It was amazing to think how old the footage was, from late 90’s and a program featuring Happy Mondays. The funniest thing of all was it has been screened numerous times over the years as an ‘educational program.’ Information Technology was the title of the show though Lord knows how Happy Mondays made it in to a BBC educational show!. Having written a book about the lessons I learned from rock and roll strangely enough The Mondays were absent. It was pleasantly funny to see the recorded interview between myself and Factory Records supremo the late Tony Wilson where I was a bit pissed off at the Mondays constant absentiesm when it came to radio interviews. Then I wondered why on earth did I ever even attempt at getting the Mondays any interviews. As lovable as they were they were usually so wrecked they couldn’t speak anyway and having to go and collect them to take them to radio interviews was hardly my easiest promo task. Ah they don’t make pop combos like that anymore. A totally wonderful band  but no suprise they never won anything at The Brits. they didn’t have a ‘Best band from  another planet’ category. Best International artist didn’t cover the galaxy.

Maybe the Mondays were the last of the great bands, part of a pedigree of bands that work in a totally unique, unconventional manner. What they were had just as much to do with being with a label like Factory. No other label would have been able to allow them to develop in to what they became, they wouldn’t have had the patience and they would have tired of their antics and dumped them. It’s the exact same scenario as A and M Records and EMI, they had no idea what to do with The Sex Pistols so they let them go. They are both bands who know what they are doing and need a label to support them but to leave them to their own ‘artistic’ devices bizarre as they may seem. Both acts worked because of Factory and because of Virgin and because their A and R people understood they were a little different from everyone else. Thank God.

‘Well I Can’t tell you what I think I can do if I hadn’t heard it can I?’ ‘No, I just need you to get them on the radio, I need interviews and I need them on daytime. This is Loius Walsh and Ronan’s new boy band. They’re going to be huge.’ I paused, was I hearing him correctly? He was asking me to get a band no one had heard of or heard anything by, least of all me, on the radio to be interviewed! He had to be kidding. I’m sure this was him out to prove to Louis Walsh who had chosen to sign his band to Simon just what he could do. I uttered the same curiousity, ‘You are joking aren’t you?’

I was wasting my time. We were destined for a trip round the houses by way of anything resembling a conversation. Simon Cowell wanted me to call local radio stations, stations that rarely played anything that weren’t hits and set up a bunch of radio interviews with a boy band no one had ever heard of. He didn’t think it mattered that the radio promotion guy, never mind the radio station had been allowed to hear them.

It makes me laugh now but the look on Lee and the others who I had working for me was hilarious. I put the phone down and shouted across the room. ‘Are you ready for this? Simon Cowell wants us to get interviews for Westlife.’ Reverberating across the room came the reply’ Who the fuck are Westlife.’ Oh I wish I’d have said that to Simon! All for one and one for all we couldn’t believe what he was asking of us. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, trust me there isn’t a conversation we need to go and do it.

You couldn’t reason with Simon over something like this. Never mind Randy Jackson, enter THE dog with his bone, Westlife. Just to think, Boyzone, the only band ever through generations to be a serious threat to Val Doonican were heading for longer woolier jumpers and semi retirement and he (Simon Cowell) had a grip on his babies. And we were the babysitters. He was in diaper heaven. Herein began his stampede and complete domination of the pop charts. He had previously done an amazing job with Robson and Jerome, more of which I’ll recite later, had some continued success with 5ive but now he had the one that he thought would do it for him. Unlike Robson and Jerome who took a lot of persuading, kidnapping, harrasing all by his own admission as they were successful actors and already stars. Simon needed them to make a record , they couldn’t give a toss!

Writing about this all (and they’ll be other stories I’m sure!) makes me smile and makes me understand even more what was it that made Simon Cowell different from the rest. He doesn’t understand the word no! To make it even more hilarious is that we managed to get some interviews for Westlife although we needed Ronan Keating in there as well doing the interviews, that maybe swung it a little as he was ‘famous pretty’ instead of ‘who the fuck are you pretty.’  Hell, what I am saying. None of them are pretty to me. I’d like to think though that the radio stations were doing it for us and not for Westlife or for Simon Cowell. In those days people knew who we were when you called the radio stations and hadn’t a clue who Simon was. How funny is that, if he had tried to call people directly they probably wouldn’t have taken his call!

The band are taking plenty of flack for the carbon emissions from taking this gargantuan beast on the road and you can understand why. Personally though, I believe  The Edge when he says they will offset that carbon footprint in some way. They’d probably already thought about it long before all the knives came out.  Unfortunately at around the same time he bought 156 acres on a cliff in Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean to build an eco friendly  home. Well five in fact, his own 10,000 square foot palace and another four to flog. Nice work if you can get it! He does want to make it his main homestead though and having seen the place I think I would too! Needless to say the activists came out in force stating that to build whatever he was building they would need to flatten a part of the cliff to build an access road.

No matter what anyone says about U2, whether it’s the new album, the carbon non friendly size of the tour or anything else for that matter the one thing you can’t ignore is the experience almost every single person who attends the show takes home. For them it’s worth every penny. U2 bring them a happiness that a lot of other bands don’t and for them it’s the best night of their lives. Paul McGuinness  has been quoted as saying they don’t break even until the back end of the US tour so you cannot argue about their desire to give people an experience second to none. The Edge on the edge. Of a cliff.

I don’t think the tour will have a significant effect on their record sales either and I’m sure they know that better than anyone. Their motivation will be their desire (no pun intended) to give something back to the people who have stuck with them forever, it’ll be trying to let them experience something unique, something completely different…….to anything. Add to that the corporate, footballer world flocking to the U2 show as the place to be seen and we have ‘the event’. It’s kinda funny too, what about those who haven’t seen a live show before? Where do they go from here, anything is going to seem sub standard after Claw Wars!

And where do U2 go from here, the return of The Claw? I don’t think so , it won’t be anywhere other than rest for a while and I think we can all allow them that indulgence! But what next, where can you go. Personally I think it’ll be stripped right down and four guys will take their songs to the masses. U2 have reached such a level now that being the ‘hottest ticket’ they could do anything. They’ve earned it. They haven’t earned it because of a gigantic claw and a production of epidemic proportion, they earned it from 30 plus years on the road. They’ve earned it from playing every tiny club that wanted to book them to every fan who wanted to see them. They’ve earned it from signing every autograph for every one of those fans who believed in them enough to give them a chance to do this. And through it all they stuck at it. They posed for every picture with every fan no matter how exhausted they were after giving their all in a performance, and for many years to under a hundred people and not a hundred thousand. They stepped out front to meet and greet the fans for as long as it was safe to do so. They paid their dues, they have earned it.

For me U2, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Bruce or Led Zeppelin don’t have to prove anything to me or anyone else. They earned it, damn right they earned it. It’s called a work ethic and it’s called graft. Blood, sweat and tears. It’s called taking chances and making mistakes and it’s called entertainment. It isn’t about any one tour, it’s about understanding why you came in to this business and giving people something they have earned. The opportunity to take their hard earned cash and spend it how they want to. And if that is on two hours of a thrill of a lifetime who are we to judge?  When entertainers get this big let’s not lose site of the fact that they are still meant to entertain. It’s what they do and it’s what they should always do.

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.

As it’s all anyone is talking about here in the Tampa Bay area I thought I’d make a start on a series of U2 blogs. I just got a note from my old pal Neil who’s about to step on a plane so no doubt we will end discussing this even more over the coming weeks. (Neilstorey.blogspot.com.) In fact Neil goes back even further than I do with U2. And that’s nearly 30 years. He was responsible for persuading myself and my then lodger, Mark Radcliffe to drag ourselves out on a  filthy wet saturday night to see them supporting Wah Heat at what was then the Art College in Manchester( was it 1981?) It was soon to become the ‘Poly’ and  where they played several times when I was working with them and where I still hold the record guest list (106 people when I took most of Granada TV along to see them.)

Merely mention U2 to me and so many memories come flooding back. I dread to think of how many shows I did with them in the early 80’s and watched them blossom and flourish until they finally exploded. You can’t ever imagine the belief that band had in themselves from the very beginning. Even now they helped inspire me as much as anyone to write my book.

Last night was special. My friend Darrin who did pretty much everything other than write the damn book, Insights from the Engine Room really wanted to go, I was hot and had been all week so the thought of standing in a field for hours sounded like a lot of work. A 72,000 record breaking audience is pretty smelly in this humidity but I thought I should do the decent thing and see if I could get us some tickets. I sent a note to Paul McGuinness their manager and tickets, backstage passes and hospitality was provided the same as it has every year since they managed to make a living without me. I stood on the mixing desk and watched in amazement. I amazed myself, I should be used to it all by now. Somehow I doubt I ever will be.

I’m still tired as it was one hell of an exhausting but fulfilling night so I’ll get to bed and come back and write some more later. And don’t you dare wake me.

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?

I had a great time earlier in the week when I went over to see my friend Paul’s band ‘Jealous’ playing in Orlando and met some really nice people. I had to laugh though, I was invited on to a panel where they were discussing everything from the current scene to how an Orlando band perceived going to the UK and vice versa. All was fine until the moderator Chris asked me a question and the tape ran out. I apologized but told him ‘You asked me what was Insights from the Engine Room all about then. Bad question!

To be frank though (Frank who?) I’m really not apologizing at all, on the contrary I’m really pleased I’m in total promo mode. I’m on the verge of a new career and I’m letting nothing slip. If people are interested to hear what I’ve done over the past thirty odd years then I’m happy to talk to them. When all is said and done, once a promo guy, always a promo guy.

I spent a huge part of my working career setting up radio, TV(and in the early days press) for up and coming acts which included multi million selling acts like U2, Matchbox Twenty etc and I know as well as anyone the importance of having the media buy in to what you’re doing. Back in the day it was very different but when it all comes down to it nothing really changes, it’s still about getting in front of the right people. Back then it may have been a TV show or on the radio, now it could be a blogger, podcast or somewhere else on the internet. It may be somewhere else altogether but one thing I know for sure, as one thing becomes popular something else comes along to replace it. You contantly need to be on the look out. What’s right for your career might be wrong for someone else’s. Let one person know and they’ll tell someone else, one becomes ten, ten comes a hundred. But you need to start somewhere.

Writing the book, telling stories and offering up advice from my side of the fence has given me an overwhelming urge( Now if there was ever a need to change my name by deed pole it should be Tony Overwhelming, it’s got that ring to it!) I digress, an overwhelming urge to help bands on the way up and to put some ideas in their head, send them away with something to think about. You can have the most talented , creative people in the world who just haven’t afforded themselves the time to think,’ right, what next?’

As the website takes on a life of it’s own and I hunt down the people who know the answers to a bunch of the questions let’s see if we can make a difference to someone and help to give them the motivation. Not just the motivation, there are plenty who have that but are sadly lack in other areas. Let’s see if we can help them to make others believe in them in the way they believe in themselves.

Now where was I? Foolishly I had VHI on in the background and the Shakira video just came on. I needed to get some water. I feel invigorated but I must convince myself it’s from the desire to tell the stories and not the Shakira video. Thank God I don’t have a dvd recorder, be gone Devil Woman. But not too far, eh?

So back and focused I’m putting some semblance to my disorder. As regular blog visitors may have noticed there is a certain randomness to all of this that I want(have) to continue. I have this overwhelming desire to share those life and times but I also want it to both entertain and educate so for that reason I welcome the ‘new order’ ( No, not them). I’m putting my life in order….no get up, I don’t need help! I decided that writing a book, The Insights from the Engine Room was a natural progression but as soon as I’d finished it I had others I wanted to write so IFTER becomes the first in a series of Insight Collections. Then came the realization from others ( thank you Darrin, Brain and Paul) of how this could develop and in what different forms, a bit like me really!

IFTER (picture paints a thousand words, then why can’t I?) Well I can. Content is already up on a new site www.tincan.tv where I have my own page and you can hear both audio and video and more scribblings. They are serializing the book and each week there are audio excerpts, I’m there blabbering.  In addition to that the coming weeks will see the introduction of the Engine Room’s own You Tube channel and Lord only knows what will be uncovered there. And in amongst it all the unearthing of the Insights Collection website. I’m selling up, it’s where I’m going to live. I’ll be issuing laminates shortly.

There’s more, www.manchesteronline will allow me to revisit radio and more on that very shortly. In short, there will be no getting away from me now, unless you’re on another planet but I know all about that anyway!

I’m off for a walk on the beach now with Shakira and gather some more thoughts. Time for 5 mile an hour and not 100 mile a minute. I am so excited at the prospects, I think Shakira will be too.

I do, I really t doesn’t need to be feels like a rush to get i all out

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!