MIDEM 2010
It was a much smaller MIDEM than its been in the past.It's still the largest and most focussed opportunity the music biz crowd has to trade and make new contacts around the world, its just that at this precise moment there are fewer of them.The Croisette at Cannes and its Palais du Festival was noticeably less frenetic,however its future is in no doubt as the French cherish their institutions and know that if you preserve them they will become modish again. So if you haven't been there's still time. My wife finally went some years ago. She was visibly shocked by the crowds."Who are those bulky men in tight jeans,the ones with leather jackets and pony tails?' she asked "the Germans" I replied."Some people seem quite desperate" she commented,"Yes they still haven't closed the deal that will pay for their trip" I replied. I've been to many, many, MIDEMs but they all merge into a single episode of handshakes, snatched conversations and hangovers. I'm sure everyone has those same trade show experiences, lifelong friends, business partnerships and spurious enmities are nurtured in that strip of the Croisette and the attendant hotels and restaurants.I have met and re-met many wonderful people at MIDEM, often in the same year. I remember vividly our first meeting with Monti Lueftner head of Ariola Germany (pictured above with Liz Mohn) who instantly proceeded to outline his ambitions to create a new WEA (Warner Elektra Atlantic the then industry giant led by Steve Ross supported by Mo Ostin and Joe Smith at Warner Bros, Jac Holzman at Electra and Ahmet and Neshui Ertegun at Atlantic). This was heady stuff, indeed Neshui was strutting his stuff that MIDEM with his close friend Pele in tow. Monti went on, supported by his friend and employer Reinhard Mohn the owner of Bertlesmann,to add Arista and RCA to Ariola to create the Bertlesmann Music Group,a case of what starts at MIDEM having repercussions,not least a long,entertaining and generous partnership between him and us. He became the third of our kameraden,the German music business folk with whom we built our own personal post-war reconciliation. The first was Fritz Rau the rightly legendary German concert promoter whose autobiography is unfortunately only so far available in German, and the second being Ossie Drechsler, for a time MD of Polygram Germany.
Apart from nurturing close relationships MIDEM has had another and more profound effect on my life, the discovery of the Cote D'Azur and its lifestyle. A childhood in Hull does not prepare you for lunch on the beach in January, particularly when you're invited to Eddie Barclay's birthday party. Eddie (pictured above top) was the top French music producer, musician, businessman and a leading figure in French society. He managed nine marriages as well as the best parties,including his famous 'Soirees Blanches' at his home in St Tropez. His MIDEM birthday party involved lunch at Tetou the fish restaurant in Golfe Juan,where you eat bouillabaisse. "What is it?" I asked, "Fish stew " I was told. A regular Hull diet of fish and chips did not prepare me for this either.The process of discovery continued over lunch with the Dutch at L'Oasis in La Napoule where Louis Outhier was the chef, and this peerless genius produced Loup en Croute. I was a bit abashed by all this and frankly uncertain,but I knew I would be back for more.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
John Lydon interview with Andrew Graham-Dixon on BBC4
I don't read or watch TV interviews with performers normally. They need to burnish their public persona and that gets in the way of anything interesting. Not so with this John Lydon interview. Perhaps its the advancing years or the vapidity of the current music scene but he seemed determined to share his sense of what has shaped his whole artistic career, rather like some of Bob Dylan's recent interviews, and probably for the same reasons. Lydon took us from his childhood roots, and explained how a period of his early years in the Norfolk countryside had given him an accent that enabled his reading of Shakespeare's verse, and showed us a clip Laurence Olivier in Richard III (which sent me straight to video rental) by way of explanation. He extolled the beauty of Mozart particularly his Requiem,and talked about his feelings around his mother's and father's deaths and his subsequent PIL recording of Death Disco.
I tried a couple of times to sign the Sex Pistols to Chrysalis. The first time came after I saw an early gig at the 100 Club which had been a revelation. It wasn't easy to get everyone on board, particularly after we were locked out of a gig at the Screen on the Green in Islington, but we persevered and ended up competing with EMI for them. Chris Wright didn't entirely believe Malcolm McLaren's claim to be in serious discussions with EMI, so one of our team, Phil Cokell, was sent round the back of our Oxford St office to Manchester Sq where EMI were based to check on whether Malcom was actually going there and how long he was in there. You know what happened. We tried again to sign them after A&M but they ended up on Virgin. McLaren was determined that they wouldn't sign to Chrysalis. I like to think that it was because he recognised we were more interested in the band than his pr ideas. It didn't help when they went into record with our friend Chris Thomas as the producer, in our Wessex studio and with our studio manager the great Bill Price engineering. That was pretty much the end of my involvement apart from a brief appearance in 'The Great Rock n Roll Swindle' later recycled in 'The Filth and the Fury'.We signed Generation X and moved on. Many years later Midge Ure put Kent Zimmerman, one of the Zimmerman brothers who were working with John Lydon on the writing of his autobiography, in touch with me and we relived the whole period.
The Sex Pistols rhythm section was extraordinary,and that is always a prerequisite of the great bands. Its not a surprise that the departure of the original bass player spelt the end of it. Lydon talks about that in the interview. The atmosphere and personality of The Specials struck me as being in a bit of a parallel universe with The SexPistols, and I think one of the reasons The Specials 2009 reunion was so successful was the fact that the rhythm section,led byBrad, Horace and Roddy was as good as ever.
Watching the interview I was conscious again of John Lydon as a revelation, and by the
passion, honesty and the commitment to expression that I'd encountered at the 100 Club.Its on BBC i-player!
Sunday, 24 January 2010
19/02: Chrysalis 40 Years
I was working at the Ellis-Wright Agency when it expanded and changed its name to Chrysalis sometime in the late summer or autumn of 1968. Jethro Tull’s first album ‘This Was’ was released in November that year, but you could argue that Chrysalis really emerged when records started appearing on it’s own label in late 1969.
Either way it’s been a forty-year story, of an extraordinary, at times almost surreal, range of music. Just on Chrysalis Records it not only includes Jethro, T.Y.A. and Procol, Blondie and Billy Idol,Benatar and Huey Lewis and the News, Spandau Ballet and Ultravox but also in a random and incomplete list… Astor Piazzola, Richard and Linda Thompson, Monie Love, Milli Vanilli, Robin Trower, Rupert Everett, Frankie Miller, Lynx, Stockhausen, The Babys, Paul Hardcastle, Lonnie Donnegan, Nick Gilder, Steeleye Span, Rory Gallagher, Leo Sayer and a variety of labels, 2-Tone with the Specials and the Selector, Go Discs with Billy Bragg and the Housemartins, Blue Guitars with the Mighty Lemon Drops and Shop Assistants, Cooltempo with Adeva and Kid ‘N’ Play, Ensign with the Waterboys,World Party and Sinead o’Connor,China Records with Labi Siffre and the Art of Noise. There is an equally long and varied list in Chrysalis Music, one that is still being extended today.
Inextricably wrapped up in this story are the people who worked there creating wherever or whenever a unique atmosphere and doing some amazing things. I know they are all rightly proud of their various achievements and contributions. We were supported by a fabulous and bizarre cast of managers, promoters, and agents, sleeve designers photographers, drug dealers, video makers, PR’s, promo people and a high-voltage concept generator.
We’re making some efforts to work out how all this forty year story can be commemorated but in the meantime you can keep in touch through a Chrysalis Records Facebook site and a Chrysalis-reunion website http://www.chrysalis-reunion.com
20/11: Led Zeppelin Reunion
I’m pretty sure I booked some of Led Zeppelin’s first ever UK gigs in 1968. I was working as the college booker at the Chrysalis Agency at 155-157 Oxford St. The building, whose entrance was actually in Poland St, also housed Island Music on the floor above, and Mickey Most and Peter Grant on the top floor.
Peter Grant told me to book some warm-up college gigs for The New Yardbirds, which I did. I assume Richard Cowley and Kenny Bell booked the club dates. Peter subsequently appeared in our office to approve the bookings and tell me that the band now had a proper name, Led Zeppelin.
I protested a bit, the New Yardbirds would be a recognizable draw, but Peter leaned over my desk and looked at me…so Led Zeppelin it was. He was a charming, entertaining man who I’d first met when he was working for Don Arden, but I was always very respectful around him, and learned quite a bit. I don’t remember going to any of the gigs, which seems strange now of course.
I didn’t see them until they went on a subsequent tour of town halls in the UK, which the newly formed Chrysalis Promotions had organized. I remember going to, probably, the first show on the tour which may have been Birmingham or Sheffield. I was nervous frankly. My first concert tour had been with The Family, and I’d fucked up badly, amongst other mistakes, I had booked the Mecca or Locarno in Bristol because the Colston Hall wasn’t available, but didn’t realize that whilst the Colston Hall supplied local advertising the ballrooms didn’t, resulting in an unusually poor attendance for a Family show that night. I traveled to the Zeppelin on the train, I couldn’t drive in those days, worrying all the way that I might have made a mistake. I was more worried about looking stupid to the band than Peter’s anger actually. In the end I survived, albeit with some piss-taking on the subject of my Alvin Lee tapestry trousers with the furnishing fringes on the bottom, and Zeppelin were astonishing.
For a few years there had been a lot of blues rock bands around playing the obligatory ‘Dust My Broom’ and lots of great guitarists, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Alvin Lee, Jeff Beck and of course Jimmy Page. Then Jimi Hendrix arrived. Once here Jimi, and the psychedelic wave, transformed the level of artistic ambition in playing, performance and sonic conception and forced everyone to respond. Led Zeppelin was part of that response, transforming blues rock into something else.
I saw them quite a few times after that in the first part of 1969, and by June of that year I was working for the newly-formed Chrysalis Management. Terry Ellis had sent me, still without a driving licence, to America to tour manage Jethro Tull, who were supporting Led Zeppelin, on their third US tour. At that time a regular series of six to eight even twelve weeks tours of America was the norm. We all missed the Woodstock Festival that summer. Ten Years After were there of course but our US representative Dee Anthony was with them. Chris Wright was getting married in London and Terry Ellis was his best man. Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull played an outdoor show on a racetrack in (I think) Laurel, Maryland around that time. I watched the first part of their show from the side of the stage, but Tull had to leave, so we watched the second half driving on a beautiful summer night, around the track to get back to the main road. We watched the last number from the far side of the racecourse, and Zeppelin seemed able to fill whatever distance we made. I remember thinking that night who can ever do this better? I hope they have a great reunion show.
16/07: Audu Maikori Wins IYMEY award
Audu Maikori, CEO of Chocolate City, is the winner of the British Council's International Young Music Entrepreneur (IYMEY) of the Year award 2007.
Audu, 32, is a law graduate from the University of Jos and his company, Chocolate City is an entertainment company that administers a record label, artist management, entertainment facility management, recording studio, events management and promotion as well as general consultancy work for clients. The company has won considerable success in the past two years with artists Jeremiah Gyang and Djinee (who won best artist at the Nigerian Music Awards in 2006).
Now in its second year, the British Council’s International Young Music Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2007 (IYMEY) aims to turn the spotlight on the brightest and best young creative entrepreneurs (between 25 – 35 years-old) from the music industry in emerging economies. The ten finalists who were selected represent the best of what Egypt, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland and Tanzania have to offer. Over the course of a packed two-week programme, they toured the UK, forging networks with industry leaders and discovering more about the dynamics of the British music industry through visits to London, Manchester and Glastonbury festival.
20/06: Gerry Dammers at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Thankfully musicians continue to refuse, like horses led to the fence. Refuse to appear and disappear based on an idea of what they do, or shouldn’t do, required by a view of music, which has a limited sense of the possible.
Gerry Dammers appeared at the Queen Elizabeth Hall like a magic genie…leading his Spatial A K A Orchestra into the hall and on to an incredibly designed stage, which immediately created an atmosphere in which anything could happen. Great musicians and singers, costumed and masked, performed arrangements of mainly Sun Ra material.
We in the audience were encouraged to gargle away, creating a vocal background for the intro to ‘Ghost Town aka Ghost Planet’, which became ‘Nuclear War’ featuring Anthony Joseph on vocals. Francine Luce provided astonishing vocals for ‘I Wait for You’.
To play music of this complexity in such a beautiful and urgent way is unusual, but Gerry Dammers can do this and engage us in a mix of ideas and emotions of such intensity that anything seems possible.
SET LIST FOR JERRY DAMMERS’ SPATIAL AKA ORCHESTRA
QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL June 20th 07
(All tunes selected and arranged by Jerry Dammers)
Springtime Again (Sun Ra)
Incidente in Fabrica (Enzo Scoppa)
Mayan Temple (Sun Ra)
Egypt Strut (Salab Rageb)/Ancient Ethiopia (Sun Ra)
Theme from the Excorcist (Mike Oldfield arr. Dizzie Reece)
Ringo Rock(Trad Japanese arr.Coxsone Dodd)/Love on a Far Planet (Sun Ra after John Coltrane)
Journey in Satchandanda (Alice Coltrane)
Om Nama Sivay/Battle at Armageddon (Alice Coltrane)
I’ll Wait for You (Sun Ra) vocals Francine Luce
Where Pathways Meet (Sun Ra)
Ghost Planet (Jerry Dammers)/Nuclear War (Sun Ra) vocals Anthony Joseph
Soul Vibrations of Man (Sun Ra)
Space is the Place (Sun Ra) vocals Francine Luce
30/11: International Young Music Entrepreneur of the Year
The British Council held a competition for 'International Young Music Entrepreneur of the Year' featuring aspiring music people from ten different countries, Argentina, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Poland and Venzuela, who having competed successfully in their own country came to the UK last summer for the final.There they had the opportunity to meet a cross-section of the UK music industry,hear some music,but most importantly compete for the prize. The winner had to " be someone who will be able to develop a mutually beneficial culture of both personal and professional engagement, collaboration, and partnership with the UK, and more broadly put the wider international dialogue of IYMEY to work." The joint runners-up were Jesse Singh from India and Yoris Sebastian from Indonesia and the winner was Mohamed 'Momo' Merhari from Morocco the co-founder of "Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens' the largest contemporary music festival in North Africa.