Simons?!

watch television. The show that every network turned down is now the only show that makes a difference. If you’re a pop act and you have a record out and you get asked to appear, then you do it. That is of course if you have a record out and Whitney Houston doesn’t or if she’s round at Clive’s having tea or massaging his ego. My God could you imagine dinner with those two……pass the hurl bucket.  I digress.

It must be heartening for any artist to hear the stuff people turn down. What happened with American Idol happened with The Beatles, The Stone Roses, you name it…..  they had the knock back. Ponders the question, who are the people elected to pick what works and what doesn’t work? TV and the music business has become dull because of the people making the decisions. They clearly have no idea what people want. Hence we have the most popular  ’music show’ ever where the public actually has to tell them what they want.  And then one success spawns a thousand unimaginative carbon copies. Where once we had an act that attracted an audience now we have an audience that can attract any act because they all have to do it, appear on that show! Simple really, if you want to get seen or heard you line up at Simon Cowell’s door. It’s a monopoly and it’s dangerouse. Further more they’re not budging,  not at least any time soon.

Record companies have no clue whatsoever. (It might have something to do with the fact that most of the people who work there have no idea about music)They constantly turn down what ultimately pays their own wages. Record companies can no longer sign bands because they do not know how to develop bands. They have no fucking idea and what’s worse is they don’t care. They don’t care that what made generations integrate, love one another, even give us a healthy foreign export all revolved around music. Call me idealistic I don’t care, but the people who sit in their halcyon towers crunching the numbers have no feet to put on the ground. They want to see a return straight away when  no relevant band in history paid the rent from day one. What they did do was build a base for an industry to thrive for a very long time until the pendulum swung and the lunatics took over the asylum. Not only did they run it, they enrolled the inmates. We are now fed a staple diet of stuff that doesn’t require us to ponder over whether or not it’s good or not, it’s just there. Who cares if it’s good, as long as it can sell instantly and we can get a return. The law of averages says a proportion of the cattle will chew the cud. Or is it sheep, lemmings even? It’s just fodder when all is said and done.

Where are we going, well as Bob Dylan so rightly said, ‘No Direction home’ There is no route. Over the coming weeks months, years , decades I may be granted time on this turntable we call earth I intend to bring forth and interrogate those that matter, those who gave me a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning and throw myself in to what was an unbelievable place to be. The artists and the record industry, the record stores, the bands, the media we all worked as one . And you know what, we were fucking good. Too good to sit back and see what this industry has become, a playground for the people who were once behind the scenes. We are creating immovable objects, Clive Davis was a music man, once.  There was a time when he wanted to create stars to see what they could become, to let them grow and flourish, to see them last and then to influence others. And now, it’s not because of what they are but because of what they can do for him. The ego is mightier than the music. When in all it’s years have the people behind the scenes become bigger than the artists? I don’t think it was meant to be that way was it? Who’s more successful than Simon Cowell or Clive Davis? Instead of making them (the artists)they made themselves! Simon Fuller is equally as powerful and with an astute mind, a marketing genius…….. but at least he doesn’t have a need to grab the limelight. Instead of pop stars we now have  industry stars.

If an artist manager thought they didn’t see enough activity from the record company, and it’s their job to make sure something does happen for the act they represent then they would bark and scream at varying levels to usually the product manager. At the highest level a very influential manager may call the President directly to complain and they in turn might just sack the culprit so they could get on with the rest of their day. Anything that required the least amount of sorting out usually involved sacking someone.

If a release was struggling at getting any national interest ie national radio play or network TV then it was assumed that regional activity would happen. Never did quite work that one out. We would get ‘the call’ not asking, consulting or seeking advice , we would just be told we needed to put a regional promo tour together. It didn’t matter if the record was badly received they just needed to show the manager something was happening. In turn I’d get on the phone call some radio stations tell them what was required and make it happen, irrespective of whether I thought it made any sense or would have any effect on the record. And we wonder how record companies pissed it all away.

I had made a lot of good friends in regional radio and TV so it was always good to see them anyway and after the work was done we’d go out and have some fun. Pleasurable yes, productive from a professional standpoint, not always. Naturally when you had a new artist like Massive Attack, Neneh Cherry, Natalie Imbruglia, U2 who had killer debut singles you were only too happy to take them out on a promo tour, but those decisions should always be left to those that know, who’s job it was to identify what was the best way to promote the act they had entrusted in you. Common sense really, why would you employ anyone if you didn’t think they had the ideas and could do the job?

Nowadays, where you need the artist to do so much for themselves ,it’s the role of manager that has changed. At the top end you need a powerful, influential manager who can act as the buffer between the artist and the record company. Where the record company might want to exert their influence because they have money invested, the manager can ensure protecting their act. Record companies will want to pressurize them to deliver records to suit their projected quarterly targets as a successful act is their lifeline there. No good manager would ever allow that and where they have good management, the record company would be less inclined to ask.

At the other end where the act is unknown it is difficult to secure good management. Some of the more reputable ones are ‘full up’ with no room to take on new acts. Sad but true, it’s the smaller acts that often require the greater work. An unknown manager without a reputation is going to find it hard to get to record companies. Apart from them signing fewer and fewer acts, they rarely listen to unsolicited material. What that effectively means is if they don’t know you they won’t listen to what you have. In defense of the record companies, they simply don’t have the resource any longer to wade through endless CD’s of mostly crap artists. With regard to the better managers, it is very hard to spend all the time you need to on an act that is earning you nothing, and at the expense of the one that is. They could get very pissed off and that could jeopardize their managerial position with them. Whichever way you turn you can’t win, but at least the good are wise to that.

U2 came on around 8-30pm and as Wah Heat had been creating a bit of a buzz there was a decent turn out. We’d already arrived by then and were downing a couple of pints at the bar. We turned round to see and there before us were a bunch of awkard looking kids doing what bands do, re tuning, a bit of a bass drum thumping away and the singer adjusting his mike stand. ‘We’re U2 and we’re from Dublin.’ Little did I know that this was the beginning of an amazing journey for all of us.

We moved down nearer to the front so we could get a good look, if we made the effort to come and see them then I don’t see the point in propping up the bar. There’s seeing a band and there’s being at the bar, hardly the same thing. They sounded like they should have done, raw but with a lot of energy and most of it coming from their singer. The guy, who even then went by the name of Bono had such a determined, almost demonic look about him you could see his sole ambition was to make sure everyone know who they were by the time they left the stage. And bad boots and haircut were helping, but not maybe in the way he had planned.

Boots aside, he did this by repeating who they were another couple more times, lauding up Wylie and his mob, telling us they had a record contract and also that their producer was Martin Hannett. This prompted a curious glance at each other from me and Mark and a certain’ tell us more?’ Hannett had produced Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures and Radcliffe had recently recorded a session with them for his show on Piccadilly Radio  but neither of us knew he’d made a record with this lot. Mark was a big Joy Division fan, he’d even called his show ‘Transmission’ after their epic. After announcing their association with Hannett they went on to play the track he’d done with them, what was to be their forthcoming single ‘11 o’clock tick tock’

Wow this was a bit special, an extraordinary sound and particularly from this slightly gauntish, again fairly awkward guitar player, The Edge. He played an unusual Gibson Explorer guitar and moved it around his torso like he was feeling every note. His sound even back then was quite unique and we both loved what he was doing. By now we were both starting to look a lot more at what was going on up there onstage. Fairly charismatic singer, original and very impressive guitar sound, and then the rhythm section. Larry was the James Dean of the band, a real beauty that had all the girls in the audience nudging each other and a very competent drummer who was just learning with every show. And then came Adam. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Adam was the least talented back then and to see how he has blossomed in to his look and the feel he has for his bass now is quite amazing. I don’t think anyone saw that one coming!

It reminded me of my bass playing youth, the ability, not the haircut which I will have to come back to. I was hell bent on being a rock star, not just me but all my friends and especially my bandmates. Myself our drummer Kenny, and legendary singer Sudi always came up with the band names and mighty fine they were too!  I vividly remember ‘ Dwarf Cornell’ which I’m sure was mine! Oh I have to stop and keep this blog deserving of it’s own place, too fond a memory to absorb within Adam Clayton’s haircut methinks.

Island was my first outing in to the world of promotion and what a great place for an initiation. Everyone who worked there from the front desk at reception to the ladies in the canteen lived and breathed music. For them it was the best job they could have. Although I had first hand knowledge of both Island and A and M I made a great many friends at other labels and they too were there for the right reason.

When I got my first job the guy who employed me, Ray Cooper wanted to know if I was interested in music before he even interviwed me. We discussed what the job entailed, obviously but we compared notes and discovered we had similar tastes. I was used to talking music because I did it most of the time with my friends, it came naturally.Maybe that interest was what swung it for me, got me the job, after all I had no experience in selling but I had enthusiasm and passion driven by a love of music rather than a love for selling.

I think where the record companies benefited was through the experience of these people. They knew what to do with artists, they understood them and the collaboration of creative minds was a marriage made in heaven. They understood how to get the best out of their artists and were sympathetic to their needs, and artists invariably need! They didn’t force them to deliver records to satisfy their timelines and by a certain date to satisfy quarterley sales figures. They allowed them the time to make the right record…what creative process can produce thgeir best work that way? Nobody said to Picasso, paint..he just painted. You signed an artist because they had talent not because they could meet deadlines. The irony was that if they delivered a substandard record they sent them back to make a better one, so what was the point anyway ?

There wasn’t the huge turnover of staff either, they had the right people doing the right jobs, no more , no less. Somehow over the years record companies lost their way, they expanded, made mistakes but couldn’t accept that they had made those mistakes and started to unceremoniously dump everyone in order to have a more streamlined operation. In doing that they lost the very core of those people who made it work in the first place.

There was the time everyone wanted a record deal, you signed and you were on your way.  Being signed to a record company meant something, it was a massive boost. You felt invincible.  It gave you the determination to succeed, someone had spotted you, thought you had that certain something and wanted to make you successful.  It was like passing your driving test, someone had recognized you could do this and you were ready for the road.  It might be a long road, but they had the courage to stick with you, they were in it for the long haul.  They signed you because you had talent and they wanted to nurture that talent, they wanted to watch it grow.

You were given the money you needed to make a record and maybe a little more to live on, to tour.  It was “the advance” and it did what it said it would do, it allowed you to advance, it wasn’t an instant fix. And with it came an experienced group of people to help make it happen.  Maybe you were young and lacked experience, maybe your manager needed a little guidance, some help.  All you had was talent, not a bad place to start.  The record company had that experience, where you hadn’t done it before they had and were prepared to help.  Wherever you were lacking they had people who could help. they had made mistakes, plenty of them and a lot more than anyone they’d ever signed.

The money the record company gave you was a loan and like any business they wanted a return on their investment. It’s called recouping and it means repaying but like any investment they didn’t expect it to happen overnight, it was a risk. They were prepared to wait ad not only did they get their money back, they got a lot more. It was a never ending circle, when you made money off one band you invested in another looking for the same return. it made good business sense and it allowed labels and acts to grow together.