On The Record »

• Why are you in a band?

  May 21, 2012 @ 10:55 am | by Jim Carroll

  This is a question which comes to mind every year after the hectic binge-gigging sessions which go with the rounds of industry showcases in Groningen, Austin and Brighton. While there are many bands who forego these international shindigs for various reasons (they value their sanity, for the good of their credit union accounts, they’ve been burned before or are just not good enough to make the cut), I often wonder what the acts who do the Eurosonic, SXSW, Great Escape, Camden Crawl or Sound City shuffles think of the experience when the dust settles. It’s a long way from where they started out, that’s for sure.

  It’s one thing to go to these things as a delegate or read about it afterwards and wish you were there, but it’s quite another thing to be one of those acts flogging your guts out for a couple of days. It may seem glamorous, but there’s nothing remotely glamorous about schlepping from venue to venue, having 10 minutes to soundcheck if you’re lucky, playing to audiences who often don’t know who you are (and moreover don’t particularly care), seeing numpties make their mind up about you after three songs (three songs!) and doing it all over again an hour later in a venue which just happens to be, oh yes, an hour away. And yet, thousands of bands jostle with oneanother for the right to play these showcase festivals every year, perform to people they think will influence their careers in some strange way and not even get paid for their efforts (unless you count a few cans of beer and bottles of water as payment).

  Is this something which goes on the to-do list when a band gathers for the first time in a garage or rehearsal studio? Is the privilege of playing three sweaty gigs in one day using substandard PA systems and relying on a soundman with a bad hangover really why you started playing music? Was this really why you gave up playing football and started writing songs instead? Probably not, but this is sadly part and parcel of a routine for many acts.

  Musicians and bands can do amazing things which I and many thousands – probably millions, maybe billions – of other people can’t do. They can play instruments, they can sing and they can write songs which occasionally millions of people will sing or hum or whistle along with. This ability to play an instrument and make music is something which will give them much joy and pleasure for their entire life. Once you know how to play that guitar, it’s a talent which doesn’t go away. You have it for life. They don’t invent a new way of playing guitar every decade.

  But everything changes once the musician or band engages with the music industry on even the most basic level. Once you’re in the game – and you’re in the game these days once you stick a piece of music online – all that enthusiasm and excitement and exhilaration becomes tainted in a way. Whether you like it or not, engagement with the music industry changes absolutely everything and brings a new set of expectations and compromises.

  You might only be putting your songs online to let your mates hear them or you may book a gig in a local pub back-room to see what they sound like in front of a live audience (it won’t be the only time you’ll just play to your family and friends, you reckon), but now, everyone, including people you don’t know, has an opinion on what you and your bandmates have been doing (musically, at any rate) in that little shed or filty room three or four times a week. To quote Omar Little, it’s all in the game.

  You may continue to insist that you’re still only doing this for yourselves and everything else is a bonus (and some will argue that you’re wrong on this count from the get-go). You couldn’t care less who listens to your tunes. You don’t really give a toss what that blogger or this journalist thinks about your music. You’re just making the music for yourself and the music industry can go to hell. But that’s not how it goes. Once you’re in, you’re in.

  There’s a certain percentage of acts who buy into the game in a very big way and a tiny percentage of that number hit the jackpot. Their aim from the very first day is to become a band who are a household name, to play those big stages and to make out like Zuck from their music. A few succeed every year and it’s enough to encourage (or mislead) another few thousand acts who think they can do the same.

  Then, there’s another percentage of acts who are a lot more realistic about things. They simply want to make their music and make a sustainable living from their music through gigging, record sales and everything else an act must do to make a few bucks. They’re the acts who are mainstays on every festival bill (usually third or fourth from the top on the main stage) and who get a certain amount of attention when they release a new album or go on tour.

  The vast majority of acts, though, are the ones who may harbour ambitions to be one or other of the above, but who never get to those rungs on the ladder for various reasons. They’re the ones at the very bottom of the pile, at the very start of the game.

  In the music industry’s caste system, the bottom is not a nice place to be. When you are at the bottom, you are constantly hustling and looking for a break. You’re the acts who pester everyone you think can help you get to the next rung on the ladder. You’re the the ones venue bookers and media folks know only too well. These acts are the ones you end up feeling a little sorry for because they’re in the game but have absolutely no way of getting any further because they don’t have the songs, the naked ambition, the gumption or the contacts to do so.

  And they get so irritated, annoyed, vexed and cynical when they see other acts get the breaks they never got or will never will. They’ll spend so much time typing furiously on online forums giving out yards about the other acts who’re getting ahead, the music industry which is ignoring them and the critics who are, well, criticising them because they’re just not as good as they could or should be. All that time which could be spent on something else.

  Because these acts and musicians have something which they often completely forget about when the red mist and envy descends. The ability to play an instrument, the ability to make music and the ability to write a decent or half-decent song are things which should never be forgotten. These are talents which matter when you’re not in the game or have given up on the game. These are also the talents and attributes which may drag you back into the game at some future juncture when you least expect it. The reason why you’re in a band? Because you can play an instrument, make music, write tunes and have a whale of a time when you’re doing this with your mates. In the long run, nothing else matters. Not the game, not the industry, nothing else.

• The moral of 2011 for bands, acts and musicians: it takes time

  December 13, 2011 @ 9:24 am | by Jim Carroll

  If new bands and acts are to take one lesson from 2011, it’s should be the one about time and patience. I know, it’s a strange moral to take from a year when it seemed, yet again, as if accelerated culture was all that mattered. In a world of Twitter and internet memes, instant gratification and low attention spans and going from zeroes to heroes to zeroes again in a few months, it seems weird to be putting time and patience in the frame.

  But as this year went on, it seemed to me that the art of creating music with bite and substance was something which was well worth spending time on and taking time over. The alternatives are rarely palatable or sustainable. Think about it. Does the world really need another eager new band to emerge with songs which were semi-formed or tunes which were more ideas and textures rather than something to really hang your hat on? Are we really going to think well of acts doing in public what they should have done in private? Are we going to continue to have to tut and sigh over acts who come on strong with one or two decent tunes, but who don’t have anything else to offer when you go to see them live for the first time? Do paying punters really have to subsidise you as you try to decide if you need three or six players in your band?

  The problem for many acts is that they think if they don’t strike now that they’re damned forever. My in-box overflows with bands hawking their wares, trying to get mentions and previews for upcoming gigs or online releases. There’s a pang of desperation to many of these missives, especially acts who emerged six months ago who feel that they’re now overlooked as another batch of bright new things enjoy some profile.

  Of course, there are some of you who will be going “pot kettle black” at this stage. At On the Record, we champion new music every single week of the year. We tell you about new acts and we highlight new tunes. But it’s not our job to ensure these bands are ready for the floor and going to be around for years. Our new music spots are about spotting potential and it’s up to the act who do the rest. We’re not their parents, you know. We’re also not the A&R department of their record label, an expertise which is sorely missed when it comes to developing and building an act.

  But it is well worth taking the time to get things right, as a couple of examples from 2011 show. At Hard Working Class Heroes 2009, we saw We Cut Corners for the first time. Between then and 2011, the band never registered on our radars. Sure, they were around and doing stuff, but it was on the downlow and any noise was exerted on rehearsals and songwriting rather than hussling hacks to write about them. When they played at HWCH 2011, they were a totally different band and, as their fantastic debut album “Today I Realised I Could Go Home Backwards” shows, they’ve squared the songwriting and songcraft circle over the last two years. They’re a band you could see still in the game five or ten years from now, which is a goal most acts want to achieve.

  Another example is James Vincent McMorrow. As he explained in a Ticket cover story in October, he spent four or five years working away on songs and techniques in a room at home before he ever went near a recording studio. He spent a year in London where he found out that he wasn’t ready to engage with the industry, before finding his mojo in a house by the sea in Co Louth. He released “Early In the Morning” in February 2010 and it’s an album which is still finding its legs nearly two years (indeed, McMorrow will spend the second anniversary of the album’s release on another UK tour). Further proof that it takes time.

  Finally, there’s The Black Keys, a band enjoying the best press and sales of their career on the back of new album “El Camino”. But as you see again and again in interviews with them (like this one), such success didn’t happen overnight. I remember seeing the band at SXSW in 2003, a year after they formed, and being wowed by their sound. Eight years and many albums on, they’ve found their feet and the rest of the world has caught up with them. That they did so in public and over the course of putting a deep catalogue together is down to the ability to gig again and again across America, an asset which Irish acts sorely lack due to geographical limitations.

  All three of the above show the virtues and values of taking time. Sure, they may have wondered down through the years if the work and patience would ever pay off – and hindsight is a wonderful thing – but it’s obvious what the acts have gained from actually having a developmental arch. No need to throw out a new track every other week. No need to do anything until you were ready to do it and happy with what you had. No need to rush into anything just because you thought there was a demand for it. Memo to all: the world is not impatiently waiting for your new EP or album. Take the time to get the basics right and everything else flows from there.

• Why bands should leave pester power to toddlers

  August 24, 2011 @ 9:29 am | by Jim Carroll

  This tweet from Nialler9 last week probably spoke for many who’ve seen their email in-boxes, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and blogs invaded daily by bands looking for votes in online competitions.

  You know the kind: a band have entered some battle of the bands’ competition to be the first act on the bill at some sponsored-up-to-the-eyeballs’ hooley or other. In order to win this allegedly valuable prize, the band need everyone they know to click “Like” or reteweet a tweet or vote for them on some heavily branded page. Thus, because they don’t know any better, the band pester their fans, friends and people they don’t know from a gap in the ditch to vote for them with their clicks. It’s bad enough when bands do this once, but many come back again and again looking for your time, annoying you even more in the process. It’s the same kind of carry-on which a toddler usually employs to great effect to get you to buy them a bar of chocolate at a supermarket checkout till.

  The problem for bands who use pester power is that they’re really not doing themselves any favours. For a start, pestering or hassling would-be fans and influencers is not a good look. Moreover, if a band really thinks that their only chance to succeed or shine will come from winning some competition to be the first act on the bill at some sponsored-up-to-the-eyeballs’ hooley or other (a victory based on a popularity contest rather than anything to do with their music), they really need to cop themselves on. If a band think spending their time racking up emails and tweets and status updates and the like in order to publicise that competition is the best use of their time and resources, they really should be in another game.

  The only winners with these shenanigans are the brands who are behind the silly competition to begin with, not the bands who are collectively annoying everyone they know with their pleadings. It’s high fives all round for the marketing department, where the value of the prize bears no relation to the value exerted by the brand from their involvement. All the pestering, hassling and annoying is done by the band, not the brand, so the latter get to gain from the former’s exertions.

  To be fair, you can see where the bands are coming from. They operate in an ever-changing music business where it appears that new players like brands and corporates hold more sway and present more opportunities for them than the traditional industry players. If there’s a new set of rules by which to play the game, bands have to get with it. That most brands and corporates have absolutely no real interest in music or building sustainable careers or developing a band seems to be left unsaid in the brave new post-record label world. You can say many things about those old-school labels, but many actually knew that there was far more profit to be made from a band with a long-term career than an one-hit wonder. Brands want the instant hits which come from Facebook likes and calls to action.

  Turning bands into grunts for some poxy online contest with a poorer prize than you’ll get in your local bingo hall on a wet Tuesday night also reinforces the notion that bands are supposd to in constant competition with their peers for attention, profile, gigs and opportunities. If you don’t go for this amazing opportunity to be the first act on the bill at some sponsored-up-to-the-eyeballs’ hooley or other (or, indeed, any online competition where it’s about the number of people you can pester to get behind you), some other new act will get there instead and you’ll be left behind. Stupid, untrue and illogical, but many acts sadly seem to buy into this mentality.

  To be honest, acts should really view any online popularity competition with great suspicion rather than bail in with great gusto, unless they have some weird desire to help a brand reach a bigger audience. After all, in the long run, that competition and your association with a brand (who will be shaking you down for more rights than any major label would dream of demanding) is doing feck all for you, your band and your music. And you are, aren’t you, in this for the long run?

• When the road can’t go on forever

  August 5, 2011 @ 9:48 am | by Jim Carroll

  You may think that nothing beats life in a rock’n’roll band, but those at the coalface would beg to differ. Where outsiders see an escape from the usual routine, insiders will talk about pressure, hassle and stress – and it’s not just bands on the first rung of the ladder either.

  This week saw the Kings Of Leon cancel an entire US tour after an onstage meltdown. Meanwhile, Australian band The Middle East called it a day, saying they didn’t feel like playing any more. It was, it seemed, better to split up rather than carry on and pretend things were OK.

  It’s actually a surprise that more bands don’t call it quits. Life in a touring band is far from glamourous. Your day is spent soundchecking, doing promotion (even journalists know that most bands hate doing interviews) and hanging around waiting for stuff to happen.

  While you might think that the constant travel is a bonus, you usually get to see little more than the venue or hotel, if you’re lucky to get off the tour-bus for a night.

  You’re also spending all your time with your bandmates and cracks quickly appear in those relationships. Band pyschology is a fascinating subject, especially with bands who’ve managed to spend decades working together. But even in the most well-adjusted group, there must be times when the drummer has to be prevented from punching the singer.

  Of course, the pay-off can be superb. You get to play your music to adoring, enthusiastic fans every night and get well paid for your troubles (the holidays and pension plans are pretty good too). And you get to hang out with roadies and tour managers.

  Yet there are still many acts prepared to give all that up. They’re the ones who believe it’s better to put on the brakes than merely burn out.

• The art of management

  November 16, 2010 @ 10:09 am | by Jim Carroll

  The most important decision your band will ever make after choosing your name? Selecting your manager. The second most important decision? Deciding if and when you need a manager.

  Every single week, I come across bands and their managers and, a lot of times, I wonder what the hell the band were thinking about when they took on this eejit to represent them. You’ve started making music, you’ve started writing songs, you’ve done a couple of gigs and you want to crack on to the next level. You hire a manager to do the cracking on for you – and especially the work you’re too lazy and uninterested to do – and you think you’re on the home stretch. Sometimes, you are – and sometimes, you’re back where you begun and you don’t even realise it yet.

  There are a couple of theories about where to go for a manager for your band. Some people firmly believe that the best managers are the ones who grow with their act, managers who start working with a band when they’re in the shed or the garage and who move on up as the band moves on up. They start out as the pal who couldn’t sing or play an instrument and become the band’s rep who will fight their corner every hour of every day as they move onto bigger records and tours. As the band grows in stature, the manager grows and learns too. Everyone is on the same learning curve together.

  Then, there are people who testify that the best manager for your band is someone who has already been through the wars. This approach takes the tack that your band will progress faster with someone who knows the pitfalls and has the contacts to oversee the move from next big thing to the next level. As an extension of this, this is another approach which says you’re best to get hooked up with a management company who already manage a couple of acts. Yes, you’ll be one of a stable of acts, but there are benefits to being part of that crowd (such as tour supports, label contacts etc).

  Most of all, you need to know when the time is right to hire that rep. Too many times, a new band will hook up with a character because he or she promises them the sun, the moon and the stars. Chances are that (a) the dude couldn’t even draw the sun, the moon and the stars on a piece of paper and, more importantly, (b) the band don’t need a manager right at that moment.

  The right answer when it comes to the management question? It depends on you and your band. Each approach has advantages (as outlined above) and drawbacks. The newbie may be eager and enthusiastic, but he or she may well make mistakes which will cost you dear in the long run. Are you certain they know what your band are about and what you want? Are you happy to see them represent you to media, agents, promoters, record labels and publishers? You might want to ask yourself why the experienced industry hand is no longer working with any of the bands he fought for. And if you’re not the biggest act on the management company’s roster, a time will come when another act’s tour or new album will be a higher priority for all involved.

  Two things have sparked this bands tips’ post. The first is how “The Promise”, Thom Zimny’s documentary about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness On the Edge of Town” album, deals with the management story. Mike Appel was Springsteen’s manager (and producer) up to “Born To Run”, when Jon Landau took over both gigs. There was a lengthy court battle between employee and employer over this falling out (Appel being the employee and Springsteen the employer – many bands seem to forget that the act is the one who really calls the shots), which was eventually settled. Appel went away and, to the best of my knowledge, never found another Springsteen to manage. Springsteen and Landau’s partnership continues to this very day.

  The second is this post from Josh Ritter. He’s in the middle of a “Making A Life In Music” series on his blog and this post, which sees him interviewing his manager Darius Zelkha, is the pick of the series to date. Any new bands looking for advice on how to choose their rep may well get some pearls of wisdom from this.