When did you last sit down and listen all the way through an album?

Grazing is the new norm. And that's not good.

Thanks to Acid Pix at Flickr

I was asked this week what album I had listened to most recently, just for pleasure. 

I couldn't name one. I was astonished. 

Back in the day, I always, always, always had an album to champion and play till I wore the grooves out. Now? Not so much. It's far more about the artist. Or the song. Or the video. Or the Facebook like. 

That's a clue right there. Like most of us, I'm not dealing with grooves any more. Now, it's streams. But I think there's a lot more to it than that. And I'm certain I'm not alone. 

So I sat down and thought a bit. Here's what I came up with, after the jump. It's not pretty.

The inventive and resourceful Tom Peel

Not one but two albums in 2015. You South Brum beardie hipsters can swivel: one's all about North Brum. The other album? Greatest Hits. There aren't any, yet, but let's not quibble.  

You may not have seen Tom Peel yet. When you do, you'll know. Peel (no relation) does things like take to the stage with a reel to reel recorder strapped to his chest. And he runs exotic events: folk gatherings deep in the woods. When I went to one, I searched through the gathering gloom in Sandwell Valley, following handmade signs up hill and down dale until I stumbled across a decorated clearing where the gig took place. Logs laid out in a circle for people to sit on, and a brazier sending out a cheery glow. 

Mr Peel does not pursue immediate commercial success. But his projects have undeniable, oddball charm and he sets about getting them underway with impressive purpose. That's not a combination you see every day. I'm very glad he's working on our patch. And now, Tom is doing not one but two albums. 

Four lessons learned in 2014

Part 1 of the Radio to Go 2014 retrospective: more next week

We're heading out of 2014 at speed. As usual, it's been an eventful year. Lots of changes, and tons of great stuff to celebrate. I'm saving most of that for next week's review - some of the high and low points of the year and a look forward to 2015.  

Before that, a word of thanks to you for reading the blog in increasing numbers. As of publishing date, total page views were well over 237,000 - nearly double last year's total. Three years ago, when I shifted the focus more onto music, I'd hit 10,000 over four years. Writing the blog has led me to an awful lot of interesting topics, and hooked me up with some fantastic people. 

This week's post, also a yearly blog feature, is a lot more personal. Here are a few lessons that I learned - or, relearned - this year. They may be a bit counter-cultural, but, hey, that's how it looks from here. It's all about:

1. Webanomics, winners and losers, 
2. Things changing at media - slowly, slowly...
3. Yet another way the beeb is losing out
4. And...Albums. 

1: e-slavery...? 

The internet may be good for big business, and those who catch a wave, but for the rest of us? I'm not so sure. I feel like I'm there so someone else can make money, off me or from me, no matter what I do, or where I go. That's webanomics. 

Take voiceover work. I've been voicing (commercial and training videos, museum guides, that kind of thing) all my working life. It's a useful way to make a bit on the side. Here's my demo page if you're interested. Five years ago, I went online to reach new markets. I didn't really have a choice: most of the small indie producers I'd worked for had been squeezed out by web operations. And for a while things were OK. I paid a yearly fee to get job leads; I pitched a demo each time; I got some work; I came out ahead. 

The job lead agencies I used aren't fussy - they'll take anyone's money, and they'll post anyone's job spec. Now, anyone can set up as a voice guy. Kit is cheap; you don't really need a studio. So as the recession bit, more and more people came on board. Fees got smaller and jobs got harder to land. Clients failed to pay up. When you're stiffed by someone three thousand miles away, you're just not going to get paid. The job lead agencies wash their hands of the problem - all they do is introduce, you see. 

It's that famous web-powered level playing field again: a field so big you can't see the end of it. Great for producers; crap for talent. Now, people watch the job sites like hawks, and bash out a demo the moment a gig comes up. That works for some, but not me, not at least if I want to have a life. Spending my days welded to a computer screen for a chance to get work is not my idea of scraping a living. I met an ex-radio guy last year who told me he spent an hour cutting a demo for a ten quid gig. He didn't get it. Someone undercut him, by five quid. 

This doesn't just apply to my little market. There are sites like fiverr: places where you pitch for five buck jobs - or four bucks after commission. This is, effectively, e-slavery. A studio owner friend told me his market now splits between bedroom laptop warriors, a shrinking middle ground, and a top end in London where the big money goes. It's the same with voicing. Fine for the girl who voices for all the supermarket check-out machines - and good luck to her - not so fine if you're not in that market.

So I've bailed out of that way of working. Spending hundreds of hours a year chasing dwindling job prospects, while laying out over £200 per site for the privilege, just doesn't add up any more. I have some regular trusted clients who call on me to do work, and that's fine. I'm better off, I've got more time, less stress and I'm not funding companies - there's lots of them, and I've tried most - who make empty promises and then throw you sales pitches promising to help you get more business for yet another fee.   

Still, it could be worse. I could be a small business pitching through Amazon.

2: At LAST! signs of evolution at radio/broadcast media/video

But if webanomics are screwing you, there are upsides. Tech is allowing more flexible creativity. I've done a lot of really interesting and enjoyable radio and audio work this year. It's all been for the love of it, working with some astonishing people. And it's absolutely not conventional music radio. There are people who think differently, and some of them are starting to get traction. 

Change is coming, well away from 'conventional' radio. It's not just pert vloggers like Zoella rewriting the media landscape – there are now addictively good podcasts out there, and they're starting to find the means to pay their way.

I think the key is focus and direction. The big BBC and commercial radio platforms know exactly what they are doing. Whether you like them or not, they have a clear and solid idea of where they are going, and how they want to work with their audiences. The most successful of the new players do that too. That's something that small-scale radio often lacks.

It's also obvious that radio, the web and tv are converging. Formats and concepts dating back fifty years are being outpaced. Consider: dirt-cheap production software allows streaming of radio and video on the same channel. That opens up a ton of possibilities.

This converging broadcast/streaming world is going to continue to change. I can't wait to see what comes up - as long as it has focus, it stands a chance. Most of the time the web throws mind-rotting trivia at us: cute kittens, baby pandas and buzzfeed. That tide of trivia has a purpose: it's click-bait, it makes money. But a lot of radio has simply followed along, lapping it all up. Mistake. 

There's much more than that in play. If long-form television series, with demanding, intelligent plot lines and terrific characterisation, manage to punch through, breaking existing moulds, why not take that idea on to radio, and do it really well? That what Serial has done, with huge success.  

3: The BBC continues to cut its nose off to spite its face in the Midlands. 

Auntie, Auntie, Auntie! There's a screamingly obvious step you could take, right now, that would cost peanuts and boost your reputation no end. 

I've had long chats with the affable Tommy Nagra this year. He's Head of Business Development for BBC Birmingham. Part of his pitch is to sell Birmingham. No argument from me – I've been here since the early 70s. Tommy also praises the city's diversity. That's familiar ground as well. I was the first radio guy anywhere to put UB40 on air. Oh, and Ruby Turner, The Specials, Steel Pulse and The Selecter, too - all of whom wrote the book on Midlands multi-cultural creativity in the late 70s.

But here's the point I made to Tommy: it's even better now, and you're not doing anything about it. We're living though a new golden age of musical and literary creativity of all types. And where do we see this represented on our national broadcaster? Um...

If Auntie really gave a damn about the Midlands, rather than trousering the license fees we send down to London, while continuing to cut jobs up here, they would be all over this talent like a rash. It wouldn't cost much: this is a radio thing and radio is cheap. The BBC just needs an effort of will to lose its bunker mentality and actually connect with this market. Done right, this would be hugely powerful. All Auntie has to do is reach out for the low-hanging fruit, and find ways to celebrate it. 

It's deeply ironic: in 1927 the BBC had the biggest music studio in the whole country, right here in Birmingham. Even fifteen years ago they still had a gorgeous 16-track facility you could put a seventy piece band into. Now, that's a distant memory. There has never been any explanation for how and why the BBC came to so disrespect its largest region - the one which contributes a quarter of total license fee revenue. 

That hot talent isn't just in the Midlands, in fairness; it's all over the country... but this is my patch, and I am massively frustrated for all the local talent we have in our region, constantly passed over because the networks don't even bother to look. I'll come back to this, and what the beeb has done - or not - in 2014, in a few weeks. But remember: I still love and admire you, Auntie, and I always will. Right now, you're our best hope.

4: Albums matter. Oh no, they don't. Oh yes, they do.

Next week I'll list some of the corking albums that we've seen in 2014. This week I just want to flag up a question: why do we stick to the album format? I wrote about this a while back, and all the arguments are still valid. And here's a pertinent music industry blog piece from July this year.

Songs travel singly, especially when the web and mainstream broadcasters carry them, one at a time, on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube. So why do we stay loyal to a dated concept of a parcel of songs, originally physically gathered together around one concept, or one period of time? Well, we're not, really. Just ask Bono. As a mainstream business proposition, it's odd. Musicians lose out by handing their album over to streaming services. You have to pay, remember, to get your stuff up on Spotify. They make money, you don't - more e-slavery. 

Ah, but as an artistic proposition, it makes sense. Dated concept or not, an album is something that artists still buy into as part of their creative process. In some cases, it's pure vanity. In other cases, it represents a body of work, a milestone, a statement of intent. Musicians still plan out sets of songs for live work. So its logical that they would embody those sets on CD or Bandcamp downloads. 

The distinction is that the musician trades on a relationship with his or her audience, while the music industry trades on saleability of product. And at cottage industry level, the album stacks up. You go to a live gig and the artist blows you away; you take away a memory; the artist gets his or her due. In fact, it seems to me that, at local level, where so many excellent artists ply their trade, the ability to sell your own work directly has given local music-making a massive shot in the arm.

The paths that music and musicians take to reach listeners are many and varied. The only time that fashion comes into the equation is when you're being sold something. 

Bottom line? Creativity is in rude health. But many creators are not - yet - getting their rewards. Again. Still.

Have a peaceful Christmas. 

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Dan Whitehouse and Chris Tye: they've got shows for you. And a Christmas song. No, really.

Dan Whitehouse and Chris Tye talk of cabbages and kings, new albums, big shows, collaboration, creativity and Christmas songs.

Dan Whitehouse and Chris Tye are comfortably ensconced upstairs at the Wellington in Birmingham City Centre. Two extraordinary singer-songwriters, each with a new album, each with full band showcase gigs in the next few weeks at the same venue – the Glee Club; both albums share some personnel : Michael Clarke has several cowriting credits with both Dan and Chris; Simon Smith crops up on bass on both albums. In some quarters, that might lead to flouncing, flared nostrils and rivalry. Not with these boys. Why, they've even written a Christmas song together. Read on for an exclusive listen.

Dan's new album, his third long player, 'Raw State' is largely a revisiting of some of his long-standing songs, sometimes after years of live performances; the core of the material was recorded live with a full band at Reservoir Studios in North London production chores were handled by Danny George Wilson and Chris Clarke from 'Danny and The Champions Of The World'. Chris' album 'Paper Grenade' was recorded this year, and produced by Michael Clarke in Kings Heath in Birmingham.

With the launch of albums and headline tours, talk turns to progression and development. 

Dan: Artistically, it's happening. 

Chris: Yeah, but it can be difficult to fish out the gigs where it doesn't cost you money. Saying that, to fund 'Paper Grenade', I did a Pledge campaign; which I was really sceptical about doing. It worked really well, and in the end it gave me the opportunity to work with Michael (Clarke), and to get it mastered properly..

So what that really means is a vote of confidence, surely – you've got enough people to put the money up for you to deliver a work the way you wanted to? 

Chris: Definitely a confidence boost.

I wonder whether Pledge and all the others have still got the same impact. There's been a lot of appeals, not all of them successful.

Chris: Seems like an honest way of doing it. 

Full bands? That's another big commitment

Dan: It's a big band. I've got BJ Cole on Pedal Steel, Paul (?) on lead guitar; the drummer from Danny and the Champions of the world.... I've thrown everything I have at it. Rehearsing tomorrow.

Chris: So are we. Same bass player, Simon Smith.

Dan: Simon is the glue that holds everything together.

So – shared bass player, shared producer. Tell me about your shared song?

Dan: Ah! A Christmas song, called....'This Christmas'. We wrote it in April.

Chris: We nearly did it a couple of years ago. A little trust exercise. One mix session away from finishing it - there's another mix session next Sunday. We sent each other four really primitive ideas. I didn't really know Dan at the time. He didn't send me any abuse.

Will you wind up on each other's stages, performing the song? 

Chris: Is the 23rd of November too early? 

No... by the time of your shows, you'll be wall to wall with Christmas. 

Dan: I'll play it in my show on the 7th. 

Well, how about collaboration and ideas? You exchanged...

Dan: … bits of songs. Sketchy ideas. You know what it's like, trying to get together. We've made it work with this song. And one other one that's quite close. 

Chris: I enjoy co-writing with the right people. It either works or it doesn't. You know within twenty minutes. 

When ideas come up – Dan, you run Songwriters Circles, so you get ideas coming at you all the time – how do you step away from that and move into a collaborative framework? Can you move from teacher and enabler to collaborator? 

Dan: I don't see myself as teacher in that environment, I've co-written a number of songs with members of the circle. I do my best... to apply the oil to the creative wheel, keep things spinning around all the time. 

OK – here's a question for you both. Which was the most difficult song to do?

Dan: 'Somebody Loves You' is a big song in my set. And it's a song that I've struggled to get a recording that I'm happy with. Because it's so much about the performance, rather than the components of it. You couldn't do Somebody Loves You to a click track.

Your first recording of that song placed your voice in the world, with the noise of the world all around you. And you slowly trace how the song's character recovers from a point of complete desolation. I loved that – you in a soundscape, climbing up and out.. 

Dan: We recorded that in a school playground. And when I did that recording, Robin, it was before I had four years of playing that song live, every night, in a number of different environments. I had some really emotional experiences playing this song. But I struggled for ages to be able to get into to the right environment to make a good studio recording of it. That was my mission – to get a complete recording of that song – that was partly the reason to make this record. It reflects my knowledge of the song. I learned about the song through playing it. It's a two-way song – I'm not sure the song works on record. It's a conversation.

And Chris – what's your hardest song?

Chris: I suppose 'Vicious Words'. I played it live for about a year. It became one of those songs – unexpectedly. It's a song about divorce, a little bit downbeat. Bit I can really get into it live. I feel like it connects. It's a good song, I'm able to communicate it to people. 

I played it to Ben Niblett, a producer who worked on about three songs on this album. He set up a mic – 'Gotta get a recording of this' – about three feet away. No spot mic on my voice and the guitar. I played it and we got it, one take. I know everybody says 'One Take', and it's usually comp'd. 

Note: For a definition of comping, see here. In effect, it's anything but one take.

Chris: I loved this take. The first reverb we put on sounded ace. Do we change anything? We then did about six versions to try to recreate the magic. It didn't work, it almost never does when you do that. But I just thought the song could take a different treatment – electric guitar, double bass - so that's why there are the two versions.

Vicious Words: acoustic version

Vicious Words: full version

I think the acoustic cut hits harder. It's a tough listen.

Chris: A lot of people said that! 

Note: Chris and Dan are very interested in hearing from video producers with a view to getting something up for a December release - please get in touch with Dan at dan@dan-whitehouse.com. All proceeds go to charity, here.

Links 
Chris Tye
Dan Whitehouse

Albums
Buy Dan's album here; buy Chris' album here.

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That difficult first album: why do it at all?

OK, what's the least attractive format?

I went to a terrific show weekend before last at Ort Cafe in Birmingham. The opening act, previously the Young Runaways, now morphed to Drakelow, kicked things off. The front man, in between some rather nice songs, talked, in some detail, about plans for a forthcoming album. And that started me thinking. 

Here's the thing. I get exactly why Drakelow are working on that album. I applaud them. But in a perverse way, albums are now a terribly dated concept, at least from my aged perspective. From an artist's perspective, it's clear: doing an album means you set your stall out, you make a statement, you express yourself. You leave something more substantial in the world than the memory of a few live gigs.

Most of the acts I know want to, or are preparing to, cut an album, or a single, or some vinyl, or an EP. And yet, the concept of an album is now well over a hundred years old. It's out of time. 

Looking back over 2012

Well, it's been quite a year. 

Old Father Time (at Lords) catching up

It's taking stock at the end of the seasonal break time. 

A week back, I was thinking about coming up with some sort of awards list, but I've dropped that in favour of simply noting  what I’d really enjoyed or noted this past year, both in music - live, recorded or on video - and a radio. So that’s the guts of this post. 

Lots of brilliant stuff to talk about, though. And sadly, some disappointments. But, this being our shiny and creative local scene, I'm not short of decent topics. The biggest problem was keeping it concise. And I know I've missed some people out.