This is a continuation of this thread from Wednesday at Wide Days, to update with a little information about the A&R seminar, which I couldn’t very well write about at the time, because I was on it, talking shite in my usual way.

Modern A&R – How is talent developed and nurtured?

Alex Knight – Fatcat, Ellie Giles – Jigsaw Management, Pip Newby – Friends vs Records/PIAS, Stewart Henderson – Chemikal Underground Records, Matthew Young – Song, by Toad Records.

I will be writing about this a little differently from the ‘one thing after another’ way I rattled off the previous sessions on Wednesday, for obvious enough reasons, but there are still some good points which I think might be interesting to pass on.

Roughly speaking, I think it’s fair to say that A&R has probably not changed all that much at indie level.  Both Stewart and Alex confirmed that they are given a healthy cushion by their back-catalogues, and that allows them to sign who they want to sign, with little concern for the commercial potential or nous of the band.

Alex said that the main driver for Fatcat was to find something which sounded either different from anything anyone else was doing, or was just tremendous fun, and Stewart said that Chemikal, although they had chased hits around the turn of the millennium, had pretty much given up on that altogether now.

From my own perspective I found their chat interesting because we are a little different.  We actually are not insulated by a healthy back catalogue, and for a while we operated on the level that a lot of small indies do: they are run by amateurs and have no profit-making prerogative and therefore can basically release what-the-fuck-ever they want.  For us that’s changed a little now, in the sense that some releases have gone well and others not so well, but from now on we will pretty much use three rules to determine if we want to work with a band or not:

1. Do we love the music?  This is still the best commercial strategy I can think of.  If I start second-guessing myself on the basis of which band will and will not sell a lot of records, then I will start making stupid decisions and could well end up releasing music I am not that keen on, with no real sense that I would be very good at ‘picking hits’ in the first place.  So we’ll stick with having to love it ourselves, and assume that our taste is mainstream enough that in general we will find enough people to agree with us.

2. Do we like and trust the band personally.  This one is down to the fact that most of our bands end up crashing at our house at some point, or coming round for dinner or getting pished in the back garden when the sun’s out and, frankly, I don’t want to do this kind of stuff with people I don’t like.  And also, this industry means a lot of work for very little reward, and frankly I am happy to do that if I like the person I am doing it for and want to do my best for them, but it becomes very hard indeed if they are cocky wankers or ungrateful cunts.

3. Are they going to match the work we put in with effort and care of their own? I have been out of profitable work for nearly two years now, and it is getting to the stage now where I have to justify that decision, at least a bit.  We don’t need to make much money, per se, but a couple more projects which are in the black, even if only marginally, would be good.  And, if a band aren’t selling any records, which is absolutely fine by us, then they need to at least match the level of intensity and effort I will put in, otherwise I will slowly but surely begin to feel like a bit of a schmuck.  Which isn’t nice.

Anyhow, Toad Manifesto aside, Pip and Ellie approached matters from more of a major label standpoint.  Apparently major labels are backing off a little from plucking unknown bands out of nowhere, and I suppose the two most eminently mockable examples of that in Scotland recently are the likes of Make Model and Kassidy who ended up with massive advances thrown at them before they really even had an audience – and look where that got everyone involved.

I know it’s easy to point and laugh in these situations, but really the labels themselves should have know better: why were they signing bands without a fanbase to speak of or even any real songs?  More recently we seem to be seeing situations where bands are allowed to prove themselves at the indie  level (even if those indies are wholly or partly owned by, or in some cases funded by, the majors. Then, once they’ve demonstrated that they can sell records and fill venues, they get snapped up by a major who can throw some financial heft behind them and help them make a bigger breakthrough.

Where the majors do still have confidence, however, is with pop acts.  I know all of this is basically pop music, but you know what I mean: a great vocalist with some good lines or a couple of lads who make good hooks but can’t really sing tend to be picked up by managers or major label A&Rs (and apparently the majors now deal with managers far more than bands these days) who put them together with the right producer, maybe a good vocalist or whatever it is they happen to be missing and then get them to ‘write a hit’.

This happens a lot, even with the bands that get to that stage, and it’s fair enough, I think.  The kind of sums being invested at that level really do mean that you have a commercial obligation, and I think it would be ridiculous to claim that it should be ‘all about the art’ when this much money is involved.  If you want it to be all about the art, then you have to accept that such sums can’t really be justifiably risked.

Finally, I think there were a few general points to be made which apply across the board. In general everyone on the panel said that the most important thing was to find someone you trust.  Again, there are no guarantees in this business, and you really need to make sure that rather than just being flattered that any old label or manager or A&R has taken an interest.

I added this little caveat as well: make sure you have a really good idea of what kind of a band you are, and who it would and wouldn’t be appropriate for you to be working with. A major label kiddie-pop hit factory is not going to be much use to anyone reading this blog, but still if Sony got in touch, most bands would bite their hand off, and that can be suicidal.  Alternatively, there are bands with bigger ambitions who would be totally unsuitable for smaller labels who simply don’t have the resources to get them where they want or need to be.

So be careful, and make sure you know who you are as a band, you’re working with someone appropriate, and that you genuinely, sincerely trust them.

And that, I think, was just about that.  Then we all got very, very drunk.

I don’t think I approached this record with breath quite as bated as a lot of the rest of the Scottish music community.  I love RM Hubbert live; watching him play the guitar really is one of the most mesmerising things you’ll see, and the sincere but humourous chat inbetween songs is as engaging as the actual performance.

At the risk of enraging classical guitarists everywhere, however, I will venture that there are limitations to what you can achieve as a solo acoustic guitarist playing entirely instrumental songs.  Not that his recorded stuff was bad by any means, just that my concentration span didn’t always bear up that well over long periods.  For some reason, what was engrossing live, didn’t have quite as much of a hold on me when recorded.

This, however, for previous fans and new, is the kind of record to approach without any preconceptions, because it is entirely different in flavour from previous work.  The reason is simple: it is an album sprinkled liberally with guest appearances, both vocal and instrumental, which makes it sound almost like an entirely new artist at work.  And given the album is apparently about friends from the last twenty years or so of Hubbert’s life I suppose it makes good sense for it to be recorded in collaboration with others.

Despite the changing voices, the constant presence of the acoustic guitar, plucked as ever with a kind of weighty seriousness, gives the record a very unified feel.  Even when the vocalists change, the sense of unity is maintained.  There is also a surprisingly similar feel to the song performed with Emma Pollock and Rafe Fitzpatrick, Half Light, and that sung by Marion Kenny and Hanna Tuulikki, Sunbeam Melts the Hour.

The latter in particular is absolutely bloody gorgeous, and I think the peculiar character of Tuulikki’s voice in one song seems to mirror the off-kilter scrape of the violin in the other, lending them the similar character I mentioned before. Sunbeam Melts the Hour also brings us what I think is Hubbert’s most arresting guitar performance of the album too, and one that is very different to the rest of the album, and downright oriental in style.

The fact that these guest performances are stitched together with more familiar RM Hubbert instrumentals is also an important factor.  Had he simply presented an entire record of collaborations it would have been in danger of coming across as a compilation, it would have taken the emphasis just a little too much from Hubbert himself, and would (at risk of being a smart-arse here) have risked coming across just a little close too much like a ‘look at my celebrity* friends’ statement, dangerously close to the manner of Elton John.

I know I’m being facetious there, but hopefully it doesn’t mask the point I was genuinely trying to make.  For all the collaborations, Hubbert still needed to make this his album, and beyond the distinctive character of his guitar playing, the regular interspersal of songs entirely his own help give this a framework into which the collaborative songs are assembled, rather than allowing them to overwhelm the whole enterprise.

The other thing I really noticed about this record was the sheer seriousness of it.  Not that it’s no fun to listen to, but the combination of precise notes, and the rolling crescendoes of picked guitar (I am sure there is a technical term for this shit, I just don’t know it) have a similarly portentous feel to some of Josh T. Pearson’s playing.  In fact opener We Radioed is strongly reminiscent of the phenomenal opening track on Pearson’s own record, and whilst clearly no copy, a similar and similarly impressive effect is nonetheless achieved.

I’ve used the term impressive here, and I think I should make it clear how it is meant.  I do not mean in in a condescending ‘oh, jolly well done’ sort of way, more to say that the music makes a really strong impression on you.  Time and again I find myself listening to this album and stopping to just absorb the impact of it, not in a deer in headlights way, just stopping to allow the impressions of the music to be absorbed uninterrupted by anything else.

And if that sounds like a high compliment, it is meant to be.  This is bloody brilliant.

RM Hubbert – Sunbeam Melts the Hour

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RM Hubbert – Sandwalks

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*Yes, I know, believe me I use that term in the loosest possible sense.

It’s easy to say, isn’t it, but oh so very hard to do: whatever else you do in the music business, never get into the habit of resenting other people’s success.

I had an absolutely awful temper as a kid.  I don’t think anyone I currently know has ever really seen me lose it, because it doesn’t really happen these days.  But I went through a couple of years of getting into fights, shouting at referees, smashing up things in frustration, and just generally giving too much vent to my feelings.

Eventually I got myself sent off in a cup semi-final and banned from the final.  At that point – the wise old age of about fourteen – I decided something had to change, and it did.  Now I don’t really lose my temper.  The rage still boils away somewhere down there, but it is so suppressed that I barely even register it anymore.  The same is true of competitive jealousy.

It’s really, really tough when you’re involved in something like music, which is so very subjective, to not gaze on in disgust when someone you think isn’t really all that good starts to achieve anything and think ‘what the fuck is wrong with these people?’ and ‘how dare they like Bad Fun?’ and so on and so forth.

I’ve seen it surrounding the T-Break Heats, I saw it on that embarrassing post complaining about anti-folk a few months ago, and I personally feel it every single time a label or blog or band with which I am not associated gets any sort of plaudits whatsoever.  Anything.  Even when the band in question are my friends I feel a little twang of ‘well hey, what about our bands?’

Basically, I can be a very ungracious, unpleasant, competitive little shit.  But I am not alone.  For a huge number of people in music the success of others comes as a personal affront, as if other people have somehow robbed them of something that should rightfully be theirs. I feel this too, but like my childhood temper, I have learned to bury it very, very deep, to the extent that most of the time I just don’t even notice it anymore because, basically, it is pointless and it gets in your way.  And no-one likes a whinger either.

The enjoyment of music is not something people run out of, remember.  So just because someone likes some crap band or other doesn’t mean that that there is more or less chance of them liking yours. And, even more importantly, no matter how much you hate another successful band from your area, anyone being successful is actually good for you. That way Scotland (or Edinburgh, or Idaho or wherever) becomes known as a place for good music and fans, DJs, labels and writers start looking there more than usual, which is good for everyone.  I’m sure loads of people in Portland hate the Decemberists, but their emergence was good for the city as a whole, whatever you think of the band themselves.

Even before I started the label I knew full well that the success of other small labels in Scotland, be it Fence or Chemikal, Olive Grove or Armellodie, was good for Song, by Toad Records as it built the reputation of the whole country as an incubator of talent and a place to look for exciting grass-roots projects.

And then Armellodie did better getting the Scottish Enlightenment on the radio than I did with Yusuf Azak, and then Olive Grove got The Son(s) in Drowned in Sound whereas Inspector Tapehead got bugger all, and that rage started boiling away again, and I had to slap myself around the face and remind myself that Steve Lamacq choosing to play Mitchell Museum and not The Savings and Loan is almost certainly not him choosing to play them instead of The Savings and Loan.  People tend to judge things on their own merits – they probably just have different criteria than you.

Even in situations which are directly competitive, such as the T-Break Heats, whatever your darkest thoughts, whinging about it only achieves one thing: making you look bad. In any case, it’s probably misplaced.  There was a rather amusing piece of self-justification published on Radar afterwards, and I think it rather missed the point.

It’s not, in my opinion, a very good list of finalists.  But then, it was selected by committee, so of course it’s a bit shit.  Never at any time in the history of Western thought has anything been made better by the involvement of a committee.  By definition they will make things less interesting and more predictable, because whatever their personal opinions, they still have to agree amongst themselves. Most of them were probably just pleased to get the one or two bands they really did care about on list, and were happy to let a lot of the rest of it slide.

And of course some bands have an advantage because of who they know.  And of course there are biases involved.  This is a human business. But I will eat my hat if there were any conspiracies, because it just doesn’t work like that.  The judges just have different criteria than you.  Take your pals who you agree with the most about music and see how divergent your ‘most promising bands of 2011′ lists end up being and you’ll get an idea.

You also have to bear the audience in mind. Why was Jason from The Pop Cop on that T Break panel and not me (grr, burning rage and resentment!) Well before I get into churlish bickering about quality and taste, look at the festival in question.  Who writes more about T in the Park-friendly bands, Song, by Toad or the Pop Cop?  The answer is obvious, and suddenly my jealousy looks a bit silly. [edit: whoops, it was GoNorth, not T-Break, but that doesn't matter much in terms of the point, I don't think]

It’s a bit like me sulking about none of our bands being covered in the NME.  I think the NME is awful, so why would I expect them to think anything else of the music we release?  Other people at our level do get covered though, and I invariably feel a pang of rage until I remind myself of the fact that an honest promo letter from Song, by Toad Records to the NME would read something like this: “Dear NME, I have no respect whatsoever for your publication, which is basically just Heat magazine for music, however I do acknowledge that it would be financially advantageous for you to feature our bands on your pages, and I therefore enclose…”

It’s really easy to become resentful about other people appealing to a different audience to yours, but you have to remind yourself that if they are that different an audience then they were never likely to be into your stuff anyway.  If you want to appeal to that audience you probably have to do things differently, and would you really, honestly want to make or release different music to the music you are currently making? I doubt it.  Or at least I hope not, because if that is the case, you should be doing it already, irrespective.

Allowing any of this petty jealousy or resentment to take any kind of hold on your attitude is really dangerous – and I am not lecturing, because I can be guilty of this myself if I allow it to happen.  First and foremost it basically makes you look like an idiot, but more importantly it can really distract you from what you should be doing.  And what you should be doing is this: just getting the fuck on with it.

The only way to improve or to achieve anything is to get the fuck on with it, do your work, release your records, write your blog, practise practise practise, and only worry about what you are achieving. Spending your time fretting about who doesn’t like you, who isn’t interested, who won’t listen is counter-productive.  You only have so much energy, so don’t waste it when there are more than enough people out there who are interested to keep you busier than you can probably handle anyway.

This is going to be a really difficult record for me to review sensibly.  This is not for the usual reasons – that I happen to consider the band to be good friends, although I do – but for a more mundane one: I actually know this music and these songs so well that sitting down to try and actually review the album with any sense of detachment or perspective will be tricky.

Songs like Anti-climb Paint, Vincent Gallo and Johnny I Can’t Walk the Line have been staples of the FOUND live set for so long now I actually find it difficult to mentally attribute them to a new album.

Secondly, I’ve had a copy of this album on my hard drive for not much less than a year, when the band were first entering into negotiations with Chemikal, so I am almost too familiar with it to accurately describe what you might feel on first hearing it.

I do just about remember what I though when first hearing it, though, just about.  When FOUND divested themselves of their drummer and keyboard player last year I have to confess I allowed myself to unthinkingly assume that the electronic jiggery-pokery of Kev Sim and Tommy Perman would come to the fore, presumably accentuated by the gorgeous acoustic contribution Ziggy made to the band’s Toad Session two years ago. It may sound silly, but I am not sure, given the musicians left in the band, that it was an entirely stupid assumption.

It says something about FOUND, though, that I can hardly have ever been more shocked to hear a band make an album which is not, on the face of it, all that shocking.  Hardly shocking at all, in fact I would superficially call this a pretty conventional indie rock album, and that really did surprise me on the first few listens.

I will confess that there are a couple of songs I am not so keen on. Lowlandless doesn’t really do it for me, and the shouted “we’re not getting on” from Every Hour That Passes sits a bit uncomfortably as well, in my view.  And er… well, that’s about it, because I think I love everything else about this album, pretty much without reservation.

FOUND’s habitual double-take moments, where a perfectly inoffensive song is suddenly distorted with something incredibly strange and incredibly excellent, are few and far between (the wonky breakdown on Machine Age Dancing being a brilliant exception) and instead they have a hook-heavy record full of exuberant pop moments and, as their live shows for the last year have shown, many, many opportunities to wave your hands in the air and leap up and down like a fool.

It’s not, lest you get that impression, an album lacking any musical invention.  It’s more that instead of the ideas leading the songs all over the place, as they perhaps used to, now the songs are calling the tune and the stranger ideas seem to have been called into service to enhance the song, rather than being allowed to roam free and see what emerged.  The lead single Machine Age Dancing, for example, whilst indisputably one of the best songs on the album, and perhaps also one of the most characteristic, is definitely not the most hummable pop tune.  So there’s not a careless play for the mainstream being made here, by any means.

So, minor caveats aside, this is a great record, and if Anti-climb Paint and Vincent Gallo can’t break FOUND to a wider audience then it will simply be because people are fucking idiots.

FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo

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FOUND – Johnny I Can’t Walk the Line

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FOUND, like many in Edinburgh, have become more than just bands whose music I enjoy, over the last couple of years they have become a group of guys I genuinely consider to be friends. Consequently, it’s not just a mere journalist’s satisfaction at being vindicated that I feel when they achieve success, such as with Cybraphon‘s Best Interactive Thingy BAFTA last year, it is that really heartwarming feeling you get when people you really like have good things happen to them.

So, umm, something which I am only just getting round to announcing because I have been on holiday is that FOUND signed to Chemikal Underground the other week.  I think they went out and got shitfaced afterwards too, actually, according to Facebook, and so might they well.  Chemikal kicked themselves into life with the Delgados (who founded the label and, to the best of my knowledge still run it today), Mogwai and Arab Strap, a fact which gave them, pretty much in an instant, just about the three biggest indie bands in Scotland on their roster.  Even in the relatively short time I’ve been writing this blog they’ve released albums by Mother and the Addicts and Aidan Moffat which will probably count as two of my favourite albums of the last decade, not to mention the debut albums by Emma Pollock, The Phantom Band and the fantastic Lord Cut Glass record.

The label celebrated its tenth birthday a little while back, clearly established as just about the best label in the country.  Only Fence can really touch them in Scotland, I think, and not many more in the rest of Britain.  So yes, FOUND have most certainly landed on their feet there – congratulations lads.

The album itself will be out some time in the Spring.  I myself have been sitting on it as uncomfortably as one might a bowl of scorpions, twitching to play songs on the podcast or radio show and knowing that the band would fucking kill me if I did.  That’s the trouble with being in this position – exercising discretion is rarely a blogger’s best quality.  I’ve even resisted the temptation to pop a couple of the new songs they performed at Haarfest (and which I happened to film) up on the internet, just in case everyone involved would rather I didn’t.

Anyhow, erm, congratulations to FOUND and just as soon as I can start playing this stuff I promise I will.  It’s really good (sorry, I know that probably doesn’t help).  What I have managed is a Toad Session version of Vincent Gallo, which is on the record, and a version of Anti-Climb Paint, which is also on the record. This version is from an EP which was knocking around a little while ago, recorded under the name of Haggard the Listener Group. It is essentially FOUND, I think, but hopefully this is not considered to be letting anything untoward out of the bag, so you can be trusted to enjoy it safely.

Haggard the Listener Group – Anti-Climb Paint

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