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My Music Manager

Welcome to a special Glastonbury edition of What’s Cooking. Just over a week ago 200,000 people descended on Worthy Farm to revel in an intoxicating mix of mud, booze and some of the best music in the world. This week we pay tribute to some of the best performances of the weekend…

Coldplay:

Chris Martin and his merry men headlined Glastonbury for a third time in nine years and few can argue with the spectacular show they put on.

Their performance was chock-a-block with energy and passion, combing shameless crowd-pleasers like Clocks and Yellow with epic renditions of The Scientist and Fix You, not to mention enough fireworks, confetti, lasers and smoke to keep you going for life. Martin bounded around stage with a carefree youthful exuberance, utilising the crowd as his personal choir – a role they were more than happy to fulfill.

See for yourself below with the awfully named but brilliantly performed Every Tear is a Waterfall:

BB King:

Next up is 85 year old BB King – this guy is a legend! He’s been playing since the 40’s and is showing no signs of slowing down (well, apart from how long it took him to get on stage).

To the delight of an enchanted crowd he combined big punchy backing band numbers, which included some superb slap base action, with captivating solo blues melodies. Most importantly he looked like he was having a bloody great time and who can blame him after the stunning career he’s enjoyed.

Pour yourself a whiskey and stick on Why I Sing the Blues below:

Fleet Foxes:

Let’s now wander over to Folk corner where we’ll find the ever impressive Fleet Foxes, clad in waterproofs, wellies, and great big bushy beards!

Their harmony filled sets are always a joy to listen to, particularly when they go off on an instrumental Odyssey of shimmering percussions and plucked guitars.

Have a listen of Sim Sala Bim below:

Morrissey:

No matter how miserable the conditions are at Glastonbury, morbid Morrissey will always try to make things worse. He’s a miserable git but that makes his music all the more entertaining and absorbing to listen to. He banged out some classics like Shoplifters of the World Unite and There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, played some of his new tracks and even got time to call David Cameron a twit.

His performance of Meat is Murder was particularly enjoyable given I was munching on a bacon sandwich at the time.

Check out his live performance of First of the Gang to die below:

Primal Scream:

The final of my five Glastonbury picks are Primal Scream, fresh from performing their recent Screamadelica tour. Combining a superb mix of catchy indie, alternative rock and pulsating electro the Scottish cain artists produced a nearly completely coherent set!

The latter part was packed full of hits and a gospel choir added some extra punch, which inspired a soggy crowd to come alive as Gillespie hared around stage as if it was his first ever performance.

Take nine minutes out of your day and enjoy a stirring rendition of Come Together (it’s Friday so you’ve got nothing better to do):

Let me know your thoughts on Glastonbury 2011 below, would love to hear your feedback.

My Music Manager

My Music Manager

by Kathy Unruh.

Does the thought of performing in public give you the willies? Stage fright is a common experience among musicians. Your hands begin to sweat, your face gets flush and your stomach feels those tiny little butterflies tickling your insides.

But, as a musician, you might as well face the music and realise that if you want to get anywhere in the music world you’re going to have to conquer your fears.

The first question is – why do musicians experience stage fright in the first place?

The dictionary definition reads: Stage fright – “extreme nervousness felt by an inexperienced speaker or performer before an audience.”

That’s a pretty good definition if it weren’t for the fact that even the most experienced people get stage fright sometimes. However, it does seem to take the edge off when you are exposed to being in front of an audience on a regular basis. It is the inconsistency, or irregularity of being in front of an audience that is often a factor in causing someone to experience stage fright.

Another factor that can create a feeling of stage fright is being unprepared. One of the hardest things to do is to perform something on the spur of the moment. You’re handed a guitar and asked to play something when you haven’t even had a chance to warm up your chops first!

Trying to jump into a piece cold can be a very challenging endeavor. Your mind races through everything you thought you knew and had memorised only to draw a blank. You stumble around on the guitar and begin to feel embarrassed because everyone is waiting to see what you can do.

The tension begins to mount because you can’t seem to produce anything worthwhile. Eventually everyone loses interest and begins talking about something else. This kind of situation is a real drag and can lead to discouragement. But if it happens (or has happened) to you, don’t give up. It’s an important part of the learning process! You must persevere in order to “break on through to the other side.”

Playing in front of other musicians that are better, or perceived to be better than you are, can be a cause for stage fright also. If you ever take part in a “Master” class, or a music workshop, you will most likely be required to perform in front of your peers. In a Master class the student is usually asked to perform on stage in front of the Master and the other students taking the class. After the performance, the other students are invited to critic you. If you did well, you might be selected, along with several other students, to perform in a public concert at the end of the program. Talk about pressure!

So what can you do to help overcome stage fright? Here are some ideas:

1) Take advantage of every opportunity you can to play in front of an audience. Whether it’s your family, your instructor, your friends, whoever- just do it!

2) Memorise something that is easy to play so that you can use it for those spur of the moment situations. This will give you the chance to warm up and also help to take the edge off any stage fright you may experience. After you get through the first piece, you will probably find it easier to play more stuff you know.

3) Realise your own strengths and weaknesses. If you are taking lessons, ask your teacher to evaluate your progress from time to time. Let them critic a piece of music or song that you can play fairly well and take to heart their advice. Work to improve your technique. Record yourself. Don’t accept what doesn’t sound good. Make an effort to change bad habits and reinforce good ones.

4) Finally, be thankful that you have a love for music and a desire to learn. That’s why you decided to play or sing in the first place! Do your best and don’t compare yourself with others.

So, enjoy the process of growth and discovery. The outcome will take care of itself quite naturally. Just let it happen. As you do, you may be surprised to find that it has become a very beautiful experience!

My Music Manager

http://www.abclearnguitar.com/articles.html

My Music Manager

Well, with a title like that, I guess it’s only fair to put my hand up and say, I did! Back in November 2006 I had an idea for a music website which would give musicians who were not well known and unsigned a way of gaining exposure. I found several people that were willing to work with me on it and was lucky enough to find investment to create the site. The investment was considerable and the site took a year to build.

In this year of development we came up with the name “Band For The Day”. The rational behind this name was quite simple. Bands were featured across the site if they gained the most points the day before. This sounds quite simple, however, it’s never that simple; not with us anyway. There were multiple ways of gaining points; a listen equalled one point, a purchase equalled ten points. Just to make things a little more complicated we also had text votes which gained ten points and instigated a “rush hour” when the countdown clock flashed which doubled all points other than listens.

So, it suddenly became a bit more complicated and just to put the tin lid on things, we created a Hall of Fame. This was a specific area of the site that featured the top 30 bands on BFTD who had gained enough points to enter. You could enter and be kicked out of the HoF as we called it if your points total was exceeded. The reason for being in the HoF was that it offered in the first year a recording contract and bands did buy into this.

Okay, so you may be thinking that all sounds pretty straight forwards, but what did it mean to us the workers behind the scenes and how was it meant to grow? Well, I’ll be honest, our original business plan, yes there was one, was built on the assumption that the site would grow exponentially as bands joined. Bands would sell their mp3s and we would take a small nibble out of this to create income. This was our first mistake! The purchase of band music, publicising their page on the site never really happened to the extent that the site made money.

The second idea was advertising. Now the site still has advertising on it, but to be honest, it has brought in so little in the way of real money, it would not buy you a pint of beer in a month.

With our original business plan in tatters what did we do…well, we decided that the reason the site was not getting massive traffic was that we were not offering the bands enough in the way of features. We added a full merchandising solution, video, a social network, Google map integration and gig listings as well as various other add ons…all of which have had different degrees of success. The great breakthrough never happened. One by one the original workers have left the fold disenchanted in the fact the big break never materialised.

So, where does that leave BFTD five years from conception and four years running? Well, to be honest, it has been a lot of work and for the main part thankless. Countless days sitting up till 2am in the morning working away, but the truth is, I as the last man standing am not prepared to give it up. Okay, we never really made it big, but we do have a community of bands and some of them are very interested in the site and keep coming back.

In terms of traffic we get around 30 unique hits a day which is not great, but better than nothing. I have integrated Facebook as much as I can into the site and we have over 3000 people who get the feed regarding latest arrivals and who has won BFTD each day. I also produce a yearly magazine in November which features the bands on the site and the latest coming and going on the site.

It has ended up a labour of love which is what it was always going to be but BFTD is part of my daily routine and I think that the nearly 700 bands on the site are of a much higher musical standard overall than many of the bigger music promotion sites out there.

Thankfully the investors were not heavy and accepted that everything has been done to make it take of big time…It did not happen and that is the nature of investment.

Long term? Well, I still hope that one day the site may find a bigger audience, if only for the bands on it. Also, perhaps if it did find this audience, then investors may consider looking at it or the site could be bought up by a large company who could give it the exposure it deserves. So, if you think that creating a website as a business is an easy way to make things happen then be warned…it’s never that easy, it will swallow up all your time and there are no guarantees of success.

I am happy with what we have achieved and hopefully I can continue in the long term with the new Circular Records Ltd. association to help bring unknown and unsigned musicians and bands to greater attention…here’s to the next five year.

Ged Brockie is a professional musician (guitarist/composer) and director of BFTD. His latest DVD – Five innovations for Guitar and Orchestra will soon be released on Circular Records http://www.circular-records.com His latest band CD release will be later this year again on Circular Records Ltd.

BAND FOR THE DAY – http://www.bandfortheday.com

My Music Manager

Welcome to What’s Cooking – my weekly pick of the best new music. This week we bow down to the new Bon Iver album, float on the summery vibes of Cashier No 9, and lap up great new music from Laki Mera, STRFKR and Dirty Beaches, before wrapping up with Florence + The Machine’s cover of a Buddy Holly classic.

The story of how bearded hillbilly Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) came from the obscurity of a Northwestern Wisconsin log cabin to sharing a stage with Kanye West is well known. That three month hiatus to recover from mononucleosis, mourn a lost band and a lost love spawned one of the greatest indie-folk albums of the past decade; 2008′s heart-breaking For Emma: Forever Ago.

The new self-titled album, retains the falsetto focus, ambiguous lyrics and ubiquitous strumming of the former, while adding some great new elements. These new additions to the sound are startling: with the awesome African guitars featured on ‘Minnesota, WI’ to the luscious saxophone and perfect use of auto-tune. It will take a bit of time this album, but with each listen you will be further rewarded. Have a listen to ‘Calgary’ below.

The second pick from this week’s new albums comes from the superbly named Cashier No 9. Their new album To the Death of Fun sounds exactly opposite to how the title suggests; this isn’t a killjoy moody record but rather a glimmering sunny package of fun melodies and addictive hooks which may just convince you that summer has actually arrived. If it wasn’t for the shitty weather that is.

So what I’d recommend is stick your shades on, crack a beer open and click play on ‘Lost At Sea’ below. If that leaves you hungry for more have a listen to Goldstar or failing that get the album, well worth a good listen.

New on my musical antenna this week we have Laki Mera and their enchanting new track ‘More Than You’. Lead singer Laura Donnelly’s vocals are soft and inticing and fit tightly with the trip-hopping, indie-popping backing track. It’s catchy, bewitching and a great demonstration of what the Glaswegians have to offer. Fans of Portishead are likely to be very interested.

More Than You by Laki Mera

Next up we have the smooth as f*ck grooves of Portland electro-darlings STRFKR (aka Starf*cker). ‘Bury Us Alive’ first made me think of MGMT (vocals), but then as it gets a bit more excited the joyful synths and driving beats elevate it to a different level entirely. Check it out below. Their album latest album Reptilians has buckets more of this stuff if it’s your kinda thing.

I think it might be time for a new genre. You know how much music writers love a new genre, or better still a new sub-genre. A few weeks ago I copyrighted sodagaze (a bit like shoegaze but involves staring at your soda as opposed to your shoes) and now I give the world retro lo-fi. Dirty Beaches, the project of Montreal-based Alex Zhang Hungtai, are purveyors of my new genre. This track (Lord Knows Best) sounds old and new in equal measures and re-imagines Françoise Hardy’s “Voila” as a haunting dream.

His 8-track debut LP ‘Badlands’ was released on March 29th.

We wrap up this week with a great cover from Florence + The Machine. ‘Not Fade Away’ features on the Rave on Buddy Holly tribute album which is out next week and features covers from the likes of Black Keys, Paul McCartney, My Morning Jacket, Julian Casablancas, Cee Lo Green, She & Him, Fiona Apple & Jon Brion, Patti Smith, and Lou Reed.

That’s all for this week people – please let me know which is your favourite track below. See you next week.

My Music Manager

D7 Music started in December 2009 as a five piece band from Gloucester. Within six short months they released their debut album King’s Square and are nearly ready to release their next one In the Stillness – so they certainly haven’t been wasting any time!

MMM caught up with Angela De Souza to find out the secret behind their speedy success…

Hi Angela, thanks for meeting with us. It’s been quite a quick turn around for you guys – formed in December 2009 and within six months you release your first album King’s Square – you must have all clicked straight away?!

Yes, it wasn’t difficult as the group consists of myself, my husband, my daughter, my daughters boyfriend and a mutual friend. It was great and very natural!

And is it true there might not have been an album had it not been for an encounter with Gloucester’s town crier?

That is entirely possible, he saw us performing one Sunday in King’s Square, Gloucester and invited us to perform at Gloucester Day and casually dropped into the invitation that we should have our CD available to sell too. We had dreamed of making an album for years, long before the band even existed, we all used to chat about it. The town crier’s comment gave us the push we needed. The following week we met with a producer and a few weeks later we were in the studio!

How would you describe your music to those who haven’t heard you before?

Our music really doesn’t fit into any box or genre because our band consists of teenagers and ‘older’ people ha ha. We try to consider each other’s preferences and influences and we all write songs. We have a ska kind of song, pop, rock, punk…. all sorts on the King’s Square album. The second album, which is due to be released this summer, is more rock with some power ballads as well as pop rock, and one track which is folk! So again, not quite pegged into a genre again.

And where did the name D7 Band come from?

D7 Band is the band from our church, D7 Church! The songs we release to the radio we also sing on Sunday’s in church. Yes, we do rock in church too! We vary between doing acoustic sets and full band sets so that everyone gets a little of what they like to hear.

With your husband and daughter part of the band there seems to be quite a family feel – is this something you try to reflect in your music?

I can’t say that we try to reflect the family feel in the music on purpose, it actually has never been discussed, but you will sense it on the album and Lorah and my voice is similar and also our other daughter, Jordan, has written two of the songs on the new album. The only family feel you might get is in the way we work really well together and bounce off each other when we are performing live.

Well something must we working because your second album, In the Stillness, will be available this summer! Have you continued with the style of King’s Square or moved on to a new sound?

You will find a similar sound on some tracks but we have grown a lot as a band since the first album, hopefully you will hear a more professional sound with better vocals and drums as we were truly beginnings when we recorded King’s Square.

With so many achievements in such a short space of time can you pick one as your biggest?

Our biggest success would be that we actually had the audacity to make our albums and take them to the radio and then actually get played on BBC! Seriously, looking back, I can’t believe we did that – do you know how inexperienced we were then – simply doing what we did was a success in itself!

Time for some shameless promoting – where can people get hold of your music and where are you playing next?

www.d7music.co.uk is the best place to keep up to date with our gigs & updates.

We are playing at the Coberely School Fair on 25th June and then at the Gloucester Summer Fair on 24th July – other than that every single Sunday at the Gloucester Guildhall at 12:00 midday!

Our album and songbooks are available on just about every online store, check out Amazon our band page is www.amazon.co.uk/D7-Band/e/B004LO26KI

And you can also check us out on Facebook too!

Interview by Matt Renton (My Music Manager)
17th June 2011
My Music Manager

My Music Manager

Welcome back to What’s Cooking. Your hub for the best new albums, top tunes and mildly amusing waffle. This week we’re taking a look at the new Arctic Monkeys album, French producer Sebastian’s stunning debut record plus new tracks from Beirut, Vetiver, I Break Horses and a great live track from Ray Davies & The Leisure Society.

It feels like just yesterday that the Arctic Monkeys crashed onto the UK music scene with Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – their brilliant and widely celebrated debut. Five years on, we have Suck It and See – the Monkeys fourth album and possibly their best yet. Gone are the days of the energetic full throttle 100mph indie-disco ubiquity they achieved with ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor’.

Suck It and See shows the maturity of the band into certified statesmen of UK indie and the premier guitar outfit of this fair land. Highlights include the dark and driving chorus of ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’, Turner’s musings about “chin-chewing” cokeheads on ‘Black Treacle’ and the thrilling album opener ‘She’s Thunderstorms’. It’s a very good album, and a welcome return to their original sound following their psychedelic tour de force Humbug. Have a listen to ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’ below.

From the streets of Sheffield to the boulangerie’s of Boulogne. Here we have the cracking electro debut Total by French producer SebastiAn (no that is not a typo, just a stupid and grammatically frustrating large A). Total is essentially a 22-track set consisting of all dance music genres; taking in house and techno, smooth funk, futuristic soul and even some wobbly drum‘n’bass. It’s an impressive output, that molds together effortlessly – a must have for dance music fans of any genre, particularly fans of Daft Punk and Justice. Have a listen to the wonderful track ‘Embody’ below. If you like this check out another track of theirs Kindercut.

So onto new tracks this week and first up we have a beauty from Beirut. ‘East Harlem’ with its sparse lyrics, swaying accordion, rich brass and lively piano is Beirut’s first single since ‘March Of The Zapotec’. Frontman Zach Condon wrote the tune when he was 17 but only started playing it live in 2009. Awesome video too.

If you’ve yet to see the video to I Break Horses first single ‘Hearts’ you’re in for one hell of a treat – it’s rare to find such incredible synergy between audio and video, quite astonishing. I Break Horses is the nom de plume of Maria Lindén and her musical partner Fredrik Balck. Based in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, the duo have been meticulously crafting the nine incredible tracks that make up their debut album Hearts. This track is lovely, as is Maria who I was lucky enough to interview this week – see The 405 if you fancy a read.

Here’s a new one from Vetiver’s 5th album. ‘Wonder Why’ pulls together chugging bass, piano and guitar melodies and charming Sunday afternoon strumming. Try to get it out of your head. The album The Errant Charm is out today and shows the band shedding some of their folky side for a more pop-heavy sound. The video is loads of fun.

I’ll sign off this week’s edition with this brilliant Ray Davies & The Leisure Society performance of ‘Sane’. The Kinks front man needs no introduction. The Leisure Society are responsible for one of the best albums of 2011: Into The Murky Water – I’d strongly recommend you check it out. See you next week.

My Music Manager: Apologies to everyone for the delay – a technical fault left the MMM blog floundering helplessly in the online abyss!
I couldn’t even begin thinking about how to start of this week’s edition without paying my respects to Gil Scott Heron who sadly passed away on Friday. It was very tempting to dedicate this whole passage to him but plenty has been written about the great poet/musician/pioneer in the past week. For a one hour special on the blues soul legend head over to BBC i-player for Giles Peterson’s fitting tribute show. I will be listening to this again as I write and will be tipping my drink to him. So many great tunes. In fact let’s start this week off with one of them. Tough to choose one but ‘The Bottle’ it is.

First up on the new album front we have Cults who appeared from nowhere about a year ago with the blog smash ‘Go Outside’. We’ve been teased with the odd track since then all which have added to the anticipation for their debut self-titled album. Cults make twee 60s twinged girl group nostalgia-pop. To make things better they play the Glockenspiel throughout, a real favourite instrument for us over at What’s Cooking. Their self-titled debut album offers up accessible and wispy summer songs; a bit like Best Coast but a tad more sinister. You can listen to the album in full here.

Next up we have something entirely different: Brontide, and their post rock masterpiece Sans Souci. Sans Souci which is French for “without worries”, an Italian pale lager, or the former summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. Whatever the inspiration for the album title it really is something else. When you take the bold move of having no vocals whatsoever you really thrust the music to the fore. Recorded as one 52-minute piece of music the album features intricate and multi layered guitars, shuddering drums and bass, strong grooves and apocalyptic breakdowns. Unique, beautifully constructed and utterly thrilling. Get it. ‘Matador’ (below) will tell you all you need to know.

We start our ramble through the best new tracks with Michael Kiwanuka and his superb retro-soul track ‘Tell Me A Tale’. The video fits this track so perfectly and if this guy doesn’t blow up I’ll retire from writing. He’s a 23-year-old son of Ugandan immigrants who started off a Radiohead and Nirvana fan, playing in rock bands as a teen and progressing onto the singer-songwriter circuit in his 20′s. Smooth and effortless, another one for the summer me thinks. His new EP is out now.

‘Swim’ is the stunning new track from Canadian electronic artist, Bear Mountain. Waves of washed up electronica, lush samples and swirling vocals – very reminiscent of Caribou . Although I’ve never been to Ibiza I hope this is what it sounds like.

Up next we have Boy Mandeville and their next track ‘Gorilla’. It’s difficult not to draw Vampire Weekend comparisons what with the relentless cheer, falsetto chorus and African guitars. It’s an infectious piece of fun music and one that will be featuring on my summer playlist. Decent video too.

Last up this week we have London based siblings Kitty Daisy & Lewis and their funky rocksteady number ‘I’m So Sorry’. They are a talented family this one, with skills on guitar, piano, banjo, lapsteel guitar, harmonica, double bass, ukulele, drums, trombone, xylophone and accordion between them. Their new album Smoking In Heaven was released on May 30th. As I watch this video all I think is that girl really needs a higher table for her piano.

Let me know what you think and see you in a few days!

My Music Manager