Dark Days Ahead

You can only worry about money for so long before you accept that you’re just going to be broke for the forseeable future and put your mind to feeling happy for a change. Someone asked why I was so grumpy today. Haha, maybe I’ve just got that kind of face. But I do stop functioning after too many early mornings and unfortunately I come to life after dark (the witching hour and all that) which makes for a combination that is starting to exhaust me. My exhaustion, I am sure, could easily be construed as grumpiness! I haven’t made any Coosticks music for a while, but its coming. I’ve recently found out that an old friend is somewhat of a computer whiz and keen to help our online presence become a bit more successful, I am playing in another band for fun (and perhaps money before too long) and I’m back on it come January the 1st with the Coo, so things aren’t as dark as tonight is trying to insist.

The Beauty Of Mr G

We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, but oh god, sometimes the green mile seems so long.

I love Thomas Newman’s music. It hits me somewhere inside where I’m out of control.

22 Dreams

I don’t believe in the X Factor, the programme, or the definition of someone having said X Factor. The X Factor is so much more difficult to define than a teenager with a wacky haircut and the latest warble to be deemed fashionable by multi-millionaires with a heartfelt passion for a certain part of the music business (that being the business part!)

 I read an interesting article about getting a thousand loyal fans in order to make your musical career sustainable. May not seem like a lot of people but it really is. If you play to 100 people in a night, I reckon 10% will take an interest/compliment you/want to know more. Of those 10, probably 10% will take it further. Therefore, if my maths serve, 1000 gigs will get you 1000 fans, if you’re lucky and work like a lunatic.

But if you’re a teenage desperate who has made it to the big X Factor shows, it’s all there. You do passable, sometimes terrible, occasionally great versions of karaoke favourites, thus appealing to the watching masses music-wise. You’ve already bypassed the need to connect socially with prospective fans via the internet or by other means because your emotional rise to the top has been documented in the series, plus you’ll be splattered all over the tabloids so everyone already feels a connection with you. If you win your CD makes it into the record shop and onto the interweb thanks to the all powerful machine backing you up. If you’re a runner up there’s still a chance your album will make it onto the supermarket shelves. I now browse the CD section and see completely unfamiliar faces next to Michael Jackson and the Kings of Leon with inspiring album titles like ‘This Time’ and ‘Believe’ with one new formulaic song and 10 cover versions. It’s a brilliant setup – genius! It totalIy bypasses the uncertainty of where your next fan is coming from. I’m not belittling the people who make it to the finals – it is immensely hard work performing in any way. I also applaud the makers and the panel for creating something that draws people in, gets the whole nation debating and on the edge of their seats and makes them lots of money whilst bringing some young hopeful’s dream to fruition for a month or two.

 The only problem I have with this fruitful setup is with the other side of the music business – the music side. I briefly saw a panel show, Xtra Factor or something and Joss Stone was commenting about the programme being all about the singing. It’s not. It’s about drama. It’s about ‘is Cheryl going to cry this week?’; ‘is Louis going to walk out again?’; ‘is one of the contestants going to swing for Cowell?’ The panel are the only real celebrities on the show, the only famous ones, and probably the only ones with the X Factor – in their case the X Factor being their ‘Panel Personality Traits’. Oh, and Dermot (lovely, lovely Dermot.) And it’s the drama of the contestant’s struggle, how they have progressed in just 6 short weeks, caterpillar to butterfly, what they had to go through or sacrifice to reach the final – who needs Eastenders? But it’s not about music. It’s not about a song you can listen to for 20 years and still love passionately. It’s not about a band that you grow with and love more every time you see them live, watch a video, find out they are lovely as well as brilliant. If you want music, watch Later…With Jools Holland – a programme I always, and I mean always, love when I see it because of it’s diversity and for it’s unashamed love of just watching people performing.

The X Factor is great television. And what, I hear you cry, has it done for music? Well, the X Factor is great television. 

The point of this rant? The next time someone says, ‘you’re a musician? Why don’t you go on X Factor?’, I shall perhaps reply, ‘because I’m a musician’ or I shall perhaps direct them to this post.

And to you, the X Factor viewer. Do me a favour, instead of watching it next week, try one or all of these ACTUAL MUSICIANS instead. You don’t have to go out to find them (links included) but you do have to put more effort in than just sitting with the remote and a bag of Maltesers (mmmmmm, Maltesers, sounds good!) 

 Here’s 13 bands/singers and their links that I have discovered on my travels that I love or find interesting and think you should try discovering too:

Josh Rouse

http://www.myspace.com/joshrouse

Gemma Hayes

http://www.myspace.com/gemmahayes

Sad Day For Puppets

http://www.myspace.com/saddayforpuppets

Hope & Social

http://www.hopeandsocial.com/

Sketches

http://www.myspace.com/sketchesband

Bell X1

http://www.bellx1.com/

Dave Thorne

http://www.myspace.com/thedavethorne

Matt Costa

http://www.mattcosta.com/home

Ahmond

http://www.myspace.com/ahmondband

Bent

http://www.bent-world.com/site2/home/

Angus & Julia Stone

http://www.angusandjuliastone.com/a_book_like_this/index.htm

The Swell Season

http://www.myspace.com/theswellseason

The Milk And Honey Band

http://www.myspace.com/themilkandhoneyband

Umbrellas

Whilst I do have a thing about umbrellas, these are a bit too far:

http://gasbit.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/umbrellas-on-the-brain/

Where do you go to my lovely, when you’re asleep in your bed?

Where have we been?

On hold, I’m afraid.

I was recording until I moved. I was sad to be leaving and miss my recording booth (photo in earlier blog entry – http://coostickshq.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/other-bits/) but I’ll be back to it at my new place soon. Lots of stuff in action but not complete yet. Got a couple of EPs in mind, a mass of people to send CDs to and need to regroup and attack again (every day is a war.)

But new life, marriage and busy schedules have prevented us from doing much in this half of the year.

Once we have the photos from our recent shoot, it’s all kicking off again.

Stay tuned!

G @ Coosticks HQ

x

Inspiration

http://www.creativedeconstruction.com/2009/10/the-declarations-of-independents/

http://hopeandsocial.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/advice-for-the-aspiring-blank/

Radiohead Memories

When the release of Kid A was imminent, I listened to a radio programme in the evening where I believe Mark Radcliffe was interviewing members of the band and playing tracks from the album. I also believe they played Treefingers and I loved it. When I bought Kid A, I heard the first bars of Everything In Its Right Place and knew I would love the album. I knew I would love the album even though I hadn’t yet heard it. I did love the album. I still do love the album. I like OK Computer and especially The Bends and In Rainbows more than Kid A, but I still get a sweet, fuzzy little memory of that thrill I felt when the first few seconds of that album start.

Just wanted to share.

Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene Part IV

Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene Part IV is great to drive to. I mean really great!

Hope and Social Gig/Smartie Overdose

So I went to somewhere near Leeds to see a band who I may have mentioned before called Hope and Social. I went to see them a) because they were one of the (if not THE) best bands I saw at Glastonbury this year and b) because it was my birthday and I wanted to do something a bit different. I left at 12.45 and drove for, ahem, a while to get there. It was an amazing place to see a gig. The Crypt (a real one) is absolutely beautiful, holds a real couple of corpses in it and was tonight decorated with fairy lights, hand prints, and statues of cows which I still don’t quite understand!

The gig was…out of this world! The album, Architect Of This Church is great, but there’s something about them live. I wondered when I arrived just what the hell I was doing driving so far in one day but when they started playing (and when they got to a powerful, extended Sunlight Hold Me) I realised. They all have a great rapport on stage, Simon is a charismatic front man with a great and generous sense of humour and they sound incredible as do the brass section. I got to do a little bit of a kazoo solo (not as good as Simon’s nephew though) which was nice.

My favourite part of the evening was Looking For Answers. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time and I could possibly admit that I went just to hear that. The rest of the album sounded marvellous tonight but that song….

Rich and Simon stood on the speakers away from the mics and just sang and we did the choir bit and it was f***ing magic. I could feel the air tingling! Wish I could have heard it twice – once to sing along and once to listen to everyone else.

Then had a quick chat with a fellow kazoo soloist and with Simon and drove 250 miles home (ouch!) Strange journey back – cranes in shadow, a Duel moment with a blinged lorry, Subterraneans by Bowie whilst driving past Kidlington (everyone should try it once) – and the sound of Hope and Social, Four Day Hombre, A-Ha, Kraftwerk, Gemma Hayes and more!

So what have we learnt?

Well, more than one Hope and Social fan (other than me) likes Threadless T-shirts (and they were both rather attractive); Leeds is a long way away from where I live (though not in the grand scheme of the universe); never eat a Southern Fried Chicken sandwich straight after a giant bag of Smarties at 2am; if you drive for 5 hours through the night, your consciousness will feel the way a smudged HB pencil scribble looks on a page; Simon H&S is one of the loveliest people I’ve met in a long time; Hope and Social HAVE to be seen live!

Shoe Fetish Umbrella Jousting Falsetto IT Expert

Sunday 6th September and we met to rehearse and have photos taken of us by Wendy Buckley, who is a good friend and a great photographer (with a thing, perhaps go so far as to say a fetish, about shoes!!)

The rehearsal went well, we sounded pretty hot. There’s one song which only really zings about once in every 3 or 4 times we play it and I don’t really know why. You have to kind of tease the mood out of this song. Its one of those where all four of us have to be almost psychic in terms of what each other is doing and get everything spot on. It seems such a delicate song to me and, as such, seems to demand delicate interpretation.

You know, it might just be me and the way my brain thinks (too much according to more than one person) but I shuffle between thinking we are getting these songs whilst flying by the seat of our pants and/or that we are some kind of undiscovered supergroup. Put it another way, sometimes I get to the end of the song and wonder how we made it to the end with the song intact and at others I think we sound so sweet that there should be 100, 000 people standing there listening to us. We know the songs, we are the only people who can sound like us and every time we play one of them, the mood, the way we’re playing, the mistakes we make, how much we’re concentrating or emoting or putting into it ebbs and flows continually. It’s so fascinating. There’s so many times when I want to stand just to the left of myself and watch us all doing it and see what works and what needs work and what touches you deeply. You know when you feel it, especially on stage, when you know people are getting it. The two new songs we’re working on sounded amazing!

After the rehearsal was the photo shoot. So much fun, I like letting my ego run around for a while, pretend I’m famous, etc. Bit of umbrella fencing, always fun. Then to the pub, of course.

On Tuesday 8th, I opened up Pink Moon with a few songs. The place was absolutely rammed full of people. I’d like to formally thank my impromptu fan club who I met on the night. Thanks guys. One of them shouted, ‘you better not be shit’ just as I was about to sing Something About Love which was very funny. No pressure or anything, you know?! And my honorary Pandoras who came along to support me and give cards out. On average I think it takes me between 1 and 2 songs to find my feet. Something About Love was ok. Blossom was possibly the best I’ve sung it but bloody hard coz I sang the whole thing in falsetto for the first time live. It sounds better than screaming the thing out but it takes some concentration. I did Pandora for the second time and its a song that flies with just me and the guitar. Must remember to stand back from the mic during the magnets, as I didn’t at Solid Air the other week. I was really really pleased with my rendition of this. Finished with a really old song and Conrad had tweaked the levels throughout so that by that time all was sounding extremely sweet and I felt myself just about to really enjoy myself and…it was the end of the set, sigh!

And finally, my IT skills are up to their usual standard. I believe I had previously sabotaged the Coo website’s email but now I believe its working. I believe….so please email or comment or say hi!!

Cheers

G @ Coosticks HQ