How Much Character Do We Need?

I was taken around the GCap www.gcapmedia.com offices on a fact finding mission the other day. GCap own a bunch of radio stations including Capital www.capitalradio.co.uk and XFM www.xfm.co.uk around the country. I got shown around the studios, including the very excellent Planet Rock www.planetrock.co.uk studio where Mark Jeeves was hosting his drive time gig. He had Rush www.rush.com on. He said that there is far too little Rush on radio these days. I’m not a Rush fan, but since my brother Mat is, I played along for the sake of The Animal Farm corporate message.

Then my host Steve, who is a big cheese up there at GCap, walked me over to the XFM floor. In the staircase I heard the familiar sounds of Sibelius’ Finlandia http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ci3RPAOFok4&feature=related coming from the Classic FM part of the building. It’s an important tune for us Finns. So, I got taken to the Classic FM studios for a chat with the presenter about classical music. All those years of playing classical piano as a kid paid off at this point - I was able to fake it in an alien environment relatively convincingly, I would say. While I was up there I also met Myleene Klass. Not an entirely unattractive girl is Myleene. That’s not Myleene on the left. That’s the composer of Finlandia, Mr Jean Sibelius.

Met people from different parts of the building and had the most interesting conversation with the head of music for the chain about “testing”. That’s when stations test songs on listeners. Do you like it? Hate it? Hate a little or does it really make you sick? Obviously, if a song doesn’t test well, they don’t play it, because if they did, people would switch off, advertisers would get nervous, then there’d be no money, no jobs, no radio station, no nuffink.

Which reminds of the article by veteran songwriter Ralph Murphy http://www.ascap.com/nashville/murphy/who says that hit records aren’t made in the studio or the a&r office or the marketing meeting. They’re made at 7 am on the radio. He calls it the 7 am rule. The rule is that if your song gets people out of bed and into work at 7 in the morning, chances are you’ll have a hit. His advice to the budding songwriter is to acknowledge that at 7 am the listener is not interested in your problems. He is interested in his own problems. He doesn’t want to be reminded of the shit in his life. He wants something that makes the transition from the warmth of his bed/home to the often not too pleasant daily grind more or less a life affirming event. If you write a song that does just that, it will test well at radio, they will play it more, drawing more advertising money in, and in the process you get a hit record! Savvy!

Of course, not all records can be or need to be hits. Just look at Rush. They’ve never had a hit and 30+ years into their career they’re still selling out arenas in every territory they play. But they are rather good at what they do. I have to admit it, even if I don’t like what they do.

Which is kind of what the head of music was saying. To argue about what’s great music and what’s a good song is irrelevant. Everyone’s got opinions. But what is important is to realise that a song needs to find an audience, and vice versa. It’s hardly subversive to say that a radio station, like a newspaper, sells advertisers access to a certain kinda crowd. If the paper prints or the station plays stuff that the crowd don’t like… game over real soon.

Rush have clearly shown that no matter how shrill your singing voice or how strange your music, you can find an audience for it. Just don’t expect Capital FM to play it. But it’s out there, somewhere.

Being a pro

‘Twas an interesting trip to Canary Wharf Squash Classic www.canarywharfsquash.com that me and some of my team mates from the mighty Blackheath Squash Rackets Club did this week. Some of the best pro squash players in the world gathered in town for the annual Canary Wharf tournament. We were there to watch, mind. Plus I had a patriotic reason to attend because fellow Finn Olli Tuominen, ranked 16th in the world, was playing. To the uninitiated, watching squash is like watching paint dry but being a bit of a squash nut I love seeing what really good players can do.

Funny thing is that I think I know what goes on in a match, but I sat next to an ex international player and he was seeing things I had no idea were going on. It must have been all those steroids he would have eaten as a pro… or then there is more to squash than I know!

For the first time I got a rare glimpse (I managed to meet players “behind the scenes”) into how hard it is making it as a pro athlete, how mentally strong you have to be to tour the circuit. Fighting for tournament money point by point in strange locations is a helluva way to make a living. In both the fantastic and the drastic. When you pick up a cheque after winning a tournament, it rules. When you crash out in the first round because of a bad day at the office, you’re left stranded in a city for a few days because you booked your flights for after the tournament (thinking you’re going to make the semis at least) and changing the flights is going to cost more than the pittance in prize money you get for the first round defeat…

Not entirely unlike being in a touring rock band. Of that I have experience. The myth is that it’s all rock’n'roll all nite and party every day http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DWLpbcgc814 And it is. Playing naked rugby with a glass ashtray for a ball on the top floor of the Tokyo Hilton. That was cool. The first time you get asked for an autograph at an airport. Makes you feel a man of the world. But it can also be very hard and very distressing. Promoters that don’t pay. Gigs that don’t exist. Gigs in front of three men and a dog. Getting a cold and losing your voice and having to carry on regardless. Feeling homesick. Everyone getting on your tits. The permutations are endless.

When I first started touring, we had a drummer who couldn’t hack it. By the end of a long tour he was so sick with stress and fatigue that it was painful to watch him. He then quit the band. Seeing him a couple of months after he quit was like seeing another person, the guy we first hooked up with to form the band. He’d got his pecker up again, I guess, just by not having to put up with the rigours of the road.

Consider this: the tour was half way thru and it had been pretty hit and miss along the way. We’d driven in the pouring rain in a leaking van for hours to turn up at a venue to find out that the PA was fucked and our merch hadn’t arrived. The interviews we were supposed to do were cancelled. Then some kid walks with the latest issue of Kerrang. We were in it.

He goes: “How does it feel to have made it?”

I think about the definition of “making it” in the context of what I was going through in my life and on that tour in general and that day in particular.

But before I can reply (i was gloriously unalert because being on tour is being constantly on about 75% of your natural energy level for most of the day, so you can peak around show time) he enthuses: “Man, you’re in a band touring the world promoting an album of your own music AND you get bigged up in the press! I wish I had just ONE of those things!”

That put the spring back into my step.

A real life lesson in how it’s done

We had a great drummer in the other day to do a session for us. Donavan had just finished the Take That tour. So, he’s a top of the line pro. And he sure could play. I got to thinking about some of the drummers in bands who talk about getting work as session musicians. They’re not bad players, but they certainly are nowhere near Donavan. And since Donavan’s the guy to beat to get the gig… expect to spend some serious time in the practise room. Expect to apply yourself to the task of drumming with fire and passion on whatever little track some crazy producer throws at you. Be a really nice guy. Do your job so well that no one has any complaints on any level whatsoever. Call back in a day or so to ask how the session went and say you enjoyed doing it. You’ll get hired. But most producers will still go to the Donavan’s of the world first, because they know that guys like him deliver. On all fronts.

In order to enter the race you have to have talent. You have to practise for hours. Learn to take rejection and defeat. Build. Patiently. Hone your craft. But most of all, you have to have mental strength, resolve. Like Neil Peart of prog legends Rush said: “There are no failures of talent, just failures of character.”

Our van broke up somewhere in the Midlands. Again, it was raining (why is it always like that in stories?) as we were stranded roadside trying to fix the old dear. I say: “Oh well, it builds character”. The drummer’s laconic reply: “Yeah, but how much fucking character do we need?”

Plug baby plug!

Rosalita are out on tour. Believe me, THIS is the tour you will want to claim to have seen them on. Check them out www.myspace.com/rosalitaband

Ejectorseat start their tour on Saturday. Again, go see them now while the tickets are still cheap. www.myspace.com/ejectorseatband

Both bands have brilliant EPs for sale on this tour. Hand numbered, special limited editions. Buy now and cash in later. You can hear the trx on the band’s myspaces.

We produced them. I think they’re ace!

Hopefully you will, too. If you have a strong enough reason (or funny enough) for you to feel you ought to be guestlisted for one of their gigs, please do send me your wish via email. I can assure you that the matter will receive thorough and serious attention.

That’s it for this episode of News At Zen.

V.

This entry was posted on 13/03/2008 at 12:45 am and is filed under News At Zen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.