Egads, e-god are good…

Been meaning to get this written for a while and so now, with the latest deadline out the way, almost as much work done on my website as can be done and a free hour to go over some of the songs again, I want to tell you about e-god.

Dancetastic, mates – this is a band that, for three rather middle-class looking, middle aged fellas, can really get stuck into a groove and take it off to places that will surprise some, alarm others and delight the rest.

I have to come clean and mention that the drummer, Phil Escott, is an old pal and back in the days when I could barely count to four, Phil was easing through 13/8 without really thinking too much about it, but this is rather by the by. If I didn’t like e-god, I wouldn’t write about them. The thing is, I do…

With Escott on V-drums, the band is essentially a trio, with Drew Dolan on guitar and Dominic Smith on bass, keyboards, MIDI pedals and the all important trigger finger.

I say essentially because the band’s first offerings to the world were paired behind a set of excellent videos that showed nothing of the distinctly un-rock star look of the players – for exactly that reason (I am assuming here). In a live set-up, however, our lumpy threesome are the musicians to those same videos, which means that the ‘front man’ is the screen at the back.

This would be cool enough, if it weren’t for the fact that the synchronisation the band achieves with said videos is nothing short of flawless. It’s a slick act.

The songs swing from predominantly funky to downright danceable, via dollops of reggae and rock and a lot of accompanying and unexpected noises. With all this going on, the band doesn’t really need to do much other than get the notes right – although there are a lot of them. In fact, when I first started going through e-god’s material, I thought that they were a bit ‘serious’, you know, on a bit of a downer.

Closer examination proves this to be wrong. These guys are actually having a whale of a time, it’s just that, with the focus taken away from them by the back screen, they are happy to get things right. Yes, of course, as I have alluded to, they are middle-aged Englishmen, which means, by default, inklings of OCD have managed to creep into their beings. Watching the videos playing alone to the studio recordings and your feet start tapping and your head nodding.

The solution to this dilemma (which I admit, could be mine and mine alone) might be to put the projection screen front of stage, but then we would miss the opportunity of seeing some fine musicians doing what they do best. Ignore me, I’m blathering.

You have to have your wits about you listening to e-god. There is a lot going on – but this is where, I think, the band comes into its own. Yes, you have three excellent musicians, with triggered sounds and accompaniments, so there is a lot of opportunity to stumble into a flat cacophony of too much going on. The trio never does this. There is a lot of colour, a lot of light and shade and, most interestingly for me, even live, there is a lot of space, regardless of how much is going on.

This points towards careful composition and cautious arranging and it all works splendidly well.

A personal favourite of mine at the moment is Lay Down GI, but the blend of styles and displays of dexterity are such that tomorrow could well throw another song my way and I’ll wonder why I missed that the first time round. It's happened before... Yesterday.

Good work, lads – keep on doing.

Top five tips for music bloggers

Just finished reading Brenna Ehrlich’s music blog about writing music blogs. As a blogger myself – albeit a retarded, late-starting, somewhat aimless and elitist blogger – as soon as I saw the link on NAMM’s daily news email, I clicked on it…

Actually, that is completely untrue. I saw it and I thought, ‘yeah, right, thanks very much. I really need someone to tell me what a fart in a hurricane’s chance I stand of ever attracting anyone’s attention’.

But then I thought, ‘hold on, what if it tells me that I have more than a fart’s chance in a hurricane?’

My cursor moved slowly away and then...

Ehrlich has five top tips: 1) know what you’re talking about; 2) be prepared to work for nothing; 3) get your own URL and start your own blog; 4) be aware of the social networking and other dissemination websites and services out there (ie, ‘tweet’ and ‘facebook’ your blogs – at the very least); and 5) don’t just dis everything. Be as positive as the music you are writing about deserves.

How did I do? Well, number one, although I would claim to know what I am talking about in certain areas, you can bet your favourite pet I don’t know much about anything. As Jeremy Hardy put it in his recent Radio Four show: “I don’t read blogs. I don’t want to read the opinions of the uninformed. I have Radio Five Live for that.” (UK-centric gag, that one – apologies everyone else.)

The whole purpose of blogs is to get stuff off your chest, let the world know you have an opinion and get that opinion out there. If you’re lucky, someone will be right on your case telling you what a clod you are, but most of the time, your opinion will float about in the ether arousing precisely no feelings whatsoever… But you’ll still pop back to read it from time to time, just to see if you still agree with yourself – and wonder why no-one has made any comments.

Second: goes without saying. I’m actually lucky enough to earn a living from writing, but that means squat to the wider blogosphere. I earn money writing what people want to hear (or read). My opinion rarely, if ever, comes into it and when it does it tends to be just as ignored as this blog. Of course the aspirant is going to blog for nothing. If the blogger wants to be a writer, having a blog won’t hurt, but it probably won’t help, either. Best advice is to tout your skills as a writer – and be sure you have some sort of qualification or experience to back it up or you’re on a hiding to a nowhere that is a long and painful journey away.

Number three – same as above, really. A blog spot such as this is free. So are facebook, myspace and twitter accounts (to name but three). Get on them, sure, but don’t expect anyone other than your friends and family to actually pay any attention.

Getting your own website costs money – and quite a lot of money, actually. Can you afford it? If you can, do you have the resources and the nouse to keep it up to date and functioning. Nothing disappears in the chaos of the information superhighway than an unkempt website. An unkempt garden attracts more response.

Four: Er, see three – although this is actually something I do need to learn – how to make the absolute most out of the interconnectivity that the internet offers. There are a lot of links and ways of broadcasting yourself and I haven’t even begun to get a handle on all of it, yet.

Five: Couldn’t agree more (although this blog might not lead you to think I was a particularly positive thinker). Actually, one of the driving forces for me starting these blog pages was to act as a counter to a lot of the negative journalism that exists out there concerning music. I find it somewhat rich that a handful of journos and axe hacks comment on Ehrlich’s blog by saying ‘don’t be too negative’, when it is precisely the journos and axe hacks that make a living (of sorts) out of doing exactly that.

But, yes, unless you are castigating the narrow minded, please do try to be positive. I honestly do. There is more than enough negativity around – it’s easy and cheap. I tend not to like easy or cheap options.

For me, the two most important elements necessary to write a good blog were covered by Ehrlich in a couple of passing sentences with little emphasis on them. These are (were): 1) Be able to write.

I know this is a tricky one – much like if you want to be a singer, you probably need to be able to sing, although the pop idol and x-factor auditions show us repeatedly that many (not Simon Cowell, it should be pointed out) see this is a mere detail. But honestly, even if you have the ability to link your blogs to every website on the world and have it psychicly capable of linking through to video accompaniment as you read each key word, if the writing is drab, the reader will go elsewhere.

2) Have an angle. One of the other thrusts of my blog is (perhaps a little paradoxically, considering the previous point), while there is a world of great talent out there, don’t be discouraged if you are not part of that pool of talent. Rejoice in your mediocrity.

That said, you still need to strive, you need to be realistic about what you are doing – and you need to be able to make a point and get it across.

If you can write and you have something to say, all well and good. Go for it – and good luck. But if you want to be a music journalist (which, it strikes me is what Ehrlich is really hinting at) then you’re going to have to jump through a lot of hoops, accept a (limited, if you’re any good) future filled with rejection and if you do make it, you’ll have a cool job that will probably earn you next to nothing for the rest of your life.

Blogging is a fun hobby. Writing for a living is another question altogether. Just ask Brenna Ehrlich… In fact, yes, do. After all, she is a music journalist and a blogger and I have read her blog and subsequently written a thousand words on it.

She obviously knows better than I do…

Ignore this blog.

(sigh)

Fighting Fire

It’s something of a dilemma for many musicians – particularly those just starting out and hoping to be able to make a living at making music. The biggest dilemma, of course, is that it looks as though anyone hoping to make a living with music will do exactly that – make a living. Nothing more and very probably a lot less.

I come from a generation when the pop and rock heroes didn’t simply make a living, they became mega-rich, they signed deals that tied them up for ten albums (and how they complained) and could be a law unto themselves, spending months and hundreds of thousands in the studio.

After the teasing weeks of waiting after the new album was announced as imminent until it was actually available in the shops (remember record shops?) there was then the delight in watching the record slowly climb the charts… Would it make the top 20? Top ten? Top five? Number two? Number one?

And to reach number one in the album charts you used to have to sell thousands, tens of thousands – even hundreds of thousands.

For us, the prospect of becoming a rock star was an ambition to be rich beyond our dreams and recognised everywhere we went… And the music? Oh, yeah, well, that would look after itself… Hmmm…

No, today’s aspiring musos have the prospect of being signed up for a single if they’re lucky, an album if they’re unbelievably lucky and then, if they are staggeringly talented and hard-working after the luck has run out, carving out a career in the pubs and clubs around the country.

What is happening, of course, is that, with the rise of the peer-to-peer, file-sharing prevalence the record companies are selling fewer and fewer CDs and making less and less money from any sales they do achieve – online or physical – leaving them to go down the route of the book publishers: only those already famous are worthwhile signing up. Ergo Simon Cowell’s staggering success (make ‘em famous through humanity’s innate voyeurism, then make a record with ‘em. Number one for Christmas and ‘so long and thanks for all the cash’.

The hope of the aspiring musician is gigs and a website. The beauty of the website, of course, is that the artists or bands can release their own material, get it up online and hopefully create a groundswell of interest (boosted by the gigs). If the P2Ps and file-sharers take a liberty, then so much the better. Their name is getting out there and success is round the corner…

But of course, it isn’t. By feeding the expectation that music should be free, the muso that goes along with P2P file-sharing is slowly destroying his or her own hope of earning that living. The only hope that remains is that a following can be achieved and the muso can earn from gigging.

Yes, you can earn from gigging, but almost every musician that has gigged non-stop for decades will soon tell you how much they look forward to spending time in the studio – or even at home (heaven forbid).

For me, my gigging days are over, unless I can scoop up the odd performance making swooshy electronic noises or singing covers for an evening at a local pub. I don’t much care for the idea of living out of a suitcase again. But I love making music and I love recording it.

Because of this, I’m in the process of building a website and I’m going to try to sell my music through it. If I could one day cover the costs of that project alone, I would be pretty happy – I’m not so stupid as to think I’m going to be a rock star, but I am still finding myself balking at the thought of some twonk paying 50p for a song and then distributing it to the world for free.

I hope people will like the music I will be putting up online, but I also, equally strongly, hope that they don’t fuck about with what is ultimately mine.

Travis & Fripp in Gloucester

One knows one is getting old when one finds one’s self attending a gig in Gloucester alongside various sextogenarians at 7pm…

I could have started my blog like this, but then I thought, no – I refuse to give any of the ignorant sniggerers out there the pleasure. Thus…

One appreciates that quality musicians have found a way to both reach a more mature and higher quality audience, as well as the courage to experiment with exciting new venues, when one attends a concert such as Travis & Fripp in the Atrium of Gloucester College.

Actually, I could have written this about the Travis & Fripp gig I attended at Coventry Cathedral in May 2009.

New music, new audience.

The Coventry gig was the culmination of three or four previous gigs in small churches around the West(ish) Country and although I can’t say it took me by surprise, having been familiar with Fripp’s soundscapes for some time beforehand, it was A Big Event. I wasn’t expecting two guys to quite fill that space so completely and so appropriately. It took my breath away, particularly the final number of the second set, which reduced me to a blithering wreck.

Back to today, then (15th July 2010) and accompanied by two (yes, two) women and it was clear that this was a very different kind of gig. A hundred or so chairs set out in the Atrium of Gloucester College, a small stage and no colossal tapestries in sight…

That said, there were three fabulous paintings by PJ Crook and it turned out that today’s concert was by way of tribute for the unveiling of a new piece by the artist. It was also a charity event, organised by Crook and the College in aid of Crook's work with the National Star College.

(As an asides, my wife and I visited the Stanley Spencer museum in Cookham the other day and I was surprised how the similarity of the two artists’ styles had never struck me before. It was a treat for me as Lorraine loves Spencer and was equally thrilled by the work of Crook… Fripp she can take or leave…)

Now, I’m not sure whether it was my personal build-up to the show that made a difference (but I suspect it had something to do with it), but in contrast to the sunshine in Coventry, the perusal of the bombed out shell of the old cathedral, the talk by the bishop before the gig of the spirit of reconciliation, today’s pre-gig activity involved a grey, drizzling day, a shopping mall, a rather poor meal and a hunt through a confusing one-way system.

I was really looking forward to the players taking to the stage, but was feeling… well, normal. Within seconds, however, I was transported as wave upon building wave of shifting harmony engulfed me, washed me away, gently scrubbed the scars and entrails of normality from my being and left me feeling somewhat naked in the presence of beauty.

This show started, for me, in much the same way as the Coventry gig ended: in a powerful swirl of feelings tangled up in sounds that left me emotionally ragged. I was overwhelmed – utterly and delightfully.

The few seconds of applause that followed were needed by me to simply recompose myself. What followed from here was a personal and friendly journey through some delightful pieces – some seemed planned, others totally improvised, but after the emotional battering of the opening number, it was all thoroughly enjoyable.

The second piece was a quirky jazz, almost humorous, but solid in its direction. The third was Moonchild – starting with a clearer nod towards the original than the Coventry gig, but veering further away as harder rock elements entered the variations on the theme.

I think there were five pieces in all, but one stood out as it seemed that Fripp gave the nod to Travis to ‘just play something’. Travis seemed a little unsure, but eventually picked up the soprano sax and began a gentle, but complex series of runs of a ‘seventhy’ leaning.

The piece crawled, stood, stumbled, walked and then ran. It was such a delight to watch such a progression in what seemed to be total improvisation, but, despite the freeness it evoked, was perhaps the most ‘real’ music I have ever encountered.

After a mere 45 to 50 minutes, it was over. My other accomplice, Helena, who hadn’t seen Fripp since 1983 at the Hammersmith Palais nudged me and said ‘shout for more’. Even my wife said she wanted more… But I guess one of the cardinal rules of performance is ‘leave ‘em wanting more’. We certainly did.

Fripp was relaxed and smiling throughout, even giving his wife a wink during one of the numbers. The applause at the end was heartfelt and hearty.

It was a small meal, but an ultimately satisfying one. “I’m coming back tomorrow,” said Helena. Yes, that would be a good thing to do… But would it be the right thing?

Twice in a row, ten out of ten for Travis and Fripp. Open your minds, breath deeply and buy the albums here.

I think my bank manager's a fascist

This is a tenuous wee bloggette. Tenuous because it only very loosely relates to football and/or music, but because of this, I figure this offering can go on both blogs…

It was, we thought (my wife and I), a simple task. When we first got married, she made her bank account joint for her and me. I’m not sure why we didn’t do the same with mine, but there you go – the question never really arose, but my ongoing ineptitude with all things financial meant that, this week, we thought we would give Lorraine access to my account, too. She’s really good with that sort of stuff.

So, a meeting was made to meet a ‘personal banker’ for a few days later and we were required to bring in voluminous quantities of paper and documents that proved beyond doubt that she really was my wife and not some woman who has been grooming me in order to run off with my amassed wealth (ha!).

All well and good. As were the initial pleasantries of the meeting. (“you don’t bank with us, do you?” he asked Lorraine. “No,” I said. “She has found another way.” I was secretly pleased with that.)

It got to a few minutes in, when he announced that he would have to say some stuff in accordance with the law and ‘will try not to sound too much like a parrot’. He then proceeded to ramble off a couple of paragraphs of financial blah from memory. To his credit, it was not like a parrot. It was more like a horse race commentary. “I hope that wasn’t too much like a parrot,” he mumbled, once over the hurdle.

“It was very good,” Lorraine lied. “Are you an actor?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“You can always spot them,” said Lorraine. “Luvvies, gays, they can always recognise each other.”

“Well, I’m more of a singer, really, I do some stuff with my church and I hold classes with some youngsters.”

Oh dear, I thought. In one sentence he has managed to mention that he is a) an actor, b) a singer, c) a Christian and d) some sort of teacher. We then got a brief outline of the fact that he has recently changed churches and the fact that he is singing with a band, doing numbers such as Mack the Knife, Hey Joe and Minnie the Moocher… At this point I glazed over.

Oh, God, I hope I don’t do this. Do I flaunt myself insensitively like some sort of private parade in front of people, letting them know how bloody marvellous I am? Please, someone, tell me I don’t or I might have to dig a hole in the Chilterns and live there on vegetable husks for the rest of my days.

Somehow, a bit later, we got on to football and the World Cup. Now, we were on more even ground here. Everyone is a football manager – me included – and I consider football a safe haven for the terminal bullshitter – hence my blog.

But there was something odd about him. Statements such as “Don’t tell me Lumpard (I call him that) and Rooney weren’t thinking about their houses, cars and holidays when they were on the pitch.” I know some serious sports journos have said this – and they might be right, although I seriously doubt it. I think the problem is a lot more deep seated than that. But the mispronunciation of Lampard’s name – and the flag to make sure we were aware of it, rang oddly with me.

‘I don’t think I like you,’ I thought.

Somewhat out of the blue, he began talking about Raoul Mote (?) – you know, that fuckwitt that shot people, evaded capture for a few days then, thankfully, shot himself (where he should have started, really). Apparently, there is a Facebook page where people are holding this thug up as being some sort of hero. Definitely odd, but not something I would think about above, say, thinking about the need to buy some more Marmite, because my current jar is almost empty.

Anyway, Mr Manager, started getting a bit heated about what sort of people would consider a murderer and attempted murderer to be a hero.

“Mass hysteria,” said Lorraine. “It’s the same with Princess Diana, politics… And don’t get me started on religion…”

Oh dear, I thought. My dear lovely wife has either forgotten the religious references a few minutes ago, or is spoiling for a fight.

“It’s funny, isn’t it,” said Mr Manager. “I mean, I’ve only been a Christian for a couple of years – although I’ve been in and out of church all my life – but everyone thinks of Christianity as a peaceful religion.” (Do they?) “Whereas Muslims talk about their religion being a peaceful one and we all know it isn’t.” (Do we?) “I wouldn’t mind, but I haven’t heard a single Muslim say they utterly condemn the actions of these terrorists.”

Here, both Lorraine and I interjected. “Oh come one! You need to listen to a bit more Radio Four.”

“Well, they certainly aren’t saying it loudly enough,” he rejoined. (Splutter, splutter.) “The thing is,” he continued, “Is that everyone thinks of Christians as peaceful, but when you think just a hundred years ago, it was all ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’. Christians aren’t so peaceful when you think about it. I mean, look at history. Islam and Christianity are just as bad as each other. We both have violent histories. I mean, I became a Christian because of the London bombings on 7/7. I know some people might say that is not the right reason, but it’s had a good effect on me… Can you sign here and here, please?”

As we left the room, he asked us not to say anything about our conversation… “It could lose me my job!” he said.

Is there another way? I sincerely think there is…

Keen

I’ve got a gig! Not a particularly earth-shattering piece of information, particularly as those of you reading this blog (hopefully all six of you) have: a) played with me at one of my recent gigs; b) seen me at one of my recent gigs; c) known about one of my recent gigs but had something much better to do on each occasion.

Most of my playing these days takes place either in private (not listening to my own advice), with my wife at our local pub (strangely lacking in invites to return after four or five appearances… Could it be we simply don’t attract the right quantity of audience – regardless of the undoubted quality) or at my local open mic night (here, most definitely taking my own advice).

The only time, however, I have played my own version of soundscapes/Frippertronics was at a sort of ‘freestyle’ open mic night at the Firestation in Windsor – the so-called Professor Hitchen’s Art Lab (or some such).

I’ve been down there a couple of times, actually, just to make some sort of observation of the reaction to a bloke standing there making bleeping and droning noises with a guitar, a giga-delay unit and various knobs, switches and pedals to make the whole experience as unearthly as is humanly possible.

Which was great – and the response was great, too. The thing is, it was, like any open mic night, a ‘blind’ performance. I emailed the organiser, explaining what I wanted to do, they responded saying ‘great, come on down’ and I played – although it was clear on each occasion that the MC had no idea who I was or what I was doing and on each occasion implied that I would be getting on stage with my guitar ‘to sing us a few songs’.

In a way, that was kind of cool, because if anyone was expecting a song, they would have been extremely surprised to hear the amorphous swoops and whooshes emitting from my guitar…

But I digress, yet again.

Yes, I have a gig – a gig playing my auraloramas – a gig in an arts centre – a gig with loads of other artists, musicians and dramatists… A gig where I had to send in some examples of my music to see if it was suitable.

An da man, he say ‘yes’.

It is the tenth anniversary of the Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead and the establishment is holding a special, all-comers celebration of the arts in Maidenhead. There will be drama groups, musical theatre groups, dance groups, artists and who knows what else, all performing in every possible square inch of the centre.

I’m telling people that I will be in the disabled toilet… I don’t know if that’s true, but it is possible – and who cares. The fact is that an arts centre thought my strange noises suitable for a multi-arts celebration.

I’m jumping the gun a bit here. I’ve just been on the Norden Farm website and the September 26th event isn’t even on the calendar yet, but hey, take this as a suitably previous teaser for the eventual blog I will write again once the chance to book tickets has arrived…

Bloody hell – that’s the problem with the mediocre: too damn keen…

Alone in Amazon’s jungle

I was on the BBC on Thursday (July 8th) – Radio Four to be precise… You and Yours to be completely pedantic. An MI retailer in Tunbridge Wells had notified the Beeb about Amazon’s establishing a musical instrument tab on its website – almost simultaneous with the online retail monster’s upping of the tariff for selling MI via its site from seven per cent to 12.

The retailer was Jonathan Birch of JB’s Music – a sensible chap, articulate and smart – and he had been enjoying a bit of success online thanks to Amazon – until this unforewarned step killed off any hope of making money out of the deal.

As he put it, terms such as ‘affiliate’ and ‘partner’ became meaningless as the corporate decision was made without consultation and without giving the retailers concerned the chance to even talk to someone, let alone object.

These news magazine interviews are so short, you never get the time to say everything you want and the message often gets so abbreviated as to become almost meaningless.

Jon and I were there with sheets of paper with bullet points on them, ready to air our views, but we got a bit hijacked by the fact that groceries have been made part of the Amazon offering and clearly Peter White (the show’s host) had been told that I would somehow defend Amazon.

I pointed out that people feeling intimidated by MI retail outlets – in reference to the entry level, rather than higher-end, more serious musos. There is little we can do about this, but I am genuinely worried about
a) unethical shoppers using retail outlets as showrooms and demonstration premises for their cheaper online purchases, and
b) the seemingly irrevocable slide towards uniform products from uniform brands and the death of variety

In many ways, we in the MI trade are barking up the wrong tree a bit here. Why are more people turning to the internet for their shopping? This is the question that needs to be answered. I think there is a growing laziness towards shopping these days, which might be fine for books, CDs and white goods, but I think is very dangerous when applied to musical instruments.

This was the other point I was trying to make. Music is a social thing, in the practice, in the performance and in the publication. Why are we increasingly isolating ourselves – from the purchase of the equipment, to the recording and performance of music – and doing more and more of it on our own?

I know internet sales are harming some bricks and mortar stores, but no more than mail order and Argos and others have done in the past.

The BPI has been banging on about the death of the record business because of home taping and now downloads for years.

The Musician Union has been doing the same about keeping music live.

But the fact is, there are still records being released – more than ever as the technology takes power away from the big record companies. There is still a phenomenal amount of live music – despite the Music Forum and UK Music banging on about a decline. And there are still musical instrument retailers...

As long as there are, there is hope for the music playing community and any negatives in the world of music can be reversed. I know it sounds like so much old guff, but if musos do have somewhere to go where ideas can be exchanged, then there is a future.

The problem with the likes of Amazon is that we are encouraged to stay at home, click a few virtual buttons and then stay at home and wait for the item to arrive...

Then stay at home and play it...

I find that unspeakably sad...

We need to get out and about, be in and among the music playing community. When music thrives in a public, active way, I seriously think we do too.