And where to now? The dumbing down of the dumbest.

Growing up in the sixties I don’t know what I’d have done without pirate radio and the huge impact it had on my life. All those stories of listening under the bedclothes so your parents didn’t bang on your bedroom door and make you turn the radio off were all true. Our very own little secret and not the least bit dirty. All good clean fun and so much influence on my youth. How would those bands have evolved if it wasn’t for the pirates persisting in their quest to bring us everything that was best in music.  It takes people with passion to have that type of persistence when all the time the government were trying to get them banned. And still they went on until every last breath was squeezed out of them. They literally sank. Titanic radio at it’s finest and every one of them heroes.

Radio isn’t a subject I harp on too much about, what’s the point?  Traditional radio is over, it’s nothing short of dreadful and it will never attract the real music enthusiast because it’s not a platform you can any longer use to ‘turn people on.’ I loved doing a show back in the 80’s and 90’s because I saw it as a way of sharing my record collection with the masses. It was like inviting a whole host of people round to your house to share with them your latest prize find, a great new record. What a pleasure it was to hear something new and exciting and if I hadn’t bought it myself I could be sure one of my friends would have and that evening we’d share in our new found pleasures.

What we shared was a love for it ALL. Everything in our lives centered around music, where we went, who came with us and what we did there. I still wonder where I’d have been without all that. It defined what I became and somehow it steered me to where I went even though at the time I probably had no idea. I hadn’t a clue I’d end up working with people who’s records I’d bought as a kid, people like David Bowie and Steve Winwood. And there were others like Leslie West from Mountain, one of my all time heroes. What a band they were with the late great Felix Pappalardi who had written some wonderful tunes with Jack Bruce of Cream. Leslie West was literally a mountain of a man and I remember meeting him backstage on a ‘Night of the Guitars ‘tour when he played in Manchester. Leslie was a gem of a man which is more than I could say about Steve Howe from Yes who I thought most pretentious and giving off a feeling like he felt like he was above it all. I’ll never forget meeting Leslie West and the nice things he said about his friend Felix. Mountain saved me when Cream split up, when one band went there was another just around the corner to satisfy your appetite for great music. Happy days indeed.

I miss my heroes. Where did they all go and why are we so mind numbingly boring that not only do we not want them but we look up to these reality clones even calling them stars? What do they have that in the merest amoeba form resembles star quality? A desire to be famous, since when was that a pre requisite? As the old year fades is this what we have to look forward to, a dumbing down of the dumbest we’ve become? What are these standards we have that anything will suffice as long as it’s idiots doing what they do best, being idiotic. When did we lose the desire to be entertained, to want to watch something that was good, something that involved artistic people doing artistic things. Being on television required you to have talent.  They had a lot to live up to but even the worse actors of the day were Peter O’Toole by modern standards. And so more of the same, where DO we go from here?

Filed under: TV, View from the room, Leslie West, pirate radio, radio, Reality TV

No longer behind the scenes

Simon Cowell and Simon Fuller have single handedly changed the way Americans watch television. The show that every network turned down is now the only show that makes a difference. If you’re a pop act and you have a record out and you get asked to appear, then you do it.

It must be heartening for any artist to hear the stuff people turn down. What happened with American Idol happened with The Beatles, The Stone Roses, you name it…..  they had the knock back. Ponders the question, who are the people elected to pick what works and what doesn’t work? TV and the music business has become dull because of the people making the decisions. They clearly have no idea what people want. Hence we have the most popular  ‘music show’ ever where the public actually has to tell them what they want.  And then one success spawns a thousand unimaginative carbon copies. Where once we had an act that attracted an audience now we have an audience that can attract any act because they all have to do it, appear on that show! Simple really, if you want to get seen or heard you line up at Simon Cowell’s door. It’s a monopoly and it’s dangerouse. Further more they’re not budging,  not at least any time soon.

Record companies have no clue whatsoever. (It might have something to do with the fact that most of the people who work there have no idea about music)They constantly turn down what ultimately pays their own wages. Record companies can no longer sign bands because they do not know how to develop bands. They have no fucking idea and what’s worse is they don’t care. They don’t care that what made generations integrate, love one another, even give us a healthy foreign export all revolved around music. Call me idealistic I don’t care, but the people who sit in their halcyon towers crunching the numbers have no feet to put on the ground. They want to see a return straight away when  no relevant band in history paid the rent from day one. What they did do was build a base for an industry to thrive for a very long time until the pendulum swung and the lunatics took over the asylum. Not only did they run it, they enrolled the inmates. We are now fed a staple diet of stuff that doesn’t require us to ponder over whether or not it’s good or not, it’s just there. Who cares if it’s good, as long as it can sell instantly and we can get a return. The law of averages says a proportion of the cattle will chew the cud. Or is it sheep, lemmings even? It’s just fodder when all is said and done.

Where are we going, well as Bob Dylan so rightly said, ‘No Direction home’ There is no route. Over the coming weeks months, years , decades I may be granted time on this turntable we call earth I intend to bring forth and interrogate those that matter, those who gave me a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning and throw myself in to what was an unbelievable place to be. The artists and the record industry, the record stores, the bands, the media we all worked as one . And you know what, we were fucking good. Too good to sit back and see what this industry has become, a playground for the people who were once behind the scenes. We are creating immovable objects, Clive Davis was a music man, once.  There was a time when he wanted to create stars to see what they could become, to let them grow and flourish, to see them last and then to influence others. And now, it’s not because of what they are but because of what they can do for him. The ego is mightier than the music. When in all it’s years have the people behind the scenes become bigger than the artists? I don’t think it was meant to be that way was it? Who’s more successful than Simon Cowell or Clive Davis? Instead of making them (the artists)they made themselves! Simon Fuller is equally as powerful and with an astute mind, a marketing genius…….. but at least he doesn’t have a need to grab the limelight. Instead of pop stars we now have  industry stars.

Filed under: About The Engine Room, Journey Through The Past, record companies, TV, american idol, Clive Davis, music industry, Simon Cowell, simon fuller

Simon’s rage against the machine

Well, well, well Simon Cowell on the front cover of the NME (New Musical Express, for those that don’t know was once a highly influential paper for discerning record buyers. Repeat WAS) It created intrigue. I didn’t buy a record because of a review but I was curious enough to want to hear it and then make up my own mind as how to dispose of my disposable income. It was there to whet our appetites and were slavering, hungry and ready for our nourishment. Now the NME matters not and they have splashed the nemesis on the front cover. Nothing is any different from the last five years that Simon Cowell has reigned supreme and all things Simon Cowell continue to dominate the ‘coverted’ Christmas Number One. Why should anything change now?

First question, why is it coveted? Maybe once it meant something, now it’s a forgone conclusion. And before you jump up and tell me Rage against the Machine pipped him to the post for the first time in half a decade, so what? It won’t change anything, it’s an outcry, we’ve had them against wars, politicians,you name it we’ve voiced it. The public gets on it’s high horse and voices it’s opinion. Within a week Joe X Factor Winner will be outselling Rage against the Machine, everyone will be full of festive bird and trimmings and it’ll be buysiness as usual.

And so to the NME article. And let’s be totally honest here, written to get people to buy a paper they no longer care about. Because the nemesis is on the cover. Whatever you think of Simon he is bigger than Swine Flu and far more contagious. He changed the way we watched televison ( we being a generalization) and he changed the way people bought records. He got them to watch his programs and to buy his records,  where previously they bought very few records. They couldn’t care less about music on television as we can see from what became of MTV. Please someone tell them what the ‘M’ stands for.

Let us debate.From said article…

Simon Cowell believes he single handedly managed to save the industry from ruin, he says in a new interview with NME. Things were looking pretty grim before he started with the two shows, ( X Factor and Britain’s got Talent ) Cowell says and the fact that he managed to get such high ratings on TV boosted interest in the music the contenders on the show made. One thing lead to another, and more and more people started going into music stores to buy music, which would not have happened otherwise, the star says.

“The music industry was in a huge decline. What I would argue in my defense is that shows like Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor have actually got people more interested in music again and are sending more people into record stores. We haven’t seen this kind of uplift in years,” Cowell tells NME. In making this statement, he also comes to contradict other stars who claim that these two shows only bring out the worst in the industry, in that they artificially promote manufactured pop stars who have no staying power – this, despite the fact that some of those who appeared on the show have gone to sell millions of albums all over the world, like Leona Lewis and Susan Boyle.

Correct, more people did go in to record stores to buy music, but not music as such Simon, they bought YOUR music. He says he single handedly saved the industry from ruin. Again I beg to differ, he saved SONY/BMG from ruin and for that they pay him more than most labels turn over nowadays. I don’t think he saved Universal from the disastrous year they have just had and the massive sums of money they had to be seen to invest in new albums from U2 etc to look like they were playing the game. Which when all is said and done is the incessant, mindless game of catch up. He’s already lapped you several times over, you’re on the starting blocks…….No particular place to go! While Simon Cowell saved the music industry, Universal laid off a bunch of people. Where lies the saviour in that? And  next year they’ll be even more redundancies. The music industry is incapable of keeping up with him, because he is more gifted than them in knowing what the  people want. And now he has the only shows that people watch that have music on. He can pick and choose what wannabes and what stillhavetobees are on it. He is the only kid in town, the only one with that choice.

Call it the dumbing down of record buyers, call it apathy, call it what the fuck you want but nobody does it anywhere near as successfully as Simon Cowell and every A and R person in the music business wishes they had a mere fingernail of his midas touch. But they don’t . They cannot lead and they cannot follow, they scratch their combined heads and they have no answer. Simon Cowell will dominate for as long as he chooses to , there is no deposition in sight and he ain’t abdicating. He is too powerful. He started the battle and he won the war. In the music industry people used to be constantly looking over their shoulders to see where the competition was, from wherever. That’s what made it exciting, everyone vying for pole position. You pip someone, they pip you. We were a nation of pippers, now he’s Pip Central, he’s pipped the lot of ’em and they’re all totally pipped off.

Where is the competition, where lies the challenge?  He’s so adept at it now, it can’t be demanding. He’s even working with Clive Davis and Simon Fuller who also know the ropes better than the competition. ‘All for one and one for all’ as these Three Muskateers all sit triumphantly under the BMG empire.

I worked there and with all them for 7 years in the 90’s and directly with the two Simons. Clive Davis probably didn’t know me from  Adam and he never invited me to his pre Grammy’s Party. For that I am eternally grateful, I hate puking at parties. In those days it was a different set up and a different level of success. Like most record companies, they had success and then they didn’t. I saw Simon Cowell rise from nothing and I know what he has that his competitors don’t have……. belief, resilience and an ability to deliver, consistently. More than the rest of them put together. You may not like it but you can never underestimate the power he has in knowing how to do it. He may appear he’s bitching about RATM but he’s just winding everyone up, he’ll love the fact that he creates so much controversy that a nation must rise against him

The first of many rants I suspect.

Filed under: record companies, View from the room, Clive Davis, NME, Rage against the machine, Simon Cowell, simon fuller, Sony/BMG, X Factor

Simon says

Looks like Simon Cowell is about to surpass Tiger Woods and maybe the sponsors will have a new kid in town. Simon has so much money but I don’t think he’s even tapped in to that income stream yet. I wonder why? By his own admission he does this to make as much money as possible which begs the question, how much money does any one person need? How much is enough? Clearly the motivation is power but when power surpasses wealth as the reason you get up in the morning, we have scary monster. Power wants more power until the frenzy becomes fueled by the desire to dominate. One person is taking over the media, they are about to do whatever he says. Whatever Simon touches turns to gold and we are a society of gold diggers or at least the media is. They are not the miners but they are the mine. ‘Dig me up and give me a career,’ they are saying and if there is a chance to work with Simon Cowell they will. He is their lifeline, grab his coat tails and do as he says, it works. Power to invincible power.

Simon now will be looking at Oprah and thinking, that’s me in two years. As Oprah steps aside at around that very same time, Mr Cowell will be poised. I can see them polishing their silverware. What is left, why not sit on her throne?  You have proved your popularity and after all how many more times do you really want to sit through the auditions of American Idol and assemble the first two programs of people humiliating themselves in the name of fame. Famous for being talentless, allowing a baying mob to laugh hysterically and take that laughter to the pub. Film an audition for the sole purpose of entertainment. Since when did nothing mean something?

Arise Sir Cowell I knock you not. I worked with him and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t impressed with his relentless pursuit for success. It was always about his confidence in knowing he could deliver. This immovable object, himself. Nothing would deter him from proving everyone wrong. And now there are Facebook groups determined to prevent him getting to number one. We’ll see how powerful power is when that coveted Christmas No 1 comes. But whatever happens it won’t spoil his Christmas. He is Santa Claus, he’s every fucking clause television ever drew up.

Why not give him his own show, damn give him his own network, let him do what he wants. It hardly matters now, if Simon Cowell was to front a show on the significance of hedge trimming for the new decade people will tune in. He has commanded the attention of everyone, if Tiger Woods had a brain he would caddy for him. How can one man do this and survive with his flies zipped up is commendable. Simon has waved his magic wand and it isn’t that one. Dignity reigns!

Simon needs to take a well earned rest and come back safe in the knowledge that no one will take his crown. There is no one coming up behind, no one even close. If it’s power he craves then back off and watch the competition fight for pole position …and then walk on to prime time television once more and tell everyone you are back. All that will happen in between is people will write how much you are missed. They’ll talk about you even when you’re doing nothing, you doing nothing is more newsworthy than others doing anything!

I heard that X Factor, the show that did for the UK what American Idol did for the US has, together with Britain’s got talent(Remember Susan Boyle…) has just being picked up as a joint deal in the US. Now wait and see what happens. He will double his income and his net wort is already 125 million. Nice work if you can get it.

Why would he care about the next series of American Idol? What can it do that it already hasn’t done. Who cares who wins, the final of X Factor attracted an audience of 20 million in the UK last weekend when it was aired. Out of a country of 55 million or so, over a third of the population watched it. And what a time to go an negotiate a contract for the US. Negotiate is hardly the right word, negotiation is a two way thing, this is an open check book. Simon will take no prisoners, sign here I have empires to build.

How much is enough?

Filed under: TV, View from the room, american idol, Oprah, Simon Cowell, X Factor

More phrrrrroar from the Tiger

There’s nothing fuelled by speculation anymore in the Tiger Woods saga after the latest reports of an unconfirmed blonde (female of course) been taken to the hospital at 2-30am the other night. Be warned, it’s not  a recommended time to be wandering around the Isleworth area anymore.

Tiger, tiger , burning bright,

In the forest of the night

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry

The gaps in the William Blake poem could be significant.

Where now are we going with this story. All seems true so it’s only left for me to speculate, and I hasten to add I am a mere speculator in all of this. But spectacles need speculating and therefore I MUST speculate. Another nine women have emerged with even more stories and it now appears that he had more than his pie at Perkins. He might have landed a Big Whopper at Burger King and there are rumors of a threesome with the red headed quarter ponder he was seen putting on the green. Further down the road more illicit affairs will be exposed, if only because of his undeniable wealth. More news as Tiger is offered more two for one’s. When Tiger is in town every hour is Happy Hour.

I’m not quite sure what went on on Black Friday but this is naturally the busiest day of the year with many people traveling and most of them to distant woodlands. The inevitable cook outs amount to an abundant porking and plenty of skewering. We’re heading for ‘all you can eat Tiger buffets.’ It’s bound to be a popular tourist attraction.

And just when I was about to put cursor down we find out Gatorade pulled out. At least someone did….Their story is they had decided to before all this. Really well why didn’t they say so then. Why hit a man when he’s going down, I mean down. I think by the time the year is over this could well become one of the stories of the year, if of course it has ended by then. One woman going to the hospital, one woman moving out voluntarily and maybe a squadron moving in so he can put them all on retainers and pick and chose who he takes where. No need for clandestine encounters now, every time he walks to check in to a hotel everyone’s going to point at him and some will come forward to admit to NEVER shagging him.

We are now hearing stories of prescription drugs. God forbid what else will be discovered. The police officer’s report says that he had been drinking and the person who found him said he was asleep. Even I’m getting confused. What next, reports of him being behind on his car payments. Maybe we’ll find out he had houses his wife didn’t know about and then of course the stories of the love child. People will know it wasn’t me, I’ll be history.

I’m hoping I won’t need to write any more Tiger blogs but it is a fascinating subject so maybe I will. It’s up to him, I might even take up golf so one day I too can point at him. I will lie and say he used to tour manage Death Cab for Cutie.

The funniest thing of all is not only one porn star but two. There’s nothing like making a play for the hard to pull chicks. They must have been a catch. Not one but two Tiger!! They’ll be more, of that I’m sure. And we haven’t had a dwarf, some trailer trash or a drag queen. Maybe there’s some royalty, a trapeze artist, a dolphin trainer, two lion tamers and an astronaut.

I imagine he’s been to the Playboy Mansion and is first in line for Hugh’s dressing gown. Arise Sir Tiger the new king of libido, winner of the Nob peace prize.

Filed under: View from the room, Playboy Mansion, Tiger Woods

Tiger would?

As the cult of celebrity thickens, it’s fast becoming an epidemic. I’m sitting in Orlando just down the road from the once squeeky clean Tiger Woods who’s now looking like he was a tiger after all. He only ever popped out for a round of golf but now he’s got to be feeling a little caged in with the world’s media camped outside his Isleworth estate.

And now we discover he’s had more than one illicit affair. Each day we have another ‘Woodette’ stepping in to the media circus. Apparently the girl who originally had denied any wrong doing might admit to doing right by admitting to doing wrong. Could it have something to do with the other scarlet woman having just landed $150,000 from US weekly.? Maybe I could convince someone I was his love child and land a pay check? Er, maybe not…

While his Escalade  needs an extreme makeover somewhere to the tune of $8,000 he seemed to think his image would remain untarnished. His check book can more than cover the cost of the vehicular damage yet I can’t help wondering why his millions weren’t better spent protecting his image. We have actual persons deployed nowadays as image consultants and why he didn’t find the best we’ll never know. Did he really expect that by keeping quite this would go away. Yes you Mr Woods billionaire and most rewarded sports star on earth. This was NEVER going to go away and now when a simple ‘I fucked up’ statement to all and sundry might have sufficed it’s a big time headache. All the vultures are out and it looks like they are baying for blood. His sponsors were quoted as saying they didn’t have a problem with this but now as each day goes by they must be wondering that this is bad publicity. I’m looking at it and wondering how much could one man possibly lose in one week. Never mind the sponsors what about the missus?  He’s already apparently ‘renegotiating’ the pre nup. Is that a prenupshutmeup  to stop her selling her side of things to the press? And  what could that be worth! Then there’s the publishing advance from hell. Here fill in whatever you want, just give us the meat and bones

I firmly believe in this day and age of people making fortunes out of celebrity fuck ups he should have found one image consultant supremo and slapped an open check on their desk and say, ‘Get me out of this, whatever it costs, just get me out of this.’ Money well spent and money very well saved.

Let’s be honest a man knowing what he’d done and with unlimited funds to employ the best would have someone come round, cut a check and say, ‘Make this go away.’ For a guy who seemed to have it all and the type of brand sponsors fall over you would expect he would have made a better job of all this. Where are his advisers, he must have them? If not …Tiger I’m here, I’d have done it for you!

Even though his sponsors are saying they are sticking by him, how long can all this bad publicity realistically be tolerated? I feel particularly sorry for one of his sponsors, Nike who’s slogan is ‘Just do it.’ A TV ad with Tiger Woods on…….and a tag line that fires across the screen saying ‘Just do it?’ I think there might be some people sat behind closed doors rethinking their marketing plan or at least who their marketing plan should involve. Here is a brand that can, after all attract the creme de la creme from the sporting world and there are a good few few celebrity sports people that are far less maintenance. And you have thought a golfer would have been so much ‘safer’ than a football or baseball player. Maybe not..

There is plenty more to come from this story. Tiger, Tiger’s burning bright but for now I’ve gone.

Filed under: mistakes, PR, View from the room, Nike, sponsorship deals, sports stars, Tiger Woods