oh right, what are they called your band?"
I tell him.
"Oh right. Funny name for a band."
"Well, we like it. Thanks for looking after the box."
I ran off, got my train, drop off the compilation and package for the famous eighties pop star, sort out the guest list that the venue, after several years of emails and phone calls, have finally confirmed with me, buy some guitar strings and plectrums for the band in Denmark St, have dinner at a posh London club with a handful of A&R men who still have jobs and then escort some of those to the gig.
And the triangles? Yes, I deliver them safely to the guys. I later hear how they got used at Glastonbury a couple of days later, but that's another story ...
"A hundred triangles."
"A hundred what?"
"Triangles - you know, the ones you play..."
He looks at me as if I am insane. And it's true, it can't be very often that a passenger asks to leave a large box by the turnstyles of an Underground station these days, unless they're planning for mass panic. But I do in fact have one hundred of yer very finest Chinese 5" triangles with me. I'm on route to the West End (of London not Glasgow) to deliver them to the Scottish band, who are in town the day before the Glastonbury weekend to play a warm-up show. The triangles are part of their merchandise - more observant readers will already be making a link between the triangles and the name of the band but relax, I'm not in the least bit close to spelling it out for you.
Anyway, in true managerial plate-spinning style I have a whole load of different meetings and deliveries to make and of course given that I have so much to remember, one thing has fallen through the net - I've forgotten my mobile. However, thinking that the LU official won't be quite as forgiving if I tell him this, I have told him that I've left my tube pass at home, and asked if I can leave my heavy box with him briefly, while I pop back to my nearby house and pick it up. At this point it's worth remembering my recent experience with that bus driver, who not only would not let me off his bus but wouldn't actually even talk to me. If this fella has been to the same London Transport School of Customer Service then I'm in trouble. Not only do I have to drop off an important package for a former eighties pop star, who I'm trying to impress so he wants to work with me, but I also have to sort out the industry guest list for the night as well as smooth out pretty much everything else before driving to France tomorrow.
I'm actually writing this from France, by the way, something which may seem an entirely irrelevant piece of information but which still makes me throw my hands in the air with amazement - I can walk for the half hour it takes to get from the remote house where we're staying to the tiny village of Prayssac, find a little cafe opposite the town square and suddenly I'm back managing the band, talking to friends and writing the blog. Please forgive me if I sound like someone who's just discovered the mobile phone but this is the first time I've actually used an Internet café and I still full of the excitement of a new convert. Although it must be said that le French keyboard is exceptionally annoyment for the touch typist; I mean, if I was to type this sentence without taking into account that some Frenchman has rearranged half the letters it would look like this: if I aqs to type this sentence zithouth tqkingh into qcctount thqt so,e Frech,eqn hqs reqrrqnged qll the letters it zoulg look like this. Qnnoying eh§,
Anyway where was I? Yes, all that stuff to do before I came here. Plus I had to decide on what music to take in the car. Actually, that's the bit of going on holiday I always enjoy the most. Of course, I always take the iPod which has all the newest stuff I'm listening to on it but the car is still in the dark ages, having a CD player without the seemingly now ubiquitous iPod socket, I notice in all my A&R friends cars. Actually, this is quite ironic really, I can remember the days not so long ago when record company people used to covert DAT players in their cars in order to listen to mixes in perfect studio quality. Now all anyone wants is the convenience of the Pod, and to hell with perfect sound - everything is so compressed these anyway you may as well listen in the same way as everyone else.
But actually I quite enjoy the old school aspect of having a CD player in the car as it means I can select the holiday listening; I have to decide in advance which is half the fun. For those of you who are interested in this (and having just listened to another Word podcast where this sort of thing is discussed every week, I know there are lots of you out there) here's some of what I brought with me:
-- The latest Bruce Springsteen
There are actually some open, winding roads in The Lot region, which will finally do this widescreen album more justice than playing it in Walthamstow.
-- Five Leaves Left
Very obvious but I always pack a Nick Drake with me along with the suncream and hayfever pills.
-- Otis Blue
Not, I stress, the recently reissued, unnecessarily double CD of this album, just the original in all its unadorned glory.
-- The new Mystery Jets album
Really enjoying this at the moment. Are they the heirs to the Cure's accessible altpop crown? Sounded great driving back from Saint Cirque La Popie yesterday. And a hidden Aztec Camera cover as a final treat!
-- The new Coldplay album
Say what you want about him, Chris Martin has the songwriting chops; just when you think he's lost the tune and gone onto autopilot, he twists the song in such a clever and deft way that you have to try really hard to resist.
-- Kraftwerk's Man Machine
Along with all the other penetrating and salient stuff he says, LCD's James Murphy pointed out that kids love Kraftwerk and he is not wrong. This one from pop's finest year (1978 of course!) has The Model on it as well as We Are The Robots, which sounds great when sung by Maddy from the back of the car and makes a refreshing change from Valerie by The Monkees which we had to listen to five times in a row on the way to Dover.
-- Best of the Monkees
Which I now never want to hear again (see above)
-- Consolers of The Lonely by The Raconteurs
Time will tell whether releasing this album without submitting it to the press was a good idea, you don't get the feeling that many people have realised just how fantastic a record it is. It's the thinking man's White Stripes - with bass guitar (at last!), added Benson melody, and a whole Zeppelinesque stature to Jack White. It's pretty good at 120 kmh round bends too.
-- In A Silent Way by Miles Davies
It's the one with only two tracks on it, the first of which, Shhh Peaceful, is a beautiful end of afternoon driving home groove. Robyn finds it a bit annoying and Maddy is still shouting for Valerie but quite frankly, I'm the daddy, OK? Actually, Maddy hasn't got a leg to stand on as far as in-car music taste is concerned: the last time we were here two years ago, when she was two and a half, she insisted on hearing Monster by The Automatic the whole time. "And look where they are now!" I say triumphantly, "people are still listening to Miles Davies though!" She doesn't understand though, and in the end I relent and let her have The Monkees again.
-- The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow
I still can't get over how bad the band name is compared to how good the group are. One Day Like This is on all my compilations at the moment - I put it on the one for the famous eighties pop star who I am trying to impress - I hope he gets over the name Elbow and realises the transcendental nature of this song. It manages to do all the things they promise great music does like make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and the blood flood into your brain. I think I also put it on a CD for the Scottish band for their trip to Glastonbury in their new van. But it turns out that the van doesn't have a CD player, surprising since one of the things that recommended it to me (of course I, as manager, was the one required to part with the cash for it) was that it had a PC on board. A PC but no CD! I assume that this meant a personal computer as opposed to a police constable although given that the van is an ex-police vehicle perhaps the law requires that it does have one last remaining officer on board. Anyway, Elbow: a good album, although the opening track is a bastard for getting the volume right on - starts really quietly then explodes, then gets quiet again. Bit like Maddy after 8 hours in the car. I tell you, washing sick off the car seat whilst on the hard shoulder was not a high point.
-- Quite a lot of other stuff that I can't remember...
Give me a break, I'm sitting in a Café D'Internet! I can't be expected to remember everything - there's a bloody family in the booth next to me conducting a joint exploration of the Web in extremely audible French. I've had to retaliate by sticking on Olafur Arnalds to drown them out. Actually I wish I had brought Olafur's stuff with me for the car. He's a twenty-something Icelandic pianist with a hardcore rock background who now tours the world with a four piece female string section, playing beautiful, melancholy, orchestrated instrumentals, comparable with Eno's 70's stuff, Michael Nyman and of course Sigor Ros. I saw him headlining the Barbican last week and it was quite wonderful. And the audience was the sort of crowd you kind of want to see at all gigs - from really young to really quite old. All of them presumably having discovered Oli via the BBC's eclectic Late Junction. Here I have to come clean and confess that I actually publish Oli's first two releases - it's the first time I've been a music publisher and frankly if I can find a more talented, more amenable person to be the publisher of then I'll be surprised. Let's hope he's reading this, eh?
If the Scottish band are reading this they'll know of course that I did make it to the soundcheck of the London Glastonbury warm-up show in time. The London Underground guard grasped the concept that what was in the box was not going to endanger anyone's life unless they had a deepset trianglephobia (there must be a word for this, I'll look it up when I don't have the clock against me.)
"What triangles, like the ones you play at school?"he said, his face softening a bit.
"Yes; exactly like the ones you play at school," I quickly agreed.
"Oh go on then, I'll look after your box"
So I rush home, grab my phone and return to my guard, who hands me back the box. He's obviously been burning to ask me the question ever since I left.
"What are you doing with all them triangles, anyway, you a teacher?"
"No, I manage a band - we're selling them to the fans."
"Oh right, what are they called your band?"
I tell him.
"Oh right. Funny name for a band."
"Well, we like it. Thanks for looking after the box."
I ran off, got my train, drop off the compilation and package for the famous eighties pop star, sort out the guest list that the venue, after several years of emails and phone calls, have finally confirmed with me, buy some guitar strings and plectrums for the band in Denmark St, have dinner at a posh London club with a handful of A&R men who still have jobs and then escort some of those to the gig.
And the triangles? Yes, I deliver them safely to the guys. I later hear how they got used at Glastonbury a couple of days later, but that's another story ...
Sunday, 8 June 2008
A night in, please God, a night in ...
Gigs, gigs, gigs. So many gigs. And I'm not even on tour. Here I am at 1.30am, half drunk, sitting on my third night bus home, listening to the Fleet Foxes album on my iPod and wondering if there's dad-related activity to do once I get home.
Frankly by the end of last week, I almost hugged the television. A night in! Come Friday, mouthful of After Eights, caning the Sky Plus, I would have been in heaven, had I not had to balance my screaming five month old on my knee. At the moment it appears that Esther is auditioning to be the next Clare Torry. A friend of mine who is now horribly senior at Sony BMG had his first child before me and I remember him telling me, when she was first born, how he'd had to go through the pain barrier of exhaustion: you come home from a night of gigs, you get ready for bed and just as you hit the pillow, the weeping starts. Your wife, who is annoyed at you being out all the time having fun at gigs ("But it's work!" "Work?! You're standing around drinking and watching bands. Call that work? Don't make me laugh!"), expects you to deal with it so you're up in your pajamas, walking like a zombie around and around and around, muttering consoling words and trying not to fall over with exhaustion. Eventually, the child will go to sleep but you will be wide awake and probably feeling a bit peckish. Before you know it, it's 5 AM and you're on the sofa, eating Marmite on toast and watching The Sopranos on DVD. Multiply that by five days a week and it's no wonder pop music is so full of broken marriages.
Still, I must say, the gigs have been great. If you read last week's blog you'll know about the Glasgow shows - oh yes, by the way here's a bit of film of that punch up I wrote about - even watching it back, I still find it surreal.
Anyway, the band headed South after this. They played in Liverpool, Stoke and Manchester. In Manchester somewhat inevitably, they met Mancunian comedy institution Frank Sidebottom - William said he caught a glimpse of skin and hair through the famous paper mache head and "he was really old". Reminded me of Julian Cope's story of seeing The Residents live and catching a glimpse of hair poking out from under the mask - he could never take them seriously after that.
By the end of the week the Scottish band were properly South - in leafy, quaint, stockbrokerish Guildford, no less. As far as I can remember I think I've only been to a couple of shows in Guildford. I think we once drove Elastica there when Michael (now the exhausted father/Sony exec I wrote about in the paragraph above) and I were hoping to release their first record on our label Scared Hitless and we were playing at being tour managers. They was already a buzz about them for obvious Suede and Blur reasons and we wanted them to play some shows out of the spotlight. It was decided that the best way to do this was to book them as another band - a band with a really off-putting name. Someone, I can't remember who but probably Justine, came up with 'Onk'. Amazingly, we still got plenty of A&R people prepared to have a sniff around Onk.
The Scottish band don't have a big A&R buzz around them yet - although people are beginning to come out of the woodwork. In Manchester, they had their first meeting with a scout. Interestingly, they were surprised at how little was actually on the agenda for this meeting. They didn't fully understand the reason scouts want to meet bands: scouts are not going to do anything - not unless there is already an almighty buzz. No, they are chatting you up, making friends, forging relationships. Then when it's important to sign the band, when the rest of the company is galvanised, the scout is at the vanguard with his or her own special relationship. That's why so many A&R people are so charming - they have spent a long time honing the skill of making you feel like you are the most important musician they have ever met.
It sounds like I'm being cynical about A&R folk but of course I count myself in this camp - I'm a bit rusty but on a good day I can still just about find the necessary charm when I have to win people over. But the relationship between A&R scout and unsigned band is mutually beneficial, because it's just what you need when you're a musician playing to an audience of three disinterested, drunk people - a sparky young A&R person comparing you to the bands that you've always thought you were inspired by. Most bands will recognise the deal that is going down prior to signing - it is a courtship, a romance. And once the deal is struck and the marriage starts, very often it all ends in tears, recriminations, mutual lack of respect. BUT, maybe, just occasionally, lovely beautiful children are born.
The Scottish band - I wonder, shall I start calling them by their name? If you have any thoughts on this add a comment - in fact, while I'm here talking about comments, if you have any stuff to say about the blog please put a comment below. I get so many mails and Facebook messages about it but not that many folk leave comments here. It would be good if you did because that would of course make me look really popular... Anyway where was I? Ah yes, The Sb at the Guildford Boileroom.
The Sb play a show to an audience of about twenty. I sense the crowd are not fully in the mood for indie rock though. Not when members of the opposite sex are drinking for Surrey outside the venue. This massive crowd of 18-year old girls in oversized heels is in the beer garden due to the balmy weather. The Boileroom is situated at the end of a cobbled street, flanked with pretty cottages. Because of the residential area, the venue has a bizarre traffic light entry/exit system to stop noise leaking from the bar/venue into the beer garden. This took some working out for me and is clearly a rite of passage for all young Guildford residents. When the light is green outside you can pull the door open. Once inside, you find yourself in a small lobby - like a decompression chamber - looking up at a red light over a second door. Once this is green, or indeed the door opens up, you can enter the bar. Simple enough, but try adding three or four people to every decompression wait, any two of whom might have consumed one too many Bacadi Breezers. It certainly breaks the ice.
After the show, we drank the rider in the dressing room which is situated above the venue and appears to double as the kitchen for the hapless student residents who live above the venue. True to the name of the venue, there was indeed a very large old boiler smack bang in the middle of it. We were in the epicentre of The Boileroom. This cannot be ideal for the residents and indeed we met several of them as they were heading upstairs. They were all Chinese - the first, a smiley man whom we asked if it was OK that we were sitting in his kitchen. It didn't look like he understood so we asked again. "Ah..." he said, the light of comprehension in his eyes, "twenty past eleven." He showed us his watch with a flourish.
After doing Southampton and Coventry, the band arrived in London. They had never played in the capital before and despite being booked second on the bill on a Tuesday night, this was the most important night of the tour. The gig where influential people and industry types who can make a difference can see them. It was in every way THE BIG ONE.
I'd booked them into a hotel near to the Buffalo Bar where they were playing - the temptingly-named Costello Palace. Like me, the band rate Elvis' early work so this seemed appropriate. But when I met with them at the soundcheck they were less than enthusiastic - apparently the bedrooms were not exactly Imperial, each being furnished with its own condoms and 'lube'.
"And there's not even that much lube left in my room," deadpanned William, the keyboard player.
"You should send down for some more, bro." suggested Andrew on bass.
I had a bite to eat with the band, then popped out to get some money out of the cashpoint, leaving my mobile phone on the table of the cafe. While I was outside, my mobile went off. William saw 'Lamacq Mobile' flashing on the screen but didn't answer it. When I came back he said to me whilst raising an eyebrow, "Steve Lamacq called".
"Great - told you he was coming tonight!" I said triumphantly.
"Odd that he calls you just as you're out at the cashpoint - bit of a coincidence," William makes inverted commas around the 'out at the cashpoint' bit.
He's joking but it would have been an excellent managerial ruse to appear important in front of my band: to pop out on a vague pretext and phone myself from a prearranged number that comes up as a famous DJ, thereby making myself look like a hero - the great Radio 1 indie champion himself is phoning me personally. I am indeed friends with both movers and shakers!
Of course the truth is far more prosaic, as you know. I've known Steve for a long long time - I once guested on his pirate radio show back in the 1780s on a station called Q103. I still have a tape of this somewhere. He was interviewing me about being an A&R scout and I described it as being like a traffic warden - everyone hates you but you're just doing your job... Bit of work needed on that analogy I think.
Despite being, as everyone knows, married to his music, Steve is an incredibly loyal friend. He will come and see friends' bands and crucially - and this is what friends don't do normally - he won't tell you he loves it when he doesn't. We had gone to see his friend Simon 'Fierce Panda' Williams' band the week before who were being primed by Simon for rock stardom. Incidentally, Simon's band Capital were on the same bill at the Dublin Castle as a band called Ham Sandwich, which surely must be evidence that the world has finally run out of band names. Anyway, Steve will be frank with both myself and Simon, I'm sure. Obviously, I hope he likes both but COME ON - my band are far better!
And indeed in London, they didn't disappoint. Alongside Steve there were radio, press and other members of the PR and radio team and the show was absolute proof that a couple of weeks on the road really sharpens up a band. There were even a couple of posh St Trinian's type girls down at the front who apparently Myspaced the band the following day with obscene promises for the next time the band come to the capital.
By the end of the evening I was on a high, made sweeter by Artrocker promoter Paul telling me that he wasn't going to charge me for the extra guest list. Again I've known Paul for years. Don't get me wrong, when I say I know people I don't always mean they've been coming round for Christmas or we share amusing anecdotes over bottles of Merlot, it just means that we have met occasionally and said hello during the eons we've been in the business. And when I say a long time... well, I'm old enough to remember Paul Cox coming into my office at East West with a cassette of PJ Harvey, Too Pure Records a mere twinkle in his eye.
As I stood at the bar drinking with the band, a short grey-haired man came up to them
"Are you XXXXXXXXX?"
"Aye."
"I thought you were great! I'm Andy Gill from Gang Of Four..."
It was a lovely end to the evening and one that consoled me as I sat swaying side to side on the nightbus as it weaved along the Lee Bridge Road. Now for that night in.
Frankly by the end of last week, I almost hugged the television. A night in! Come Friday, mouthful of After Eights, caning the Sky Plus, I would have been in heaven, had I not had to balance my screaming five month old on my knee. At the moment it appears that Esther is auditioning to be the next Clare Torry. A friend of mine who is now horribly senior at Sony BMG had his first child before me and I remember him telling me, when she was first born, how he'd had to go through the pain barrier of exhaustion: you come home from a night of gigs, you get ready for bed and just as you hit the pillow, the weeping starts. Your wife, who is annoyed at you being out all the time having fun at gigs ("But it's work!" "Work?! You're standing around drinking and watching bands. Call that work? Don't make me laugh!"), expects you to deal with it so you're up in your pajamas, walking like a zombie around and around and around, muttering consoling words and trying not to fall over with exhaustion. Eventually, the child will go to sleep but you will be wide awake and probably feeling a bit peckish. Before you know it, it's 5 AM and you're on the sofa, eating Marmite on toast and watching The Sopranos on DVD. Multiply that by five days a week and it's no wonder pop music is so full of broken marriages.
Still, I must say, the gigs have been great. If you read last week's blog you'll know about the Glasgow shows - oh yes, by the way here's a bit of film of that punch up I wrote about - even watching it back, I still find it surreal.
Anyway, the band headed South after this. They played in Liverpool, Stoke and Manchester. In Manchester somewhat inevitably, they met Mancunian comedy institution Frank Sidebottom - William said he caught a glimpse of skin and hair through the famous paper mache head and "he was really old". Reminded me of Julian Cope's story of seeing The Residents live and catching a glimpse of hair poking out from under the mask - he could never take them seriously after that.
By the end of the week the Scottish band were properly South - in leafy, quaint, stockbrokerish Guildford, no less. As far as I can remember I think I've only been to a couple of shows in Guildford. I think we once drove Elastica there when Michael (now the exhausted father/Sony exec I wrote about in the paragraph above) and I were hoping to release their first record on our label Scared Hitless and we were playing at being tour managers. They was already a buzz about them for obvious Suede and Blur reasons and we wanted them to play some shows out of the spotlight. It was decided that the best way to do this was to book them as another band - a band with a really off-putting name. Someone, I can't remember who but probably Justine, came up with 'Onk'. Amazingly, we still got plenty of A&R people prepared to have a sniff around Onk.
The Scottish band don't have a big A&R buzz around them yet - although people are beginning to come out of the woodwork. In Manchester, they had their first meeting with a scout. Interestingly, they were surprised at how little was actually on the agenda for this meeting. They didn't fully understand the reason scouts want to meet bands: scouts are not going to do anything - not unless there is already an almighty buzz. No, they are chatting you up, making friends, forging relationships. Then when it's important to sign the band, when the rest of the company is galvanised, the scout is at the vanguard with his or her own special relationship. That's why so many A&R people are so charming - they have spent a long time honing the skill of making you feel like you are the most important musician they have ever met.
It sounds like I'm being cynical about A&R folk but of course I count myself in this camp - I'm a bit rusty but on a good day I can still just about find the necessary charm when I have to win people over. But the relationship between A&R scout and unsigned band is mutually beneficial, because it's just what you need when you're a musician playing to an audience of three disinterested, drunk people - a sparky young A&R person comparing you to the bands that you've always thought you were inspired by. Most bands will recognise the deal that is going down prior to signing - it is a courtship, a romance. And once the deal is struck and the marriage starts, very often it all ends in tears, recriminations, mutual lack of respect. BUT, maybe, just occasionally, lovely beautiful children are born.
The Scottish band - I wonder, shall I start calling them by their name? If you have any thoughts on this add a comment - in fact, while I'm here talking about comments, if you have any stuff to say about the blog please put a comment below. I get so many mails and Facebook messages about it but not that many folk leave comments here. It would be good if you did because that would of course make me look really popular... Anyway where was I? Ah yes, The Sb at the Guildford Boileroom.
The Sb play a show to an audience of about twenty. I sense the crowd are not fully in the mood for indie rock though. Not when members of the opposite sex are drinking for Surrey outside the venue. This massive crowd of 18-year old girls in oversized heels is in the beer garden due to the balmy weather. The Boileroom is situated at the end of a cobbled street, flanked with pretty cottages. Because of the residential area, the venue has a bizarre traffic light entry/exit system to stop noise leaking from the bar/venue into the beer garden. This took some working out for me and is clearly a rite of passage for all young Guildford residents. When the light is green outside you can pull the door open. Once inside, you find yourself in a small lobby - like a decompression chamber - looking up at a red light over a second door. Once this is green, or indeed the door opens up, you can enter the bar. Simple enough, but try adding three or four people to every decompression wait, any two of whom might have consumed one too many Bacadi Breezers. It certainly breaks the ice.
After the show, we drank the rider in the dressing room which is situated above the venue and appears to double as the kitchen for the hapless student residents who live above the venue. True to the name of the venue, there was indeed a very large old boiler smack bang in the middle of it. We were in the epicentre of The Boileroom. This cannot be ideal for the residents and indeed we met several of them as they were heading upstairs. They were all Chinese - the first, a smiley man whom we asked if it was OK that we were sitting in his kitchen. It didn't look like he understood so we asked again. "Ah..." he said, the light of comprehension in his eyes, "twenty past eleven." He showed us his watch with a flourish.
After doing Southampton and Coventry, the band arrived in London. They had never played in the capital before and despite being booked second on the bill on a Tuesday night, this was the most important night of the tour. The gig where influential people and industry types who can make a difference can see them. It was in every way THE BIG ONE.
I'd booked them into a hotel near to the Buffalo Bar where they were playing - the temptingly-named Costello Palace. Like me, the band rate Elvis' early work so this seemed appropriate. But when I met with them at the soundcheck they were less than enthusiastic - apparently the bedrooms were not exactly Imperial, each being furnished with its own condoms and 'lube'.
"And there's not even that much lube left in my room," deadpanned William, the keyboard player.
"You should send down for some more, bro." suggested Andrew on bass.
I had a bite to eat with the band, then popped out to get some money out of the cashpoint, leaving my mobile phone on the table of the cafe. While I was outside, my mobile went off. William saw 'Lamacq Mobile' flashing on the screen but didn't answer it. When I came back he said to me whilst raising an eyebrow, "Steve Lamacq called".
"Great - told you he was coming tonight!" I said triumphantly.
"Odd that he calls you just as you're out at the cashpoint - bit of a coincidence," William makes inverted commas around the 'out at the cashpoint' bit.
He's joking but it would have been an excellent managerial ruse to appear important in front of my band: to pop out on a vague pretext and phone myself from a prearranged number that comes up as a famous DJ, thereby making myself look like a hero - the great Radio 1 indie champion himself is phoning me personally. I am indeed friends with both movers and shakers!
Of course the truth is far more prosaic, as you know. I've known Steve for a long long time - I once guested on his pirate radio show back in the 1780s on a station called Q103. I still have a tape of this somewhere. He was interviewing me about being an A&R scout and I described it as being like a traffic warden - everyone hates you but you're just doing your job... Bit of work needed on that analogy I think.
Despite being, as everyone knows, married to his music, Steve is an incredibly loyal friend. He will come and see friends' bands and crucially - and this is what friends don't do normally - he won't tell you he loves it when he doesn't. We had gone to see his friend Simon 'Fierce Panda' Williams' band the week before who were being primed by Simon for rock stardom. Incidentally, Simon's band Capital were on the same bill at the Dublin Castle as a band called Ham Sandwich, which surely must be evidence that the world has finally run out of band names. Anyway, Steve will be frank with both myself and Simon, I'm sure. Obviously, I hope he likes both but COME ON - my band are far better!
And indeed in London, they didn't disappoint. Alongside Steve there were radio, press and other members of the PR and radio team and the show was absolute proof that a couple of weeks on the road really sharpens up a band. There were even a couple of posh St Trinian's type girls down at the front who apparently Myspaced the band the following day with obscene promises for the next time the band come to the capital.
By the end of the evening I was on a high, made sweeter by Artrocker promoter Paul telling me that he wasn't going to charge me for the extra guest list. Again I've known Paul for years. Don't get me wrong, when I say I know people I don't always mean they've been coming round for Christmas or we share amusing anecdotes over bottles of Merlot, it just means that we have met occasionally and said hello during the eons we've been in the business. And when I say a long time... well, I'm old enough to remember Paul Cox coming into my office at East West with a cassette of PJ Harvey, Too Pure Records a mere twinkle in his eye.
As I stood at the bar drinking with the band, a short grey-haired man came up to them
"Are you XXXXXXXXX?"
"Aye."
"I thought you were great! I'm Andy Gill from Gang Of Four..."
It was a lovely end to the evening and one that consoled me as I sat swaying side to side on the nightbus as it weaved along the Lee Bridge Road. Now for that night in.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Punch up in a hotel room
I'm standing in a hotel room drinking a bottle of Becks, watching a man and a woman fighting on the bed. The man looks a bit like the guy out of the 118 adverts and the woman is attractive but looks like she could do some damage. She pulls the man's hair from the behind so he is forced back down on the bed, whereupon she straddles him and slaps him hard in the face. The other witnesses in the room, standing alongside me and around the foot of the bed all cheer. What the hell am I doing? We'll get to that, but all in good time.
It's Bank Holiday weekend and I'm in Glasgow. That's dedication for you. Or stupidity. One of the two. Or maybe both. Yes, both; this is what being a manager is about, I think. It makes no financial sense to book a band to play in a far-off town for £50 and yet, if two, or perhaps three people, see them and think they're good, tell their mates ... Anyway, the band are playing their hometown this weekend and it's a good opportunity for me to spend some time with them, talk about the rest of the year and perhaps share a couple of air-punches over the fact that we've GOT GLASTONBURY! The holy grail of live bookings is ours, my friends! It would be nice to be able to claim that it was my own managerial prowess that snaffled this but the truth is, the band are making friends.
They were put on the Radio 1 Introducing Stage shortlist by Radio 1 Scotland's Vic Galloway and his producer (apparently called Muslim). This of course didn't guarantee anything. Every regional BBC show nominates its favourite acts for the stage and then a select panel of voters at Radio are given a USB stick full of 100s of bands to vote on. This latter bit of information was relayed to me by Steve Lamacq after I got back from Glasgow (a very amusing evening was had in his company, which I'll tell you about in another blog). He told me that alongside all the luminaries like him, Huw Stephens and the usual folks who work in Specialist (the evening shows are called Speicialist in case you didn't know - as if the DJs have no idea about pop music but could tell you a few things about Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds), alongside these people is Gary Lightbody - you know, the singer from much maligned but does-my-face look-bothered-with-all-this-cash? Snow Patrol. It would be nice to think we got the Scottish vote from Gazza but somehow I don't think he's heard of us yet. No matter, Steve definitely voted for us, as did Huw Stephens so I suspect that these two votes were enough to secure us our place in Pilton on the Sunday.
All this seems a long way away as I find myself at Prestwick Airport again, with its ludicrous purple decor and cheap scrawly logo with the slogan Pure Dead Brilliant written in six foot high letters on all the walls. What is that about? It's a popular Glaswegian expression from the 70s apparently and used in various TV shows. By this logic we should give Stanstead the slogan 'I Don't Believe It!' Apparently PDB sounds better if you pronounce it with the local burr - so 'brilliant' sounds like 'brulliant'. Well, that's that sorted then... Didn't anyone in the marketing meeting reflect on it being an airport so a large number of people there will be tourists who wouldn't know Big Ben from Ben Nevis, let alone any regional accents, and secondly, it sounds just as rubbish with or without adopting a Shrek voice. That's what Maddy now calls all Scottish accents by the way. Thanks, Mike Myers. Actually, let's be honest, the main reason this slogan is terrible is the use of the word 'dead' in conjunction with air travel - surely someone must have pointed this out to the Prestwick marketing people. Prestwick Airport: Your Life In Our Hands! In fact, someone needs to focus them on the Presley thing - how about Prestwick Airport: Fly The Mystery Plane! Now that would be pure dead brilliant.
I arrive in Glasgow after the 40 minute train ride, a route that includes a stop at the brilliantly named Troon. Not only is it the loveliest word but it also looks like the residents of Troon (just say it to yourself!) have a pure dead brilliant time playing golf the whole day. Cheers!
Tonight I'm staying in the Merchant City which is where the band are playing on Sunday night. Saturday they are booked to play at The Barfly and soundcheck is not for a few hours yet so I wander around town enjoying the perfect weather. Again, I marvel at the fact that I've discovered another previously unknown-to-me area of Glasgow - The Merchant City, who knew? Beautiful nineteenth century buildings, scrubbed up and sleek, full of boutiques and coffee bars and very stylish people. Why have I never heard of this place before? They need Preswick's marketing team. They'd probably give it the tagline 'We're All Doomed!'
Actually what it needs is Stonehenge's PR people. I remember once driving down to Wool Hall recording studio in Bath with Alex James and Stephen Duffy in the mid '90s. For some reason we were taking a scenic route, possibly the A303, which passes right by Salisbury Plain. Over on the right was the monument, so near that we could even see tourists looking at it. None of us had seen Stonehenge before and we all felt the same thing at the same time: it's SMALL. Alex, sparking up another Camel, flicked the Britpop hair out of his eyes and said, "Who does its press?". Whoever does it needs to do Glasgow Merchant City's too. My hotel The Merchant Lodge was just under £50 a night, situated in a lovely old tobacco baron's house, and literally around the corner from the main shopping mile Argyle street (with all the pleasure and pain associated with HMV, Marks and Spencers and Argos), whilst being deep in the peaceful sandy-coloured Merchant City. For all this, I still find myself in Fopp, ogling the racks of £5 albums, hypnotised by the temptation of endless cheap classic rock whilst mourning its loss in value.
The real meat of the weekend was the band's show on the Sunday night. They were playing as part of - and pretty much headlining - an event called Get A Room. This is something that has been going for about six years and is essentially a one day festival with the twist that all the acts are playing in the Brunswick Hotel in the Merchant City. Actually, there's even more of a twist to it that this, because the Brunswick is a boutique hotel with all the space restrictions you'd expect from 'contemporary minimalist accommodation' . So the main stage is on a mezzanine looking over the bar, there are acoustic acts playing up in the Penthouse Suite as well as more acts in the dimly lit basement. The audience are similar to the people who turned up to the band's Warehouse launch: all the women are immaculate in heels and strappy dresses, all the men have facial hair and look like they just got out of bed. Both sexes probably spent the same amount of time getting ready.
As I arrive, the band are seated nonchalantly outside. "Alright, Bro?" says Jack. It's an in-joke, one that even as I write it, I find myself laughing about. And like all in-jokes, especially on-the-road band in-jokes, it loses much in translation but basically the whole group now call each other 'bro' because it's a favourite word of their tour manager, the redoubtable George. George is a rangy, bearded man but has a voice in a register that seems slightly at odds with this demeanor. I can't describe the way he utters the word 'bro' other than identifying a little rolled R which is possibly an Inverness thing. Suffice to say, like any tiny observation, once pointed out it becomes magnified and thus funnier. The band are now exploring the other possibilities of the 'bro' word and are currently calling each other Broseph.
Tour banter always produces one or two catch phrases as well as games - Let The Bass Player Order First was one a band I worked with always played, based on the fact that their hapless bassist always chose the dish on the menu that looked least appetising when it arrived. Another game involved guessing band names from cryptic clues such as James Juggles Chickens. This is the only example of this game I can remember (maybe someone out there remembers more?) because the clues were so impenetrable. The answer to the James Juggles Chickens clue, by the way, is Jimmi Hendrix. Why? Jimmy Hen Tricks. See, easy when you know. I remember asking the band member who guessed this how the hell he managed to get it,"I've got nothing else in my brain." he shot back.
George is inside the hotel being important. The Studio Warehouse, which he co-runs, are doing the sound for Get A Room and he's been all day setting up three PAs in small rooms. We go in and watch the first band on - Ming Ming and The Ching Chings . Our Scottish promoter has recommended them to me but it's hard to get over the name. They're another example of the death of the good name (something I've written a piece about for The Guardian) and despite the fact that she's right, they would sound good on a bill with The Tings Tings and Joe Lean and The Jing JangJongs, it doesn't make them that interesting. Better are Sonny Marvello who are playing up in the Penthouse - they are doing an acoustic set and showing a healthy display of songwriting ability. It's good to hear some finely written tunes at events like this, where you expect most acts are going to exciting for other reasons - looks, quirk, performance. One of the acts in this latter camp are Lux who are up next in the basement. The female singer from Lux spends about 20 minutes before she goes on wandering around the venue in a figure-hugging gold lame jump suit. She looks amazing but this aesthetic success turns out to be inversely proportionate to the quality of Lux's music, which is a experimental keyboard dirge made by her and her shouty partner. Someone says it's their last ever gig tonight and it's not hard to think they've might the right decision to knock it on the head.
As I walk up the stairwell, Jack beckons me onto one of the floors of the actual hotel. Hello, I think, at last a crazy rock and roll sexy drugs party, here we go! "Have a look in there!" says Jack and directs me to Room 105 along the corridor. The door opens and I'm transported to another world, Mr Ben-style. We're in a tiny room, made tinier by the fact there are about a dozen people crammed into it. On the bed is the 118 man I mentioned in the opening paragraph with his sparring partner. There are several photographers crouched at the foot of the bed and assorted folk jostling for space in the doorway behind us. We are at an 'installation', a 'happening'... a live exhibition.
Once you get over the novelty value of watching two people pretending to have a fight, your mind starts wandering. What are we doing here? Why are we all so interested? Why are we being so quiet? It's all very strange and possibly pseudo-intellectual because after all, we didn't question why we were watching a shouting girl in gold lame five minutes before. The slapping and yanking continues. A couple of times they both fall off the bed and it becomes a comedy caper. You can even see that they are finding it funny. Then it's heads down again and the fight continues. Jack's mobile goes off as the couple slog it out. "Hello" he answers, "I'm in a meeting." The room erupts with laughter - more the laughter of relief than anything else, it is now beginning to feel weird. Suddenly, the couple stop and lie next to one another on the bed, panting. The crowd don't know what to do. In the end I start clapping and everyone joins in. Still the couple don't move so we start filing out. One of the festival organisers shouts from outside "There'll be another event happening in one of the other rooms on this floor in ten minutes!" I never find out what this is.
Back down at the bar, another band called Pooch are playing. They're pretty good but by far and away the main attraction as far as I'm concerned is the drummer - she's amazing. Best female drummer I've seen in years. She's helped by the fact that the mezzanine stage is lit from the back so the light falls directly on the drum riser. This makes her look like the focal point of the band and in many ways she is. She manages to absolutely play the heart out of the kit whilst looking immaculate complete with a triangular design on her cheek - a motif shared by the singer. The Swindon girl band have got a cool-looking, great drummer too but this Pooch girl is dressed like something off the Mighty Boosh, all 80s hair, silk dress, leggings and heels. Frankly it's a riddiculous costume that anyone else would look stupid in, but she manages to pull it off. If I had met her before and been asked to guess which instrument she played, drums would be down on my list next to dulcimer. After the show they claim to be massive fans of the Scottish band and ask if they can support.
By the time the Scottish band hit the stage, everyone is reasonably well oiled. Apart from me - the night before is beginning to take its toll. After the Barfly show, we had gone for a 'quick drink' and ended up having a odyssey sponsored by Tenants. It's all a bit of blur but I do remember doing a lot of walking, Jack getting approached by some girls to have his picture taken with them, someone falling over in a chip shop - not one of us, I stress - drinking pints in a converted church next to someone's half-eaten birthday cake and ending up at William's - where earlier he had cooked us all supper before the show - talking about Queen. Or at least I was talking about Queen. Not the Queen like last time - although I think we touched on her - but Queen the pop group. I think I may have said they were my favorite band of all time just to grab some attention. I got back to the Merchant Lodge at about a million o clock, went to bed, then got woken up a couple of minutes later by reception telling me I had slept through the check-out deadline. Why hadn't I booked for two nights? Don't ask, it's too tedious to go into.
Anyway, the band had carried on drinking after I left them and now fast forward to Sunday night and they're doing a show and are on searing form, whilst I am leaning against the bar and adopting a managerial frown. Because of the position of the stage we're all looking up at a 45 degree angle which is bizarre but seems to work for them - you can really see Robert on drums and Jack is pulling all the shapes in the book. Once again I feel suffused with pride at how good they are.
By the time the show is over and we've had a chat and another beer I am finished. I can't look at any more attractive people, I can't consume any more lager, I can't say anything of any interest. Also, it occurs to me, I am ravenous. I had a massive lunch at breakfast time and haven't eaten since. Fortunately there appears to be the best takeaway in the world just around the corner from the Brunswick so I say my goodbyes and wander off in its direction. I am tempted by the Haggis and chips but in the end plump for chips accompanied by a deeply red saveloy.
Down in London it's been raining all weekend, whilst up here it's 1am and still balmy as I meander back to my hotel. I am glad to be alive, pure dead ebullient.
It's Bank Holiday weekend and I'm in Glasgow. That's dedication for you. Or stupidity. One of the two. Or maybe both. Yes, both; this is what being a manager is about, I think. It makes no financial sense to book a band to play in a far-off town for £50 and yet, if two, or perhaps three people, see them and think they're good, tell their mates ... Anyway, the band are playing their hometown this weekend and it's a good opportunity for me to spend some time with them, talk about the rest of the year and perhaps share a couple of air-punches over the fact that we've GOT GLASTONBURY! The holy grail of live bookings is ours, my friends! It would be nice to be able to claim that it was my own managerial prowess that snaffled this but the truth is, the band are making friends.
They were put on the Radio 1 Introducing Stage shortlist by Radio 1 Scotland's Vic Galloway and his producer (apparently called Muslim). This of course didn't guarantee anything. Every regional BBC show nominates its favourite acts for the stage and then a select panel of voters at Radio are given a USB stick full of 100s of bands to vote on. This latter bit of information was relayed to me by Steve Lamacq after I got back from Glasgow (a very amusing evening was had in his company, which I'll tell you about in another blog). He told me that alongside all the luminaries like him, Huw Stephens and the usual folks who work in Specialist (the evening shows are called Speicialist in case you didn't know - as if the DJs have no idea about pop music but could tell you a few things about Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds), alongside these people is Gary Lightbody - you know, the singer from much maligned but does-my-face look-bothered-with-all-this-cash? Snow Patrol. It would be nice to think we got the Scottish vote from Gazza but somehow I don't think he's heard of us yet. No matter, Steve definitely voted for us, as did Huw Stephens so I suspect that these two votes were enough to secure us our place in Pilton on the Sunday.
All this seems a long way away as I find myself at Prestwick Airport again, with its ludicrous purple decor and cheap scrawly logo with the slogan Pure Dead Brilliant written in six foot high letters on all the walls. What is that about? It's a popular Glaswegian expression from the 70s apparently and used in various TV shows. By this logic we should give Stanstead the slogan 'I Don't Believe It!' Apparently PDB sounds better if you pronounce it with the local burr - so 'brilliant' sounds like 'brulliant'. Well, that's that sorted then... Didn't anyone in the marketing meeting reflect on it being an airport so a large number of people there will be tourists who wouldn't know Big Ben from Ben Nevis, let alone any regional accents, and secondly, it sounds just as rubbish with or without adopting a Shrek voice. That's what Maddy now calls all Scottish accents by the way. Thanks, Mike Myers. Actually, let's be honest, the main reason this slogan is terrible is the use of the word 'dead' in conjunction with air travel - surely someone must have pointed this out to the Prestwick marketing people. Prestwick Airport: Your Life In Our Hands! In fact, someone needs to focus them on the Presley thing - how about Prestwick Airport: Fly The Mystery Plane! Now that would be pure dead brilliant.
I arrive in Glasgow after the 40 minute train ride, a route that includes a stop at the brilliantly named Troon. Not only is it the loveliest word but it also looks like the residents of Troon (just say it to yourself!) have a pure dead brilliant time playing golf the whole day. Cheers!
Tonight I'm staying in the Merchant City which is where the band are playing on Sunday night. Saturday they are booked to play at The Barfly and soundcheck is not for a few hours yet so I wander around town enjoying the perfect weather. Again, I marvel at the fact that I've discovered another previously unknown-to-me area of Glasgow - The Merchant City, who knew? Beautiful nineteenth century buildings, scrubbed up and sleek, full of boutiques and coffee bars and very stylish people. Why have I never heard of this place before? They need Preswick's marketing team. They'd probably give it the tagline 'We're All Doomed!'
Actually what it needs is Stonehenge's PR people. I remember once driving down to Wool Hall recording studio in Bath with Alex James and Stephen Duffy in the mid '90s. For some reason we were taking a scenic route, possibly the A303, which passes right by Salisbury Plain. Over on the right was the monument, so near that we could even see tourists looking at it. None of us had seen Stonehenge before and we all felt the same thing at the same time: it's SMALL. Alex, sparking up another Camel, flicked the Britpop hair out of his eyes and said, "Who does its press?". Whoever does it needs to do Glasgow Merchant City's too. My hotel The Merchant Lodge was just under £50 a night, situated in a lovely old tobacco baron's house, and literally around the corner from the main shopping mile Argyle street (with all the pleasure and pain associated with HMV, Marks and Spencers and Argos), whilst being deep in the peaceful sandy-coloured Merchant City. For all this, I still find myself in Fopp, ogling the racks of £5 albums, hypnotised by the temptation of endless cheap classic rock whilst mourning its loss in value.
The real meat of the weekend was the band's show on the Sunday night. They were playing as part of - and pretty much headlining - an event called Get A Room. This is something that has been going for about six years and is essentially a one day festival with the twist that all the acts are playing in the Brunswick Hotel in the Merchant City. Actually, there's even more of a twist to it that this, because the Brunswick is a boutique hotel with all the space restrictions you'd expect from 'contemporary minimalist accommodation' . So the main stage is on a mezzanine looking over the bar, there are acoustic acts playing up in the Penthouse Suite as well as more acts in the dimly lit basement. The audience are similar to the people who turned up to the band's Warehouse launch: all the women are immaculate in heels and strappy dresses, all the men have facial hair and look like they just got out of bed. Both sexes probably spent the same amount of time getting ready.
As I arrive, the band are seated nonchalantly outside. "Alright, Bro?" says Jack. It's an in-joke, one that even as I write it, I find myself laughing about. And like all in-jokes, especially on-the-road band in-jokes, it loses much in translation but basically the whole group now call each other 'bro' because it's a favourite word of their tour manager, the redoubtable George. George is a rangy, bearded man but has a voice in a register that seems slightly at odds with this demeanor. I can't describe the way he utters the word 'bro' other than identifying a little rolled R which is possibly an Inverness thing. Suffice to say, like any tiny observation, once pointed out it becomes magnified and thus funnier. The band are now exploring the other possibilities of the 'bro' word and are currently calling each other Broseph.
Tour banter always produces one or two catch phrases as well as games - Let The Bass Player Order First was one a band I worked with always played, based on the fact that their hapless bassist always chose the dish on the menu that looked least appetising when it arrived. Another game involved guessing band names from cryptic clues such as James Juggles Chickens. This is the only example of this game I can remember (maybe someone out there remembers more?) because the clues were so impenetrable. The answer to the James Juggles Chickens clue, by the way, is Jimmi Hendrix. Why? Jimmy Hen Tricks. See, easy when you know. I remember asking the band member who guessed this how the hell he managed to get it,"I've got nothing else in my brain." he shot back.
George is inside the hotel being important. The Studio Warehouse, which he co-runs, are doing the sound for Get A Room and he's been all day setting up three PAs in small rooms. We go in and watch the first band on - Ming Ming and The Ching Chings . Our Scottish promoter has recommended them to me but it's hard to get over the name. They're another example of the death of the good name (something I've written a piece about for The Guardian) and despite the fact that she's right, they would sound good on a bill with The Tings Tings and Joe Lean and The Jing JangJongs, it doesn't make them that interesting. Better are Sonny Marvello who are playing up in the Penthouse - they are doing an acoustic set and showing a healthy display of songwriting ability. It's good to hear some finely written tunes at events like this, where you expect most acts are going to exciting for other reasons - looks, quirk, performance. One of the acts in this latter camp are Lux who are up next in the basement. The female singer from Lux spends about 20 minutes before she goes on wandering around the venue in a figure-hugging gold lame jump suit. She looks amazing but this aesthetic success turns out to be inversely proportionate to the quality of Lux's music, which is a experimental keyboard dirge made by her and her shouty partner. Someone says it's their last ever gig tonight and it's not hard to think they've might the right decision to knock it on the head.
As I walk up the stairwell, Jack beckons me onto one of the floors of the actual hotel. Hello, I think, at last a crazy rock and roll sexy drugs party, here we go! "Have a look in there!" says Jack and directs me to Room 105 along the corridor. The door opens and I'm transported to another world, Mr Ben-style. We're in a tiny room, made tinier by the fact there are about a dozen people crammed into it. On the bed is the 118 man I mentioned in the opening paragraph with his sparring partner. There are several photographers crouched at the foot of the bed and assorted folk jostling for space in the doorway behind us. We are at an 'installation', a 'happening'... a live exhibition.
Once you get over the novelty value of watching two people pretending to have a fight, your mind starts wandering. What are we doing here? Why are we all so interested? Why are we being so quiet? It's all very strange and possibly pseudo-intellectual because after all, we didn't question why we were watching a shouting girl in gold lame five minutes before. The slapping and yanking continues. A couple of times they both fall off the bed and it becomes a comedy caper. You can even see that they are finding it funny. Then it's heads down again and the fight continues. Jack's mobile goes off as the couple slog it out. "Hello" he answers, "I'm in a meeting." The room erupts with laughter - more the laughter of relief than anything else, it is now beginning to feel weird. Suddenly, the couple stop and lie next to one another on the bed, panting. The crowd don't know what to do. In the end I start clapping and everyone joins in. Still the couple don't move so we start filing out. One of the festival organisers shouts from outside "There'll be another event happening in one of the other rooms on this floor in ten minutes!" I never find out what this is.
Back down at the bar, another band called Pooch are playing. They're pretty good but by far and away the main attraction as far as I'm concerned is the drummer - she's amazing. Best female drummer I've seen in years. She's helped by the fact that the mezzanine stage is lit from the back so the light falls directly on the drum riser. This makes her look like the focal point of the band and in many ways she is. She manages to absolutely play the heart out of the kit whilst looking immaculate complete with a triangular design on her cheek - a motif shared by the singer. The Swindon girl band have got a cool-looking, great drummer too but this Pooch girl is dressed like something off the Mighty Boosh, all 80s hair, silk dress, leggings and heels. Frankly it's a riddiculous costume that anyone else would look stupid in, but she manages to pull it off. If I had met her before and been asked to guess which instrument she played, drums would be down on my list next to dulcimer. After the show they claim to be massive fans of the Scottish band and ask if they can support.
By the time the Scottish band hit the stage, everyone is reasonably well oiled. Apart from me - the night before is beginning to take its toll. After the Barfly show, we had gone for a 'quick drink' and ended up having a odyssey sponsored by Tenants. It's all a bit of blur but I do remember doing a lot of walking, Jack getting approached by some girls to have his picture taken with them, someone falling over in a chip shop - not one of us, I stress - drinking pints in a converted church next to someone's half-eaten birthday cake and ending up at William's - where earlier he had cooked us all supper before the show - talking about Queen. Or at least I was talking about Queen. Not the Queen like last time - although I think we touched on her - but Queen the pop group. I think I may have said they were my favorite band of all time just to grab some attention. I got back to the Merchant Lodge at about a million o clock, went to bed, then got woken up a couple of minutes later by reception telling me I had slept through the check-out deadline. Why hadn't I booked for two nights? Don't ask, it's too tedious to go into.
Anyway, the band had carried on drinking after I left them and now fast forward to Sunday night and they're doing a show and are on searing form, whilst I am leaning against the bar and adopting a managerial frown. Because of the position of the stage we're all looking up at a 45 degree angle which is bizarre but seems to work for them - you can really see Robert on drums and Jack is pulling all the shapes in the book. Once again I feel suffused with pride at how good they are.
By the time the show is over and we've had a chat and another beer I am finished. I can't look at any more attractive people, I can't consume any more lager, I can't say anything of any interest. Also, it occurs to me, I am ravenous. I had a massive lunch at breakfast time and haven't eaten since. Fortunately there appears to be the best takeaway in the world just around the corner from the Brunswick so I say my goodbyes and wander off in its direction. I am tempted by the Haggis and chips but in the end plump for chips accompanied by a deeply red saveloy.
Down in London it's been raining all weekend, whilst up here it's 1am and still balmy as I meander back to my hotel. I am glad to be alive, pure dead ebullient.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
We come in search of bass strings ...
Have you forgotten me? I wouldn't be surprised at all. I wrote the last entry whilst on holiday Norfolk and that frankly seems like years ago. It was, to be precise, twelve days ago, which is about four Internet years. Still, from my stats it appears that people are still reading this which either means that word of mouth is generating more and more readers or the same increasingly bored punters are coming back to discover the last entry collecting dust.
So what's been happening? Well, for starters both of our bands have been on tour. The Girl band played London just before I went away. I hadn't seen them for a while as I've been busy with the Scottish band, and it was really refreshing to see them again. They've written a whole load of new songs and sharpened up their image. It was a really good show and afterwards I was greeted like a long lost uncle. The guitarist is one of those girls who is so attractive that she is able to make people (men and women) do anything she wants by the imperceptible movement of a shoulder or the slight raise of an eyebrow. I found I'd bought her a double Jack Daniels and coke without even realising it. Bless her.
The Scottish band's tour started in Leeds the day after I came back from my holiday. It was a good place to start as the indie label that we released our single on are based there. I went in search of Matt who co-runs the label in the record shop where he works. Normally, this would have been an easy operation, since most towns only have one record store if they're lucky. Leeds however is different. Recently a friend of mine sent me the list of Chain With No Name stores, the records shops around the country who still actively sell indie music and specifically still stock 7" vinyl. It's a really small list and another signpost towards the dinosaur status that all of us connected with the selling of music are threatened with. But amazingly, Leeds manages to have not just one by three independent record shops - plus the standard issue HMV and Zavvi.
I found Matt in Jumbo, a shop that has been going since 1971. It's in a pretty depressing shopping mall but once you're inside it sets your heart aflutter - racks of vinyl, box sets, secondhand albums... This sort of stuff really brings out the 14-year old in me, a person who I am mildly ashamed of but put up with on a regular basis because, as I think I've already confessed, I cannot walk passed a record shop without going in. Jumbo's logo is pure 1971, blobby swirling letters which conjure up images of Chopper bikes, Spangles and Curly Wurlys for 3p. And the idea that this very shop was once selling brand new copies of Hot Love by T-Rex or Hunky Dory by David Bowie filled me with a frisson of delight. I've since had a look at the website and disappointingly they've only been in that space since 1988 (a mere 20 years!) so I'll have to content myself with imagining people going in and buying Britpop CDs and You And Me Song by The Wannadies. Actually, as I was talking to Matt I noticed a piece of cardboard sticking out of the back of box of 7" singles with 60Ft Dolls handwritten on it. I pointed this out to Matt, telling him that they were on my old label. "Yeah," he said, defiantly uninterested,"we reuse the old name cards all the time..."
Later my managerial metal was tested when Andrew the bass player broke a string during soundcheck. He didn't have a spare and headline act Ida Maria's bass player couldn't find it in him to lend him his bass. According to a respected journalist friend of mine who interviewed Ida Maria, the bass player was auditioned from a modeling agency because the band, being Norwegian, thought they needed at least one handsome blonde person to justify their Scandinavian heritage. They had to teach the lucky winner how to play so no doubt having just learned, the poor chiseled Adonis was reluctant to let a professional put fingers all over his strings.
By the time Stringgate was upon us, it was too late for music shops to be open. Who did we know in Leeds who could help? The indie label fellas weren't around tonight - Matt was being treated by his girlfriend to a night out so was out of contact. I suggested local rehearsal rooms and was applauded for my managerial brains. Andrew produced an iPhone and started Googling. Jack looked at my previously quite impressive Nokia and raised an eyebrow - "Call yourself a manager? With that old thing?"
Andrew had got the iPhone by some twist of fate which renders him immune to service charges and tariffs. Very jammy - and also very useful as after much searching on it we were heading out of town to the one rehearsal space in Leeds which sells strings - the brilliantly named House of Mook. I've just discovered that one of my favourite writers Jeremy Dyson is in a band called Rudolf Rocker, who are or were on House of Mook's very own label. Dyson wrote much of League of Gentlemen as well as a very good book of short stories called Never Trust a Rabbit and the massively underrated comedy thriller Funland.
House of Mook, like Jumbo, was full of the nostalgia that now seems inherent in all things pop - the walls were plastered with old posters for long forgotten bands from the mid nineties who I remembered seeing as an A&R man. We bought the strings for £14.99 and returned to our waiting cab. His fare was of course more than the strings cost.
Ida Maria and her band played a good show. Too good - they had a much better sound than us which prevented me from fully enjoying their set. Not being a football fan, I'm unfamiliar with the camaraderie and rivalry of supporting a team but when I'm with a band who are sharing a bill I imagine it's comparable. Everyone is always jealous of the headline act who have the bigger van or the record deal-sponsored in-ear monitoring system. But the highways and byways of band rivalries are much more subtle and divisive than those of football fans - the tension is never diffused with a sweary song or comedy chant, it's much more likely to manifest in back-biting or cruel humour. I remember when Sleeper supported the Manic Street Preachers years ago. Ritchie Edwards was still in the band back then but painfully thin and barely audible on stage - it was clear that the band's biggest star was in bad shape. The Manics had taken their own catering on the road with them and very generously invited Sleeper to partake. But this didn't stop them cracking Ritchie's been stuffing his face again gags when the pies were running dry.
The highpoint of the band's set was a new song called Guns Go Bang, it rollocks along on a keyboard churn before opening up with a verse of pure pop followed by a clever time signature change. I'm resisting following the usual music journalist shorthand of saying it's The Zombies meets the The Libertines but crucially this new song is GREAT. I spent the rest of the evening drinking with the band, first the rider, then in a branch of the ludicrously overpriced Malmaison. After one round my wallet had a hangover so we relocated to the Travelodge bar and there, the conversation moved onto the important topic of which period HM The Queen was most attractive during. This was inspired by a sequence in an episode of Peep Show that I'd seen the week before where Jeremy goes to a sperm bank and discovers there is no pornography in his booth so opts to use a twenty pound note as an aid. You would think that she would look best on coins from the 1960s but we decided there was something about Liz's 1980s profile, which was quite alluring. Later in the week, whilst in Glasgow, keyboard player William gave me an old penny from 1965 and queenie's nose is a bit pointy. We decided she may have had some work done.
And talking of Glasgow, there's a whole load of things that happened there over the weekend which I must tell you about. But I'll have to do that another time because I've got to book some more Travelodges...
So what's been happening? Well, for starters both of our bands have been on tour. The Girl band played London just before I went away. I hadn't seen them for a while as I've been busy with the Scottish band, and it was really refreshing to see them again. They've written a whole load of new songs and sharpened up their image. It was a really good show and afterwards I was greeted like a long lost uncle. The guitarist is one of those girls who is so attractive that she is able to make people (men and women) do anything she wants by the imperceptible movement of a shoulder or the slight raise of an eyebrow. I found I'd bought her a double Jack Daniels and coke without even realising it. Bless her.
The Scottish band's tour started in Leeds the day after I came back from my holiday. It was a good place to start as the indie label that we released our single on are based there. I went in search of Matt who co-runs the label in the record shop where he works. Normally, this would have been an easy operation, since most towns only have one record store if they're lucky. Leeds however is different. Recently a friend of mine sent me the list of Chain With No Name stores, the records shops around the country who still actively sell indie music and specifically still stock 7" vinyl. It's a really small list and another signpost towards the dinosaur status that all of us connected with the selling of music are threatened with. But amazingly, Leeds manages to have not just one by three independent record shops - plus the standard issue HMV and Zavvi.
I found Matt in Jumbo, a shop that has been going since 1971. It's in a pretty depressing shopping mall but once you're inside it sets your heart aflutter - racks of vinyl, box sets, secondhand albums... This sort of stuff really brings out the 14-year old in me, a person who I am mildly ashamed of but put up with on a regular basis because, as I think I've already confessed, I cannot walk passed a record shop without going in. Jumbo's logo is pure 1971, blobby swirling letters which conjure up images of Chopper bikes, Spangles and Curly Wurlys for 3p. And the idea that this very shop was once selling brand new copies of Hot Love by T-Rex or Hunky Dory by David Bowie filled me with a frisson of delight. I've since had a look at the website and disappointingly they've only been in that space since 1988 (a mere 20 years!) so I'll have to content myself with imagining people going in and buying Britpop CDs and You And Me Song by The Wannadies. Actually, as I was talking to Matt I noticed a piece of cardboard sticking out of the back of box of 7" singles with 60Ft Dolls handwritten on it. I pointed this out to Matt, telling him that they were on my old label. "Yeah," he said, defiantly uninterested,"we reuse the old name cards all the time..."
Later my managerial metal was tested when Andrew the bass player broke a string during soundcheck. He didn't have a spare and headline act Ida Maria's bass player couldn't find it in him to lend him his bass. According to a respected journalist friend of mine who interviewed Ida Maria, the bass player was auditioned from a modeling agency because the band, being Norwegian, thought they needed at least one handsome blonde person to justify their Scandinavian heritage. They had to teach the lucky winner how to play so no doubt having just learned, the poor chiseled Adonis was reluctant to let a professional put fingers all over his strings.
By the time Stringgate was upon us, it was too late for music shops to be open. Who did we know in Leeds who could help? The indie label fellas weren't around tonight - Matt was being treated by his girlfriend to a night out so was out of contact. I suggested local rehearsal rooms and was applauded for my managerial brains. Andrew produced an iPhone and started Googling. Jack looked at my previously quite impressive Nokia and raised an eyebrow - "Call yourself a manager? With that old thing?"
Andrew had got the iPhone by some twist of fate which renders him immune to service charges and tariffs. Very jammy - and also very useful as after much searching on it we were heading out of town to the one rehearsal space in Leeds which sells strings - the brilliantly named House of Mook. I've just discovered that one of my favourite writers Jeremy Dyson is in a band called Rudolf Rocker, who are or were on House of Mook's very own label. Dyson wrote much of League of Gentlemen as well as a very good book of short stories called Never Trust a Rabbit and the massively underrated comedy thriller Funland.
House of Mook, like Jumbo, was full of the nostalgia that now seems inherent in all things pop - the walls were plastered with old posters for long forgotten bands from the mid nineties who I remembered seeing as an A&R man. We bought the strings for £14.99 and returned to our waiting cab. His fare was of course more than the strings cost.
Ida Maria and her band played a good show. Too good - they had a much better sound than us which prevented me from fully enjoying their set. Not being a football fan, I'm unfamiliar with the camaraderie and rivalry of supporting a team but when I'm with a band who are sharing a bill I imagine it's comparable. Everyone is always jealous of the headline act who have the bigger van or the record deal-sponsored in-ear monitoring system. But the highways and byways of band rivalries are much more subtle and divisive than those of football fans - the tension is never diffused with a sweary song or comedy chant, it's much more likely to manifest in back-biting or cruel humour. I remember when Sleeper supported the Manic Street Preachers years ago. Ritchie Edwards was still in the band back then but painfully thin and barely audible on stage - it was clear that the band's biggest star was in bad shape. The Manics had taken their own catering on the road with them and very generously invited Sleeper to partake. But this didn't stop them cracking Ritchie's been stuffing his face again gags when the pies were running dry.
The highpoint of the band's set was a new song called Guns Go Bang, it rollocks along on a keyboard churn before opening up with a verse of pure pop followed by a clever time signature change. I'm resisting following the usual music journalist shorthand of saying it's The Zombies meets the The Libertines but crucially this new song is GREAT. I spent the rest of the evening drinking with the band, first the rider, then in a branch of the ludicrously overpriced Malmaison. After one round my wallet had a hangover so we relocated to the Travelodge bar and there, the conversation moved onto the important topic of which period HM The Queen was most attractive during. This was inspired by a sequence in an episode of Peep Show that I'd seen the week before where Jeremy goes to a sperm bank and discovers there is no pornography in his booth so opts to use a twenty pound note as an aid. You would think that she would look best on coins from the 1960s but we decided there was something about Liz's 1980s profile, which was quite alluring. Later in the week, whilst in Glasgow, keyboard player William gave me an old penny from 1965 and queenie's nose is a bit pointy. We decided she may have had some work done.
And talking of Glasgow, there's a whole load of things that happened there over the weekend which I must tell you about. But I'll have to do that another time because I've got to book some more Travelodges...
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Have you read my bog?
"Everyone else had gone to Midem, there was nothing to do in the office so I had to resort to reading your blog."
I suspect I'll have to write the above sentence on a Post It note and have it stuck to my monitor as a lesson not to get too cocky. I overheard myself when I was out with a few record company people the other night and I noticed the word 'blog' pass my lips perhaps over-frequently. Bugger, I really wanted not to become one of the self-obsessed; the type I always thought bloggers were. In truth, I don't think I have, but sometimes when people with whom I have only passing acquaintance or don't know at all, come up to me and say they're 'loving the blog', it's hard not to snatch a moment of glory-basking.
Someone did this to me at the Notting Hill Arts Club the week before last and it caught me unawares. And thanked him and shortly after privately crowning myself King of All Things, I went over to chat to an old A&R colleague and former boss Mike. I told him about the blog, foolishly expecting him to say how much he was enjoying it too and what a massive inspiration to his life it was - "Your bog?" he asked, mock incredulous, "Have I read your bog?" In many ways of course he has a point. I am asking people, you, to go through my private business. Still, I have nothing to be ashamed of so, I'm not, as it were too cool for stool so I'll continue letting everyone go through my bins until such time as it appears there is nothing left of interest in there.
Interestingly though, there is actually a brilliant Web site (I know, I know - how dull is it to hear that sentence, but really this one is great) The site's called Derelictlondon and it's dedicated to the bits of London that are falling apart, i.e. most of it. On it there's a whole section which covers the capital's public loos. There you will find jpegs of the interior of just about every bog in town regardless of its hygiene level. Perhaps I should cut out the middle man and just put a webcam in my lav.
Mike, who made the incisive bog/blog comment, was at the Notting Hill Arts club along with a large collective noun of London's A&R fraternity to see Manchester act Kid British & The Action Manky. Whilst not as ludicrously stuffed to the gills with industry as the White Lies show earlier this year it was clearly a band with a large industry buzz. A friend of mine at Sony/BMG said the entire A&R department would have been there had they not all been out entertaining Rick Rubin - now there's a measure of someone's importance. The band themselves were a very commercial variation on the mixed race ska band theme - some singing, some toasting and rapping and lots of chorus. I thought they were great, I must admit, maybe a little cheesy at times - there's even a track which samples Our House (the Madness version not the Crosby Still Nash song), but if they can convince the po-faced tastemakers of the Dazed And Confused Drowned in Sound club and so in turn fill the blank page of Jo Wiley's taste then I think the kids will lap them up. Does that sound cynical? It wasn't meant to but I've read it back and it sounds like a very bitter person having a go at the media. I'm not really, but I suppose after being witness to the way things in the media work for the thousand odd years I have been, some things do seem to crop up again and again. I'm currently experiencing the sharp end of getting press and radio attention for the Scottish Band and this massive dosage of deja vu that comes each time I am involved with a record release always takes me by surprise. Below are my current Top Ten - feel free to post yours, I'm sure there are loads I've missed.
1) No matter how much you know it's all about luck and circumstance, you always believe press, radio and other promotions people: 'Look into my eyes... in a moment I will list some well-known music magazines/djs/clubs. I will post your promo in a Jiffy bag to these people. When you wake up you will remember nothing of this conversation other than having a general feeling of confidence and well-being and a desire to pay me a large monthly retainer. 3-2-1 you're back in the room."*
2) Despite everyone making sure that artwork, music, etc is delivered on time, the record release date will always go back two weeks.
3) Just before the tour starts, the van you hire/buy to get the band to shows will develop an inexplicable problem involving a technical term you don't understand that requires a minimum of £300 to solve.
4) You will get a surprise result at radio which makes everyone feel great but requires all the plans to be changed to work around the amazing result (usually Radio 1).
5) The result at radio turns out to be a flash in the pan and you are back to square one. Only with all the new plans to implement.
6) The band will be offered a choice support slot with a hip band of the moment (e.g the Teenagers, the Ting Tings etc ) but won't be able to play it because they are already booked to play 3rd on the bill in a tramp's toilet.
7) The producer of the record remembers that there is a sample on it that he forgot to mention, but which he hopes is ok to use. It's usually Baby Love by The Supremes or Dazed And Confused by Led Zeppelin (NB this mainly applies to dance or hip hop acts).
8) The record has a swear word on it you never knew about until the band give you the lyrics for MTV. You promptly spring to action and attempt a 'radio edit' using the instrumental of the track that the producer prepared in advance for such an eventuality.
9) The producer can't find the instrumental.
10) You do finally get the hallowed NME Radar feature. You carry the PR guy aloft, as he or she is showered with flower petals from adoring masses. When you finally see the feature, it turns out to be a savage put-down which effectively ends your relationship with the paper**
*Obviously, I exclude the press and promotions people we are currently using - they are all adorable.
**OK, so this one is mainly about Sleeper...
I suspect I'll have to write the above sentence on a Post It note and have it stuck to my monitor as a lesson not to get too cocky. I overheard myself when I was out with a few record company people the other night and I noticed the word 'blog' pass my lips perhaps over-frequently. Bugger, I really wanted not to become one of the self-obsessed; the type I always thought bloggers were. In truth, I don't think I have, but sometimes when people with whom I have only passing acquaintance or don't know at all, come up to me and say they're 'loving the blog', it's hard not to snatch a moment of glory-basking.
Someone did this to me at the Notting Hill Arts Club the week before last and it caught me unawares. And thanked him and shortly after privately crowning myself King of All Things, I went over to chat to an old A&R colleague and former boss Mike. I told him about the blog, foolishly expecting him to say how much he was enjoying it too and what a massive inspiration to his life it was - "Your bog?" he asked, mock incredulous, "Have I read your bog?" In many ways of course he has a point. I am asking people, you, to go through my private business. Still, I have nothing to be ashamed of so, I'm not, as it were too cool for stool so I'll continue letting everyone go through my bins until such time as it appears there is nothing left of interest in there.
Interestingly though, there is actually a brilliant Web site (I know, I know - how dull is it to hear that sentence, but really this one is great) The site's called Derelictlondon and it's dedicated to the bits of London that are falling apart, i.e. most of it. On it there's a whole section which covers the capital's public loos. There you will find jpegs of the interior of just about every bog in town regardless of its hygiene level. Perhaps I should cut out the middle man and just put a webcam in my lav.
Mike, who made the incisive bog/blog comment, was at the Notting Hill Arts club along with a large collective noun of London's A&R fraternity to see Manchester act Kid British & The Action Manky. Whilst not as ludicrously stuffed to the gills with industry as the White Lies show earlier this year it was clearly a band with a large industry buzz. A friend of mine at Sony/BMG said the entire A&R department would have been there had they not all been out entertaining Rick Rubin - now there's a measure of someone's importance. The band themselves were a very commercial variation on the mixed race ska band theme - some singing, some toasting and rapping and lots of chorus. I thought they were great, I must admit, maybe a little cheesy at times - there's even a track which samples Our House (the Madness version not the Crosby Still Nash song), but if they can convince the po-faced tastemakers of the Dazed And Confused Drowned in Sound club and so in turn fill the blank page of Jo Wiley's taste then I think the kids will lap them up. Does that sound cynical? It wasn't meant to but I've read it back and it sounds like a very bitter person having a go at the media. I'm not really, but I suppose after being witness to the way things in the media work for the thousand odd years I have been, some things do seem to crop up again and again. I'm currently experiencing the sharp end of getting press and radio attention for the Scottish Band and this massive dosage of deja vu that comes each time I am involved with a record release always takes me by surprise. Below are my current Top Ten - feel free to post yours, I'm sure there are loads I've missed.
1) No matter how much you know it's all about luck and circumstance, you always believe press, radio and other promotions people: 'Look into my eyes... in a moment I will list some well-known music magazines/djs/clubs. I will post your promo in a Jiffy bag to these people. When you wake up you will remember nothing of this conversation other than having a general feeling of confidence and well-being and a desire to pay me a large monthly retainer. 3-2-1 you're back in the room."*
2) Despite everyone making sure that artwork, music, etc is delivered on time, the record release date will always go back two weeks.
3) Just before the tour starts, the van you hire/buy to get the band to shows will develop an inexplicable problem involving a technical term you don't understand that requires a minimum of £300 to solve.
4) You will get a surprise result at radio which makes everyone feel great but requires all the plans to be changed to work around the amazing result (usually Radio 1).
5) The result at radio turns out to be a flash in the pan and you are back to square one. Only with all the new plans to implement.
6) The band will be offered a choice support slot with a hip band of the moment (e.g the Teenagers, the Ting Tings etc ) but won't be able to play it because they are already booked to play 3rd on the bill in a tramp's toilet.
7) The producer of the record remembers that there is a sample on it that he forgot to mention, but which he hopes is ok to use. It's usually Baby Love by The Supremes or Dazed And Confused by Led Zeppelin (NB this mainly applies to dance or hip hop acts).
8) The record has a swear word on it you never knew about until the band give you the lyrics for MTV. You promptly spring to action and attempt a 'radio edit' using the instrumental of the track that the producer prepared in advance for such an eventuality.
9) The producer can't find the instrumental.
10) You do finally get the hallowed NME Radar feature. You carry the PR guy aloft, as he or she is showered with flower petals from adoring masses. When you finally see the feature, it turns out to be a savage put-down which effectively ends your relationship with the paper**
*Obviously, I exclude the press and promotions people we are currently using - they are all adorable.
**OK, so this one is mainly about Sleeper...
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
A Proper Outing - Part 2: The Hippest Party in Europe
Sorry about the cliffhanger. I wanted to spare you all from staring at your computer screens for too long but so many people have been cross with me for dragging it out that I'm putting Part 2 up now...
WE have a problem and the problem is that we're not going to get in - the SWG3 is at capacity! Support band Punch & The Apostles are only just on but the place has been turning people away for the previous 20 minutes. Andrew, the sharp-witted bass player, is having a cigarette outside, "You'se'll not get in now," he says in his best Dad's Army Fraser voice. But I can tell he's not serious because of the grin on his face. One of the guys on the door recognises us and we're in.
Inside, it's absolutely heaving. The capacity is 300 and I'm sure for Health, Safety and Fire Regulations sake they haven't gone over but ... well, you know, it's bloody packed. The clientele is a mix of cool 20- and 30-somethings, plus a nice smattering of older hipsters. Behind the bar cocktails are being poured, onstage Punch & co. are blasting out a Lanarkshire version of Gogol Bordello and everyone seems to know each other. I get the impression that the whole audience is somehow involved in the local arts scene, I'm not sure why other than there doesn't seem to be the level of insecure posing that happens when a club is full of wannabes; everyone seems to already be someone. If we were in London, say at the ICA or the Scala - or in one of the studios in Hoxton, the sense of competitiveness and jealousy would be palpable; the girls would be checking each other out more, the men would be more obsessed with their clothing; superficiality would have been in the air. Of course, I'm making huge generalisations from the perspective of someone who is very excited that MY BAND'S PARTY IS THE HIPPEST PARTY IN EUROPE but hey, these are my thoughts at the time.
Soon it's eleven o'clock and the band are still not on stage. Just as I am going to round them up they appear from the doorway, clutching instruments. Christ, there are no lights on stage, William isn't wearing his bright top, Jack is wearing a grey T-shirt that some fan has forced him to, no on will see them ... It'll be fine, it'll be fine. I give them beers and retreat to the back of the room.
No lights go down and no intro is made. Suddenly from nowhere they kick off with Volcano - a cover of local blues band's tune which they've turned into a off-kilter, keyboard-squeaking monster. Except you can't hear it. The vocals are non-existent, the bass is barely audible above the continued conversation of the crowd and the keyboards sound like an 80s computer game. Shit! I see Geoff weaving through the crowd towards me. He's a self-confessed sound fascist, deriving pleasure in taking live engineers to task and I can tell he wants blood. At this point the vocal pokes through but it's still cripplingly quiet - like a builder's radio in the corner of the room. I've already turned to George behind me, "You can't hear anything, mate! - can you get the sound up?" George is calm as ever but his fingers are all over the desk like a card sharp.
Amazingly, by the time Geoff reaches me the sound is alive and well. The crowd are now rapt and the band have hit their stride. Within two songs the whole room is captured. I turn to Charlie and we smile. The room is loving them, they manage to convince without lights or even much chat between songs. At one point there's a crowd surge and audience members collapse in a heap on top of a Jim Lambie table. A casualty is carried out through the back exit by two members of staff - disastrously it's not one of the drunk audience but a £10K table. Hope they're insured.
The rest of the evening is a blur, of course. They play the single, the gig finishes. The DJ starts playing old Motown records which must be against some sort of DJ bylaw but somehow works in this context. Someone tells me that since the venue reached capacity they've turned away over 150 people, including Stuart Murdoch from Belle And Sebastian. That'll teach him to be fashionably late. Wonder if another Scottish rock celebrity who had promised to DJ suffered the same fate ...
A large proportion of the audience head back to Jack's flat where the partying continues. There, I chat to the ex-keyboard player who now appears to be working in the House of Commons, the video director who is an old friend, and Jack's lovely girlfriend... By the time I leave, I know I'm too drunk to walk back to the hotel because I'm deciding to walk back to the hotel. On my journey to Room 504, I discover a street booth selling bacon rolls at 4 in the morning. I buy one and, pulling my manager's coat tighter against the cold, continue walking whilst I eat. It's the most delicious thing I've ever tasted.
WE have a problem and the problem is that we're not going to get in - the SWG3 is at capacity! Support band Punch & The Apostles are only just on but the place has been turning people away for the previous 20 minutes. Andrew, the sharp-witted bass player, is having a cigarette outside, "You'se'll not get in now," he says in his best Dad's Army Fraser voice. But I can tell he's not serious because of the grin on his face. One of the guys on the door recognises us and we're in.
Inside, it's absolutely heaving. The capacity is 300 and I'm sure for Health, Safety and Fire Regulations sake they haven't gone over but ... well, you know, it's bloody packed. The clientele is a mix of cool 20- and 30-somethings, plus a nice smattering of older hipsters. Behind the bar cocktails are being poured, onstage Punch & co. are blasting out a Lanarkshire version of Gogol Bordello and everyone seems to know each other. I get the impression that the whole audience is somehow involved in the local arts scene, I'm not sure why other than there doesn't seem to be the level of insecure posing that happens when a club is full of wannabes; everyone seems to already be someone. If we were in London, say at the ICA or the Scala - or in one of the studios in Hoxton, the sense of competitiveness and jealousy would be palpable; the girls would be checking each other out more, the men would be more obsessed with their clothing; superficiality would have been in the air. Of course, I'm making huge generalisations from the perspective of someone who is very excited that MY BAND'S PARTY IS THE HIPPEST PARTY IN EUROPE but hey, these are my thoughts at the time.
Soon it's eleven o'clock and the band are still not on stage. Just as I am going to round them up they appear from the doorway, clutching instruments. Christ, there are no lights on stage, William isn't wearing his bright top, Jack is wearing a grey T-shirt that some fan has forced him to, no on will see them ... It'll be fine, it'll be fine. I give them beers and retreat to the back of the room.
No lights go down and no intro is made. Suddenly from nowhere they kick off with Volcano - a cover of local blues band's tune which they've turned into a off-kilter, keyboard-squeaking monster. Except you can't hear it. The vocals are non-existent, the bass is barely audible above the continued conversation of the crowd and the keyboards sound like an 80s computer game. Shit! I see Geoff weaving through the crowd towards me. He's a self-confessed sound fascist, deriving pleasure in taking live engineers to task and I can tell he wants blood. At this point the vocal pokes through but it's still cripplingly quiet - like a builder's radio in the corner of the room. I've already turned to George behind me, "You can't hear anything, mate! - can you get the sound up?" George is calm as ever but his fingers are all over the desk like a card sharp.
Amazingly, by the time Geoff reaches me the sound is alive and well. The crowd are now rapt and the band have hit their stride. Within two songs the whole room is captured. I turn to Charlie and we smile. The room is loving them, they manage to convince without lights or even much chat between songs. At one point there's a crowd surge and audience members collapse in a heap on top of a Jim Lambie table. A casualty is carried out through the back exit by two members of staff - disastrously it's not one of the drunk audience but a £10K table. Hope they're insured.
The rest of the evening is a blur, of course. They play the single, the gig finishes. The DJ starts playing old Motown records which must be against some sort of DJ bylaw but somehow works in this context. Someone tells me that since the venue reached capacity they've turned away over 150 people, including Stuart Murdoch from Belle And Sebastian. That'll teach him to be fashionably late. Wonder if another Scottish rock celebrity who had promised to DJ suffered the same fate ...
A large proportion of the audience head back to Jack's flat where the partying continues. There, I chat to the ex-keyboard player who now appears to be working in the House of Commons, the video director who is an old friend, and Jack's lovely girlfriend... By the time I leave, I know I'm too drunk to walk back to the hotel because I'm deciding to walk back to the hotel. On my journey to Room 504, I discover a street booth selling bacon rolls at 4 in the morning. I buy one and, pulling my manager's coat tighter against the cold, continue walking whilst I eat. It's the most delicious thing I've ever tasted.
Monday, 24 March 2008
Dads on Drugs
The band were playing in Stockton on Tees last night. I stayed in London and celebrated Easter by helping my daughter and nephew find chocolate eggs in my dad's front room. Fortunately, I had hidden most of them in the first place so got to them early, "Oh hello! Here's another one!" I would say. They would get all excited and then reward me with one of the already discovered eggs from their little bags. The mugs! I must have eaten about 50 before they realised.
I spoke to Jack from the band, after lunch, telling him where I was.
"You're such a family man, Ben, aren't you?"
And it's true. I do like a bit of family action, particularly at Easter. But part of me felt bad at not being with the guys up in Teeside, and, the day before in Carlisle. I wrote about being paternal towards them in the last blog when I was talking about booking hotels (and boy, did that ever polarise people) and there is no way around it, a manager is the band's dad. For example, I got a text yesterday from one of the guys telling me that the rider was boozeless - not in a moany, whiny way, but asking if this was some clever Machiavellian plan to force them to have a sensible night before the following night's gig when they would be appearing in front of a man who might be investing in us. If only I had thought of that! Frankly, that sort of forward planning surely only happens in novels, and besides, if a band wants to get fucked up it will manage it regardless of the quality of rider.
I'm glad this band are fairly sensible. I mean, don't get me wrong, they love a drink - the drink the sort of amount, which if drunk by me renders me a hiccuping, slurring fool who hates himself in the morning. Crucially though, they don't appear to have any really worrying vices. But would I notice? Just as Maddy managed to sneak in at least a dozen mini eggs yesterday without me noticing, the band could actually be crack-dealing under my nose and I would just think they had some weird friends. I say this based on all my years in the music business without noticing people having drink or drug problems. OK, so when I was A&Ring 60ft Dolls, even I noticed that there may have been issues when the drummer tried to shoot me in the studio with an air pistol and the bass player seemed fond of red wine for breakfast. But on the whole, I honestly didn't see anyone really losing it. And it wasn't that I was far away it - I mean, I drove Elastica to their first handful of shows! Yes, that's me at the wheel of a Transit with a seasoned heroin addict in the back introducing enthusiastic newcomers to Mr Brown - or so I'm told, at least. Me, I was wondering if we were at Membury Services yet. My first Head of A&R actually had Talcum in his nickname, but did I ever see him doing coke? In fact, did he ever offer me any? No. Bit annoyed about that, come to think of it - maybe it was just a rumour, maybe he just used a lot of baby powder after taking a bath. Then of course came the full-on Britpop years - where everyone was supposedly on coke. My main memories are of people trying and failing to buy it in the small hours - like a teenage boys trying to lose their virginity - more energy being expended on talking about it than actually doing it.
There were eventually some dark years when I worked for a indie label whose owners did a lot of drugs. But again, I had to be the organised one; I had to be the 'dad'. It was annoying really because most of them were my age or older and yet they seemed to be having all the fun while I had to be the one who was together and reliable. I remember one time where I had to pick up the singer - a very famous British TV actor - for a live TV appearance. He was also one of the owners and therefore my employer. He'd been out all night and I'd failed to get hold of him on the phone all afternoon. With about an hour to go before the show aired, I drove round to his house in Tufnell Park. Eventually, he answered the door. Naked.
"Oh hello, love - what time is it?"
"It's 5.30 - you've got this show at 7."
"Oh right," he said, totally unfazed,"Hang on a tic..."
When we got to the Whitehall Theatre, where they filmed the daily Jack Doherty show, we had 20 minutes before it started. We raced through the stage door entrance and up the back stairs to the dressing room. Without pausing to hang up his jacket, make himself at home, or even take a breath, the singer b-lined it to the loo and started chopping out lines with the door wide open behind his crouched frame.
"You want a line, love?" he asked over his shoulder.
"I'm fine, thanks."
"Not a great drug taker are you, Ben?"
I'll never forget that line. And frankly, I'm glad it's that kind of a line and not the other sort. But I love the use of the word 'great', as if it's a heroic and noble thing to be able to do. Still, it must be said, he actually was a great drug taker: he went on stage 15 minutes later and completely charmed the audience. I drove him home afterwards and as far as I remember, he fell asleep in the car - just like a toddler being taken home after a nativity play.
The band did a great show in front of the money guy last night apparently. In fact, since the Nottingham show, I described last week, they've been going down rather well. I feel - yes, you guessed it - like a proud parent. Chocolate eggs all round!
I spoke to Jack from the band, after lunch, telling him where I was.
"You're such a family man, Ben, aren't you?"
And it's true. I do like a bit of family action, particularly at Easter. But part of me felt bad at not being with the guys up in Teeside, and, the day before in Carlisle. I wrote about being paternal towards them in the last blog when I was talking about booking hotels (and boy, did that ever polarise people) and there is no way around it, a manager is the band's dad. For example, I got a text yesterday from one of the guys telling me that the rider was boozeless - not in a moany, whiny way, but asking if this was some clever Machiavellian plan to force them to have a sensible night before the following night's gig when they would be appearing in front of a man who might be investing in us. If only I had thought of that! Frankly, that sort of forward planning surely only happens in novels, and besides, if a band wants to get fucked up it will manage it regardless of the quality of rider.
I'm glad this band are fairly sensible. I mean, don't get me wrong, they love a drink - the drink the sort of amount, which if drunk by me renders me a hiccuping, slurring fool who hates himself in the morning. Crucially though, they don't appear to have any really worrying vices. But would I notice? Just as Maddy managed to sneak in at least a dozen mini eggs yesterday without me noticing, the band could actually be crack-dealing under my nose and I would just think they had some weird friends. I say this based on all my years in the music business without noticing people having drink or drug problems. OK, so when I was A&Ring 60ft Dolls, even I noticed that there may have been issues when the drummer tried to shoot me in the studio with an air pistol and the bass player seemed fond of red wine for breakfast. But on the whole, I honestly didn't see anyone really losing it. And it wasn't that I was far away it - I mean, I drove Elastica to their first handful of shows! Yes, that's me at the wheel of a Transit with a seasoned heroin addict in the back introducing enthusiastic newcomers to Mr Brown - or so I'm told, at least. Me, I was wondering if we were at Membury Services yet. My first Head of A&R actually had Talcum in his nickname, but did I ever see him doing coke? In fact, did he ever offer me any? No. Bit annoyed about that, come to think of it - maybe it was just a rumour, maybe he just used a lot of baby powder after taking a bath. Then of course came the full-on Britpop years - where everyone was supposedly on coke. My main memories are of people trying and failing to buy it in the small hours - like a teenage boys trying to lose their virginity - more energy being expended on talking about it than actually doing it.
There were eventually some dark years when I worked for a indie label whose owners did a lot of drugs. But again, I had to be the organised one; I had to be the 'dad'. It was annoying really because most of them were my age or older and yet they seemed to be having all the fun while I had to be the one who was together and reliable. I remember one time where I had to pick up the singer - a very famous British TV actor - for a live TV appearance. He was also one of the owners and therefore my employer. He'd been out all night and I'd failed to get hold of him on the phone all afternoon. With about an hour to go before the show aired, I drove round to his house in Tufnell Park. Eventually, he answered the door. Naked.
"Oh hello, love - what time is it?"
"It's 5.30 - you've got this show at 7."
"Oh right," he said, totally unfazed,"Hang on a tic..."
When we got to the Whitehall Theatre, where they filmed the daily Jack Doherty show, we had 20 minutes before it started. We raced through the stage door entrance and up the back stairs to the dressing room. Without pausing to hang up his jacket, make himself at home, or even take a breath, the singer b-lined it to the loo and started chopping out lines with the door wide open behind his crouched frame.
"You want a line, love?" he asked over his shoulder.
"I'm fine, thanks."
"Not a great drug taker are you, Ben?"
I'll never forget that line. And frankly, I'm glad it's that kind of a line and not the other sort. But I love the use of the word 'great', as if it's a heroic and noble thing to be able to do. Still, it must be said, he actually was a great drug taker: he went on stage 15 minutes later and completely charmed the audience. I drove him home afterwards and as far as I remember, he fell asleep in the car - just like a toddler being taken home after a nativity play.
The band did a great show in front of the money guy last night apparently. In fact, since the Nottingham show, I described last week, they've been going down rather well. I feel - yes, you guessed it - like a proud parent. Chocolate eggs all round!
Monday, 17 March 2008
"You guys need to get a girl singer..."
I've been very busy being a manager recently.
This is my rather showy excuse for not having written the blog for over a week. I appreciate that to many of you 'busy being a manager' must sound rather like 'I've been organising a piss up in a brewery, managing my own way out of a paper bag and negotiating the logistics of my arse and my elbow' but it does appear that there are actually quite a lot of things to do when you look after a band, and the moment you've done them all, there suddenly appear to be more things on the list that all should have been done way before the things you've actually just done.
There are indeed so many things to be done as a band manager that frankly I don't know how I'm finding the time to write this, not to speak of doing another thing for the Guardian. This one is about the Beatles incidentally, just in case you haven't read anything about them for a day or so. By the way, if you haven't seen today's Sun headline yet, you're in for a treat.
So our Scottish band are playing some dates outside Scotland for the first time. It's quite exciting. Well, apart from the boring stuff, like booking hotels - I've taken it upon myself to book their accommodation but some manager-chums are telling me that I should make the band do this, it sets too paternal an example, apparently. (Honestly, I don't know - you tell me - should I leave it to them?)
Anyway, at least I haven't had to book the shows myself. I was doing that for our girl band earlier this year and frankly it was the most dispiriting thing I've ever experienced- akin to trying to get served at a fashionable bar where everyone is taller, more attractive and louder than you, plus you don't speak the language. You email local promoters and they either ignore your mails or tell you that they only do 'metal' acts or 'local bands that pull'. Or you phone them up (if you've managed to get the number, which always appears to be a closely guarded secret) and it's like talking to a slightly stoned teenager - "Yeah , I'll check out the Myspace, dude..." At this point the temptation to say, "I've got 20 years music industry experience! I've made records you've danced to like a twat! I know what I'm talking about when I''m telling you they're great!" is quite intense but would possibly have a counterproductive effect. Charlie, my business partner, who actually has way more hit records under his belt than I do, had a go booking dates for the girls and for the first week was greeted with the same wall of indifference that I got. Then, just as he was about to play the Don't You Know Who I Am? card, someone gave him a gig. We took the rest of the afternoon off. I think the promoter may have given it to him by mistake but by then it was too late. Anyway, since he got it, he's been on fire - he's got them about ten shows now. Ra-hey! Me, I managed one Bath Moles and some gig in Bristol in what appeared to be a urine bottling plant. At the end of the night, the drunk promoter refused to pay us. Presumably he'd spent all the takings on lager in order to convert it into more wee.
So when it came to looking after the Scottish band I couldn't face doing the gig-phony-uppy thing. Fortunately, I managed to get them an agent and she's a total pleasure to deal with. I wish everyone I dealt with was more like her. Funny, as a manager you really notice all the things that you heard yourself being accused of when you did A&R: when people don't call you back for a day, or sometimes just never call back, or claim to have lost or eaten whatever it was you sent them by registered post. It's the real world, which, if you're sheltered from it - i.e. if you're someone to whom everyone wants to speak, because you represent warehouses stuffed with record deals, cash and supermodels - is a world you never see. It's good for the soul, I suppose, but not good for the mobile phone bill which - and I'm speaking to you, Mr and Mrs Orange - is an itemised monthly bastard.
Lucy, our booking agent, works for an old friend of mine, Charlie, who used to be The Levellers' agent then put his foot to the floor and now has his own agency, which looks after some of the UK's biggest groups. We are, of course, currently one of the UK's smallest groups, so the first step towards joining the upper echelons of Charlie's roster is to play some shows away from home. But how do you do this when no one has heard of you? Answer: The club show. These are essentially indie discos that have a few bands playing based on the theory that the DJs have the taste to play good records so may as well book the bands as well.
So I went up to Nottingham last week to see them play a club night called Radar. The venue -The Bodega Social - is a good old-fashioned building with high ceilings and a covered rear outdoor area where there appeared to be some sort of smoking competition going on. In the bar the walls are covered with framed photos of bands the Bodega has played host to recently - Kate Nash, Jack Penate, The Wombats... Next week Duffy was playing. We were getting a fee and a rider ("a crate of beers and softs" - mmm, got to love a soft.) Oh yes, it appeared we really had entered The Big Time.
The support band - if such a thing exists in the context of a club night - were female fronted. "And she's French," pointed out Jack, our singer. The French singer in question was, it must be said, really attractive too: kind of damaged blonde with a waspish figure and violent cheekbones. All this and French. We couldn't wait to check out her band Tramp (incidentally, I wanted to put a link to their Myspace here but it doesn't appear to exist).
Expectations for Tramp were perhaps excessive. As the singer stalked the stage, gurning at members of the audience in a Hazel O'Connorish, wide-eyed, I'm-a-bit-mad-me sort of way, the rest of the band plodded away in the background. She had an odd voice that ticked all the boxes like 'in tune' and 'powerful' but managed to remain resolutely unappealing. I felt a warm glow of confidence and relief that those involved with bands get when they know there's no competition - like the band who meet Spinal Tap in the lobby of the hotel who are playing the Enormodome. We watched the rest of the set along with the rest of the small, bloke-heavy crowd.
When my band went onstage it was to an even smaller crowd, made up largely from members of Tramp and a couple of their mates. It started well and drinkers from the adjacent bar sauntered round the corner so they could see who was making this truly fantastic music. Or so I thought. As the show progressed there seemed to be a nice little knot of people who were getting into it, some of them even dancing. But then, inexplicably, one, then two, then three of the girls in the crowd decided it was time for a wee or a fag and b-lined it out of the room. No problem, I thought, as I stood there alongside two spindley indie blokes, the girls will be back soon with a whole new crowd of converts. Then the two indie men meandered back to the bar and it was just me and the sound guy left.
Jack and the band heroically played on. They did a new song, which was fantastic, the sound wasn't great but all the bits were falling into place musically and the band were performing their hearts out - Will's backing vocals keeping the whole thing underpinned beautifully and Robert locking everything down on the drums . Towards the end, a handful of people came up and had a conversation in front of the stage.
Eventually, like an operation, it was all over. We returned to the dressing room (more of a dressing corridor, actually - like the office that Tuttle gets in Brazil). We cracked open the crate of beers, we downed a few of the softs, we did the gig post-mortem thing.
There was no great secret as to why we hadn't connected. As the promotor said later: it was a club night, sometimes audiences can be weird - especially when there's a WKD promotion going on downstairs. Plus, people had come to dance to records they knew - that's how some club nights are - no doubt Duffy would have a field day the following week. This was proven later as the dancefloor was rammed with 2 For 1 Bacadi Breezer drinkers in mini-skirts dancing to the Klaxons. As the band and I joined the smoking competition going on outside, someone from Tramp sidled up and offered us one solution: "Tough one tonight, you guys need to get a girl singer, then your problems will be over..."
Next time: The band play Newcastle and Leeds. Rock and, to be perfectly frank, Roll!
This is my rather showy excuse for not having written the blog for over a week. I appreciate that to many of you 'busy being a manager' must sound rather like 'I've been organising a piss up in a brewery, managing my own way out of a paper bag and negotiating the logistics of my arse and my elbow' but it does appear that there are actually quite a lot of things to do when you look after a band, and the moment you've done them all, there suddenly appear to be more things on the list that all should have been done way before the things you've actually just done.
There are indeed so many things to be done as a band manager that frankly I don't know how I'm finding the time to write this, not to speak of doing another thing for the Guardian. This one is about the Beatles incidentally, just in case you haven't read anything about them for a day or so. By the way, if you haven't seen today's Sun headline yet, you're in for a treat.
So our Scottish band are playing some dates outside Scotland for the first time. It's quite exciting. Well, apart from the boring stuff, like booking hotels - I've taken it upon myself to book their accommodation but some manager-chums are telling me that I should make the band do this, it sets too paternal an example, apparently. (Honestly, I don't know - you tell me - should I leave it to them?)
Anyway, at least I haven't had to book the shows myself. I was doing that for our girl band earlier this year and frankly it was the most dispiriting thing I've ever experienced- akin to trying to get served at a fashionable bar where everyone is taller, more attractive and louder than you, plus you don't speak the language. You email local promoters and they either ignore your mails or tell you that they only do 'metal' acts or 'local bands that pull'. Or you phone them up (if you've managed to get the number, which always appears to be a closely guarded secret) and it's like talking to a slightly stoned teenager - "Yeah , I'll check out the Myspace, dude..." At this point the temptation to say, "I've got 20 years music industry experience! I've made records you've danced to like a twat! I know what I'm talking about when I''m telling you they're great!" is quite intense but would possibly have a counterproductive effect. Charlie, my business partner, who actually has way more hit records under his belt than I do, had a go booking dates for the girls and for the first week was greeted with the same wall of indifference that I got. Then, just as he was about to play the Don't You Know Who I Am? card, someone gave him a gig. We took the rest of the afternoon off. I think the promoter may have given it to him by mistake but by then it was too late. Anyway, since he got it, he's been on fire - he's got them about ten shows now. Ra-hey! Me, I managed one Bath Moles and some gig in Bristol in what appeared to be a urine bottling plant. At the end of the night, the drunk promoter refused to pay us. Presumably he'd spent all the takings on lager in order to convert it into more wee.
So when it came to looking after the Scottish band I couldn't face doing the gig-phony-uppy thing. Fortunately, I managed to get them an agent and she's a total pleasure to deal with. I wish everyone I dealt with was more like her. Funny, as a manager you really notice all the things that you heard yourself being accused of when you did A&R: when people don't call you back for a day, or sometimes just never call back, or claim to have lost or eaten whatever it was you sent them by registered post. It's the real world, which, if you're sheltered from it - i.e. if you're someone to whom everyone wants to speak, because you represent warehouses stuffed with record deals, cash and supermodels - is a world you never see. It's good for the soul, I suppose, but not good for the mobile phone bill which - and I'm speaking to you, Mr and Mrs Orange - is an itemised monthly bastard.
Lucy, our booking agent, works for an old friend of mine, Charlie, who used to be The Levellers' agent then put his foot to the floor and now has his own agency, which looks after some of the UK's biggest groups. We are, of course, currently one of the UK's smallest groups, so the first step towards joining the upper echelons of Charlie's roster is to play some shows away from home. But how do you do this when no one has heard of you? Answer: The club show. These are essentially indie discos that have a few bands playing based on the theory that the DJs have the taste to play good records so may as well book the bands as well.
So I went up to Nottingham last week to see them play a club night called Radar. The venue -The Bodega Social - is a good old-fashioned building with high ceilings and a covered rear outdoor area where there appeared to be some sort of smoking competition going on. In the bar the walls are covered with framed photos of bands the Bodega has played host to recently - Kate Nash, Jack Penate, The Wombats... Next week Duffy was playing. We were getting a fee and a rider ("a crate of beers and softs" - mmm, got to love a soft.) Oh yes, it appeared we really had entered The Big Time.
The support band - if such a thing exists in the context of a club night - were female fronted. "And she's French," pointed out Jack, our singer. The French singer in question was, it must be said, really attractive too: kind of damaged blonde with a waspish figure and violent cheekbones. All this and French. We couldn't wait to check out her band Tramp (incidentally, I wanted to put a link to their Myspace here but it doesn't appear to exist).
Expectations for Tramp were perhaps excessive. As the singer stalked the stage, gurning at members of the audience in a Hazel O'Connorish, wide-eyed, I'm-a-bit-mad-me sort of way, the rest of the band plodded away in the background. She had an odd voice that ticked all the boxes like 'in tune' and 'powerful' but managed to remain resolutely unappealing. I felt a warm glow of confidence and relief that those involved with bands get when they know there's no competition - like the band who meet Spinal Tap in the lobby of the hotel who are playing the Enormodome. We watched the rest of the set along with the rest of the small, bloke-heavy crowd.
When my band went onstage it was to an even smaller crowd, made up largely from members of Tramp and a couple of their mates. It started well and drinkers from the adjacent bar sauntered round the corner so they could see who was making this truly fantastic music. Or so I thought. As the show progressed there seemed to be a nice little knot of people who were getting into it, some of them even dancing. But then, inexplicably, one, then two, then three of the girls in the crowd decided it was time for a wee or a fag and b-lined it out of the room. No problem, I thought, as I stood there alongside two spindley indie blokes, the girls will be back soon with a whole new crowd of converts. Then the two indie men meandered back to the bar and it was just me and the sound guy left.
Jack and the band heroically played on. They did a new song, which was fantastic, the sound wasn't great but all the bits were falling into place musically and the band were performing their hearts out - Will's backing vocals keeping the whole thing underpinned beautifully and Robert locking everything down on the drums . Towards the end, a handful of people came up and had a conversation in front of the stage.
Eventually, like an operation, it was all over. We returned to the dressing room (more of a dressing corridor, actually - like the office that Tuttle gets in Brazil). We cracked open the crate of beers, we downed a few of the softs, we did the gig post-mortem thing.
There was no great secret as to why we hadn't connected. As the promotor said later: it was a club night, sometimes audiences can be weird - especially when there's a WKD promotion going on downstairs. Plus, people had come to dance to records they knew - that's how some club nights are - no doubt Duffy would have a field day the following week. This was proven later as the dancefloor was rammed with 2 For 1 Bacadi Breezer drinkers in mini-skirts dancing to the Klaxons. As the band and I joined the smoking competition going on outside, someone from Tramp sidled up and offered us one solution: "Tough one tonight, you guys need to get a girl singer, then your problems will be over..."
Next time: The band play Newcastle and Leeds. Rock and, to be perfectly frank, Roll!
Thursday, 28 February 2008
A Night in Hoxton
Of course, having been an A&R man for a million years in the 90s, I know a fair amount of folk who still do it. And I went out with two of them last Wednesday for a Vietnamese meal in Kingsland Rd - no, not the predictable Viet Hoa - the much better Song Que at bit further along - check out the soft shell crab, it's crunchy, it's chewy, like a fishy Double Decker, you just don't know where you are!
As we ate, we discussed the ludicrous Guy Hands anti-A&R rant, which I won't go into here, suffice to ask: Is he the new Gerald Ratner? Someone asked me to write something about it for the Guardian so you can read my thoughts here if you like. We also talked about Kill Your Friends, which one of us had read, one of us was reading (me - I finished it later that night) and one of us wasn't looking at on principle. I'll get to it later but in case you're wondering I'm happy to eat my words - it's very readable. Damn.
After eating we wandered down Kingsland road to Hoxton Square to get to the screamingly fashionable Hoxton Bar & Grill. I don't think they do actually grill anything there apart from people trying to get in who don't look like Noel Fielding, but there is a bar and we walked past it, making for the entrance at the back. Then we realised that we were walking past a queue, not just any old bored line of people looking at their watches, no, this queue made loud noises, everyone knew everyone else - it was a queue almost entirely built from A&R people. We found someone half way down it to talk to - I hate doing that, it's like driving in the bus lane and nipping in front of someone who's been queuing up properly for hours. Still, it did mean we got in quicker despite everyone behind us muttering obscenities.
The band we were there to see are called White Lies who are four 19 year-olds from Acton. They used to be a band called Fear Of Flying, who I remember quite liking when I was at V2. They used to sound a bit like The Teardrop Explodes, an exuberant bass player and chunky chords backing a .. well, actually that's where it fell down: the singer, whose voice had all the back-of-throat Julian Cope mannerisms but without any of the character. Also they looked a bit rubbish. Mind you, at the time they had just done their GSCEs and had armies of spots marching all over their faces.
What has happened to their stock in the meantime is little short of amazing. OK, so the acne is gone, they have new management, partially new musical direction and new trousers, but FOF attracted a handful of A&R people who sniffed and left. White Lies on the other hand is wall to wall A&R - and not just scouts, but serious, swaggering executives. In the first 10 minutes as we stood waiting for the band to come on, I saw the A&R men who look after Snow Patrol, Kate Nash, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Lilly Allen, Kylie Minogue, Babyshambles, Hot Chip and Corine Bailey Rae, plus managing directors and chairmen from Sony and Universal, not to mention cool labels like Nude, Fantastic Plastic and of course Moshi Moshi whose gig it was. Actually the headline act was Semifinalists, who I used to look after at V2 and on whose album I spent some considerable time working last year - did they tell me they were over in the UK doing shows? No, they did not. Artists, eh? Can't live with them...
Anyway, eventually, after what seemed like days, during which time the venue managed to cram in most of London and some of Japan, the lights go down and the band take the stage. They look great, it has to be said. Basically it's FOF without the puppy fat and all wearing black. There is also some serious hair going on - angular, foppish and sleek. They kick off with a song that goes on for days. In a parallel universe they are still playing it. It is stoppy-starty with long passages of single plucked guitar note over Peter Hookish slabs of bass. It's pretty good. The rhythm section are undeniably excellent, the drummer is not only a great player but looks - as my mate standing next to me, who signed Blur said - like Alex James. He's the star of the band. Which is the problem really. The singer hasn't really moved on from FOF that much. He still has the same Julian Cope meets Tony Hadley voice plus he never opens his eyes when he sings, never makes contact with the audience.
After the eighth minute of the first song, my mind begins to wander. I start playing Count The A&R Men which passes the time until song 2, which is much better. Well, much shorter anyway. They have obviously been listening to the Killers but also some of the things which the Killers were inspired by like Psychedelic Furs and The Cars - in fact as we leave later, I spot Ed Bueller the man who produced Suede and spent some time being in The Psychedelic Furs.
We're on our way to another bar where there is an aftershow for a fashion launch. It's like an episode of Nathan Barley tonight. Earlier in the evening, I'd bumped into my lovely friend Nicky, who has gone from sleepy-eyed, shy 20-something to running a very successful fashion PR company. She is hosting a Nudie Jeans launch in conjunction with Amnesty International in a bar along from where we had dinner. Through the windows, I can see inside the brightly-lit room, it's full of insanely young and fashionable types all jooshing around. I see my reflection in its flat cap and stripey scarf and long for a cup of tea and a book. "We're having an aftershow round the corner in The Macbeth," says Nicky, "You've got to come, the Cribs are playing - with Johnny Marr! The Horrors are DJing, there's a free bar ..."
"Great!" I hate the Cribs and The Horrors are unspeakably bad but Nicky is brilliant and well, free drinks, what could possibly go wrong?
Sure enough, that's where we end up. The Macbeth - or The Scottish Pub as I'm sure superstitious locals call it - is a refreshingly ungentrified East London boozer, Dirk or Squiggly or whatever his name is from The Horrors turns out to be a really good DJ and booze drinks are courtesy of those fashionable people at Nudie. It's an evening of lovely serendipity as well: I need a sleeve designer for my Scottish Band (no, I'm not superstitious about them, I just don't want to name them in the blog - I'm sure you'll work who they are eventually!) and I bump into Rob who I had been thinking of contacting but didn't have his number. Retts, who took pictures of my girl band is there taking pics of famous people for Nudie, I tell her the bloke who designed the stuffed animals in the Lightspeed Champion video is there but she doesn't seem impressed. My great friend Bakul is there too - she, Retts and Nicky all used to live together in her flat in Camden in the mid-90s, which became the unofficial aftershow destination. If she's not playing hostess, Bakul never misses a party. Most of London thinks her surname is Plus One.
I end up chatting with Laurence from Domino who I haven't seen in years (not since his label became massively successful) and he's still lovely. We realise we first met almost 20 years as I remind him of our Statten Island Ferry trip with Steve Lamacq during the New Music Seminar in 1991. "1990!" he corrects me. Bimey. It turns out he saw my Scottish band supporting Franz Ferdinand last year and thinks they're good. Funny, I realise for the first time what it feels like for band managers to hear that an A&R man 'quite likes' their act. Fortunately, having 'quite liked' hundreds of bands when I did A&R, I know that this is nothing to get overly excited about, it's a meaningless statement. But hey, Laurence likes the band! Hold the front page! Hang out the bunting! More champagne!
Eventually the surf wave music played by Faris Rotter (yes, that's his name, how could I forget?) gets too loud and the Cribs - with our without Marr - still haven't taken the small stage at the end of the bar so the three of us decide to leave. I give Matthew a big hug (an A&R bearhug as we call it) and then Michael offers me a lift to the tube station.
"What did you think of White Lies?" he asks, putting on the demo.
From my passenger seat, I tell him I thought the voice wasn't something I could imagine many people getting excited about. But you know what, who knows? I've just listened to the Myspace tracks and I'm warming to them. A&R's easy when you're not in the driving seat. That's why everyone thinks they can do it. Michael drops me off at Kings Cross and drives off home, mulling over whether he should put in an offer.
As we ate, we discussed the ludicrous Guy Hands anti-A&R rant, which I won't go into here, suffice to ask: Is he the new Gerald Ratner? Someone asked me to write something about it for the Guardian so you can read my thoughts here if you like. We also talked about Kill Your Friends, which one of us had read, one of us was reading (me - I finished it later that night) and one of us wasn't looking at on principle. I'll get to it later but in case you're wondering I'm happy to eat my words - it's very readable. Damn.
After eating we wandered down Kingsland road to Hoxton Square to get to the screamingly fashionable Hoxton Bar & Grill. I don't think they do actually grill anything there apart from people trying to get in who don't look like Noel Fielding, but there is a bar and we walked past it, making for the entrance at the back. Then we realised that we were walking past a queue, not just any old bored line of people looking at their watches, no, this queue made loud noises, everyone knew everyone else - it was a queue almost entirely built from A&R people. We found someone half way down it to talk to - I hate doing that, it's like driving in the bus lane and nipping in front of someone who's been queuing up properly for hours. Still, it did mean we got in quicker despite everyone behind us muttering obscenities.
The band we were there to see are called White Lies who are four 19 year-olds from Acton. They used to be a band called Fear Of Flying, who I remember quite liking when I was at V2. They used to sound a bit like The Teardrop Explodes, an exuberant bass player and chunky chords backing a .. well, actually that's where it fell down: the singer, whose voice had all the back-of-throat Julian Cope mannerisms but without any of the character. Also they looked a bit rubbish. Mind you, at the time they had just done their GSCEs and had armies of spots marching all over their faces.
What has happened to their stock in the meantime is little short of amazing. OK, so the acne is gone, they have new management, partially new musical direction and new trousers, but FOF attracted a handful of A&R people who sniffed and left. White Lies on the other hand is wall to wall A&R - and not just scouts, but serious, swaggering executives. In the first 10 minutes as we stood waiting for the band to come on, I saw the A&R men who look after Snow Patrol, Kate Nash, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Lilly Allen, Kylie Minogue, Babyshambles, Hot Chip and Corine Bailey Rae, plus managing directors and chairmen from Sony and Universal, not to mention cool labels like Nude, Fantastic Plastic and of course Moshi Moshi whose gig it was. Actually the headline act was Semifinalists, who I used to look after at V2 and on whose album I spent some considerable time working last year - did they tell me they were over in the UK doing shows? No, they did not. Artists, eh? Can't live with them...
Anyway, eventually, after what seemed like days, during which time the venue managed to cram in most of London and some of Japan, the lights go down and the band take the stage. They look great, it has to be said. Basically it's FOF without the puppy fat and all wearing black. There is also some serious hair going on - angular, foppish and sleek. They kick off with a song that goes on for days. In a parallel universe they are still playing it. It is stoppy-starty with long passages of single plucked guitar note over Peter Hookish slabs of bass. It's pretty good. The rhythm section are undeniably excellent, the drummer is not only a great player but looks - as my mate standing next to me, who signed Blur said - like Alex James. He's the star of the band. Which is the problem really. The singer hasn't really moved on from FOF that much. He still has the same Julian Cope meets Tony Hadley voice plus he never opens his eyes when he sings, never makes contact with the audience.
After the eighth minute of the first song, my mind begins to wander. I start playing Count The A&R Men which passes the time until song 2, which is much better. Well, much shorter anyway. They have obviously been listening to the Killers but also some of the things which the Killers were inspired by like Psychedelic Furs and The Cars - in fact as we leave later, I spot Ed Bueller the man who produced Suede and spent some time being in The Psychedelic Furs.
We're on our way to another bar where there is an aftershow for a fashion launch. It's like an episode of Nathan Barley tonight. Earlier in the evening, I'd bumped into my lovely friend Nicky, who has gone from sleepy-eyed, shy 20-something to running a very successful fashion PR company. She is hosting a Nudie Jeans launch in conjunction with Amnesty International in a bar along from where we had dinner. Through the windows, I can see inside the brightly-lit room, it's full of insanely young and fashionable types all jooshing around. I see my reflection in its flat cap and stripey scarf and long for a cup of tea and a book. "We're having an aftershow round the corner in The Macbeth," says Nicky, "You've got to come, the Cribs are playing - with Johnny Marr! The Horrors are DJing, there's a free bar ..."
"Great!" I hate the Cribs and The Horrors are unspeakably bad but Nicky is brilliant and well, free drinks, what could possibly go wrong?
Sure enough, that's where we end up. The Macbeth - or The Scottish Pub as I'm sure superstitious locals call it - is a refreshingly ungentrified East London boozer, Dirk or Squiggly or whatever his name is from The Horrors turns out to be a really good DJ and booze drinks are courtesy of those fashionable people at Nudie. It's an evening of lovely serendipity as well: I need a sleeve designer for my Scottish Band (no, I'm not superstitious about them, I just don't want to name them in the blog - I'm sure you'll work who they are eventually!) and I bump into Rob who I had been thinking of contacting but didn't have his number. Retts, who took pictures of my girl band is there taking pics of famous people for Nudie, I tell her the bloke who designed the stuffed animals in the Lightspeed Champion video is there but she doesn't seem impressed. My great friend Bakul is there too - she, Retts and Nicky all used to live together in her flat in Camden in the mid-90s, which became the unofficial aftershow destination. If she's not playing hostess, Bakul never misses a party. Most of London thinks her surname is Plus One.
I end up chatting with Laurence from Domino who I haven't seen in years (not since his label became massively successful) and he's still lovely. We realise we first met almost 20 years as I remind him of our Statten Island Ferry trip with Steve Lamacq during the New Music Seminar in 1991. "1990!" he corrects me. Bimey. It turns out he saw my Scottish band supporting Franz Ferdinand last year and thinks they're good. Funny, I realise for the first time what it feels like for band managers to hear that an A&R man 'quite likes' their act. Fortunately, having 'quite liked' hundreds of bands when I did A&R, I know that this is nothing to get overly excited about, it's a meaningless statement. But hey, Laurence likes the band! Hold the front page! Hang out the bunting! More champagne!
Eventually the surf wave music played by Faris Rotter (yes, that's his name, how could I forget?) gets too loud and the Cribs - with our without Marr - still haven't taken the small stage at the end of the bar so the three of us decide to leave. I give Matthew a big hug (an A&R bearhug as we call it) and then Michael offers me a lift to the tube station.
"What did you think of White Lies?" he asks, putting on the demo.
From my passenger seat, I tell him I thought the voice wasn't something I could imagine many people getting excited about. But you know what, who knows? I've just listened to the Myspace tracks and I'm warming to them. A&R's easy when you're not in the driving seat. That's why everyone thinks they can do it. Michael drops me off at Kings Cross and drives off home, mulling over whether he should put in an offer.
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Papa's Got A Brand New Holdall
OK, I'll come clean. I was kind of overdramatising when I talked about fate in the last entry. But the interesting thing is, I suppose, how a large proportion of time spent managing a band turns out not to be on the Big Picture but on the really tiny things.
What happens is this: after breakfast - or as previously stated in my case, no breakfast - we load all our gear into the van. We left it in a room behind the B&B's reception after the gig and it's still all there: guitars, amps, bags... Then Charlie and I say goodbye to the girls, who have the long drive back to Swindon ahead of them. We are off to meet an old Web designer friend of Charlie's and later to go the studio where our other band will be midway through their second day's recording on the forthcoming single.
At the studio, the single is sounding amazing - particularly considering the tiny room they're doing it in but the owners there really know their stuff, they're trained BBC engineers who do this in their spare time - I must ask them why they call the place LaChunky, it almost undersells the place, as if it's some jokey voiceover room. Anyway, plug over, it's good, OK? The Web designer is amazing too, he's Travis' and the Fratellis' guy and has been doing Web design since 1994 - i.e. Internet prehistory. He totally reignites my belief in building bespoke Websites for bands instead of dumping everything on Myspace - plus, he lives in Byers Road which is full of brilliant 1950s snack bars and riches-laden charity shops.
It's still bright sun in a cloudless sky and we're walking in the vague direction of Glasgow Central Station in order to get a train to Elvis Presley Airport. Of course, it turns out that we're walking in the complete opposite direction, as I discover when we try to board a bus. The driver raises an Lanarkshire eyebrow at me and points to the bus stop on the other side of the street. It's always the same every time I come here, it's like Soho but on a city scale - I mean, in the same way that they shuffle Dean, Frith and Greek Streets around every couple of weeks, they do the same thing in Glasgow with entire portions of the city. Every time I come, Sauchihall Street is in a different place and Central Station... forget it, sometimes they put it in a different town.
So anyway, we manage to navigate our way as far as Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (too much space, too little to fill it with; a lifesize Elvis Presley sculpture next to a stuffed heron, anyone?) We actually go here so I can have a wee, loos in places of culture generally being better maintained. As I come back out onto the steps outside the building, Charlie's on the phone:
"A blue bag? A blue bag ... I don't remember, I'm afraid."
I remember seeing a blue bag go into the van. Phew, we remembered everything. We rock! I relax, making thumbs up signs at him.
"Well, if we've got it, yes, of course ..."
He let's his mobile arm flop down, the conversation is over.
"What's up?"
"We've taken someone's bag by mistake."
Bugger.
Now, this wouldn't have been too tricky had it not been for the fact that the band were now several hundred miles out of Glasgow on route to Wiltshire. And so the rest of our afternoon and evening became an odyssey of ludicrousness. The unfortunate traveller needed his bag (naturally containing passport, plane tickets, keys, small children ...) by Sunday so we'd have to get it up by courier. OK, not too onerous. And after phoning every courier company in the world, it transpired that DHL did an overnight service which cost about 50 quid during the week. Only trouble was, it was Friday and the office in Swindon closed at 6. Would the band make it back by then?
In fact they did make it back by then. Hooray! But guess what, DHL offices, don't accept credit or debit cards - only cheques. Yes, that's right, it may be 2008 but in DHL World, it's 1975. The band knew this though and brought cash. No go, they don't accept cash either, understandable, I suppose, the money could be stolen, or be novelty cash from a joke shop or maybe have a bit of dust on it. So we missed the overnight delivery. Never mind, we could still use the Same Day Service they helpfully provide at weekends:
"Certainly, sir ... Swindon to Glasgow you say? A small blue holdall? No Problemo! Let me see ... yes, that'll be £550 plus VAT."
Unsurprisingly, this service was more than happy to take my credit card number. I didn't give them the pleasure. Instead, we spoke to the B&B, forced the mobile number of the bag owner out of the afternoon language student on reception (this took about 30 minutes of concerted Slowspeak), spoke to the bag owner, who told us the hotel had agreed to pay costs, spoke to the B&B manager, who of course strenuously denied this on hearing it was a 500 quid situation, got more quotes from other couriers who were even more costly and then came up with a simple idea that I never thought would work but which solved all. We offered to pay a couple of the band's mates to go up and deliver the bag. In the end, it was Pauline, the band's personal Velvet Hammer (gets people to do things without raising her voice) who drove up with her mate Soph (the band's guitarist). They stopped off in Liverpool on the way back and painted the town completely turquoise, but that's another story.
So a happy ending of sorts: we gave some money to a far worthier cause than DHL and the gentleman, reunited with his bag, made the flight on Sunday. The B&B reluctantly admitted partial liability without fulling confessing to being idiots and shoving someone else's bag next to ours with no ID tag on it. I'm still disappointed with their uselessness and if I was a harsher man I'd write their name here so you could avoid staying there should you find yourself in Glasgow. Their showers were rubbish too.
I must say, though, as far as management goes it was perhaps our first 'get out of that one' scenario and in terms of thinking on our feet I think we're now well-equipped to deal with any future 'band detained at airport with massive amount of drugs and porn' situation. Bring it on!
What happens is this: after breakfast - or as previously stated in my case, no breakfast - we load all our gear into the van. We left it in a room behind the B&B's reception after the gig and it's still all there: guitars, amps, bags... Then Charlie and I say goodbye to the girls, who have the long drive back to Swindon ahead of them. We are off to meet an old Web designer friend of Charlie's and later to go the studio where our other band will be midway through their second day's recording on the forthcoming single.
At the studio, the single is sounding amazing - particularly considering the tiny room they're doing it in but the owners there really know their stuff, they're trained BBC engineers who do this in their spare time - I must ask them why they call the place LaChunky, it almost undersells the place, as if it's some jokey voiceover room. Anyway, plug over, it's good, OK? The Web designer is amazing too, he's Travis' and the Fratellis' guy and has been doing Web design since 1994 - i.e. Internet prehistory. He totally reignites my belief in building bespoke Websites for bands instead of dumping everything on Myspace - plus, he lives in Byers Road which is full of brilliant 1950s snack bars and riches-laden charity shops.
It's still bright sun in a cloudless sky and we're walking in the vague direction of Glasgow Central Station in order to get a train to Elvis Presley Airport. Of course, it turns out that we're walking in the complete opposite direction, as I discover when we try to board a bus. The driver raises an Lanarkshire eyebrow at me and points to the bus stop on the other side of the street. It's always the same every time I come here, it's like Soho but on a city scale - I mean, in the same way that they shuffle Dean, Frith and Greek Streets around every couple of weeks, they do the same thing in Glasgow with entire portions of the city. Every time I come, Sauchihall Street is in a different place and Central Station... forget it, sometimes they put it in a different town.
So anyway, we manage to navigate our way as far as Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (too much space, too little to fill it with; a lifesize Elvis Presley sculpture next to a stuffed heron, anyone?) We actually go here so I can have a wee, loos in places of culture generally being better maintained. As I come back out onto the steps outside the building, Charlie's on the phone:
"A blue bag? A blue bag ... I don't remember, I'm afraid."
I remember seeing a blue bag go into the van. Phew, we remembered everything. We rock! I relax, making thumbs up signs at him.
"Well, if we've got it, yes, of course ..."
He let's his mobile arm flop down, the conversation is over.
"What's up?"
"We've taken someone's bag by mistake."
Bugger.
Now, this wouldn't have been too tricky had it not been for the fact that the band were now several hundred miles out of Glasgow on route to Wiltshire. And so the rest of our afternoon and evening became an odyssey of ludicrousness. The unfortunate traveller needed his bag (naturally containing passport, plane tickets, keys, small children ...) by Sunday so we'd have to get it up by courier. OK, not too onerous. And after phoning every courier company in the world, it transpired that DHL did an overnight service which cost about 50 quid during the week. Only trouble was, it was Friday and the office in Swindon closed at 6. Would the band make it back by then?
In fact they did make it back by then. Hooray! But guess what, DHL offices, don't accept credit or debit cards - only cheques. Yes, that's right, it may be 2008 but in DHL World, it's 1975. The band knew this though and brought cash. No go, they don't accept cash either, understandable, I suppose, the money could be stolen, or be novelty cash from a joke shop or maybe have a bit of dust on it. So we missed the overnight delivery. Never mind, we could still use the Same Day Service they helpfully provide at weekends:
"Certainly, sir ... Swindon to Glasgow you say? A small blue holdall? No Problemo! Let me see ... yes, that'll be £550 plus VAT."
Unsurprisingly, this service was more than happy to take my credit card number. I didn't give them the pleasure. Instead, we spoke to the B&B, forced the mobile number of the bag owner out of the afternoon language student on reception (this took about 30 minutes of concerted Slowspeak), spoke to the bag owner, who told us the hotel had agreed to pay costs, spoke to the B&B manager, who of course strenuously denied this on hearing it was a 500 quid situation, got more quotes from other couriers who were even more costly and then came up with a simple idea that I never thought would work but which solved all. We offered to pay a couple of the band's mates to go up and deliver the bag. In the end, it was Pauline, the band's personal Velvet Hammer (gets people to do things without raising her voice) who drove up with her mate Soph (the band's guitarist). They stopped off in Liverpool on the way back and painted the town completely turquoise, but that's another story.
So a happy ending of sorts: we gave some money to a far worthier cause than DHL and the gentleman, reunited with his bag, made the flight on Sunday. The B&B reluctantly admitted partial liability without fulling confessing to being idiots and shoving someone else's bag next to ours with no ID tag on it. I'm still disappointed with their uselessness and if I was a harsher man I'd write their name here so you could avoid staying there should you find yourself in Glasgow. Their showers were rubbish too.
I must say, though, as far as management goes it was perhaps our first 'get out of that one' scenario and in terms of thinking on our feet I think we're now well-equipped to deal with any future 'band detained at airport with massive amount of drugs and porn' situation. Bring it on!
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