Recorded Music FTW

The sun is shining beautifully today. There are snowdrops and daffs shooting up all around. It was light until past 17:30 last night. I love this time of year, we're ready for spring around here.

I'm very excited to be recording both Islet & Farm Hand music over the next month. We started recording an Islet album in late August so if all goes to plan we should be able to finish it... soon. To clarify, we did a week of recording in late August / early September and haven't been able to do any since - we've not being doing it solidly since then! We're not the Stone Roses*! Not going to put a public deadline on finishing it but I'm optimistic we should be able to hammer it out pretty sharpish. We're doing it all ourselves, just as we did the EP, with my brother JT doing all the recording and mixing. He has ALL the skills on the DAWs! I'm a proud older brother. I tried to convince myself I could be someone who does recording but I've recently tried to do Farm Hand recording and I've realised it isn't part of my skill set for the time being. I haven't got the patience! Rather than be cross with myself about it, I'm accepting it, even though I am quite cross with myself about it. I feel like I 'should' be able to cope with it. I can get it all set up, put a mic somewhere, press record and do 1 take and then I just go on my phone. My respect for people who record well is massive! Well done to you all, recording people. 

After that, I plan on making a Farm Hand album quite quickly, embracing the limitations of being a one-man band. I'm going to make a record with a great man called Rob Jones. 

Thanks to everyone who has reached out as a result of me writing this blog, it is nice to know you are reading it. I totally didn't expect to be a person who writes a blog but it looks like I am now. Having said that, I recently read that, in a way, we are all bogging these days. Anyone who writes a tweet is microbloggin, instagram is photobloggin, Facebook is basically just bloggin. Just feels like an extension of that really. This is a classic 'nap time' blog. Child went to sleep and I opened my laptop and started typing.

Anyways, can't wait to get recording and put things onto tape (digital tape). Thanks, Mark. 

*didn't they take ages over an album or something? 

At home making a lot of noise. I watched the rap battle at the end of Eight Mile the other day to get me in the zone. 

My set up. 

Caring About The Numbers

When I first started playing in a band the only number I remember worrying about was the number of people who would say "Attack + Defend" when asked who they were coming to see at the door at the Barfly in Cardiff. We'd get £1 of the £4 ticket for everyone who did. We made sixty odd quid at our first gig in January 2004, supporting a local band called 'Desensitzied'. We were absolutely buzzing!! As a result, we were offered a headline (!) gig 6 weeks later. I had never felt so proud. To be fair, we put the effort in with regards to flyering, postering and inviting friends. I would flyer anyone and everyone in those days. I used to look at the listings in Buzz, find appropriate and inappropriate gigs and go and stand outside waiting for the crowd to come out so I could give them all one of my photocopied back and white flyers. I was temping at Cardiff Council so I rinsed the photocopier in Llanrumney Housing office when everyone had left. Bad form! Mum, if you’re reading, don’t worry, it was 13 years ago, they won’t arrest me for this retrospectively.

I once handed out about 500 of these flyers at an NME tour show in Cardiff Uni for a gig we were doing in Floyds Bar (capacity 30 - I think we had about 13 in). We made a sandwich board to advertise our gigs and left it at the end of Queens Street until it got confiscated. My best guerrilla marketing tactic and the one I am most proud of was putting flyers in all of the NME and Q magazines in W. H. Smiths.

I just Googled 'attack defend desensitized barfly' to see if I could find the original flyer. I couldn't but I did find this gem. 'Sparky' is me and I was posting on the 'Dragonnija' forums (a big deal at the time). I love my GENIUS marketing move there 'news is that the venue will be very busy' ! 

I find it quite overwhelming how much has changed since then. There are way more things to count now. Constants remain: how many records you sell, how many people came to your gig. But now we have so many numbers to care about! Twitter followers, RTs & favs / Facebook page & post likes / Instagram hearts / Soundcloud plays / Youtube hits / Mailchimp opens / Spotify page likes etc etc. Every single statistic tells you how popular you aren’t. This isn't meant to be a 'remember the good old days before the internet' nostalgia fest, but, from my own experience, it was more fun when there wasn't quite so many ways of measuring your success in real time. I'm excited about the future of music and technology and think that we're about to hit upon a time of more opportunities than ever for musicians. Doesn't mean it isn't really stressful putting music online though! Now when I put up a new song, I can’t help but sit there all day laptop open, phone in hand. When I'm not looking at the stats on my laptop, I'm looking on my phone. Or I'm dual screening and looking at both at the same time.

My band Islet spent the first 3 or 4 years of our existence without any social media at all. Looking back, it was rather nice. Now I feel like there is something to ‘do’ all the time. I should be posting about this or that. There are lots of positives as well though as it is nice to have direct conversations with audience and other artists. I think it is more the pressure of it being ‘promo’ that makes it difficult to navigate.

Islet 'Shunning the web' in 2009 

Recently, I've noticed more artists and bands are going for a really professional marketing style, drilling it day in day out. Others, like us, are more haphazard. Overall, I think I have more experience of slowly going off my favourite artists owing to their social media presence than I have falling more in love with them. Is that just me? There has definitely been a marked increase in how many Facebook sponsored posts people are doing. Are they working? I have only ever done 2 and they were for gigs I was putting on, last ditch efforts to get more people to come. I've decided I'm not going to do a sponsored FB post ever again because I don't like seeing them (and I think there are much better ways of spending money) so therefore I don't want to add to that noise.

How to cut through the noise? Stop adding to it...?

It’s easy to get into a tizz with social media. I’ve even got myself in a tizz about how to tweet. I have access to 4 Twitter accounts and I have recently taken to using Shape as my own but it has never felt right. It feels wrong tweeting opinions from Shape as myself as 'Shape' isn't me. It is a record label so maybe it shouldn't have a real voice. Also, it represents more people than just me (Lee, Emma, all of the acts we have released etc) so from now on I will be tweeting as @farmhandle. Join me over there. I feel I need to untangle myself from Shape to help work out where it is going to go next.

Twitter Searching

A week or so ago a live recording I did as Farm Hand for BBC Radio 3 was broadcast. I wrote this blog about it. 

It was my first ever solo radio session and I sat and listened to it on my own in the living room. The programme I was on started at 23:00, way over 1 hour past my current bedtime. My heart was POUNDING. It started, I could hear my voice way too much and the beats, bass and keyboard felt way too quiet, is it me or does it always sound too quiet when it is your thing?! I was thinking, 'oh gosh, it sounds awful!'.  

Anyway, I kind of sat uncomfortably and awkwardly listening to the 3 songs and interview. Then I did what any artist would do in that situation, I Twitter searched 'farm hand'. Why not get some real time feedback! Here was the one and only thing that came up: 

Now, bear in mind I at this point I had received 0 texts / emails / tweets regarding the session (crying emoji) so this was the ONLY feedback I had to go off. I wasn't a fan of the winky, tongue out emoji at the end so I started to take offence and was feeling vulnerable. Firstly, I googled 'Portsmouth Sinfonia'. To save you the bother if you don't know what it is: 'The world’s worst orchestra' is one of the top links on google.

BURN ! 

The Portsmouth Sinfonia was an orchestra founded by a group of students at the Portsmouth School of Art in England, in 1970. The Sinfonia was generally open to anyone and ended up drawing players that were either persons without musical training or, if they were musicians, ones that chose to play an instrument that was entirely new to them.

Ouch!

I felt like my heart had stopped. 

I then googled 'a la' as I wanted to know exactly what he meant. I kind of knew what it meant anyways, but I like googlin' and better be safe than sorry. It means: 'In the style of'.

So, we have 'Farm Hand sound like Joy Division in the style of the world's worst orchestra *winking, tongue out emoji*'.

No one was here to help me determine how bad the criticism was. I could wake up the 2 year old but I had a feeling that wound't help. So, I started replying to the Tweet... Fortunately, based on prior experience I will elaborate on shortly, I then remembered that no one should ever reveal that they Twitter Search their own name! Everyone pretends they don't do that, even though we all know that everyone does really. Mark, act like a cool artist! 

Because I was on my own and a bit tired, I felt like it was probably the worst tweet that had ever been sent. I obviously profile clicked him to find out who I was dealing with. He is a 'Baritone voice coach', or something. @CheyneyK became my troll and my arch nemesis for approximately 1 hour. I thought that my voice had probably offended him... it does have a habit of doing that to people but I'm not going to stop 'singing' anytime soon. Sorry! 

On reflection, now I'm revisiting it, I'm almost happy about it and I don't think he meant much harm. Or for me to think about it for the next week, non-stop. Joy Division are a decent reference point and I found out people like Brian Eno were in the Portsmouth Sinfonia so I'm taking it that he means I'm somekind of visionary genius. Also 'epic' must mean good, right? 

The recording is still online btw, here (around 20 mins in) so decide for yourselves!

In other related news, I've just confirmed 3 days of Farm Hand album recording with someone exciting that I've never worked with before. In emails back and forth we've been saying things to each other like "I'm really excited about this!" and "this is going to be great!".

I have a history of this type of bad Twitter searching activity. After Islet supported Battles in Cardiff Uni in 2011, I Twitter searched our band name and it was a mistake. There was a fair bit of negativity flying about! We must of upset the hardcore #rock #mathrock section of the crowd with our strange music and stage presence. Anyway, one person was quite angry about our existence and he tweeted something like "Islet are shit, I hate them I wish they would fuck off and stop #fuckoff"... Or words to that effect - I remember for sure that he definitely hash tagged 'fuck off'! 

Anyways,I clicked on his profile, found out he was in a band, found his contact details and, yes, you've guessed it, sent him an emotional email. What a fantastic idea, 2011 me! I was very polite but explained my position that it hurt and maybe he'd reconsider posting things like that in the future. Well, he strongly disagreed and felt it was his right to say that about us, considering we put ourselves up on stage. He wrote some more abuse and told me where to go. 

2-0 to him.

A week or two went by and then, suddenly, I had a great idea! I'd email him to tell him that I know everyone in the Cardiff music scene and owing to his meanness I'd see to it that his band would never get a gig in this town again! (he was from Swansea).

He told me to piss off and I wasn't important enough to make that happen. 

He was, of course, totally right and I was never going to do it anyway. 

3-0 & knockout! 

Another tragic example of my Twitter Search failure is when a member of a VERY GOOD American band tweeted 'Listening to Illuminated People, Islet are The Shit' just before we released that album. This time I didn't click on the profile so didn't know who it was and I tweeted back from Shape 'What exactly is that supposed to mean? And also, how have you even got it, it's not out yet' ... I assumed I had found him out as some kind of filesharing digital pirate so was doing my bit of internet vigilantism. 

He tweeted back 'I think Islet are great and your manager sent it to me'. I then googled 'The Shit'.... and worked out who he was. Urban Dictionary confirmed it meant the opposite of what I thought it did. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes. Grovelling apology tweet sent. Insert *monkey with hands over eyes emoji*. #cringe! 

Moral of the story: don't Twitter search! Or do, but just pretend you don't. 

Record Label Guilt

While the cat's away the mice will...

Write blogs and drink Pukka detox tea in front of the fire and go to bed early, apparently. Whilst Emms is away on tour doing gig-theatre (see my post Enough is Enough), I'm holding the fort here. Child (just turned 2) is in bed, asleep. Now, it's me time! Time to write a blog and prepare for my uni lectures on Monday and Tuesday. I could have prepared them on Friday but I took the opportunity to make music whilst the boy was in nursery for the day. I'm working on a Farm Hand album and we're also 34% through an Islet album so I was doing a couple of bits for that. Ideally, I would be able to do more music in the evenings but I woke the boy up playing a deep synth bass line the other week and haven't wanted to since then! 

Anyways, I wanted to write about something to get it out of my system and into the wild. I carry around a decent sized dose of guilt owing to the fact that I virtually never respond to anyone who sends / submits music to Shape Records. There is far more than I could possibly have ever imagined. I want to apologise to everyone who has sent us music and not received a response. I'm sorry! We never wanted to be that label but it happened. 

The inbox went particularly wild after we were on a BBC Four Documentary about Indie in late 2015. To be honest, it was an odd moment for me. I had talked quite a lot in the interview about being in a band self-releasing on Shape but it was all cut (fair enough, it wasn't the angle of the show) but as a result, it didn't mention us being musicians. Oddly, the next few weeks felt like a turning point for me in terms of where I was heading as I found it really odd to be defined solely as being a label person. I realised what was happening after a prominent (old school) Welsh music industry type asked me how I was "enjoying the transition from being an artist to being industry?". Definitely a line in the sand moment for me, I'll get more into that another time, maybe. 

Anyway, we got a crazy amount of emails submitting music (and even quite a few CVs!). I filed them all in a folder called 'Release Requests' and never looked again, I feel guilty about that too. I find all that stuff really overwhelming. All of the emails we got imagined that we had opportunities to offer left, right and centre. At the time we barely had opportunities for ourselves!

Some emails we get are fairly bullish pitches, others are very sweet, beautifully crafted emails, others are just really weird. A lot of people ask for feedback. I guess the main reason I find it stressful is that we are essentially rejecting people by not responding. I find this very awkward and being seen as a 'gatekeeper' is an odd by-product for me and the last thing I want. Please don't make me a gatekeeper! I see us as the opposite, the very reason we set Shape up was to go around or maybe even straight through the 'gate'. I've met a lot of industry types over the years who love all of that stuff. They love being the person who signed 'so and so' and love to dish out the feedback. Not for me, no way thank you. 

There is no real excuse for not replying. I could say 'it's because we're busy' but I read the other day that anyone who says they are busy is just bad at time management. I agree with that to some extent. I could have found the time to reply. I guess I just never know what to write, people care so much about their music, just a I do about mine so anything other than "Yeah! Let's do this!" feels like a rejection to the sender. Maybe I'm making too much of it and no one cares, but at least it is off my chest now. 

We set up Shape to release our own music and happen to have released some by other artists, all of which we remain friends with. For the most part I've had a lot of fun doing so and feel we have helped nurture some artists and also released music which would not have been released if we hadn't have done it. But, for the time being, I'm done. No more releases on Shape that are not a project of mine, Emma or my brothers and that's about it. I feel like I've taken my curiosity as far as I need to in terms of releasing other peoples music. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to send us music, keep on keeping on, the world needs your music and we value your art. 

Edit 10 minutes later... I also want to apologise to most people I have actually replied to. I always make a right meal of it and give weird reasons and accidentally lead people on because I love their music. 

Clear conscious starts... Now?! 

Three Cheers For Bandcamp

Woah, if I was wearing a hat, it would be doffed. Bandcamp is showing everyone how it is done in more ways than one. In opposition to Trump's deplorable Immigration Order, tomorrow Bandcamp are donating 100% of their share of proceeds (on digital & physical sales) to the American Civil Liberties Union. The Founder & CEO of Bandcamp, Ethan Diamond, doesn't mince his words on the Bandcamp blog where encourages us to "Stand with Bandcamp in Support of Immigrants/Basic Human Values". 

I love this move. By doing this, Bandcamp are sticking their neck out in a very brave and commendable way. I imagine they will lose some business as a result of it - I had a look at the comments on Facebook & Twitter and Trump supporters who host their music on Bandcamp have already started a '#boycottbandcamp' campaign encouraging artists to take everything off sale for the day by making their profile private - sigh. There is also a whole lot of 'please stick to the music and don't get involved with politics' nonsense in the comments. However, I think it is likely that Bandcamp will actually end up with more customers owing to their goodwill as there is A LOT more positivity than there is negativity in the comments. 

Three Cheers For Bandcamp! 

I'm proud that everything I have ever released is on a site that takes a stance like this and I'm looking forward to going shopping tomorrow. 

Blog update: 09:33 Friday 3rd Feb. We are also going to donate all Islet music and merch sold today to ACLU. https://islet.bandcamp.com

In 2006, We Signed Ourselves

In 2006, Attack + Defend (my band at the time with my brothers: Lee & JT) started a label called Shape Records and 'signed' ourselves to it. The previous year we had signed to Cardiff's one-of-a-kind label, Boobytrap Records. We had a lot of fun with Boobytrap and they released an EP of ours but then suddenly the label shut down so we were left without a label. We had an album worth of material and thought "maybe we can just do what they did, ourselves". 

Let's face it, the crucial reason is that nobody else was interested in releasing our music and we wanted to continue to release music. I was sort of dubious about doing it at the start as I wanted to be 'all about the music' and it felt uncool and 'businessy'. But ultimately I didn't want to be in one of the many bands I knew who were sitting on their music and waiting until they were 'chosen' (most never were and stopped before they had done a proper release). I had decided around that time that I wanted to record and release 5 albums before I was 30 so I wanted to get cracking (I made it, sort of!). Lee was very entrepreneurial and had already figured out everything to do with copyright, PPL and knew how to do basic HTML, so he was a huge driving force in the creation of the label.

So, we set it up and Shape Records was born. It was just a name and a website but it was empowering. I eventually got over myself and started to learn all about the business side of being a musician and the role of label. I am very much still learning now. 

We mocked up this image on MS Paint. Lee being the classic record label head honcho, jumping out of his helicoptor with only enough time for JT & I to sign the 'recording contract' and off he went, back to London. 

The original Shape recording contract signed by Attack + Defend in 2006. 

Anyway, the main reason I am writing this is because I recently saw a programme called 'Wales Unsigned'. I felt the title of the programme was regressive so I tweeted: 

Looking back, I possibly sound a bit snarky so I want to explain what I meant by that and why I said it. 

I feel defining artists as being 'unsigned' is highly negative as it suggests they are waiting to be chosen to become 'signed'. The danger is that is delegitimises the artists and gives the impression that success is getting 'signed' to a record label. It suggests an underclass of artists who are waiting to be validated by some-kind of expert. BBC Wales making a programme called 'Wales Unsigned' reinforces that idea. No one (that I know of) ever refers to Islet as being 'unsigned' but technically, we are. We currently self release, as do two of my favourite Welsh artists, Euros Childs and Future of The Left. I think we need to be creating a culture where it is cool to understand the 'business', cool hold on to copyrights and be independent. The media would ideally be celebrating what is interesting and different about music in Wales, not defining emerging artists by their contractual status. Maybe BBC could do a programme called 'Self-Releasing in Wales' or 'Independent Artists in Wales'. 

If you do want to get signed right now, check out this slightly tongue in cheek 'label': Any And All Records. 

Thanks for reading. 

One of our stated aims when we set up Shape was to get our own section in Spillers Records, Cardiff so that we would no longer be in the 'local / unsigned" section. We achieved this goal in 2011. We got to cut the black ribbon to officially 'open' it. 

Enough Is Enough

Emma (my wife) is currently in a play called 'Enough is Enough'. I drove over the foggy hills to watch it in Newtown last night and I can't stop thinking about it and the people behind it. 

I took this photo on my phone. Emma is the one on the drums. 

The play is called 'Enough is Enough' and is created by a group of exiled Turkish artists; Meltem Arikan (Writer), Memet Ali Alabora (Director) and Pınar Öğün (Actor). Their story is incredible and scary. The three of them are in Wales as a result of a play they put on in Turkey which resulted in them having to flee the country after being accused of being a terrorist organisation that wanted to overthrow the government.  

In Pinar's own words "We were just people in the entertainment business and our play Mi Minor was constantly being targeted, especially by politicians, claiming that we were responsible for the largest environmental protest in Turkish history in Istanbul Gezi Park. These accusations were followed by death threats from hundreds of people, even pro government journalists were involved. The hostility was so much that we had to flee the country overnight." 

Heavy. Duty. 

These people are bold. Without doubt I've never met anyone who mean it as much as they do. Their energy is inspiring and infectious and serve as a reminder that there is always another way of doing things. After being knocked back initially by Arts Council Wales they got in a car and drove around Wales "Knocking on the doors of the venues – actual theatre spaces but also pubs, rugby clubs, function rooms – introducing ourselves and our project to them. Asked for more contacts, possible connections, that’s how we put together a large tour programme" - Pinar. This resulted in an incredible and unprecedented 21 date tour of Wales! It was quite surreal for me to be sat in a social club in Newtown talking with Memet Ali Alabora (context: he has 2.79 million Twitter followers) about the things he has done and plans on doing. None of them are doing this to increase their fame or to be seen as cool, they are doing it because it matters. 

The play itself is excellent and regularly breaks down the old fourth wall. Without doubt the stories it tells are hard to hear but they are handled wonderfully by the cast with songs, anger and wit. It is important and they are important. 

For more info: Enough is Enough
Quotes from Pinar Öğün from Wales Arts Review (a must read if this has piqued your interest). 

Farm Hand Live On BBC Radio 3

I did a live recorded Farm Hand gig for BBC Radio 3 in Chapter on 6th Jan 2017 and it is now online.

It was a slightly strange scenario as I wanted to balance trying to sound good on the radio with trying to put on an interesting performance for the audience watching the gig. I like and need (as in, my soul requires it) to move around when I play so that has a bit of an effect on how the recording sounds. I was interviewed live on stage by Verity Sharp right before starting which was a new experience at a gig for me. The 'everyday is a school day' comment I make on the recording is me reflecting upon the interview as it felt like it didn't go well at the time but it sounds ok listening back. As soon as you do something like this you think of a million ways you could have done it better. I should have gone out to the BBC van to hear how the mix sounded and made sure my sampler was up full blast. I always remain open to trying to get better at things! Anyway, I'm pleased overall and was overjoyed to be asked to do it and I loved performing. Thanks for having me, R3 & Chapter. 

Listen to it here. 

Thanks!