Some years ago I was in what the youth of today refer to as a "popular beat combo" called Guardians of Dalliance. We released some stuff on a very nice indie label (Moving Shadow) and totally failed to get the finance to make a second album and perform live. This was in no small part due to our excessive requirements of doing it live. A full brass section, strings and at least two drummers would have been required… The other major problem was down to having to try and write stuff that conformed to a style that was quickly going out of fashion. At this point I became fed up with the whole record company/club scene stuff and decided to get out while the going was good. When I say "good", I mean "arse".
As a result I split with my former bandmates, moved to London and holed myself up in a tiny flat with one window. Apart from turning a strange shade of grey (as mentioned in the previous blog) and forgetting what the outside was like, I spent most of my time learning various graphic packages and writing music that I found interesting. You may say this was needlessly self indulgent. Well, up yours missus judgey-judgemental, I say. You're probably right but I think this is a vital part of any writers development. Forget what is in the charts and forget making other people happy. If you can't write stuff that you're proud of then what, exactly, is the point?
I know some people who are desperately trying to write a top 40 hit. I know other people who are ploughing their own furrow and writing stuff that will not get heard by more than four people and their deeply concerned but doting mother. The people in the latter camp are far more happy. Poor but happy. And this is the problem. If you write a few tunes that nobody hears but you feel good about, then have you wasted your time? I don't think so. If you write a top 40 hit that you can't bear to listen to, have you succeeded in the music biz? I don't think so. There has to be a happy medium, right? Insert your own Derek Acorah joke here. I can't think of one. I can't think about him for too long without wanting to set my beard on fire. After I've beaten him to death with his own lies.
Anyway, no, there probably isn't a happy medium. The sad fact about the music industry is that it's a total fartbitch to make a living from. Forget those deluded plastic tossers selected by Simon "the soul eater" Cowell. Who do you think makes the money from those arrangements? It isn't the poor fake-tanned preened puppet flapping about on the stage for all they're worth, I'm pretty sure about that.
You may think I sound bitter and twisted and down on the whole music biz thing. I'm really not. I hear some great music from some very talented people who will probably be back at their shitty job on Monday morning, counting out chicken McNuggets and secretly wishing they could deep fry their line manager. And I'm not even being snobby about the stuff in the charts. Some of it is fantastically well written and produced pop. If I'm pissed and at a party and somebody sticks "Toxic" on, then I will probably shake my stuff in a hideously embarrassing and ornament threatening fashion - it's a good way to get girls - sorry, not girls, pity. And we all know that the major labels have to change their business model and we all know that Spotify pays the artist a pittance… But I've received more money from Spotify than I have from EMI. Not counting that tenner I won when I bet that Robbie Williams wouldn't save the company from financial disgrace.
I'm not even sure exactly what the point of all this is. It seems that these days you have to write a lot of tunes, get those tunes out there (remarkably easy to do these days with the various digital distribution companies knocking about - I use Ditto Music at the moment and I'm very happy with them, other people use Tunecore, pillocks use CD Baby), gig, make cheap videos for YouTube, sign up to loads of music sites like ReverbNation, Last FM and even poor old MySpace (I know - I did some research this morning and apparently some people still use this, although I have no idea why - most of the artists I liked have long since given up on it) and generally whore your stuff all over the place as much as possible (I'm getting a more comprehensive list of interesting sites and outlets for a future blog). I spend an inordinate amount of time logging into various sites to check the stats and see which random person has posted a comment on my blog/page/wall/feed/scrotum. But this is only part of what you have to do. I know a few people in the film and TV industry and I whore myself to them as well. Partly because getting into a film or tv programme or, heaven and soul forbid, an advert is a good way of generating cash and interest quickly - but mostly because it is essential you have a multi-pronged fork… sorry… approach. It's no good doing a few local gigs at "The Farting Baron Eatery and Family Playzone" and then crying into your mixing desk when the cash, drugs and girls don't come rolling in. It's no good just printing some T-shirts and then wondering why your balance sheet has massive red figures smacking you in the face like Stalin invading Poland. It's no good wondering why your mates have stopped turning up to your gigs when for the last six months you've played exactly the same frigid arsing set over and over until moths fall out of your bassist's ears.
You have to do all these things and more. You have to get creative and try and think of an angle that nobody else has done. I accept that this is almost as impossible as asking McDonald's to make a tasty nutritious burger. Fuck… McDonald's are probably going to sue now…
Anyway, you have to try and make a noise - other than the rumbling of your hopelessly empty stomach. And in order for this to work… In order for you to do this without withering away in a corner, rocking and dribbling like your Nan, you need to be proud of the stuff you've written. If you're writing something and it sounds a bit ropey then bin it. Start again. Life's too short to hammer a turd into a prize-winning Schnauzer - whichever way you want to take that sentence. If you don't love what you're writing then you are just as bad as the soulless skin-showing tarts (of either sex) guffing their drivel out on those prime-time shamefests.
And please… Use some of the gloriously useful internet (some useful sites coming in a future blog - but for discovering new stuff, why not give the quite excellent mflow a go?) to find some stuff that makes you love music again. Listen and buy (and even share with your mates - yes I really don't mind people pirating the odd tune if it means that more people hear Hot Donkey and we even give the odd track away every now and then because we're, like, really pissing nice) and revel in the scarily wide gamut of musical juice that is out there. It's one of the best things that humans do. Far better than making shit TV shows seemingly centred around humiliating fat people.
Ha ha. Fat people. Aren't they funny?
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