Think of something really exciting, joyous, life-changing and seared into your memory forever.
Think of something mind-blowing, that has happened in your life, it doesn’t matter at what point, maybe a childhood experience, like the first Christmas day morning when you wake up at 4.30 am to find that Santa, has not only turned up, but has also managed to wrestle a new bicycle down the chimney, that your house doesn’t actually have.
It’s magic, pure bloody magic, childhood magic that brings a smile so wide, you look like the kid on the cover of Mad magazine.
Not that you ever had a copy, but you knew some kid whose parents were rich, and they were forever going off on amazing holidays and he’d always come back with a copy of Mad magazine that he’d brought at the airport, but he’d never lend it to you because he was a twat.
So, Santa has turned up, with bells on and a new bike with a bell on and you are not concerned with how he managed that, it’s yours now and you’ll soon be bombing all over the neighbourhood on it in the freezing rain like an overly excited, if not slightly cold, wish I’d worn that horrible jumper I also got for Christmas, version of Evil Knievel. Until the flared, late-70’s jeans that you hate but you don’t have any others, get caught in the chain and you fall off in a slightly less spectacular way than Mr Knievel ‘s recent attempt to jump over some buses. Of course, you get back up again and thankfully nobody saw you because most kids are still knee-deep in wrapping paper, empty multipacks of chocolate and the Evil Knievel wide-up motorcycle toy that you wanted but didn’t get, but it doesn’t matter ‘cos you got a new bike which is obviously much better until you fall off it and get so cold that you’ve got to come inside and then feel sorry for yourself because you didn’t get the wind-up toy but never mind, you’ll be able to show your new bike to your mates on boxing day which is traditionally the day where everyone gets to show off their new toys unless they have some relatives they have to go and visit, who also didn’t buy you the wind up Evil Knievel motorcycle that you wanted but instead gave you a book about science that you’ll never read but you say thank you anyway because everyone’s in a bad mood because they’ve all got hangovers, or something.
Yes! Remember the first flushes of youth and the discovery that the opposite sex was no longer a thing to avoid at all costs, but instead something or someone, that you now wanted to join-in with, at all costs.
Remember the first time the object of your teenage crush actually recognised your existence, and smiled at you? Remember THAT feeling?
Hold THAT thought for a while, remember the smell of the cheap perfume and/or the Lynx Africa depending on your persuasions. Remember the thrill, when you got close enough for the first time to ‘taste’ those fragrances and you knew what was coming next?
When they not only smiled but agreed to go on a date with you the following weekend and, unlike the last two, actually turned up? Even if they did bring their slightly less attractive mate who was clearly not going to let you attempt to get your grubby mitts on her friend unless you gave her half the money that you had brought with you, so she’d go away for a few minutes and play space-invaders in the arcades, while you attempted to cop a feel in the nearby multi-story carpark that smelt of piss. Or maybe the rush and expectation, the thrill the time the false ID that you’d borrowed finally convinced the bouncer at the local nightclub, that despite looking 14, and being 17, you actually were 21 and therefore of legal age to come inside for the first time in your life and drink 3 pints of cider, puke up and get thrown out before the end when the DJ always played a few ‘slow’ songs that you had hoped, might avail you the opportunity to have a ‘smooch’ with the new teenage crush you had because you’ve moved on from the last one because after bribing her slightly less attractive mate to fuck off and play space invaders while you and her friend were in the carpark that smelt of piss, she mentioned that she’d been in the very same carpark the previous night with her boyfriend who was off the local estate and a skinhead and he’ll
“Smash your fucking head in you prick if I ever find out you’ve been near my Mrs again.”
At this point imagine The Undertones singing a song about teenage dreams or something, it might help.
Remind yourself of the absolute joy you felt when you realised that the second blotter of acid, was starting to wear off, the one you’d swallowed within minutes of the first which was clearly a dud, but then clearly wasn’t so you swallowed the other one too and you’ve been clinging onto the vestiges of whatever sanity you had for the last thousand hours but now think you might not actually be permanently scarred for life because hallelujah that second blotter is also now wearing off and despite spending the last thousand years in the park shelter which was so cold, you thought you were dying but you didn’t die so you can now go home and pretend you’re ok to your parents who think you’ve been staying at your mates, but you didn’t because you found out he’d got a blowjob from the girl from the carpark, and you’ve just had to move back in with your parents because you got sacked from your job because you take too many drugs and drink too much and therefore have no money to rent a small bedsit somewhere which is grubby and really depressing and feels like the last person who inhabited it probably hung themselves in there but at least it’s better than living at home.
*You might have slightly different, more personal examples of the joys of living and obviously, the previous few paragraphs are purely fictional and only my attempt to provoke your own imagination in order to facilitate you with the opportunity to share on a deeper level, the remaining parts of this story.
*Possibly*
So yes, think of all these wonderful kind of things in the tapestry of life, and then picture me, listening back to the finished mixes of the greatest debut album by a middle-aged man, ever, multiply your joy by a million (reasons) and I promise you, you are still not close to how happy I felt. Nor I suspect are you anywhere near understanding the way I felt when almost nobody listened to it, but I’ll get to that part in a bit, we’ve got to do some rehearsals, play some gigs, raise the money to get it onto vinyl and sort out the artwork for the cover.
Amongst all the musicians and drummer(s) the assorted friends, scouse legends, wonderful memories, hours in the recording studio, “half-past-two mate” rehearsals and married 7 times, but now dead apart from when they’re riding a bicycle on the lawn, film-stars, Hightown Pirates had also picked up a manager.
Because that particular role often varies due to certain circumstances, a quick google search provided me, and you, if you’re still awake, with the following definition.
An artist manager, also known as a "band manager," is in charge of the business side of being in a band. Often, band members are great at the creative side of things but aren't so great at promoting themselves, booking their own gigs, or negotiating deals. In a very general sense, the task of a manager is to take care of the day to day running of the band's career so that the band can focus on the creative side of things.
Which is both a broad but also reasonable description of task at hand, unless of course, the band, is not really a band and the gatekeepers of the music industry, who to a certain extent have a big say in the ‘career’ side of things, have no interest in anyone much older than 25, because as we all know, after that you might as well be dead anyway.
They want to get to you while you’re still young and foolish, while you’re still impressionable enough to let them more or less take your ‘art’ and abuse it as much as is necessary to get it to the point where they can make enough cash from it to afford to send their own children to the best schools in the world to hopefully get the kind of education that means they won’t be interested in getting fucked-over in the music business unless of course they too, follow into management, in which case the cycle of nepotistic feasting and exploitation will continue.
Maybe these people all actually hope that their artists join the ’27-club’ which means they’ll not have to spend any more on expensive tours anymore but will be coining it in from the upsurge in sales when their latest cash cow, pops its clogs.
Or maybe, I’m a cynical middle-aged man, who may well have made *the greatest debut album by a middle-aged man, ever* but found himself rather cross that almost nobody was into it because Seasick Steve had already taken the one and only slot available for ‘new’ artists that were over 20 years past the date at which the music industry would prefer you to die especially if they own the publishing to all your songs etc.
Look, I know how this is supposed to work, I’ve eulogised enough in this book about falling in love with a band When You’re Young (See what I did there Jam fans?) It’s a young man’s/woman’s/non-binary’s game, as essential to growing up as getting headbutted by the racist skinhead from the local estate ‘cos you went back for another grope with his ‘bit of a slag’ girlfriend in the piss-soaked carpark.
It’s no secret that it’s hard, to make a career from the music ‘biz, even with youth on your side. (Not the bassist from 80’s post-punk monsters Killing Joke, although he does appear in this story soon.) Obviously, it’s much harder than stacking shelves in supermarkets** which is where most of us end up. And even with the support of the industry behind you, it’s fair to say that for every Madonna or Metallica, there are plenty of Menswear’s too.
*Point of interest. *
Take your pick as far as comparisons go, I just liked the alliteration of the three M’s and also because I once supported Menswear on tour when I was roughly the same age as when you’re supposed to die in the music business. And I’d also like to point out that some of the members of Menswear have had brilliant careers in other areas of the industry that does not involve writing Britpop ‘classics.
Shoutout to Messer’s, White, Gentry and Everitt. The singer blocked me on Twitter ages ago, so he can fuck off.
* *There’s nothing wrong with stacking shelves in supermarkets and not everyone who sets out on the path of rocknroll excess ends up doing that as the two guitarists from the ‘Swe@r have proven. Plenty of people happily concede defeat early enough to retrain or indeed get a ‘real’ job they despise, using the degree they got as ‘insurance’, just in case their musical endeavours didn’t work out, which it didn’t and was never going to because that’s how it fucking goes sunshine and now that job you hate, is actually just karma (police) for being sensible and not being 100% convinced that you’d make it and therefore wouldn’t need a degree which is the only attitude to have when you enter into all this madness, if you want to have any chance of success, unless you’re just in the right place at the right time like Ed Sheeran and you become really successful and end up making music for people stacking shelves in the supermarket who weren’t
(or who are now freezing/sweating their nuts off in a mate’s clothing warehouse for peanuts until they get a hernia because they’re too old for that shit.)
Etc.
Or something like that.
Point being, is that the odds are stacked against you at any age because that’s just the way it is and sadly, they will remain heavily stacked against you, almost irrespective of your talent, because you might be surprised to learn, that ‘talent’ has very little to do with success sometimes, in fact it can often be a hindrance in an industry that prefers product and professionalism over poetry and perseverance.
As ‘someone’ once said to ‘someone’ else,
“A billion Spotify streams is not necessarily recognition of talent, it is however, similar to the ‘success’ of McDonalds insomuch as they have also convinced billions of people that convenience is king and worth sacrificing ‘taste’ and quality for.
Excuse me for a second, I just need to ask someone something.
“Would you like some fries with that sir?”
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Excellent writing yet again, chief…⭐️✊🏼🏴☠️☠️❤️