Rock Shrines 21 - 30

Rock Shrine No. 21 – Eurythmics


Judging by his space-age bachelor pad, Dave Stewart is the coolest playboy in London. Dave is the musical mastermind of Eurythmics, one of the Travelling Wilburys, a studio owner, a solo musician, a man whose life is so perfect that in Japan one year he had his appendix removed because he couldn’t believe there wasn’t something wrong with his life. He lived in this glass penthouse during the ‘90s. An article on it in the Sunday Times showed a place filled with ultra-cool technology and hot ‘70s vintage furniture. Imagine an updated Austin Powers shag palace and you get the idea. This a la mode temple is on Seven Dials, right in the middle of Covent Garden. At the time he was living with Siobahn Fahey of Shakespear’s Sister and you could see them circulating the streets, usually arguing with each other. Historic note: in Victorian times Seven Dials was considered so dangerous at night that it was said you were lucky if you got to the other side alive.


Dave Stewart's Bachelor Pad: Seven Dials, Covent Garden, London WC2


Rock Shrine No. 22 – The Scotch of St. James


The first London rock star club was the Ad Lib but by 1966 it was passe and everyone was on to the next club – The Scotch of St. James. The area of St. James has a long history as a discreet playground for the louche, moneyed, and landed and The Scotch of St. James was the ultimate in discretion – in a small yard off a side street, reached only by an easily missed driveway.

Andrew Loog Oldham described it in 2 Stoned: “You'd knock at the door and be auditioned through a peep-hole. Once in you'd travel downstairs via the twisting staircase... The Beatles, the Stones, the Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Long John Baldry, Keith Moon, the Searchers all starred in the main room on their nights off... Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards and I and our ladies would sit back in a dark corner and smoke and gloat.”

Here’s a photo from 1965, starring The Merseybeats and Pattie Boyd (the future Mrs. Harrison/Mrs. Clapton aka “Layla”).


Forty years later it’s still a club.


The Scotch of St. James, 13 Masons Yard, London SW1 6BU


Rock Shrine No. 23 – Indica Gallery


One of the key addresses in psychedelic London. Indica Bookshop and Gallery was opened in 1965 by Barry Miles, Peter Asher and John Dunbar. Dunbar was a friend of The Beatles and married to Marianne Faithfull. Asher was the brother of Paul McCartney’s girlfriend Jane Asher, half of Peter and Gordon, and in the ‘70s the producer of James Taylor and producer/manager of Linda Ronstadt. Most cultural movements seem to be the result of serendipity and a few crucial people. English psychedelia – and The Beatles’ music - would be very different without Barry Miles. I knew him reasonably well in the early 70s, when he wrote for the NME. Considering the pivotal role he had in shaping global culture he was one of the quietest, unassuming people I’ve met. It came as a real surprise to learn of his background.

L-R: Peter Asher, Barry Miles, John Dunbar

The bookshop was one of the first places in London to sell beat poetry, Burroughs and other “alternative” literature. McCartney was a regular customer. It was here that John Lennon bought a copy of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which partly inspired “Tomorrow Never Knows”. McCartney put money into the premises and helped build it. The wood needed for the shelves and counter was picked up by Dunbar and Miles in McCartney's Aston Martin. McCartney wielded a saw. Jane Asher donated the shop's first cash till, an old Victorian one she had played with as a young girl. McCartney helped to draw the flyers advertising the opening and also designed the wrapping paper. In 1966, the bookshop was separated from the gallery and moved to 102 Southampton Row. The Gallery promoted radical art ideas and radical artists (in its life it never exhibited paintings). One of those was Yoko Ono, who exhibited in late ’66.


On November 9, 1966 John Lennon stumbled out of his Rolls, into the gallery and up a ladder where a magnifying glass on a string let him read a tiny message on the ceiling: “Yes”. Yoko, in attendance, handed him a card which read, ‘Breathe’; thus did The Beatles’ second double-act meet. A few years ago Miles and Dunbar were interviewed about this famous meeting as part of a BBC documentary and were in fine debunking form. Interestingly, both had different memories but agreed that: Lennon was quite stoned, reacted positively to Ono’s artistic playfulness and conceptual ingenuity, and that Yoko knew very much who Lennon was and manouevred for conquest, despite her subsequent high-art assertions that she didn’t know who The Beatles were. (Miles claimed that she tried to get in the Rolls with John when it left.) Today, it’s still a gallery. Indeed, the yard seems to be made up almost entirely of art-related businesses. English place names can be quite literal and Masons Yard was just that – a place full of stone masons, with a large central area for the stone. Today it’s filled with the newest gallery, the White Cube, one of London’s leading art spaces.


John Dunbar on Indica

Photos of recreated Indica installations

Indica Gallery: 6 Masons Yard, London SW1 6BU


Rock Shrine No. 24 – Eric Burdon (and the Animals)


Ending our tour around Masons Yard, Dalmeny Court is where Eric Burdon had a flat in the mid-‘60s. Eric was lead singer in The Animals, a group who dealt a global Number One in 1964 with their first single, ‘House Of The Rising Sun’. They had original compositions as well (including the hilarious ‘Story Of Bo Diddley’) and starting in ’65 produced a string of fabulous hard hitting singles that, criminally, don’t get modern recognition. According to Eric’s memoir, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, “I was right above the Indica Gallery" (see Rock Shrine 23). Which also puts him right above the Scotch Of St. James, the coolest night club in town (see Rock Shrine 22). Which made getting home a cinch. And this a bachelor pad supreme.

Dalmeny Court, 8 Duke St, Westminster, London SW1Y


Rock Shrine No. 25 – Trident Studios


You’ve heard of hiding in plain sight. Trident Studio does just that. St. Annes Court is a busy pedestrian alley in Soho connecting two of it’s main streets. I’ve walked through it for decades, right past the Trident doorway, and never noticed it. Spot the studio:


Imagine these people walking towards you on their way to the studios: carrot-top spaceman David Bowie, satin ‘n’ tat T. Rex, overproductive Beatles, innocent Queen, wild-side Lou Reed. Check these in your collection: Hunky Dory, Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, Electric Warrior, Transformer, the first two Queen albums, ‘Hey Jude’, ‘Martha, My Dear’, ‘Dear Prudence’, ‘Honey Pie’. Created here.

The view from the control room: Peter Gabriel at work.

It goes on: Elton (‘Your Song’, Tumbleweed Connection, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road), Nilsson (‘Without You’), Carly Simon (‘You’re So Vain’), Billy Preston, Mary Hopkins, James Taylor, George Harrison (All Things Must Pass), Lennon (‘Cold Turkey’), Dusty Springfield, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Free (‘All Right Now’), Frank Zappa, Mott The Hoople (‘All The Young Dudes’), Yes, Genesis (with Peter Gabriel), Peter Gabriel (without Genesis), and The Jeff Beck Group. The Rolling Stones effectively auditioned Mick Taylor here, recording mostly unreleased tracks with titles like ‘Potted Shrimp’ and ‘Leather Jacket’ as well as ‘Brown Sugar’.

Three producers made it their home: Gus Dudgeon, Tony Visconti, and Richard Perry. Why? [1] It was the first studio in Britian to have eight-track recording. [2] A 100-year old Bechstein concert grand piano with resin on the hammers, renowned for its sound. [3] Engineer Ken Scott, who cut his teeth on many of the greatest Beatles records. [4] A warm sounding room and a great sounding drum area.

The studio bill and McCartney’s notes for ‘Let It Be’

The two brothers who owned the place started modifying the desk and developed a very successful business building mixing desks. They started a video company in 1973 and developed another very successful business. The piano was restrung in the mid-70s and lost its distinct sound. In 1981 the strudio was sold.

Today’s it’s used for audio post production in TV, film and multimedia. The original control room is still pretty much as it was, though the desk faces the other way. The basement studio has been broken up into more studios and overdubbing rooms.


Every Thursday at 6pm, the public can go on a “Magical History Tour” of the studio’s past. Part of the experience is hearing a selection of the hits on big monitors. Heard back to back it’s obvious that all these records came from the same room: a fantastic drum presence, beautiful percussive piano, evocative vocal sound and warm, round strings.

Stairway to the stars

Trident Studios, 17 St. Anne’s Court, London W1F 0BQ

Rock Shrine No. 26 – RCA: The Clash


The Royal College of Art is best known as a centre of British art [Hockney, Kitaj, Conran…] but on November 5, 1976 it hosted A Night Of Treason, starring The Clash. Punk was going overground and the place was full of punks, the interested and students. The stage door policy was loose and backstage was as crowded as out front. The dressing rooms and corridors were seething with talent. Siouxsie Sioux was gathering her tribe to follow up the Punk Festival appearance. Billy Idol and Tony James were about to leave Chelsea (one time on stage) and start a band called Generation X. Adrian Thrills was starting a fanzine. Mark P was working on the next issue of Sniffin’ Glue. If Punk was an attitude then Subway Sect was as Punk as it got. They didn’t look or sound like anything else on a stage [before or since]. Their complete lack of showmanship and off-centre music really made you feel you were seeing something new. Then The Jam came on, all two-tone shoes and Shepherds Bush riffs. Somehow the sharp suits and Rickenbackers were at odds with the homemade fashions and Fenders of the Pistols and the Clash and backstage they sat apart from the other bands.
The Clash were incendiary. The sound was big and loud and they climbed all over their brace of songs like kids on a building site, crashing guitars and a rabble-rousing Joe. Then a student threw a beer glass. [Depressingly, it was always students who threw glasses and bottles.] Joe threw his arms above his head and shouted ‘Under heavy manners!’ He sought out the perpetrator, who got on stage. Joe questioned him and the guy looked sheepish. Then Sid Vicious got on stage, muttering into the mic and looking well-named. A few minutes later and they got back to the wonderful racket.

People used to say their life changed the first time they saw The Clash. This was the night when that scenario began.

Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU


Rock Shrine No. 27 – The Vortex


The summer of ’77 – hot and heaving. The Summer of Punk. The year of The Vortex. Every Tuesday night 1500 punks would cram themselves into the basement of this club to see a double bill of the best new bands. You knew when a fresh shipment of Punk’s drug of choice was in town because if you entered straight the atmosphere was unpleasantly electric. Amphetamine sulphate was a 1!2!3!4! drug for 1!2!3!4! music. It cost a measly £15 a gram and one nostril stripping snort would keep you alert and charging for ten or twelve hours. The unholy trinity of 1977 was punk, powder and price. The punk-reggae interface started here, when Generation X played with a band from Birmingham called Steel Pulse. On stage it was all Rasta patois but in the dressing room they sounded as Brummie as Ozzy Osbourne. Ex-Pistol Glen Matlock started The Rich Kids here; Mick Jones was getting tired of no drummer in his band and injected a big dose of is-he-quitting paranoia into Camp Clash by guesting with Glen. Malcolm McLaren was putting his Sex Pistols movie together and had hired titilation director Russ Meyer. As wonderfully strange as Meyer’s movies were, in punk he was a tourist in a very strange land. My favourite image of The Vortex was watching Meyer – slacks, jacket and very big cigar – wandering disturbed and confused through the sea of punkettes in dog collars, torn fishnets and bad makeup. Thirty years later it’s a disco.

The Vortex, 201 Wardour Street, London W1F 8ZH


Rock Shrine No. 28 – Ivor Court (The Who, Rolling Stones)


Variously and together, from the autumn of 1964 to 1967: Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts lived here. The Who manager Kit Lambert both lived and had an office at no. 113 as he navigated the group from guitar-smashing debt to rock-opera riches. It was Lambert, the youngest in a line of upper-class artistics, who suggested to Pete Townshend he should write an opera. The result was ‘A Quick One’, paving the way for the much more ambitious ‘Tommy’. Rolling Stones and Immediate Records visionary Andrew Loog Oldham ran his offices at 138 and 147. Oldham is rightly famous for inventing the Stones, but he also signed The Small Faces. Oldham defined his moment of arrival as the point when he could decide which telephone calls to accept.

Ivor Court, Gloucester Place, London NW1 6BJ


Rock Shrine No. 29 – The Lyceum


One of the best venues in London for live music: good acoustics, wonderful rococo design and a roof that rolls back.

The Rolling Stones were here in 1969; when they played the Chuck Berry song “Little Queenie” a spotlight was shone on the hall’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth, possibly the first post-modern moment in rock music. In the days before Ticketmaster, the ticket line for The Who was several blocks long, nearly everyone a young man. The Clash and Queen played intimate dates here. At an all-nighter in the summer of ’76 the Sex Pistols supported The Prettythings. Madness, The Selector and The Specials kicked off Two-Tone with a riotous celebration in 1980.

But the reason we really remember it is for the momentous live recording by Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1975. The two nights he played were fabulously warm and the roof was open so all the cigarette and spliff smoke disappeared. When you looked up you could see stars in the sky. The stage was low and while it was hard to see more than the band’s heads and shoulders it meant you could get close and really be part of the experience. These things I remember: the dipping and swaying of the multi-coloured I-Threes, the nimbleness of the Barrett brothers as they drove one fabulous song after another forward off the stage, and the righteous militancy of Bob as he stepped across the stage, sang with sweet conviction and shook dem locks as the weak hearts dropped.

The Lyceum, 21 Wellington St, London, WC2E 7RQ


Rock Shrine No. 30 – 57 Wimpole St. (The Beatles)


From 1963 – 1965 Paul McCartney lived in rooms on the top floor of the family home of his girlfriend Jane Asher.

Lennon and McCartney wrote “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in the basement, “one on one, eyeball to eyeball,” as Lennon put it. During the three years he lived here it’s fair to say many other famous songs were either conceived or worked on here.

When Paul wanted to dodge fans he would duck into Browning Mews, which backs on the house.


Wimpole Street is one block from Harley Street, famous for its doctors, including the Dr. Robert immortalised in The Beatles song. Architecture fans should spend some time walking around the neighbourhood, it has some of the best residential architecture in London.

57 Wimpole St., London W1G 8YW

Nico – My Part In Her Fame

In 1974 I worked as a press officer at Island Records. It says something of the artistic license an A&R man could take in those times that he signed both John Cale and Nico almost purely on their reputation as Velvet Undergrounders. Cale was musically and philosophically close to another Island signing, Brian Eno, and it wasn’t long before they were partners in mischief. Completing the label’s artistic coven was Kevin Ayers, founding member of Soft Machine and enjoying a certain muso credibility for having discovered Mike Oldfield, then riding high with the all-conquering ‘Tubular Bells’.

But how to sell this arcane quartet to the huddled masses…. How about an old-fashioned revue, art-style?

So it came to pass on June 1, 1974 that the four played The Rainbow. With one exception it was a guitar jamboree: Kevin had Oldfield with him, the shyest guy in show business. Eno played the epic “Baby’s On Fire”. Cale seared the unsuspecting audience with his volcanic interpretation of “Heartbreak Hotel”. The exception was Nico. Alone at her harmonium she pumped out a trio of mournful odes, none more doleful than her bus drive through “The End”.

The event was recorded, packaged and released exactly three weeks later, a monumental effort in logistics. My role was to kindle and feed the excitement of the press.

Seven years on from The Velvet Underground, Nico still looked beautiful but her face had hardened. She wore gowns and a cloak, hiding who knew what state of body. Singing, conversations, publicity…each was approached the same way. Her interviews had journalists reaching for the thesaurus: funereal, sombre, gloomy, melancholy, monotone. Because she didn’t care about “career moves” and being your friend, she seemed arctic. I liked her.

I never had a natural conversation with her. I’m not sure anyone did. It was more like a series of pronouncements that you explored for hooks with which to construct replies. Even Cale, who was in the middle of making his third album with her, seemed to have the same conversational dynamic. Her voice was just like on record but maybe even slower. Every sentence sounded like a definitive statement, an effect that worked really well when we spent half a bus ride talking about how masks were used on the ancient Greek stage. (Yes, “I took a face from the ancient gallery” ran through my mind more than once.)

Underneath the surface lurked a considerable humour, expressed through sardonic jokes and an almost secret smile that would surface in the silences. Maybe she was just laughing at our attempts to reply.

She usually had a bottle of red wine in her hand, from which she regularly sipped. “It tastes much better from the bottle. In a glass it doesn’t taste as good. She confided with such certainty that I started thinking I should change the way I drank. Supplementing it was a small hash pipe. Often the two went in circular sequence.

Nico’s solo oeuvre was a very arcane taste. She was possibly alone in “rock music” to create the sounds she did – music was linear in those days. ACNE, as the quartet was called, did several gigs around the country and while her music was alien to almost everyone’s taste, her focus, concentration and otherworldliness always made me pay attention. My mind didn’t wander when she was on stage.

The last time I saw her was in the Island press office. She was sitting on a sofa by the door, half-empty wine bottle on the floor by her feet, hash pipe between her lips while we talked about upcoming interviews. The label president stepped through the door, not noticing her as he asked someone a question. Then he smelled the sweet fumes and looked down for a long ten seconds. When he looked back up you could see a shutter come down to his right and she ceased to exist in his presence.

Her album (‘The End’) came out soon after, but it was never going to sell to anyone who wasn’t already interested. The label didn’t renew her contract.

The Sex Pistols First Interview

The Sex Pistols are four months old, so tuned in to the present that it's hard to find a place to play. Yet they already have a large, fanatical following. So their manager, who runs a rubber and leather shop called Sex, hired a strip club where the two sides could meet

By Jonh Ingham
Sounds. April 24, 1976 _______________________________________________

THE SMALL, sleazoid El Paradise Club in Soho is not one of the more obvious places for English rock to finally get to grips with the Seventies, but when you're trying to create the atmosphere of anarchy, rebellion and exclusiveness that's necessary as a breeding ground, what better place? Name one kid who will tell their parents they'll be home really late this Sunday because they're going to a strip club to see the Sex Pistols.

The shop front is the customary facade of garish, fluorescent lit plastic and enticing tit pix, gold-flocked wallpaper and a life-size gold framed lovely beckoning you within. Conditioning expects one to go down a hall or some stairs but the minute you turn the corner you're there. A small room 20 to 30 feet long, bare concrete floor, a bar at one end, three and a half rows of broken down cinema seats. The other rows seem to have been bodily ripped out. It's an unexpected, shocking sight at first, but after it gets comfortable the thought occurs that perhaps it's not sleazy enough. It needs more black paint peeling from the sweating walls, a stickier floor . . .

With luck the second gathering occurred there last Sunday (the Maltese landlords can be a little difficult to unearth). The first such gathering accumulated entirely by word of mouth, and by midnight the joint was jumping.

Flared jeans were out. Leather helped. All black was better. Folks in their late twenties, chopped and channelled teenagers, people who frequent Sex, King's Road avant leather, rubber and bondage clothing shop. People sick of nostalgia. People wanting forward motion. People wanting rock and roll that is relevant to 1976.

At the moment, that criteria is best embodied in the Sex Pistols. They fill the miniscule, mirror-backed stage, barely able to move in front of their amps. They are loud. They are fast. They are energetic. They are great.

Coming on like a Lockheed Starfighter is more important to them than virtuosity and sounding immaculate. This quartet has no time for a pretty song with a nice melody. Guitarist Steve Jones doesn't bother much with solos, preferring to just pick another chord and power on through. ("There's two reasons for that - I can't play solos and I hate them anyway." As he said that, 'I'm Mandy, Fly Me' came on the juke box and we agreed the only good thing in it was the solo.)

But imitating the roar of the Industrial Age doesn't mean they're sloppy. Although earlier reports reckoned their time keeping somewhat off, to the point of cultivating an ethic of them being so bad they were good, Glen Matlock (bass) and Paul Cook (drums) seem to have the beast on the rails and in this stripped down form the beat is where it's at. One also has to remember that the Sex Pistols has only existed professionally since Christmas and that Steve has only played guitar for five months.

With inaudible lyrics the music is very similar from song to song but a cranial trigger says, that song is great (applaud) but that one is just okay (don't applaud). Everyone else seems to think similarly. Which annoys singer John Rotten endlessly. "Clap you fuckers. Because I m wasting my time not hearing myself." He begins a slow handclap; about three people join in.

John is a man who likes to confront his audience, not to mention the rest of the band. It's this Stooges-like aura of complete unpredictability and violence that gives the Sex Pistols that extra edge. Paul reckons the broken glass attitude will only disappear when they get as old as Pete Townsend and just do it for the money.

The Pistols' roots lie with Paul and Steve who left school with a healthy desire to avoid work. The obvious alternative was rock even though neither could play an instrument. Their musical models were the Stones and the Who and the early Small Faces, which doesn't say much for Seventies rock, and was a reason for starting a band.

Out of the last six years, Steve rates the Stooges. Paul admits to being fooled by Roxy Music for three albums. Later he added Todd Rundgren. "Yeah, there's what acid does to you," retorted Steve, adding proudly, "There's no drugs in this group."




Glen joined and they staggered on for a year, learning a Who/Small Faces repertoire ("but that didn't get us anywhere"), buying their threads from Sex and bugging Malcolm, the owner, to manage them. Having already spent seven months in New York handling the New York Dolls he wasn't too interested but he helped them a bit and they kept bugging and, well, London could do with a Seventies rock band.

Malcolm decided that Steve was hopeless as a singer, got him to learn guitar and the search was on. Into Sex walks John, who couldn't sing but looked the part. They tried to audition in the conventional manner, but finally settled on standing him in front of the shop's jukebox, telling him to pretend he was on stage.

John had never even considered joining a band.

We're sitting in a tacky pub in Charing Cross Road. Until now John has been sitting politely, looking a bit bored while I talk to the others. He's wearing the ripped up red sweater he wears on stage, a safety pin dangles from a thin gold ring in his right ear lobe. So how come you're doing it John?

The intensity level immediately leaps about 300 percent. He looks manic. "I hate shit. I hate hippies and what they stand for. I hate long hair. I hate pub bands. I want to change it so there are rock bands like us."

This is delivered at full tirade, with a sneer to match the voice. He clocks my earring, the five weeks laziness straggling across my cheeks and chin and the sneer and the direct-eye blitz never stops. I'm inadvertently thinking 'Gosh, I'm not a hippie now - that was a childhood error,' and I never was one in the first place. The kid's got style. You know what end of a switchblade he would have been on in 1956. I'd love to be present when the middle-aged boogers who pass for rock critics on the national papers finally confront him.

But John's just warming up.

"I'm against people who just complain about Top Of The Pops and don't do anything. I want people to go out and start something, to see us and start something, or else I'm just wasting my time."

This last phrase is a favourite. He says it with just the right amount of studied boredom.

The Pistols found their first public by gatecrashing gigs, pulling up and posing as the support band. At the North East London Poly they succeeded in emptying the room, the same stylish feat being Shep Gordon's reason for signing up Alice Cooper. At St. Albans, where they supposedly played one of their worst gigs, they were asked back again.

In London they rapidly depleted themselves of potential venues. For a start they wouldn't play pubs.

Malcolm: "The trouble with pubs is that they're bigger than the bands. They're all full of people playing what a crowd wants rather than what they want because they can make a reasonable living from it. If you want to change things you can't play pubs. You don't have the freedom."

Paul: "The trouble with pubs is you have to please everybody If we wanted to please everybody we'd end up sounding like the Beatles."

That left the Marquee, 100 Club, and the Nashville. Eddie and the Hot Rods asked them to support at the Marquee. It was the first time they had ever used monitors and hearing themselves caused a slight o.d., John leaping into the audience and the others kicking the monitors about.

In the light of what the Pistols consider the Hot Rods' over-reaction to the incident, the group insist they did little damage to anything that wasn't theirs. They've also written a song on the matter.

I think the photos speak for the particular violence of the 100 Club gig, but the band and the Nashville seemed to enjoy each other. Allan Jones of the Melody Maker described it:

'Their dreadfully inept attempts to zero in on the kind of viciously blank intensity previously epitomised by the Stooges was rather endearing at first... The guitarist, another surrogate punk suffering from a surfeit of Sterling Morrison, played with a determined disregard for taste and intelligence.'

Taste. Intelligence.

"Who's Sterling Morrison?" asked Steve.

When last heard of he was a university professor in Santa Fe.

"Oh. That's alright then. What's 'surrogate' mean?"

They’re going to play the Nashville again, but their problem, apart from finding it impossible to find a band they're compatible with musically, is that it's still not the right environment.

Malcolm decided early on that France would understand much better and envisioned a couple of weeks in Paris. The French promoter saw the Marquee gig, and fired with visions of Gene Vincent and Vince Taylor has booked them across France and Switzerland for May. Meanwhile, El Paradise...If things work out, Malcolm will obtain the old UFO premises.

Apart from the difficulty of finding the El Paradise landlords, the police arrived about 2 a.m. the first night, what with the noise of the steel rolling door going up and down all the time as people left. And it's not really the right thing to have a minor pop band like Arrows spread-eagled against the wall being frisked as a nightcap to the evening's frivolities.

Basically, what Malcolm wants is a rumbling, anarchic, noisy energetic rock scene, the likes of which haven't been seen in this country since the mid 1960s. Any comparisons with New York rock/club scene are briskly brushed aside.

"Maybe it's because they're so close to the media, but they're all so scared by them. I used to talk to [journalist] Lisa Robinson and David Johanssen would pull me into the toilet and say, 'Don't you know who you're talking to? Don't say those things!' My God, if you worry about what you say to her...

"The trouble with the Dolls was that their hype was so much bigger than they were. They really had an opportunity to change it all around, but instead of ignoring all that bullshit about signing up with a company and a big advance, they got sucked in.

"They get dazzled by the process. Every time The Ramones have a picture of them published it lessens their mystique. There's no mystery about the New York scene. Pretty soon Richard Hell is going to leave the Heartbreakers and Sire Records will dangle a contract in front of him and he knows it won't help and won't do any good but he'll sign it because it's what's expected of him.

"The thing to do is just ignore all that. No-one came to sign up the Stones, no-one wanted to know. But when they saw a lot of bands sounding like that with a huge following they had to sign them. Create a scene and a lot of bands - because people want to hear it - and they'll have to sign them even though they don't understand it.

"The trouble with the pubs is that they’re free, and people come for that reason. If you're at a Sex Pistols gig you wanted to go, because you spent money to get in. I opened the shop because I wanted people to make a certain statement and they wore my clothes. The Sex Pistols are another extension of that."

As for what the band think of comparisons...

"The New York scene has absolutely nothing to do with us," sneers John. "It's a total waste of time. All anyone talks about is the image. No-one's ever mentioned the music."

But there's a remote connection with the aesthetic and they seem to be trying to get on with the future.

“I like that word, 'remote'” he says real blankly.

(Is he always like this? "No. He was rather polite tonight.")

Steve and Paul deliver the fatal blows.

"They're not like us. They all have long hair."

"Yeah, Anglophiles with Brian Jones mop heads."

So there they sit, waiting for a scene to build up around them, for the appearance of bands they can play with. They look rather glum at the prospect and, when you consider it, we can at least go and see the Sex Pistols.

"Yeah," sighs Steve. "I wish I could see us."

Sex Pistols/Buzzcocks - Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester - 31 July 1976

ABOVE MANCHESTER'S Free Trade Hall is a little known auditorium, capable of holding some 400, cunningly named the Lesser Hall. Until the Sex Pistols discovered it for a concert last month its functional Fifties atmosphere had been sullied only by the strains of the odd jazz recital.

After that concert, which attracted some 150 rough tuff raving Mancunians, conversation led to contact with the fabulously named Slaughter and the Dogs. With the coordination of Howard Devoto the Pistols organised another bout, the Dogs supporting. In the meantime Devoto whipped his own band, the Buzzcocks, into shape, making for a triple bill of critical mass potential.

Unfortunately, the PA was more expectation than actuality, the Pistols sounds man having to patch together a mismatched jumble of amps to gain results. Under the circumstances, it's a wonder the sound was as good as it was.

It was the Buzzcocks' first gig. Devoto stands and sings a lot like Johnny Rotten, and indeed the band sounds a lot like the Pistols, perhaps because Howard hauled guitarist Pete Shelley down to a London Pistols gig so that the light could be seen and the course charted. Whatever their inspiration, they're promising.

Howard, wearing sneakers, pencil thin Levis, t-shirt and baggy blue jacket, is singing love songs, the strangest love songs you've ever heard. They have titles like (and I can't vouch for their accuracy) 'Breakout', 'You're Shit', 'Put 'Em Down', 'I Love You, You Big Dummy'. One song goes 'I’ve been smoking in the smoking room, Now I'm in the living room, I want what I came for pretty soon'.

It's the Boston Strangler singing the dance of romance, his face getting redder, eyes popping, kicking and punching the air.

At first they are rhythmic to the point of rigidity, Shelley – who is wearing tight salmon pink Levis, sleeveless 'Buzzcocks' t-shirt, shades and short hair – not even bothering with the concept of a middle-eight, let alone a solo. The top half of his red, £18.49 Audition guitar is snapped off; he got excited at rehearsal one day and threw it against the wall.

But soon he begins to open out. By the time they fire up a high rev version of the Troggs' 'I Can't Control Myself' he's pulling out all manner of interesting riffs and changes. Drummer John Maher is solid, maintaining a fast, precise rhythm with plenty of cymbal flicking. Bassist Steve Diggle, who has a fair resemblance to Johnny Ramone is equally strong.

The climax came with a wild feedback solo, Shelley throwing his axe at the amp. When he went on a little too long, Devoto came out of the wings and pulled the guitar from him. He pulled it back. Devoto grabbed all six strings and yanked ripping them asunder. Shelley propped the now screaming guitar against the speaker and left via the audience. Thus finished the set.

Apart from gigs, the only thing the Buzzcocks need is a hell of a lot more volume.

WHILE EQUIPMENT was changed the capacity audience posed. The David Bowie lookalikes all had the distinct advantage of looking like their skinny hero, perhaps the benefit of plastic surgery. There was a profusion of Neanderthals in stringy hair and leather, one of whom dug the Pistols by bellowing "Stooges!" and pounding seats to oblivion.

There was a profusion of homemade Slaughter and the Dogs badges, and one trendsetter sported a high-class homemade Sex Pistols t-shirt. Then there were the six rows of very straight looking people at the back who sat there very vacant all evening, even those who loathed it.

Depending on who you talk to, Slaughter and the Dogs have been alive between eight months and two years: the new order's ground rules are still being formed and no-one is quite sure what's cool to admit and what isn't. Their age is 15 and 16, except for vocalist Wayne Barratt, who sheepishly admits to an ancient 19. Their reason d'etre, he says, is to relate the energy of 60s Stones to the 70s. An admirable notion, but what this means is that all the fast songs sound like 'Jumping Jack Flash' and the slow ones like 'Angie'.

Anyway you slice it, it is rapidly apparent that the Dogs are well outside the boundaries being drawn by the Pistols. They open with a meandering bass/guitar interchange, the band suddenly bursting on in a blaze of light and noise. For the first tune they generate reasonable excitement, kind of like a high-energy Faces routine.

Barratt, who sports immaculately combed green tinted hair, is wearing Captain Blood style brown satin trousers tied at the cuffs, which brush red Anello and Davide shoes. The belt turns into a sash across his chest and then somehow into a scarf. A codpiece is equipped at no extra charge. The others – Brian Granford (drums), Howard Bates (bass), Mike Day (lead guitar) – look pretty normal, but rhythm guitarist Mike Rossi, who's so punky he can hardly be bothered to mumble his name, is decked out red and white striped t-shirt, black vinyl vest and white Strat; it's a wonder he hasn't dyed his Ronno hair cut that just so Mick Ronson shade. Ah yes, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. And naturally, Diamond Dogs.

Just how the Dogs see themselves as being like the Pistols, which is how they approached the group, is an entertaining mystery. It is said that on a local radio show they defined 'punk' as being a cross between David Bowie and the Rolling Stones. But fuck definitions, Pete Shelley reckons they're an offence just to the word itself.

It is also said that a lot of interest is being expressed in them, which is easy to see. They could quite easily replace any of the current crop of Top Of The Pops groups with no drop in visual quality.

They should also learn to differentiate between genuine demand for an encore and a huge scream of relief at their exit. It would save their outnumbered fans a lot of bother.

THE NOTORIOUS Sex Pistols, the band the promoters of the French Punk Rock festival claim are going too far – "Who do they think they are? The Rolling Stones?" – were greeted with a wild ovation. John stood there and beamed. Then Steve jumped to the front of the stage and started ripping off the opening to 'I Want To Be You', legs apart, swinging his hips from side to side. He has great style.

After 'Pushing And Shoving' John takes off his red mohair sweater, the right sleeve of his shirt casually rolled up to show the cigarette burns on his forearm.

At the Lyceum, like a nonchalant robot he'd stuck out his right fist, ground his fag out on it and chucked the butt over his shoulder, all in one fluid, mechanical motion.

The best thing about the Pistols is the rapid improvement they make from gig to gig. Finally hearing John's lyrics gives it quite a push but Steve and Glen are really beginning to rein in the power, both piling on the energy through the solos. Unfortunately, Paul's drumming was practically inaudible, but some of the bass runs were real eye-openers, while Steve was rewriting the whole Guitar Hero's Stances textbook, pulling his axe up alongside his cheek (great expression of exquisite pain), firing off early Pete Townshend dive bombs, rockin’ out on the beat with precise, soaring feedback endings.

It's all summed up in 'I'm A Lazy Sod': 'Lotta noise. It's my choice. What I want to do'.

Pretty soon a guy was doing the Wilko Johnson Robot Zigzag at high speed up and down the aisle. People near the front began to jump about more. As the band blasted into 'New York' a guy came leaping down the aisle, each bound taking him about five feet into the air, his feet somewhere around his ears.

'Anarchy In The UK', a new song, was a highpoint: 'Give me the MPLA, Or is it UDA, Or is it IRA, Or is it the UK, Or just another country, Or just a council tenancy'. 'Satellite', another hot number, has yet to have the lyrics dug out of it, the only visible hook being the chorus, 'I love you'. But honey this ain't no romance, as John disdainfully clarifies. "It's a comment on suburbia, a wife. 2.4 children, a mortgage and a car in the garage."

The closest John Rotten gets to love is the soon-to-be-classic 'No Feelings': 'You better understand I'm in love with myself'.

At John's encouragement the front rapidly filled with wildly bopping people. One enthusiastic couple pushed each other back and forth in time to the express train rhythm, and God help anyone in the way. By the time 'Problems' had blasted to a close the joint was screaming.

For an encore, John tore up his shirt.

© Jonh Ingham, 1976

We Have Seen The Future Of Rock And Roll…And It’s Complicated (Part 1)

The following 5-part article was published in The Word, January 2008. I was asked to extrapolate on how the music business looked likely to develop based on existing trends. The satisfying part is that within a week of publication, real events were overtaking predictions.

-----------------------

“I'm interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that appears to have no meaning.” When rock star rabble-rouser Jim Morrison concocted this engagingly inflammatory soundbite for a journalist in 1968 he was reflecting the civil-strife anti-war society around him. The music business that surrounded his success was an ordered world where The Doors made records and people bought them.

Fast-forward to 2008 and he could be describing the very business that made him famous. Revolt, disorder and chaos are now consuming the business and chewing through its profit sheets. As for activity that appears to have no meaning, thirty-seven years after their singer died The Doors tour with a singer that mimics Morrison. They even have a new name that’s perfect for these disordered times: Riders Of The Storm.

And what a storm. Profits are plummeting so fast that some question the continued existence of the major music labels. They respond by squeezing out the maximum cash they can extract, increasingly from outside businesses that sense huge opportunities and will keep experimenting until they find what works or their cash runs out. Driving almost everything is the concept that music is free. It just won’t go away. But someone has to pay for it, so who?

Canadian musicians think it should still be you. They propose a $5 monthly levy on every Internet and wireless account in the country to pay for music downloading, much as we pay a TV license fee or pay TV subscription. Many companies are relying on advertisers to be the new paying customer. We 7 gives away music with an ad attached, which disappears after a month. Companies such as iMeem and Last.fm try to build audiences of many millions so that advertising volume will pay the bills.

But why pay for a banner ad if you can be a patron of the arts? That’s Nokia’s approach (they invented the ringtone after all) with their new Comes With Music service. From mid-2008 certain Nokia phones will be able to download all the music the owner wants for one year without paying for it, after which he can keep the music.

Not even old-fashioned music selling is immune from new ideas. The self-release of Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ album last October as both a pay-your-own-price download and an expensive boxed disc had everyone wondering if this was the new album-buying model. It looked so good a concept that Cliff Richard released his new album as a sliding price download – it gets more expensive the more people buy it.

Are these the new ways to do business? Sure, if you’re Radiohead or Nokia. But despite what the evangelists and press releases say, it’s all guessing. Nobody really knows because this is a brand new game. They only know that when even the squares on Wall Street have figured it out and publicly downgraded a music label’s share value, the problem in the industry is very serious.

The crisis is underlined by the continuing and deepening slide in CD sales – down 22% in just one year. Sales are now falling so sharply it’s assumed they’ll be almost extinct within a few years. But the same thing was said about vinyl records and they’ve refused to die; over 1 million were sold last year, in particular the 7-inch single, which has regained its cachet as a collectable objet d’art. In February, for instance, Supergrass are releasing their single “Diamond Hoo Hoo Man’ as vinyl only. While digital sales are growing, they’re failing to compensate – the 3 billion tracks sold on iTunes are mostly individual tracks, not albums. To an industry gorged on two decades of high-margin album sales it’s not enough.

Labels are good at shouting about their woes but outside of recorded music it’s a healthy business. Radio audiences are steady, iPod sales are up 31%, concerts and merchandise are up 4%. The latter is where musicians are now expected to make their money and it works well, especially at the bottom and top of the tree. The new groups use the Internet tribal drum to fill clubs, while all those legacy groups make up lost CD royalties by putting their animosities aside long enough to fill the world’s arenas.

What scuppers a lot of new ideas from becoming trends is that they ignore customer behaviour. Nokia’s Comes With Music is a significant development in the legitimisation of free music, but the music will only play on the phone or a pc, with no ability to burn it to CD or put it on another player. To somebody using Limewire or loading CDs into an iPod it’s hard to see what the value is. It ignores the entire history of music consumption, where every format development for 100 years has been driven by one factor: convenience.

From 78s to LPs to cassettes to CDs to MP3s, the reason each new format has caught on is because it’s more convenient than the previous one. The advent of stereo in the early 1950s is the only popular development based on sound quality; the benefits were so obviously better than mono that everyone wanted it. If anything, the quality of MP3 is a huge step backward from CDs and vinyl. Tough luck Mr. Audiophile, it’s become the consumer standard, the only file format that can be played on any music player or computer.

If the music labels can embrace convenience and customer behaviour, learn to capitalise on the new ways people experience music and stop being pig-headed, then the next few years could be an open frontier seldom seen since the late ‘60s. The “universal jukebox” is likely, playing whatever you want on whatever’s convenient - pc, mobile, or iPod. Payment is moving towards a monthly subscription and advertising income model. Those hated DRM software locks will disappear. A lot more musicians are going to control their own careers outside of the major label system.

Screw it up, though, and it’s possible that within two or three years the multinational owners of the major labels will break them up and parcel them off to anyone with a taste for adventure. Another year of DRM and litigation will encourage more private p2p networks and anonymous routing to them, making them untraceable. Fail to legitimise those networks and we may see the demise of paid recordings, at least by the listener.

The business of music has changed irrevocably. “I think the golden age of the record labels – the 1960s to the 1990s – will be looked at as a historic aberration,” says Bill Flanagan, Executive Vice President/Editorial Director of MTV Networks. “It was a really good aberration, though.”

So: where are we heading?


Part 2: Music Labels
Part 3: Live

Part 4: Mobile & Internet
Part 5: Radio

We Have Seen The Future Of Rock And Roll…And It’s Complicated: Music Labels (Part 2)

Wherever artists, business, and paying for music are discussed, music labels are an easy target for the vitriol. Everyone has an opinion. The word ‘dinosaur’ gets used a lot, as in: “It’s like watching a bunch of dinosaurs asking the small, fast-moving mammals around their feet to knit them sweaters for the coming Ice Age.”

It’s easy to see why when Doug Morris, the 68-year old CEO of Universal Music complains that there’s “sympathy for the customer” who wants music like “Coca-Cola coming through the faucet in your kitchen”.

The music industry is desperately trying to maintain the high profits of the past. “Everyone is going vertical,” says American tech entrepreneur Bruce Warila. “Artists becoming labels; concert operators signing artists; labels buying venues; managers becoming labels; merchandising, ticketing and digital music going under one umbrella; management, radio, touring and TV clustered around a demographic (such as Disney), etc. It’s hard to open Billboard these days without seeing some form of vertical integration occurring.”

This is the 360 deal, as executed by Madonna, where one company gets involved in all aspects of an artist’s career. Many executives think it’s the way forward for the business, though Jessica Koravas, European Manager for AEG, owners of The O2, says, “I expect there will be some spectacular failures as some players discover that the other guy's job is harder than it looks.”

It’s not even a new model. Motown was a prime example of an independent record company aligned with Jobete publishing and organizing the Motown Revue tours. But the 360 Deal looks modern and sexy – so much so that private equity company Ingenious is directly bankrolling musicians and equity czar Guy Hands bought EMI. “Everyone is sure the other guy has a better business and wants to get into it,” says Bill Flanagan. “But I’d like to be a fly on the wall the first time that new superstar you’ve signed calls up and says, ‘I’ve been invited to go to New York to play on Saturday Night Live. I’ll need a private jet and half a million dollars to pay for hotel suites for my band and entourage.’ Better get that latte machine working overtime.”

To those not seduced by big advances and the myths in rap videos, it’s possible to conduct a career outside the music label system. For new bands there’s no denying it’s difficult, though established artists like Ryan Adams (gives away live show MP3s to promote LPs) and others show various possibilities. The key necessity is having talent.

The artist-as-business-unit tends to favour intelligent, arty “legacy bands” such as Gang of Four. Their bassist Dave Allen blogs regularly and in November published an intriguing manifesto which can be summed up as: make it cheap, make it quick, post MP3s as music gets rehearsed and recorded, enrol the most rabid fans as marketing agents, partner only with an indie label. Gang of Four’s activities invoke the experimental punk spirit that created them. They got their start on a three-song, cheaply recorded EP that made a lot of waves. Their next release is likely to be a four song digital EP. Free MP3s, downloadable artwork, posting demos on the Net.…this is conscious exploration of what a band can be in 2008.

Dave Allen is convinced that giving away MP3s promotes music sales. It’s been a running argument for the last eight years and various studies support both the death and encouragement of music buying. Look at the numbers though and it’s easy to wonder if it isn’t much ado about very little. According to a recent study by German company Ipoque of a million global Internet users, only about 20% are file sharers. The amazing thing is they account for almost 80% of Internet traffic. But just 30% of that traffic is music – the rest is much bigger film files.

In 2008, expect to see music labels be simultaneously quite pig-headed and embrace the new reality. Though the shouting will continue over the necessity of DRM it will probably disappear. How to monetise the anarchy of p2p has been an ongoing backroom exploration for most of last year and it’s highly possible that a license service will become reality this year, with music downloaders paying a monthly subscription to legalise their ongoing file sharing activities.

Part 1: Introduction

Part 3: Live Performance
Part4: Internet & Mobile
Part 5: Radio

We Have Seen The Future Of Rock And Roll…And It’s Complicated: Live Performance (Part 3)

While Prince got the publicity for selling his album to The Mail On Sunday (who chose to give it away) the real innovation was doing a 21-night tour in one location. A fact not lost on The Spice Girls, who decided against a European tour in favour of a similar residency. Why the idea has been limited to Las Vegas until now is hard to understand. It’s too attractive an idea not to export.

The appetite to see famous bands that quit before you were born just can’t be sated. There’s so much money being offered that no-one believes these old supergroups are burying their mutual hate just for the thrill of seeing the superdomes again. CD reissue programmes have made everyone contemporary and there is no such thing as a forgotten group – even Shed Seven can reform for a tour. To keep things lively, one of the band members will dissect the tour on his blog, such as Stewart Copeland, who was refreshingly candid about The Police’s sometimes less than stellar performances.

For new bands, MySpace and email lists are vital to building audiences the old-fashioned way, one fan at a time. MySpace is essential – it replaces having their own Web site and plugs them into a global audience. It’s the artist in the middle (like Billy Bragg, REM, or Elvis Costello) with a guaranteed audience but not likely to add new fans that is least affected.

As managers learn there is money to be made from controlling their band’s online and mobile concert activities, the activity increases between fan, band and show. At the recent O2 Keane show, ticket holders were asked beforehand to sign up for band content and could then stream or download videos from the show afterwards. There were 30,000 downloads. Within minutes of the end of The Sugarbabes show at Indigo2 the performances were available to download on mobile and online (and later broadcast on TV – there’s always room for old media). The new single was promoted alongside the live videos.

The global concert business is owned by TicketMaster, AEG and Live Nation. It’s the latter that signed Madonna, enticing her with a ten year, £65 million deal that will cover records, touring, merchandising and licensing. She’s rumoured to be getting a £16 million advance for each of three albums, which reveals either the true value of music in spite of all the piracy or severe hubris. Madonna’s most recent album sold less than 100,000 in the US. Coincidentally, it was a live recording of her last tour.

You may think these companies assess the risk soberly, but they can get caught up in the excitement – we’re buying Madonna! Exactly. She’ll be 60 when this deal terminates and even a vivid imagination is hard-pressed to see her dancing and posing as she does now. Steel will and athletic discipline do not guarantee an audience’s interest.

Will AEG follow Live Nation into 360 deals? According to Anthony Ackenhoff of the music consultancy Frukt, “The increasing revenues being made by promoters means that the axis of power has shifted from recorded music to live, and they have more daily contact with large artists than labels do. I'd be surprised if it's labels (apart from possibly Universal) that get close to completing the 360 degree loop before AEG and Live Nation do.”

In 2008, it’s a certainty that other major artists will announce a residency at places like The O2. More faded glories will attempt to “do a Zep”, including, possibly, the Jackson 5 with Michael (Jermaine has already announced it). If all the greedy parts in the payment chain can agree, you will be able to buy the tickets via mobile phone. Within two years mobile phone tickets could be as common as downloading and printing your own tickets is now; the technology has been around for years. As artists finally accept that there is an unending appetite for live recordings that audience members are happy to provide, there will be a growth in “official” concert recordings. After all, do you want your live experience enshrined as a shaky mobile phone video on YouTube when you can easily provide an HD version with stereo sound?

The billion pound question is, will Zeppelin tour?

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Music Labels

Part 4: Live Performance
Part 5: Radio

We Have Seen The Future Of Rock And Roll…And It’s Complicated: Mobile Internet (Part 4)

When the last proper music shop in your town closed in early 2009 you finally saw the need to buy a Google mobile phone. It’s not as design-sexy as the iPhone, but Apple’s refusal to allow other services to compete with iTunes forced your decision. The gPhone, by contrast, is like a laptop in your pocket. The Arcade Fire has finally released what has been a difficult third album and while you could go to Pirate Bay and download it via BitTorrent, because part of your monthly online fee allows it, you opt for the higher quality available at Tesco Online. As the album downloads to the phone a screen message promotes the group’s music videos on YouTube. Again, it’s a url away.

After years of promises, the Internet is finally moving to the mobile phone and that will mean big changes for music. By 2010 it’s estimated there will be 4 billion mobiles in the world, dwarfing the number of computers. With the gPhone, Google is betting their business can grow just as big. There’s no official news yet but patents are on file and designs leaked to tech blogs.

Phones like the gPhone, iPhone and some Nokias use wi-fi for Internet connection. It means music and videos can download faster than on 3G and the evangelists say that soon not just mobile music and video downloads will be common, but Internet radio, live concert TV and on-demand videos. The only downside is the cost of all that data. Mobile operators hate low charges. Although making both texts and phone calls cheap has seen their profits rise dramatically they want to be sexy, modern and leading-edge; make mobile Internet access really cheap and they become a utility like British Gas or, heaven forbid, BT. At the same time they’re trying to be your Internet gateway for mobile, pc, TV and regular phone – what Richard Branson cheekily calls “four-play”.

In their marketing to make you a customer, operators have spent years trying to become media companies. In Korea – the most wired country on the planet – the giant SK Telecom even bought a big local music company. But the obvious candidates to make deals with music and film companies are the phone manufacturers, who sell almost a billion phones a year to a global market. “When parts of EMI are put out to tender by its new owners,” predicts Ackenhoff, “It’s not crazy to think that a mobile operator or device manufacturer may well take a chunk.”

2008 is a transition year. Mobiles have been pocket computers for quite awhile but the iPhone’s functionality and originality has made a big impact. By year-end expect to see more mobiles being sold as media players that also make phone calls. Nokia will try to become your indispensable mobile assistant, storing Facebook profile, interactive contact list, photo books, maps and music in one place for easy access. Comes With Music won’t be a big success but Tesco Music might. The country’s biggest supermarket has quietly become a very successful mobile network. They dominate physical music sales, so why not move it online and onto your mobile?


Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Music Labels
Part 3: Live Performance

Part 5: Radio

We Have Seen The Future Of Rock And Roll…And It’s Complicated: Radio (Part 5)

If the music industry had any sense of history it would just have to look at radio to have déjà vu all over again. Eighty years ago, radio was going to kill music companies – if people could hear records on the radio, why would they buy them?

Now, as radio moves to the Internet, they see some quick bucks for the balance sheet. Australia has already doubled licensing fees and as a result effectively killed local Net radio. The US music industry is lobbying for a 38% rise, which will have the same effect because even big American stations can’t afford it. Britain has a different problem.

The government wants us to switch from the current FM to digital radio and even more stations. We don’t care. Even the biggest digital-only station has only 3% of the nation listening and the City boys bankrolling the digital radio expansion are starting to pull the plugs, with Virgin already slashing its digital-only stations. Instead, we’re listening to radio on the Net. Six of the Top Ten iTunes podcasts are regular BBC shows.

If the magic of radio is built on the serendipity of hearing good music you weren’t expecting, then sites like Deezer, Pandora and Last.fm are the new radio, not to mention the shuffle setting on iPod. But, counters Director of The Radio Academy Trevor Dann, “Playing your own records on an iPod isn’t very companionable is it? There’s no weather or travel news. The challenge for radio is to make engaging content which listeners want to enhance the experience of listening to their own collections. Also don’t underestimate the appeal of talk ABOUT music. And indeed about other things.”

A further problem is commercial radio’s seeming inability to compete or collaborate with companies building Internet broadcast empires. They’re fixated on competing with the BBC, beholden to shareholders who want them to consolidate into two or three consortiums. There’s even the launch this year of C4 radio, a public broadcast competitor to the BBC. As Dann points out, with radio available on FM, digital, Internet, Wi-Max, DTV, podcasting, and mobile, “the big issue for radio is to work out whether we’re in the content business or the delivery business. Radio on demand is attracting a new audience and we need to concentrate on reaching our audiences in the ways they want to find us, not necessarily in the ways we want to reach them.”

If radio-by-podcast continues to grow in 2008, the smart guys like Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross could start to exploit its potential to create original programming that isn’t radio patter or stand-up routines but uniquely suited to the medium, much as Will Farrell makes cheap TV especially for YouTube.

The government has a problem with moving us to digital radio. If financial backers start closing down stations and driving distribution onto the Internet it will have to seriously review the initiative.

The great thing about Internet radio is that all kinds of music can find its own audience, able to migrate everywhere. The world is, literally, at your fingertips. If the American music business manages to raise license fees and kill most of the their Internet stations, a large audience will be left wanting. Once more they’ll be the bad guys holding back the future.


Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Music Labels
Part 3: Live Performance
Part 4: Mobile & Internet

Prince At The O2

What is it with old people? On one side of the music machine there’s Elton John saying the internet is to blame for mediocre music – turn the Net off for five years and maybe we’ll hear great music again. On the other side there’s Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman claiming that music is too ubiquitous – strangle the supply and manufacture scarcity; that will solve the value problem. You’d think they can’t keep up with the modern world, looking back at the horizon where the past looks like a pink tinged sunset.

Then there’s Prince, 50 years old and having a grand old time. First he announces a 21-night season at The O2, the new shed created out of the old Millennium Dome. With a different set list each night. With an after-party at the club next door. Then he cuts a deal with the Mail On Sunday newspaper to give away his new album, which nets him a few hundred thousand pounds. Cue screams of outrage from the national music retailers – do they think the Minneapolis munchkin is their friend? That his disdain and scorn for the industry is just aimed at labels? What with all the discounting they do on his old catalogue, just how much in royalties do they think he’s getting? Next thing you know, Sony-BMG has terminated their one-off deal to distribute the album. (How do you spell double-crossed?) Finally, on the fateful Sunday the HMV chain carries copies of the offending newspaper, an event so…something…that the Germans sensibly created a word for it.

It’s Prince night. The stage is in the round, shaped like the squiggle from the days when he called himself TAFKAP. The band…is that Sheila E on drums? And Isaac Hayes on keys? Prince is flanked by identical twin dancers; all three look the same height but Prince is wearing higher stilettos. He’s started some shows with ‘Purple Rain’, a fine act of hubris, though I bet he’s calling it ‘Purple Reign’. But tonight is Friday and he states his intentions immediately.

Let’s not mince words. This show is in my Top Ten. A blazing ‘1999’ drops the gauntlet in a squall of guitar and funkin’ backbeat. He liquidly morphs from one funky hit to another, 30 minutes of excitement backed by Sheila E (?) muscle. Somewhere in there is ‘If Eye Was Ur Girlfriend’, which somehow manages to be both tender and funkified. As the crowd recognise the new hooks coming out of the old ones they roar with approval and start singing the songs with him. We’re here to party, he’s here to party, and pretty soon he’s building a four part vocal call and response with different parts of the audience and whaddya know, London rocks it well.

He pulls a gaggle of girls up on stage to dance, working them, working us, working the band. He’s still sliding between songs in an endless mix of backbeat and crowd-sweat and there are moments when you’ve just about pinned what the song is and damned if he hasn’t moved into something else. But then he starts jamming on a lick that sounds familiar and a tall blonde – one of the audience dancers – moves over to him and talks into his ear. She does it again and he walks off to the other side of the stage while she steps up to the mic and damn if she doesn’t start singing ‘Play That Funky Music White Boy’. It’s a genuine I’m-gonna-be-a-star-moment: out of the audience and grabbing Prince’s spotlight. She’s off tune at one point, comes in four bars early at another, and Prince is way over on the other side of the stage with not a care in the world. She’s good, hits the chorus just right and cheerleads all 16,000 of us into the familiar party chorus. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Prince declares as she takes a bow.

He teases us. “I’ve got so many hits I don’t know what to play.” Sitting at the piano he taunts us with bits of ‘Little Red Corvette’, ‘Sign O’ The Times’, ‘Raspberry Beret’…roars of excitement and singalongs to all of them. “I told you I’ve got more hits than I can remember!” Jammy bugger.

There are wonderful moments of just pure funk playing, Prince egging on Maceo Parker, who’s only too happy to push Prince further. Then a no-warning launch into a Sinead-beautiful ‘Nothing Compares To U’. We all love Prince’s partifying but I’ve always thought his real talent is writing tender love songs; he says the words that women want to hear but men are afraid to say.

A voodoo guitar lick second-lines a swampified rhythm and we all feel mystified. This ain’t a hit. Then he starts singing, “Here come old flat-top” and there’s a roar of surprised pleasure – he’s doing ‘Come Together’! It feels like he’s paying respect to London and what’s ours and we like it. He’s playing slinky, sexy, Beatlesy. He does Joni Mitchell covers better than anybody, now we know he can do Beatles just as well.

Two hours and you just don’t want it to end. “We need some 1980s in here!” he declares and they hit “Controversy”. It’s fabulous. Prince calls Maceo to do it on the one. They’re standing close to each other, trading licks, leaning closer and closer until their heads are almost touching, pushing each other to a still higher plane and when the band slam back in it’s with white-hot intensity. Prince is so excited he launches off down the runway in wild kangaroo leaps, ripping ‘Housequake’ riffs as he bounds. It’s a moment I’m going to treasure for a very long time.

He’s still playing for another couple of weeks. I’ve been debating whether to go again, because what if it’s not as good? Then, this morning I got an email from a friend who went last night. It had one sentence: When you saw him, did he play ‘Honky Tonk Women’? That’s it. I’ve bought my tickets.

© 2007, Jonh Ingham

3121.com has reviews of all the shows.