14/11/2008 by ville.

Artists who approach us like to assure us of their committment by saying things like: “If given a chance I’d give up the day job. I’ll do anything to make it. If given a chance.”

The moment I told my parents that I was going to London to pursue a career in music must have been horrifying for them.  My dad used to insist I would have made a great lawyer. Why? “Because you can lie your way out of any trouble you’re in.” Thanks…. ;-) 

The decision certainly changed things for the worse in every financial and material sense you could think of. Man, we were so poor we had to steal toilet paper from pubs to have any. We didn’t starve, but we ate very very little. We had no money to spend on recreational items like a can of the cheapest lager.

Ever the upwardly mobile young thing, I decided to improve my lot by getting a gig playing songs in an Italian restaurant. There was this most glorious looking Italian waitress there. Emmanuelle. The name says it all, really. I digress… eventually I got fired for playing the wrong kind of music. I did Nirvana and Oasis covers - the popular stuff of the era. The proprietor wanted romantic Italian songs. The only one I could think of was Shaddup-a-yourface. Didn’t go down well. He sat me down at the end of a busy night, bought me a glass of the best red wine they had and said: “This would be easy if you were bad, but you’re very good. I hate to let you go, but I hope you understand. We’re both men trying to make a living”. It was a touching moment with a Goodfellas-esque script. His meatballs had kept me alive for some time.

All these seasons later, I’ve earned my stripes to speak about what’s involved in creating a livelihood out of music. Some say it’s all about belief. I say, believing in it is one thing, but how ’bout working for it? Ever considered that as an option?

In one of my favourite books by Kurt Vonnegut, the Chinese put a man on the moon through the power of concentrating their minds on it. A cool thought, for sure, but it’s fiction. The guys who actually went to the moon used fuel powered rockets.

All I can say to you, in a band, reading this and thinking that “I’ll do anything to make it, if given a chance” is that the only person who will give you a chance to put music first in your life is you. When you say “I’ll do anything to make it”, you must mean it quite literally, at the expense of everything else.

You just have to decide what’s important to you.

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10/11/2008 by ville.

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05/11/2008 by ville.

Another week, another AIM event. This time the topic was Marketing… On A Shoestring. Given the fact that I walked in with my slip on Vans (black with golden skulls) that don’t even have shoestrings, the tone was set low. Street level, in fact.

The evening kicked off with Mark Mitchell of King Harvest, a marketing consultancy for indie labels, taking us on a general tour of the UK music market. Lots of stats. More than 80% of the market is controlled by majors. We indies are truly living on crumbs… a slightly depressing thought, that.

Mark’s main point seemed to be that there is no point in trying to compete with major labels who can outspend, outrun, and outgrease-a-palm you on all counts. An eyewatering fact: the first week spend on the TV advertising of AC/DC’s new album was £40k. The gentleman sitting to my right, a fellow indie label owner, muttered: that’s more than my annual turnover.

Then the marketing guru pulled out a bell curve chart that showed what kind of people get into music and buy records. Early Adopters at the very beginning of the curve, Pragmatists on the upward slope, Conservatives on the downward slope and Laggards at the very end of the curve. The bit at the top of the curve where pragmatists and conservatives meet is the bit that costs shitloads to reach. That’s your mainstream audience who will buy that big record by that big artist because they’ve seen the big billboards, seen the big TV ads and so on. These are the guys at my squash club. Regular guys with regular tastes: the bulk of the record buying public of 20-39 year olds.

And this is the crowd that indie labels should ignore.

Instead, they should concentrate on the early adopters. These are people who like spotting the new thing to like before everyone else likes it. They respond to a groove that doesn’t cost a lot to create. It’s about being cool and hip and trendy. What’s more, they don’t really respond to marketing messages and advertising anyway, so a poor little indie is onto a winner: they should approach the segment of the public who aren’t going to respond to stuff that costs a lot to create!

The nuts and bolts of how to reach the early adopters were discussed. The usual line up of suspects were introduced. MySpace, Facebook and all the other social networking sites play a big role. Radio does. Print media does. Blogs do. Live performances play a huge part. There is a process. Got to get the specialist guys in on the act first, then move it on. Get the blogs before the front cover of Time. Of course, this is bloody obvious to anyone with a brain, but it helps to be reminded of this stuff, even if you have a decent brain untroubled by excessive substance abuse.

The message was that getting the message out, letting people discover the music is a process that is not to be forced. Just let it out. Let people discover the artist. If it’s good, it will stick. If it’s not sticking, it’s not getting people excited.

It’s like if you’re in a band playing gigs in your home town and with every gig you get less and less people. Something inside you should say “uhh… people aren’t liking what we do… let’s get better.” Instead, the inner voice of many seems to say “dude, we have to get a manager who has contacts to get us on an arena tour supporting a big band.”

The almost comforting piece of information from an indie label point of view was that one’s quest to introduce one’s artistes to audiences is not necessarily a process where having loads of money makes a huge difference - if you remember to concentrate on stuff that’s within you control, within your reach. If it ain’t sticking, it’s pointless spending money because no amount will convince these early adopters that they should like a band.

Ben Watt, who used to be the guy in Everything But The Girl, gave a talk on how he runs his abel Buzzin Fly. The coolest thing he said was that marketing is something you do when you know roughly how much you’re going to sell and to whom, and you’re able to prepare a budget based on that sales projection, and then work out a plan accordingly. He went on to say that most of the artists on the start up indies present at the event aren’t yet in a position to do that. Why? Because they haven’t built their audience yet, so they don’t know who to sell their records to. Guys in that position are just taking a punt on something to see if they can find an audience for their stuff. Good point that.

Summa summarum: believing in something is vastly overrated when you compare it to the power of working towards something. Put that in your book!

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06/10/2008 by ville.

Three cool bands, three cool tours.

Rosalita are hitting the road for pretty much all of October. The tour single Smash It Up is great. Check it out on their Myspace.

The Brent Flood are also touring in October. The tour is in partnership with Jack Wills, the British clothing brand. It’s a new partnership and we’re excited to be working with the JW crew to bring great artists the exposure they deserve. Their tour single Pleasureseeker is available on Itunes and other stores now. Click on the photo on the right to purchase.

Esteban bring out the Desert Funk for a string of dates this month as well. The band are currently promoting their fantastic Santiago EP, available in all good stores. The guys are in the studio with us this week recording their next single and EP. It’s gonna be great.

Check out the tour schedules and make your way to the nearest venue. Esteban, The Brent Flood and Rosalita are in their own very different ways brilliant live acts.

THE BRENT FLOOD JACK WILLS FRESHERS TOUR 2008

ROSALITA SMASH IT UP TOUR 2008

ESTEBAN DESERT FUNK

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28/09/2008 by ville.

Red carpets, lies and videotape

, the umbrella organization for independent labels of which we are members, hosted a meet and greet last week. AIM host many kinds of music biz events and seminars. I always tag along. It’s good to talk. Good to meet people. I do believe it’s called social networking. Only, they have a great innovative way of doing it non-digitally, in person.

This particular event was at Storm. Nice club in the heart of the city. Next door there’s a movie theatre. They had the opening of some movie going on. Red carpets and all. Didn’t recognise any of the celebs on display. I simply must reacquaint myself with Heat magazine. Some nice breast and leg combinations were on display, making the view most enjoyable.

Eventually the cops let me thru the cordon and we wuz in biz.

The subject matter for the evening was media relations. Sure enough, representatives of the fourth estate were there, eagerly waiting to be introduced to music business entrepreneurs, all of whom had stacks of CDs of the very best calibre to give away.  My CDs were just ordinary ones from  

I took part in this speed dating thing where a few chosen labels got to meet a few chosen media reps for a 5 minute face to face conversation during which we were to tell each other about ourselves, exchange contact details and so on. It was pretty nice, actually. I’d never been on a speed dating thing before. I’d done a blind date once, which didn’t end up too badly, but that’s another story on another channel…

I’ve come to the conclusion that giving away CDs is not the best use of one’s time and it is certainly not the best use of the earth’s dwindling natural resources.

I’m reading a cool (so cool it’s chilling) book about this, actually.

I hate it when I come home from these kind of affairs with a bag full of records. I’ve no idea whatwhywherewho they are and I probably don’t care to find out. There will have been a couple of intresting conversations about interesting projects. I’ll remember those. And I’ll get on the case when I get home.

The trick, I guess, is to be interesting. So, I mainly try to steer the conversation to classic Van Halen as fast as I can.  

I don’t know about you, but if I wanted to make an impression on somebody, I wouldn’t say that our artist is going to be bigger than Elvis and better than The Beatles. I wouldn’t say that s/he will be a big world wide artist by Xmas. Or in the very least by January. Some lady actually made the prediction of their artist being a world wide smash by Xmas. On closer examination, I learned that there was no record made yet, no deal in place and so on. Man alive, I’ve been involved in some fast moving projects, but that just tops them all… what did they have for breakfast? Gimme some!!! What did the fellow on the right have for breakfast?

I also heard of a songwriter of whose songs 7 out 10 are hits. That’s quite some strike rate. Not even Diane Warren manages that. And she is probably the most successful songwriter of all time. Hyperbole is not a great sales technique. It just makes you look stupid. 

Apart from those minor incidents, the evening was very nice and fruitful. It was great to meet the folks from and to be able to start the conversation by thanking them for putting Smudge on the playlist. That was cool. And speaking to the  guys under very similar circumstances made me feel like we’re doing exciting things with exciting artists - who will all be massive by Xmas. Maybe not this Xmas, but some future Xmas, possibly.

Meanwhile back in the jungle…

We’ve spent a bit of qualty time at The ‘Farm with the band Midas, a bunch of Brummies whose tracks are sounding great. Similarly, we hosted Autohype from Leicester. Again, a promising young band of whom you will no doubt hear before Xmases to come.

Our distributor gave us a nice surprise by telling us that Esteban’s records are selling well in the USA. That is indeed nice, considering that they’ve never played there. The weird and wonderful digitally connected world of the 21st century!!

Practise makes perfect!

I had an epiphany the other day. It was about practising. Let me back track a little. This band we worked with for a good three years had a rhythm section who in all that time didn’t get any better. How lame is that? How is it even possible? What was their daily routine like? What was the thought process involved? “We want to make a living by being in a band. We know the competition is tough. Uhh… dude, wanna go out for a ?” These were the questions Mat and I pondered late of an evening in the studio.

Having an Eureka moment by way of acquring an enjoyable hobby

One day, about two years ago, it occurred to me that I needed a hobby. I sit in the studio all day making music, talking about making music. I go home and do it all over. I needed something to take my mind off these things, provide a release valve. Something that would involve sweating, so I wouldn’t get fat.

I had been playing occasional squash over the past umpteen years. By occasional, I mean that I never had lessons, never took it seriously, there were years when I wouldn’t play at all. Playing was never about technique, tactics or a purpose other than enjojying the run around.

Nevertheless, I always liked doing it, so I thought I’d give squash a try. Luckily, there is a squash club right near where I live. The mighty Blackheath Squash Rackets Club, established in 1928. I joined up with a mate, thinking we’d go in twice a week and maybe play some others at the club, if we got the chance. But then a strange thing happened: I really got into it.

I went to our resident coach Tom and told him that I wanted to learn how to play squash properly. He took me through some of the basics and suggested guys at the club to play against.

Suddenly I was on court 5-6 times a week. Taking lessons, getting slaughtered by guys way better than me, going past some as I progressed through the rankings. I even started reading up on squash, watching videos, going to watch tournaments, going to the club by myself to work on my stroke. Now, if you’ve ever witnessed anything more boring than someone practising squash… but I tell you, I love it.

After a year of being quite bad, I got good enough for the guys who ran the teams to notice me and invite me to play for them. Understand: this is low league stuff, but it’s still a league with away games, rules and regulations, teams getting promoted and relegated. So, I travel to places to get slaughtered by strangers, sometimes slaughtering them. It’s good fun for all concerned.

All this playing and practising has had side-effects. My mate with whom I joined our club two years ago can’t really give me a game anymore. I’ve got so much better than him. On my hols two summers ago I played a guy in Helsinki who’d played for Finland as a junior, who’d played proper league squash. He works for Universal, so there was a connection there. He beat me 9-0, 9-0, 9-0. Last summer I played him again. This time I beat him.

Back to the epiphany about practising: if a guy like me can progress within a year from being a no good squash novice to being a club team player, anyone who’s, say, 18 years old and wanting to be in a band can do much more. I’ve got a business to run, a family to raise and a music career to pursue. Squash is side bar, a hobby. There are only so many hours in a week I can devote to squash.

But if you’re 18 and in a band…. what the hell is your excuse for not spending several hours EVERY DAY on your chosen thing, that of being in a band, playing and writing, promoting and gigging.

I swear, if you spent an hour every day on your craft, you’d see a dramatic improvement by Xmas. I mean this Xmas coming. If you did 4 hours every day, you’d be amazing very, very soon. In a world where nothing short of amazing gets people’s attention, do you agree that whatever you need to do to become AMAZING, it is probably in your very best interest to start doing it right now.

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20/09/2008 by ville.

The other night I met up with a band who had come to London from the other side of the world in search of fame and fortune in the music business. I can completely relate to that. We are pirates. Desperate men in search of desperate fortunes.  

The crazy thing is that these guys told me they had read this blog. And that it had made an impact on them. That makes me feel really good. Back in my band days, I remember getting emails from fans who wrote nice things about our music. Some of it was “hey, man, love your stuff” type of praise and it was equally gratefully received. But the most memorable ones were really touching stories about how the music had affected their personal lives, helped solve problems and got them through bad times. Reading those was very inspiring. Humbling.

So, I was just chuffed to bits to find out that someone out there enjoys these ramblings.

Moving swiftly along. 

My brother Mat used to play tennis as a kid. He was good. He subscribed to Tennis Player magazine. The rag had articles about the art of playing tennis buried between adverts about booze and cars and Rolexes. The articles included tips from pro players. I remember one that made us laugh. Arthur Ashe - a former Wimbledon champ - stressed the importance of concentrating on the ball. Of course, we twisted it to “concentrate on your balls”.  Uh huh huh… check it out Beavis…

Concentrating on the ball has to be taken very literally. It means that you must concentrate on the most important thing that’s happening at the moment. If you get the ball back, the rally continues. If you start thinking about the awards ceremony, you scuff the shot, lose the point and may never reach even the quarter finals.

John McEnroe wrote in his memoirs that he would concentrate on the ball so hard that he could actually read the logo on it as it was being whacked back at him at high velocities. 

The same applies to the music business. Concentrate on things that are important right now. Ones that are under your control. Don’t worry about getting bigger gigs supporting bigger bands. It’s out of your sphere of influence. Nothing you can do about it. Nothing a manager can do about it, in most cases. What you can do is make sure that your band promotes your gigs and that your gigs are great. That when anyone sees you they see something fantastic. Don’t you worry ’bout a thing - sooner or later word will get around. And then you’ll get asked to do the cool support slots.

Don’t worry about what all the other bands are doing. It doesn’t matter that they’re crap and you’re great - and why is it that all the crap bands get somewhere while you don’t? What they do is out of your control. But you can control writing better songs and making better recordings. And if you keep concentrating on the proverbial ball, you will keep the rally going and eventually something will give in your favour.

A mate of mine is an architect, a property developer. He introduced me the concept of the COST - TIME - QUALITY triangle.  

Apparently it’s an age old concept, but new to me. You learn something new every day. It applies to making records, being in a band - all the things we in the music business are doing.

In this day and age when very few people out there seem to buy into the myth of how the rock’n'roll biz supposedly works, it is staggering to come up against the levels of ignorance that, sadly, we come up against when speaking with bands. Not all, but some.

Equally, when we discuss the realities of the business they seek to enter, it’s great when you see the penny drop. When someone gets it. Even better when someone not only gets it but decides to do something about it.

Lou Pearlman, the disgraced manager of Backstreet Boys and N’Sync (disgraced because of financial fraud for which, I believe, he is currently serving a prison sentence),  spoke at an industry conference about the “product” that is a band. He said it’s A+ songs, A+ recordings of those songs, A+ live show, A+ image and A+ story to tell. If you have all those you will find success. If one element is not A+ you will fail.  

So the cynic in me says, we deal with real artists, not fucking boy bands.

In truth, it’s the same for everyone. If it ain’t brilliant in every way, why do you think the great people of our nation would be bothered to spend their hard earned cash on it?

Click on the photo below to view a wonderful YouTube clip of David Lee Roth talking about this stuff.

Incidentally, the song the meathead interviewer refers to is California Girls, a song most definitely not made by Mr Roth. Instead, it was made by Brian Wilson. Granted, Mr Roth’s version was popular in the 80s, around the time when meathead and yours truly were into that sort of thing.

Still, give credit where credit is due. Brian Wilson made that song.

And for those who don’t know who David Lee Roth or Brian Wilson are, they are people who made music for which millions of people have spent millions of dollars, euros, yen, rand… you name it.

I digress. This free trade Argentinian shiraz is really kicking in…

Two things rocking my world right now are: the song Pleasureseeker by The Brent Flood. The other one is a young songwriter who just sent us a demo with the most wonderful lyrics I have heard for a long long time. It feels great to be working with (and possibly working with) that level of talent.

Yes, this wine is definitely kicking in now….

V.

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15/09/2008 by ville.

 Next in the series of song titles about exotic locations, we are proud to plug this record by Tiny Spark.

Tiny Spark are lovely band from London via Portsmouth with whom we have had the pleasure to work.

I’m liking the vibes here and I hope that you will, too.

The song is about a guy who heads off to Alaska to find himself, leaving his love behind. If that happened in this day and age, the guy would probably end up impregnating one of Sarah Palin’s daughters and drilling the entire state dry of oil. Drill, baby drill - as they chant over there in the US of A.

Have mercy on us all….

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01/09/2008 by ville.

I love this record. Esteban perform it. We produced it. You should buy it.

V.

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21/08/2008 by ville.

It gives us great pleasure to introduce to you our young proteges Smudge www.myspace.com/smudge

We’re putting out their debut EP StayFeelRegret next month, the guys are headed for a pretty amazing looking UK tour, getting great write-ups, plays on radio and TV - all nice things to come back to from my holiday.

Listen to them here www.theanimalfarm.co.uk/stayfeelregret.mp3

And view the video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m5C47b0Br4

Go see them at one of these

And if that was not enough, it appears that The Animal Farm is nurturing the UK’s next guitar hero. Total Guitar magazine have picked up on Liam from Esteban and are featuring him (and the band) in the current issue. Esteban’s single has excited many in the blogosphere and BBC 6 Music have played it in their podcasts. Apparently their tour of Cornwall’s surf spots caused a few waves (I know, I know…) with packed out venues and CDs selling out faster than you can say Santiago www.theanimalfarm.co.uk/santiago.mp3

 Here the guys are enjoying a quite stroll through Piccadilly Circus.

Check out the wonderful photography of Craig Marston, who took the above masterpiece at http://www.marstonphotography.com/

Rosalita have announced their autumn tour

It’s shaping up to be a busy autumn.

Rock!

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01/08/2008 by ville.

In Philip Roth’s book American Pastoral the main character is well to do businessman who in his youth was a high school quarterback, a great looking young buck with perfect teeth and a lantern jaw. His take on irony was that winners didn’t need it. Irony is a get out clause for losers.

A manager I once knew had hung out with Eddie Vedder at a party. His assessment was that Eddie had the confidence of a guy who’d never had to compromise.

Many seasons ago when I entered the building that is the music business, I went in through the door that said “Teenage Rock Bands”. That’s a door you can get through if you’re a teenager in a rock band doing something that people in the building think they can make money with. Many seasons have come and gone and they still haven’t thrown me out of the building. I must be doing something right. Perseverance goes a long way.

Back in those days I would of course dismiss anybody that didn’t have at least stratospheric levels of fame and fortune. Like many others I, too, thought that my music had a divine right to be popular around the world. An artist’s unshakeable belief in the undieniable fact that he was put on earth to create universally popular music is, I believe, the driving force behind the music business.

The other day I was walking to the tube station after a long day at the studio and caught up with my mate Glen who is a fellow musical traveller, a producer with a long career and many records under his belt. Asked him how his day had been. Glen said: “Just when you think the music business has disappointed and hurt you in every possible way, you have a day when it finds yet another way to fuck you”.

Chris Martin of Coldplay was asked how he kept level headed considering the enormous amount of success he’s had. Said Chris: “I listen to The Beatles”.

Bi-annual thought gatherings….

So, here we are, just over half way through the year. Any minute now I’m off on holiday. The first half of this year has been super busy for us. The next half is already booked up with projects. Been a great ride but I can say with confidence that I’m sooooo looking forward to a break from music and a break from squash. (Although, I think I will pack my squash bag, just in case I can sneak in a few games while I’m away)

How do you define being a success in these changing times? Sign to a major label? Hmmm… sign half of your life (=earning potential) away for an advance that is probably gonna be equivalent to less than minimum wage when you factor it all in? Have a top 10 single? Nah. Who remembers what was number one last week? Besides, it’s not even beer money.

Where have all the good times gone? asked Ray Davis of The Kinks. (David Lee Roth of the mighty VH reiterated this point on the fifth VH album. Highly recommended listening, though not their best work…)

I read an interview with Paul Simon, one of the all time greats. His dad was a musician, Paul grew up in soundchecks and studios. His take is that back in the day a musician was a guy who earned his daily bread by playing music. He’d go out gigging at night, go out on tour. Do a season here. Move on when the season was over. It was a lifestyle centered around the art of playing and performing music. It wasn’t about this pirate attitude that “we’re gonna raid the business and by June we’ll have our own line of designer flipflops so that we can retire on an island in the Caribbean and eat steak twice a day”.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been poor. A quite literally starving musician. Now I’m not poor anymore it feels much better. Making money is great. But the point is this: guys whom I consider my peers will make music for a living even if that livelihood is a bit patchy during some seasons. We make it because we have to. Nothing else will do.

If looked at in the right way, this new music business that is unfolding in front of our eyes is a place in which you have the tools to do your thing, build a business and help it grow. You don’t need to sell half a million records straight out of the box. You don’t need to be on R1 to make a living. And I bet most artists want just to make a living out of making music.

Here’s an interesting idea that a mate of mine, who does a&r at one of the majors, had. I think he was just as surprised as I was to hear him say it. He said that maybe it’s good for artists to have something else in their lives besides music. Maybe if they just supplemented their income by making music, if it was kinda like a glorified hobby, we’d get better music made, artists would be happier because they weren’t on the treadmill of having to deliver commercially plausible records, which so often means records that sound like other records that have already been successdul.

This ties in nicely with another mate’s ideas. He’s a life coach. Goes around businesses telling people how to be happier. His message is: lower your expectations. As in, dude at so-and-so plc is unhappy because he’s only pulling in £100k a year. He kinda sees himself as a Richard Branson or in the very least a Duncan Ballantyne. My mate goes in and says things like: “Why waste your time worrying about stupid shit like that? Lower your epectations and you’ll be happy.” Though, to be fair, he does it way more subtly and eloquently than that.

I know I know. Most people, like me, who’ve got the rock’n'roll bug, want to get ring side seats and we’ll do everything we can to get them. Maybe the hunt keeps us happy.

These are my tips for happy and fruitful hunting:

Be a great craftsman. That means: practise, do scales, learn about your instrument. Explore it.

Say something interesting. The world doesn’t need just another song by just another band. But it sure as hell could do with a fantastic song by someone captivating.

Be a great entertainer. You are the entertainment. The audience is there to be entertained. It’s not a swear word, you know? If you entertain them, they will keep coming back to your gigs, season after s