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	MUSIC WORKSHOPS Charlie Daykin - Access to Music M Music as a Business, Self-Employment, Music Journalism, Promotion, A&R, Publishing ..... Mu
	Charlie: Hi there, my name's Charlie Daykin and I'm a freelance keyboard player, music journalist, promotor ....... generally a jack of all trades really. I'm also programme leader on the Contemporary Popular Music course set in York at the Jam Factory. I don't know whether you've heard of them? Access to Music courses? They're for people who are entering the music industry, and they're full time. I've been a music journalist now for about twenty-two years, and in all that time I've been self-employed, so I don't know ... is there anybody here who's self-employed at the moment? Yes, yes, anybody else? You are? Generally if you're a freelance musician or a journalist or a promoter, you're generally self-employed. There are some people employed in the industry, but there's a lot of people who work on a self-employed basis. That's what I'd like to talk to you today about. Please ask any questions at any time .... we can have a discussion about things. Before you decide to be self-employed in this industry, you need to ask yourself if you're the right sort of person to be self-employed. A lot of people suddenly say "I'm going to be a musician, and I'll be self-employed," but you need to ask yourself a series of questions really before you become self-employed. Because it isn't like being employed by an employer. You don't get any sick pay, if you are ill the entire thing drags to a halt normally. You also have to be aware of things like tax - nobody deducts your tax automatically, generally you have to fill in a tax return. A lot of musicians don't fill in tax returns. I always have done, because I've known people who get a really nasty tax bill at Christmas, and if they haven't filled in any tax returns, or haven't kept any receipts or anything, they haven't got a leg to stand on basically. So I always fill in a tax return every year for whatever aspect of the business that I'm doing, whether it's promoting or as a musician or as a journalist. This might sound pretty gruesome but it isn't really because against all the money that you earn, you can make deductions for expenses. And as a musician or a journalist you have expenses all the time. And a lot of these are allowable against tax. So if you fill in your tax return properly ..... you do get help from the tax office ..... you shouldn't have to pay any more tax than is due to you. But I'll be looking at tax returns in a minute. Like I say, I've been self-employed for twenty-two years, and it's suited me perfectly because one of the real benefits of being self-employed in the industry is that you can work for exactly who you want to, when you want to. If there's a boss, that you don't particularly like, at a magazine or whatever, then you don't have to work for them. It's entirely up to you when you wake up on a morning, how much work you do, and how much money you earn, basically. But you do have to be really self-motivated to be self-employed. You have to be well-organised, and you have to be prepared to live for certain periods of time with hardly any money, because cash flow is one of the most make or break things about being self-employed. You can have a week when you're really really busy, or a month, and then you have a month when nothing's happening. So you've got to try and make contingency plans all the time for those periods. You've got to be really motivated, you've got to wake up in the morning and - say you're working from home as a journalist, you've got to get up in the morning and get on with it. You can't sit around watching daytime television and drinking coffee. [laughs] Unless of course you've really got no work to do, then you can do that. _________________ The sort of work I do as a journalist on a freelance basis ranges from writing press releases to being involved in marketing, to going to review gigs for magazines, for newspapers, and up till recently I did run my own little magazine as well. Which from a journalist's point of view, is a good way to get started in music journalism. Like anything in the music industry, it's really hard to get in. Once you're in it's a matter of networking, and it should develop from there. I started my own little fanzine just to get started in the journalism thing, because what you generally have to do to get up the ladder, to say write for Q magazine, you have to have a portfolio of work that you've done, that's in the style of that magazine. Each magazine has its own editorial style. You'll have noticed that the NME is very different from Smash Hits, it's very different from Q and Mojo, it's very different from Kerrang. So a good way forward is to write reviews in the style of those magazines. So if you're wanting to write for Q, you would have to submit a portfolio of work that was in the journalistic style of Q, which would be very different from the NME. Q is far more fact-based, information-based. People tend to keep them as reference, and people actually buy the albums that are reviewed. Whereas NME is very much ... you can have your own agenda with NME really, and they're not particularly bothered about people buying things from their reviews because they're weekly and they've got a reputation for being quite confrontational, and quite outspoken. So if you're going into the journalist area, you need to know about of the different editorial styles of these magazines. A good way to start is to start with your own fanzine. It doesn't cost much to do. You can photocopy them. Go and see some local bands, do the reviews. It helps the local bands because they get something in print, and it helps you because you're developing your own journalistic style. Eventually, when you've been going for a while, you'll get put on the press list at gigs. Now this is one of the great plusses when you start up. You might not earn much money from it, but you do get free CDs and free entry into the gigs. You also get to take photographs of the bands, you get to interview the bands, so it's a mutually supportive thing. The local bands get the benefit of exposure in the press, and you get the experience. The only equipment you need to be a music journalist is: a notebook, to write things down if you're reviewing a gig. You might go to a gig and think you'll remember it, you won't. Write it down. A little book for 20p or something like that. A digital camera - doesn't have to be an expensive one, take photographs at the gig. If you can get a good quality photograph, you've got far more chance of your review being in the magazine or the newspaper. A cassette recorder or minidisc, so you can either record your own thoughts on the gig rather than write them down ..... you can also use these to interview people. So that's basically all you need. And a pen. And quite a good, strong constitution, because music journalism has been associated with quite a lot of drinking, as in all journalistic pursuits. Because most of the things you're doing take place on licensed premises. Record company launches, album launches and things, generally involve a certain amount of alcohol, and generally a free buffet, which is another good thing about being a music journalist. You get invited to album launches and things, they always have quite a good buffet on. So that's a good thing to remember. The type of thing you get sent, once you get established as a journalist, you get promotional copies of albums. These are some I've had sent recently. That's the new Coldplay album. They're generally different to actual releases; this one's numbered and it does say "This CD is property of.. " Also a lot more information than the general release stuff. You generally get a press release with it, that's the press release that I got sent for the Coldplay new single ... you can have a look through these ... so you get quite a lot of information as a journalist to do the review. You get the album well in advance, you get a good quality press release, with tour dates, so you've got a lot of information. You also get offers of interviews. I did one with Coldplay and they were in a hotel. So you've got to ring at a certain time - they'll say "Ring at 11 o'clock and you'll speak to such and such." So you ring the hotel. You have to be really well-planned and have your questions ready. Sometimes you're not given any agenda to do it. You're just told "Do an interview", and they'll be wanting to promote their new stuff. They don't generally want to talk about what's happened in the past, it's what's going to happen. Bands don't want to talk about what they've done, they want to talk about what they're selling at the time, be it a tour or an album. So you've got a lot of the information, you've got the album, you've done your homework, you've got the questions all ready. Coldplay are now sending out an answer CD. I haven't brought it with me, but it's a double CD of interview answers. So you put your own question to it, and it's mainly for radio, but the various members are answering questions, which is a bit lazy really. You could edit it and ... John: Drop them in it. Charlie: Yeah, drop them in it, well and truly. But there is a double CD that Coldplay sent out of them giving answers to questions you could hypothetically put to them. I've decided to talk to them anyway. So you get things like that. Also it's quite exciting really, ... management companies generally have loads of bands on their books. Infection have a band called Dirty Vegas who are doing very well at the moment. Third Edge - they have quite unknown bands, as well as Coldplay. They also deal with the Pet Shop Boys. These people handle the PR and press for quite a lot of major stars really. So once you get on the press list for these people you get bombarded with stuff. Sometimes the feature editor of a magazine that you're working for has an agenda, of what they want you to say in an interview or what they want you to do in a review. Idlewild's bass player just left, I got an e-mail yesterday. Now Idlewild are doing really well at the moment, they're breaking America, and the bass player's leaving because of personal differences. Not musical differences, personal differences. So I've got to interview them on Monday and find out what those personal differences are. Now as a musician I hate doing stuff like that, because it's got nothing to do with anybody really, it's just that the guy's leaving. But they want to know why, why's he leaving, the guitar tech's playing bass for them till Christmas, then they're gonna get somebody else. So it's my job to find out who are they going to get, why is he leaving, was there anything acrimonious about it. So sometimes you have to go on an angle that you don't particularly want to go on. I've got some information here about music journalism, my thoughts on music journalism, if you want to pass them round. It's a really rewarding thing really and it's a good way to supplement your income if you're a musician. Working in music isn't like working in a bank, where you can guarantee that if you worked for so many years then you would become branch manager, then manager of the bank, and then you'd retire. The music industry isn't really like that. I don't know whether Pete or anyone will have told you. A lot of it's down to luck and networking and hard work. You should always make sure that wherever you are you always have business cards with you, with your contact telephone number and e-mail addresses. You should always have good quality contacts. If you're an artist, you must never go anywhere without a CD and your press pack. I know it sounds a bit of a pain, but you never know who you're going to bump into. A lot of the contacts that I've made in the industry have been made in a meeting, and maybe the meeting was really boring, but the person sat next to you happened to be from Melody Maker or something, and you got in just through a chance conversation. If you don't have your contact stuff with you, that chance is gone completely. So .......... networking and communication. Communication with people when you're self-employed is really really important. Because it's all down to yourself. And if you can get on with people, and if you can prove that you can do the job, and that you can work to deadlines - deadlines is the main thing. You're probably all aware that the music industry is driven by deadlines. And they're getting tighter and tighter all the time. Virgin do a very good book on the music industry, I think Pete's got a copy here. The only area I disagree with it is the journalist entry. It says that people miss deadlines. I've never known journalists miss a deadline. If you miss your deadline you don't get paid. It doesn't get printed. So you've got to meet it. The same when you're an artist ...... if you're releasing an album, there's deadlines all the way through the release. You've got to have your artwork done for a certain day, you've got to have your recordings finished, you've got to have the mastering, the pressing, and you'll have a release date. Now that's a deadline. If you're doing a gig and it's nine o'clock when you go on stage, that's a deadline. You can't turn around to the audience and say "Actually hang on a minute, we haven't quite finished these last two songs, so if you just want to wait a while, come back tomorrow ......" You can't do that. It's the same with journalism. If you've got a deadline, the NME comes out on a Thursday, if you haven't got your stuff in for Monday lunchtime it isn't going to go in. Unless it's a major news story, of a major star, then they'll adapt their schedule, but they aren't going to change for your review of an unknown band. Same with interviews, if you don't ring them at 11 o'clock at the hotel, if you ring them at 12 they've gone. Or they're on another interview with someone else. So you've missed that chance so you can't put the interview in. You can get interviews organised by the management, also I've gone down to venues and just waited around to see them, if the management won't give you an interview. And invariably they're really good about it. Most bands, if they realise you're in it for the right reasons, you're going to help them, you're going to promote them and ask them sensible questions, they'll give you an interview. You do need to get a pass though to do this, a press pass. That's your most important thing - get on the press list and get a press pass. And a photo pass is even better. Because if you can supply a photograph with your review, it will go in. In the Evening Press or Q, it doesn't matter really. If the photograph's of good quality, and you've got a good review, it'll get in. Before you decide to take this monumental step and be self-employed, you need to look at several things. And the best way to do it - have you heard of a SWOT analysis chart? Ever? Yeah? Adam: Yeah, Business Studies. Charlie: Business Studies, yeah. It's a horrible thing to do in a way, but you can identify pretty quickly whether you're the right sort of person to be self-employed. You split the page into four (I'll put it on the back of the Pet Shop Boys press release). You split your page into four like that, you put your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats there. Now you've got to be brutally honest about this. You can't just put loads of strengths down and no weaknesses, which is what most people do - opportunities loads, no threats. So your strengths might be: Great communicator, brilliant guitarist, better than Eric Clapton, plays keyboards, drums, bass, guitar, music journalist, everything, everything, everything, yeah. Wants to be a session musician. Weaknesses, no driving licence. So all of that really, unless you're just going to play in your local area and get home by public transport or whatever, you've got to identify that weakness and turn it into a strength. So say your weakness is no driving licence, and you want to be able to drive about, you need to pass your driving test and put it back into your strengths. So really if you put all your weaknesses down, look at them really quite harshly, and say, "how can I turn those into strengths?" Then underneath you put your opportunities. What are the chances of work in the area? Might you have to travel to work in the area you want to work in? Threats: what are the potential threats to your self-employedness? What could it be? If you wanted to work in education, it could be cuts in budgets. Same with magazines, too many journalists and not enough work, something like that. So once you've identified all this, look at it really quite thoroughly, and you'll be able to decide whether you're the kind of person who could be self-employed. I've got some SWOT analysis charts with me that you can look at, and see if you think it's for you or not. There's lots of good jobs in the industry for self-employed people. Musicians are generally self-employed, unless you're employed by a company. Studio engineers are often self-employed unless you own the studio. Live sound engineers are generally self-employed unless you own the PA system yourself. And then they're generally self-employed. Marketing consultants are self-employed. Journalists invariably are self-employed. If you're a journalist and you want to try and get promotion, you can become ... generally you start off doing live reviews, album reviews, then you start going to features, which is interviews, features on the bands, artists, eventually then you'll become hopefully features editor, if you want to, and then you'll become an editor. Now the editor has overall control of that publication, and it's very much their style of personality that runs it. Mark Ellen who used to do The Old Grey Whistle Test is founding editor of Q magazine and Mojo. But he came from Smash Hits. But his style is very much imprinted on those magazines. It's very much a continuation of what The Old Grey Whistle Test used to be - quite adult-orientated rock really, good quality, good reviews, good interviews. But most people don't bother about that. Sometimes if you're a staff writer, you get employed by the magazine, if the editor moves, you often move with them. I've known that happen a lot. And also people are looking for promotion as well. I've never bothered, I've always enjoyed working freelance for people, because then if you get an editor that you don't like, or a features editor or a sub-editor that you can't get on with, you can go and work for somebody else. I've never fancied tying myself down to one publication or whatever. Same as a musician. I fill in tax returns, and it's entirely up to me how I promote myself, how many gigs I get. I work mostly as a freelance keyboard player, which means you don't have to be the greatest keyboard player in the world, but you do have to be punctual, you have to get on with everybody, and you've got to be just motivated, turn up on time, know the stuff, put on a good show, and that's it really. Same with any music, if you're going to work on a session basis, that's what you've got to do. You've mainly got to get on with the band. Because as a keyboard player, you get hired later on. The band have already formed, the producer or somebody played keyboards on the album, they need a keyboard player for a tour so they hire somebody in. So you're often on the outskirts of it as a session player. The band are already there, they've known each other for ten years, and you come into it quite cold. So you've got to immediately mix in, get on with them, find out where they're coming from. Because you'll be sat on a tour bus with them for a few weeks. You might hate their guts but you can't say that because they're the band, they're paying you, or their record company's paying you. So you've just got to smile sweetly and get on with them. [laughs] Basically. But then again it's nice because you're not tied down to one act, you're not in a band. They can fire you if they want, but you can go and work for somebody else. Any questions so far? It seems I've been rambling for quite a while. No? John: I think imagination plays a big part. Charlie: Absolutely, yeah. It's like anything in the world, you only get out of it what you put into it. If you've got the imagination, if you've got the motivation, if you've got the desire to succeed, you can do it. Most people give up very easily, very early on in their life, they give up on their dreams. Whatever they dreamt of being at school, at primary school, if they dreamt of being a musician or if they dreamt of being an airline pilot or a train driver, they give up on it pretty quickly. In music you should never do that. You should always follow your dreams - whatever you want to do within the industry. Because you're quite capable of doing it if you've got the motivation, the talent and the self-belief. You've got to be quite thick-skinned in the music industry to succeed, because lots of people are competing for the same positions, whether it's as a journalist, or a promoter, or an artist. So you've really got to have ultimate belief in your own ability, and you'll succeed. If you listen to too much criticism early on, people give up, and you should never do that. If you've got the belief and everything, you should be able to do it. Keep your foot stuck in the door, no matter how many times people slam the door on it, because eventually it will open. Or if that door closes another one will open somewhere along the line. You should never worry about that. Okay? From an artist's point of view of working with the press, you need to supply a journalist with information. Until you're signed with a major label, and a major management company like Infected, who will do it all for you, and you just get on with the lovely thing of creating the music. Until this happens, you are everything within the music industry yourself. You've got to produce press releases that are hopefully of the same quality that a professional PR company or press office would produce. You've got to produce demos that are the same quality. There's no excuse not to these days, with the technology we've got, with the computer facilities for doing sleeves and labels, there's no reason why anybody's demo shouldn't be absolutely top quality. Never send out anything you're ashamed of, nothing you have to apologise for. You can't put on the thing "don't play track 1, because we haven't finished mixing it, and some of it's a bit out of tune but we're getting there." Don't ever do that. People do it, honestly it's true. I get sent stuff by local bands all the time, and I always say to them, "Don't send it. If you have to apologise for it, don't send it." It's better sending out one song that you're really proud of, than four that are shoddy. Be really really critical of your own work, all the way down the line. Because you will get knocked down for it otherwise. Because there's a lot of people competing, and people produce some very very professional stuff. Press kits. This is absolutely important. This is your first contact, and it's like selling your house. First impressions, people make up their mind immediately when they see stuff. Is it professional? Is it well written? Okay? I've brought a whole load of press releases that you can keep and have a look through, that I would consider to be good ones. Press cuttings, if you ever get any, cut them out. If you've done any sort of gig and you get a couple of lines, cut it out, keep it, put it in the press pack. This is a very very good one from American artist O Susannah. She's got every single album review, tour dates.... Blow them up so they're big, and blind ones like me can see them. Put them on nice coloured paper if you want. Put all your press reviews in. Only if they're good of course, don't put bad ones in. [laughs] You could do, I suppose. That's her biography. Nicely done, that's a review. That's Hayley's, Hayley Hutchinson - a York singer-songwriter who's doing quite well at the moment. You want a brief biography and a few quotes. A photograph, and contact information, how to get in touch. That's all you need, one A4. You don't need to know your entire life history. Nobody really wants to know where you went to school and all the things, and initially they don't want to know your favourite colour either, or things like that, what your favourite chocolates are ...... That maybe will come later. But basically you just want a brief biography, what you do. If you're doing a gig, what you need to do is tailor your press releases to the people you're sending it to. That one there is a general one, there's no gigs on that but there's some reviews. And there's some quotes, there's a quote from Bob Harris, there's a quote from Here magazine, there's a quote from me, there's a quote from the Evening Press. But that's what you need, because people read that, and they'll say "Aha! Somebody in the press thinks they're good." People believe things that are written down. So don't be shy and retiring with your biography. Don't say "I'm not really sure about whether my songs are any good," you've got to be quite positive and quite up. But I'll leave these for you to have a read. You also need to produce a decent quality 10 by 8 photograph. Your photograph really should say what you're about. This one here, Stephan Grossman, excellent acoustic guitar player, but he's not looking to get in Smash Hits or anything like that, or Top of the Pops. He knows his audience. He knows that will reproduce beautifully in Folk Roots magazine, or in the Evening Press. That's what he's after with that. I wouldn't recommend you go for the arty sort of out of focus photograph taken at dusk against a forest or something like that. You need good quality photographs that will reproduce in black and white, that sort of thing initially. That's a really good one I think, that was used a lot ... you can go for a straight head shot. Mostly you want to think of the way it's going to be reproduced in a magazine. People often only have a little bit of space in local newspapers for a photograph. So put in one that will crop down to a close head shot. Don't send something like that - again you can have a look at these during the break. On holiday with the sun behind you - that's not a very good idea. You can't possibly expect that to come out. That's a good one, it says exactly what it's about, Walter Trout. Katherine Tickell, that's a good one, Suzanne Vega, that's a good shot because you can use it in its entirety as a front cover, or you can crop the face and it'll fit over one column in a newspaper. So think before you have your photographs taken. If there's five of you in the band, you don't want all five of you spread out over a hilltop. Get all five of you squashed in. Do a few different ones where you can use it as a portrait so all the heads are underneath each other. Jesus and Mary Chain, that was a good one, because you can crop that one right down and it'll come out great. That's Kate Rusby. Kate's still using that photograph, and it's great because it works as a poster, it will work as the front page of a magazine, but you can also crop it. So think about that. Paul Rogers ... that's a good one. Doctor Didge, again you can crop it or you can use it as big as you want. Country ones tend to be very much like that, but they're not trying to be alternative or anything like that. What you want is a good quality black and white photograph - not too grey, lots of blacks, lots of whites, then it will reproduce beautifully. Black and white is still industry standard for photographs. Any questions on the press kit so far? No? Very quiet...... I've got some stuff on press kits for you here, it's only one sheet, but it will give you some pointers as to things that I've had requested from people in the industry who've said "how would you like things presented?" I've been sat in record company offices with people when they've been listening to demos and opening press packs, and some of the comments they make are disgraceful. Likewise with your demos, when you're recording demos, the first twenty seconds are all important. If you don't get it in the first twenty seconds it's a frisbee across the office. Because they work on the theory that if you listen to a radio station, the first twenty seconds make your mind up whether you listen to that song. If not you turn the channel, don't you? Listen to twenty seconds of it, if you don't like it, go to another channel. They work on the same thing, do record companies. If it doesn't grab you in the first twenty seconds, they're not really ... not the mainstream labels. The more specialist labels, if it's an R & B label or it's a country label they will listen to more. Folk labels will. But your general mainstream A & R man, he's got hundreds to listen to. He can't think "Oh, I'll give it three minutes". You might say that's really harsh, but you should do a session - in fact I might pop up and do one with you - where you split everyone up into record companies, give you a description of the record company, we do this one at college, so we have these tables are CBS records, a list of who's on that label and what that company's policy is. Another list here of say Cooking Vinyl, an acoustic label. Then we listen to the first twenty seconds of a load of new releases and our own work, and people have to decide after that twenty seconds whether they want to hear more, or would we move on to the next people. Now this is a harsh way of doing it, but it gets it into your mind, the first twenty seconds is so important if you're sending stuff to record companies. And to radio stations. John: What about the presentation of it? Charlie: The presentation of it's quite important, not so crucial when you're sending demos. They generally don't want to hear more than four songs, you don't need to have a flashy cover if you're sending a demo to a record company. John: They need to be able to read the band name pretty quickly. Charlie: It's got to be on, yeah, it's got to be on there and it's got to be not too confusing. Yours could just say "Prendo" in big letters, and a telephone number. That's what you need. I was lucky enough a few years ago to do some work with Belinda Carlisle, and she has a theory with her releases, she nearly always plays the chorus chords at the beginning of the song, because that way, before you even get to the first verse, you know the chorus. So next time you listen to things like "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" or things like that, listen to the intro. The intro is nearly always the chords for the chorus. So by the time she comes in with the first verse, you've already heard the chorus. When you get to the chorus you think "God I know that already," because you've heard it at the beginning of the song. And it's not done very subtly, it's everything in, with the kitchen sink, happening at the beginning of the song. The first twenty seconds is nearly always the chorus chords, before the verse comes in. That's really quite a heavy-handed way of doing it, but it's blooming effective. A lot of people still do it. One thing I was thinking of, we're doing a demo, would you need to put a full song on? I was thinking of maybe just the hook ... Charlie: Don't ever put snippets on. Record companies hate it with a vengeance. People who send 45 seconds of a song, then another 45 seconds, that's not what they want to hear. It's far better to send three finished good songs that show variety. Always put your best song on first. Never put a note in saying "Actually our best song's the third song" because they won't get that far. You've got to have your best song, your most powerful song that represents you as the first song. It's very important. Because you will find out, if you do a demo listening-to session here, and I bring in a hundred demos, and say, "You've got to listen to these, these have been sent in this week. Next week we're going to get another hundred, or two hundred, so we've got to listen to them now and make a decision on these things." That's when it brings it into perspective. It's your personal bit of work that you've slaved over, loving care and attention, but when it goes out into the big bad world, people haven't got the time to listen to it that you've spent creating it. John: It must be pretty hard to be objective. Charlie: It's very hard to be objective as an A&R man. John: If you wake up with a hangover or something... Charlie: If you wake up with a hangover, or you're in a bad mood, it's Friday afternoon ... generally it's the junior A&R men who get to listen to the demos. It's quite a hated job in a lot of companies. Because it's time consuming, it's generally pretty awful, because the standard of most stuff that's sent out now is pretty appalling. People haven't been critical enough of their own work. You put it on and you think, "How can you possibly think of sending that out? It's shocking." And people haven't been critical of their own work. It's quite hard to be critical of your own work, but you should be. Because somebody else is going to be. And people will say, "How could they send that? Off! Put another one on." And that can be the kiss of death on your career with that company. But saying that, don't be dispirited if you send demos off to people and get rejection letters. Every major artist has got a set of rejection letters that they keep hold of. I know Texas have, they've got a pile like that. And a rejection letter from the company that they're with at the moment. So if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. But always send something good. Please. Because it just makes the A&R men angrier for the people who are coming in after you, the demo that they've got to listen to next. They're not all like that. Some companies do religiously listen to everything, and spend a lot of time and care and attention on it. But for a lot of people it's a bind. Because most of them come in unsolicited. The best thing if you're sending a demo is ring up, find a name to send it to. Try and talk to that person on the phone first before you send it in. Then it'll get a far more sympathetic hearing. If it comes from the manager, it'll get a far more sympathetic hearing. If I sent a demo in to a company, and they didn't know me, and I'd never rung them, they would be quite unimpressed. They'd think I was unprofessional. If John sent it on my behalf as my manager, and said "Hello, it's Rosedale Management here, we'd like to send a new CD in by one of our artists", they'll take it far more seriously. So one of the first things you should always try and do is get the services of a good manager, because the industry take managers more seriously than artists. John: Most artists aren't capable of stringing two words together anyway. They can write songs, but ... Charlie: Unfortunately when you start you've got to be everything. You've got to be your own manager, you've got to be your own marketing department, you've got to be your own distribution company, you've got to be your own press office, you've got to be your own promoter, your own agent, your own everything. And all you really want to do is create the music. You don't want all this hassle to go with everything else. But until you actually get a manager, who will be prepared to do that, and act as a buffer, and organise all the other things, you've got to do it yourself. And also, you've got to do it as professionally as everybody else. That SWOT analysis chart I was telling you about, this is a very tatty one here, but Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, be quite critical of yourself when you're doing that. Because the weaknesses, you can generally turn into strengths, threats you can often turn into opportunities if you identify them. If you set yourself up as self-employed, as a session musician and you live in Rosedale, and most of your work's in Manchester, Leeds, Hull, Sheffield, and you haven't got a car, that could be a bit of a problem, because if you're relying on public transport, generally sessions end in the middle of the night at a recording studio, and recording studios are often in places where there isn't any public transport, so you need to get a driving licence to do that sort of work. Also if you go to review a gig, and the magazine rings up and says "We'd like you to go and review Idlewild at Manchester tomorrow night", you've got to be able to get to Manchester on time. Maybe you want to do an interview or something first ... you've got to get back after the venue closes .... Five minutes? Oh good grief, sorry about that. Any questions? We can have questions at dinner time can't we. I've got a whole load of stuff here that you're welcome to have a look through: press releases, photographs, good ones, bad ones, ugly ones ..... Dirty Vegas, that's a new one that just got in, they're doing quite well now, their single's doing quite well, it's a nice photograph. It looks alright. So you're welcome to have a look through all of them. Pete: Charlie, we'll put these on the table with Karen's stuff. Charlie: Yeah that's fine, absolutely. Did that all make sense? Pete: One thing you haven't spoken about Charlie, management companies, record companies, what about publishing houses? Charlie: Publishing houses ... as far as music? If you're an artist and you don't get a record deal immediately, often a publishing deal is far better for you. A company might say, like EMI, they have their own publishing company as well, a lot of major labels have their own publishing arm which publishes the material, they might say to you, "you're not ready for a record deal yet, but we'll offer you a publishing deal". Which is sort of like a development deal. They might give you four grand or something and say "go away and write some more songs, and we'll try and promote your songs within the industry, and you might get somebody doing a cover version of your song." And it will develop you. Then they might say a little bit further down the line, "Right, you're ready for a record deal now." A lot of bands do that, they get a publishing deal first, and it's like a sort of a development deal before a record company deal. You don't even have to be a performing artist. If you get a publishing deal, and write great songs, and somebody famous covers them, if you write a song and get it published and Celine Dion records it, or God knows, Blue or something, you could make loads of money. Heaven forbid. But you could, and it's that easy. If you're a good songwriter, approach publishers, and say, "I've written all these great songs." You could also target people. There's a lot of artists who don't write their own material, Belinda Carlisle's one of them. She writes occasionally with the Go-Gos but not much of her own stuff. Celine Dion doesn't write much of her own stuff. Mariah Carey doesn't, all those people ... If you can write good songs, and you think, "Bloody hell, Celine Dion could do a cracking version of that," get in touch with her management company, get in touch with her publishers, and send it. Because you only need to do one, and you needn't probably work again for a long long time. [laughs] You get paid royalties on that twice a year, but the Musicians' Union will have told you about that will they? Pete: A little bit. Charlie: A little bit, yeah. There's two organisations that you should become members of if you are serious songwriters: the PRS, the Performing Rights Society, costs a hundred pounds to join, it seems a lot of money but that's a one-off payment, and they collect royalties on your behalf. So say you didn't want to have a publishing deal, you could set up your own publishing company, you could set up John Prendo Publishing. Then you wouldn't split anything, any of the money with the publisher, because you are the publisher. A bit more paperwork, but if you're a member of the PRS, a hundred quid, nothing if Celine Dion does a version of your song. A mere spit, really. You get all of the proceeds from the publishing rights from that. The PRS will collect it for you. There's another organisation, the MCPS: Mechanical and Copyright Protection Society - they've formed an alliance now, they haven't taken over each other, so they say, they've formed an alliance. So they'll work together to collect your recording royalties... if it's played on the radio, you'll get paid, something like ... what is it for Radio One? Pete: Thirty quid for three minutes, thirty or forty ... Charlie: Is it? I think if it becomes single of the week or something it's more than that ... Pete: Depending on the time of day. Charlie: Yeah, peak stuff is something like eighty pounds. If it's on Viking FM or Minster FM I think it's nothing much, a few quid ... but it doesn't matter because if your song is a hit all over the world, you can make so much money just on radio plays. So it's worth being part of those organisations. Because you don't want it to be played every single day in Argentina, and you're not getting any money from it. That's another house. So those organisations are very important. I've got some stuff on them actually. Pete: Another one is PAMRA. The European Commission a few years ago agreed that people who, not just the people who wrote the songs, but actually played on album should have a royalty cheque. And PAMRA were set up to record the fact that you have played on that particular tune, and will collect broadcast royalties on behalf of the musicians themselves. And also royalties on the distribution of the mechanical ... Charlie: Who's just recorded, was it Ozzy Osbourne, has re-recorded two albums with new musicians to get around that, I can't remember what albums they are, I'm sure it's Ozzy Osbourne, has re-recorded stuff with new musicians. He wiped all the guitars off because he didn't like them, then came in to do some bits and decided to do it all. They completely re-recorded them with new musicians. Which is sad really isn't it? Pete: Although those new musicians will get paid. Charlie: They'll get paid. But the old musicians won't. Bit of a one to look out for really. But really, basically, it's all down to self-belief, motivation, and the ability to bounce back when you get knocked down, because you will. Same with your material, because if you believe in it, and you've done the best you can possibly do with it, then keep going with it. Don't let anybody tell you not to do it. Because if you believe in it, go for it. Same with whatever job you want to have in the industry. If you think you can do it, and you've got a talent for it, do it. Because eventually, it'll come good. And also the element of luck is a major thing in the music industry. Where you are, the right place, the right time, talking to the right person. Pete: The harder you work, the luckier you get. Charlie: It's true. You can create your own luck. It's no good just sitting at home saying "I really wish something lucky would happen to me." It doesn't happen like that. "I really wish I could meet someone from a record company, I wish I could be a journalist." You've got to get out and about and network. Always have your business card with you, always keep in contact with people. It's like with myself. If any of you want to get in touch, if you do want to do journalism or anything like that, or if you'd like to find out any more about anything I've spoken about, ring me up, get in touch, and I'll do my best to help out any way I can. [laughs] So ... the free lunch! Pete: Have a drink or two, have a chat with Charlie, anything you want to pick up informally ....... and we'll start jamming a bit.Torso Horse are going to kick off in an hour or so's time. Charlie: If anyone wants to have a look at any of these, any of this stuff, please do. (Applause)
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