Jasper Carrott: a long time ago, in a folk galaxy far far away…

Before Jasper Carrott became an 80s TV fixture, he was an agent, booking folk acts countrywide, working the clubs. Then, a throwaway comedy song you couldn't play on the radio changed it all.

It may seem strange – especially if you saw the Made in Brum tour - to think about Jasper Carrott as part of the Midlands folk scene. But he most definitely was. At the show, I asked Jasper if he would be interested in talking about how he got started, and how it was in the Midlands folk scene of the 70s. 

Jasper was interested, and he graciously reeled off a positive goldmine of stories. We know the old folk club days are long gone. But there is ample compensation to be found with the new breed of 21st century folk musicians, experimenting, collaborating, and taking huge risks to produce inspiring and thrilling new music. But it wouldn't - couldn't - have happened without the people who ran those old clubs getting things rolling in the first place. Jasper's part of that. 

Studio Managers - they're just big softies, really. Aren't they?

Want to get started at a recording studio? Andy Ward at Musoplex has some tips.

I’ve been here before. Where the hell is this place?

I'm parked up on a less than welcoming, dimly lit industrial estate, in the dark, fishing out my phone to call my contact. It’s raining. I’m not rocking up at Abbey Road today to hang with media luvvies - I’m in real-world, value for money territory. Selly Oak, Hockley, Tamworth, Wolverhampton… not a glamorous list. These are where you’ll find working recording studios. Right now, as the M5 rumbles directly overhead, I’m heading for Musoplex in Oldbury. 

A studio is a capital-intensive business. Proper recording kit, not the kind on your laptop, costs money. Yes, it's much cheaper now, but figure in rent, rates, heating, maintenance and rehearsal room instruments, and it adds up. Studio owners who go into this line of trade need their eyes wide open. But, like many other studio owners, Andy Ward has a strong romantic streak. It must give his bank manager nightmares. 

Airplay: a howl of frustration

Busting past the music gatekeepers to get radio exposure. How is it? How should it be? Tips, tricks and opinions

Name's not down, yer not coming in  

Two weeks back, hazily happy after a great day, I joined a brilliant Facebook rant/thread led by a long-standing muso pal, Neil Spragg. At the heart of it was this question: How the hell do you get people at radio to listen to your stuff? 

Lots of people pitched in with comments, sympathies and tactics, both ethical and imaginative... and downright creepy. In fact I have deliberately not included the creepiest one of all in this post. Me? I weighed in as someone who was regularly on the receiving end of demos, pitches, and hustles, back in the day. 

Read this and you'll also see it suggested that musicians might not even wish to try that hard at radio anymore. I still believe that radio has a huge part to play in supporting new and local music, so I found that hard to take; but, equally, I concede it's hard to argue against that view in the present radio climate. 

It was (and is) a great chat thread. It's the kind of thing social media does well. So, with my sincere thanks to everyone who joined in, here's a condensed version, sorted roughly by topic, after the jump. 

Revisiting Moseley Shoals live after 17 years: Ocean Colour Scene's Simon Fowler

UPDATE: A revised and expanded version of this post 

is included in the new Radio To Go ebook, Survivors 

What makes a band go large? What makes them last – albeit with the odd hiatus – over twenty years, despite managerial problems and some pretty solid contractual brick walls blocking them from playing and recording?

When you try to tot up those Birmingham bands who went REALLY BIG for a sustained period in the past twenty years of so, you get quite a short list. But right up at the top of that list you’ll find Ocean Colour Scene. 

Interestingly, they're still going, with much of the original line-up. It's an gripping tale of solid songwriting and playing, battling through obstacles, and coming good. Good luck? I wouldn't say that.. Good judgement? Yup, give them that. Hard work? Without a doubt. Good friends along the way? Yes - they played a big part.

As far as most people were concerned, Ocean Colour Scene - OCS - emerged (and how) in the mid-90s. But in fact they were already a big noise in Brum at the end of the eighties. Then it all went quiet, with individual members forming impressive alliances which stood them in good stead when the time came for their proper breakthrough.

Boat To Row: on tour in May, back at Moseley Folk in August, new songs to unveil, and national airplay

The May 2013 Boat To Row tour poster

Boat To Row have been sculling through peaceful waters for some time now. But it hasn't been plain sailing (and that's quite enough boat gags). Time to talk managers, repertoire, accosting national DJs on the street... 

Two or three years back, Boat To Row opened for Goodnight Lenin at a packed Hare and Hounds, rammed with GNL’s mates. That BTR line-up played an understated but highly effective set, swiftly followed up with some early material online, much of which is still current.

This band is astonishingly calm, collected and at ease. They're good company. For all that, there’s been a hefty turnover of musicians, but the current line-up seems stable. And there’s a really rather attractive tour coming up at the end of the month – the Birmingham gig packs in the wonderful Chris Tye, the fast-rising and very appealing Cannon Street and at least four other acts, on top of Boat To Row's headlining slot. And two days ago Moseley Folk confirmed that they will appear on the first day of this year's festival.. . 

And beneath all that sunny affable calm, there’s a good deal of judicious thinking going on.

Wha'ppen next, Dave? a conversation with Dave Wakeling, who wrote 'Stand Down Margaret'

"I often think this band reunion thing is like inviting the first five or six people you had sex with... and expecting everyone to get on great." 

Hunt Emerson's brilliant logo

It's complicated. Dave Wakeling was a founder member of The Beat, one of Birmingham's finest original pop/ska bands. Now he's in California, leading the English Beat, and fellow founder Ranking Roger leads a 21st century Beat at home. Roger was profiled here last year ahead of Birmingham's Reggae City May festival; The Selecter are starring this year. 

The original Beat line-up is long gone, but a classic song has echoed down the years of late. Stand Down Margaret got renewed airplay in the weeks leading up to Thatcher's funeral. I wondered if Dave would want to revisit all that old territory. But, courtesy personified; revisit it he did, especially as it ties in nicely with Specialized 2 Beat Teenage Cancer, a soon come album of covers of original Beat Songs to help Teenage Cancer Trust. 

So where are we? A conversation with Jazz enablers and new generation players.

OK, go ahead - you define Jazz for me, because I don't know where to begin. 

Defined or not, it’s one of those areas marked by love for musicianship, experimentation, willfulness, and avoidance of genre definition. Fashionable? Hell, no, but that’s never a bad thing. And, from it, a steady flow of new genres seems to emerge – also never a bad thing.

It's not surprising that 50s Jazz was so tightly bound up with 50s existentialism: both are centred on the individual and the moment. And like too many other music areas, Jazz is a place where pigeonholing, snobbery and tribalism can seriously taint the music-making process.

And it seems to be heavily freighted with assumptions and contradictions. At one end of the spectrum, it's seen as safe, just arty and just nicely experimental enough for countless cosy festivals each year. It's also a cute label for record companies to bolt on to their offerings to give them more credibility.. At the other end, it's full of explosive, passionate and uncompromising music that simply isn't going to wait for you to catch up. 

The Wonder Stuff's Erica Nockalls: attitude with violins

A solo album at last, playing in three separate outfits, Nockalls talks rock violin at music school, session work, doing it right, persistence and perseverance...

Birmingham has a School of Music. I've had dealings with them down the years, from when the old BRMB ran classical shows - really, they did - and I presented. That was all some thirty years ago, when the place was resolutely classical. I always felt like a hooligan scruff around them, probably because I was a vulgar commercial radio person trespassing in the groves of academe. 

Things change. I don't know who leaves the Birmingham Conservatoire to build a classical career these days - and by the way, I'd love to know who does -  but I'm constantly delighted and impressed by the range of musicianship the place has spun out into the local scene. I love the folk stuff encouraged by Joe Broughton; a mighty eight Conservatoire graduates have graced the Destroyers. There are many others, of course; I haven't even touched on the jazz guys. A common factor is a sense of adventure, a willingness to up-end apple carts, and blazing musicianship. 

Erica Nockalls is part of this: a terrific fiddle player with a brand new solo album. She tells a story of musicianship, multiple bands, attitude and application. 

Regional bias? Perish forbid! How could anyone even think it?

There are many reasons to bemoan the huge loss of broadcasting jobs in the Midlands. The best is simple economics, but a bit of fair play wouldn't hurt. The Midlands region pays more license fees, but sees less BBC spending, than any other region.  

2011/12 BBC regional spend by license fee payer

As far as the Midlands media industry is concerned, it’s not even a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. You can’t shut a door that’s been smashed to pieces and left hanging off its hinges. 

It's taken years, decades. Thousands of jobs have gone. So it was interesting to attend the freshly-formed Campaign For Regional Broadcasting Midlands' first meeting. New to me and probably you, but with a formidable array of mainly BBC Drama and TV contacts, this took place on Thursday 21st February. During the meeting, some breathtaking statistics were reeled out, which you really should know about. 

The fact is, things are bad - really bad. If we ever want to see a proper grown-up media sector in the Midlands region again, there’s a lot of ground to cover, a lot of assumptions to challenge, and a lot of attitudes to confront. Locally, a toxic combination of laziness, arrogance, bad thinking and poor decisions has sped the process along. More after the jump.  

16 tracks and that's your lot: the joys of analogue at one of the oldest studios in Birmingham

Recording studios #3: It takes a special kind of enthusiasm to run - and to record at - a seriously retro recording studio. But it seems to be working at Highbury.

Where does an analogue recording studio, stocked with vintage 80s kit, like a reel-to reel multitrack tape recorder, fit in our relentlessly digital age ? 

Like so many 20th century technologies, the accepted norm has been savagely upended by digital technology. The bottom end of the market has been eaten by laptops running free software, while the top end is left to at Air or Abbey Road - see here for more on this. Studios left in the middle have had to become nimble and, sometimes, specialised. 

There are, of course, different ways to specialise. John Mostyn runs Highbury Studio, one of the oldest studios in Birmingham; one that is cheerfully old-school in its approach. Built by Bob Lamb on producer royalties from UB40’s 'Signing Off' album, it sits happily in a onetime cricket bat factory, in a quiet side street in King’s Heath, Birmingham. John lives, literally, over the shop. It’s a unique place.