Songwriting - fishing or soothsaying?

When well-known songwriters are interviewed in the media, what is really surprising is not the diversity of their responses but the similarities in what they say. This is particularly true when they are asked about where the inspiration for their songs comes from. What comes up again and again is the fact that many songwriters don't know where their creations came from. In a recent interview Bob Dylan said that, when he listened to his early songs like "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall",  he could not come up with any explanation for how he wrote  them.

"Songwriting is like fishing in a stream; you put in your line and hope you catch something." Arlo Guthrie

 "I do not consciously aim to take the listener anywhere. If anything, I aim to take myself there in my music. If the listener catches the wavelength of what I am saying or singing, or gets whatever point whatever line means to them, then I guess as a writer I may have done a day's work." Van Morrison

I heard Carole King on a radio show a few days ago, talking about how she felt she was a "channel" for the songs to come through. Whenever songwriters talk about their craft this theme recurs.

Because I have been doing a lot of songwriting lately, after a long dry spell, I have been thinking about this.  One of my most recent songs is called Hope Street. It started life as an insistent phrase on the keyboard over a simple chord progression and it is still called Cities in my first draft Cubase recording (instrumental). This was because I had a picture in my mind of a city street when I played the melody. But for some reason, not a conscious one, the phrase "When we were young..." kept repeating in my head and from there the song grew and became a sort of narrative with its origins unknown to me.

Hope Street

When we were young,
Our eyes were clear.
When we were young
And had no fear,
The city streets
Were lined with hope.
The days were long
When we were young.

Then all the lights went out in Hope Street
And I had grown old on my own,
And I lay sleeping in a doorway
As you went walking past alone.

When we were young
And always dared,
When we were young
We didn't care.
The grass was soft
When we lay down.
Our love was strong
When we were young.

Then all the lights went out in Hope Street
And I had grown old on my own,
And I lay sleeping in a doorway
As you went walking past alone.

This is more of a story than I usually write in a song. On a literal level, the narrator looks back on life and love as a young man, the young couple's strength and optimism shining through. The chorus brings us back to an unhappy present  with the now old man sleeping in a doorway as his erstwhile love passes by unconscious of his presence. At a deeper level - for me at any rate - it is a vision of the death of hope for us all.  Whether you like this as a song or not (and it is certainly not the cheeriest song ever written) the striking thing is that I did not set out with any intention of telling this story. It is not (thank God) my story or that of anyone I know but I have a very strong connection with it and I did not write one word of it dishonestly or insincerely. That, for me, is the mystery of song writing.

"It's the great search, fuelled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed." Lester Bangs 


Finally here is a link to my song. The video was filmed in the area around Dunfermline Abbey by David Izatt, a talented young man who writes, makes films, produces and directs - and he lives in Dunfermline!


http://vimeo.com/32620397

One Liner

A Merry Christmas to all my readers!

R&B or Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and Ms Mariah Carey - I now pronounce you...

I haven't posted for a couple of days as I have been suffering from a stinker of a cold - a bit of a Christmas tradition with me.  Unflatteringly referred to as "manflu" by women this has plagued me at this time of year for as far back as I can remember. Hopefully the worst is over and I feel up to returning to GOTPO (giving out the pay online - my new name for blogging) again. It's about R&B - and what that term seems to mean nowadays.

The term Rhythm and Blues (R&B) goes back to the nineteen forties originally but, when I was a teenager in the sixties, it was used to mean music with a heavy blues influence that had drums and bass and electric instruments. A lot of artists we would now describe simply as blues such as BB King, Freddy King and John Lee Hooker were regarded as R&B. In the sixties, among young white musicians, a great appetite for blues (or R&B) developed and in this era bands like The Rolling Stones, Them, The Pretty Things, The Animals started out playing Rhythm and Blues before veering off into what became rock. Elsewhere it would be interesting to chart the movement from Blues to Rock, looking at how Van Morrison moved from "Baby Please Don't Go" to the country-rock with a jazz influence that was "Tupelo Honey" and the Stones went from "Spider and the Fly" to "Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown".

In America R&B moved into popular music in a different way. Elvis Presely's breakthrough single "That's Alright " was an old blues song originally written and recorded by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. Rock and Roll a la Chuck Berry was really a souped up version of Rhythm and Blues.

This is all well-documented elsewhere but what really exercises me is what they call R & B nowadays. It is tempting for me to say that it is synonomous now with dreck but perhaps that is unfair.  Here is what Wikipedia says:

"Contemporary R&B has a polished record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, an occasional saxophone-laced beat to give a jazz feel (mostly common in contemporary R&B songs prior to the year 1993), and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement. Electronic influences are becoming an increasing trend, and the use of hip hop or dance inspired beats are typical, although the roughness and grit inherent in hip hop may be reduced and smoothed out. Contemporary R&B vocalists are often known for their use of melisma, popularized by vocalists such as Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder,^[1] Whitney Houston^[1][2][3] and Mariah Carey.<sup>[2][4][5]"


How the hell a term that used to describe John Lee Hooker can be used to describe Mariah Carey remains a mystery to me.  The use of melisma in the artists cited, in my opinion, falls into the area of bathos, overdone and far too obvious.  "Ars est celare artem" is obviously not a maxim any of these singers. If you want to hear melisma used for its originally intended effect - to heighten emotion (not grandiose sentimentality) listen to Joni Mitchell singing - well - just about anything. It's beautiful and natural, as it should be.


The bit that makes me laugh out loud though, as they say on Facebook, is "although the roughness and grit inherent in hip hop may be reduced..."  Mariah Carey? You bet it may!</sup>

Only words?

It has been said to me often by reasonably intelligent people who have quite good taste themselves that most people don't  bother about words in songs. As long as there is a catchy tune and the words and music don't obviously jar then that's all that matters. I will never accept this. I accept ( I have to really) that to some people words are not important. I have even known singers - even some technically accomplished singers - who don't seem to pay much attention to the words. I cannot understand that at all. To me, the lyric is crucially important to a song. In my time, to pay the rent, I have sung some songs that I am not mad about but I have never sung a song where I couldn't find at least a tiny emotional connection to it in myself. (Fortunately the Birdie Song does not have a lyric...)

One singer I worked with for a while,  who shall remain nameless, liked to sing the song "The One I Love" written by David Gray - a song I like myself. I used to wonder what the nameless singer  thought it was about, as his delivery suggested a punchy Rocker rather than a song about a soldier dying in battle, remembering dancing with his wife at his wedding. At one point the lyric is:

Don't see Elysium don't see no fiery hell...

My erstwhile musical partner blithely sang:

Don't see Eseelium, don't see no fiery Hell...

An easy mistake to make - except that if you like the song enough to sing it, you ought to find out what the words mean if you don't know - and he didn't. When we spoke about it, he was quite surprised at my explanation of what was meant by Elysium. He had no idea of what it was and had never bothered to find out.

When I hear a great lyric it gives me a huge buzz. When I first heard Deacon Blues by Steely Dan the lyric impressed the hell out of me and I had to go and find out why Alabama was called "the crimson tide" and why it was relevant to the song.  But even hugely commercial pop songs are often heavily reliant on the lyric. "Lady in Red" by Chris de Burgh (a song I have always hated) would not have been the commercial success it became if it had been called "Lady called Senga" or "Lady in Off-White".

There is a website called Kissthisguy.com which deals in misheard lyrics and there are a lot of real crackers in there. Go and have a look. Here are a few I know of personally - not mostly committed by me although I have had my moments:

"Gogo said he found a car in a field..." for "Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields..." from The Stones Brown Sugar.

"Standing on your mother's corpse... for  "Standing on your mother's porch..." from Bryan Adams Summer of 69

"Grim poodle-basher on a forty-five..." for "Brim full of Asher on the forty-five..." by Cornershop

Most musicians have a fund of these but go and visit the website. There are some really funny misunderstandings.  http://www.kissthisguy.com/

And my advice is, for what it's worth, if you don't know what it's about, don't sing it. We entertainers have enough opportunities for making fools of ourselves without tempting fate.

Follow follow...

A short post tonight after spending the last two days on the aforementioned Christmas song. Just two things to say:

A big thank you to the people who have "followed" me. Can I ask anyone who reads my blog to do the same. All you do is click the "Join this Site" opposite this and then follow instructions. I would really appreciate it.

If I haven't already nagged you on Facebook, have a listen to my Christmas Song and watch the video at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNRCtA5r8PI

I hope all who have borne with me will continue to do so. Will probably post every day till Christmas but may take Christmas Day off. Anyway - have a great festive season and thanks again for reading my thoughts - in more ways than one..

Tony

Christmas Song

A friend (Kevin Connelly)  challenged me to write a Christmas song after my Mistletoe and Swine post. I thought about it in a general way but didn't come to any conclusions about how I would address the task, or even whether I would try. The closest I can come to describing my spiritual beliefs is to say that I am an agnostic. However, I am not immune to the romance and mystery of the nativity story and I still find Jesus a charismatic and heroic figure. About half-past five this morning I woke up with the words of my Christmas song buzzing around in my head. With a pen and paper and a bit of tweaking and scoring out, I had the finished lyric in about half an hour. Basically it is a sequence of the images that attach, for me at any rate, to Christmas, together with the realisation that mystery is at the heart of spirituality.

I'm too late for this Christmas even though I will probably write the tune today and record the song this week so I may well keep it till next November/December but here, for what it is worth, is the lyric.

PS After Jim Devlin's question about the chorus I have added something - not exactly a chorus but a verbal counterpoint to the instrumental section (which you haven't heard). I've written and half-recorded the tune but still have a way to go. I am still doubtful about putting it out on the web this year - but we'll see.

Mystery

In the still cold night
A mystery so deep
In its blanket of snow
This town lies asleep
And a lonely dark figure
Makes his way down the street
With the sky on his shoulders
And the world at his feet

This night that seems endless
Must pass by and by
But one bright star remains
As the dawn fills the sky
A mystery so deep
The birth of a boy
As the child that lies sleeping
Will awaken to joy

Footfalls in the silent snow
Walking home
But not alone

Footprints in snow
In the still cold night
Led down the dark street
To the day's first light
For Christmas had come
As the town lay asleep
In the first rays of dawn
A mystery so deep


Footfalls in the silent snow
Walking home
But not alone

Reasons to be Blogful

I started this blog a couple of weeks ago. My reason for having a blog was simple. I write music, record it and post it on You Tube and My Space. I want people to listen to it and I want to keep making my own music and (ideally) help to keep the wolf from the door with it. I already earn by playing live gigs but they are mainly confined to playing covers. I enjoy doing this but I need an outlet for my creative side, hence the songwriting and home recording. I quickly realised that it is a relatively simple matter to produce your own songs in a home studio environment and to put them out there but, competing as you are with the whole world, the real problem is persuading people to listen, preferably more than once, to your online songs. I was advised to have, at least, a twitter account and a blog in addition to my use of My Space, You Tube and Facebook to find an audience for my music. So I now have a blog. The strange thing is that I find writing for the blog very fulfilling in its own right and I haven't actually used it very much for promoting my music.

Something that I imagine most people have found out for themselves is that we have opinions, feelings and convictions that we are not fully aware of until we start talking, writing or arguing and suddenly we surprise ourselves with fully formed standpoints we were not conscious that we held. We need to interact with others to discover ourselves. This is not the discovery of the century, I know, but it's important for music, for thought, for politics - for everything really.

So, in addition to all my other addictions, I am now a blogaholic. I missed a day on Thursday and didn't feel comfortable till I wrote one the next day.

Anyway, the point is that I am still trying to join the dots and find a wider audience for my music and the blog has helped already. Can I ask anyone who finds my blog worth reading to take a few seconds to click on the "follow" box - actually it says "join this site" - it's over there on the right hand side of the page - opposite the beginning of the post. Apparently the more followers one has, the more people are likely to at least read the post. This also lets you comment on what I write and I welcome all comments - even if you think I am dead wrong about something (which has been known).

Mistletoe and Swine

Christmas time brings a wave of sentiment and commercialism to the country. It seems to start a bit earlier every year. Nowadays the last banger has barely scared your poodle into fouling the lobby floor on November the fifth before the advertising business launches its relentless Christmas onslaught. Parents everywhere tremble as they see the price of the latest range of "My Little Warthog" and the vast sums of money that will be required to keep wee Shugbert up with his contemporaries on the X Box (whatever that is) front. Music is not exempt from this affliction. The CD is still a great convenience gift - you can buy one for someone at a knock-down price and have it delivered (to them or to you) without leaving your PC/Laptop/ I Phone.

To be Christmas Number One used to be a huge deal - financially and in terms of professional prestige. Number One is not such a clear cut concept these days but, as far as I know, it's still a hotly contested spot. The X Factor winner, Joe Mc Elderry, being beaten to the post in 2009 by Rage Against The Machine, in part because of an online campaign,  is testament to how strongly people can still feel about this. Apparently the same sort of thing is going on now with a Facebook campaign to get Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to No1 instead of Little Mix's "Cannonball", originally by Damien Rice. (Note that X Factor contenders in both cases were releasing covers.)

The bottom line is... the bottom line. It's a time when people are pretty much compelled to spend and, recession or not, spend they do so, if you are in a position to sell CDs or downloads, November/ December is the time to do it.

One sure fire money-spinner at this time of the year is the record made by groups of people - often amateurs who have something in common. For me, the most hilarious was "The Priests" because it looked and sounded so like an episode of Father Ted. We've also had "The Soldiers" and "The Soldier's Wives" - "The Tenors", "Il Divo" and so on.  I look forward keenly to a video/recording  featuring "The Boxers" singing "All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth", "The Sewermen" singing "All Through The Shite" and the "Ku Klux Clan" - yes, all right, I'll get my coat...that wasn't the song title if you are having difficulty keeping up...

Anyway, all this nonsense aside, since Christmas in this country seems to be all about turkeys, here are some real turkeys of Christmas records of the past that I have loathed, after which I will mention one or two songs that I really like.

"Mistletoe and Wine" Cliff Richards - I hate this piece of facile hypocrisy with a vengeance. When he sings "Children singing christian rhymes" just so it will rhyme (well half-rhyme really) with "wine" it enrages me beyond belief. "Christian rhymes"  indeed!!!!! Yes, I know I should get out more...

"Another Rock and Roll Christmas" Gary Glitter - enough said...

"Merry Christmas Everybody" Slade - I hate the whole thing but , "...look to the future now, it's only just begun..." is as trite and meaningless as any line I've ever heard in a pop song - with the possible exception of "If I was a sculptor - but then again no..."  Yes, all right, getting my coat again...

Enough of this moaning. Here - and I'm not sure in every case why - are a few songs that are played at Christmas that make me feel happy and well-disposed towards my fellow man - no mean feat in these troubled times. I have starred them to give you an idea of how much I like them and the first one will be no surprise to anyone.

"A Fairytale of New York"   The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl ***********************************
"Stop The Cavalry" _ Jona Lewie **************
"I Believe in Father Christmas" - Greg Lake*********
"The Little Drummer Boy" - David Bowie and Bing Crosby ****************
"White Christmas" Bing Crosby **********
"Santa Claus is Coming To Town" Bruce Springsteen ******
"Happy Christmas (War is Over)" John and Yoko ****************

Whatever Christmas means or doesn't mean to you, we have a chance at this time to stop and take a breath and think about next year and starting anew. That has to be a good thing. As Anne Frank ( a real heroine) said:

"It's a wonder that I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

If she could say that - in her position - then I can put up with "Mistletoe and Wine."

Music and Money

No post yesterday. I had a gig and left at 5.20pm. Didn't get home till 2.30am so just never got round to it.  This was (for the band) a well-paid gig, given the usual sort of remuneration bands who aren't famous can expect. £600 between four of us seems not a bad amount for one wee gig. Here is what it entailed though:

one car and one van driving from Fife to Edinburgh
carrying a shed load of equipment in and setting it up
playing three sets of roughly an hour each
supplying lights and disco music during breaks
taking the gear down again and carrying it back out to the car + van
driving back to Fife in the small hours

This doesn't take into account advance preparation, the amount of practise that has made us able to do this kind of gig - to say nothing of many years of playing/practising/learning to reach and maintain a professional standard of musicianship and performance.  Anyway, doing the sums 9 hours * four people = 36 hours - and quite unsocial hours at that. It works out at approximately £17 an hour. Factor in  travelling expenses and the amount it would cost to hire the PA, lights etc from a professional company and it's quite modest. Bear in mind that we usually end up working for much less than this. A decent pub gig might pay £300 - sometimes less. For a lot of bands it is either this kind of thing or not working at all. Corporate work and weddings are your best chance of making decent money but you start to make sacrifices in terms of what you play.

Which begs the question, "Why do it?"

Why do you think? If you are a musician or any kind of performer you know the answer already. The first time you stood in front of an audience quaking in your boots and heard applause (rather than felt rotten tomatoes striking your noble countenance) you were hooked. There is no feeling quite like it.

Here is a link to a song called Hellbound Railroad Track which I wrote and recorded at home. I think it is wonderful but then I would!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWT7o7lqHd0

In praise of Country Music

Today is my birthday so a very short post. Because I have been doing some country music lately I thought it was a good idea to give the thumbs up to this much-maligned genre. There is a lot of nonsense performed under the banner of country music but I guess you could say that of all types of music. Without going into the nonsense - no names, no pack-drill as my old dad used to say - from Hank Williams to Steve Earle there is a wealth of brilliant music. Most of what "Whispering Bob Harris" calls Americana is (a rose by any other name) country music. Here are a few names of people who play country music along with other genres:

Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, John Prine, The Eagles, Neil Young, Steve earle, Townes Van Zandt, David Linley, Jerry Douglas ...

I could just go on and on. Emotional honesty, musical integrity and down to earth humour are just three of the ingredients of country music. It's not all rednecks, truck drivers and dying dawgs!

PS Relating to my post about electronic collaboration, here is the latest between Linton and me - guess what - a country song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcoSCJvxXZw

Control freaks in bands

Most people who have played in bands will have experienced working with a control freak. I'm not talking here about someone (Zappa springs to mind) who writes, arranges and bankrolls the whole shooting match. The control is part of the deal and springs from the fact that the composer/arranger, like Zappa, is immensely talented and the inspiration and motive force behind the whole enterprise.

No, I'm talking about a different phenomenon altogether. This person is probably not the most talented person in the band (may well be the least talented) and doesn't usually add that much in terms of real creativity. But they want to choose the songs; draw attention to any mistakes - real or imaginary -  other members of the band may make; decide what band members should wear on stage, and exercise arbitrary vetoes over various aspects of band business. If you make suggestions about song choice, mix, arrangements, direction, they will do their level best to rubbish your contribution.  The suggestion that you made that was denigrated will often surface later as the control freak's own. Another favourite gambit of the control freak in a band is to tell other members that they are playing/singing too loud or that a song is just a tiny fraction too fast or too slow - the implication being that they are superior to you and sensitive to such nuances. If the band gets any press coverage or media coverage of any kind, they do their level best to ensure that they handle it - preferably alone and, when the article or programme appears - surprise, surprise - it's really all about them.

Sound familiar?  If such a person is your employer, often you have to find ways of coping with the situation but in a band you don't have to cope. So why does this person survive for any length of time in an ordinary band? I suggest it is for the same reason that big-mouthed ignoramuses in pubs, on public transport and at parties are tolerated. People don't want confrontation and dislike rocking the boat so they just put up with the person and make excuses for him. "It's just his way. He doesn't mean anything by it..." And so on.

By now you will probably have realised that I have worked with someone like this. Only in one band was it a real hard-line control freak - with all of the above and worse. In fact, a local newspaper interviewed this person about the band and he actually made a mistake about another band member's name - not a spelling mistake - completely the wrong name.  I still cannot believe that we put up with him for as long as we did. Bottom line is that, being human, you think, "Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too sensitive - no-one else seems to be bothered." Meanwhile everyone else (except Mr Control) is thinking the same thing.

According to mainstream psychological thought, control freaks are as they are because not being in control is a huge threat to their fragile but over-inflated egos. Allowing a co-operative where everyone's opinion is given a fair hearing is not an option as their secret fear is that their own very real shortcomings will become apparent. This fits with the experience I had but it may not  be quite as straightforward  in every case. In any case, as a musician,  you have other things to worry about so here is one simple piece of advice - and this is straightforward and simple. If you have any choice in the matter, don't work with such people. There are plenty of decent, talented, honest and  friendly musicians around.

They say that love never dies

I wrote this as a poem but it ended up being a song.

They say that love never dies
That flowers will always bloom in spring
I saw the sunrise in your eyes
Heard celestial music as you were talking
They say a life is never wasted
And we will all grow into one
I reached for you and briefly tasted
The heaven that now is gone
They say that love never dies
That birds fly and time always heals
I am the fool who threw away the sunrise
They don't know how that feels

Blues Guitar

The Blues seems to be enjoying a bit of a resurgence here in Scotland. Of course, it never really goes away as it is at the root of so much contemporary and popular music but there are events and gigs and little clubs around now partly or wholly dedicated to the genre which have sprung up fairly recently. Examples that spring to mind are: Rhythm and Blues Revue in Colinsburgh which features various artists; Cupar Bluesandbeyond Club, and The Powderhall Arms in Edinburgh. They all promote Blues in various forms and seem to be thriving. The guitar has always been at the heart of Blues, from Robert Johnston to Joe Bonamassa and there is no one classic way to play it. My own favourites over the whole spectrum include: Scrapper Blackwell, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Willie McTell, Peter Green (in the sixties), Bonnie Raitt and Duane Allman but there are simply too many to name.

Everybody and his brother on You Tube and elsewhere will "teach" you how to play the Blues and there is certainly a lot to be learned about technique that way. I will not presume to join in as I don't believe that playing the Blues can be taught like that. You must find your own "voice" eventually and, while you will take a lot from listening to the greats, you must beware of taking too much. What I am happy to share with you are a few rules that I try to make myself follow as far as possible. These are more about mental attitude than technique and, if they seem obvious to you, I apologise in advance. 

1. Don't try to sound like your influence(s). They will come though without any effort on your part.

2. Don't try to play fast - ever! This doesn't mean you will never play anything fast - it means that your primary aim should never be speed. Paradoxically you will find that impressive technique occurs when you are not thinking about technique at all.

3. Don't be afraid to pause as you would if you were singing.

4. Don't think about impressing your audience when playing live. In my experience that is when you are most likely to balls it up.

5. No matter how impressive it sounds, if you don't feel it, don't play it.

6. Vibrato happens naturally - don't force it.

7. Take advice about playing - not instructions or orders.

8. Remember Blues, like all music, is an expressive art NOT a competitive sport. "Cutting Heads is for assholes." (to slightly misquote Frank Zappa).

I try to follow these rules but don't always succeed. It is hard, for example, not to be competitive about playing and professional jealousy can be difficult to avoid. If you are cooking up a storm at a gig it is easy to start to feel a bit big-headed. When you hear someone play something new and exciting, it is only natural to want to try it yourself. But I think it is worth keeping these rules in mind and making the effort, as being true to yourself and being emotionally honest are paramount in playing blues guitar as far as I am concerned.

Finally, although it may seem contradictory, don't think too much. 

Politics rears its ugly head - but only briefly, I promise.

After my post on X Factor this week, I am quite surprised that I am springing to its defence today. The reason for this is that Ian Duncan Smith (or Ian and Duncan Smith as Paul Merton always insisted on calling him) has asserted that the X Factor and shows like it are a significant factor in the riots which took place in various locations in England recently. He links them with with a "regrettable culture of acquisition", presumably meaning that poor people see what the rich and famous have and want it for themselves. I must assure Mr Smith that this is not a new phenomenon and in this instance, much as I dislike X factor and others for reasons already stated, I can confidently tell him that he is not only wrong but is being offensive to boot. In Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, which I believe predates X Factor by a few years, Israel Hands, one of the mutineers states his reasons for wanting to hurry the mutiny along by saying, "I want their pickles and wines and that." People will always want to acquire things. I very much want a 1959 Les Paul but that doesn't make me a rioter. The X Factor and shows of this nature actually encourage their audience to become hysterical, to let off steam and to divert their feelings of aggression towards panel members who denigrate their chosen aspiring "stars". If anything people are less likely to riot because of them.

Anyone with an ounce of nous can see that Duncan Smith is wrong about this for a host of obvious reasons.  I find his remarks offensive, however,  because I think it is unfair and dishonest of someone who is wealthy - according to Wikipedia a millionaire - to deplore the acquisitive instincts of people who earn less in a year than he claims on his expenses. If we are looking for reasons for the recent riots we might start with the shooting of an unarmed man by armed police, the subsequent misinformation on the subject and the ludicrous "all in it together" claims of wealthy politicians with subsidised second (or third or fourth) homes.

Electronic Collaboration

Further to what I wrote yesterday about technology and how it has revolutionised music making, I have a concrete example here of what can be done easily now and would have seemed, if not impossible, too complicated and costly to be worth considering a few years ago. A while back I heard a demo on Facebook which had been written and recorded by Linton Osborne. Linton is a talented performer and songwriter who I have met once or twice. I really liked the song he had written and thought I could do an arrangement that would complement it so we discussed this on Facebook. To cut a long story short, Linton e mailed me two Wav files, his vocal track and acoustic guitar track. Fortunately he had recorded them to a click track and gave me the exact bpm of it. Using these I created a bass and drum foundation and added three guitar tracks and a tiny bit of vocal pad here and there. My vision of the song was that it would suit a retro, twangy guitar, soundtrack to a movie kind of feel. Whether that is exactly what we achieved is up to you to judge but both Linton and I were really chuffed with the way it turned out - all this without us meeting up. In fact it would have been as easy if one of us had been in New York and one in Dunfermline. Anyway, here is a link to it. See what you think.

http://youtu.be/GEtLjxLdv5o

the present 2

After yesterdays doom and gloom I want to write about a very positive aspect of music-making in the present day.  One thing that has given aspiring musicians much more opportunity to create and have creative control  over their work is technology.  Back in the 60's The Beatles recorded Sergeant Pepper, recognised as one of the most important and influential albums ever,  on 4 track machines and bounced tracks down to give opportunities for extensive overdubbing. 8 track machines were not yet available in British recording studios. Aspiring  bands making demos did not normally have access to even 4 track recording  unless they paid for studio time. Home recordings were done on Uncle Wullie's old Grundig or Philips reel to reel but audio tape was not a handy medium for demos. When the cassette became available demos could be sent away easily in this compact form. They could then go from envelope to bin, often with no listening occurring in between. With the development of cassette technology came the Portastudio which facilitated multi-track recording of a kind for ordinary musicians and led to overflowing waste baskets in A & R offices.

Nowadays any musician who has a computer and buys a few extra bits and pieces can make digital multi-track recordings of extremely high quality in his/her back bedroom.  Techniques unheard of in the days when Sergeant Pepper was made are routinely used today  in home studios all over the world.  The internet allows musicians and song writers to put their music online for the whole world to hear - for free. Platforms like You Tube, Muziboo, Soundcloud, My Space allow web hosting of audio and video tracks and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter allow free promotion of your work.  It is truly fantastic!  The challenge that faces you then is how to get people to listen to your work and how to extend your audience beyond friends and family.  Do people now submit demos electronically? If they do, how many will go from inbox to trash with no listening stage in-between?  Producing and promoting your own work is the preferred option for many  now, especially as the CD is battling with downloading for the market anyway.

In the end, if this means, as I think it does, that the control of big business over popular music is weakened, then a big hurrah from me!

x factor? Yeah right.

Having spent my first two entries writing about the past and how I ended up working in music, I think I should write a bit about the present this time. I may annoy a couple of people (if anyone reads this) but that is not my intention.

The state of popular music (and in that I include contemporary rock, "R & B" and other genres) today is shockingly bad - not that there aren't lots of talented, creative and musical people around. Quite obviously there are. But more than ever the system is stacked against them. There are lots of reasons for this and I would be sitting here typing all day and all night if I tried to give a comprehensive break down. Today I am just going to concentrate on one aspect of this. TV talent shows such as The X Factor and Britain's got Talent are anti-creativity, anti-integrity, anti-originality and, to a great extent, anti-anyone who is over 25. This isn't new - that tendency has always existed - but  the TV shows have intensified the effect because they command a huge audience and they grab a disproportionate piece of the action. The kind of control that someone like Simon Cowell has over popular music is comparable to the control Murdoch exercised over the media and, indirectly, the political and social climate of this country. "What about Susan Boyle?" I hear you ask.  No harm to her. She has a genuine talent for singing and it's good to have someone succeeding who doesn't conform to the expected norm but I'm afraid Susan just represents those in control venturing into a different but still lucrative market. In a way she is the exception that proves the rule. The main objection I have to the way these shows are run is that they always have the acts singing very well known (not to say well-worn) songs. The advice and control that "mentors" give is always away from creativity and towards commercialism and safety. Can you imagine John Martyn or PJ Harvey on X Factor! You would never see them on TV as they would be weeded out right away.  Anything original or edgy or iconoclastic never gets through the selection process.  Of course if some contestants are unbalanced or so untalented that they are liable to make a colossal fool of themselves they may get through to be mocked and sneered at and (if they're lucky) patronised. That's entertainment - of a kind, though not a kind to be proud of.

The business has become a parody of itself and a very self-serving, narrow branch of capitalism with an ever-shrinking connection to music. Why on earth anyone wants to listen to people like Simon Cowell or Louis Walsh talking about music is beyond me. They bring nothing but a knowledge of shallow commercialism to it and they have a vested interest in perpetuating a non-creative music business. They haven't won yet but they have made a huge dent in music and I am genuinely worried about its future if the popularity of this phenomenon continues.

Fresh Cream

I wrote this a while ago for a site called Kinemagigz.  This concert was really the beginning of my lifelong obsession with music.

Cream (Sunday 9th July 1967) "I was sixteen when the Cream played the Ballroom and it was the first proper gig I had ever been to. Up until Sunday 9 July 1967 I had only seen local bands, mainly playing chart covers. As an aspiring guitarist myself I was really excited about seeing the legendary Eric Clapton, having heard lots of his work with John Mayall. I had heard Fresh Cream but only a borrowed copy, as I couldn’t afford to buy it. The five bob for my ticket to Cream represented half my weekly pocket money as I was still at school. It’s a long time ago but I still have some quite vivid memories of the show. Clapton had the Afro hairdo and was wearing quite foppish hippy gear. Jack Bruce was a solid business-like presence on stage and Ginger Baker looked as if he was possessed by the devil. (I believe the jury is still out on that one.) It would be nice to say that I remembered the set song for song but I don’t. I remember they played Spoonful, Cat’s Squirrel, Rolling and Tumbling and Ginger Baker’s tour de force, Toad. I was struck by how effortless it seemed to be for Clapton to play great sounding solos and what a tremendous guitar sound he had. (He was playing a Gibson SG.) Jack Bruce did a lot of the singing and played Bass like Clapton played guitar – as though he was born doing it. But, although guitar has always been my passion and it was exciting to see the man they called "God" live, what really sticks with me is Ginger Baker and his physical commitment to his playing. I have never before or since seen anyone give so much of their physical being to playing music. At times he looked ready to collapse but the relentless thundering of his drumming never let up. The solo in Toad left people with their mouths hanging open. Drum solos are often suspect – a way to display technique rather than say anything musical – but Baker played a solo for (I think) about ten minutes that left me wishing he had gone on for longer. It’s difficult to describe it without lapsing into clichés – he went all the way from being a train to an ant tap dancing and back again. I didn’t just hear and see him playing – I felt it. Back then that was a really important lesson – at that time we guitar anoraks were obsessed with technique and speed. Baker had both in Spades but the most important thing was the feeling he expressed and his honesty and commitment to his art. That lesson has stayed with me and some might say that it was ironic that I learned it from a drummer. Since then I have seen many of my heroes live – some in The Ballroom – but as has been said many times before, there is nothing quite like your first time…

Guitar

The guitar was my first discovery of the world of music. When I was about twelve I learned to play chords, Bob Dylan songs, pop songs and then got into country blues. When Clapton, Hendrix and Green started coming out of the radio at me, I knew for sure that the guitar was for me. I have played in various bands, played solo, played in duos and played various instruments but I always come back to the guitar - and I always come back to wanting to create something myself rather than copy.  So I record my own songs, put them on You Tube and try to get people to listen to them through all the various social media - Facebook, My Space etc. It may be that they never make me a penny - so be it - but I won't stop trying while I am this side of the great divide.

I have very little idea of what a blog should be so I'll just make it up as I go along - I have had good results in other fields doing just that. What is expected of you isn't always the best thing you can do...