Metronomy on a world tour - fancy that!
Written by: David Harrison
Joseph Mount and his merry men, who the world knows as Metronomy, seemed to have blagged themmselve a world tour. Blimey! Look at that. I guess the UK has spent all its money so there’s no point sticking around here.
Here’s an interview with Metronomy we did years ago. And down below is a tune, an oldy but a goody - You Could Easily Have Me. It nevers to get us shaking our cakes on the dancefloor. Also: the video makes us strangely aroused.
Yes, we will be seeking professional help. Just as soon as you international readers go and get yourselves some tickets for these shows. Check our the official Metronomy website for more details. GO ON THEN, CLICK IT.
6.1.09 O-East - Tokyo, Japan
7.1.09 Club Quattro - Nagoya, Japan
9.1.09 King Arms Tavern - Auckland, New Zealand
10.1.09 Bar Bodega - Wellington, New Zealand
15.1.09 Popfrenzy Night @ Sydney Festival’s Becks Bar - Sydney, Australia
16.1.09 Empire Hotel - Brisbane, Australia
17.1.09 Revolver, Upstairs - Melbourne, Australia
19.1.09 Standard Hotel (DJ SET) - Hollywood
20.1.09 Wasted Space - Las Vegas
21.1.09 El Rey - Los Angeles
22.1.09 Popscene - San Francisco
23.1.09 Holocene - Portland
24.1.09 Biltmore - Vancouver
25.1.09 Chop Suey - Seattle
28.1.09 Pink Bar - San Diego
29.1.09 Pomono - Glass House
30.1.09 Salon Cuervo - Mexico City
31.1.09 Escenica – Monterrey
Zavvi goes into administration
Written by: Hugh Platt
Well, as predicted, Zavvi, the UK’s largest high street music retailer, has gone into administration today. The death knell came when the collapse of Woolworths took distributors EUK down with it - without it, Zavvi found themselves unable to re-stock, and the current financial climate was just too severe for them to survive.
The downside is, of course, that now HMV are the only major player when it comes to high street music retail. Sure, there are still a smattering of independent stores (all of whom will be struggling) and supermarkets (just don’t expect to see anything other than the most MOR of the mainstream on their shelves), but as far as the high street goes, HMV is all we’ve got. Regardless of your views on the players in the retail game, this can only be further bad news for the music industry.
Well, I doubt that’s going to be any consolation to the 3500 Zavvi staff who found out they’re going to be made redundant on Christmas Eve. That’s got to make for a merry bloody Christmas.
Reasons Not to be Christmassy: The State of the UK Record Industry
Written by: David Harrison
Bah-chuffing-Humbug. I my mind, Christmas isn’t a time of merriment, it’s a time to reflect on how this year was a bit crappier than last year, and how next year already looks like it’s going to be bloody awful.
Christmas TV these days seems to kick off with a teenager saying
“I have been through so much to be here’
If I hear one more, I will have to start burning effigies of Simon Cowell in Trafalgar Square. This year I was unfortunate enough to watch about 8 episodes of the blimmin’ X-Factor. No longer content with being an X-Men spin off, they ditched all the original characters (The Beast, Angel, Marvel Girl, Cyclops) for a bunch of sniveling cretins.
It is an endless guilt trip of how they will commit suicide/murder a puppy/murder the rest of their family if they don’t get to put out a flaccid Christmas single before fading into annonimity again. Maybe with these reality TV shows they should just skip the singing and dancing and have a crying competition.
For the fifth year on the trot, an X-Factor contestant has done a smaltzy cover and bagged the Xmas number one. Simon Cowell has single handedly ruined Christmas. Again.
Christmas in musicland is also ruined by the annual realisation that the industry is smaller, more disparate, more desperate then ever before. As my tax return deadline comes into view, I notice the shrinking of clients budgets in glorious excel spreadsheet technicolour.
While Alexandra Burke cries ‘Halleujah’, I’m taking stock of 2008 and am finding it a miserable experience. Some of the major players are struggling to exist, with the infrastructure of the UK recording industry crumbling faster than Zimbabwe’s economy. It seems like we’re approaching the tipping point.
The UK’s largest independent distributor, Pinnacle, and previously largest-cheesy-pop-that-goes-in-Tesco’s distributor, EUK, are both in administration. Past giants in retail are now minnows, with Woolworths, the biggest retailer of music of the 90s, twitching in its death throes. This time last year we had Fopp and Virgin Megastores, but now there is just a struggling Zavvi and a loss-posting HMV. It’s got to the point where the music industry can’t sell enough records to support a single high street chain.
My local high street has more Sushi bars than stores where I can listen to or buy music. The last 8 years have trained a whole generation that music is something to be had for free. Electronics outfit, Maplin’s, sell a terrabyte hard drive for £70. Who needs Peer 2 Peer? Just pop round this afternoon and take ALL THE MUSIC THAT WAS EVER RECORDED on one hard drive.
The recent industry conferences in London all seemed to be called things like ‘We are all really feckked - does anyone have any ideas?’ or ‘Can we get someone a bit famous to charm an MP, maybe that will help?’. Nobody did have any ideas, but the MP was a bit charmed by it all, so maybe there is hope. Although the sea will rise before there is a music tax included in the license fee.
Oh, but the live scene is booming you say? In 2008, the live scene reached the apex of a ten year boom; from here on in it is down down down, so grab a decent bobsleigh. In the last 12 months the UK has been lucky to have a pretty strong pound, $2.1 to £1 this time last year, to just $1.4 to £1 now. This means that those dollars you pay Kings of Leon for their umpteenth miserable festival appearance might just double.
Most of the profits from the last few years has been shipped out of the UK in the form of giants Live Nation or AEG. And I can’t remember the last time a live events company put any money into developing acts, as instead they’re saving all those pennies for gut-busting deals with Madonna or Jay Z. As our money goes stateside by way of those colossal artist fees and share dividends, UK acts, and in turn those medium-sized shows, dry up. Big tickets get more expensive, and control in in fewer and fewer hands. Across the board, old hands get let go as younger, cheaper, and easier to shag command staff get hired.
With the country approaching two million unemployed, I think punters’ casual spending on a round of £4-a-pint beers might be replaced with a renewed vigour of smuggling in some booze. People will start skipping behemoths like Glastonbury, as it is rubbish and a bit samey anyway. We spent most of the festival at the campsite watching people trying to do handstands.
The long and the short of it is that during a time when more than ever before, more music is being created, listened to, carried, watched and moshed to, never has it been more impossible to make a living from it.
Which, unfortunately, was what I did up until up until now. Bah Humbug.
More reasons to be Christmassy
Written by: Hugh Platt
Did you come to the big Music Towers ‘Oh Christmas!’ party last night? It was amazing. The police turned up. There was blood everywhere. People danced till they hurt, and everyone who could get sexy, got sexy. Jon Bon Jonas and Death & Glory stole the night with a sing-a-long ‘Love Hurricane’, and John Doran of The Quietus and our faves, Beef Warehouse, kept the tunes spinning till late, late doors. If you missed it, then you are an idiot.
But hey, the real reason I’m bothering you this evening is to let you know of the recession-busting sale going on at Xtra Mile Recordings. They’re knocking a shocking 20% - TWENTY BLOODY PERCENT - off some of their records till December 18. Included in this sweet little Xmas shopping shortcut are Million Dead, Lights Action, Reuben, Jonah Matranga and Frank Turner. That’s him in the picture up there. He’s got a new single out, ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ which those of you with magic radio boxes might’ve heard aready. We tupping love it here at Music Towers.
Watch the video for ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ by Frank Turner:
Frank Turner is also touring the fuck out of 2009 - he’s all over the place alternately with The Levellers, The Gaslight Anthem, and Anti-Flag. You ought to buy some ticket - BEAT THE RECESSION!
Something For The Weekend: The Tunics
Written by: Hugh Platt
Music Towers got mugged after getting off a nightbus once. We were coming back from DJ’ing at some shindig or another, and had a big box of weird records with us. We got off at our usual stop in North London, and a pair of goodofrnothing thundercunts threatened us with knives. EL BASTARDOS. We later found a lot of our lost recrods in a nearby hedge. Apparently our collection of Shellac records wasn’t what the little oiks were looking for. Perhaps they expected more macho chav music?
Anyway, we’re not looking for sympathy, we’re bringing it up as it meant that ‘The Cost Of Living’ by The Tunics struck a chord with us. The Croydon 3-piece are releasing it as a single on Monday through Manta Ray Music, and we thought it was a perfectly good track for our Something For The Weekend selection.
Watch the official video to ‘The Cost Of Living’:
The band’s debut album gets a full release on January 2nd. Worth picking up when you’re off credit crunching those January sales, we think.
VIDEO: Joe Gideon and the Shark - ‘Daughter of a Loony’
Written by: David Harrison
Bronzerat Records seem to be really drudging up the best in sleazey lo-fi rock’n'roll right now. They’cw just finished this ace video for Joe Gideon and the Sharks’ track, ‘Daughter of a Loony (DOL)‘. This is the kind of song that makes me want to put a band together, rustle up a video, then just put it out into the world for one man and his dog to look at.
Joe Gideon and the Shark - ‘DOL’
Office Parties: OUT. Rock’n'roll parties: IN
Written by: Hugh Platt
We love Christmas here at Music Towers. We’re running a video advent calender at the moment up there in the video box - go on, look up and to your right a little bit. Every five days we’re going to collect them all so you can catch any that you’ve missed. Think of it as an early Xmas present.
Speaking of which, Christmas is also the time for parties. We’ve all been to office parties before, and I think we can all agree that they suck harder than an elephant given a bowling ball-sized gobstopper. You get drunk with people you wouldn’t normally socialise with even at the barrell of a gun, eat some stale crisps, get off with that girl from accounts, and pass out on the bus home and are late for work the next day becasue you woke up at the bus station in Ealing with a hangover that rates alongside Hurricane Katrina in the damage-stakes.
Well, we here at Music Towers want to put a stop to Bad Christmas Parties. So much so that we’re throwing one of our own. On December 11 - next week, calendar fans - alongside our friends Beef Warehouse (that’s them there in the picture up at the top) and BigSexyLand, we’ll be throwing a FREE party over at new venue, South Of The Border. It’s right in the heart of Shoreditch, mere minutes walk from Liverpool St Station and Old Street tube. If you’re going to be about next Thursday, drop us an email to david at musictowers dot com to RSVP!
I have a band, a myspace page, now what?
Written by: David Harrison
So you have written some bitchin’ songs, made a MySpace page, and maybe even bought a domain name. You’ve had a few local gigs – but what now? Well, it’s going to cost you a bit of money, and a lot of time.
1. Organise your mailing – even if it is just one from your Outlook Express. Allow people to get on it. You can use a lot of third-party solutions such as Yahoo Groups / Wufoo / Icontact Zookoda - whatever service you feel is suitable for your costs or project.
2. Don’t over-plug your projects - people get very bored if just signed up to you out of politeness. Ask them to add you to their Safe List, as otherwise you’ll end up in the SPAM box.
3. Make your own webpage that isn’t MySpace – you don’t know how?
4. Use blogger.com and post news regularly. Link to friends’ websites, and ask nicely if they will link to you in return. If you feel the need, let a few free tracks to get out.
5. If Blogger does not ‘do’ enough for you – use Drupal and an automatic install of it on Machine Networks for £3.50 a month. Sony use Drupal for their artist websites, and The Onion use it for their very popular news site. Wordpress and Joomla are other alternative free content management systems to consider, this page is a Wordpress page.
6. Install Google Analytics on your page – this will let you find out why, when, and how people use your website. It sounds fancy is actually easy-peasy, and will help you in the long run.
7. Find some relevant music blogs, and/or aspiring writing people to review your work. To your face, usually everyone will tell you they like your work. If they have to put their opinion into words with their name in the byline, they may not be so inclined to be gracious.
8. Everybody still loves it? The record is still the best thing the world hasn’t heard? Excellent.
9. Are you sure? If you push your band before you are ready, you can garner black marks next to your name for years, as people remember “oh, that band from ages ago? They suck!”. Oh, still cool you are? Let’s go then.
Don’t hate the Media; become the Media
9. Channel 4 Slash music / Bebo / Trig / Moblog / Sellaband / Slice The Pie / YouTube / Yahoo 360 / Upcoming / Last.Fm / www.scoutr.co.uk / musicnation.com / Facebook….
There are a million social and music networks out there. None will make you famous, but they all can contribute to awareness about, and drive traffic to, your precious project.
Make sure they all link to each other (that’s how Search Engines work). Ideally, if you can use RSS feeds from your Blogger/Drupal page to do that it will save you updating them manually.
10. Post any cool articles about yourselves onto Digg / Shoutwire / Technorati / Del.icio.us or similar.
11. Register with the http://music.podshow.com/ Get any airplay? Blogs say nice things? Quote them on your website. Tell all the Podcasts where they can buy your stuff.
12. Get a mate to write a review on Playlouder.com / DazedDigital / Bizot.ch or similar contributed editorial websites.
13. Register your tracks on www.Last.Fm. Play them a few times. Make sure your friends that use Last FM have copies and play them a few times. If you have a budget you can force a 1000 plays on people for a £100.
14. If you have got this far, then you seem to be taking this whole thing seriously. Well done
15. Sign up for My MCPS/PRS / myPPL / www.catcouk.com / and go get yourself some ISRC numbers (congratulations, you just made yourself a record label). Make sure that these ISRC numbers are in all your records and the outlets that sell send them on, as that is how the charts are made.
16. Want more info about making a label? Check here: http://www.bemuso.com
17. Set up and Indiestore page – put a couple of tracks up for sale, and throw one in for free. Make sure your Myspace / Indiestore / Homepage all have relevant links to each other.
The Dark Arts of Distribution
18. Okay, this is all very well, but we want to see our releases on iTunes and on Amazon. These companies do aggregated distribution for independent artists, and it will cost you a bit more. If you were Radiohead, you could cut a deal…but you aren’t as famous as them, so you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way:
www.dittomusic.com
http://www.emubands.com/
http://advantage.amazon.co.uk/
http://www.cdbaby.com/
19. Okay, you want your releases in local record shops. Ask them about stocking them on a sale and return basis. Keep an Excel spreadsheet of your distribution.
20. Don’t understand Excel? Find a manager that does, and love him for it. Offer to pay him and hope he says ‘no’.
21. HMV: you want our releases in HMV round the country… erm I must confess I don’t know how to do that.
Some of the distributors that feed into them are: Vital:Pias / Pinnacle / Cargo.
Call them up, ask them questions, and prepare to be ignored.
I know from previous experience, when I have said we are expecting to sell 2000 copies of a release, they still don’t get back to me. It is tough for them. It’s only if you can guarantee you are going to flog 20k records, ask them for an advance.
22. By now your marvellous Record is stocked with main online retailers. Logged with MCPS / PRS / your performances are on PPL. Everything is in place.
23. Read this Radio Play guide: http://www.tomrobinson.com/writing/radioplay.htm and do what Tom Robinson says.
24. Make some printed CDRs in see-through sleeves, with very simple details of the tunes with the release date on it. These are good for promotions. If you want to sell to the public you will have to get some nice ones made (don’t use the Impact font or I will send assasins to kill you).
. Send it to radio stations, hand-picked and hand-written like that Tom Robinson said.
26. If you can’t come up with a suitably controversial publicity stunt, how about calling up the radio and requesting your own track, that you know they have as you sent it in? Just don’t tell them that you’re in the band.
27. Press: there’s a lot to be said about understated presentation. Club together with some like minded bands and pretend you have a press company. Copy the format of this Duffy Press Release (Congratulations you have a Press Company - charge for it!). Politely nudge and convince writers that they like they are onto a winner if they cover this band, and offer to do some interviews.
Find the review writers of magazines, email them and ask for a contact address to send them a promo. Then send on your CDs. Be subtle and charming.
28. Web Traffic: use digg / shoutwire / blogs / if you have a show make sure you are linked too. Get the blogs that cover you to link to you. Ask the indie music sites if they take advertising? Might only cost you £30 here and there.
They say that money is the live show
29. Can’t get gigs? Book your own shows you will make/lose more money if they work that way. Makes sure you can make them more of an experience and get known for good parties, rather then be on that 8:00pm 20-minute slot where you’ll be playing to the barstaff and that guy sweeping up.
Use wegottickets.com to sell tickets they are independent ticket agent.
There are always ailing pubs that want a few people in.
DON’T label things as showcases – it is very pretentious.
DO build a scene without exploiting your friends.
DON’T stick stickers in the toilet there is an ancient curse that it means your band is sh**t.
30. Approach some promoters of new band nights, and arrange to have a few gigs here and there. Send the listings to Gigs@PAentertainment.com and/or clubs@paentertainment.com . The promoter should be doing this, but they might not. This is the universal organisation that flogs gig listings to the newspaper websites.
31. If you have made a CD or T-shirts. TAKE THEM TO THE GIG AND SELL THEM. Chances are you will make more money from them then the show.
32. But you want to get some good support slots?
For that you need an agent, but they aren’t going to be convinced until they think there is a load of money and success behind it. Generally all agents will only take on a project if a label or significant press is behind it.
Find a band that you would suit a support, and find out who is their agent is, and approach someone in their company, asking if they have any slots to fill - local or otherwise. You will only get £50 though, even if it is at Wembley – but you will sell merch.
X-Ray | Coda | Helter Skelter | Itb | Primary | The Agency | CAA | William Morris will probably cover most bands between them.
33. Try and get on festival bills…it doesn’t have to be Glastonbury or Reading, these days there are a million and one smaller festivals around and they need bands to fill their stages. Approach promoters in advance (not just when it starts to get sunny and you fancy playing outside) – they often book 9 months in advance.
Publishing
34. Registering with the PRS and PPL is the grounding for this. All your monies from Radio Play, TV, Films, etc, around the world will be fed through these guys. If you are not registered, you won’t got anything. It’s that simple.
35. Take PRS forms with when you perform, and send them off yourself. If you know any DJs, get them to include some of your tracks in their PRS playlists.
36. Sync: Now is the time to exploit the family and friends. Use yourcontacts. Anyone work in advertising / TV / Films? Send them copies of CDs, with a concise biog of your press and radio play. Don’t harass them, but do find out if they listened to it.
Now this is possibly the most important one. If you can get your tune on a big advert, you could expect anywhere from £20-60 grand. That is bigger then most record deals you are likely to get.
37. Are you now saying something like “I can’t believe that we did all that and haven’t had any sort of break yet!”
Or maybe “No label is interested / No publishing company got in touch / No magazine ever covered us / No Agent ever replied / we never sold any downloads” or similar?
38. Maybe you are just not good enough. If you did all that, then you should have a press company and a small record label by now and have learnt how to make search-friendly websites from scratch. Maybe your skills weren’t meant for the stage?
39. Maybe your sound isn’t in fashion (it happens)? It took Pulp ten years to get a record deal. Work out how much you are prepared to put into this project, in both time and money, before calling it day.
This list isn’t complete
40. “You left out a lot information about Merchandise / Publishing / Tour supports / Branding / Compilations / Video Promotions / Web Animation….” Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes I get the idea - this list is a work-in-progress, and I have tried to write about things I have done.
VIDEO: The Gaslight Anthem - ‘Old White Lincoln’
Written by: Hugh Platt
Last month we mentioned that The Gaslight Anthem had a new single, ‘Old White Lincoln’, coming out to co-incide with their December mini-tour, but didn’t have a video for it. Well, we do now, so have a gander:
The video for ‘Old White Lincoln’ by The Gaslight Anthem:
Speaking of tours, the band are coming back in February and March for a proper jaunt around the UK, so if you miss them this week, you’ll still be able to catch them in a couple of months time if you’re as taken by their The Boss-esque rock. You want tickets? Then click here, dear readers.
December
3 - Glasgow, Garage
4 - Manchester, Academy 3
5 - London, LA2
February
2 - Portsmouth @ Wedgewood Rooms
3 - Birmingham @ Academy
4 - Manchester @ Academy 2
5 - Bristol @ Academy 2
6 - Brighton @ Concorde
8 - London @ Shepherds Bush Empire (NME Awards Show)
March
2 - Norwich @ Waterfront
3 - Nottingham @ Rock City
4 - Dublin @ The Academy
Another Short Call Show: BISHI
Written by: David Harrison
So you can’t afford Manu Chao, but still want some continent-crossing modern masterpieces in the next week? Well, Bishi is playing the Camden Monarch on December 10, and it’s only £4 with a flyer.
The Monarch used to be the Moon Under Water or somesuch, but it will be home to Bishi next month as she celebrates a year that has seen her wangle her way onto Jonathon Ross, The Culture Show and Des O’Conner Tonight. Yes, DES O’CONNOR TONIGHT.
She is trying out her new material on the sssh, so pop along and have a look.