Brexit, the Brum Music Biz and three wise men called John.

I can't believe it's only been three weeks.

I voted Remain, for what it's worth. I'm still gobsmacked I had to vote at all. Still stunned at David Cameron's catastrophic unleashing of a political and economic sh*t-storm.

It's been three convulsive, compulsive weeks. The Tories have slaughtered one another spectacularly and dishonourably. Labour is doing much the same thing, just more slowly and messily. Labour doesn't do clean-cut, but they match the Tories for dirt. Tragically, no matter who comes out on top in the Labour leadership race, the party will probably now never be a real-world, viable, opposition again. I really, really hope I'm wrong, but I won't hold my breath. Just do the math. 

Sorry, I realise I'm venting, and this is a music and radio blog. I don't usually touch on politics, but this is massive. It impacts on all of us.

Brexit and Brum music? It's not good news. John #1 says so. John #2 is cautious at best; John #3 has already taken the hit.

Weird on Purpose: This is Tmrw come over all Record Store Day

Another Brum compilation! Hooray!

On Saturday April 16^th – Record Store Day - you are invited to a party at Stryx Gallery in Digbeth, celebrating the launch of the latest This is Tmrw project: Weird On Purpose, a 2016 compilation of Birmingham bands, centered on Indie and its variations.

This is something to be celebrated. This is Tmrw are Brum promoters who love their music. But any promoter will tell you it's one thing to run gigs because you love the music; there's a lot of sweat and financial risk in that alone. But it's quite another to try to put on record what's actually going on in our city. 

I've tried this a few times, and it's a LOT of work. I've got a bit about that after the jump too.

Pete Williams. What people remember. What fans want. What a performer is. Different.

Didn't you use to be...?

Pete Williams. On stage. In his element

Decades ago, I went to watch my beloved but useless football team (I could tell you but you'd die laughing) fold at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers. I was heading home on the train, when a friend, a Wolves fan, called to wind me up. The train was full of Wolves fans, who rapidly clocked that I was being razzed. They sat back to enjoy the spectacle.

I handed my phone to a pal. He loudly name-checked me. Big mistake. 

Amused consternation in the Wolves camp. Coo – they had a DJ in their midst to tease! To be fair, they were actually very nice... for the next interminable hour of ribbing.

But one phrase in particular stuck in my mind: “Didn't you use to be Robin Valk?”

Still am, pal, still am. And when I told this tale to Pete Williams, he fell off his chair laughing.

Happy Birthday to you, Catapult Club!

Twenty Five Years of promoting. Arthur Tapp's still remarkably sane, still  a romantic at heart.

I like the ins and outs of the music business: the nuts and bolts of how people and things come together, and what you have to do to make it all work. I like that there is a surprising spread of often very fine people who rotate around the processes of music creation and performance. There's a deep range of skills and talents, all essential to the local music economy. Naturally, this is overlooked by the powers that be. It's immensely interesting.

John Paul White, Victories at Sea, Oxjam, This is Tmrw. When bands promote....

14 bands, lots of local action, starts in the afternoon, runs till late.
Get there early, or you'll miss two days of good stuff and up and comers.

Poster from the great Lewes Heriot. Don't nick it. 

We're closing on this year's All Years Leaving two-day indie-alt festival at the Hare and Hounds. The team behind it, This Is Tmrw, have significantly expanded activities of late. They have a brand. They have an image. They have lovely posters which are regularly nicked before they can do their job - take a look at them and you'll see why. This is Tmrw aren't exactly making money, but the hope is that their operation can wash its face. 

John-Paul White has been with the team for five out of their seven years. He plays in Victories at Sea, who are featured in this year's All Years Leaving. Victories At Sea are growing steadily. It looks like they're going to sidle into the next West Midlands video top 50 come February. Decent video numbers apart – and getting these is a considerable achievement – the songs Victories At Sea deliver are pleasingly reminiscent of classic New Romantic post punk pop – without the dreadful mannered vocals. Reminiscent, but not too close. And that puts the band in a good place, in their own field.

JP is very clear about This is Tmrw's founder, Matt Beck. He stepped in because a lot of bands were bypassing Birmingham in favour of, say, Wolverhampton, where Wolves Civic was doing splendid business. Through Matt, Foals came to Brum to do their first local gig at the tiny Sunflower Lounge.

“A couple of years later, we were booked – my band at the time – were booked, to support The Rascals (at the time serious indie contenders). I was impressed. How did they get a band like that to play the Sunflower Lounge? And the next night they were off to support Arctic Monkeys at Alexandra Place or somewhere like that. How does that work?”

One thing led to another, and JP started going to more and more gigs, including indie-alt DJ gigs with Matt.

“Preceding that, the only promoters I knew of in Birmingham had been Rob and Jack at Zoot, who were becoming more and more successful with Editors, and didn't have time to promote, and Arthur Tapp at the Jug of Ale. As a musician, I was wondering who's going to take the city forward?

"In 2009, I was running Oxjam with Nicola Toms, and booking all the bands.As Matt had been running This is Tmrw for two years, I asked him to help out. Matt did that, and he brought a pal, Tom Hopkins, along. So I came on board after that. And last year John Fell of Goodnight Lenin came on board as well. And that's where the festival idea came from.

As promoters, you've developed a very distinctive style. Lovely posters.

"Lewes Herriott – he also plays, in Johnny Foreigner... Matt's known him for years. He never used to be in a band.

Ah but there's a long and honourable tradition of graphic artists who also play in bands – people like Hunt Emerson. Do those posters get nicked a lot?

"Yeah – it's expensive. We've encouraged Lewes to exhibit his work. People really like to collect them.

Pity they do that before the gig. You could have a sideline – downloadable images, print to order reproductions... There is an established market for classic posters, especially if you've got prestige names who then go on to be monsters. Look at those classic posters for the Fillmore West from the 60s, with Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller, Grateful Dead, Santana – they were all local bands on the Bay area at the time. And those posters still sell.


Let's talk about Victories at Sea. Your videos are really nice – but the band aren't in them. You're not featured. Why?

"Budget! Those are all made using Creative Commons footage. We do appear on one, but it's very stylised. We thought that was better than shooting something ropey on a smartphone. Not that there aren't some very decent videos made that way.

I gather that the goal is not to make money. The goal is to break even.

"If we do well at a show, it goes into the pot. So we can put together a bigger offer to get a bigger band.

But there's a point beyond which you can't be idealistic. If you want to grow This Is Tmrw as an organisation, you can't go on doing this part time, just like you can't go on doing a band part-time past a certain point.

"I still generally regard myself as more of a musician than a promoter. So that's a question I would leave more to Matt. Ultimately, if I wasn't a musician, I'd like to do this full-time. And we do know people in other cities who do do this full time. It's still difficult to break even. We do a lot of good, but it's still difficult. We have some very fiercely regular people who come to our gigs.

"They come to the whole gig. A lot of people don't realise that as promoters, we like to work with theme, so every band has its place; they're there to be seen. It's like a club thing.

You miss an awful lot if you come in late. Like those acts that might have opened last year... and then bingo! Look what they've done now.

"But people still say, oh, they played a festival this time last year, and they can't have been any good if they were so far down the bill. They don't understand how it works!"   

Links
This is Tmrw 
All Years Leaving Facebook page
Lewes Heriot
Victories At Sea

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Don't you point that thing at me, pal #5: Wayne Fox

“At the end of a performance, there's probably ten or fifteen seconds, the golden time – that's the best time for a photographer to get their shot in.”

Photo by Bianca Barrett  

A posse of snappers? A clutch of smudges? 

Moseley Folk, Friday afternoon. Wayne Fox comes barrelling down the hill, loaded down with kit, firing off shots of me and Richard Shakespeare having a natter. Between the three of us, there must have been close on a five figure sum's worth of Canon camera goodness. Me, I was packing a three year old Ixus - probably worth 40 quid tops. I know my place.

We have a rich crop of snapper talent in the region. Wayne's been shooting with the best of them for some years now. Running though the costs music snappers have to fork out, and the competition they face, I'm amazed. 

This post isn't about music; it's about musicians and the people who take an interest in them, visually and personally. Snappers deploy different skills, but the challenges and the risks are the same. 

Wayne Fox: I didn't really start intentionally. I was indirectly connected with the music industry, and I'd shot a few sessions, round about 2007 I think. People kept saying nice things, so I made the decision to step up a level. I decided to save up over a year, to see if I could afford a (decent) camera. 

Decent kit is, still, hellishly expensive. You knew exactly what camera, what model...? 

I went for Canon. My father had a range of brands – some of those weird eastern European makes. They smelled great!

I had a Halina...

Yes, that's the general area! But I went for Canon. Lots of buttons! But really, it was about being around music. And a lot of local promoters, like Carlo Solazzo, were very helpful in letting me get started. 

  Free School, 2012

What about your first shoot?

The first one that I felt I had enough skills, that I was pleased with, was the LaRoux gig at the Rainbow warehouse. She was on a crest of a wave at the time. It was quite dark, and I think I went home with about 400 photographs. Loved every minute of it. And obviously I've adjusted the shots since then. 

LaRoux - Wayne's most-copied from Flickr

That's a bit like collecting too much interview audio. You've got to think how much edit time you're letting yourself in for.

I've cut down a lot. Each shot takes me a lot of time, when I get it home and look at it with image editing software.

That's digital for you. And a world away from what Pogus Caesar does with his old-school film cameras. Festivals generally have a very relaxed vibe; lots of room for you guys. Surely it;s not always that way?

No. Etiquette is almost unspoken, though. You don't throw yourself about if you're in the pit; somebody will have word with you if you do. I try and keep as low as I can, in the pit, and that gives me a certain style. Others stand bolt upright. There are things you just learn. Sometimes, people are kind enough to tell you. And in very crowded situations, you don't obstruct the paying customers if at all possible. 

Violet at the Flapper, 2011

Wayne explains: 

This poor guy in Violet had an accident on-stage at The Flapper and Firkin, when his guitarist smashed his guitar neck into the guys face. Ouch!


What do you try to capture? Emotions? A startling composition?

When I started, because I wasn't producing for any form of editorial, it was definitely, definitely from the artistic point of view. I'd make sure there was space, just to make you wonder when you looked at the photograph. Now, I'm filling the frame a bit more. But I like to put the artist in a sea of nothingness. Those are the ones that get talked about. 

First sale?

Ninety percent of the things I've sold have been to parents of the acts! The very first one was to a very nice lady who wanted a photo of her son playing the guitar. She'd bought the guitar – a beautiful blue guitar, it came out very nicely, perfectly lit and exposed, I was lucky – she didn't really care that her son was in the photograph. She really cared about the guitar!

Toy Hearts, 2011  

You do something because you love it, and you're really passionate about it. It's the same as with musicians. Then at some point the possibility of making some money arises. How do you transition to that?

It's difficult. I don't really get involved with sales. It's a time-honoured thing: anybody who's creative struggles with seeing that there's something you can monetise. And it's a reflection of your soul, at the end of the day. You don't rally want to charge for it, but – you have to, you have to. I didn't mean to spend so much money on equipment, but I have. I'd love to give away everything that I've done, but it's not going to be possible.

Crystal Castles, 2011   

The web has produced an economy where people are expected to give everything away for free.

I contribute a lot to a site called Gig Junkies. They used to be very West Midlands-oriented, now they're National. Have done for years. And that's for free. 

But following the music analogy, does the exposure that you get lead to commissions and other paid work?

I guess it does. A lot of people get in touch with me and name-check Gig Junkies.

Is it easy to name a price?

No! Not at all. Trying to strike the balance is really tricky. 

The web puts a downward price pressure on so many freelances and creative people; there's no regulation and there's always someone who'll work cheaper. 

At least I have a massive back catalogue of material now! But yes, in the photography community, you do notice people wandering into gigs, gigs with a very restrictive policy, that there a people with iPhones in the pit. It doesn't really bother me, but if a professional has been excluded – or one of his mates – and there's someone with an iPhone in the pit, it can get awkward. 

Tip and tricks?

At the end of a performance, there's probably ten or fifteen seconds, the golden time – that's the best time for a photographer to get their shot in. Often, they've given of themselves, they're spent. Sometimes they're quite vulnerable, and surprised by the response they get. And that's difficult for me; I love being where I am. It's quite a privilege. I've probably put my camera down, and I'm applauding too!

Boat to Row   

Favourite bands?

I like local bands, who I know: Boat To Row (shown at left), Goodnight Lenin...

Yes. Young, photogenic, very good looking, and talented. I hate them all. But good looking - or interesting looking - must really help from the snapper's point of view.

It does. I really like Free School and Victories at Sea – lovely looking guys, and they generate an amazing sound. I took in their first gig, and they sounded good then. But supporting the Editors – it was like someone had flicked a hundred switches. 

Links
Wayne's flickr stream
Wayne Fox Photography
Gig Junkies

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Festival horror stories: when the headliners pull out the day before their gig

Taking care of business at festivals and gigs you promote is one thing. Keeping a weather eye on your own band's business? Tricky. Now do both, all at the same time.  

Fellster: not a hair out of place. Um.  

As of today's publishing date, it's three weeks until the final day of Moseley Folk 2014, and four weeks on from the end of Mostly Jazz Soul and Funk. I'm quizzing John Fell about all of this, and on the band he plays in, Goodnight Lenin, and the final final final release of their first album, later this year. He's not unbusy.

Timing is a tricky thing. Planning festivals is a year-long process. Right now, John's looking at possible acts for 2015. And he's working on the next gig for Goodnight Lenin, in three months, to tie in with the album release. So he's juggling time scales.

If that's tricky, consider the perspectives he has to navigate. A great many bands (and artists, producers, writers, broadcasters and bloggers) get so close to their projects that they wind up missing what audiences might value. I'm not saying that's a bad thing – it's part of the creative process, is all.

But it does raise issues of marketing what you've got. That means you have to look at it, see yourself as product, all that. It's not an easy process. Given that, John Fell is in a pretty unique position. Wearing his festival organiser hat, he's in a position to weight those factors up in other acts. He has to monitor the market to see who's around and who's coming up. He has to judge the audiences for the different days of both festivals and Lunar, the Nick Drake-themed festival he also works on. . 

Critically, he has to step beyond his own purely and intensely personal sentiment to judge whether the music Goodnight Lenin makes has its own independent life once he and the band let it out into the public realm. 

So, quite a lot on the Fell plate. And that's before your headline act cancels on you at a day's notice. But we'll get to that.

Especially with Mostly Jazz, Funk and Soul, I'm seeing a shortage of headline acts... And maybe there's a weakness at Mostly, being so very US-oriented. There's a lot bands coming over, doing the Festival circuit in the UK and Europe. And there's an absolute ton of festivals. So maybe there's not enough talent to go around?

I think a lot of festivals now will pay way over the odds to get an exclusive, to make a difference. So their act does them and not just one of thirty dates in Europe. Neutral Milk Hotel at Green Man – that's an example, the Gene Clark Band at End Of The Road… they're earning big money, stupid money.

Moseley and Mostly can't do that.

No, we can't. So what we've got to do is to keep it varied, so the line-up's exciting. So that people don't know what to expect. We did that at Mostly Jazz with King Khan and the Shrines. I was most excited about them because I knew people would go away loving it. And I knew that no one would come to the festival just to see them. That's the card we're playing.

You had a bit of hiccup with the Earth Wind and Fire show cancelling on you at 24 hours notice.

Ahhhhh.... I got in Friday night after working from 5am that day. Looked at my emails at 1am Saturday – just to check – and it said 'Earth Wind and Fire Experience cancelled'. So what do we do? Less than 48 hours away, and it was our marquee name as well.

We didn't really sleep that night. So I went to do the Saturday work...

...in at 5 again?...

...yes. While trying to book another band. Which we did. And then getting the flights sorted, getting the contracts out, getting the backline, getting the hotel. Getting the money wired. All that.

A Family Stoner    

You got the Family Stone, which is kind of the same level, given that it's not the original line-up. There wasn't a Sly, but EWF didn't have Maurice White either.

Exactly. In my opinion it was better, but the only downside was that we'd had them two years ago. It kind of made for a really good feel, because everyone clubbed together. This has happened. Here's a surprise. It was a story. People like gossip, people like a story.

And, unusually, you went public with it.

Funnily enough, it gave it a buzz. No-one know what was going to happen. That was exciting – for everyone else, not the organisers! And in the end about seven people contacted us to complain, out of the 2,500 who were there on the night. Lots of people on Facebook were more excited about the Family Stone.

Where were they?

In Belgium. We had to fly them in.

You were over a barrel. They could have really screwed you financially.

They could have. But we were helping them out too – they had a couple of spare days, so rather than just sitting there in Brussels, eating chocolate, they came to us, cut their costs and got paid. There were two or so other options. So we got stupid lucky, really.

So it worked. And you had your other legendary names. Ginger Baker. He kinda has... a reputation... that goes before him.

He does! If he'd have turned up and been nice, shook your hand, been all sweet, I'd have been really gutted. He has that legend, and he lived up to it. He was brilliantly horrendous.

And I notice you're looking for acts for 2015 already.

Email me!

Photo: Richard Shakespeare

Now, looking forward to the end of this month with Moseley Folk, there's some nice marquee names.

The biggest we've ever booked: Waterboys, Richard Thompson and Johnny Marr, in a park in Moseley. That's pretty cool. Advance ticket sales are up on last year - best we've had at this stage.

What about the new talent that you give a leg up to? That's what I find most interesting; that's what I want to catch, above all. I'm hoping to do another post, like last year's, on the new talent people miss if they show up late.

That's all happening now. You won't see them listed on the posters. We've got most of them sorted. It's nice to give them that opportunity, the ones that are bubbling up. But you need to look in the other places apart from the main stage and the Lunar stage. And they can say they played Moseley – which is great if it's their first time.

So let's talk about Goodnight Lenin. Last week I put up a post which charted the 50 most-viewed local acts on YouTube. It's complicated and geeky, but it is a very rough ranking of popularity for those acts who have gotten videos out in the past three years. Midnight Bonfires, your support act at the Hare last week, actually scored better on the chart than you. I find that surprising, given your band's position.

We haven't done that many videos, and we've pulled most of them.

Well, that could explain your score. Why did you pull the videos?

When we did our first videos, we just finished then, and then realised that we were looking like a band we didn't want to look like. So we've had to stop until we got it right. We weren't ready. We put our stuff out there, and as soon as we did, we were over it. We've had to go away and scrap the album, probably twice. Wrote ten songs, scrapped them, wrote another ten songs, scrapped them... We kept writing until we got the sound, until we've got to the point where we want to be. And we've done that now. We've changed as a band.

OK, here's an awkward question: why didn't you put a first album out, bish bash bosh, quick, down and dirty, just to let people know you were there? You'd have still grown as a band from that point onwards.

You know what? As we did the first EP, which we put out...

…. which a lot of people really liked....

… thank you! But we instantly went 'No' between ourselves. To do that with an album... A debut album is your first shot. It's really important. Now, we'd have been really unhappy of that was our first effort. Now is the time to say to everyone: Listen! And now we've got six or seven new songs ready, which are the best things we've done.

I've got to ask: you're managing three festivals a year, you're working with This Is TMRW, and you're in Goodnight Lenin. How can you be fair to everyone? Is anyone suffering?

No, not really. It's a good balancing act. The band's not suffering. There are times when I won't make a TMRW show because there's a band rehearsal or a gig. Now we've got these little projects happening which will fund the next step, and so on.  

Lots to look forward to, then. The Goodnight Lenin album, In The Fullness of Time, comes out on the 24^th of November. The band play a major show at the Institute on the 28th. And those new songs? John's right – they're belters. 2015 could be a very good year.

Links

Goodnight Lenin website
Moseley Folk website

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This Is Tmrw: New bands, new music, new promoters

For some time I've been thinking of writing about how promoters work. But I haven't got around to it. Why? partly because it's complex and secretive - and not everybody operates, shall we say, fairly. Few promoters will offer up financial details, obviously, and that's something I'd really like to write about. 

So I am grateful to Julia Gilbert and the This is Tmrw team for stepping up to the plate - and we didn't really discuss money anyway. Like musicians, promoters do gigs for different reasons. Here's two teams taking parallel directions with different approaches. Both of them share some problems and have some solutions. Both are idealists. One team does it for love; one for love and, with a bit of luck, money. Both are important to the music infrastructure of the West Midlands.