The glorious days of radio and the pirates seem to come and go all too quickly, but what a memorable time it was for all of us that had the opportunity to experience those rebels at sea doing what they passionately believed in, giving us the chance to hear great music. All day every day.

Sadly the Marine Offences Act became law at midnight on August 14th 1968, and battle as they did, the pirates slowly, one by one sank.  In 1968 the UK’s national ‘official’ station Radio One launched off the back of the demise of the pirates. After crushing any competition it wasn’t going to be hard for them, the public had been left with nothing.  They were owned by the BBC and they were funded by license payer’s money. Everyone who had a TV license was contributing to radio, whether they liked it or not.

Then the independent radio stations started to spring up.  Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, BRMB in Birmingham, Radio Clyde in Glasgow, and Capital Radio in London were four of the first ones.  Radio One poached some of the pirate DJ’s, guys like John Peel and Tony Blackburn, and  Johnny Walker, a pirate through and through and one who stayed loyal even when they were banned. I often find it hard trying to explain to people just what pirate radio sounded like back then but it’s so very hard. All I know is that there never has and never will be anything quite like it ever again. Even as they were sinking they still sounded as new and as fresh as the day they were born. It was revolutionary then and it’s still revolutionary now.

There’s a lot going on and I’m really lucky to have a team of highly talented people around me to help me with the stuff I’m totally crap at. I just found out I’m shit at a bunch of things but it’s the more technical stuff really thats take me an eternity to get my head round. I love what it can do but I get frustrated at the time it takes to get it right. I’m amazed to watch people do ’stuff.’ Wow, cool is getting cooler. Wouldn’t it be cooler than the cool of cool if someone invented ‘non nerd voice recognition pro tools.’ Software that you can say ‘Edit the stuff out where I sound a twat’ and it does. Mmmm dangerous though, letting a machine decide your level of incompetence. Anyway I think I know what i’m trying to say. Read on and you all might get a chance.

In fact my techo slow go is why I never became a producer. The band would have written another album before I’d recorded the first. Maybe I’m good at people and not machines? That’s OK. If you get on with a computer and you work well you can’t go grab a beer together after work can you? As it happens I like people, a few have let me down over the years but that happens. You dust yourself down and move on. Another slice of life, a stab at growing up. Shit, I don’t want to do that!

You’re lucky you’re at the end of a computer screen, I’m unbearable right now. I’m so excited about where we’re going with all this, so totally fired up and the people I’m working with all are here for the ride too. They can identify my crap better than I can identify it myself. They’re crap savvy. Position people where they work best and everyone benefits. It’s what motivates us all, we are seeing it all start to take shape.

Interpersonal skills are what got me this far, I think. And if they didn’t then I’m fucked because I’ll have no one to talk to. I even want to teach people about people now. How to work with those you admire and how to tolerate those you don’t. Music schools teach students to be adept at pro tools but that’s no good if you don’t know how to interact with a human being. Who’s going to want to work with anyone who’s a plank?

It’s a bit early so I’m all over the place. I’m currently writing to do lists  but it’s a bit early for that too. I can’t read some of them and I can’t find the others.

And now the sun’s coming up.

Later.

Much as I want to promote this I want to start writing my next one, it’s a killer and the sooner I get started then the sooner I’ll be able to bleat on about it and get repetitive. All I’m saying is that it will involve a whole host of colleagues from over the years.

I will have my You Tube channel up and running by weekend, it’s registered and it’s going to be called TM TV. It’ll be full and feisty and fun at the same time. Got lots of ideas on content.

The plan was to release the book early in the New Year and set it up properly, but I don’t do properly very well so we’ve arrived at a compromise. There’s going to be a limited edition number of copies until the full launch, all signed. I sign them and send you a pencil and you write the number of copy on it. And when you go on holiday you take your book with you and you ask the person next to you on the plane what number theirs is then same again when you get to the hotel. Guests, receptionist, concierge, the lot of them. How else will you know the full value of what you own? If you find someone with the same numbered book send them both in and you get a refund, payable with 10/16  weeks.

Call it marketing. Well call it what you want, like I care?

But now, I really am here. No excuses, just plenty to say. So many things have gone on these last few weeks that I’ll be hard pushed to cram a full update in this one note. Suffice to say nothing will keep me away from, at the very least a couple of blogs a week to bring us both up to speed. It’s wonderful how a change from everything energizes you, new people, new places and new beginnings. I’m sat comfortably where I want to be, writing, reading and preparing to do more of both. My book ‘Insights from the Engine Room, Lessons learned from rock and roll’ should be out by the first week in September and the timing certainly feels right. Any attempts to rush it out sooner would have been a result of my obvious impatience. Damn, I’ve written it , why can’t people read it. And with new ways to blabber and smoke (Captain Beefheart, The Spotlight kid) it’s a good time to start hollering. It’s back to plugging, the thing I know the best but it’s embracing new methods and new ways of doing things. And more than anything it’s a fantastic way to for me to learn how people find out about things. Embrace the change!

Since I was last on here the book has taken on a new lease and now it will be published by Janson Media instead of us going the self publishing route. Now everyone is helping with all the things that take up a lot more time than my just writing it. Slowly we’re getting there and everything now is becoming very real.

I have been given a great opportunity with an exciting new Social networking site called Tin Can. (www.tincan.tv) It’s a holding page for the first few weeks as August is the ’soft launch’ with everything starting to kick in for September. They have a great line up of programs with some really fascinating content and to make it even better it comes from my old home town, Manchester! I love working with good, talented, like minded people and this feels so right. here’s to help making it happen. Keep your ears to the ground and I’ll keep you updated on how you can post stuff and promote whatever you have going on, providing it’s not illegal or crap!

So now I have done the decent thing and resurfaced I need to click ‘upload’ and go write more and record more because guess what, I now have my own radio show once again. Manchester radio on line have asked if I’d like to give it a go. I’d be mad to refuse and anyway it’s been thirteen years since my last show on Piccadilly/Key 103 and I have to admit once more it feels the time is right. Mainly for two reasons, firstly the people are so enthusiastic and committed who am I to say no? And secondly it’s on the internet and not governed by all the restrictions that have taken the excitement out of terrestrial radio. If it’s good and it’s worth hearing then it’s on the internet. Made by fans for fans. Shouldn’t take me too long to get my head round the workings so I’ll sign off for now and update you with more just as soon as I get the lowdown.

Raise a glass we’re getting ready to rock!

I’ve just participated in a local Tampa Bay event, Homemade Music Symposium (www.artistsandwritersgroup.com) Hampton and David organized the whole thing via this for non profit organization and I’d personally like to thank them for all their efforts in staging a very cool, pleasant and informative event. Any community needs people like them to give all those grumbling out there somewhere where they come and complain about the local music scene or whatever grumblers grumble about on any given day. And who could forget Laura at BAAMO (www.baaamo.org) for all the hard work she puts in and all for the love of it. And a personal thanks for all her help, guidance and opinions on my book, presentations and life in general. Go girl!

The event was well supported by the local area music scene who turned up to play all around Ybor city. And on porches in the less than pleasant Florida summers. You deserve an award, I was frying just watching!

Panels littered the weekend offering us valuable information on press, marketing and new media. Especially interesting for me as it’s something I’m rapidly trying to get my aging head around. I’m lucky to have the panel moderator Darrin guiding me in this area. I now have a twitter account he has set up for me. My excuse for not using it, he neglected to give me the password. Twatter!

I’ll be back later with a little more , and then a little more. Followed shortly after by a lot more but for now it’s final editing stage for the book as we are putting together a digital version too. I feel like Iron Maiden with a bunch of remixes.

I’ll also let you know about twitter, just as soon as I do!

Here’s a snippet..

In 1980 I was working with U2, I’d been taking them in and out of radio stations prior to the release of their first single, ‘11 o’ clock tick tock’ and trying to get them in for interviews wherever I could. They released 3 singles in the six months from May to October and we had been working relentlessly driving up and down the motorways to talk to whoever would have them. And then more of the same upfront of the release of their debut album, ‘Boy.’

You hoped all the hard work would pay off and that opportunities would come your way, you’d take some risks, take a chance on something. It might go pear shaped but you’d never know if you didn’t give it a go. It’s the reason you try it in the first place.

If you believe it enough you won’t need convincing and you won’t need to convince others.

November that year was incredible. There were a few of us at Island Records who believed in the band and we were all convinced they could be huge. Rob and Neil in the press department had done an unbelievable job getting journalists along to see them play and were starting to get some really good feedback. All their efforts culminated in an NME (New Musical Express) front cover at the start of the year.

At that time there had still been no significant breakthrough with any national radio or television exposure and we all knew we would struggle to survive on press alone. In order to maintain the great press coverage they (the press) would need to see others pick up on the band, and to get radio and television interested you needed the press, it was catch 22. We were at the crossroads, something needed to give. We needed to get that break otherwise it would be impossible to keep the momentum going.

I received some amazing news. Tony Hale the Radio One producer who was based in Manchester and therefore a contact of mine, loved the band. Were they available to record a session for the Peter Powell show? WERE THEY AVAILABLE……Damn right they were available! Around the same time, maybe a week or so sooner I got confirmation that Granada TV’s network kids show ‘Get it together’ wanted to book them. I couldn’t believe my luck….all my Christmas’s had come at once. I say luck but in all honesty I had been working hard on the band for most of the year, we all had and felt we deserved this break. This was the most significant result we’d had up until now from national radio and TV in the UK and now we were really starting to get others to believe in them. At this point we were starting to think, just maybe?

I know that they’ll be people keen to know more of the Factory years and it’ll be a delight continuing that story. They were some glorious years and at a time when the business was a lot of fun. They knew it, they were a label at the right place at the right time and they found some great bands to introduce to the public, James, The Railway Children, A Certain Ratio, OMD moved on, while New Order, Happy Mondays and The Durutti Column saw it through to the end and felt the emotions with us all. New Order did of course move to London Records but only once Factory were dead and buried. I don’t think the dealings with London toward the end of Factory went quite the way Tony Wilson and the other Factory directors had hoped and sadly it meant an end for bands like Northside and The Wendy’s, The Adventure Babies.

I’ll come back to Factory just as soon as I see where I left off. There were other labels with the same agenda back then and releasing records by artists they loved so we’ll have a look at that also.. I suppose I should comment on The Brits but I haven’t a clue what went on, I’ll need to take a look at You Tube and speak to a few of my pals. I do know that Elbow won best something( band I would have thought??) and that was nice to see especially being together for so long.

I felt especially pleased for Guy Lovelady, not only a lifelong fan but the first person to bring them to anyone’s attention when he signed them to his Ugly Man Records back in the 80’s (at least I think it was the 80’s. I’ll need to ask him.) You can read all you would ever want to know about Elbow on Guy’s blog, I’ll get the right blog address for next time but I’m pretty sure if you Google Ugly Man you’ll get directed to it.

That will have to do for now but it shouldn’t take me too long to make a few notes and start to fill in a few gaps from the bygone days of the music industry. Hang in there.

It had been a troublesome week for Bruce after he admitted to a faux pas, his dealings with Walmart. In case you missed it he had given exclusivity to Sam’s brand for the selling of his 12 track anthology album together with a 10 bucks price tag. Bruce had become just like The Eagles and a bunch of others, ‘cept The Eagles to their credit never claimed to be anything different. I remember many years ago seeing a Rolling Stone feature on them when I think it was Glenn Frey was quoted as saying ‘The only difference between laid back and boring is a million dollars’ If you want to take the money and run then as long as you say so who can complain? You don’t like it then don’t buy their records. Looking at the sales of Hotel California and the bulk of their back catalogue everyone seemed fine with it.

The thing is Bruce didn’t used to compromise, he cared about the common man, kept it rock n roll because that’s what rock n roll was supposed to be, doing things differently, being a rebel. The bottom line is that when push comes to shove (nice Superbowl lingo!) Bruce was faced with the stark reality that no matter how good an album he released it just wasn’t going to sell in the way he was used to and I think he panicked or maybe for the first time listened to his record company. As I previously mentioned he stood up and said at this week’s press conference he was doing it because he had a new record out. And that’s what ya gotta do nowadays.

He made a mistake and said he made a rash decision, or was it a rushed decision? Bruce Springsteen and the E -Street band are perfectionists, I admire and respect them and I think they are brilliant. It moved me this week when he said that they came out of a generation where growing up their heroes were great and if they were going to be in a band they wanted to emulate that, they weanted to be great.

Bruce has been criticized now by the New York Times and others for admitting his mistake. The media have dug their teeth in because he has come out and said it. It’s good copy, it’s worth writing about and it sells newspapers and they certainly need to do that. It’s Superbowl week too and everyone is reading everything. Bruce probably didn’t expect as much of the limelight, or at least only wanted to be written about for his performance. He isn’t used to this type of publicity.

It’ll be the same for U2 when they land their new album on us as it’ll be the same for everyone. Acts are looking for ways to get their albums to the masses, new ways to promote and market. Promotion and marketing for the older acts is radically different and they are faced with younger people promoting their records and they will have to understand that maybe they know best in today’s marketplace. Or in reality maybe they just know better. The stark reality is they just have to accept the inevitablity of it all, you won’t sell what you did. Those who once sold 10/15 million must be happy with 2/3 million, their big selling days are gone.

Nevertheless it’s popular. The adds run at $3 million for a 30 second commercial and sadly they were all booked pre recession.$100,000 per second! Rhianna played the other night, The Eagles last night, there’s Fleetwood Mac, Puff Daddy, whoops P.Diddy who turned up in St Pete early this morning for a party. Snoop is snooping around, it’s all going on. Meanwhile I’m checking out Fox Soccer Channel and I think Wigan on the box will do just fine, no problem. Leave ‘em all to paaaaaaaaarty.

Oh and then of course there’s The Boss, the man who knows about as much about the game as me, Bruce Springsteen. He’s turned it down a million times but Boss times are hard and like he boldly admits, he has a new album out. There’s no fee but they’ll cover expenses, nice, him and Patti get a hotel room but then again the audience for his 12 minute half time show is a billion! No need for a sweat drenched 3 hour show. Boss move by Boss man. Nice work if you can get it.

Bruce did a press conference on Thursday and no suprise, it was all over everywhere. It was the first he’d done since 1987 and the media lapped it up. Brucey boy seemed in good spirits and I did like his honesty about not being a football fan and wanting to shamlessly plug his new album. One thing both he and Miami Steve said got me thinking. They said they came out of an era when the music was brilliant and the artists set a very high standard and they felt it their job to maintain those standards, they wanted to be great. It’s a wonderful philosophy, admire you’re peers but at the same time try and emulate them.

Springsteen has worked relentlesly for several decades to be where he is. He shunned CBS’s (now Sony) hype campaign and the posters that claimed ‘I have seen the future of rock n roll and it is Bruce Springsteen’ He hated it, he demanded they take them all down. As was the case with his heroes and when he was growing up, he wanted to be judged on merit and not some overhyped record company campaign.

He was right, he was more than a commodity, he had a vision and he wasn’t prepared to compromise.The artists that have survived are the ones who had a say in their career, they too had a vision and weren’t prepared to stand back and let the record company turn them in to what they thought they should be, and create something that would make their job easier, make them marketable. They had belief and they had guts and if was going to take time then so be it. It worked then but they won’t let it work now, they all watched as everything came tumbling down. They pushed the self destruct button while blaming everyone apart from themselves.They knew it all.

The cable guy, Verizon Fios guy to be exact appeared with new router, a tweak here, an extra box there and we are back on. I log on and there before me a bunch of e-mails from my old cohorts at Island Records with the header ‘John Martyn 1948 to 2009′ and the inevitable news that he has died. Maybe some of you here in America might not have heard of him but John was a giant, I’d like to say a gentle giant and at times he was, at other times a ferocious beast. Sadly at times the demon alcohol took over and he was erratic and scary. Whichever John Martyn turned up he was always a total genius, a brilliant guitarist and a fantastic songwriter. If you don’t know him you’ll know Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Dave Gimour and others who played with him or recorded his songs and their versions of ‘Sweet little mystery’ and ‘May you never’ John Martyn’s songs were timeless songs. Sadly another one gone who seemed to be around as long as you had been into music and collecting records.

John Martyn had many music biz friends who were also fans,he was very much admired. A rare talent and another one who won’t ever be replaced. Like many others I am saddened by his loss yet not totally suprised, he ravaged his body and it just eventually gave up. Just a few years ago he had a leg amputated and though not entirely sure this may have been alcohol abuse related. He joked about it. His cause of death was cited as pneumonia, how much of anymore could his body have taken, his immune system must have packed up years ago.

John Martyn had demons but a sensitivity in his songwriting that you don’t often see. ‘Some keep diaries’ he said.’I write songs.’ Chris Blackwell, the guy who first signed him was a good friend and originally could not release his ‘Grace and Danger’ album as he found it too upsetting, he had known John and Beverley both. John pleaded with him as it as a carthatic release for him, he needed it .Chris eventually obliged. It was a moving piece of music and as always with John Martyn it cut straight from the heart. Nothing about John Martyn was ever safe, yet always sacred.

I worked with him in the seventies and eighties. He made me laugh and he made me cry. He would go in to a radio station and leave us all gasping for breath with some mindblowing guitar and another time he would sit outside in my car refusing to move and refusing to let me take him in for a pre arranged interview. Another time he announced he didn’t want to do anything in Scotland and wanted to go see his dad who still lived there in Glasgow. Testing times for an embryonic plugger. How do you explain to someone sat in reception that your artist will not budge. How can you answer ‘Why’? And if I was to confront him and tell him not to be silly I was terrified of the consequences, I put up and shut up. Driving him in my car once from one radio station to another his accent changed, we hit Glasgow and he became Glasweigen! We did the interview and he wanted a drink, it was 10-30am and I was petrified. Working with John Martyn could be hard but at other times wonderful. He could be so warm and friendly too, delighted to see you.

I remember once when he played Manchester Polytechnic, he walked out on stage blind drunk clad in great coat, slided his guitar alongside his amp took two steps to the side and promptly puked up. Once over he dragged his shirt sleeve across his mouth, took two steps forward and took off in to song like nothing had ever happened! Some hapless character, mop in hand slipped on to the stage having been assigned puke retival duties. The set was blistering.

John Martyn is now gone but won’t be forgotten. Along with Bob Marley and Robert Palmer the mainstay of early Island is disappearing but with it too come fond memories of what made this the greatest label ever, the people. Memories too of Martyn’s press officer for so many years who dealt with his erratic behaviour so well, the much loved Rob Partridge who slowly slipped away and left us just before Christmas.

For all of us who were there so many things remind us of all the good times we shared. It takes every kinda people.

Don’t worry ’bout a thing. Eevery little thing gonna be alright.