Friday Just Wants to Talk About It
Blah blah blah talky talky… as festival season starts to slowly warm to its task for the coming year, so too does that other staple: the industry chat-fest.
In many ways it is classic music industry wastage: money raised and spent on people talking about doing things instead of actually doing them; the classic overhead. A bunch of people only tangentially involved in the making of music are always more able to raise money than those actually making it, not least because they are business people focussed on business, whereas bands are artists who should be focussed on making music.
I’ve been to quite a lot of these, and even begun participating in them recently, and the above paragraph is the cynical voice in the back of my head which will probably never be entirely silenced. I have seen a lot of people be extremely entertaining at these things, but actually useful? That’s another question.
Then the other voice kicks in and starts to say things like ‘hang on, are you saying they’re a waste of time, then?’ And actually the answer is no. So far from these chat-a-thons I have managed to ummm… well, find the lawyer who negotiated our distribution deal for us, meet the publishing guy who, as a favour, helped us get a wee chunk of cash for Meursault for having one of their songs in a documentary movie in the States, get me invited down to Manchester to Unconvention, where I found a load of great bands and met people who helped us book two of the dates on Yusuf Azak’s tour, threaten to punch the manager of a bar who was being a dick while one of our bands played (alright, maybe not that one), meet a couple of 6Music presenters who have subsequently played our music, as well as the guy who runs Hype Machine radio… and there will be many more, but those are the ones which pop to mind off the top of my head.
So I cringe at many elements of these events, and I am terrified of being, when invited to speak, one of those people who talks engagingly and entertainingly for an hour, but who only really succeeds in making themselves look witty and charming (yes, I know, not much danger of that, let me say it for you), without being any actual practical help. But when I look back at what I’ve actually got from them, albeit over many many events, they are actually starting to look like a pretty bloody good use of my time.
I’m still nervous of making a tit of myself at them though!
And we are once again at de-lurking time of the week, so please step out of the shadows and say hello, and give your answer to five stupid questions and then… well, it’s Friday afternoon, this is the internet, you know what to do!
1. How sick are you of people mentioning SXSW by now, as a percentage?
2. Name an entertaining and affable but utterly useless person.
3. When are you most likely to completely clam up.
4. Last most incredibly boring thing you had to sit through.
5. You wrote it off, but it was quite good really.
The Just Joans – Please Don’t Talk to Me
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The Dead Kennedys – Your Emotions
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George Pringle – Extremely Verbal After Midnight (Demo)
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1. I am going, I am excited about going, and I am STILL at least fucking 76% bored of hearing about it.
2. Boris Johnson. So harmless and amusing on telly, such an unspeakable tool as mayor.
3. On the phone under almost all circumstances. I hate it. In other uncomfortable situations it’s actually the opposite problem – shutting me up – which tends to be the challenge.
4. The new Bright Eyes album. Eventually I decided I just couldn’t do it to myself.
5. A friend of mine swore blind that his girlfriend used to insert a statue of Nefertiti into his arse during sex and that it provided both extra stimulation as well as an extra couple of inches of length, and that… oh, never mind, I’ll stop there.
1. not really sick of it at all….tho i don’t understand the value of the event at all.
2. Me
3. Pay and reward focus group that i’m just back from
4. Pay and reward focus group that i’m just back from
5. the idea of marriage
1. About 60%
2. Darnit, I was going to say BJ but you beat me to it.
3. Talking to bands / anyone I admire really
4. Not had too boring a week, actually – mostly due to avoiding all the smeinars I should have been at.
5. Spent at least a year avoiding seeing Meusault due to one dodgy set plagued with technical difficulties. How wrong I was.
re no 5, Bad Scientist!
1. 100%!!! So many people going, no one visiting me on the way. Not paid enough to go myself. Not fair not fair not fair. At least I have New Haven Music week coming up…ahem. Last time it was so good I went to see…not a single band. The local paper describing it as the “North East’s SXSW” was a little overexcited.
2. The old Manager of the GB Orienteering Squad. Lovely bloke, very funny, full of stories, couldn’t organise his way out of a cardboard box. He’s still great though.
3. When my Mum asks what I’ve been up to on the phone, and I realise that I no longer do anything interesting.
4. I just had to do 8 hours of Driver’s Ed classes to convert my UK license to a CT one. I learnt never to honk at horses, that alcohol turns you into a vegetable, and that I have been driving for three years longer than my Driver’s Ed instructor. All for the small price of $125, and we didn’t even get to take home the quizzes.
5. The day we went into Manhattan to sightsee and it was minus 17. It felt shocking at the time but looking back, the most fun to be had in a while!
Thanks for the no5 answer Matthew – it obviously distracted me so much it completely messed up my spelling.
And RCC, yes, entirely my loss.
Hi Becky, you must be up early, surely?
Only 7.30, not too bad! Just having my breakfast and contemplating the downpour outside….
1. not sick, just 100% fucking jealous
2. Matthew Young?
3. In work, seeing as I don’t watch Dancing on Ice or read the Daily Mail. It makes for a very long painful day
4. A discussion on last weekends Dancing on Ice – shoot me now
5. Dancing to YMCA at a wedding a few weeks backl, after that there was no stopping me on the dance floor
1. Apart from the Dan Withered Hand thing and Mrs. Toad’s latest bout of Facebook updates I honestly haven’t heard much.
2. Matthew Young. BOOM!
3. When sober.
4. When I’m in the office I tend to get to that level of boredom where it actually hurts, and you slow down to such a state of inertia that you can’t motivate yourself to work. I’ve been a working at home a lot the last few weeks and I’ve found I’ve been more much more productive and motivated in terms of my job; and infintely less bored, despite the sneaky lie-ins and afternoon naps, daytime TV dramas on ITV3 (Cadfael rocks!) and DIY jobs like hanging pictures and fixing my record player. I just think I have one of those brains that’s best kept occupied and distracted it just begins to shut down. Maybe I should get a baby’s mobile fitted above my desk in work.
5. Cadfael.
1. ~84%
2. Continuing the political theme, George W. Bush. Very entertaining in the abstract but, terrifyingly, he was head of the world’s most powerful countryâ„¢ for eight years.
3. Answering machines. I just cannot speak to them.
4. Yes, Prime Minister (the play) It was crass, low-brow, lazy and an utter shafting of the original. If you’re thinking of going DON’T. The phrase “whizzed on a Picasso” has never been more appropriate.
5. Back in the mists of time, I was at a Festival and between two bands I really wanted to see was Robbie Williams. Jobbie Williams more like I thought, but he was ace. And then I met James Brown and showed him how to work a coffee machine. Win.
1. I’m with Peenko on this one
2. Me
3. Interview promotion boards. I’d be blatantly king of the universe by now if I wasn’t so utterly hopeless at interview promotion boards.
4. Various meetings I could mention. Even some today. But I’ll refrain.
5. Pub brawls.
SIGN THE PETITION HELP WITHERED HAND PLAY USA
1.transformers
2.coffee
3.pants
4.river city
5.kraftwerk
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/get-withered-hand-to-sxsw/
1) Not been mentioned at all in my someone insular community…
2) Mike Huckabee. Also scarey…
3) Talking to people who work in promotion. I have nothing to say to them. No a thing.
4) Fundraising events. Oh God.
5) Glee. My wife is obsessed and I tend to be in the room.
Matthew
Given the archeologically based filth in you no. 5 I’m a little amazed you could criticize Scientist…
1. Like Peenko I’m just extremely jealous
2. My son (at 2yrs old he doesn’t really contribute to much yet)
3. Whenever I see Christina Hendricks
4. My dad offered me a copy of that Beady Eye album and I had to accept it and listen to it as not to offend him. I feel like I’m still in a sleep induced coma.
5. the reach around
1. How sick are you of people mentioning SXSW by now, as a percentage?
50%
2. Name an entertaining and affable but utterly useless person.
Jimmy Calderwood
3. When are you most likely to completely clam up.
I met Tony Benn once, he was really friendly but my mind went completely blank desipte having a good twenty minute ‘chat’ with him. I thought to myself, if i ever meet him again I know what I’m going to ask him about. I did meet him again, and I clammed.
4. Last most incredibly boring thing you had to sit through.
Inception
5. You wrote it off, but it was quite good really.
The Wire
Chutters, re: “tho i don’t understand the value of the event at all.”
I think you have a strong point here. Bands spend a lot of money just to try and make themselves heard above a massive noise, so unless there are specific people there you need to meet and you plan a bit more of a tour around it, I don’t think it’s a sensible way to spend your money.
Ben, did I criticise I Are Scientist?
1. About 75%. very envious of you going, though.
2. Boris Johnson, definitely.
3. Given that I embarassed myself in front of Stephen Pastel, I think if I ever met Robert Smith or David Bowie, I would really act like a starstruck loon.
4. A seminar on ladder lifting. Ugh.
5. I can see why people liked the last National album…
1. 0%, love the SXSW chat.
2. Jimmy Boco
3. Whilst climaxing I seem to suck loads of air in and make zero noise, often leading to me passing out. Hello ladies.
4. Numerous singer songwriters (lots from Glasgow) who think they sound like Elliott Smith but actually sound like an even shitter version of Newton Faulkner.
5. I hated Wavves more than anything else before his last album, which I actually thought was pretty good.
1. How sick are you of people mentioning SXSW by now, as a percentage?
as with peenko not sick just jealous
2. Name an entertaining and affable but utterly useless person.
Dan Wilson !!! whoops did I say that out loud
3. When are you most likely to completely clam up.
Interviews, the more important the more I clam
4. Last most incredibly boring thing you had to sit through.
Just got back from a health & safety meeting in Aberdeen – Jesus F C dull dull dull and with no relevance to what i’m going to be doing
5. You wrote it off, but it was quite good really.
The 1st time I saw Foals I didn’t rate them much at all now I think there great
A seminar on ladder lifting sounds truly comical. Do you get in trouble if you don’t take these things entirely seriously?
Fucking hell, what a mental day. I’ve been running about like a blue arsed fly. Now only an hour and half to get all sorts of shit done.
Becky, what were you doing out of bed at that time? An early morning triathlon, knowing you.
I was just taking a very long time to eat breakfast actually. Gotta be in early so I’m allowed to leave to go to the pub on time!
1. SXSW? huh?
2. the professor who teaches my development class
3. the question is when do i not clam up? a: in class, when i’m drinking, when i’m manic.)
4. when i’m forced to watch baseball.
5. a fundraiser a few months ago. thought it was going to be dead awful but it turned out to be well worth the trek.
1.well, i don’t think i’ll ever go there, so i don’t really pay much attention.
2.none, they are all useful in the end.
3. talking to representatives of local governments. you know the answers to your questions even before you ask. pointless and frustrating.
4. waiting in the que in the local tax office to change my home address.
5. the english accent. it was very very long before i realised how much i like it and how superior it is compared to american accent.
1. How sick are you of people mentioning SXSW by now, as a percentage?
0%
How sick am I of people mentioning that they are sick of SXSW? 100%
2. Name an entertaining and affable but utterly useless person.
Beatle Bob
3. When are you most likely to completely clam up.
Meeting Broken Social Scene
4. Last most incredibly boring thing you had to sit through.
Rugby
5. You wrote it off, but it was quite good really.
Salad
By the way, if you are coming to Austin next week and you want to see some free music, a good start would be to RSVP to these parties as soon as possible:
http://mwtxparty.com/
http://www.purevolume.com/thehouse/rsvp/
http://www.thefader.com/2011/03/08/rsvp-to-the-fader-fort-by-fiat/
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1384875199/
1. At least 100.
2.Greg Wallace. He’s become even more of a parody of himself but he doesn’t seem to mind.
3. From when I’ve had about a pint, a pint and a half until I’ve had about two, two and a half…
4. Whatever was on saturday night tv at teatime yesterday. I’ve started eating away from everyone else because they want to watch tv and I really don’t.
5. The Smiths.