Beeb big boys in Brum! For a bit anyway...

It's been a fun week

The BBC came to town; about time too. Well, yes, I know there is a much shrunken BBC here already, but this was important national network activity. So a load of network types swept in to be all networky and relevant at the BBC Music Awards on Thursday afternoon at the NEC, oops, sorry, Genting Arena. 

They made a big of a fuss about this. I'm glad they did, and glad they're coming back in 2016, but, really, this is a wannabe version of the Brits: international acts there to shift product in an identikit concrete hangar. Who gets most out of this? More on this whole process later. 

The upside of the week was a lot of local action. And as well as the music events, some old radio hands got gongs. Nice.

Break on through to the other side: when the stars align and things happen

I'd call this a stonking great home run for BBC Introducing. Result! And not before time.  

Will that damn door ever open? 

Webby thinking is that all you need to succeed is to just do it: put it out there, get the recognition you deserve. Why, look at this vlogger, or that musician, or that podcast. They did it, so can you.

But that's a crock, and even the dreamiest of fantasists know that. For the few who go stratospheric using clickbait, provocation, or every weapon that heavyweight old-school marketing can devise (Hi, Adele!), there are thousands of people with something to say who don't get heard.

There's a doorway to go through, a barrier to recognition. Whether the door swings open is down to luck and circumstance. Of course, talent is still essential - unless you go down the X factor route - but nothing is guaranteed, and it gets harder every day.

The door swung open, just a tiny bit, for a few people this past week.

So you wanna be a radio star? Then listen now to what I say...**

Neil Spragg, a veteran musician and DJ/mixer, wrote to me the other week. Working as Sir Real (careful, there are several) he's presented 'The Mouth Of God' on Music World Radio for ten straight years now: an absolute internet radio veteran. Neil wondered it there was a way to move over to to mainstream radio. Did I have any ideas on how to go about it? 

Tricky. But, yes, I did. 

It's not unreasonable to want to take your radio and music chops on to bigger and better platforms, after doing it for a while. I applaud this. What make Neil's proposition interesting is the diversity of his activities - a veteran musician with a vast range of experience, a DJ (twenty years at House of God in Birmingham), sound for gaming and installations, a guy who thinks and experiments. Neil's just collaborated on sound for a couple of huge interactive A/V installations in Lima. One is an LED panel 20 stories high installed on a skyscraper in the business district. It's controlled by the public from a huge motion sensitive panel in the foyer at street level. 

So - this is a man with stories to tell. What makes it tricky is just how far radio has moved away from offering new slots to people who have stories to tell.  

Here's Neil:

Hi Robin, hope you're good. Just wondering if I could pick your brains a bit...I'm thinking of trying to get a DJ slot on *actual* radio lol, figure I have enough experience (and a decent enough collection) to make a reasonable pitch. Do you have any tips / insider info / words of warning etc? I assume the situation is much the same as in most other areas of the music industry (ie there is a snowball's chance in hell of getting work), but interested to hear your perspective...
Cheers, Neil.

And here's me:

Hi Neil. 
The problem, as always, is not what you've got, which is a lot, but what the buyer thinks he needs. What does radio 'need' these days? And can you make them need you? Get them to kill for you, and you're home and dry. 

Breaking it down at national level, and assuming you don't have Radio 1's teenies in mind, Radio 2 and 6 tend to hire big names in preference over experienced veterans. For example, Alex Lester, a totally solid and very listenable broadcaster, seems fated to stay on R2 overnights; he's been there since I produced his show twenty years ago. So I think we can write off the 'start at the bottom' scenario here. 

To be scrupulously fair to beeb parachutees, some of them are fabulous broadcasters, like Tom Robinson and Cerys Matthews. Others have claimed their niche by doing it for long enough, like Craig Charles. Much as he loves his genre, and is now associated with it (he was back at Mostly Funk, Soul and Jazz this year), it didn't hurt that he was a name after working on Red Dwarf and Coronation Street. 

It's not a complete brick wall for new talent. I was absolutely delighted to see Radio 2 hand a one-off cover slot to the Derby-based (commercial radio) Gem 106 breakfast team after they scooped the Music Radio Personality prize of the Year at this year’s Radio Academy Awards. Only a gesture, but a gracious one, and lovely to see. 

So what's there for you in the commercial sector? Would they use you? Mostly, not. Mainstream outfits want young, sprightly, preferably good looking, articulate and, especially, biddable. You play what they want, not what you want: the call is definitely not for deep music knowledge of any type. 

Off in the more specialised areas, there are possibilities at the likes of Absolute, Kerrang, Planet Rock and XFM, but you'd have to mount a pretty cool campaign to convince them to snap you up. I can't back this up, but I've heard the money is pretty rubbish. 

Beyond these areas, there are more possibilities, but the financial pickings get progressively thinner. Amazing Radio plays new music pretty much exclusively. If you can make a case for the areas you want to cover – if there is enough new activity for you to showcase – it's worth giving them a call. They are a tiny national DAB only service operating out of Gateshead. Send them your music, by the way. 

BBC Local Radio? Sorry. Since they networked evening programmes, there is very little room for specialist shows. And the emphasis is solidly on local news topics. But cultivate your local BBC Introducing team. There are excellent people working in this area, and I would love to see this cohort of committed talent go on to greater things. 

Community radio and Internet radio? You're doing this already. But I do think that, just maybe, there is one possibility you could explore: syndication, with a marketing strategy. The odds are slim because the community and internet sector is so disparate, and standards vary wildly. Most internet operations are tiny, with minuscule audiences; some are vanity operations; few know much about marketing. And I'm not sure about the legislative climate. But here goes - syndication and programme-sharing works fine at all levels in the US.

1.  Think who your show appeals to. Do some research. Get facts and figures. 
2.  Find a sponsor who might want to hit the market you serve.
3.  Work out a sponsorship deal where support increases with exposure.
4.  Offer support funding that comes with the show to the stations.
5.  Build, but, of course, don't compromise content. 

Armed with financial support - and that's a very big if - you have a decent chance to get syndication going, as the show would come with funding which all these stations desperately need. Yes, you are buying time, but there are precedents for this, some of them honourable. 

If you can make it work, it builds you as a product. It spreads your reputation. You can legitimately claim a growing audience. And, after a lot of hustle which might yield exactly nothing, bingo! You might just have something which, all of a sudden, stations might want. It means you've got to be producer, presenter, salesman, PR and marketing man.... just like all the musos I talk to. It's a lot of work. And, as in so many areas, you have to wonder if the effort you make to float the project will eventually overshadow the creative effort. 

Hope that helps. I don't think it does, really.

Robin

Now, it's over to you. This little idea may be anathema to people at online and community radio. Call it manipulative, or call it pragmatic; the radio story of the past six years or so has been relentless consolidation. So why stop at BBC and Commercial local radio? As with many of the superb musicians I follow on my patch, there seems little point, ultimately, in being brilliantly creative, for pennies or less, to an audience of dozens. Unless it's for the thrill of music making, which, of course, is priceless. Maybe my deeply manipulative stratagem might work. But it is a risky, risky path to take. Anyone else got any ideas?

Links
Here's Neil's bandcamp page. Check it out - it's difficult to pull out a 'typical' sample.
Here's info on Omnia Opera - 20 years of space rock, and Neil's latest 7 Shades project.

** Thanks to the Byrds' deeply cynical and brilliant original for today's post title

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Getting your music on the air - get the basics right and then work up.

UPDATED as of August 2013: Kris Halpin, who kicked off this whole post, has now scored  favourable reactions from Tom Robinson at 6music

It's never easy to get your new stuff on the radio, but you can do a lot to help your chances.

Plenty of barriers to get round, past, through, or over

I got an email from a muso pal, Kris Halpin....  “I’ve got a new direction. I think it’s commercial – certainly it’s my best chance for success to date. And it’s picked up a bit of local airplay. You’re a radio guy – what do I do next?”   Kris's new direction - and it is indeed well-crafted and commercial - can be found later in this post. 

So what do I tell Kris? Does radio work for musos in 2013? It’s not what it was. I hear that with a few exceptions, big radio is over as a tool to sell records. We don’t need radio to get new music; its importance has declined. 

But I think that the right local music programmed the right way can serve local radio very nicely as part of the mix. So maybe that's where to start. But to do this, to use radio, you have to do the legwork: all of it, consistently, all the time, everywhere. 

I talked to a lot of people about this; here’s a distillation. A basic and incomplete recipe for 2013 progress. It may be what you need; it may be entirely wrong. There's some great tips here – like Toy Hearts’ detailed social media strategy tips, quoted verbatim because they are so good. All after the jump. 

Pushing it forward: The Musgraves and George Barnett And The Ninth Wave take different paths

Two local bands have scored terrific national airplay this year. Here's how they did it. 

The Musgraves (top) and George Barnett

A while back, after a particularly good month of action, I wrote about national airplay figures for local acts. Lots of great bands got BBC network love, including The Musgraves, favoured in daytime shows by Radio 2. More recently, another West Midlands outfit, George Barnett And The Ninth Wave, has scored significant action at Radio 1.

It set me thinking. It would be lovely to be able to draw up some sort of ‘success index’ that suits and reflects the web-based environment bands work in these days: a concrete way to show the creative and economic potential of our local music scene. Some sort of yardstick would be very useful. But, this being the web, there’s no structure, and there are tons of places to track, legal and otherwise. I’m sure something reasonably effective could be cooked up though, and if anyone’s up for developing it with me, let’s talk. 

Back on topic. In the spring, I dug into YouTube views for a while. Strange patterns: some wonderful bands, who I have all the time in the world for, have racked up relatively small numbers, while others, like George Barnett, can boast six-figure views for their material from a standing start this year. 

Clearly some people are doing something right. But what, exactly, are they doing to get these results? I got in touch with Matthew Bennett, who leads  The Musgraves, and manager Eamonn England of Redhouse Management. I also talked with Rich Shakespeare, who has managed George Barnett And The Ninth Wave for less than a year, to see what buttons they pushed. Two different approaches, both with measurable success. Of course The Musgraves are a little further down the road...

Some common threads emerged, despite the fact that both bands operate very differently. There’s evident determination and focus. There’s a sense of detachment and strategy, and an informed take on how the music industry works. And BBC Introducing has played a significant role in both bands’ progress.   

You’ve scored a lot of very gratifying national airplay action recently. How? Did you use a plugger, or just send your stuff in? Or are there any direct contacts you have?

Matthew Bennett, The Musgraves: It’s taken a long time to get to that stage. I suppose the first thing we did, after doing demos, was to get a management company on board. Our drummer sent a CD off to some industry people in London, and after a few weeks we got a call back.

Eamonn England, The Musgraves Management : The Musgraves sent us a demo CD. It was pretty raw but there were some good ideas and we felt that with development we could achieve something together.

A very early 2011 The Musgraves home-produced video

Matthew Bennett: The company got involved and helped us develop our sound and live show and we began to get gigs before going back in to the studio to start work on an album. Via our management we signed our publishing to Imagem Music on the back of the songs we recorded towards our album. Through this deal we were able to fund an EP release and get a marketing team on board. Initially it was a regional focus and we managed to step up a level before going national. Tom Robinson on 6Music gave us some BBC Introducing spot plays and we then began working with a national marketing team and released an independent single through Lookout Mountain Records. It went crazy then!

Rich Shakespeare: We didn’t use a plugger. One has, very kindly, offered to work for us for free, temporarily, but it’s us (myself and George) who spend most of our day researching people to contact, and making that contact. It’s all about linking up with people. Lots of research. I went to a BBC Introducing live night in Hereford
- they had recorded George at a festival in Worcester, and updated Andrew Marston. He put one of George’s songs forward for Radio 1. It went to a committee, and they picked it ahead of many others. We’ve also had a lot of help and advice from a major label, who seem to want to nurture us and show some early commitment.

It’s great to get that sort of reaction. Some people seem to get it effortlessly, while others plug away for years and years. 

MB: We managed to secure a great national radio plugger and Graham Norton got behind us and began playing our single on Radio 2. 

 The video of the single that went national...

We were then invited on to his BBC 1 show, the first unsigned band to do so. Then we got on the Radio 2 playlist. Really happy now it’s all happening. We’re playing bigger shows now, we have more radio play, and more TV is coming together. It’s difficult but we want music to be our full time job and we’re getting closer.  

RS. It’s all about effort. You have to be really focused. Everything you do has to push it forward.

What about novelty value? Lots of media people like to be the first to spot something – which is of course terribly unfair, but it is human nature…

MB: You’re only going to be new once. You’ve got to keep it fresh from there on, almost re-inventing yourself. It’s up to the artist to develop, to produce new stuff.

RS: Not a problem. George is pretty much a chameleon. He changes. If you look at the artists who’ve lasted a long time, they change and evolve. 

and he’s still only 18...

RS: Yes. I’m also using my experience of seeing people I’ve worked with in the past. The best survive, adapt and grow. That’s my model, I guess. 

What is fascinating to me, Rich, is that this is your first managerial role...

RS: But I’ve done tour managing, and been around the industry, so that’s given me a grounding. George asked me to be his manager. 

What about building a fanbase? What sort of tricks would you recommend?

MB: Twitter, YouTube and Facebook really do work. Before, you could play a show and not be able to follow it up. Now, all the fans are there at your fingertips; you can interact with them, and it makes that relationship go further. They feel more involved; we can get information out quicker. Everyone in the band interacts with the fans online and we make a real effort to be as personal as possible, to keep it ‘real’. When a band starts out, the internet is a really good tool for promo and interaction. We make our own videos and really get the fans involved in what we do. 

RS: Difficult. So many ways. We decided we were going to build ours online, at least at first. That’s why the videos are of decent quality. The idea is to keep it fresh and keep it interesting, so that more people watch these videos.  Lone Rose was the first one – it’s only been out for months and it’s got 120,000 views on YouTube. If you compare that to other bands on the same level, we’re doing well.  

Huge viewing figures...after using Pirate Bay

Interestingly, when you go to that Youtube page and scroll down the comments, free downloads via the Pirate Bay get a mention. A strategic decision? I saw you plugged this offer on Facebook as well. 

RS: The Pirate Bay offered a great promo opportunity after liking ‘College Kids’. We had a 3 day front page promo there that went worldwide. Then we decided to allow free downloads. In return many people decided to go back and pay for the album via iTunes/Amazon or Bandcamp, which worked out perfectly for us.   The fans talk to us through all the usual social media sites. We talk right back, but with respect. It’s about perception.

Can we talk finances? Are you making any money? Did you expect to?

MB: We’re making a little money. Not too much. We’re in the middle stage, where we know things are growing. We sold 3500 copies of our debut single but that doesn’t really equate to income, what with recoupment etc. Our management and publisher have been very supportive and there is a third party financer involved too now.

How does that work? 

Eamonn England: There are lots of 'new model' deals going on within the music industry at the moment. Through our production company, which The Musgraves are signed to, we have managed to secure a marketing and distribution deal which lets us release The Musgraves debut album on our own label. This enables us to keep everything in house and provide them with a far better and fairer return from sales than a major record deal would.

RS: We’re not making any money at the moment. George has sold a little over 1000 albums in a few months. We only had 100 cds made up - we’ve ordered a thousand now. The others were online, so we haven’t had to do too much. He’s used that money to reinvest in better equipment. It’s probably costing us more than we’re getting. 

Is there a grand plan? What is your timescale to push on further?

MB: All we’re focused on is the album right now – it should be out in September along with another single and the promo campaign is starting to kick in now. We’re planning a few videos and cover videos too to keep things moving online. We’re touring the UK in October, and then another single in 2013. 

RS: 2013 is starting to be mapped out. We’re probably planning on getting another album out by March. The plan is to make sure there’s enough material to do another album six months after the last one.  George is constantly writing. We’re planning on a video every two to three months, so that keeps going. We’re also doing 30 second video adverts for major gigs…and that helps the sales.

It looks like you’ve had a charmed life…

MB: (Laughs) We’ve done gigs where there’s no-one there; 400 miles and nobody’s at the gig…Three or four years of that….

RS: I think it’s just… knowledge. As a photographer, you pick up all this knowledge. You’re studying and watching all the time, and you meet so many people. You link with more people as a photographer than you do as a musician, and you move through more genres of music.. 

Who has/have been particularly helpful?

MB: Arthur Tapp from The Catapult Club who promotes at the Birmingham Ballroom. It’s important to get a promoter that believes in you at the start, and he’s been there right from the beginning. When you’re just starting, mostly they (the promoters) are bothered about are how many people you’re going to bring to a show but with Arthur, it’s more about building something. Graham Norton has also made a huge difference.

RS: Too many to mention!

Links
The Musgraves
George Barnett