Don’t be an asshole

I’ve been buried in my writings but I haven’t forgot my blog. Just thought I wouldn’t add daily …but then again I might change my mind. Part of what I’m writing is on interpersonal skills which we should all have but some have better than others. I’ll probably include some in this book which is ‘Insights from the engine room’ and about some of the lessons you can learn from rock and roll. There are more planned and I quite fancy the idea of a stand along book on interpersonal skills which I would probably enjoy writing. Let’s face it the older you get the more characters crop up along the way…so let’s not forget them, although some are best forgotten!

Here’s a little something/someone we have all encountered. No apologies if you’re in the chosen category…

The Asshole

Identifying the asshole

The music business is full of assholes. Right, like accountancy, education, coal mining and water polo aren’t and not to mention fencing, waste management and a thousand other work places. Problem is spotting them. Assholes can attract assholes too…bottom line (every pun intended!)

No one likes working with an asshole. It’s much harder to be personable and affable than to be a jerk. Sadly however, the asshole has a problem identifying this…..that’s why they’re an asshole. To them they are misunderstood, it’s others are being awkward, uncooperative and generally just not prepared to help. It isn’t because they necessarily disagree with them……. they don’t want to be in the same room as them. The appearance of the asshole at a gathering or function is not welcome, they are not liked and people don’t want to do business with them. Make you’re excuses and leave, it’ll end in tears anyway.

Lonely is the asshole

Now the asshole is left wanting, they are insecure. The asshole has no purpose, no one loves them. If they can’t realize people don’t like them then it’s not your job to fix it. If you employed them it is …now who’s the asshole.

He who shouts the loudest is often heard the least.

Those who are belligerent and obnoxious are to be avoided…….they feel that shouting gets them heard. Getting heard and being noticed are two entirely different things. People who scream and shout are probably the type who get the runaround at home. They come to work pissed off and need to vent their fury and it’s usually some quite unassuming character that gets the brunt of it.

Filed under: Book Tony Michaelides, PR, mistakes , assholes, communication skills, intersonal skills

Sell out or selling?

Bruce and the E -Street band really tore things up at the Superbowl half time show and I think he inspired both teams because they came out and treated us to a spectacular second half. A few of those players genuinely Born to Run with some amazing sprints. I can’t use the correct jargon because even though I saw the game the language they use passes right over me….not a clue what they’re talking about.

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

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

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

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

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

Filed under: mistakes, record companies , Bruce Springsteen, E street band, Superbowl, The Eagles, Walmart

A cruel Yule.

And so endeth another year, put a yuletide blog on the fire and cast your mind back. It’s a time for the mind to wander (any lame excuse will do!), a time for thought and why not. It still feels strange basking in 80 degree heat when half the world is freezing it’s ass off but I suppose some might call me ungrateful. Not really, just stating a fact…winter implies it should be cold, never mind all that wrong side of the equator crap. You always want what you can’t have though and a bit of snow would be cool….very cool. I must be old, I can’t remember the last time I had a white Christmas, excluding th dumb ones in Orlando when they have the fake snow…yeah, like they ever laid on any fake sunshine for me when I was in Manchester.

I must apologize for the lack of blogs the last couple of days but I really have no excuse, Fox soccer channel was ramped up with match after match and like I said, I was thinking. Whatever, I missed you all so I thought I’d say hello.

A New Year beckons and the challenges are there, bring ‘em on! This year was a time to reposition myself but now I’m ready to finally feel like I’ve emigrated. Managing to get my green card was one thing, preparing for what was to come I had no idea. In a weird sort of way I’m not the kind of guy to want it all there on a plate for me….I wanna go get it, make it happen. We make mistakes, but it’s all a learning curve. We weave and we wander but we, or me particularly in this instance come out stronger and wiser…….and yes I do say that every year!

And so for a further slob out on the couch and enjoy Boxing Day, or what’s left of it..none if you’re American , they haven’t a clue what I’m talking about. Back to work for them and those that didn’t have to go in may have stumbled in to the malls. You can’t but help feel worried for the retailers though and the Christmas they must have had sitting there and wondering how they are going to shift any excess stock as we stumble in to a horrendous 2009. Some places were offering 90% off and buy one get two free! Everyone is feeling the pinch and battening down the hatches. The world is a worried place but stick around, shit happens.

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, mistakes , Christmas sales, Fox soccer channel

Let them grow and they will flourish.

Today the artists are doing what the record companies can longer do , or have no desire to do, build careers. It involves work, hard work by dedicated people and there used to be a word for it, artist development…OK two words then but you still never hear it mentioned anymore by record companies. It gave the artist longevity and at the same time it gave the label the likelyhood of  re couping, and then start to make BIG money. Isn’t that what investment is, putting money in and waiting for a return?Y

Yes waiting, it’s something that you still see happen back in football in England and I’m sure it happens all over the world, and with other sports too. They have a youth policy, they sign someone with talent and allow them to develop and then when the time is right they throw them in at the higher level and watch them perform. The artists start to maximise their potential, become successful and then they see a return on their investment. Like the footballer learns his trade, plays better and more people come to see him so to does the songwriter. They begin to evolve, write better songs and become a better performer. Their doing well benefits everyone and makes for a better business. The artist becomes self sufficient, gains more artistic control and starts to make better records, maybe even ending up with a better record deal as a result of their success. Of course it doesn’t happen every time but guess what happens when it does…… it allows the record company to go back and do it all over again with some other talent.

It makes for a much better record industry and that in turn allows the flow of good, successful and consistent homegrown talent…..and an opportunity to export that talent and become successful overseas. The UK record industry used to be a right little earner! Breaking acts overseas, especially in America was considered vital in their development, a viable export and something that helped put the ‘great’ in Britain. That is something that has started to deteriorate over the years especially in the US where you just hear the occassional successs story, Coldplay, James Blunt. It’s the safest of England, it’s OK but it’s not groundbreaking………..it makes the risk of failure less likely, it appeals to the masses and it’s easy to promote, and usually you hear more about the UK acts who don’t crack America, Robbie Williams, Oasis etc

Everything else is back to doing it the same old fashioned way, by touring their asses off. Everyone who ever broke America did with blood sweat and tears, sleeping on people’s floors or driving overnight to their next show to save on hotels. It was relentless and it was ‘paying your dues’ and it left you better prepared for success, you’d earned it. Has it ever been any different?….Led Zeppelin in the late 60’s and 70’s, U2 in the 80’s…Radiohead, Bush etc and we go back to not needing a record company. The only thing a record company could do is give them tour support, something again they are less likely to do today. In Led Zeppelin’s case their first ever was funded by themselves, they recouped and made money on every tour after that! They didn’t even need the weight of Atlantic Records.

The simplest, most obvious way of doing things is always the best. Long live rock and roll.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, mistakes, record companies , artist development, Coldplay, James Blunt, led zeppelin, oasis, U2

Bono remembers

I came across this when I was just checking on a few dates before writing a blog. I was trying to remember the exact date I first saw U2 supporting Wah Heat at the Polytechnic in Manchester with my then lodger Mark Radclifffe.

David Fricke had just written a review of the re issue of U2’s first album, ‘Boy’ for rollingstone.com and it prompted a response from the band’s singer…….How cool.

Entering the blogosphere, a review of BOY from the singer who was one at the time of recording… We the members of said post punk combo are very complimented by DAVID FRICKES 4.5 star review of our debut, an album we always believed in. I remember now a generous JON PARELES review from the VILLAGE VOICE in 1980, a line something along the lines of “this is peter pan, I hope they break up before they grow up.” Anyway, as my band mates and I attempt to finish our most complete and radical album yet, here’s my why and what i think is right and wrong about BOY having listened to it for the first time in over twenty years if you start from the pseudo british accent and the little reported fact that the singer sounds like a girl, things don’t look too promising …the annoying gene is present in self consciousness and self immolation… you do want to give the singer a slap for lots of reasons but let’s start with the pretentiousness….the singer has obviously been listening to SIOUXIE AND THE BANSHEES, JOY DIVISION and a few others whose combined archness and artfulness was just too much for the freckled face teenager from northside of DUBLIN…. neither fully protestant or catholic, IRELAND had left the boy with a face like a baked bean and in search of a nonregional identity…a theme that continues to the present.
you can have everything the songs, the production, the face, the attitude but still not have “IT”… U2 had nothing really, nothing but “IT”… For us music was a sacrament …an even more demanding and sometimes more demeaning thing than music as ART, we wanted to make a music to take you in and out of your body, out of your comfort zone, out of your self, as well as your bedroom, a music that finds you looking under your bed for God to protect your innocence…

…i’m proud of this little Polaroid of a life I cant fully recall. As well as the ability to make embarrassing mistakes, the demands of a great debut might be fresh ideas, fresh paint and sometimes for its canvas, a fresh face.

I miss my boyhood.

Bono, 3rd August 2008

You can read the full reply on rollingstone.com

It reminded me so much of when I heard ‘Boy ‘ and the feelings that it evoked. I thought it was amazing how it stirred a reaction in Bono so strong. It reminded me too of how much blogging makes you miss your childhood, but in the fondest of ways.

‘For I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’ Bob Dylan 1964

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, mistakes , Bono, david fricke, Joy Division, Mark Radcliffe, Rollingstone.com, U2, village voice

Mistakes and how the times they were a changin’

What I remember from when I first started in the music business back in the 70’s was that record companies had ‘record people’ who worked there. I was fortunate enough to work for two labels who were run by three such people, Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert..the two guys who’s initials together made up A and M and Chris Blackwell the man who started the legendary Island Records, always my favorite label.

Island was my first outing in to the world of promotion and what a great place for an initiation. Everyone who worked there from the front desk at reception to the ladies in the canteen lived and breathed music….for them it was the best job they could have. Although I had first hand knowledge of both Island and A and M I made a great many friends at other labels and they too were there for the right reason.

When I got my first job the guy who employed me, Ray Cooper wanted to know if I was interested in music before he even interviwed me. We discussed what the job entailed, obviously but we compared notes and discovered we had similar tastes. I was used to talking music because I did it most of the time with my friends, it came naturally.Maybe that interest was what swung it for me, got me the job, after all I had no experience in selling but I had enthusiasm and passion driven by a love of music rather than a love for selling.

I think where the record companies benefited was through the experience of these people. They knew what to do with artists, they understood them and the collaboration of creative minds was a marriage made in heaven. They understood how to get the best out of their artists and were sympathetic to their needs, and artists invariably need! They didn’t force them to deliver records to satisfy their timelines and by a certain date to satisfy quarterley sales figures. They allowed them the time to make the right record…what creative process can produce thgeir best work that way? Nobody said to Picasso, paint..he just painted. You signed an artist because they had talent not because they could meet deadlines. The irony was that if they delivered a substandard record they sent them back to make a better one, so what was the point anyway ?

There wasn’t the huge turnover of staff either, they had the right people doing the right jobs, no more , no less. Somehow over the years record companies lost their way, they expanded, made mistakes but couldn’t accept that they had made those mistakes and started to unceremoniously dump everyone in order to have a more streamlined operation. In doing that they lost the very core of those people who made it work in the first place.

Filed under: Business Lessons, Journey Through The Past, Risk, mistakes , A and M, Add new tag, Chris Blackwell, downsizing in the music business, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, Island Records, mistakes, tony michaelides