‘Ed Sheeran asked us for work experience then drank all our beer’: Nizlopi on making JCB Song
‘We’d get big, rugby-playing men coming up to us in tears and saying “I miss my dad” – or “I love my dad and I’ve never told him”’
Luke Concannon, singer
John and I started writing songs together when we were 13. After we finished at university, we both moved back in with our parents in the Midlands and started writing an album. One day I went downstairs and my dad was cooking. I said: “What should I write a song about?” And he was like: “I don’t know. Diggers.” He drove a Massey Ferguson digger in his own father’s groundworks company and would pick me up from school in it straight from a job. One kid a couple of years older than me at school would often pummel me, and my dad always felt so warm, loving and safe by contrast. The two worlds were a massive juxtaposition. I went upstairs and 90 minutes later more or less had the song exactly as it was recorded.
Well, I don’t want to come across as one of those luddite-whingeing-indie-music-types but the short answer is I wanted to share with you a Facebook posting from John Parker (musician extraordinaire, bassist, beat-boxer, guitarist par excellence and all round good human being) who recently shared his experience of trying to keep working in a music industry that is broken. I think JP’s situation and his FB declaration typify what it’s like to be a working musician in the digital age – an age that promised so much but delivers very little in return for the working musician, unless you’re Elton John or Paul McCartney. We’ve never had greater access to so much amazing music but rarely have such world-class music-makers had to choose between earning money as a gardener or barely scraping a living (or going into debt) to do what they love.
[*More info at the bottom of this blog on streaming and artists’ pay.*]
Welcome to this months blog post.
Here is a short extract from the forthcoming book ‘A Hero’s Journey Through the Music Industry’ on how Nizlopi embraced House Concerts through the UK House Concert network and how important it was in the band’s early development and understanding of how to create a rapport with their audience.
The Weaponless Secret, (and problematic pronouns).
During his time studying in Brighton, Luke discovers the Healthy Concert or House Concert network (not nearly as boring as it sounds), and more commonly referred to as ‘Gigs in Digs’. The idea is beautifully simple and in recent years has been picked up by some of the smarter record labels as a way of developing certain, younger ‘fledgling’ acts, giving them the chance to play in more intimate surroundings where they have a chance to develop their craft and learn how to build a rapport with an audience. This is how it works. Create or join a network of like-minded people who want to attend or host gigs in people’s homes. Alcohol is not always a fixture and if you do bring a bottle you are “invited to share it with the other guests”. Its not that the house concert crowd are puritanical or anything (far from it) but setting some guidelines around booze can prevent it being seen as a “piss-up at my mates place with some geezers playing guitar, innit”. You don’t have to live in a Palace, even a bed-sit will do – and more often has! Bring in interesting and talented artists of all kinds with one aim, you all have a great time, et viola, you have a house concert. It really is that simple.
This month I wanted to share with you the inspiring work of the Trailblazery team in Ireland and their amazing Hedge School.
I am deeply honoured to say I have been invited to join the team for the Bealtaine spiral as guest faculty for the next three weeks.
Take a look at the program and our incredible and inspiring guides for this cycle – if you are inspired to join us we would love to have you.
Here is a little history of the origins of Hedge School and below that is our Bealtaine program with dates etc.
“Come and join us – it’s powerful beyond words”.
“Back in the 1700s Irish education was outlawed under Penal Laws and the process of learning took to the land. Hedge schools gathered wherever people could find shelter. Situated along hedgerows, in fields, by rivers and under the stars, the non-conformists of the day gathered to gain knowledge. At these edges, the culture was kept alive, the language was preserved and indigenous stories, traditions, customs and wisdom passed from generation to generation. We feel called to evolve the Hedge school tradition to help us find shelter and navigate our shared future in these extraordinary times.”
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Here is another short excerpt from my forthcoming book ‘A Hero’s Journey Through the Music Industry’. Out soonish……
It’s early spring 2006 and I’m in London at the PRS building (Performing Rights Society) standing before a room full of music industry people who have assembled to hear ‘How we did it?’ They are here to listen to our ‘giant-killing‘ fairy tale of how the little guy took on the big guy (in this case the biggest guy on the block, X-Factor) and triumphed. I am describing our journey from a provincial indie label to Number One record and (eventually) 1 million sales and sharing some of the experiences and the odd funny story with the assembled throng and it all seems to be going quite well. I have done a few of these events now, (I’m starting to feel like a game show host).
In The Beginning
So how do things get started? Where and when do things actually begin? Can we ever identify a time or place where stuff really got started? Walking the bog road this morning I found my mind taking me back to what might have been one of those strange but traceable origin points. One of those “what if” points.
Memories are made of this.
So a curious thing happened when I was at school. The idea came to me one day that there must be a way (an extra special, magical, and fairy dust way) to remember things – yes I know making lists is very effective but you can’t really take them into an exam with you, can you? Long before I had discovered various memory enhancement systems like mnemonics and association, (and Tony Buzan’s work on Mind Maps and linking ideas etc) I thought I might try and invent my own system of recall – and as fate would have it I had found the perfect testing ground.
Another little story and excerpt from the book this month. Have been in lockdown hiatus for a while but just beginning to move into the search for a publisher phase as the book nears completion. Keep your fingers crossed for me and I hope everyone is staying safe and well during the Covid 19 crisis. Take care of each other people.
A couple of years ago Luke related this story to me in one of our transatlantic catch-up conversations.
The Boys in town.
Ed Sheeran is on the USA leg of a world tour. He is playing Boston so Luke suggests they get together for a catch-up and a writing day whilst he’s in town. Ed arrives at Luke’s place in Arlington. They do the usual greeting stuff and Luke sets about making the tea (the creative elixir of all great songwriters). Ed is making himself at home when he spies Luke’s guitar case on the floor in the corner. In a fit of enthusiasm, Ed grabs the case, spins around to put it on the sofa, and, midway to its destination, it becomes apparent the guitar case is not closed properly and…the contents of the case scutters across the wooden floor to come to rest with a bang against a wall on the other side of the room…in two pieces!
This months blog is an excerpt from the intro section of the forthcoming book ‘A Hero’s Journey Through the Music Industry’. Stay safe people!
Diva
The legendary R’nB diva Mary J Blige is standing in front of me, beautiful and statue-like. She’s stood, stock-still wearing only a large brilliant-white dressing gown, a white towel wrapped-royally around her head accompanied by huge dark sunglasses atop a sphinx-like expression on her inscrutable and motionless face. She displaces air in the way that only a true diva can! But its obvious she doesn’t want to be standing in front of me right now, – or more accurately – she doesn’t want to be standing in front of anybody right now! But she has to.
To my right, the Kaiser Chiefs (the band, not the football team) are leaving the stage. Charlotte Church is to my left with her band and Richard Ashcroft is in the corner looking pale and interesting.
The hosts for the show, Rufus Hound and Fern Cotton, look like they just been dragged out of bed and had cups of coffee and scripts thrust into their hands – my guess is, they’ve just been dragged out of bed and had cups of coffee and scripts thrust into their hands – and pushed into a TV studio (elementary my dear Watson).
(Bono…and maybe Voltaire)
Doing the Work
As a musician or performer, have you ever found yourself deeply and intently focused on your material as you prepare for that “really important gig”? Have you worked and re-worked your musical chops, putting in mammoth practice sessions? Perhaps you’ve experimented with all the latest ideas and technologies that might improve your performance? Have you taken a leaf from the 10 000 hours movement about practising so that you optimize the way you lay down those all-important myelin-coated neural pathways? Perhaps you’ve explored the world of “neuroplasticity” and the exciting breakthroughs in accelerated learning offered by stimulating the motor cortex as in Halo Sport? Maybe you’ve recorded or videoed your rehearsals and studied them looking for ways to improve aspects of your playing or performance? If the answer to any (or indeed all) of the above is an emphatic “Yes”, then I salute you. (We should get T-Shirts ‘cos it looks like we are all members of the same club already).
“Why doesn’t the stage melt?” (punter at a Nizlopi gig)
Road Warrior
During those many long years on the road as a manager and (not to get above myself) travelling dogs-body, I had a lot of time to witness and ponder the nature, the impact, and the power of the art of performance. This is what I learned.
Between Two Worlds
There is an infinitesimally small moment, just before the artist sings that first note or strikes that first chord. A moment so seemingly inconsequential that you miss it if you blink. It’s a fleeting moment of infinite possibilities, a window into a liminal space between two worlds. It’s a moment I know from my martial arts practice. It’s a moment I know has great power if the musician or artist accepts the challenge of stepping into that Warrior-space. That musician-space. Blending the two! It’s a moment before what they have learned, or what they have practised, emerges from them into the space between artist and audience. It’s a moment that can define the whole gig or indeed their whole career. It’s a moment that tells you all you need to know about them. It tells you where their music is coming from.
