‘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.*]
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!
I just wanted to do a quick update on the following;
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My progress with the book ‘A Hero’s Journey Through the Music Industry’…
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Where I am with my next blogs…
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How I am shifting the blog topics to more specific areas of performance, musicianship and the music industry.
Summer Time…So, I took the summer off, unusual for me I know. My son Luke got married to the beautiful Stephanie, we traveled a bit, discovered the amazing wild beauty of Achill Island of the coast of Mayo and generally made the most of a summer break. ( just noticed that if you put a space into Achill you get “A chill’ island, and that says it all really). I see now the summer has given me time to reflect on this website and on my blogs. Some time to think about what they want to become?
