Someone said this to me recently with a look of incredulity on their faces. It was like if I’d told them that I teach ‘being tall’. Teaching something artistic is always viewed with suspicion by people for two reasons. Firstly because people prefer the myth of the tortured artist not knowing the what they’re doing (but still creating something transcendentally marvelous), and secondly because they think that the teacher must in some way dilute the personality of the songwriter by imposing rules upon them. Both of these arguments are flawed and this is why.
   
    Firstly, it annoys me that it’s only songwriting that come in for such criticism. Classical composers go to the great Conservatoires or  are mentored by other composers. Artists go to art college to learn methods, techniques and the background to the subject they’re passionate about. Creative writing courses have encouraged and refined the techniques of some of the worlds best authors. It’s assumed that a great dancer will have been to a dancing school. In fact, lets explore the dancing analogy for a moment. Dance has many forms. A dancer may be born with natural rhythm and movement and athleticism but they still have to learn the steps and techniques of the many forms of dance. As anyone who has watched Strictly Come Dancing can attest, all the contestants improve through coaching and practice. This is not to say that all of them will become great dancers but they will certainly become better dancers.
   
    I think that it’s because songwriting is seen as a low-brow art form that teaching it is seen as strange. But if you look a little closer, a song also has definite forms, structures, techniques, rhyme schemes and styles that can be learned in one of two ways. The first way would be to write 1000 songs and (hopefully) learn from each mistake. The second way would be to learn from someone who has written 1000 successful songs. If they can help pinpoint areas that you could improve, you may improve more quickly. This doesn’t sound such a stupid idea to me. In fact, I’ve seen it in the students I teach. If I can encourage them and also give them some honest feedback on their songs then this can pay dividends. Being taught and encouraged may give you some short cuts to your destination but the teacher doesn’t drive the car. You do. We just hold the map and try to help you avoid the traffic jams.  You need to write a lot of songs as well. This is how you find your voice as a songwriter. It goes back to that theory of 10000 hours of practice makes a genius. You have to put the work in.
   
    Ahhh, I hear you say. What is a successful song though, you just want to make everyone write cheesy rubbish pop music (yawn). No, all I want is for my students to fully realise the intent of their idea. I would say that a lot of songwriters write songs that they hope will communicate what they are feeling to an audience (especially the students on the course). My job as tutor is to help them achieve this. I find it exhilarating that once the students are on the course their songwriting becomes much braver, more wide ranging, more experimental and more prolific. By pushing the boundaries of their songwriting they generate their own style. This is the opposite of the teacher imposing rules.
   
    The final thing I want to say is that the greatest satisfaction in teaching songwriting is that it legitimises ‘being a songwriter’ for the students. To say to someone that it’s OK for them to dedicate all their energy to the thing they love, the thing that people have discouraged them at or looked down on them for makes me very happy.
   
    I’m teaching at http://www.uksongwritingfestival.com/
   
    Can’t wait.
   
    Keep up the good work!
   
   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ih0u4eI20s&feature=player_embedded

Hi all,  i am running the Hastings Half Marathon on Sunday in aid of a wonderful charity that helps Indian orphans. I went there last year and did a vlog about it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiJeBprtoes

If you can possibly spare any money, please sponsor me.

https://www.charitiestrust.org/members_data/event/jezhastingshalfmarathon/index.html

thanks

Jez

Hey everyone. I’ve just got back from my writing trip to Scandinavia and I thought I’d share with you the news from the coalface (although as someone who has been a mile underground to visit a real coalface I am aware my job doesn’t really bear comparison in terms of hard work!) I know that a lot of you who read these blogs aren’t necessarily signed (yet) so I thought I’d give you some background to why Scandinavia is one of the songwriting centres of the world. It’s mainly down to the Swedish uber-writer Max Martin (although Andreas Carlsson and Kristian Lundin can take a huge amount of credit too). Obviously, Sweden had exported many huge acts to the world (Abba, Roxette, and many more) but until Max Martin dominated the US airwaves in the late 90s, the main centres for pop writing were London, New York and L.A. Since his blazing trail across the pop universe, many Scandinavian writers have followed him into the pop stratosphere. Writers such as Anders Bagge, Dr Luke, Stargate, Cuttfather, Red One, Bloodshy and Avant and many many more have been behind many of today’s chart smashes from lady Gaga to Britney, to Ne-Yo. You name a huge international pop star and more than likely, a Scandinavian name will be nestling in the album writing or production credits.

This is the reason I was so excited to go on this trip. Not that I was writing with anyone quite as big league as the names above (who spend most of their time in the U.S anyway) but I was eager to learn about the Scandinavian approach to pop from all the great writers I worked with.

So, 12 days and 10 songs later, what have I learned?

Well firstly, the writers I was working with had a great work ethic, bags and bags of talent, and a powerful positivity that was good to be around. Secondly, they often worked in teams and divided roles to a certain extent (someone would be a great producer/programmer, another member of the team a great singer and melody writer and the other guy would deal with anything else!). Finally, they were really really clued up to the US, UK, Scandinavian and even Japanese marketplace. They kept up with whatever trends were happening (they probably heard of ‘Owl City’ when he was just called ‘Owl Town’) and they were market driven- they knew we were writing for a certain Artist or label that was looking for songs. It’s worth remembering that in terms of record sales, domestic success in Scandinavia is more like to pay for a snowmobile than a ski resort, so a ‘world view’ is as necessary as it is admirable

As for approach? Well, in almost every writing situation the creation of the demo was integral to the writing of the song. Nearly all the studios I worked in were pretty state of the art in terms of soft synths, great mics, monitoring and plugins (I’d say 75 percent worked in Logic, the rest in Pro Tools). Did I mention we wrote quickly by the way? Good golly, by the time the first hour was up, the track was often cooking and we’d be working out verse two lyrics while verse one was being sung. I’d say that most of the time was spent on melody, concept and hooks. This trip drove home the fact that a great melody married to a great concept with cool and current production is what floats the pop boat.

It’s worth the aspiring writer remembering that it is the demo that is pitched not the song. Obviously a lame song with great/current production is unlikely to get cut, but a great song with lame/dated production (and a less than arresting vocal) may not generate much excitement in an A&R meeting. The demos I heard on this trip were amazing. Some of them didn’t sound like records- they sounded better than records. It’s easy to blame the world that your 5 minute art rock song about the death of your hamster isn’t setting A&R ears on fire. But these people have to go and sell your song to labels and artists who may be investing a lot of money in a project. At least give your hamster song a touch of Lady Gaga (ham-star ooh la la) or Black Eyed Peas if you want it to translate into a commercial hit in the feb 2010 market. At the same time, I got a song I co wrote, (that wasn’t written for a particular artist, which wasn’t demoed with up to date production) cut for a major act. I’ll tell you more when it’s in the shops. This song has a certain magic to it though. It’s just a really good song (though I say so myself). I am my biggest fan. You should be your biggest fan too.

Just on that thought. I had a great meeting with a legendary and fantastic A&R guy. He was so in love with music, he was so enthused with his job. His approach was simple. Give me something I can sell . Give me something I can make you money out of. It hammers home the fact that at some point art becomes commerce. He loves great songs but he adores songs he can sell. It’s his job on the line. You’ll just carry on writing songs for no money if no one digs your stuff.

So did I have a great time? You bet I did. It was great to be so focused on writing for such an intense period. Are there any pearls of wisdom I learned from the experience that I wish to share? Well I think the most important thing I brought to the sessions was a bunch of ideas (some good, some small, some lyrical, some titles, some concepts, some….. um biscuits). I’ve made the mistake of heading to Nashville for a two week trip with a handful of ideas. It’s not enough. You need a bagful- something to get the ball rolling, something to make the other writers think ‘hey maybe this weird guy from London isn’t so bad’. I also hope I bring a bit of a London perspective (English after all is my first language innit) and it must make a change from writing with fellow Scandinavians. Perhaps Federer verses Federer would be a predictable match but put Murray in there and……. Then you have someone to bounce ideas off. I hope that at least sometimes I managed to bounce a great idea back over the net.

Let me know your thoughts on this blog.

Cheers

Jez

o.k o.k O.K!, I know what I wrote in the last blog seems to contradict this but the truth is, I didn’t feel Christmasy until it snowed last week. Suddenly I noticed that people were smiling, people were drinking, people were planning big social gatherings. People looked excited. I felt a strange warming of the blood (it may have been the mulled wine) a whistle on my lips and a spring in my step as I headed into the centre of London to do my Christmas shopping. I cant say I’ve sobered up since.

I’ve had snowball fights with my nieces and nephews, I’ve toasted champagne to absent friends and I’ve sat in warm pubs drinking warm beer by a roaring fire. I’ve seen strangers become firm friends and I’ve heard family tales of woeful embarrassment wheeled out to be celebrated. This was my favourite embarrassing story I heard this year. For some reason my cousin was nicknamed ‘Church-head’ when he was growing up and my Aunt told the assembled throng about the time he jumped in the freezing North Sea fully clothed as a 6 year old. The only dry item of clothing she had was a t-shirt. She duly put his cold legs through the armholes leaving his ‘small’ dangly bits hanging through the neck hole. He had to wear this until his clothes dried. I discussed with my cousin why we should probably all be in therapy. Families are funny. Traditions are funny. My family has a tradition of transporting gravy over long distances on Christmas day (the reason why is lost in the mists of time). We also go to pay our respects on Boxing Day at the graveyard in the village where friends and relatives are buried. Christmas is a time to Celebrate with those present and remember those who are absent.

What are your Christmas traditions? Is your family as odd as mine?

Happy Christmas and I hope you all have a peaceful and healthy 2010

Jez

I am not a Christmasy person. Forgive me for this, I know to some of you, Christmas is more wonderful and life affirming than I could possibly imagine. You lucky people are just dying to place a jaunty red elf’s hat on your head and write cards to people you will never see again, or possibly never met in the first place. For you, putting up the tree is as satisfying as conquering Everest, untangling reams of Christmas lights is ‘fun’ and having drinks with work colleagues is a ‘treat’. You are the kind of people that say ‘strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet’.

You like the taste of mulled wine. You think chestnuts taste good.

And then there are the presents.  I don’t like receiving presents as there is seriously nothing I desire except some little disposable cloths to clean my glasses with. I have legs, I can buy these. I don’t need them wrapping. I find it hard to show the correct eye-watering enthusiasm when unwrapping. ‘SOCKS!!!! Christ! A BOOOK!’

As for buying presents for people, well I have to do that, under duress. I do it with all of the enthusiam of a child going shopping for a new school uniform, or someone on Death Row having their head measured for the electric chair. That’s not to say I don’t get presents for people. To not do so is unthinkable. That is the power of Christmas. You can’t just say to a crying 10 year old ‘ No I didn’t get you anything, you see, I’m just not a Christmasy person’.

Being around Christmasy people is difficult for me. I am outed almost immediately as an outsider. It’s like that scene in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers when everyone points at Donald Sutherland and screams. The signs are too easy to spot; I fail to be aroused by spray snow. A kindly offered cookie decorated with Reindeers does not receive the correct ‘cooing’ response from me. I am not good with tinsel. My Jaw clenches when I hear Johnny Mathis. When I am discovered to be lacking in the requisite ‘festiveness’ I am confronted with pursed lips and sadly shaken heads (under elf hats at jaunty angles obviously). I am not invited to open a door on the advent calendar.

By far the worst thing about not being a Christmasy person though is the fact that Christmasy people just can’t believe it. It’s like telling someone you live in a house made of jam, or saying wasps are cute.

They think I’m secretly a Christmasy person. I know they do. They think I’m a comedy-curmudgeon. They’ve watched A Christmas Carol too many times and they presume that Scrooge-like I’ll suddenly wake up hooting with yuletide glee, rush outside in my pajamas and buy a turkey as big as an Emu. ‘You Can’t  not like Christmas. It’s like saying you didn't like ‘The Wire’. It’s unforgivable. It’s like not liking kittens.

Dear One Love people. I hope all is well with you all. I've ust got back from India. 3 weeks of eye-opening wonders. I visited the Divine Onkar Mission. This is the charity i urge you to donate to if you can. It is a charity which has transformed the lives of some of the most disadvantaged children in India.

A full blog soon about my travels.

jez x

Hey all you One Love people, I hope that all is well with you.

I’ve just had some lunch with an old friend.

Is there anything better than an old friend? A person who has known you from when you were really young? There’s a certain shorthand for conversation with someone who has known you so long. You don’t need to explain, you don’t have to worry whether they understand where you’re coming from. They really know you.

The conversation flows, sailing a happy and erratic course between the gossipy shallows and deep waters. The smiles become laughs, the pauses are comfortable. There’s no need to tell anecdotes. You are not hoping to be warmed to or impress. The bond is there like a rope of years; a plaited history. A friendship so deep it becomes a fire that never goes out. An hour in their company and the embers of memory are raked, the synapses of commonality duly reconnected. Lunch with an old friend is to sip both sweetly and deeply from Life’s cup.

When the coffees were finished and the shadows were lengthening outside, we hugged, then parted. I felt a wave of profound sadness as I joined the throng of Oxford St.  I looked back but my old friend was already lost in the crowd.

Hello all you lovely One Love folks. It's been an age since i've blogged something about songwriting so here's another pearl of wisdom (or possiby oyster of stupidity) from my fevered imagination. 

And by this I don’t mean the critically acclaimed-Oxford-born-post-rock doom-mongers, I of course mean the radio itself. Now, by the way, I am a huge fan of Radiohead, but i don’t hear them on the radio much. After a 3 hour stint of scanning Radio 1 and Capital radio today I can tell you what’s on the wireless (I’m so current!). R & B, Urban and a few pop and rock songs. By this I mean A dollop of Tinchy Stryder, a smidgin of Jordin Sparx, a sprinkle of Kelly Rowland and a pinch of Kings Of Leon. Then repeat, ad infinitum.

If you don’t want to get a song on the radio then please stop reading now.



One common complaint I have from new writers is ‘there’s a load of crap on the radio so I don’t listen to it’ closely followed by ‘how do I get my stuff on the radio?’ This blog will attempt give you some answers to this conundrum.

Firstly-If you want to get a song on the radio- LISTEN TO THE BLOODY RADIO! The songs you hear are what the public at large likes at the moment. There, I said it. Logic can be devastating to the artistic community sometimes. As the saying goes ‘If the world gives you lemons, make lemonade’.

Secondly. Analyse. What, if anything, do these radio songs have in common? Here are some nuggets I’ve gleaned from listening to Radio One and Capital. The songs on the Radio tick the following boxes: energetic, exciting, aggressive, repetitive, fresh, edgy, modern, full of attitude, inorganic. hook-heavy, novel, rhythmic, frenetic, and  immediate- oh, and did I mention edgy? Edgy is king. Even the urban and R and B songs that I heard today may be slow tempo but they kick arse! How many of these words describe the last three songs you’ve written (and indeed the last three I’ve written!)

In the world of Radio 2, Absolut and other Radio stations which have an older demographic, the buzz words I get are; acoustic, organic, familiar, melodic, mid-tempo, and comforting. This I imagine may be more like the songs you write (me too, I like a pipe and slippers tune).

I really beg all of you writers to listen to the radio for a couple of hours a day this week and occasionally put on one of your strongest demos between these songs. Does your song fit in? I hope it does, but I imagine for a lot of you, it won’t. My guess is that when placed between these thoroughbred radio songs, your song may sound a touch old-fashioned and lacking in attitude. It may just sound too sweet, sad, introspective or nice. This does not mean that your song is not a brilliant aching work of magnificence, it just means it's not the kind of song that someone driving to work on a Monday morning needs to pick them up. This may also be because you haven’t got the right production tools at your disposal or it may be because of two fundamental problems, namely, the meter of the melody and lyrical content that isn't edgy or fresh enough.

The melodies i heard on the Radio 1 and Capital today invariably had a an energetic meter. The use of syncopation, pre-empting the beat, repetitive single syllable words and often a nursery-rhyme sing-song element to the hook sections of the melody gave the song immediacy. These melodies rarely started on the first beat of the bar and rarely landed where I expected them to. The melody to 'Hey Jude' is 8 bars long (and beautiful) but the hook sections of modern radio songs are invariably 2 bars long or less and repeated a lot. The other thing you notice about the radio songs is that there is little respite from melodic information (when the vocal isn't there, often another melodic hook takes over). They demand your attention from start to finish.

To write a melody which isn’t staid and old-fashioned, I suggest singing along to hit songs on the radio (pity the neighbours). Look at how the lyrics scan online. How many syllables in each line? What is the meter of the melody? You may discover how to write a more immediate, fresh and ‘punchy’ melody, or possibly discover that you don't want to write this kind of song thank you very much.

In terms of lyric, be brave, edgy, original, ‘Poker Face’ ‘Umbrella’? ‘T Shirt’ ‘Birthday Sex’ Not ‘I Miss You Baby’. I've noticed a lot more humour in the lyrics out there; Dizzy Rascal and Lily Allen being good exponents of this.

I hope this blog has been helpful and informative. I think  that often, to the sensitive singer songwriters out there, these radio songs are like the brash next door neighbours; loud, annoying and crying out for attention. You may have no interest in writing this kind of song. Then again, if you try, you might have fun. On the occasions I have written a song that's been played on the radio there is no greater buzz than hearing it as you stumble across it while driving home after a day's writing.

By the way, I wrote this entire blog while installing Logic 9. Now where are those Calvin Harris rave synth sounds I need?

Actually i may just listen to The Archers....

Let me know what you think to this blog.

Cheers



Jez

A sinewy beast is the hangover. It coils itself around your brain, squeezing, tighter when you bend over or are surprised by loud noises.
It forces you into the day by itching your bladder and removing all saliva from your mouth. It recoils from the bright shards of sunlight stabbing through the curtains. It sends you stumbling to the bathroom, red-eyed and fur-tongued. It removes some of your memory. Key moments of the night before are turned to fiction. How did I get home? No clue.

The hangover is your friend and your enemy. It needs feeding. Sugar and fat and lots of tea. It craves the shadows and quiet corners. It lingers sometimes. A companion. A monkey ring under Tripitaka’s bidding, or the old man of the sea clinging to Sinbad’s back. Like a conscience. It whispers to you ‘you like me, you need me, you drank me’ and you reply slack jawed and spinning. Never again.

‘Til the next time.
‘Til the next time.

In it for the money

So you want to become a songwriter to make money? Songwriters are rich right? All you do is sit around strumming a guitar don’t you?

This blog isn’t a rant. It’s not even designed to put you off becoming a songwriter, it’s just to clarify a few of the myths bandied around by people that have little insight into how a songwriter earns money.

This is a long blog. If you’re not thinking of becoming a songwriter, then it may be the most boring thing you’ve ever read. Apologies for this!

The first thing I want to say is that I didn’t get into songwriting to earn money. I wrote songs because I had to. I couldn’t stop myself. I took my guitar on holiday. I was always thinking about song ideas and melodies. I actually got into songwriting to travel.  I worked out that bands play places. Touring is a way to see parts of the world that you never thought you’d see. It’s worked out pretty well on the travel front. I’ve played shows in glamorous places and shows in absolutely terrible dives in the back of beyond. All these experiences gave me inspiration to write songs which gave me the opportunity to travel which gave me the inspiration to write songs which….. you get the idea. But money? It’s not easy to make a living as a songwriter (and why should we really, it’s rewarding enough right?). Here’s how it works.

Songwriters in the U.K make most of their money in three ways.

Every time a song I’ve written is played the radio I get paid.
Every time a song I’ve written is played at a show, I get paid.
Every time a CD (or download) is sold with a song I’ve written on it, I get paid.

Let’s explore this a bit more closely.

If a song I have written by myself is played on the biggest radio station in the U.K (Radio 2), I will receive about £60 for each time it is played.
This can add up to a lot of money if the song gets 100 plays (£6000)! For the smaller radio stations, I would earn significantly less. A few pence, up to a pound.

Best get a song on the radio then!

 Easier said than done. Of the 1500 or so songs that the big radio stations ‘Playlist’ every year only about 10% are written or co-written by songwriters. 90% are written by the band, or artist performing the song.  This leaves all the song writers in the U.K writing or co-writing the other150 songs. As most of these are co-writes between 2 or three writers the revenue will go down. If I was lucky enough to get a song I’ve co written in those 150 songs then I may get a third of £6000 (as I probably co wrote it with two other writers)
Which gives me £2000. Not enough for a helicopter, but luckily I have record sales to bolster the money… Don’t I?

For each CD album sold the writers of the record share 6.5% of the retail price. So the average album in the U.K costs £7 then all the writers share 45 pence between them. Say I’ve got one song on a 10 track album, I would earn 4.5 pence every time a CD is sold. If the record sells a million copies, I would earn £45000! Now I can buy a helicopter! Can’t I?

Unfortunately, only 4 records sold more than a million copies in the U.K last year. Out of the top 50 selling records, only 13 albums had songs written by songwriters who weren’t the artist or band. Out of those top 50 albums only about 50 songs were co written by songwriters such as myself.

Chances are stacked against me, as out of that 50 or so songs written by people like me in the top 50 selling records, about 30 were co-written with the artist or band. It would figure then, that unless you’re in a room co-writing with the artist it’s harder still to get a song recorded. Now, where did I put Amy Winehouse’s number?

Let’s say I was lucky enough to write with the artist and I co wrote a song on the 30th biggest selling U.K album last year (Will Young- 350000 copies) I would earn £7800. Of course if people illegally download the record instead of buying it I earn nothing (sound of small violin being played).

Are you still with me? Sorry, nearly there!

Finally, I also earn money if someone performs my song live. Unless this is on a big tour in big places, I don’t really earn anything as the payment is calculated on the total amount of money through the door that night. I do know that someone did perform a song I co-wrote in front of 35000 people and I earned about £200 from that performance alone so if you write a big song for a big artist then the big money arrives (I see a theme developing here)

O.K, I know that I could get a song in a film, TV series or on an advert and that would also earn money, and there are overseas markets and video games but I hope I’ve outlined the basics above.

The moral of this story is that songwriting can earn you a huge amount of money, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving. If you write a classic radio hit single that keeps getting recorded and played on the radio then you may start measuring out a helipad right now. However, if you wanted to earn the same as, say, a taxi driver does in a year you would probably need a couple of hit singles on the radio and 2 songs on a top 50 U.K album every year. No easy task when there are 10000 other writers chasing these opportunities too! So don’t get into writing songs for the money. Do it because you can’t live without doing it. Luckily, all the people i know that write songs do it because they love the process, the creativity and the travel, did i mention the travel?

Jez x

So, wow, where did this year go? Suddenly the sun is blazing, the birds are singing and summer seems to have arrived. I’ve been a terribly neglectful blogger. Forgive me please. It’s not that I have nothing to blog about, it’s just that I’ve been really busy.

Do you ever feel as though you’re not living, you’re just catching up on all the things you need to do? Well that’s how life has been this year. Because the Farrah record took longer than expected, I’ve been frantically trying to catch up with myself. I’ve just about managed it now. So sorry about the delay. Here’s the blog you’ve been eagerly awaiting (possibly) and it’s about…mmm. Let’s see.

Well, I have to mention the wonderful Nate Campany. I’ve seen a lot of him in the U.K in the last month and his songs have stuck in my mind like glue. We also played Badminton, wrote an insane Japanese boyband song and drank a lot. He went back to New York this week and his brilliant E.P is out on www.lojinx.com this week so please buy it. It’s fantastic.

O.K, that’s enough plugging although I have to say that Greg Holden is a pretty amazing singer songwriter. O.K. That’s the advertorial and praise section over with.

So what else is new? Here are the headlines.

I’ve begun tweeting which is ideal for me as my wit and intelligence rarely runs to more than 140 characters.

I’m hopefully going to visit the Divine Onkar Mission later this year (the charity this blog is supporting). 

The Farrah record is released in Japan in July and we’re touring there in September.

I’m going to the Glastonbury festival in a camper van. Can’t wait.


Er, um, that’s it for now. How are you all doing? I hope things are splendid.


Love from

Jez

I went to see a gig the other night and most of the songs in the set were unfamiliar in style, structure and lyric to me. Then there was one song, a ballad, which dealt with a universal subject (unrequieted love) and had familiar chords and melody and a straightforward structure (verse, chorus, verse, chorus middle 8, chorus) and the whole room took notice.
It was as comforting as home-cooked apple pie.

It seemed that because it was cloaked in familiarity, the song was immediately given a fair hearing by the assembled crowd. This got me thinking. A really common occurrence in songs from my students is a song that breaks boundaries in structure (two bridges and two different choruses!) and lyric (wow a subplot and a song that deals with loneliness and blame). When I ask them what the reasons are behind these radical changes they’ve made they most often reply that ‘I was bored’. I’m all for radical songs, but I would guess that Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t written in that style because the band was ‘bored’. I imagine they had a concept they had to fulfil. Songwriters should please themselves, but if they want to have commercial success, it’s worth having a thought for the listener.

I was reading a book about the brain and how it perceives songs (Musicophilia). The understanding is that the neural pathways are strengthened by familiarity and (as a generalization) by the time we hit adulthood, our musical ‘tastes’ are hard-wired and hard to break out of. We don’t want to be challenged. We want familiarity and comfort. Of course, if you’ve spent your whole life listening to hardcore techno or Drum And Bass, this is your comfort zone. As soon as we stop challenging ourselves to listen to new types of music, we want to listen to it less. Certain chord sequences appear all the time in hit songs (I, V Vim iV for example) and certain structures crop up time and time again. We enjoy the familiarity.

Tangent

O.K, let’s talk about Gordon Ramsay. I don’t know if you’re a fan of his show ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ but there seem to be some parallels here. In the unsuccessful restaurants a common ingredient (!) for failure is the chef (songwriter) cooking challenging food that excites the chef but puts off the customer with its extreme textures and flavours. Ramsay asks the chef, ‘who are you cooking for?’ and discovers that the chef has disdain for the poor customer with the basic palette, the poor customer who probably wants to go for a meal out to relax and enjoy themselves. Ramsay’s theory is that ‘you cook for the customer’ (groundbreakingly obvious really). Ramsey often rescues the ailing eatery with some simple advice; use simple ingredients, great presentation and often a ‘comforting’ signature dish to draw in the punters. I often wonder if as songwriters, we’re often looking to create ‘chocolate prawn pasta’ when really the public would be really happy with a great Bolognese. I suppose if we write a song that’s the equivalent of ‘veal with cornflake batter with an M&M coulis’ we shouldn’t really complain when our songs don’t fly off the shelves. A lot of people like McDonalds, it makes them happy. It’s comforting. I doubt if a whole load of chefs eat there.

Herein lies the challenge of creating commercial songs that still have some flavour. It’s such a hard balancing act.

I think the savvy commercial writers realize this and don’t reinvent the wheel every time they write a song (they just change the tyre). They’re earning big bucks while we’re busy trying to sneak our square wheels through… Please don’t misunderstand me, I am in awe of these writers who find new ways to paint the same little box in a new colour.

As a finally analogy, we could cast our eye over some Hollywood blockbusters; the ‘buddy’ movie for example. There have been hundreds of these kinds of films. There are many takes on it. ‘His buddy is a dog’, or ‘2 cops don’t like each other at first but they gradually warm to each other!’. Fundamentally though, it’s a film about friendship. As songwriters, a lot of us would be trying to pitch this idea.


‘O.K, it’s a buddy movie, but the twist is, and this is SO cool, they’re not friends at all'.


Have a great week.

Jez

So here I am sitting on a train on an overcast morning in Lockerbie, Scotland. Me and Kim shared a pot of tea in the Spartan but spotless Salvation Army café as other diners tucked into black pudding breakfast baps (a bread roll filled with fried pigs blood and a fried egg)  After a perfunctory perusal of the charity shop next door and discovering that Lockerbie residents wear significantly larger clothes than fit me (probably because of the black pudding breakfast baps) I spent a few minutes on the platform removing hay from the wheels of my wheelie case (detritus from last’s year’s Glastonbury festival) so it wheeled rather than dragged. In the background I could hear the distant drone of bagpipes. I felt like I was in a film.

There was a young guy on the platform- beanie hat, Anvil style hair- he seemed agitated, pacing the platform all the while making strange gutteral grunts and alarming whinnying noises. I wondered if he had Tourettes syndrome and that thought neatly co-incided with the fact that I am on a ‘Tourette’ at the moment. My definition of a Tourette is a tour with fewer dates than would merit a tour T-shirt.

I’ve been touring in many bands and many places for a few years (as I know a lot of One Love bloggers have) and I thought there might be some touring survival tips I’ve picked up. Here is my accumulated wisdom distilled into easily digestible sound-bites:

Hope for the best and expect the worst.

Whatever you pack is on your back.

Always eat. Who knows when the next meal will be.

Get used to people snoring.

Never leave any rider in the dressing room after the show (it will always get drunk/eaten the next day).

Set off way earlier than you think.

You are probably as irritating as everyone else.

Trash a hotel room once. But only once.

Don’t get too used to the highlife

Even if one person shows up at your gig, play like it’s a stadium. It’s certainly not their fault you’re not more popular.

Remember these are the good times.

Take photographs.

The truck doesn’t load itself

Go out after the show, meet the promoters, fans, the people who worked so hard to give you a good night.

Take less clothes and more washing powder.

Don’t get too used to the lowlife

Check the weather of the country you’re heading to before you pack.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Take a card from the hotel you’re staying at. You can show taxi drivers this card when you’re  too drunk to speak or when you’re somewhere you can’t speak the language.

Be only enough of a Diva as befits your status.

O.K, you sucked, get over it.

Pay for that hotel room you trashed- and feel remorse.

Travel broadens the mind only if you put down that drink/laptop/book/Nintendo or iPod long enough to explore

No show is just another show.

Try and eat something that isn’t fried.

Now, I hope you other musicians and touring veterans have something to add!

Sendest warmest spring wishes to you all.

Jez x

So what’s mixing?

I thought about all you people out there who make records and then I suddenly thought about all you other great readers who don’t make records. This is what mixing a record is:


It’s putting a roof on the house

It’s getting your ducks on a line

It’s straightening the suit and tie.

It’s too late to change anything

It’s pulling focus

It’s completing the jigsaw

It’s landing the plane on the Hudson

It’s rubbing the lamp and hoping the genie appears.

I’ve just seen Ben’s blog and I can’t wait to hear the new Click Five record! I’m going into the studio tomorrow to assist with the mixing of the Farrah record (mostly to make tea for the engineer). I’m really pleased that a last-minute song we wrote called ‘Missed The Boat’ didn’t, er, miss the boat and is going on the album! The crowning moment of the Farrah record so far has to be Mr Ben Romans’ astonishing keyboard solo on the song ‘Heavy Metal’. I giggle every time I hear it. He is one half of ‘Thruster’ our glam-metal side project. We’re looking for a drummer with plenty tattoos, 3 kick drums and a penchant for spandex. We may also need a bass player who has big big hair and looks like a Nordic God and/or Cher.

Hope all is great with you. I’m hoping to get some vlogs from the studio up this week. By the way, all the rest of the band say hi to all you lovely people.

http://www.myspace.com/farrah

Jez x

How do you write a song I hear you ask? Well, how do you paint a picture? You look at something, or imagine it and then brush some colours onto a canvas and voila! Well, it’s the same with songwriting. If this is your first time, think of something you want to sing and sing it! Go on, have a go, right now!

Yikes! Was that you? That strangulated cat sound and terrible lyrics? (welcome to the world of being creative, for every creative and beautiful endeavor, there’s a critic who knows better and enjoys putting you down). Well, it’s a first attempt. Don’t be hard on yourself if it wasn’t a masterpiece. I doubt if Van Gogh’s first picture looked much like a, er, Van Gogh!

The thing about everything we do is- our first attempts aren’t going to be the pinnacle of achievement in that field. The first time I kicked a football, I didn’t score a goal (in fact I fell over). But it was fun. In fact, many years later, I still haven’t scored a goal because I don’t practice and i’m a bit rubbish. Anyway, I digress….

My first song was called ‘What Would You Say If I Say I Love You’. I wrote it when I was 11. It went a little bit like this.

What would you say if I say I love you
What would you say if I cared
What would you say if I said I loved you
Would you even care.

(repeat forever)

Evil dictators could have used this song as an instrument of torture. I recall the melody having one note and the song alternating sporadically from one chord to the one next to it at a funereal tempo (I couldn’t change chord very fast). I played it all day, every day for a week. In my mind it was a work of staggering beauty and heartbreak. I was my biggest, and only fan. None of my family spoke to me after day two. After day four, I discovered the power supply to my half size Casio keyboard had mysteriously disappeared.

So I suppose the question isn’t really how do you write a song, It should be how do you write a good song? And this raises the question – what (or who) defines whether a song is good? I thought my first song was good because it expressed exactly how I felt. Looking back though, I can see that not many other people would like it because it was lacking in a few departments, namely- Lyric, melody, harmony, rhythm and structure.

So how did I get better in these departments? Well, I guess it was a combination of writing a whole bunch of terrible songs (Carole King said her first 500 songs were awful) and copying songs I liked. By copying the songs I liked, I learned a few things about chords, and lyrics and what a good length for a song might be. I imagine Van Gogh did the same when he was learning- sketching, copying artists he admired, mixing paints and producing some embarrassing pictures along the way.

I suppose song structure (or form) is like learning how to fill the canvas. I remember learning to draw and my picture would be a timid scribble in the middle of an enormous white rectangle. Perhaps you were the same, or were you one of the unfortunates who started drawing a face to find out the paper was only big enough for two eyes and a nose?

I remember getting to grips with complementary colours and perspective in art in the same way I struggled with rhyme and chord sequences in songwriting. It took a long time to get more confident in writing songs and then one day- a revelation – I began to write songs that sounded like me. Somehow all the stuff I’d learned didn’t get in the way anymore. I could, so to speak, draw a picture without worrying if it would fill the sheet of paper. I knew it would, and if it didn’t, it was because I wanted to break the ‘rules’

So what’s the moral of this blog? First of all, don’t be disheartened if you don’t immediately write something great- just keep writing. Learn from all the writers you admire by copying them. There’s no shame in this. You should be a sponge, soaking in all the skills you can. Try not to be too hard on yourself, and lose yourself in the process of creation. If you have something you need to say, and the patience to say it wrong over and over and over again, you’ll eventually say it right and write a song that blows you away, a song that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Nothing worth finding is within arms reach.


If you enjoyed this blog, or any of the others I’ve written, please check out the wonderful charity I support and if you can afford to, please donate.


Love to you all.

Jez

Hey all you lovely OneLove folks! It’s been an age since I blogged because I’ve been so busy making the Farrah record. I thought I should at least let you know I’m alive. So what’s new?

Well, like every January I’ve given my liver a holiday by not drinking alcohol. I think I mentioned this in my very first blog so I won’t go on about it here, except to say I still haven’t had a drink and it’s now the 4th of February. It’s strange but I haven’t felt the need to get steaming drunk and actually feel as though my mind is in a better equilibrium than it’s usual hangover-to-excess-and-back rollercoaster. I imagine I will fall off the wagon spectacularly in the next week or so, waking up upside down behind the television, smeared with kebab.

At the moment there is snow in London which has brought the whole country to a standstill. We specialize in all kinds of rain, but snow of this magnitude (about an inch) is seldom seen here. It was a good thing I think. There was no public transport so people didn’t go to work. Instead, they made snowmen with their children (the schools closed too!) and had snowball fights. I’ve never seen so many people smiling and having fun. Is there a more simple pleasure than throwing a snowball? I wonder.

I hope you’re all having a great 2009 so far. I saw an interesting lecture on youtube (you may have seen it, there’s a book coming out I think) about fulfilling your childhood dreams. It was the last lecture by a professor who was dying of cancer. There was one line I really loved. ‘Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want’

Jez x

Songwriting and comedy.

Hello all you lovely people. I hope you’re having a great festive season.
My subject today? Comedy and Music.

How come all the song-writers I know are so funny? I was thinking about this the other day while watching a standup on TV and I realised that the two disciplines have quite a few things in common.

Firstly, laughing (like feeling music) is an unconscious process. You can’t decide to find something funny, just as much as you can’t decide to fall in love with a piece of music. How many times have you caught yourself laughing at something you shouldn’t? A risqué joke? a mean gag? A sick one-liner? A giggle that you can’t help comes out (these are the times you laugh and put your hand over your mouth in shock). This is the real you. In life we spend ninety percent of our time pretending to be someone else, as what we’re really thinking would offend or upset people. When you laugh at something you shouldn’t, It’s our dark subconscious saying hi. The same dark subconscious may also secretly love songs that you know you shouldn’t like, cheesy songs, lame power ballads. You know what I’m talking about!

And how about universal truths? Songwriters and comedians are brave (or stupid?) enough to be honest. We’ve all heard the saying ‘tears of a clown’ well, songwriters are some of the darkest, sickest, melancholy people around. We know our subconscious a bit too well sometimes We go out on a limb to say ‘I feel this is true but nobody’s saying it. Is it just me?’ A universal truth is going to connect with lots of people but it’s the angle not the truth itself that is paramount to making a song or gag work.

‘Nobody talks in lifts’ (or elevators to all you not in the U.K)’ is a universal truth but this in itself isn’t funny, neither does this truth tell you anything about yourself. The songwriter and comedian are trying to look behind the truism to explore the angles.

It might be as simple as a comedian raising the question.

‘Why does no motherfucker talk in the elevator?’ (bad words are funny)
Who started that shit? Was there a meeting about it? Even kids don’t talk in elevators. Who told them? How do we all know it’s the elevator law? Even my girlfriend, who never stops talking, clams up in the elevator.. It’s the only time day or night she shuts up. I rented an apartment on the 18th floor just to get some peace’
We don’t talk in elelvators cos we’re scared. We’ve seen disaster movies. We all stand there, mute, thinking about the slightly frayed rusty cable overhead and hoping to God another fat person doesn’t get on, and working out if the cable snapped and we plummeted down 30 floors it might be possible to jump up at the exact moment before the elevator hits the ground and survive.

O.K, I know it’s not particularly funny, that’s why I’m an unsuccessful songwriter rather than an unsuccessful comedian. The songwriter, would use this universal truth but frame it in a scenario, often a relationship.

‘we used to talk, but now it’s like we share an elevator
same building, different floors
silently waiting for the doors’

The listener might connect with the lyric because they’ve worked out the angle themselves (ah! Nobody talks in elevators). The comedian and the songwriter are both trying to say something that connects with you because you’ve thought it yourself but haven’t articulated it in this way.

Then there’s the time frame. Most comedians have an open slot of between 3 and 5 minutes to capture your attention. The same goes for most songs. The comedian and the songwriter have to grab your attention quickly. To get to the chorus, is in effect, to get to the punch line. In many songs the verses carry a narrative- who, where, when and how. The Chorus is often where the writer says ‘and this is why I say….. (the angle)’. A stand up often uses the same technique of tension and resolve. This build up of tension to the punch-line and the release when it comes (this is true of the journey to a song’s chorus also) is sublime. We’re waiting to laugh. Stand-ups may even call it riffing- just like musicians do. Repetition often helps the laughs, and the song.  And sometimes we don’t laugh, or we don’t ‘get’ the song. This may be because the standup thought something was a universal truth that wasn’t…..

‘Hey, everyone hates dogs! Right?

Or a songwriter talks about truth that’s been explored a million times

‘You don’t know what you got until it’s gone’ (yawn)

And we all know the song is only as good as the singer makes it. The singer has to carry the message. A great comedian can get laughs from O.K material. But a comedian with poor timing (phrasing in the case of a singer) or limited range, won’t wring the maximum potential out of the joke (or song). Not all comedians write their own material, not all singers write their own songs. What a great singer or comedian can do is realise the material brilliantly. They make it shine.

Finally, there’s the beauty of shared experience, of being in the audience. All laughing at the same joke, all singing along with your favourite band in a sweaty moshpit.

Music and comedy tell us that however alone we feel, we’re not alone.

Where would we be without friends? I don’t know about you, but there’s no better place to be than with the people who know you best. My mum and dad know me, but they haven’t been there for most of my formative experiences. My friends have.  I am a really lucky person that I’ve had good friends for so long. But, I have less and less time to see them. They might get an SMS, an email, or a poke on Facebook, but that is the equivalent of waving at them from the other side of a crowded room. If friendship is a fire, a Facebook message is like adding a small twig to the flame, a phone call is a dry branch, but a face to face catch up is like dragging a log onto the fire.  One thing I’m going to do in the New Year is visit more- go round for a cup of tea, meet in the park and have a walk, possibly a drink in the pub. In fact, I should be calling my friend Chris, who has been my friend since I was 5, rather than writing this. So, that’s what I’m going to do. Call him. Now.

Call up your friends. Pick up the phone. Go and visit. Stop looking at this screen. Be a friend.


Jez

Hey I’m sorry I’m hogging the blog, I’m suffering from blogitus, but seriously, there’s a really important reason why I’m re-entering the blogosphere today.

Lojinx Records has an exclusive FREE Christmas download EP featuring brand new festive tunes by; Farrah, Nate Campany, Caroline Lost, The Wellingtons, Henrik, The Bad Machines and Nightlights!

I know for a fact that all the wonderful folk at Lojinx have been up all night (like Santa) to get this released today, so if you fancy listening to some specially penned and recorded Christmas tunes, go to:

http://www.lojinx.com/features/ljx016/

It’s not often in these troubled economic times that you get something for nothing.....

Enjoy.

Peace and love

Jez

Memories of 2008


High-Point- Staying in a thatched roof Samurai  house in the Japanese mountains.

Low-Point- My dad being ill (although he’s a lot better now)

Sadly Missed-Oliver Postgate

Record Of The Year- Dennis Wilson 'Pacific Ocean Blue'.

Favourite Blogger- Ben Romans.

Event Of The Year -The U.S Election, but very closely followed by the Diversion/ Lojinx Christmas party!

Word Of The Year- Sub-prime.

 
How about you?

Happy Christmas to you all and hoping that 2009 finds you all happy, healthy and brimming with optimism


x

I listened to a show on the radio last night about keepsakes. These are objects we hold on to for sentimental reasons. When someone knows they are about to die, they are often encouraged by nursing staff to make a ‘memory box’- a box that is filled with the souvenirs from their life. This box is passed down to their dependents as a testament of their time on earth. I just thought that was such a poignant idea that something tangible, something real, is passed on, that this box would contain objects that have a tactile quality- a scent, a texture, a weight.

The world we live in is no more a place of love letters that rustle, tied up in ribbon, of creased and faded photographs, smelling of dust. The digital world deals only with the sense of sight and sound. Will our future memory boxes be a digital drop-box of SMS messages, our favourite emails, mp3s and a link to our Facebook profile?

This show got me wondering. What would I put in my memory box?
I’m not a good person for holding onto things. I lose things. I don’t get attached to objects because I’ll inevitably mislay them. What are the precious things that I’d want as a testament to my life?  I suppose my memory box would have my music in, because every song I’ve written takes me back to the moment I wrote it, to the moment we first played it live, to the moment it connected with someone else. But do those songs give an insight into me? I don’t know. Perhaps this blog does. Perhaps my descendents would read these blogs and form a picture of who I was from these words. But, of course, by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil the Internet may not exist. These blogs will be lost in the mists of cyberspace.

What would you put in your memory box? Which precious keepsakes define you? What would you rescue from your house in a fire?

Love to all.

Signs I haven’t grown up.



I will fashion my hair into a ‘Shampoo-Mohican’ when I wash it

I kick up leaves

I am tempted to shoplift

When someone calls me Jeremy I think I’ve been bad

I will put an unattended tea cosy on my head

I still don’t like going to school (though now I’m a part time lecturer)

I like to cycle non handed

On cold days when my breath freezes I will pretend I’m a steam train

I still like swings and roundabouts

I still find anything to do with breaking wind amusing.

On long car journeys I will ask ‘are we there yet?’

I am messy

I mimic people

I pull faces at myself in the mirror

I go 'ooh' and 'ahhh' at firework displays

I play my music too loud





What do you do to keep the inner child entertained?

I’m a self-confessed Philistine, I like art galleries but I look forward to the coffee in the gallery café more. Art is like exercise to me. I don’t want to go but I feel better afterwards. I went to see the Mark Rothko exhibition at the Tate. Now, no one can doubt Rothko’s conviction. He has the ‘Suicide’ badge of honour of the great artist. No questions there.
 
“Did he mean it you think, this art?”

“Well, he killed himself.”

The Tate modern in London is a great gallery. It feels too big for itself. The turbine hall is beyond huge. It reminds me of sci-fi films where somewhere on the mother ship there’s an unfeasibly large space- just because. Anyway, the Rothko exhibition focused on his later works, most importantly on the Seagram murals, which he was commissioned to hang in the Seagram building’s restaurant in New York in the 1960s. Rothko reneged on the contract after deciding that the venue wasn’t right for the work. Rumour has it (although he never confirmed it) that he didn’t feel a restaurant was a serious enough venue for contemplation of his canvases. With this on my mind I felt slightly bemused surveying the Mark Rothko postcards, Mugs and t-shirts for sale in the Tate shop. Is buying a postcard of a work of art like buying a ringtone of a piece of music? How would Rothko feel about ‘Rothko Scarves’? Are people really thinking ‘that exhibition was so moving and life changing that I really must get my uncle Bill some Roth coasters?’ Some of Rothko’s canvases are so huge he had to paint them up a ladder, so they don’t really translate that well to a 6 by 4 inch postcard.
 ‘Hi Bill, wish you were here, Rothko Rocks!’

I feel like a charlatan in galleries. Modern art demands a lot of engagement from the viewer. It’s not like a donut. A donut says ‘eat me’. Art says ‘ if you study me intently enough and for long enough you will discover a hitherto-unseen portal into your own soul’. So I stare, and stare. I do that lopsided standing far away stare and then the shuffling slowly towards the canvas move that I’ve seen the pros do.

Unfortunately, I’m too self-conscious. I want to engage with the art but not in this busy, bustling public space. It’s also slightly distracting to hear everybody else listening to a running commentary on those little ‘let me explain Rothko’ walkmans you can get as part of the Rothko experience (along with the calendar). It would be equally distracting to announce the next song at a gig to see the crowd press button 8 to listen to a running commentary on headphones. ‘In this song Jez is explaining how the feelings of love and lust were often confused, notice the unusual rhyme scheme in the chorus’... I mean, obviously I’m not saying I’m a great artist, but seriously, the first time you watch a DVD do you have the director’s commentary on? Why are we so obsessed with demystifying everything?

The thing is, knowing about an artist like Rothko doesn’t make me enjoy their work more or less. I prefer to look at what’s in front of me and see if it makes me feel something. I just believe that the canvas should engage the eyes and (hopefully) the soul. If you’re trying to engage the ears at the same time, you’ve got a lot to think about.  Perhaps I’m a terrible multi-tasker or one of those people who says ‘I don’t know art, but I know what I like’ I’ve heard stories of people breaking down in tears in a gallery when confronted by a Rothko masterpiece. I didn’t cry. I felt strangely guilty, like an atheist in church.

I wonder if all of this blog is really to do with the fact that because I spend most of my time de-constructing and demystifying music, I want to preserve the magic in the other areas of artistic expression. I don’t want to know the techniques, the tricks, the washes and glazes, I just want to be humbled.

So, how was the Rothko exhibition? Well I liked some paintings more than others. Some had an other-worldly glow that drew you in, a luminescent sense of calm. I imagine that if you have a near death experience and you head down that mysterious out-of-body tunnel to the afterlife, Rothko may have a hand in the colour scheme.

I hope you find time in your hectic lives to go and stare at something humbling this week. It’s worthwhile. By the way, there is an audio commentary to this blog available to give you some background into the blogging process, and O.K, I admit it, I bought a Rothko pen, and the coasters. Christmas is coming. It’s good to be prepared.

London.

This is the city where I live. It's like a huge gaping-mouthed monster that swallows you whole. You’re left to wander its digestive tracts and underground tracks, feeling grubby, bewildered and almost immediately bankrupt. I gave my soul to London years ago. I moved from a small town where the local paper would report ‘thieves steal rake from garden shed’ or ‘glove found in phonebox’. I transplanted my life in the steel-jawed metropolis of seven million souls, this bellicose tumour stretching and engulfing the neighbouring green land, swollen and itching with pregnant dreams.

Very few people here are from here. The cockneys and the pearly kings and queens mostly abandoned the capital over the last century to be replaced with visionaries and chancers from all corners of the world. This enormous melting pot spiced until it bubbled a hundred languages and cultures. Many are seduced by the accelerated rhythms and aching anonymity of the capital. The pace and urgency hits you like a jolt to the heart when you arrive from the sticks- the dirt, the clamour that disconcerting feeling of being invisible, and alive.

Here I can touch my heroes, it’s a musical Narnia. Abbey road is really there! I’ve walked in the footsteps of the Beatles and Hendrix, The Stones and The Kinks. I could walk into a pub to see Amy Winehouse propping up the bar or find Noel Gallagher covered in crumbs in a Hampstead bakery. The gutters and stars rub shoulders here, every borough a mish-mash of fancy townhouses and huge post-war council estates where dogs eat smaller dogs. From the tawdry splendour of Oxford St to the peaceful perfection of Marylebone’s hidden lanes, every time you turn a corner the mood of the capital changes. This is Monopoly for real, although most of us will see more of Whitechapel than we’ll ever see of Mayfair.

Samuel Johnson famously said

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

I wonder if I’ll get tired of London one day or whether it will grow tired of me?

Sir Cliff Richard

Is probably a name that you haven’t heard of in Americaland but in the U.K he has sold more records than The Beatles. Yes, you read it right, more than The Beatles. In fact (brace yourself) he has sold more singles in the U.K than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones put together. Why am I telling you this? Because I co-wrote his latest single which was released to celebrate his 50th Anniversary in the music biz.

It’s at number three in the singles chart this week. It was held off the top spot by the mighty Kings Of Leon and Katy Perry. Interestingly, the Cliff Richard song sold more physical singles than the rest of the top 75 put together (but hardly any downloads as most of his fans aren’t young itunes users!) which shows how the world of buying music is changing. Still, Cliff’s now had a top ten hit in every decade for the last six decades. Not a bad track record!

It’s my first U.K top ten single (and I hope not the last…) so I’m in a state of shock and bemusement. I would never have thought growing up that Sir Cliff (a national institution) would one day record one of my songs. So this is a ‘blowing my own trumpet’ blog. Here goes. PAAAARP!


I hope all is well with you all.

Jez x

I enjoyed the Olympics. The British team won a lot of medals, which is a bit strange. We’re so used to being good losers that we’re not sure how to act if we win. O.K, we won a few of them in sports I didn’t know existed (gold in being polite, picnicking and a silver in pretending mad people on the tube aren’t there). The Olympics makes me wonder- Are the weightlifting medals really really heavy? Do the horses in the Olympic dressage get a medal? It seems to me that they’re doing most of the work.

The amount of dedication that goes into being the best athlete is incredible. I imagine a diver practicing day in day out for 10 years trying to make a really small splash. If they succeed, they make a really big splash, so to speak. How crushing though to spend all that time training and preparing for the hundred metres not only to be beaten but beaten so convincingly that the winner has time to wave to the crowd before winning (and setting a new world record). I wonder what Usain Bolt’s trainer says? “O.K, when you hear the gun, run really really really fast”.

Watching China on T.V reminded me of the strangest gig I ever played. A brilliant duo called ‘A Man Called Adam’ were offered a show in Shanghai. They asked me to play guitar and get a band together for the show. We rehearsed for a week, flew to Shanghai and headed to the outdoor festival the day before the show. We had a three hour soundcheck and our VJ got some amazing visuals going on the huge video screens.

 The day of the gig, a typhoon rolled in. It was so severe that they lashed our dressing room down to stop it getting blown away. I’d never seen thunder, lightning and rain like it. The rest of the acts at the festival were Chinese pop singers who sang to backing tapes. We were the only band with amps and drums. By the time of the gig the gear was completely soaked and the stage manager decided that if we plugged in “we would die”. The only option was for me and Sally the singer to go on stage and play one song acoustically (less chance of death). It was beyond surreal. 50000 sodden people were watching as well as millions on MTV China. We decided that after we’d played the song that the rest of the band should walk onto the stage and at least take a bow. It was an absurd sight to see them troop on stage, bow, and troop off again.

After the ‘gig’ everyone was disconsolate. The promoter was sad for us. I said ‘chances happening of that- a typhoon!’  She said, ‘same thing happened at the festival last year, it’s typhoon season”. 3 days in China, 5 minutes on stage, but as Dan the bass player said while drowning his sorrows “At least you got to play, I’ve been on a 24000 mile round trip to take a bow”.

This is a phenomenon I’ve been witnessing recently and it’s on the rise.

Back in the mists of time, a band or singer would often be signed because an A&R (artist and repertoire) scout would see them at a gig. These scouts are a dying breed. I used to know a couple who would trawl the London circuit and sometimes further afield powered by weak lager, a smidgin of gak, and a sense of their own importance. (‘I’m in the list, Artie Fufkin, Polymer Records’). As record Companies shrink like post-coital male genitalia (an apt metaphor perhaps) the A&R departments are often the most badly hit.
 
I heard a (probably apocryphal) story about an A&R person getting a new job and not signing anyone at all for three years. Their logic being that their job was safe if they didn’t lose the company any money by signing an act that didn’t make it. In fact, EMI’s profits are finally on an upturn because they’re realizing that signing artists causes most of their losses! If they just concentrate on flogging their back catalogue again and again and again (how about Beatles boxsets which divide the songs by category ‘Psychedelic’, ‘Love Songs’, ‘India’ ‘rock and roll’…. You heard it here first) they wouldn’t be in trouble at all.

So where does all this leave the songwriter?

Traditionally an artist would be signed, make a record, have a meeting where the A&R boss would say ‘I love the record guys but I don’t hear a single’ and then press the secret red button under the desk that summons the leading songwriters from various pubs (this is next to the gold button which calls Timbaland if they want a guaranteed hit). The act would co write with the songwriter to create the radio ‘hit’. What’s changed is songwriters are now earning about half as much from physical sales as five years ago (due to the fall in CD prices and piracy). It’s also the case that less product is released on Major labels than before and many songwriters have to have their songs released on Major Labels to fulfill their commitment. So the songwriters have taken the next step- they are becoming A&R.

So now when I go to small club gigs, half the audience seem to be songwriters, hoping to discover the raw talent of a Winehouse or a Blunt. The songwriter then nurtures the talent and pitches a basically finished record to a major label. The songwriter has co-written all the songs on the record and thus earns more and the upside for the label is they don’t the upkeep of an expensive A&R department. This means that some songwriters I know are working and investing in new singers and bands for up to a year in the hope they get signed or get a license deal. Of course, if the labels don’t bite then it’s a lot of time and money down the drain-the songwriter’s money that is!

This is all part of the changing world of the songwriter. We used to be writers, then we all had to become producers and arrangers, now we becoming A&R, perhaps the next stage will be designing the artwork and shooting the video……

So how do I feel about this? On one level, I’ve sometimes co written with artists that a label has signed that I don’t think are really great so I doubt the skill of an A&R department on some level, but at the same time I think the fledgling artists out there should be given time to develop their songwriting on their own to create a distinctive style and direction before they get ‘blanded out’ by working with the industry. As someone who loves songwriting and collaborating, my biggest thrill is to co-write with someone who has a definite style and a clear sense of who they are. I don’t want to be defining them by telling them what to sound like. Too often artists are told to reign in the part of them which is uniquely them rather than to take every idiosyncrasy and magnify to the power of 100. I suppose that sometimes i forget that this is the 'music industry'.

If you're wondering how my band Farrah choose the songs for our record, check out our vlog.

I thought I’d write a small blog about inspiration and creativity, as I’m intrigued to know how all the great writers on this site come up with stuff. I’ve been writing songs for many years; the first one I can remember was written when I was 12 on a Casio keyboard. I entered a songwriting competition on a kid's programme and I won (of course I didn’t win, my song was a terrible Frankenstein monstrosity of Phil Collins meets The Carpenters).

Now I’m a professional writer (whatever that means) I’m more disciplined about trying to write something every day but I basically reckon I don’t have much of a method. As Dianne Warren said ‘I turn up’ because to quote Woody Allen ‘90% of success is showing up’.


So I may start with a title (I have a notebook of titles) or start by strumming the acoustic guitar or playing the piano or plugging in an electric or bass or by getting a drum loop going or by singing an a cappella melody into my phone on the tube or I blatantly steal the groove or chord change from a song I love. I don’t wait to be inspired, but it helps if I am. All I know is I can play stuff I like, stuff that is good, but it won’t excite me enough. As Bacharach said ‘my greatest enemy is my hands. They want to go to the familiar’. The world doesn’t need another O.K song. I like to surprise myself.

I like to write first thing in the morning, I think the wall between the unconscious and the conscious is at it’s most permeable then. When I have a lyrical theme or title based idea for a song I often let it percolate, let it turn around in my mind for days or weeks. I try and organise the idea into the best lyrical framework; who is singing this story? Why are they singing it? Who are they singing it to? I love writing lyrics on the tube, it’s like having my own crossword puzzle to do, I perversely try and rhyme hard words because they sound fresher (filing, polystyrene, Irene, have a lie in) and I’m a masochist. I love writing on my own, but it’s a harder job. There’s no one to pass the baton to in the song relay race.

Often in a co writing situation we would start by trying to capture the feeling of a song that we all love (a great writer Paul Scott drily remarked that ‘plagiarism pays’). The challenge is to create a song that inspires an emotional reaction from the listener. ‘The aim of a good song is, within the context of three minutes, to provide a couple of lines that just go ‘bang’ in the back of the cranium so that people go ‘Yes, I know that feeling (Neil Finn).

Sometimes with an artist, your job is that of amateur Psychologist- Often I’ll be told pretty personal stuff by someone I don’t know. I then try and help them turn it into a song they want to sing. It’s weird but I know so many people who don’t dare to say anything too raw in a song because they’re worried the person they’re writing it about might spot it’s about them. I think it’s good if you’re worried, that’s because you’re being honest. Some days I write an average song, some days a bad song, occasionally a good one. I have a lot of half finished ideas that aren’t worth finishing. Songs are like children, I gave birth to them all and I love them all, even the stunted little freak children that don’t work. When I write on my own I rewrite the lyrics lots of times, sometimes I’ll go back to the drawing board when the music and production is done and think ‘how does this music make me feel? Does it suit the lyrical subject matter I’ve written'?

So when is a song finished? Paul Simon said; Say what you have to say in your own way, as simply and as quickly as you can then get the hell out of there!


I’ll finish with a quote from the great Don Schlitz. ‘If you write every day and finish everything then when a great piece of inspiration comes along you’ll be ready for it'.

I hope all the writers out there write a great song today! By the way, a lot of these quotes are from a book called ‘And Then I Wrote’.

Well, I think it’s about time I blogged as my terribly depressing tale about the suicidal man needs something chirpy and upbeat to counter it.
Well, chirpy and upbeat it is then!

Everything is AMAZING at the moment, the sun is out, the smell of barbecue is in the air and we’re making a new album. Yippee! It’s a daunting prospect in some ways. This is our fourth record so it’s hard to find new angles, arrangements and grooves we’ve never visited before. We tried to play a song in alternate bars of 5/4 and 6/8 last week and it sounded absolutely awful. If you tried to dance to it you would possibly injure yourself. Some time signatures go together like chocolate and ham.

As I spend a lot of my time writing with other writers and with artists it’s a strange mindset to get back into writing for myself again. What do I want to say? What subjects need exploring? When it comes to the crunch I’ll probably just mine that rich seam of lingering adolescent angst and remember all the rejection and gothic suffering of my pimply teenage years, and- voila!- a song.

I then nervously play a bunch of ideas (songettes?) to the rest of the band. I always feel like I’m on American Idol facing the judges at this point. After listening to them they say things like ‘is that the chorus?’ or ‘it’s a bit meandering,’ but occasionally they’ll all agree on a tune they like and we then go and play it, rewrite it a bit and record it. We’re doing occasional video blogs (do the nerds call those vlogs?) from the studio so check out the Farrah myspace for news.

Judging by Ben and Nate’s blogs we’re not the only ones heading into the studio and trying to find a three minute masterpiece- a pocket symphony. I’d better get back to work. No one understands me, I’m 15, I’m going to my room to listen to The Cure. I didn’t ask to be born.

So there I was on the top deck of the bus on a beautiful London morning. I was on my way to write a song. I had a cool musical idea. I was in a good mood as the bus crossed Battersea bridge. I’m on my phone having a chat with my publisher and then I see something on the bridge. A silver haired man in a wheelchair purposefully staring at the river. The next second he’s pulling himself up with his arms and drags himself over the parapet and then he’s gone over the edge. So quick. The wheelchair stands there. The bus is moving fast and that’s all I see. I say my publisher in a hesitant voice that doesn’t sound like my own “sorry, have to go…… I think someone’s just thrown themselves off the bridge”

I immediately call the police, I’m shaking a bit. They say they will send the river police to the area. I miss my bus stop. This is where the story ends for me. I don’t know if this grey haired man killed himself or whether he was (by some miracle) rescued. After my writing appointment (that was a weird thing to have to do) I walk home over the bridge, stop where I last saw him, and look down at the swirling brown water. There are no flowers, the wheelchair is gone, there’s nothing in the evening paper. It’s like it never happened, it’s like I imagined it.

Irrational thoughts cross my mind. It was a beautiful sunny day full of the promise of summer. Surely you wouldn’t end your life on a day like this? A rainy day would make more sense perhaps. Perhaps there was a TV crew there I couldn’t see and it was a TV show. He was an actor.

Stupid thoughts.

That man’s expression stays with me all night and it’s the first thing I think of when I wake up. I want to call the police and find out whether they recovered a body. I want to know more; the who-was-he, the why-did-he but I know full well the police wouldn’t tell me. In their eyes I have no connection with this man. I am not a relative, so I have no right to pry. I doubt I could find out what happened from other sources. It’s not as if a London suicide will make the papers. It’s an everyday occurrence in this city. I feel strangely ghoulish even wanting to know.

So I’m sorry to leave it like this. I like to have a beginning, middle and end to a story (I am a songwriter after all) I want to know about this man’s life and I want to know about this man’s death. I want to know who will be at the funeral and how he will be remembered. Then part of me doesn’t want to know. Can’t I just imagine that a boat plucked him out of the water? Why do I want to know? Why do I feel in a strange way that I owe him something?

Hey all, long time no blog.

I’m typing this on a train on the way up to Glasgow. I’m on tour with Kim Richey at the moment. It’s been a blast so far.

At the first show I played a solo so spectacularly badly that Kim broke the cardinal rule of show business (the show must go on!) and stopped the song because she was crying with laughter. Many audience members said this was the highlight of the evening. It’s strange how only a semitone separates beauty from comedy.

To pass the time on the long car and train journeys we have made up many unsuccessful games such as ‘I’m a colour- what am I’, ‘what superpower would you have and why’ and also argued about what kind of food (if you were only allowed one type) you would be marooned on a desert island with. Kim-Japanese, me- torn between Indian and British (homesickness might necessitate a Yorkshire pudding).

I managed to hook up with the legendary and talented Nate Campany last week at a writers night. We were both a touch worse for wear after singing along with Desmond Child performing ‘Living On A Prayer (inspiring) and Graham Gouldman performing 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love (humbling). Me and Nate were hoping to write yesterday but I was too knackered after being on late night BBC radio 2 the night before (sorry Nate, don’t hate me). The link is below if you fancy listening to me, Kim and Giles Martin performing a few of Kim’s tunes and being interviewed. After listening back today I’ve realized that me and Kim are both ‘high talkers’, it sounds like he’s interviewing the munchkins.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/bobharris/biography.shtml

You need to fast-forward about an hour into the show.


I read a nice quote today. ‘He had a mind like knitting that the cat had played with ’

Jez x

Hello all, I’ve been skim reading my blogs and have realized how little I’ve written about my day job so I thought as there are a lot of songwriters part of this brilliant online community, I should share my thoughts on this mysterious business.

My job is to write about love, life and loss and make it a damn hit!

This is the life of the song writer. I could write a song about penguins, Curling, or why I don’t like the feel of cotton wool (and I’d record them with my band and they would be cool) but these songs would be less likely to be recorded by an artist than songs about ‘the big three’.

But it’s hard to come up with new angles on love. Someone told me there are 6 stages of love you can write about- Looking for love. Falling in love, staying in love, falling out of love, getting over love and looking for love again. There’s also the question angle- what is love? Is this love? Was that love? These big subjects hit a chord with more people than songs about curling. Although I am tempted to write a big fat penguin based hit.

Who has songs written for them anyway?

Well, the vast majority of artists write or co write their own songs but manufactured pop bands, some R and B artists, overseas acts and a lot of country artists record songs by ‘outside’ writers.

These are the type of artists I write songs for. This is not to be confused with the huge amount of talented artists I co write with. They are more than capable of writing great songs. In this case I’m just there to add some input and concentrate on trying to co-write something ‘radio’ (catchy, fresh, exciting, often uptempo and usually chorus heavy in structure). As an artist myself I often resist writing these kinds of ‘Obvious’ songs in favour of more ‘arty’ songs. I like co writing with artists because it takes the pressure off. It’s fun and challenging to write something immediate.

So writing a song for specific pop artist is a bizarre job.

First of all I get sent a brief by my publisher who has spoken to the label. A typical brief might be- Artist ‘A’ s label are looking for a hit single in the vein of Daniel Powter’s ‘Bad Day mixed’ with Train’s ‘Drops Of Jupiter’ (oh, no problem, I have 7 of these on my song shelf)

The next thing I have to do is find out about the artist’s style, age, vocal range and any lyrical themes they have explored. On a really basic level, this avoids simple mistakes like writing a song called ‘together’ to find that the artist has already cut a song called this, or writing a song called ‘I’ve been in love too many times’ for a 13 year old girl.

At this point I picture all the other amazing songwriters out there being sent the same brief and in London, Stockholm, L.A and New York and furiously ‘Frankensteining’ a new song that sounds like ‘Bad Days Of Jupiter’. At this point I fleetingly lose the will to live.

What is it about these two songs on the brief that makes them hits? Is it  the feel, the lyric, the vocal performance, the marketing? If the two biggest songs of 2007 were called ‘Penguins are cute’ or ‘cotton wool allergy’ would A and R departments be asking for songs similar to this?

This is why I tend to ignore briefs and try to write the best song I can instead. If the song I write means something to me, has a great melody and groove then I hope it could connect with someone else. Also, I imagine an A and R person listening through 100 ‘Drops Of Bad Day’ songs and I hope that the song I’ve written might at least stand out from the pile.

Once I’ve written the song, demoed the song (usually with a session singer) to album standard it gets sent to my publisher who passes it on to the label. Then I wait, and wait, and then as hope dwindles, forget about the song. Sometimes, 4 years later the song gets recorded by an Albanian Shepherd who won Albanian Idol, more often than not, the song never gets recorded and gathers dust- if an mp3 can gather dust.
If I’m really lucky, the song gets recorded.

So how do you earn money as a songwriter?

Songwriters don’t get paid for writing songs. A publisher loans me money and hopes that the songs I write while under contract get recorded and earn money. The songwriter (and the publisher) earns money each time a CD is manufactured or legally downloaded.

Songwriters also earn money every time a song they have written is played on the radio, film or TV, downloaded as a ringtone or performed at a live show. Collection agencies and societies from all over the world try and collate all this information and work out who to pay. This can take a few years. When the money eventually wends its way back to the writer it firstly goes towards paying back the loan from the publisher. When you’ve paid the publisher back you start earning money. Woo hoo!

All songwriters start writing songs for no money and end up writing songs for no money. No one in his right mind would become a songwriter to make a quick buck. We all do it because it’s alchemy-
Turning a feeling into a melody, a mood into a groove, rhyming your emotions. The reward is in the moment (although I never tell my bank manager this). It’s a really weird job and I love it to bits. Now I’d better write that penguin song…….

Homecoming

It’s strange how different your home looks when you’ve been away. I just stepped through the door and witnessed the clutter and the faint smell of old coffee and it’s like stepping back into my life again. It was raining and cold when I set off to Japan a couple of weeks ago but now Britain is in bloom- the drug dealers below my window are wearing their summer plumage, the tang of newly cut grass is in the air and everybody’s car stereo is turned up to sunny volume.

Japan was a fantastic experience. The two Japanese lessons I had before leaving got me frustratingly close to constructing a sentence without the aid of mime. I suppose I speak caveman Japanese- ‘where live?’ ‘What name’? ‘me ugg, me fly here in big silver bird’.

The shows were great, especially Okayama where we played one of our songs so fast the whole band was in danger of collapsing from giggles and the audience danced like they were being electrocuted. We also played a few acoustic HMV and Tower Records instores which were good fun if not slightly surreal. It was a pretty busy tour- travel, instore, soundcheck, check into hotel, gig, eat, drink, collapse, repeat.

This was my 5th visit to Japan. These are a few of the myriad of  things that interest me about this amazing country

The trains don’t run to the minute, they run to the second.

Whoever designed the Japanese schoolgirl uniform was not a woman

Talking on the metro in the morning rush hour is frowned upon. Me and Dana ( Farrah’s drummer) were told off on the train (for arguing about prog rock) by a ‘salaryman’ in halting but angry English. “Not Japanese system” he seethed. We spent the rest of the journey in scolded schoolboy silence. Probably not a big Emerson Lake and Palmer fan.

People in Tokyo cycle on the pavement and no one ever seems to get entangled.

Japanese people are on the whole, very, very polite.

The Japanese (like the British!) like to drink and seem to lose their reserve when they do.

The Japanese culture celebrates working as a team. After gigs it is not unusual for all the bands on the bill to go out and eat together with the staff from the club and toast everybody’s hard work. This is a good thing.

The Japanese language has three written forms and takes years to master. This is a bad thing.



So now I’ve blogged,  I’ll spend some time in the decompression chamber of washing dirty laundry, discovering mouldy bread, buying milk, and catching up with the mail. I’ll probably be polite and bow imperceptibly for the next few days, occasionally thank someone in Japanese, be surprised the tube is late and slowly but surely slip back from surreality to reality-as surely as a suntan fades.

Hey everyone, hope all is good. Sorry I haven’t posted for a while, I’m recovering from a severe bout of man flu. It has brought to my attention that women are more stoical than men when it comes to illness. I’m sure to the average woman a bout of flu feels like a ‘heavy cold’, well, to a man it feels like life-threatening meningitis and consumption mixed together. I have been shivering, shaking, sweating and generally being pathetic for a whole week. We even had to cancel a Farrah show on Friday because I hadn’t recovered in time.

Health is one of those things we take for granted until it goes wrong. When I was subjected to the horrors of daytime TV for a whole week all I wanted to do was go outside. It was the London Marathon on Sunday and it reminded me there are at least 32000 people in the capital healthier than I am. I wish I could say that I spent the week writing songs but all I did was drink “EmergenC” moan gently and pray for a swift death. My friend Lisa came over and performed Reiki on me and strangely enough the next day I was 100 percent better. By this stage I would have happily tried leeches. Perhaps the Reiki worked or perhaps the virus decided to go and attack someone else. I don’t know.

Now I’m fully recovered, the band have been rehearsing non-stop for our tour of Japan (we leave on Monday). We’re really excited to be heading back over to the land where noodles are king and superheroes are fashioned out of plastic turnips. It’s a crazy country.

The two Japanese lessons I’ve had enable me to ask someone where they’re from and have no idea what their answer means. I can also buy something in a shop without resorting to pointing and waving yen. It’s not much but it’s a start.

I’ll hopefully put up a blog from Japan next week

Sayanora!

Jez

Rucksacks aren’t cool.

I bought one yesterday and marvelously practical as they are, they are definitely not a fashion statement. Have you ever seen a Hollywood star wearing a rucksack? I rest my case. They know it’s the death knell of fashionability. George Clooney in a rucksack? Oscar night? Come on. Phil Collins in a rucksack? Possibly. The reason they are worn on your back is so you don’t have to see how bad you look.

I wore it for the first time yesterday. It felt strange. People were looking at me like I was on day release. Firstly, even in the geek pantheon of rucksacks, mine is a particularly sad model. It’s not one of those sun-weathered-slightly-frayed-canvas-camping rucksacks that scream “ I’ve been to India 3 times on this guy’s back, the stories I could tell….. wild times my friend…..”.It’s not one of those rucksacks at all. It’s black and it’s very new. It’s the ‘businessman getting down with the kids’ model, this rucksack says- “the person I am attached to is afraid of developing a back problem”. This rucksack will never visit Kathmandu. It’s more likely to be seen at a weekend sales conference in Basildon.

I went to a gig wearing it last night (I know….) and one of my friends (?) immediately chimed in with “Did you come straight from school”? (even though I was only wearing it on one shoulder to try and look cooler). I was crushed. He was the rucksack bully and I was 12 years old again. The most tragic thing was that I’d come straight from my Japanese lesson to the gig so he was, in fact, correct. Twat. I hate my rucksack.

The other thing that bothers me is this rucksack has way too many pockets. It was designed by a pocket fetishist.
It’s day two and I’m still discovering pockets. Strange shaped pockets. Pockets within pockets. My Rucksack is begging me to compartmentalize.
“Come on Jez put your pens in the special pen pocket not in the main compartment, you know you want to!”. Fill my pockets, ALL OF THEM.
STUFF MEEEEEE!. A flaccid rucksack is too sad to contemplate.

My back feels much better though, and when no one is looking I pretend it’s a parachute.

Geronimo!

Shoot, get treasure, shoot

This is what developers came up with when their boss at a video game company asked them to distill the essence of all video games. It also makes an interesting maxim for life itself. I heard this on BBC Radio 4 which I have on in the background all day and is the only Station which has news, comment and occasional programmes about the mating habits of sea slugs.

Thanks for all the comments on the previous blog, this is a short one as I’m snowed under with half finished songs and Japanese homework. I just wanted to let you know that the band’s new video I wrote about a couple of blogs ago is now finished and you can watch it below. Hope you like.

The song was recorded, engineered, produced, mixed and mastered by Farrah. The video was shot, and edited by the band.

If the big record companies are the dinosaurs- large, stupid, powerful and cold blooded. Farrah is a mammal- small, warm blooded and with a lovely shiny pelt.

Farrah - Can't Kick The Habit from Lojinx on Vimeo.

Spring is coming, look busy!

I have a few friends who suffer from depression (not only due to being friends with me). Obviously, being a songwriter, I listen to their problems with an understanding ear and then try and rhyme their pain (again and again). Actually, joking aside, it’s a terribly impotent feeling to be friends with someone who isn’t happy and there’s nothing you can do to improve things except not say things like ‘cheer up’ or ‘it’s not so bad’.

What is happiness anyway? All I know is being content is not the same as being happy to me. Is happiness the absence of pain? Why do I ask so many questions in my blog? Why oh why? Sorry. I got carried away. By the way, you may be wondering how come I seem to have so much time to blog at the moment. It’s actually because I’m in the studio all weekend baby sitting a particularly depressing band and am rarely called upon except to say things like ‘that was perfect, let’s do another for safety’ (top ten things producer’s say in the studio volume one).

The notion of happiness intrigues and baffles me. When and where were you happiest? What did it smell like? How old were you? Do you ever think you’ll be that happy again? The idea of finding happiness as if it’s a place you arrive at is odd. For me, happiness is the unexpected moment of peace or beauty. I can’t plan it. Although perhaps we should all schedule some happiness time in our day: Happy hour, when we’re half as hard on ourselves and twice as nice to everyone else.

Generally I’d say I’m a happy person. People seem to think I am. I wonder if it’s because I was lucky enough to be born happy or because I nearly died of having collapsed lungs when I was 16 and that whole hospitalization thing made me insanely grateful to be alive? My friend Hayley called me the ‘peaceful fucking warrior’ once because I don’t sweat the small stuff much. I was saying to an old friend who is staying for a few days that I was pretty happy and he said ‘be careful who you say that to’. I understand what he means. To say you’re happy has a smug, almost sinister moonie-esque overtones. ‘He can’t live in this world and be happy, he must have been lobotomised’, hold on, that explains the scar.

I read that to be happy you need to do the following things; Exercise, eat healthily, smile at yourself in the mirror, eat eggs for breakfast and oily fish for dinner, believe in a God, have a pet, sleep, meditate, do something you enjoy, do something philanthropic, live in the moment and drink Guinness (o.k, I added the last one).

It’s as simple as that according to the experts. So go forth and pursue happiness and by the way, if this blog cheered you up then I’m claiming it as my philanthropic gesture for the day. Happy Easter.

Sometimes when I listen to the greatest songs ever I am both inspired and depressed.

What is it like to be a Salieri in the time of Mozart? Or a good painter in the time of Picasso, a great footballer in the days of Pele, a good songwriter in the time of the Beatles and Beach Boys? This is the world I’m in.

It’s such a crazy thing to want to be the best at something. If you want to be the fastest One hundred meter runner ever then there’s a reasonably simple test- break the world record.
 
How do you judge the best songwriter? The most record sales? The most recorded cover versions of a song they’ve written? The most number ones? The writer who broke the mould? Came up with the best lyrics, the most whistle-able melodies? Music is subjective. Conquering a mountain or running really fast isn’t. You either reach the summit, break the world record or not.

The world I’m in means that I write some songs in the hope that they will get on people’s albums. The problem is that every time I write a song with this aim in mind I know that all over the world there are incredibly successful talented writers also trying to get on the same record. There are shadowy figures writing to the same brief I am. Hell, I don’t even know what Dianne Warren looks like but I know she’s one of the most successful writers ever.  That’s who I’m up against-a super crack team of the greatest pop writers of the century. It’s a bit like learning to play football and finding out that every game is the World Cup final. Why do I bother?

I suppose one reason is in the foolish and misguided hope that inside me there’s a ‘Yesterday’ or a ‘God Only Knows’. To be honest though I’d be happy with a ‘Rhythm Of The Night’ (DeBarge), and by that I mean a fun song with a catchy melody that lasts. I wonder what would make me happier, a number one hit single or a song that topped the critic’s list of ‘best songs’? As I haven’t got either its all conjecture but I guess that whichever one I had would make me crave the other even more. There’s nothing for it, I would have to have both.

The other reason I write is that writing a song is the happiest I ever am.
I think psychologists have said that to find happiness we need to do something that absorbs us so completely that we ‘lose time’. I have found songwriting and the only pursuit that really fulfils this for me. What is it for you? My friends have cited; cooking, reading, running and listening to music.

It’s funny to me to know that all over the world there are people who are ‘the best’ at something. Even if it’s someone who’s the best at ‘making an espresso’ or ‘reminding people about that thing they had to do’ we all have a skill. I find comfort in the fact that if I don’t end up being ‘the best’ at songwriting, I make damn good cheese on toast.

My head hurts. I drank too much.

I’ve tried my usual hangover cure of wallowing in recriminations and self-pity, drinking a gallon of water and rustling up some cheese on toast but to no avail. My head hurts.

A headache is a curious thing. It’s not really a headache, your skull isn’t hurting, it’s your brain itself in agony and that is actually you- your soul crying out “why oh why did I do it to myself?” Brains aren’t that clever. Surely my brain has made the connection between ‘drinking too much’ and ‘hangover’ yet it still instructs my hand to raise the glass. Repeatedly. The brain is grey. It's a pretty dull colour for such a big deal of an organ.

There’s something quintessentially comforting to me about the Sunday hangover; The slowly ticking clock, the shops closing early, the rain trickling down the pane. The newspaper. Endless cups of tea. Church bells.

So now my Sunday is a write-off. This takes the pressure off. I will now be phenomenally proud of myself for achieving relatively simple tasks. “Hey, I got dressed, nice work fella”. “I’ve been to a shop and bought some milk- rock ON!” Even completing this stunted blog will feel like I’ve just completed writing the entire works of Shakespeare. I will be inordinately proud of myself. I might even whistle as I press ‘submit’. I will have achieved something. Won’t I?

Hi out there. I’ve been up since 6.30am and I’ve just been running (actually more jogging) to Canary Wharf. The highlight of the route is the big flight of steps at the end of the run and I challenge anyone to run up them without whistling the music from ‘Rocky’. What I love about running is that feeling when you eventually stop. Exercise is like making a deposit in the bank of smug.

I had a friend request on Facebook when I got home. It was from someone I sat next to at school when I was ten. Back then, we had a lot in common; Lego, being children, pretending we were aliens. But now I don’t know if he can be classified a ‘friend’. Then again, we never formally ended our friendship by having a fight or arguing about who got to be E.T. Does he still think we’re friends? How long do you not have to be in contact with someone for until the term ‘friend’ can be downgraded to ‘someone I knew’? Is it 5 years, 10 years, forever? Facebook is forcing me to take one of three choices. What should I do?

(a) Accept the friend offer and hope we never have to meet up in real life? My blood chills at the possibility of that awkward conversation

“ Wow, great to see you! remember when we used to pretend to be aliens? This is my partner Shirley, do you still like Lego? Me neither, I’m a regional sales manager…more nibbles?” .

(b) Reject the request,

I may as well send an email saying ‘I hate you now and possibly never even considered you a friend even as a child’. So I’m left with

(c) ‘Facebook-limbo’; the purgatory of the social networking generation. How many requests are out there drifting in the limbo of never being approved or denied? Although (c) seems the obvious answer, it’s the coward’s way out. How long will his friend request stay there haunting my home page like the ghost of friendship past? To be honest, any fool must know that a lack of any response after a reasonable passage of time amounts to the same as (b). This person will assume I’m a bit of a twat, which, on reflection, I probably am.

It’s been a busy week. We shot a Farrah video at the weekend which was hilariously low budget. Instead of a dolly we had our ‘cameraman’ (otherwise known as Andy our guitarist) sat in the bottom of a wheeled flightcase. This was then pushed down a corridor by our manager as I attempted to mime to the song. It was difficult striking rock and roll poses when this ‘Bobsleigh on wheels’ occasionally veered into a wall. The sense of absurdity was heightened by the fact all the miming had to be done with the track playing double speed to make the camera moves more ‘fluid’

The video location was a deserted record company building that we managed to blag by bribing the security guard with a bottle of whisky. The place was eerie. Even though the offices had been deserted for a few months all the paperwork was still on desks, employee’s photos and rolodexes still in place. It was a corporate Mary Celeste. The guard told us that the employees all got laid-off one morning and all decided to go to the pub, get hammered and not come back.

I wonder if there’s anything more ironic than a band on a low budget independent label shooting a video in the ghostly offices of a moribund major record label? Let me know Alanis.

Andy and myself storyboarded the video. I play a hungover office worker who overdoes the booze at the office party. I had to play both ‘drunk’ and ‘hungover’ which is lucky as these are my usual two states of mind. It was method.

The band performance element of a pop video is possibly the stupidest a human being can feel. Playing to the camera is beyond ridiculous. You pretend to sing, try to mean it, attempt and look cool and try to ignore the lighting guy eating a croissant in the background. The song finishes and you sit around for ages and then you do it again and again.

I can’t complain though. This clip was a breeze compared to the last video we made for the song ‘Fear Of Flying’. For this clip we decided (due to artistic reasons and budgetary restrictions) to take 9000 still photos of the band. This took three months to complete and only cost 18 pounds and our collective sanity. Twenty Five Photos for each second of video.. If you’re bored feel free to check this out on Youtube by searching Farrah and Fear Of Flying.

I’m a bad blogger, I’m sorry. For those who read my last blog and presumed that once February started I was on a Hunter S Thompson meets Oliver Reed sized bender, you can breathe a sigh of relief. I’m alive. I have started drinking again and the world has become an alcohol fuelled rollercoaster again after the level emotional playing field of abstinent January.

So this is now my second blog. What should I tell you about? Well, my last blog didn’t really tell you anything other than the fact that I’m British and I drink. There’s more to me than that I hope. I’m the singer in a band called Farrah and the reason I’m blogging at all is because I wrote with the uber-talented Ben Romans and also with sublime genius Nate Campany. Ben mentioned this site and said (probably mistakenly) that people out there may be interested to listen to my inane murmurings.

 I am one of those dreaded songwriters (otherwise known as people who didn’t grow up). I am Peter Pan, or more accurately Peter Tin-Pan alley. I also teach songwriting at a university and I sometimes play guitar for people. If you want to check out my licks listen to Kim Richey’s latest record called Chinese Boxes, produced by Giles (son of George!) Martin. I played a few songs on that. I also write music for TV programmes and in my spare time teach otters to waterski.

So. Life. The big question, why are we here, what is it for? I know the answer; I just don’t want to spoil the surprise. Actually, I wake up mystified most days. How did I end up with this job of songwriter? I suppose I’m ideally suited to this job as firstly, I cleverly avoided being good at anything else and secondly,I suffer from wildly-optimistic-syndrome which affects some other members of my family. Our family motto is: “who cares if it’s full or empty, is that glass really mine?” We’d be the people on the Titanic saying as it went down “Well, it was a great trip on the whole”

I’m reading a book called ‘Your Brain On Music’ which posits some interesting theories about how we perceive and create music. The book also challenges some evolutionary psychologist’s dismissal of music as a by-product of some other evolutionary step (a spandrel they call it!), that is, music itself doesn’t actually have any value to the species. Bollocks. I was intrigued to find out that in a lot of cultures the word for music is also the word for dance. The two are impossible to separate.  The other revelation although it should have been obvious to me was that music has now become the bastion of ‘experts’ and has been this way for about 500 years. The public pay to see the ‘professionals’ perform and any mistakes in pitch and timing are to be frowned upon. A language and terminology has developed between musicians that serve to alienate the listener. Amateur musicians and singers are shy about performing in the same way that an amateur painter would be if a friend asked to look at their canvas. The same goes for amateur poets. However, when Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ comes on at a wedding dance, all ages are happy to strut their stuff in front of each other with varying skill. Dancing when drunk is the last true universal art form.

I think I read a lot about music is because i'm looking for a deeper meaning to what seems a frivolous profession. My friend who is an intensive care nurse doesn’t think so. She believes we supply the soundtrack to people’s lives and provide much needed distraction from the struggle of existence. When I’m getting frustrated because I can’t modulate my way out of a bridge or I can’t find a good rhyme, I tend to disagree. I feel a bit silly.

However much I wish it wasn’t true, music is becoming sidelined to the periphery to many people’s existence. It’s not a religion, it’s a pastime. It’s probably not as important as TV. I suppose as a writer I want to write songs that people not only want to hear but need to hear. This is a lofty goal and one I consistently fall short of. Music is still my passion but to others it’s just fashion. Ooh, that rhymes…. Where’s my guitar.