Where are you taking us now, music biz?

So there I was all settled  down last night just checking out Facebook before slumping on the couch and up popped this instant message. It was from Sam and it said ‘ What makes a great debut album.’ One hell of a question I have to say but what an unbelievable topic to explore. What does make a great debut album indeed?

I could pontificate endlessly but let’s face it, and I make no pretense here, times change. Understatement of the year I might add. Maybe we should give 1967/1968 as an answer , what an amazing period, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Moby Grape, The Band, Captain Beefheart, Traffic and The Doors. Not bad for great debut albums and all in just under two years, eh?

It’s not just about having a great debut album, it’s about being an artist and having greatness in you.  When I was growing up so many of the people I admired aspired to greatness and if you were a fan you knew it was only a matter of time before they reached that.  You bought their album because maybe you’d seen them live, you’d heard them on the radio and you liked them. If you bought the album and there were a few fillers what the hell, we’ve all been there, correct? But more than anything you believed in them and they too believed in you, the fan. They didn’t wan to short change you, they chose this path to earn their living and they felt it necessary to give value for money. They were hungry and they were committed, they put their heart and soul in to it. And not only that, right through the sixites and up until the nineties the record company was committed too. They would send you back in to the studio if they thought what you brought them was unsatisfactory. They signed you because they knew you could do it and if what they heard was substandard then, go do it again. It’ was a bit like being kept behind at school .

Labels were proud of what they released and they didn’t want anything substandard on their roster either . I wasn’t alone in collecting records back then on Island and Electra. I knew that most of the time I’d like what I heard. They set standards and if it was a new band and it was on one of those labels I’d be the first in to the store to listen to it. I was excited. labels got excited and the artist was excited to hear what the media had to say about them. They were prepared to be judged.

Nowadays it’s all changed. You could say no one gives a fuck but naturally that would be a generalization. There are some labels that genuinely care but there are a bunch sticking stuff out to suit a demographic knowing they can sell X amount and far more importantly, not lose their job. It’s about safety, if they can’t or don’t know how to market it then they won’t sign it because if they do they are leaving themselves exposed. It beggars the question, do we have the talent at the labels that we once had. I’m bound to say no but just work it out for yourselves, are you getting what you want or are you getting what they think you deserve? Is it a discerning audience, I think not. People growing up don’t really know what they are missing. If you’re on TV then they think you’re famous. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a thousand times, YOU’RE NOT. You’re notorious.  Rapists, murderers, terrorists and child molesters are on the television, are those twats famous? Though even I wouldn’t tag today’s ‘stars’ quiet that badly.

For me it’s a massive point of debate. Where does the hunger come from now, where is the desire to dazzle. What does the artist look for when they deliver their work. It’s a thousand questions and it’s a million answers. I’ll be back to discuss much more on this. It doesn’t seem right we stand back and let it happen but sadly we’re mostly powerless. The people who need to care don’t and those don’t never will. Feels like we’re in a minority and the force feeding to the masses has turned us in to arena addicts.

Where are our gladiators when we need them?

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, record companies, Risk, creativity, Island Records, record companies

Days at the old schoolyard

Many visibly tremble when they hear  the words, ‘your childhood will come back to haunt you.’ Not me, I embrace my childhood. As I said in my book, I was a happy child, I still am. I really don’t have any bad memories of growing up, my parents did their best for me and for that I was eternally grateful. I had a roof above my head and warm clothes, I had to, we didn’t have central heating and in winter I remember waking up with frost on the windows. I wrote my first symphony by the age of five and was on the catwalk with Briggitte Bardot when I was nine. I stood for parliament two years later and turned down my own TV show because it interfered with weekend soccer. ( OK the last bit was total bollocks but I was still a beautiful, luscious and inventive child who rebelled being an adult)

To be honest they were more romantic memories than anything likely to haunt me. In fact if I’d been able to communicate without dribbling I bet I would have blurted out that  I was a happy baby. Where would we be without our memories, and where would we be without Facebook? I’m sure we all thought there were people from our childhood who we’d lost contact with, forever. Our lives moved us in different directions and time drifted us apart. So much so that you don’t even remember until something such as writing about your childhood stirs the memory. It happened to me in the book and it triggered up a whole host of fond memories.

Our lives move at a quicker pace as adults because we have to take care of business. When we get older we have to take care of others but when we are young we are only taking care of ourselves. There’s a time and a place you’re together and then there’s a time and a place when you’re not. We move on, we went to school together and then we work apart. C’est la vie.

Over the year or so I’ve been on Facebook I’ve thrilled at some of the people who have mysteriously reappeared. I suppose I’m easier to find with my name than some of the girls I knew who have married and changed names. I kept my maiden name if only for those maidens! Suddenly up pops a notification and up pops a smile, mine. How wonderful a name can be to remind you of fond memories that seemed distant and forgotten. Pivotal moments in yourlife.

Well I’ve had the weird stories but none weirder than last week. Up popped an e-mail header ‘Penny Belshaw,’ oh My God! My childhood sweetheart, the girl I used to walk home 41 years ago! In fact she lived a little further away than me so technically maybe she was walking me home. I’m sure that must have pissed her off and that’s why she disappeared for all this time. Low and behold last week I got  a note saying’ Someone told me you mention me in your book?’ Er, small world indeed. How on earth did she know that? It transpires that an old school friend Nigel who again found me through Facebok and had bought my book found her on Friends Re united. And he told her. All the weirdest and most wonderful of coincidences.

We spoke on the phone and it was like being back at a time and a place. 1960 something, school, and walking home with her. I won’t recount the episode in the book ( go buy it you cheapskate!) apart from saying we didn’t have four children and name them after each member of Led Zeppelin. As if! It was so funny though because all the time we walked home I’d get home and rehearse trying to ask her out, building up the courage. Each new stroll home it would be ‘this is it’ and it went on for a couple of years. Lame? Nah, I think In was just being cute!

Just being in my early teens was enough but here was this sassy chick (see I remember my rock terminology!) putting out, as she says in her own words in the best way she could for a fourteen year old. It must have been killing me  because secretly I would have been terrified of rejection. What if she had said no? Would I have ever asked another girl out again. You have to remember back then we had to ASK girls out, it wasn’t a text that said, ‘You’re hot, what are you doing wednesday xoxo.) No I had to stand there and confront her and tremble.

It got even more funny because after a few e -mails she admitted that the attraction was mutual ( YEEEEEEEES!!!) Sorry I had to know at least that much after all these years. And then she said, ‘But you were so damn cool! I’d get in and wonder what the hell I had to do to get you to ask me out.’

Cool at fourteen, how cool is that! See if you’re destined fort coolness you gotta start early and if the chick has to suffer then so be it. It’s still making me smile but you know, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It’s funny to see what an outrageous flirt I became and maybe that was destiny too. I flirt with everyone, animal, vegetable, mineral. If it moves I flirt with it, it’s a target and I love it.

But it was such a golden period. I really think it helps shape you, makes you who you are. Those gone but never forgotten moments and just last week a part of my life stood still. And I sloped back to those glorious strolls home with my first true love just me and her, and my unashamed innocence. When I was so fuckin’ cool!!!!

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, View from the room, first love, Journey Through The Past, teenage years, tony michaelides

Belief and Simon Cowell

I remember each time I used to go to London for the Arista Records marketing meetings Simon Cowell would call me in to his office to find out what my people thought of his records, the ones I was promoting to regional radio. Even though we’d discuss these same records at the marketing meetings he knew they wouldn’t receive the attention he wanted because other records would be discussed too, and some at greater length. He wanted the one on one’s and who was I to argue, there’s no point working with people who aren’t keen to vibe you up on their projects. As much as he would offer his observations he’d always listen, Simon was a good listener. As I said in the book, I told him records like Zig and Zag, The Teletubbies and WWF wouldn’t get radio while he was still telling me they were hits, even if they wouldn’t play them. We were both right! Simon knew the power of television in selling records before anyone. The records he was putting out would get TV exposure, kids watched TV and bought records by people they saw on television.It was a lesson in culture, if you were on television the perception was you were famous. If it was good, crap or indifferent you were still famous.

When he moved from Arista to RCA he had a point to prove. The management at Arista at the time said they could no longer justify the overhead. They were basically saying, you’re an A and R guy and you aren’t giving us the hits we need, off you go. Considering that at the time I doubt he was earning a huge wage and only occupied a small office with his PA, Vanya that was quite some rejection. By his own admission he never saw eye to eye with the hierarchy at Arista then so I suppose it was only a matter of time. Still,  a great lesson in getting a knock back and rising far far above it. He moved out of one part of BMG in to another and had hits with the same records his previous employers had turned down! That has to be the greatest confidence boost of all,  and then passing people in the corridors weeks later who didn’t believe in you. There was hardly had to tell them you were right and they were wrong.

It’s stuff like that that makes him what he is. Whether it was with me or the head of a record company, he made people believe in him because of how he believed in himself. Sometimes the look on his face was amazing, I don’t think he realized it but he would look at you as if you’d lost the plot. ‘How can you say that?’  he’d utter when you looked at him, almost apologizing in advance of what you knew people were going to say about these ‘non radio friendly ‘records. I loved the banter because I was doing what I was paid to do which was , as much as getting his artists exposure telling him the truth! If they hated it and wouldn’t play it then why was I to blame for that? In a way you have to understand that an A and R man has to believe in his artists and he did. Even though they were glove puppets, burly wrestlers who grunted a lot and The Teletubbies, the bastard love children of Mr Blobby. I have to admit I too couldn’t understand why he wasn’t believing that these media people weren’t believing in his artists.

Personally I never saw a threat to the legacies of Dylan, Elvis and The Beatles by Simon Cowell. I loved it because he always kept you on your toes, I was paid to be accountable and I was accounting. Secretly I was shit scared of my credibility with my radio people though. I’d spent  a lifetime trying to build a reputation on the quality of the artists that I was promoting.

Filed under: About The Engine Room, Opportunity, PR, View from the room, Arista Records, BMG, Simon Cowell

5ive to Westlife

It was late 1990’s and Simon Cowell had had success in the UK with a boy band  called 5ive. My promotion company handled their regional promotion for the duration and had them out doing interviews and the like. They’d had a number of hits and now Simon was approaching the arena of ‘manufactured pop,’ something he’d experienced with Sinitta much earlier but never with a level of consistency. And he was about to do what only he thought possible, take it over. He’d seen what his future business partner Simon Fuller had achieved with The Spice Girls and nearer to home what his BMG colleagues had done with Take That. Secretly he wished he’d had that to get his teeth in to, publicly he made everyone know he would! Even earlier than that he greatly admired what Pete Waterman, his earliest mentor had done with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. Waterman created stars, in a pure pop way where he and his cohorts, Aitkin and Stock wrote the songs, produced the records, styled the artists and groomed them for the media. And for Simon Cowell the world beckoned, he wanted to create bigger stars. More of them and more of the time.

Loius Walsh who had managed the Irish boy band Boyzone approached him with the new act he was managing with Ronan Keating, their singer. They were called Westlife. Boy bands were starting to have an impact on the charts and Simon’s determination alone, together with what I already knew about him told me we were in for a full on, slam dunk, brain battering of how we WERE going to make this huge. not my cup of tea but hardly the point.

One morning in who cares when I was sat at my desk when the phone went. ‘Simon Cowell for you.’ came the holler across my office from Lee my right hand man. ‘Hi Tony it’s Vanya, I have Simon for you.’ I’d never had a problem with Simon, I always liked the guy, like I said previously he kept us promotion people on our toes. Sure we argued and agreed to disagree but I’ve never rated anyone in my life where you haven’t had a disagreement.  If you don’t believe how do you expect anyone else to? Simon demanded his records got attention and as I always I told him, if people thought they were crap he needed to know that. He wasn’t changing, and neither the fuck was I, I’d managed to survive the previous 15 years without him and my credibility was seriously being challenged by The Teletubbies and Zig and Zag. Frankly I didn’t rate them as songwriters, I much preferred Dylan. I knew he wasn’t calling to see if I’d had a good weekend. It was even previous to the marketing meeting and my hearing Westlife, so the conversation was one way. How could I defend, criticize, applaud anything I hadn’t heard. One nil to Simon Cowell.

To be continued, miss it at your peril!

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, record companies, Risk, View from the room

Cowell with the bit between his teeth

‘Tony, I need you to get them on the radio,’ Simon said. ‘I need to get who on the radio?’ I politely inquired. ‘Westlife, Westlife my new boy band. I couldn’t pretend to be excited, I’d heard he’d signed a band but another boy band? I needed to be convinced they had what it took (whatever it is that’s ‘it’!’) ‘I understand Simon, that’s my job but I’ll need to hear them and then we can discuss it further.’ I replied as a fairly matter of fact retort. Seemed the most sensible way of preventing any further dialogue, as there wasn’t really one I thought, well not about the current topic anyway.

‘Well I Can’t tell you what I think I can do if I hadn’t heard it can I?’ ‘No, I just need you to get them on the radio, I need interviews and I need them on daytime. This is Loius Walsh and Ronan’s new boy band. They’re going to be huge.’ I paused, was I hearing him correctly? He was asking me to get a band no one had heard of or heard anything by, least of all me, on the radio to be interviewed! He had to be kidding. I’m sure this was him out to prove to Louis Walsh who had chosen to sign his band to Simon just what he could do. I uttered the same curiousity, ‘You are joking aren’t you?’

I was wasting my time. We were destined for a trip round the houses by way of anything resembling a conversation. Simon Cowell wanted me to call local radio stations, stations that rarely played anything that weren’t hits and set up a bunch of radio interviews with a boy band no one had ever heard of. He didn’t think it mattered that the radio promotion guy, never mind the radio station had been allowed to hear them.

It makes me laugh now but the look on Lee and the others who I had working for me was hilarious. I put the phone down and shouted across the room. ‘Are you ready for this? Simon Cowell wants us to get interviews for Westlife.’ Reverberating across the room came the reply’ Who the fuck are Westlife.’ Oh I wish I’d have said that to Simon! All for one and one for all we couldn’t believe what he was asking of us. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, trust me there isn’t a conversation we need to go and do it.

You couldn’t reason with Simon over something like this. Never mind Randy Jackson, enter THE dog with his bone, Westlife. Just to think, Boyzone, the only band ever through generations to be a serious threat to Val Doonican were heading for longer woolier jumpers and semi retirement and he (Simon Cowell) had a grip on his babies. And we were the babysitters. He was in diaper heaven. Herein began his stampede and complete domination of the pop charts. He had previously done an amazing job with Robson and Jerome, more of which I’ll recite later, had some continued success with 5ive but now he had the one that he thought would do it for him. Unlike Robson and Jerome who took a lot of persuading, kidnapping, harrasing all by his own admission as they were successful actors and already stars. Simon needed them to make a record , they couldn’t give a toss!

Writing about this all (and they’ll be other stories I’m sure!) makes me smile and makes me understand even more what was it that made Simon Cowell different from the rest. He doesn’t understand the word no! To make it even more hilarious is that we managed to get some interviews for Westlife although we needed Ronan Keating in there as well doing the interviews, that maybe swung it a little as he was ‘famous pretty’ instead of ‘who the fuck are you pretty.’  Hell, what I am saying. None of them are pretty to me. I’d like to think though that the radio stations were doing it for us and not for Westlife or for Simon Cowell. In those days people knew who we were when you called the radio stations and hadn’t a clue who Simon was. How funny is that, if he had tried to call people directly they probably wouldn’t have taken his call!

If I had one question to ask Simon Cowell today it wouldn’t be ‘How did you do it?’ I know how it did it, like a relentless pursuit for something only you know is possible coupled with a gnashing of the teeth only a tigress protecting her cubs would know. I have no tigresses lined up to be interviewed so that question will forever remained unanswered. No my question would be, ‘Did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that you would become bigger than the sum total of your product, your artists?’

Filed under: Uncategorized

Road wars

We’ll have to see but a change is gonna come, of that I am sure.Touring cannot go on at this level.

The few that care are more scarce than ever and Bruce and U2 must hope that when they take their new record to the masses and hit thecannot go on at this level. road they will come out and see them play,but again at what price?

Can they and they afford to? Again a stark reality, who has the money. Will ticket prices come down? I think they have to, I don’t think we the public can support a huge production take to the road in the way it did. Touring through the 80’s and significantly in the 90’s and up to the present has become like a circus coming to town, the sheer scale of the behemoth. The Eagles just came to Tampa and the top ticket price was $188. That’s a lot of money to find presuming you want to know the person you are sat next to. We’re looking at $500 for a night out if you stretch it beyond the 2 hour show and include a beer or two, not even enough for a bite to eat if you’re considering buying a programme. You have to wonder how the acts are thinking, will the shows be downsized, will the production suffer. How can they take the army of people out on the road that they are used to. What’s going to give, while I doubt it they will be expected to cart their own gear in to arenas will they be staying in cheaper hotels, traveling to the next shows in a sleeper bus. And then maybe not the bells and whistle buses of old.

We’ll have to see but a change is gonna come, of that I am sure.Touring cannot go on at this level.

Filed under: View from the room, Bruce Springsteen, touring

More exciting days of radio

The glorious days of radio and the pirates seem to come and go all too quickly, but what a memorable time it was for all of us that had the opportunity to experience those rebels at sea doing what they passionately believed in, giving us the chance to hear great music. All day every day.

Sadly the Marine Offences Act became law at midnight on August 14th 1968, and battle as they did, the pirates slowly, one by one sank.  In 1968 the UK’s national ‘official’ station Radio One launched off the back of the demise of the pirates. After crushing any competition it wasn’t going to be hard for them, the public had been left with nothing.  They were owned by the BBC and they were funded by license payer’s money. Everyone who had a TV license was contributing to radio, whether they liked it or not.

Then the independent radio stations started to spring up.  Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, BRMB in Birmingham, Radio Clyde in Glasgow, and Capital Radio in London were four of the first ones.  Radio One poached some of the pirate DJ’s, guys like John Peel and Tony Blackburn, and  Johnny Walker, a pirate through and through and one who stayed loyal even when they were banned. I often find it hard trying to explain to people just what pirate radio sounded like back then but it’s so very hard. All I know is that there never has and never will be anything quite like it ever again. Even as they were sinking they still sounded as new and as fresh as the day they were born. It was revolutionary then and it’s still revolutionary now.

Filed under: Opportunity, View from the room, commercial radio, pirate radio

Happy New year!

And so we begin another decade. It’s that philosophical time when we all wonder what is in store for us. Whether brimming with New Year resolutions or just plain new year optimism everyone is(or should be ) re-energized. Each year the pressures on us all to do everything that comes with Christmas and New Year becomes overwhelming and it inevitably ends with people collapsed on the couch. I’m sure it was much more fun than this when I was younger. It was certainly a lot easier. Distance puts my children on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and much as I miss them I don’t miss the running around they have to do. There becomes a certain attraction here at hermit hollow.

I was amazed each time I logged on to Facebook yesterday and saw the comments people were making about 2009 and how glad they were to see the back of it. How next year couldn’t be any worse. For me it was a year of transition, re locating and sorting out my life, what I wanted in it and what I didn’t want in it. My first book, I wanted that and I got it. I pulled through the inevitable hassles that surrounded physically getting it out buy hey why should I expect a free ride? Writing it was the easy bit and I learned a lot about how much else needs to be done and how fortunate I was to have good people around to help the process. I gave birth! It definitely enlightened me and got me focused on what I want to do with my life. How much I’m looking forward to speaking opportunities, travel, people and all the things that happen when you leave the house. Too long had I been confined indoors when really I just longed to be out there networking and finding new opportunities. As a friend of mine said ‘Great things happen when you leave the house.’ Never was a truer word spoken. Several in fact.

To all my fellow bloggers and human beings of goodness here’s to making  a difference and to prosperity, yours mine and everyone who earns it. Do what you do best but try to do it better. Try to be decent and honest and remember the human qualities that got you this far. There will be crap, rise above it and furthermore drag your friends out of it. If you’ve had it in your life then help others who may have not. Whatever ambitions you have remember they’ll be others who help you achieve those ambitions, don’t crap on them. It’s amazing the amount of people who get that lucky break and become self obsessed forgetting that it involved a bunch of people who had the faith in them to support and assist. It’s a dreadful experience to look on and realize you helped them become that asshole. That was never the intention so be careful with who you share your energy, there are some who simply aren’t worth it.

It’s a New Year and it’s faced with new challenges and whatever you may have achieved last year that was then. This is now. Now is where you need to be so don’t dwell on what might have been. It’s simple, it wasn’t. We all have disappointments and there are many who’s are far worse than yours will ever be. It’s a cliche but there are plenty out there worse off than you so value what you have not what you don’t have.

I’m not here to preach,  just to make you think and to hope  you get part of what you want. We never get it all and judging from last year most will be glad of some of it.

Filed under: View from the room, Christmas, Facebook, New Year