The Destroyers and their fresh foundations

Eight years of constant change, and the band's hungrier than ever.

I'm sitting in the snug in legendary Moseley music boozer The Prince of Wales, with Leighton Hargreaves, Max Gittings and Aaron Diaz, three long-term members of the Destroyers. It's appropriate: if anything is, it's the band's home base. It's where members come to play at the open sessions; it's where they put on their legendary Christmas/New Year shows.

Now, after what seems like an uncomfortably long time, there's good news to report: the band are issuing an EP, on local label Stoney Lane. There may be more to follow, possibly building up to an album. And there's a tour planned out.

West Midlands Acts on Video - who's watching?

YouTube views for local acts totted up, ranked and compared with the February numbers. There's some surprises...

Who the hell are are these guys? Read on...

Six months ago, just out of curiosity, I researched local acts on video, ranking by most-viewed. It was an interesting exercise, showing how different genres pull in some terrific figures. Six months on, here's a slightly refined repeat exercise. 

No such chart is perfect. With apologies to those artists I missed out on six months ago, I've cast the net wider, although this makes ranking some stuff difficult - do Rap Battles count? I've excluded these - but they might make an interesting sub-chart in their own right. I've also charted the increase in views over the past six months, which gives a rough indication of how an act may be progressing. In one case this has led to a spectacular and probably unrepeatable increase in viewing numbers. The new chart is after the jump.

Cultivating precious talent in Gavin's Garden

Gavin Monaghan's Magic Garden recording studio has quietly grown into a powerhouse production centre, simply by concentrating on doing things well. Really well. 

When you visit a recording studio for the first time, more often than not finding the place is a bit of an adventure. Studios are tucked away in basements, shoehorned into warehouses, carved out of unlikely spaces in industrial estates, squeezed into odd bits of residential homes… It’s all very hidden and exceptions are rare. It’s only in colleges and, sadly, now rarely at radio - like the old Pebble Mill BBC studios - that you’ll walk into something open, airy, shinily well maintained, and above all, obvious for all to see.

So it was with Gavin Monaghan’s Magic Garden, arguably the most consistently successful outfit in the West Midlands. It took me half an hour of driving around odd bits of industrial north Wolverhampton, and even then Gavin had to come out and find me – he’s not on anywhere you’ll find on Google maps or your satnav, and that’s the way he likes it. 

Gavin presides over an operation which has turned out some magnificent work in his 21 years as studio manager and producer: The Twang, Scott Matthews, Editors, Robert Plant, Ocean Colour Scene, Carina Round, Nizlopi, and a host of local names including Khaliq, The Destroyers, Guile, Paul Murphy, and Ben Drummond – who was recording when I dropped by, and who will be the subject of a later post on this blog when everything is mixed.  

Vintage tech lust object

There’s not a whole lot of of room in Gavin’s place, and that’s partly because he collects kit - rather a lot of it - and lovingly refurbishes it. His pride and joy is a 1938 Neumann microphone, which he dug up on eBay; but there are classic pieces of kit everywhere you look. 

Vintage kit fetishists can get their kicks reading the kit list on his Myspace blog. 

Notwithstanding all the appeal of gorgeous old equipment, the heart of Gavin's system is a Protools rig. Above and beyond the love of kit, there’s a love of the creative process. And in the teeth of a howling recession, things are looking good

First question, Gavin: How’s business?

Booming. It’s very busy. There’s always been a steady flow of really talented people coming thought here, I’m pleased to say.

And this comes to you how? Word of mouth?

Yes. I don’t advertise. I’m also quite selective of who I work with. It’s hard to put your finger on what makes that happen, but I’m glad it has. It’s nice that current artists come in as well – we’ve still got stuff on and off the radio all the time - I see that as a continuation, and I try to embrace change as it comes along. But… a good song’s a good song. 

I talked with Jon Cotton at Artisan about six months ago, and he pointed out that the tiny studios have now simply disappeared, because people can work with multi-track software on their laptops, and the big studios are scrapping for movie business. So that kind of means that reputation counts for an awful lot.

Yes. You’re only as good as the people you work with. If I get a great band to work with, I’m at my best. If I get somebody… not so great … they there’s not a lot you can do with that. I do a lot of research. I listen to a lot of brand new music. I try to uncover gems. I’m always all over the internet. I approach bands that I hear and like. If I hear something than inspires me, I get in touch. And I try and put as much effort into a job like that as I would with a major album.

That can’t be cost-effective, Gavin…

I don’t care. I’m not doing this for the money. Never have been. 

On the other hand, we’re sitting here, surrounded by squaziliions' worth of vintage kit, which doesn’t come cheap… 

Gavin (chortles)

… but you’ve got Protools up there as your main system.

I like classic sounds, but you’ve got to embrace what’s going on now. So we’ve got all the modern stuff that you’d want. But it’s a good combination. In an ideal world, everybody would still be recording to tape, and perfecting their craft to the point where you wouldn’t need to endlessly edit your stuff to get it on the radio. Having said that, I’m more than happy.

But I think new cheap kit has made a big difference for a lot of bands. They can get their ideas sorted at home, working on their laptops, and recording acoustically where possible…

Sometimes we’ll work with what they’ve already started in their home studio. We end up keeping some of it – I love that. It brings interesting textures into the recordings.

Capacity is a problem here, isn’t it?

Well, we’ve had all 18 of the Destroyers in…

The chat moved on through technology, music quality and sound quality.

I work with music fidelity for a living. My job is to capture the best possible signal. But if it’s going to be reduced to mp3, and that’s how people are going to hear it, then I’ve got to make the best possible mp3 I can possibly make. 

I had a very interesting conversation a while back about distortion in mastering. Most people want to capture the maximum possible volume, with the minimum possibly dynamic range. So part of that process is to distort it, to clip it, so it’s as loud as it can be on radio.

But radio compresses everything anyway…

They use Optimod, yes. A lot of bands and record companies, if you give them something with dynamic range, will say ‘It’s not as loud as the Arctic Monkeys’ – it’s part of the culture. It’s part of the trend, Music is a fashion-based industry. So if that’s the trend, I’ve got to make my masters the best distorted masters I can!

So once Ben Drummond’s mixed and finished up, who’s next?

We’ve got a band called Arrows – a brilliant band. We’ve just done a Radio 1 exclusive with a Birmingham band called Jaws. I’m doing an album with Johnathan Day, a brilliant singer-songwriter. Paul Murphy’s coming in to do his next album. We’re slated to be working with – don’t want to jinx it, but I’m hopeful – with Dry The River. Hope so. My management’s talking to them and various other people.

Management? How does that work?

I have a manager for my production work. I’m a studio owner, but my job is music producer. There are agencies similar to artist management, who manage producers, My manager’s Sandy Robertson from World’s End in Los Angeles. He’s got about 40 producers and engineers on his books. 

How did that relationship come about?

He liked some of the albums that I’ve worked on. The first Twang album – he loved it. He wanted the Twang for another one of his producers, but they wanted to work with me. And after he heard it, it went from there – he’d been listening to my stuff for a while.

But does he understand you and your range of production chops and styles?

I think he works with such a variety of producers… so, yes. I just want to be working all the time. For me it’s important to work with new bands, just as important as working with major label acts who can line your pockets. If I was in it for the money, I’d be a hell of a lot better off!

Gavin's Magic Garden Myspace page

ADO emerge blinking into delight

In early 2011, this blog posted a flurry of enthusiastic posts about ADO – Alternative Dubstep Orchestra – as they powered though a string of gigs at the Hare and Hounds in King’s Heath in Birmingham. Then... it went quiet. No live action, no posts. But now, with gigs planned, and a box-fresh video that you can see after the jump, there’s an awful lot to talk about. Shelley Atkinson’s doing the talking. 

I’m very fond of ADO. One reason is purely sentiment: the seeds for the band’s genesis were sown at the November 2010 launch event for The Pilot project, which I led, and for which ADO manager Shelley Atkinson had played an invaluable role as lead researcher. At the PP launch, Shelley and DJ Karl Jones had challenged each other to see if live musicians could work coherently with DJs and turntablists; from that challenge came the first version of ADO.  But there's more. 

The second reason there's a lot to love about ADO is simply the pure musical adventurous spirit of the project - a collection of hugely disparate musicians and DJs, working together across genres that have never meshed before. 

The potential was huge, and it still is. Throughout 2011, I'd never before been able to watch a band evolve so fast and so nakedly, in public. It was charming and enthralling at the same time. Musicians spun in and out of the line-up, as the band worked towards a degree of identity and a coherent music vision. Some people struggled to find their feet; others took to it like ducks to water; some found they had other fish to fry, or obligations to meet. And that, of course, is often the way it is. 

Time for that chat with Shelley about how things are now...

It’s 21 months since ADO came into being. Tell me about the first idea that drove ADO 

Shelley Atkinson: Oh, to celebrate Birmingham's music scenes and encourage 
collaboration. To showcase musicians from different genres, to create something along a basic dubstep line, but to enhance that and mix different music together.

But wasn’t there a musical point you wanted to prove?

Yes. Two of us came up with the ideas: Karl Jones and myself. I’ve put live music on for the past five or six years…working on festivals, creating festivals. When we met, we were at loggerheads. Karl was trying to convince me that dubstep is innovative, that turntablism is an instrument in its own right. Lots of things that he’s very passionate about. Coming from where I had been – more ‘traditional’ music making, if you like – I disagreed, largely. I felt DJs had too much stake in popular music.  I wanted to inject more live music into his world, and he wanted to inject into the ‘live’ world, more evidence that dubstep isn’t just one thing, that it can be varied, that it had twists and turns, and that it can be live. So we both had agendas…. But we both wanted to celebrate Birmingham music and music-making, of all kinds. 

So how has that worked out – have you reached a perfect medium between the two approaches?

I think so...nowadays it is less about trying to prove a point and more about seeing what comes out once you get 10 different musicians together coming from different points of view. For me the sounds that come out from that are exciting. Everybody puts their point of view into the pot. Sometimes there can be creative tensions, but that's what makes the music sound so different - nobody is following a formula. You’ve got producers, songwriters, and people who are very passionate about their genre in there…

Surely it’s a case where the musician creates and the DJ curates?

I would have said that initially, Robin…but if you were to speak to Richard Shawcross, for example, who is a DJ in ADO, or Karl Jones – they would say they were musicians; they create bass lines, rhythms, melodies. Which they do! So we’ve had this debate from the word go. The lines are so blurred now! 

Sounds like healthy creative tension to me…

Yes. I think people fighting for different things musically can create a new thing. And you have to compromise, you have to work together. So it’s a great process. To me, the process is just as important as the music itself. 

Let’s talk about the process, because you’ve done quite a lot of that, live, onstage. The band lurched chaotically into life on stage, and it was a pleasure to see that lurching. I’ve never seen that before. Normally, all that stuff takes place in the rehearsal room…

 … and then you go out and gig when you’re ready. You don’t book a gig before you’ve got a band, like we did! But it was scary, and exciting. Some of the musicians hated it at first, to be honest. They hated being put in that position. It’s scary and it’s not fair, to do that to a musician. 

Leaving them naked on stage….

Naked, yeah! Often many of them were doing styles of music they weren’t really knowledgeable about. But that really doesn’t matter anymore, that’s not the point. And it never was, actually.

But that’s what excites me: something unique might emerge from this huge fermenting mess of ideas and abilities.  Let’s get back to the present. I saw almost all your gigs last year, and it was lovely to watch you evolve and nail new approaches. But I think you’ve only done one hometown gig in 2012.

It was important to play live, and to inspire people in a room, and do stuff on stage that hadn’t been done before. We used every gig to grow and learn. All those experiences came to a head after a year, and then it was time to make some music in a recording studio. And I don’t think you can do both at the same time – it’s very difficult. So that’s why it’s been a bit quiet. Lots of writing. And we wanted to approach this work in the same way - not to churn a product out. 

What is the timescale for the rest of 2012?

We’ve got a video out now – see above – filmed at two of our gigs. We’re hoping to do a November tour. Some of the members play in other bands: you’ve got Leighton Hargreaves who plays in the Destroyers. Tom Livemore’s going to be touring with Carina Round again in October. So everybody’s finished what they’re doing by November. Which lets us tour, and also put out a release, with Hero Records.

Conventional wisdom says you should only play with one band if you’re going to give it your best show. You can’t do that with this band. So how do you deal with that? 

These are signs of the times. I don’t know many musicians who just play with one band in Birmingham. Actual working musicians in our city all play with different bands; and they all are going to have one band which they have loyalty to. I’ve never, as manager of ADO said to anybody ‘You must choose’. 

And that is a brave and a good thing... because, when it comes to collaboration, ADO set a new record for cross-town multi-stranded musician membership. Brass section stalwarts Christopher Holmes plays with Sister Henry and The Prescriptions, and Fly Harper with Friendly Fire. Bass player Spike Barker also plays with Toy Hearts, and the brilliant percussionist Joelle Barker also plays with, among others, TG Collective.

Now a tricky question: this is your first major managerial gig. What would you say to yourself of less than two years ago, just starting up the band?

Good question. Let a lot things go by – you can’t take it all on. With ten people, you’ve got ten lots of emotions and inspirations and hopes. We’re all on the same page, but I don’t take on every little thing. The times when I’ve found it difficult is when I’ve forgotten the big picture. The big picture is what you need to keep you eye on!

What happening in 2013, Shelley?

More tours, more recording. We hope to come into our own. We hope people will stop saying things like ‘That’s not dubstep’ or ‘that’s not orchestral’, and just realise it’s a musical force. We want to work with some well-established artists as well

And what’s the ‘brand’ going to be: ADO or Alternative Dubstep Orchestra?

Oh - ADO. 

Just to round things off, it's worth noting that, just as ADO grew out of an unlikely and idealistic collaboration, where different musical worlds collided with very satisfying results, so ADO in turn is now spawning yet more experimental ventures, Past members have gone on to form exciting ventures like Electric Swing Circus, and Jolt Music is a new collaboration between present members Leighton Hargreaves, Tom Livemore and Joelle Barker. That's not all; there are more ventures cooking up even now. I rather hope that, with this level of musical curiosity and willingness to explore, that we will see more ventures in the future. Long may all this continue. 

ADO Facebook page

Pledging my love: Red Shoes and Electric Swing Circus take the crowdfunding route

Crowdfunding to pay for a project is generally agreed to be a good thing.  It worked well for the Destroyers, but could it be too much of a good thing?  Plenty more people are working the system right now. 

Red Shoes' numbers on Sunday 26th

Right now, the pledge movement is the favourite new way for bands and artists to raise funds for big projects. It's simple: meet  the pledge site's (quite stringent) conditions, then use the site's muscle, guidance and savvy to to raise funds. For this, you pay a commission fee. The sites undoubtedly help in many ways, but you've still got a lot of work to do to reach your target. 
The two sites here are Pledge Music, one of the largest, who don't disclose funding targets, have big and small clients worldwide; and Crowdfunder, UK based, much smaller, who charge less, do disclose the funding targets, and also fund non-music projects. 

At the point of publishing this post, two West Midlands bands: Red Shoes, and Electric Swing Circus, were closing - ultimately successfully - on their funding targets for new albums, with Pledge Music and Crowdfunder respectively. Red Shoes are veterans who have recruited some absolute superstars of the folk world to work on their new album; Electric Swing Circus are a charming, skillful and slightly demented new-ish six piece who blend (their description) 'breakbeat and house with jungle and dubstep, whilst keeping true to their own unique style of swing'. 

And both bands were kind enough to honestly answer my very picky questions about the whole process.

At the time of writing you are both closing on your targets. How has it gone? 

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: We’re running at 78% now with a real jump in the last week. We’re not there yet, but we think that we’ll hit that target. 

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: So far so good, we’re on track to hit target on time so we are all happy with that. 

I’m a fan. I follow your progress on Facebook, and it seems like you’re there every day with bits and pieces about how you’re doing. It’s great to see the numbers edging forward, but do you ever wonder that you might be nagging your fans…? 

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: Yes recently there has been a lot of that – but because our Facebook page has grown so fast this past month on the back of the festival tour, we are trying to get the message out to our new  friends, so we have perhaps pushed it a bit harder than we would normally. We are usually quite good at mixing posts about ourselves with other things in and around the electro swing scene. And very soon we’ll resume normal service, with maybe a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio of Crowdfunder to other stuff. 

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: We've had that feeling. It’s hard to strike a balance between getting it out there and just informing people. But if we don’t do it for a day or two, the pledges slow down. None of us are used to the hard sell and it’s difficult putting it up constantly on your own personal page. But remember not everyone keeps up with everything ever day. We’ve had a couple of negative comments on Facebook, but they’re people that haven’t pledged. Our pledgers have come out in support and have “shared” and “liked” the comments and posts.

People can pledge for all sorts of goodies, not just the cd. What has worked best to sustain interest? Nine months ago, the Destroyers auctioned off Louis Robinson’s beard…. What is your most outrageous/attention-seeking offer? 

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: We’ve tried to keep to the music side. Gimmicks wouldn’t really work for us, and none us has a beard to shave off in the first place!  Our album guests (Dave Pegg, Dave Swarbrick and Bev Bevan) have brought us increased and sustained interest. You know you’re doing something right when these people play on your album. The signed CD is working the best for us, but over the last few days our new T-shirts have gone great guns. People who’d already pledged have added them to their order. We had to get the right design and we think that ours  really works: Lyrics to a song, incorporating the album title, along with the group name. The addition has given us a new burst of activity.

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: We haven’t got anything particularly wacky on our list; we really wanted to focus on stuff that we thought was genuinely worth something so the rewards are a little straight. Our headline reward is two guestlist tickets to a festival with us next year and that has had quite a bit of interest – if people ever wondered what artist camping is like at a festival, now is the time to find out (FYI it’s better, but not that much better). We did really try and keep the prices down, on all the rewards so for example with the festival tickets, they work out as £125 each which we think is quite a bargain!

As you’ve both said, success really depends on you getting out to market your work. But by setting yourselves a very public target, are you not also running the risk of failing in public? It does happen…

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: I agree, doing this does make you feel exposed. I've spent plenty of time refreshing the screen, hoping for the slightest increase, wondering who amongst friends and family might donate, and then wondering if I've asked them once twice or three times already...

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: Aaaagh, don’t say that! No, we know we could fall flat on our faces. But if you don’t try, you’ll never know, and it’s better to have tried and failed. The one thing we are all confident in, is the songs and the sound of the new tracks, and we’ll get there.

It’s really interesting to look at your pledge site, and see who else is out there pitching. Are you in good company, do you think?

ESC closing on their target too...

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: It’s bizarre to see yourself next to great artists like BB King (and we’ve been side by side with him since day 1!). To be on the same page as Shelby Lynne, Ben Folds and Then Jericho is a little unreal, but it also shows what kind of status Pledge is at. If these people are on there and it’s working for them, then because it’s a level playing field, it also might work for us! No one, artist is singled out on that Home page, we all get the same publicity and push.

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: Looking through Crowdfunder.co.uk there are a couple of interesting musical projects that I've been meaning to get round to supporting for a while. That said there’s not as much there as I thought there would be. More interesting projects on the site would definitely be welcome, though, if anyone is thinking about it...

And are people able to see exactly how much money you are asking for? Some sites let you see this sort of thing, others don’t. 

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: I think by showing the amount of money you are asking for, it makes it much easier to justify things to fans. I don’t see a real advantage in hiding the total, unless you are trying to do something a bit sneaky. It’s very difficult to pick the asking amount, and there was much debate within the group as to how much to aim for. In the end we went with £2500 because it did feel much more attainable than figures like £8k that we are expecting to spend in total on the album.

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: No, that’s not revealed. It’s just the target percentage against the Pledges and days left. It really wouldn’t sit well with us as people if that amount was up there is £ and pence, we’re not good at “asking for money”. 

Right now, I’ve got pledges on both your sites, and I could have a whole lot more… do you think there will come a point when this sort of fund-raising won’t work any more?

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: I think the more it is used, the more it will favour established projects rather than new projects. If everyone is shouting, some of the smaller players may struggle to be heard. It is interesting how this model gives total power to the fans. If people want it, it will happen, if they don’t it won’t. I think there will be people who get disillusioned after failed projects, but this model is very honest – a project will fail because either the concept is flawed, or there wasn’t enough exposure. There are no other excuses. If we were to fall short though, it would act as a wake up call: either we’d need to sort our marketing out, or come up with a better offer! 

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: We think it really is the way forward. It’s not a new concept: Marillion and The Strawbs have funded their releases for years through pre-orders on their sites. But Pledge is a complete platform. There’s a support network if you have any questions on sales, fulfilling the pledges, business advice... you don’t get that on your own site. Updates are put out regularly and you’re encouraged to do this constantly yourselves as well.

This form of artist funding is starting to worry the big boys, because they won’t have control over releases in the future. But they’ve only themselves to blame. Great artists like Dylan, Van Morrison, The Band, The Stones or The Beatles just wouldn’t get a look-in these days if they were starting out. If they were starting out again, then they’d be using Pledge Music.

How helpful has your site been in guiding you through the process?

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: Fantastic. I've had a fair few queries through the process, and replies have come with within a few hours at the latest. It was also helpful having someone at the end of a phone if needed. 

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: Brilliant from the start. Carolyn spoke to them on the phone initially and we got a full rundown on what could be done. They asked lots of questions about the project. We were encouraged to be realistic about our target figure and to base it on our mailing list to start with. The mailing list is most important: that's those fans who really want to know what happening with Red Shoes. They are the people who bought the first album, and are going to more than likely want the new one . . . and they have!

They run through a very easy business plan with you and assess all the figures, then encourage you to think of the extras that will act as the incentives that only Pledgers will be able to get. This goes backwards and forwards until all the boxes are ticked and all the extras are in place. When we’ve had a question, we can get hold of our personal mentor almost immediately either by phone or through a mailing system. We get our Pledges delivered through as emails and the database is updated immediately to show the new orders.They encourage you to give things away to the Pledgers/Fans. It makes it a very personal connection. We’ll let you know that it’s worked perfectly when we start sending those orders out!

Finally – any tips for those who are considering going down this route?

Mark Evans, Red Shoes: We spoke to Paul Murphy from The Destroyers before we took the plunge. His advice was worth it’s weight in gold. He made us reassess a few things before we launched; we’re glad we had someone who had succeeded on Pledge to talk to apart from the mentors in the office.

You need a loyal and supportive fan base, with a mailing list of people that you talk to. You don’t  have to have lots of members on it, but you need people who follow you or come to see you live regularly and have signed up for information. Next, be realistic about your target, because overreaching for a figure just might make it difficult to get to your target. Then, be prepared to push, push and push all the way, blog it out to everyone who’ll listen, that you have a fantastic album coming out and they’d be mad not to pledge on it.

Pledge also let you arrange to make donations to a charity of your choice. You can have allocate some of the funds to go to that charity. Because we all knew people affected by strokes, we are giving 10% of funds raised over the 100% to Stroke Association. As a last statement, we’d say “Go for it, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain!”

Tom Hyland, Electric Swing Circus: Well we are not through the process yet –and until we hit target I wouldn’t want to give too much advice in case I got it totally wrong... but based on what I have learned so far... It’s best to do the campaign while something else is happening, so we have alternated our dialogue with the fans between this campaign, and the festival tour. It is also good to do this during a time when your fanbase is growing, as it means that there is something there for recent followers to engage with behind. All in all I think crowdfunding is fantastic, not only for raising money, but for giving fans the chance to get a bit closer and get involved. Just make sure you're ready before you jump in with two feet.

On balance, it seems all good for Mark and Tom, and I really think that both bands will hit their targets. But I see problems in the long run. As Mark says, the old-school 20th century record industry has driven itself into the sand with its conservatism, market manipulation and get-rich-quick repertoire selection. It's no surprise to me that musicians are choosing to bypass the old ways. If I I was a record industry executive, I'd be looking hard at the new talent emerging on the pledge sites, and snapping up whatever I could. And I would ask myself why the big names like BB King are abandoning my business proposition. But I would also ask where the next big names are going to come from.

And if I was in a band, I might also want to ask how long this method of funding will work for - unlike Tom, I certainly don't think it will last 50 years. I might also ask myself how long a music packaging format  that was invented by an obsolete record industry - the album - is going to last. But for now, hey guys - it's looking good! 

Links:
Red Shoes website           
          Red Shoes gig list 
          Red Shoes on Pledge Music 

Electric Swing Circus 
         Electric Swing Circus gigs list
         Electric Swing Circus on Crowdfunder 
Crowdfunder
Pledge Music

Micro-festivals and New Folk. The Old Dance School and Goodnight Lenin: lots on their plates

Goodnight Lenin on a jetty; Old Dance School on the run

The web has rewritten the way we hunt out new music, not always for the better. For a start, there's no road-map. Of course, that could be a good thing.

Old-school record shops have been crushed and swept away; their online replacements throw 'priority' acts at you. You have to step past that, and that is where I particularly miss the old way of doing things. 

But instead we now have the power to endorse and recommend, and this works in a lot of different ways. It’s changed things. Online momentum can build worldwide for any act that is able to reach an audience. Ironically, one of the music genres that have gained most from this is one of the oldest: folk music. There’s been a huge resurgence in folk and folk-associated forms in the past ten years. Singer-songwriters are coming to the fore again; new bands are enjoying success to rival the 70s veterans.

And this is, I think, down to three factors.

Marketing: 
Bands build great, direct, online relationships with their followers through the web. It’s powerful and personal, and especially suits music people can get passionate about.

Technology: 
Equipment has never been cheaper, and, especially with acoustic instruments, musicians have far more scope to record and distribute their own music in their own way. So, creatively, that frees musicians to do what they feel is right, rather than what a record company exec thinks is right.

The electronic oral tradition: 
Folk and world music has always spread by the passing on of songs from person to person, down the generations and across borders. That process used to take years; now it happens in a heartbeat.

Robin Beatty and Laura Carter are founder members of the Old Dance School, who mix things up with a vengeance. The new album, their third, 'Chasing the Light', is just out. The first album worked in some distinctly non-trade grooves in with the guitars, fiddles, recorders and percussion. 

Laura: "The first album ('Based on a True Story', 2008) had one piece we called the drum and bass section. We’ve moved away from that. Now we’re focussing on all the instruments, rather than the rhythm section. "

From The Air by The Old Dance School

You seem to be using textures a lot more 

Robin: "All folk music is very modal – it’s all open positions of the fiddle, whistles in D. But we’ve got a trumpet in B flat, and a bagful of whistles and recorders. We’ve had loads of fun moving through different keys in different sections of a song. It’s been really interesting."  

Three albums in, where you find yourselves? Is it progressing the way you think it should be progressing? 

Laura: "In some ways it’s been a lot harder for us, because we’ve come from nothing. You start off doing gigs for not much money, and then you have to work on your own profile. Maybe it’s gone a bit slower than I anticipated. We’ve been together for five years now. But in the last two years we’ve been pushing ahead. "

One of the reasons we’re talking is to follow up on a post from the beginning of April, which noted how much radio play West Midlands bands were getting, especially on Radio 2. 

Laura: "We’re doing really well with radio plays on the new album. We’ve gotten a lot more interest from festivals… "

Robin: "We seem to have a good loyal fan base now, which is nice. But we may even have missed out on one or two things this year because we’ve been so – focussed – on our music and the album."

Ras al-Maa by The Old Dance School

Discussion shifts to the web, the power of the Facebook share, and on Spotify and Last-FM, the user playlists and the prompts from the programmes themselves. 

Robin:" Having all this stuff recommended to you… the discoveries that are fed to you on the internet… You do come across some great things. I just hope that it doesn’t extinguish that hunger for exploration that you have for music. That is one of the biggest joys on music. Being oversaturated and overfed with all these recommendations – I wonder if it extinguishes your desire to explore.  "

 That’s more than fair, and something I hope to dig in to in a later post. But back in the present, Old Dance School have further fish to fry. Now, they’re also doing a festival. Robin Beatty comes from high in the peak district, where the Edale Festival will take place. Delivering this has meant years of discussions with the council, clearance for campsites, staging, power and more, wrangling for support funding and so on. But, weather permitting – Robin admits to being a bit ‘gripped’ by all this – Edale gets underway halfway through the month (18^th to 20^th May), with a very strong West Midlands presence, including the Destroyers, Joe Broughton’s Conservatoire Folk Ensemble, Abie's Miracle Tonic, and of course the Old Dance School.

Across town, Moseley Folk are also lining up their first Camping weekend festival too. This one’s called the Lunar Festival, and it takes place in Tanworth in Arden, two weeks later, over the first weekend in June. Old Dance School are also on this bill, along with Scott Matthews, Boat To Row, Ben Calvert, the Young Runways, James Summerfield, Friends of the Stars (recently blogged about here), Bonfire Radicals, ChrisTye… all of whom are local to the West Midlands.

Setting this up is the indefatigable John Fell from Goodnight Lenin, who also play.

Why is Moseley Folk doing this, given that the organisation already has two very successful but labour-intensive operations going in the city already? 

John Fell: The only thing that Moseley Folk doesn’t have is camping! Obviously we don’t want to make it exactly the same as Moseley Folk, but we do want to keep the same sort of friendly vibe, but to bring that camping element in as well, so it becomes a little bit more of a holiday, than just a day-by day set of shows. 

But it’s tiny this first year, right? 

"It would be interesting to find out if it is the smallest festival in the UK! It’s got a capacity of 500 each day. So yes, it is minute. We wanted to start in a small way, and grow from there." 

But you’ve got room to expand? 

"Oh yes. The fields round the site are vast… "

If I wanted to run a festival, I think I’d be declared insane. You’re already in the business, so that doesn’t apply. But how, exactly, do you go about it? Where do find a friendly farmer, for a start? 

"You need the right venue. That’s key. You need a reason to do it. You can’t just say ‘I’m going to run a festival to make money’… "

Because several festivals have cancelled this year already… 

"You can understand it. There are so many festivals that are the same, that offer the same, on the same weekends. "

And prices aren’t going down. 

"No, they’re not. That’s one of the issues we want to address. With Moseley, we try to keep it at around £79 for three days, which is fair. Tanworth is going to cost £65 for four days music – you can camp for five days if you want! "

But with only 500 paying customers a day, you’ll be very lucky to break even… 

"We’ve worked it to break even. This is to try running a new event. We got offered a nice venue, which was perfect for our interests, where we could try something new. "

For our interests…? 

"It’s where Nick Drake spent most of his life, and where he is buried, two minutes down the road from the festival site. This is what I mean about not doing a festival for money, but doing it for an idea. A beautiful plot of land, and the associations with Nick Drake – and it all clicked. Over the last twenty years or so, he’s become more and more iconic." 

Now that’s interesting. Back in the day, Nick Drake was not exactly a huge commercial success. Island Records certainly believed in him. Old hippies like me have memories of rootling around in the bins in record shops – remember them? – and coming across Bryter Later and Five Leaves Left. But, to me, the buzz wasn’t – really - there at the time. Now, it certainly is. And I think that credit has to go to the Moseley Folk organisers for riskily putting their money where their personal interests lie.  The bill is pretty impressive too, and most of the acts will be performing at least one Nick Drake song.

So give me a quick update on Goodnight Lenin? 

"We’re still recording, at Highbury Studio, where we were always meant to be. It’s great. To record analogue tape live is fantastic. I’m a song writer – I’m not technical. I write the song, bang it out, it’s done. So the delicate intricacies of digital – it’s very unreal for me. To just walk in the room, crank up the amp and play the song… it’s the way I want to record.  We’re never going to go back (to digital). You lose a lot of warmth. You lose a performance." 

Hmm. Now there’s an idea for a future blog piece…. But that sort of brings me, full circle, back to the start of this post. It’s ironic that folk, the most basic and direct form of music has flourished because of digital and web technologies. The Goodnight Lenin video above has jumped into people’s awareness… and that could not have happened ten years ago. But they still want to record their music the old way.

Band Links
Old Dance School
Goodnight Lenin

March/April 2012 Airplay

Last Month saw a really pleasing burst of radio activity at national level for West Midlands acts. Time for a few facts and figures. 

Impressive music is emerging from the West Midlands. Some of it is starting to get equally impressive recognition at National radio. 

This is a big deal. Scoring airplay at Radio 2, the country's most listened-to station, even in off-peak shows, means more than scoring airplay on any other station in the country. It means that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people, will have heard your song, and that it will have been presented, sympathetically, to an unusually receptive audience. It's a great trick if you can pull it off, and it is definitely not easy - just ask anyone who's tried. 

Local acts are breaking out. When you gather it all together, it begins to look good: we're talking about millions of listens at national level. Of course, I have no way to ensure that this info is comprehensive; there's probably a lot more to celebrate.


Star performers in March:

The Musgraves: Last of Me single, with 6 plays in the past month at BBC Radio 2

Also shining brightly: 

Destroyers: Hole in the Universe single. Transition Records 
Mike Harding Show, BBC Radio 2, 28 March
It’s also worth noting that the Destroyers logged two sell-out shows last week to alarmingly enthusiastic crowds in Birmingham and London. And if you play the video, do note the comment, from Taysidethistles, up near the top.

Urban Folk Quartet: Jaleo Bus/Up In The Air. Taken from 'Off Beaten Tracks' CD 
Mike Harding Show, BBC Radio 2, 28 March

Dan Whitehouse: My Heart Doesn’t Age, It Just Gets Older single, Tiger Dan records.
Alex Lester, 21 March; Steve Lamacq, 3 March, BBC Radio 2; also playlisted at Q Radio (National Digital)   

  Sam Redmore: Is This Love Remix 
Craig Charles, BBC 6 Music, 17 March.

Thanks to the excellent Compare My Radio website, we also know that
Ruby Turner scored more play at BBC Radio 2 with Lord I Thank You - thank you for the update comment, PF - in March. 

Nightingales: Best of British Luck / The Burster, new CD tracks
Marc Riley, BBC 6 Music: 8th/13th/19th/22nd/28th March

Chris Tye and Wes Finch 
Honourable mentions in Guardian reader playlist, 21 March

So, so far, so good, but I've almost certainly missed some stuff out. Researching this in detail is time-consuming; getting play details out of all the key specialist shows isn't the easiest thing in the world. If you're not on the above list, and you’ve scored some national play, please drop me a note so that I can update the post. 


There are some interesting issues to consider: 

How did these guys score national airplay? 

In particular, what steps did each act take to bring their work to national exposure? 

There are a number of routes, but it’s heartening to note that national DJs are going out of their way to explore new music from the West Midlands. 


Now, this can’t be the whole picture, and it goes without saying that Kerrang, BBC Introducing at WM, CWR, Hereford and Worcester, Shropshire and Stoke are all playing their part, as are WCR-FM, Bridge FM, Scratch Radio and other community operations. And, as I have repeatedly suggested, judicious local plays for the right local artists can bring unique benefits to both station and artist.

The Destroyers cross the PledgeMusic finish line

How one band found online fan funding to support their CD. It wasn't easy...

Louis Robinson in make-up for the video shoot

On January 12^th 2012, around lunchtime, the Destroyers hit their target on PledgeMusic.com.

This allowed them to fund the release of their second album. I am delighted for them. I’m not alone: check the Destroyers' Facebook page to read messages of congratulations from all over.

By the way, this here is Louis Robinson with a lot of scary make-up being applied. The Destroyers were shooting a video yesterday for their next single. More on this later.

I’m a big fan. I’d love to see the band grow and prosper.  I’ve been watching the online pledge process closely from the moment they got it underway. It seems to me that the Destroyers played this one just right. But setting up a worthwhile project on one of the many pledge sites is one thing; taking it to fruition is quite another. 

Fan-funded music releases aren’t new. Ten years ago, veteran Scottish pomp-rockers Marillion demonstrated the power of marketing themselves directly to a loyal Europe-wide fan base with spectacular success, when the record industry had long since written them off. Buffalo singer-songwriter Anni DiFranco has put out releases yearly for 18 years on her own label, maintaining and managing direct links to her growing following.

And it’s becoming a much more significant part of the music landscape. I went to PledgeMusic  to look at the successes. On the Funded - that is, successful – page today, the Destroyers are up there, front and centre, one of the most recent projects to cross the finish line. Following on are a string of happily completed projects from around the world. You won’t know most of them, because they all successfully work to their home areas. But if you jump back to the PledgeMusic home page you’ll see some surprisingly big names, not all of whom have been successful. Many are: there’s Reef, and Killing Joke, who have both wildly exceeded their targets, and in so doing, sidestepped the conventional record industry to great effect. But look – here’s Ian McCullough, a name to conjure with from the 70s and 80s, who has yet to hit the 100% mark. I think he probably will – he’s three quarters of the way there and he still has another two months to gather the remaining pledges of support.

Pledge sites work by inviting fans to contribute towards a total sum. This funds a CD, or a DVD, or a film, or an EP, or an artistic activity. There are dozens of such sites covering all sorts or artistic activities, but they tend to work in much the same way: your pledges are only redeemed if the entire project hits its target. So there is a risk of failure. And of course, if you fail, your failure is both public and extremely disappointing for the band and fans.

When the Destroyers kicked their campaign off late last year, they rapidly hit the 30% pledge mark,  offering a range of goodies to pledge for from straight downloads to signed items, and even attendance at a rehearsal followed by dinner with the band at a mere £140. This is a bargain: you have to fork out 500 Australian dollars for dinner with The Murphy Brothers, a three piece from Western Australia. After that encouraging start, things slowed down a little bit. Then, alarmingly, things slowed down quite a lot. The percentage total, loping gently but steadily upwards, started to crawl. And after Christmas, for obvious reasons, things got sticky. With a week to go, they were still some 20% off their target. However, recent days saw an explosion of online activity to raise awareness. Band members, friends, fans, family and fellow musicians, tweeted, posted and nagged. The band kept up a steady stream of posts, offering video clips and extra treats for those who had already pledged. I wasn't sure anyone eventually came in for Louis Robinson’s framed beard, though - a snip at £69. 

I met with the band at their video shoot (in a backstreet boozer a stone's throw from the Birmingham markets area) to talk over their campaign.Louis  was more than happy with Pledgemusic: 

“They get involved. You talk to them at least once a week, and it’s always the same person, so you develop a relationship. They’ll tell you about other campaigns on their site, and suggest you try this or that.”

It looked at one time that you weren’t going to hit your target. Do you think you were realistic in setting your financial goal?

“Yes. We weren’t asking for a huge amount – enough to press up a few thousand CDs, cover some mixing costs and bits and pieces. The bigger your following, the more you can aim for. But Pledgemusic are also pretty good at suggesting a realistic target. And they check you out before letting you sign up – they look at your site, see how many Facebook likes you have see, listen to your music, read the reviews…”

Louis, you still have your beard. Didn’t anyone pledge for it?

“Oh, they did. There will be a ceremonial presentation. There may be video footage in due course...."

Isn't there the awful risk that you might actually fail in your attempt to raise funds? I saw an awful lof of low percentage pledges on PledgeMusic...

"Yes, there is that risk, and we were well aware of it as we approached the deadline day. But PledgeMusic, like I said, were, extremely helpful in suggesting strategies."

Paul Murphy and Sam Wooster (trumpet) talked about the dog days of the campaign.

Sam: “When we got to about 60% of our target, with two weeks to go, I was a bit worried. But then it all came together. We got everyone working their own social networks - lovers, families, friends...”

Maybe your timing could have been better? You hit the slow stage right after Christmas, when everyone was flat broke. It was a bit touch and go there for a while...

Paul: “Robin, we really didn’t have a lot of choice. In planning the album release, tours for this coming year, a first single (Hole In The Universe), and everything else, this was how it had to be. But so many people came onboard with our last minute campaign, by posting and tweeting about us, it spread the word further. And we were able to offer a few exclusive goodies to our pledgers – so that helped.”

And with that, it was back to the video shoot. They were running late, of course. Here's the result:

Lessons learned?
Think it through. Design a campaign. Get your project up. And then sell it, hard, repeatedly, and shamelessly. Find angles. Enlist support. Get the project to go viral if you can. As with so much of today’s music industry, the onus comes back down to the artist. Your fans may love you to pieces, but your job is to convince them to part with money online. To many, that’s a contradiction in terms. And remember that you are in competition with dozens of equally deserving projects, some of whom will be by people you know. The day I went down to meet with the band, two more fan-funded appeals landed in my email inbox. I suggest you take a look at the freshly launched appeal project on WeFund.com from the wonderful Wes Finch. (Update: this project has now hit is funding target too)

By the way, if you’re nosing around Balsall Heath, and you just happen to spot a very battered and tarnished Tuba, Mark Davis would like it back, please. He only put it down for a second, went back inside, and came back to find it gone. Maybe the scrap metal boys came down his street while his back was turned. Now, it may only have cost £20 and a bit of elbow grease to convert it back to from its function as a plant pot; it may not have a perfectly brilliant tone. But it’s the Destroyers’ tuba, dammit, and they want it back.

My congratulations go to the whole band. Now, where’s my CD download?

See also
Scoring big national airplay: how two local bands did this