Those of you who've been to a Year Zero gig, or have read about a Year Zero gig, will probably know the name Jessie Grace. Jessie has played a barnstorming 3 gigs with us now (as well as the launch of my first book), including our humungous, fantabulous show at Rough Trade East. You can learn all about her, and her involvement with Year Zero, and see her playnig at some of our gigs on the footage HERE.
Because it's exciting when someone has great news, and because we think Jessie is just about (I only say just about because I was at The Dead Weather last night, and it'll take a lot of time to get Jack and Alison out of my head!) my favourite musician on the planet, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share two pieces of wonderful news. First, Jessie now has her very own band - check out there stuff on her myspace. Second, one of her amazing songs is featured on this hilarious ad - how cool is that!
Oh, and third - Jessie is headlining Friday night at Rugfest this week, which promises to be unmissable.
I hope Jessie will be playing with Year Zero again very soon - because if we don't nab her very soon, she will be off in the stellar stratosphere (to mix metaphors) whilst we're left far behind.
Oh, and BUY HER CD - Asleep on the Good Foot - it's on her myspace.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Friday, 22 January 2010
Banned Books
Many apologies. This is a pluggy thread. Apologies also for the fact it contains largely the same material as I posted on the Year Zero site yesterday. But I wanted to tell everyone because I'm excited. Actually I'm more than excited. On February 4th, at rough Trade Records, Brick Lane, London, 6-8.30pm, the Year Zero Live tour begins. Full details here on our website. There are so many reasons I'm excited I don't know where to start. So I'll start with the big news: Daisy Anne Gree's "Hearing Voices" event teaser is out, and here it is!
But before you watch it, I should explain the other big news, which is that only a few hours after we'd posted the video, Facebook had had it reported and were banning it from being posted any more. Why we can't quite tell. We think it may be because Daisy's voiceover touches on a suicide attempt. Sure, the first reaction is COOL! WE GOT BANNED! But the second reaction is what the hell kind of sick world do we live in where we get banned for being open about a mental health issue when Facebook allows all kinds of bilious groups to proliferate. Let's just say, it's given us blog material.
Anyway, make your own mind up - but be warned, I guess. If you like it, do tell other people to watch it. I think it's one of the coolest book trailers out there.
Hearing Voices (link to YouTube video)
That's the two of us reading, by the way. So we have a trailer. And we have one of the coolest tour posters on the planet, courtesy Sarah E Melville, based on the cover for Thirteen Shadows Waiting for Sunrise, the anthology we're touring.
We also have a confirmed second date: 23rd February at To Hell With Books in Woburn Place. And the Oxford event will be held during the Oxford Literary Festival - 20-28 March. And we have notice that Jenn is going to be reading in New York in February too!
So what can you expect if you come along to Rough Trade?
Well, the whole gig is FREE, for which you get:
5 writers
Penny Goring reading Bone Dust Disco
Marc Nash readnig Twin Topiary Tales
Larry Harrison reading from Glimpses of a Floating World
Daisy Anne Gree reading the Death and Birth of Johnny the Baptist
3 amazing musical acts
You'll also be able to buy a whole load of books and CDs and Year Zero merch, any and all of which we will sign.
Most of all, I'm excited because we get to perform together, and in a few cases meet each other for the first time!! And I'm hoping we'll get to meet some of you!
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Free-e-day live
Free-e-day live was the real-life gig to tie in with Free-e-day, the global online celebraion of internet culture that I dreamt up on the bus one afternoon and ended up attracting 100 participants all offering amazing creative things for free, and giving us workshops and webchats with invaluable resources for anyone outside the mainstream. It has been all a bit of a wonderful haze.
Free-e-day live was put together by local singer-songwriter Nikki Loy (pictured) who, being an illustrator as well as musician, embraced the multi-arts idea behind the festival. Held at Oxford's Cafe Tarifa, the night featured an art ecxhibition, belly dancers dressed as skeletons, music and reading. It was a fantastic night with a fantastic crowd. Let me bore you with a LITTLE about what makes a live, indie occasion like this great.
First off there's the hyper-contrived shot for the local rag (who thought, for some reason, that we were giving away electronic gadgets and wanted Nikki and I to hold up some mobile phobnes for the photoshoot!). next there's the inevitable when you invite people from London. As the 8 o'clock kick-off approached, 2 writers and the headline band remained, as so many before them, and so man
y, I dare say, to come, stranded on the M40. Never have I been so pleased (I'm always pleased to see him, but I can't remember physically bear-hugging him before) to see Roland (pictured left), who gave us a brilliant rendition of Chapter 17 of The Beach Beneath the Pavement. Hearing his words somehow made them even funnier than they had been on the page, a reminder that stories - whatever your age and their genre - are best read aloud.
y, I dare say, to come, stranded on the M40. Never have I been so pleased (I'm always pleased to see him, but I can't remember physically bear-hugging him before) to see Roland (pictured left), who gave us a brilliant rendition of Chapter 17 of The Beach Beneath the Pavement. Hearing his words somehow made them even funnier than they had been on the page, a reminder that stories - whatever your age and their genre - are best read aloud.Setting the reader-musician rhythm we were next treated to a rather endearing keyboard and vocals set from the big-voiced Mol Hodge. "Most of 
my songs are a bit morbid" she told us nervously. "Bloody hell, if you think that's morbid just wait for SKIN BOOK" I thought. Mol has a great voice, and plenty of time on her side, and as she explores the melodic range of her music over the years to come is sure to be someone we see more of.
my songs are a bit morbid" she told us nervously. "Bloody hell, if you think that's morbid just wait for SKIN BOOK" I thought. Mol has a great voice, and plenty of time on her side, and as she explores the melodic range of her music over the years to come is sure to be someone we see more of.Nikesh Shukla is someone the world has already seen plenty of. With a string of TV and radio credits, festival appearances, awards and the like, he is far the most advanced and successful of any of ourt artists on the night, and we were hideous lucky to snag him - not only that he doled out copies of his kidologies CD to grateful audience members. Having introduced Nikesh as a poet he proceeded to read us a short story, but th
e performance element of Rap Tracks - a hilarious tale of pre-teen rap, Asian grandmothers and Gujurati dialect - was the match of anything slam poetry can offer. More confirmation that anyone who says writers can't engage an audience with prose is talking nonsense.
e performance element of Rap Tracks - a hilarious tale of pre-teen rap, Asian grandmothers and Gujurati dialect - was the match of anything slam poetry can offer. More confirmation that anyone who says writers can't engage an audience with prose is talking nonsense.I met Nikki Loy, who came on as Nikesh departed back for the next of 20 gigs in 32 days, when she was busking on Oxford's St Giles. I was so taken with her guitar and vocals I snaffled a card and dropped her an e-mail, and I've been impressed with her ebergy, verve, and all-round artistic enthusiasm ever since. This was the first time I've seen her live, and I was impressed by the way she handles a crowd and the way she handles a guitar. She too had freebie CDs that were gobbled up gladly.
In the interval, N
ikki came up to me and said "can you hold this?" pointing to a UV tube. "Er, OK" I said rather confusedly, until I saw what was coming next, a train of skeletons snaking to the stage who proceeded to shake their fluorescent booty to music I was too gobsmacked to notice much but think may have been some scuzzy Goldfrapp.
ikki came up to me and said "can you hold this?" pointing to a UV tube. "Er, OK" I said rather confusedly, until I saw what was coming next, a train of skeletons snaking to the stage who proceeded to shake their fluorescent booty to music I was too gobsmacked to notice much but think may have been some scuzzy Goldfrapp. The Scary Skele-belly Dancers gave me the perfect segue into the world premiere of the whole of SKIN BOOK - you know "those were th bones, now for some skin" - ah the joys of improv! Won't say much about me (below). That would be rude. Suffice to say my opinion remains unchanged - performing to a live audience is THE best thing a writer can do - feeling attentive eyes, listening to the gasps the sighs - that kind of engagement is what writing is all about. I THINK people enjoyed it - if enjoy is the right word for a story about a woman whose diary is made from skin she harvested from her twin bro.
The headline act seemed to enjoy it, though, which was nice. The Joker and The Thief describe themselves as a folk blues combo which had me worried before the show. I dislike folk so much I wouldn't hand a picture of Fleet Foxes to my dartboard because it would be unfair to the bristles. But The Joker and the Thief were an unexpected delight. Full of energy (proper energy - the kind you actually believe might just come from some kind of dark passionate place rather than the gurning wurzelly cheeriness of much folk), they delivered a set that was variegated and exciting. They have a penchant for playing around with different instruments, whcih added colour to the set - from frontman Dan (sounds like an epithet from Total Wipeouut) banging the cymbals with an assortment
of bells and sticks, to Josh's alternation of ukelele, sax and accordian (far my favourite - I could almost feel myself on the set of Amelie). A pretty much perfect night was rounded off when two of the skele-bellies came back dressed in burlesque and the crowd dispersed happily into the night.
There seem to be some obvious lessons from a night like this. Everyone would do well to bear them in mind:
1. There is a ridiculous wealth of talent outside the mainstream.
2. The creative world is full of almost boundless energy, enthusiasm, and can-do attitude.
3. Writers are every bit as engaging as musicians.
Here's hoping this is the first of very many such nights I get the pleasure of being involved in. A HUGE thanks to all who contributed, to Cafe Tarifa for being such great hosts, and most of all to Nikki for making it happen.
A full list of artists who contributed to the exhibition:
Cheryl Pearce – Poet
cherylpearce@yahoo.com
cherylpearce@yahoo.com
James Whayman
– Photographer
http://www.unformedmind.com/
Sarah Kennedy – Artist
email: acrylicartist@gmail.com
http://www.sarahkennedyart.com/
Monday, 20 July 2009
The View From the Shoe: To The Moon
Apologies for the late hour of today's interview with the very best of creative twitter, but I was laughing too hard to post it before now.
To the Moon - (comprising MJ and Dennis) are the most infectious and eccentric band on twitter. They describe themselves as Experimental Rock/Electro/Pop Band preparing for the worst by evacuating Earth with whoever wishes to come. Their music, like their approach to life, is unique. And their wonderful relationship with their fans is everything I love about Indie culture.
Oh, and they're exceptionally good.
Follow them on twitter and listen to them here.
Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
mJ: I tend to berate myself cos, despite being a hip young laser-gunslinger I’ve never having owned a pair of Converse! I’m afraid Louboutin is slightly too Haute Couture for me – do love Lagerfeld at Chanel but I cant say I have done as much research into fashion as I have done into supermassive black holes and their application in sound-proofing a laboratory (read studio) room.
Den - i have no idea what you're talking about. Does not compute!
Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
mJ: We’re exponents of newness, originality & vitality, and we have a unique blend of our two worlds- when two worlds collide...
Den: And we clean our synths with Cillit Bang
What do you really, really love about it?
Den: much Faraday's Cage comes into play!
A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
mJ: Well it’s a toss-up between more time for experimentation, vs. project funding - we always need funding though, as we’re constantly being discounted from scientific government grants for being too noisy. More time for tweeting and recording and wandering around wondering around soaking up future inspiration…
Den: but time is money… Amend your paradox at once!
Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
Den: breakfast of fruit, followed by a short run and then maybe an egg on toast. then in the studio. OR wake up in your own sick and 4 ciggies later you make a coffee and sit in the studio.
mJ: We will spend at least 8 hours per diem in the laboratories at TTM HQ, tinkering with the rocket ship and having the occasional recording session… The idea of expeditions to other countries etc is very thrilling; as Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap said… Den: “Touring the world and elsewhere”
mJ: Affirmative.
What’s your Jimmy Choo? And what’s just cobblers?
mJ: Aside from my moon boots, which have got me out of many a sticky situation in the past, I have a pair of white, fabric Irregular Choice shoes, so bright I can see them from space on my shoe rack at TTM HQ. beautiful winkle-pickers, they are. To give you a scientific opposite, I have more loathing for Crocs than I do for most other things in the universe.
Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
Den: I think probably the midget who came up to us after a gig. Mickey. he was ace, but kept getting into fights with this lanky bloke called Kramer.
mJ: Dennis, I know you find it hard to separate the blurry lines betwixt tee-vee and reality, but that’s an episode of Seinfeld.… He’s fragile, our Dennis is.
But anyway, thanks to Twitter, I’m lucky to get a lot of postivity from Comrades. As 1st in Command of Mission “Shameless Self Promotion” or SSP (tee hee), the compliments come in thick and fast! When someone asks where they can buy your music, or why we’re not signed yet, that does things to your ego. Like if your ego was a supernova, that’d be a good likeness.
Our music is totally free at the moment, anyway – its not about making the big money out of that sort of thing, and artists don’t at the moment.
Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
Den: depends on the contract. as no labels are giving advances unless you sign a longer contract most musicians have no choice. you need equipment (we certainly do) and some form of financial security before you can take the plunge into music full time. some money is required so that you can stop doing your office job and pay the rent. i think most musicians aren’t bothered about money, but they have to think about it otherwise society will eat them alive.
Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behind people and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could choose anyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
Den: there was someone called Cant on TV? poor bloke! brian-facking-cant… i would have Berlusconi behind me. he's mentally ill and it would liven things up.
mJ: To The Moon Corps. Has no sales pitch, only briefs and mission statements. But I’d nominate Voltaire to stand behind me and do the actions to the Emergency Exit instructions in-flight on the Star Ship TTM. Would be imperative to have someone with such gravitas and a lust for all things electrical!
Frocks or socks?
Den: i'm a big fan of socks. Totally sold with the idea.
mJ: Girls wear frocks, and feet wear socks. But socks keep you warm in the lab, and I’ve got a pair with stars on (obviously) so we have two positives plus two negatives, so the two serve to cancel each other out. Therefore, according to the laws of physics, neither frocks nor socks technically exist! Weird! Glad we found that out thanks to you guys! We shall write up our findings and report back. *Salutes*
To the Moon - (comprising MJ and Dennis) are the most infectious and eccentric band on twitter. They describe themselves as Experimental Rock/Electro/Pop Band preparing for the worst by evacuating Earth with whoever wishes to come. Their music, like their approach to life, is unique. And their wonderful relationship with their fans is everything I love about Indie culture.
Oh, and they're exceptionally good.
Follow them on twitter and listen to them here.
Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
mJ: I tend to berate myself cos, despite being a hip young laser-gunslinger I’ve never having owned a pair of Converse! I’m afraid Louboutin is slightly too Haute Couture for me – do love Lagerfeld at Chanel but I cant say I have done as much research into fashion as I have done into supermassive black holes and their application in sound-proofing a laboratory (read studio) room.
Den - i have no idea what you're talking about. Does not compute!
Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
mJ: We’re exponents of newness, originality & vitality, and we have a unique blend of our two worlds- when two worlds collide...
Den: And we clean our synths with Cillit Bang
What do you really, really love about it?
Den: much Faraday's Cage comes into play!
A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
mJ: Well it’s a toss-up between more time for experimentation, vs. project funding - we always need funding though, as we’re constantly being discounted from scientific government grants for being too noisy. More time for tweeting and recording and wandering around wondering around soaking up future inspiration…
Den: but time is money… Amend your paradox at once!
Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
Den: breakfast of fruit, followed by a short run and then maybe an egg on toast. then in the studio. OR wake up in your own sick and 4 ciggies later you make a coffee and sit in the studio.
mJ: We will spend at least 8 hours per diem in the laboratories at TTM HQ, tinkering with the rocket ship and having the occasional recording session… The idea of expeditions to other countries etc is very thrilling; as Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap said… Den: “Touring the world and elsewhere”
mJ: Affirmative.
What’s your Jimmy Choo? And what’s just cobblers?
mJ: Aside from my moon boots, which have got me out of many a sticky situation in the past, I have a pair of white, fabric Irregular Choice shoes, so bright I can see them from space on my shoe rack at TTM HQ. beautiful winkle-pickers, they are. To give you a scientific opposite, I have more loathing for Crocs than I do for most other things in the universe.
Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
Den: I think probably the midget who came up to us after a gig. Mickey. he was ace, but kept getting into fights with this lanky bloke called Kramer.
mJ: Dennis, I know you find it hard to separate the blurry lines betwixt tee-vee and reality, but that’s an episode of Seinfeld.… He’s fragile, our Dennis is.
But anyway, thanks to Twitter, I’m lucky to get a lot of postivity from Comrades. As 1st in Command of Mission “Shameless Self Promotion” or SSP (tee hee), the compliments come in thick and fast! When someone asks where they can buy your music, or why we’re not signed yet, that does things to your ego. Like if your ego was a supernova, that’d be a good likeness.
Our music is totally free at the moment, anyway – its not about making the big money out of that sort of thing, and artists don’t at the moment.
Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
Den: depends on the contract. as no labels are giving advances unless you sign a longer contract most musicians have no choice. you need equipment (we certainly do) and some form of financial security before you can take the plunge into music full time. some money is required so that you can stop doing your office job and pay the rent. i think most musicians aren’t bothered about money, but they have to think about it otherwise society will eat them alive.
Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behind people and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could choose anyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
Den: there was someone called Cant on TV? poor bloke! brian-facking-cant… i would have Berlusconi behind me. he's mentally ill and it would liven things up.
mJ: To The Moon Corps. Has no sales pitch, only briefs and mission statements. But I’d nominate Voltaire to stand behind me and do the actions to the Emergency Exit instructions in-flight on the Star Ship TTM. Would be imperative to have someone with such gravitas and a lust for all things electrical!
Frocks or socks?
Den: i'm a big fan of socks. Totally sold with the idea.
mJ: Girls wear frocks, and feet wear socks. But socks keep you warm in the lab, and I’ve got a pair with stars on (obviously) so we have two positives plus two negatives, so the two serve to cancel each other out. Therefore, according to the laws of physics, neither frocks nor socks technically exist! Weird! Glad we found that out thanks to you guys! We shall write up our findings and report back. *Salutes*
Friday, 19 June 2009
Free-e-day. The World's biggest indie culture online expo & giveaway
Free-e-day, the world’s biggest cultural giveaway
http://freeeday.wordpress.com/
search free-e-day on Facebook and join the group
What is Free-e-day?
Free-e-day is 1 December 2009
Free-e-day 2009 is the biggest ever cultural electronic giveaway & celebration of the independent creative spirit.
Free-e-day is for every singer, writer, artist, artisan, photographer, film-maker, whatever who believes that the most important part of culture is the fans. And it’s for everyone who loves culture and wants to experience the very best of it, or just try out something new, for free.
Free-e-day is the chance for everyone and anyone to give some of their work away for free, as a thank you to their current fans, and a present for their new ones.
Free-e-day is the world’s biggest showcase for the massive, indomitable, indestructible, joyful, independent creative spirit of the human race.
Free-e-day is the chance for everyone to discover the most exciting culture the whole world has to offer.
Who can take part in free-e-day?
Anyone can join the group. You don’t have to be giving something away; you just have to think it’s a good idea.
And anyone can give their stuff away. If you’ve ever written anything you’re a writer. If you’ve ever sung anything you’re a singer. The established industries might tell you what you’re not. We believe in celebrating what you are.
How do I take part in free-e-day?
All you need to do to participate in the spirit of Free-e-day is give something away for free on 1 December 2009, or take something that’s being given away.
On the other hand, we want to make this the biggest, shiniest, most fantabulistic cultural giveaway ever, so, if you want to give something away:
Sign up to our Facebook group. That way we can put a number on it and show the world just how many of us there are.
- Post your name, what you do, and 32 words about yourself.
Include up to 8 tag words to make it easy for people to find your stuff - Post a link to somewhere you’ll be giving something away. It has to be something people can take away and keep. A pdf, a jpeg, an MP3 or MP4 file.
- Tell us what you’ll be giving away
- Make sure, come free-e-day on 1 December, you put up your freebie. If you don’t have the tech to do that, you can give people an e-mail address instead of a URL, but make sure you send your thing by the end of 1 December.
- If you have some way of doing something live, let us know what, when, where, in the same format as above
- Don’t post more than one plug. It’s rude. And it’s unoriginal
If you get something fantastic on Free-e-day, remember to tell us. Remember to tell the lovely people who gave it to you. And most of all, remember to tell everyone you know.
If you want to speak to me about Free-e-day, whether you want to publicise it, get a quote, offer moral support, volunteer to do something, or even tell me to p*** off and make people pay for things, send me an e-mail: songsfromtheothersideofthewall@googlemail.com
So What’s Gonna happen? - I’m going to turn the free-e-day website into a directory with sections for:
· Music
· Writing
· Film
· Photography
· Art
· Pot luck (you can put anything here if you prefer people to come across your stuff serendipitously)
· Craft
· Live Shows
If I’ve left anything out let me know. - I’ll paste everyone’s details over, including the links.
- I’ll paste your links as you post them, but it’s your job to make sure they work. There’s only one of me!
- This needs to be a live – and living – event. So from midnight on one side of the world to the following midnight on the other, there should be events
A 48-hour long open to all webchat - Workshops. Some of the most important things anyone can give are experience, time, and advice. This is a day for fans, but with so many people around, it’s a great chance to host a workshop to help your colleagues
- Live events – online and in real life. If you’d like to offer a live show as part of Free-e-day, the only criteria are that it’s held on the right day, and that it’s free. Anyone hosting an event will be sent some free e-files with media releases and logos nearer the time. Just let us know.
- Whatever your social media of choice, make sure Free-e-day is what people are talking about. And make sure, come December 1st, everyone’s giving and getting a whole load of stuff for free
How can you make this a sparkle in the cultural firmament?
Volunteer to do something. I’ll need help with the following:
- Admin. If this is going to be a big event I won’t be able to do all the cutting and pasting and sorting. I’ll need help.
- Publicity. Point anyone and everyone to our website and our group. I’m up for interviews and all kinds of publicity.
- Hosting – care to host the webchat for an hour? Or to host a workshop advising and answering questions from the people who work in your area – or another?
- Tech. There are probably things out there I need I have no idea I need. If you’re willing to offer it/your time for free, let me know. I’m sure at some stage, to paraphrase a certain Spielberg movie, we’re going to need a bigger website. If you can offer that, supertastic!
I’d love to think we’ll get lots of coverage. If you come across any publicity anywhere, send me the link – to the Facebook site, by e-mail, or to the website, and we’ll build a great big bumper archive
Send me an e-mail if you’d like to volunteer: songsfromtheothersideofthewall@googlemail.com
Free-e-day Against Spoilsport Twits - Spam sucks. Everyone needs to put food in their mouths. Some of us do that by selling stuff. Fans love to buy stuff. But not on Free-e-day.
- Plagiarism really sucks. If you’re giving stuff away, make sure it’s yours. Its’ not up to us to make sure it’s yours to give away. It’s up to you
- If you’re with us you’re with us. If any nice people in the press and stuff give us some inches, we can say you’re on board.
- Viruses and worms and other terms borrowed from questionable if ecologically essential branches of the tree of life and metonymously applied to inanimate scuz beyond suck. I’m not responsible for what you put out, but if you do that kind of stuff there’s a whole bunch of people gonna like you not very much.
Oh, and any ideas – e-mail me, post them on the facebook group, or add a comment on the website
Monday, 18 May 2009
The music of language
This is an old article of mine, originally posted on a writers' site, that might be of interest to the few of you who haven't seen it already:
A fellow writer had said:
"Repetition and echos can be a powerful tool if used conciously and occasionally."
And then posed the question "Is the following sentence overwritten?Burnishing the sky blood red, the orange glowing sunset hung over the dark western forest of the smoldering city ."
My response wasYes - let me say why I think it doesn't work, though (other than the fact I'm not 100% sure it makes as much sense - if something's orange how come when it burnishes something that something ends up red? Forest of a city - a metaphor too far? The metaphor's confused, but assuming it wasn't, the problems are:
1. too many participles - nowt much is actually happening (the sunset hung being about it), which adds stodge.
2. I know it's unfashionable, but I love beautifully written sentences even if they are overwritten - but a beautiful sentence has a rhythm - it slides off the tongue (kinda the opposite of pitjhy dialogue that you chew up and spit out). Why this doesn't do that is you have three bits - sky blood red", "orange glowing sunset" "dark western forest" that are all constructed in essentially the same way - so there's no development. What you need is best described like music - you either have to have rhythm - with ups and downs, quicks and slows, or cadenzas, where you move slowly and very calculatedly up or down the scale of (over)writing, or sometimes an arpeggio (sorry if this is patronising - that's a chord, only where you play the notes that make it up separately), where you take a big word (by which I mean an important noun not a long word)and tease it out by delivering a series of complimentary fragments (somewhat like a haiku). Let me make a fool of myself by offering to rewrite the sentence in these 3 ways:
a. The sunset hung above the smoking city, burnishing the sky with its blood-red glow. Here the emphasis is entirely on how the words come off the tongue - "above" works where "over" doesn't, for example, because the stress is on the second syllable not the first. You can't have a qualifier for "sky" because for the rhythm to sound right to our ears, it has to go with "glow" and leave a pause with "sky", had to replace "smoldering" with "smoking", because only a 2 syllable word works there and so on.
b. The sunset hung over the smoldering city, its orange glow burnishing the sky blood red. We start simple (no adjectives), then build to the most impactful bit of the sentence (blood red) - the progressive descriptions now serve a purpose.
c. The city smoldered, an oil-black forest under a bloody sky, burnished in the sunset's orange glow. I've changed what words refer to what because I like the idea of the buildings black but glistening (like blood does in moonlight), but what I've done is: present what's happening ("the city smoldered"), give a metaphor - "oil-black forest under a bloody sky" - then echo the metaphor in non-metaphoric terms (OK burnished's kind of a metaphor becsue normally you'd burnish metal not buildings, but...).
That probably sounds really anal, and none of the sentences is any cop (partly because I think you need to "overwrite" very selectively and only to further the plot,and I don't think a sunset does that for me unless we're in a prophecy situation - "you will die when the sy turns red" say), but that's how I'd approach it. And yes, I really do go through that kind of thought process and deconstruction of rhythm with every sentence I write - I might try getting a life instead.
3. Repetition works best when it reinforces, builds, goes somewhere - music again - it's like the theme you vary then return to -this kinda says the same thing a few times.
A fellow writer had said:
"Repetition and echos can be a powerful tool if used conciously and occasionally."
And then posed the question "Is the following sentence overwritten?Burnishing the sky blood red, the orange glowing sunset hung over the dark western forest of the smoldering city ."
My response wasYes - let me say why I think it doesn't work, though (other than the fact I'm not 100% sure it makes as much sense - if something's orange how come when it burnishes something that something ends up red? Forest of a city - a metaphor too far? The metaphor's confused, but assuming it wasn't, the problems are:
1. too many participles - nowt much is actually happening (the sunset hung being about it), which adds stodge.
2. I know it's unfashionable, but I love beautifully written sentences even if they are overwritten - but a beautiful sentence has a rhythm - it slides off the tongue (kinda the opposite of pitjhy dialogue that you chew up and spit out). Why this doesn't do that is you have three bits - sky blood red", "orange glowing sunset" "dark western forest" that are all constructed in essentially the same way - so there's no development. What you need is best described like music - you either have to have rhythm - with ups and downs, quicks and slows, or cadenzas, where you move slowly and very calculatedly up or down the scale of (over)writing, or sometimes an arpeggio (sorry if this is patronising - that's a chord, only where you play the notes that make it up separately), where you take a big word (by which I mean an important noun not a long word)and tease it out by delivering a series of complimentary fragments (somewhat like a haiku). Let me make a fool of myself by offering to rewrite the sentence in these 3 ways:
a. The sunset hung above the smoking city, burnishing the sky with its blood-red glow. Here the emphasis is entirely on how the words come off the tongue - "above" works where "over" doesn't, for example, because the stress is on the second syllable not the first. You can't have a qualifier for "sky" because for the rhythm to sound right to our ears, it has to go with "glow" and leave a pause with "sky", had to replace "smoldering" with "smoking", because only a 2 syllable word works there and so on.
b. The sunset hung over the smoldering city, its orange glow burnishing the sky blood red. We start simple (no adjectives), then build to the most impactful bit of the sentence (blood red) - the progressive descriptions now serve a purpose.
c. The city smoldered, an oil-black forest under a bloody sky, burnished in the sunset's orange glow. I've changed what words refer to what because I like the idea of the buildings black but glistening (like blood does in moonlight), but what I've done is: present what's happening ("the city smoldered"), give a metaphor - "oil-black forest under a bloody sky" - then echo the metaphor in non-metaphoric terms (OK burnished's kind of a metaphor becsue normally you'd burnish metal not buildings, but...).
That probably sounds really anal, and none of the sentences is any cop (partly because I think you need to "overwrite" very selectively and only to further the plot,and I don't think a sunset does that for me unless we're in a prophecy situation - "you will die when the sy turns red" say), but that's how I'd approach it. And yes, I really do go through that kind of thought process and deconstruction of rhythm with every sentence I write - I might try getting a life instead.
3. Repetition works best when it reinforces, builds, goes somewhere - music again - it's like the theme you vary then return to -this kinda says the same thing a few times.
Read the book, buy the T-shirt?
OK, I’m taking my 10 commandments out of turn, because I went off piste with my last post to talk about music. So this week we’ll deal with commandment number 10:
Writers need to think like musicians and artists; we need to be showmen and women, to work in the public eye, and to make our money from selling an experience rather than a piece of hardware.
This is the thing that sparks the most intense conversations with my fellow writers, with “we’re just different” being the standard answer, and the reason why my constant references to the music industry are taken as a sign the pressure’s finally got to me. And when I’m at a gig, surrounded on all sides by fans united by the sound and the experience, I can absolutely see the uniquely collective appeal of music. But…
Even during the most intense set I can’t get that “but” out of my head.
The fact is, I would happily pay £10 to sit in a hall and listen to Murakami reading from Kafka on the Shore (I DID fork out a fiver for this year’s Murakami diary even though the paper’s so shiny you can’t write your appointments on it). And look at flashmobbing; and those giant nude crowd photos set in department stores. Art’s clearly not so different from music. That’s the big “but” filling my thought screen – it’s not music that infects the collective consciousness. It’s culture. And culture is writing as much as it’s a rock concert.
I want to aside her, but I’m not going to because I’ll bore you stupid. Just let me know if you’d like me to talk about culture and collectivity in general and I’ll happily do so. For now, I’ll limit myself to the single observation that’s relevant to my argument. For most of the time we’ve had stories, they’ve been public and not private experiences, passed on by storytellers to a live audience.
All of which is jolly interesting but of no help in explaining how to make money from doing something other than selling books.
OK, I’m not writing a textbook, I’m writing a post for my blog and my thousand words are almost gone on my intro, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to look at three ways musicians use to make money and see if there’s any transferability.
Take it for read, please, that this post is to be read in conjunction with my earlier post on giving your work away for free. Because for me there’s a real synergy there. Give your story away, and make your money from selling something else. If you can do this you really are on to a winner – and you’re obeying last week’s commandment of putting the fans first. Of course there’s the question of whether writing creates fans like that. But for now I’m going to refer back to my own example. Either I’m unique (in which case I should have figured out a way of getting rich by selling myself to research by now, and my bank account is conclusive evidence to the contrary) or writing can produce real fans.
So here’s our packet of three:
The tour. In the free download age, we’re always hearing that bands rely more and more on making money from live performances. I want to make two points. First, the live tour is something writers can replicate perfectly well. Second, whatever their multitude of benefits, unless you ARE Murakami, or Oasis, they’re not really a way to get rich.
I paid (sorry, my wife paid) £7 to hear The Boxer Rebellion last Friday (as an aside, that’s ridiculous value [we got 3 and a half hours of which 2 hours was live music form 3 great bands, including the hottest property in the UK] – gigs are ridiculous value, even the humungous ones – but the humungous ones aren’t really what we’re looking at as a replicable business model). There can’t have been more than 150 people there. Even allowing for an average price of £8 to include those paying £9 on the door, that’s £1200 from door receipts. Split with the venue. Less the cut for main support (assuming first support are doing it for nothing but the kudos). Less manager’s cut. Less paying the road crew. Less transport, accommodation, food, kit maintenance. Then split four ways. Even my maths is good enough to tell me it pays better to sew the tour T-shirts in a sweatshop.
You don’t make your money on tour from playing. You get a kick from playing; you spread the word by playing; you delight the fans by playing. You make money on tour by selling merchandise. And that can include selling something you’ve already given away. We went to see The Charlatans at The Astoria last November. They got a vast amount of publicity by giving away free downloads of last year’s album You Cross My Path. CDs of the same album were on sale with the other merchandise, and within an hour they were sold out – bought by people who already had the free download. The point is, get a group of fans together and they’re not just PREPARED to pay for something they’ve already got for free. They’ll WANT to. But those who missed out on the night probably won’t all go to HMV the next day – that’s the importance of the gig.
So can writers do this? Well, yes. Book tours, with readings and signings, don’t have to be impossible to arrange. And they don’t have to be dull, dry, reverential affairs (although they can be – what form they actually take probably depends on your genre). Nor do they have to take place in bookstores. Chains will probably baulk because if you’re self-publishing they won’t get a huge slice of the pie. Independent bookstores are more likely but not great venues. I’d take a leaf out of bands’ books. Start in small venues you can get on the cheap – why not ask pubs and coffee shops (these are great because people go there anyway). Give away free downloads to build publicity, put up flyers, then sell the book on the night and split the profits with the venue. Move on to town halls, leisure centres, other public amenities, when you think you can cover any cost (and why not find local bands and ask them where they play/rehearse?).
Merchandise. Yes, merchandise. This is where the money is made by bands on tour – those 50 T-shirts at £15 a pop will earn them as much as the door money. Then add the badges, hats, mugs, and lanyards. But how on earth can a writer sell merchandise? Well, I bought my Murakami diary…
As a writer you may not be able to do the whole traditional gamut straight off – chances are people won’t want a Joe Wannabe mug, for example. This DOES illustrate the importance of branding yourself, though – giving yourself a visual as well as a verbal identity (think about the font and layout of your covers). One of the most important parts of The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, especially given the subject matter, iconic images and viral phenomena (although I obviously chose the subject matter for a reason) was the creation of a brand image to go with the website and novel. Agnieszka Kitty is an instantly recognisable, simple image that would look fine on anyone’s T-shirt.
Your audience might want different merchandise – I think Agnieszka Kitty eco bags would look rather nice. Then there’s the obvious – bookmarks. The other thing you can do is tie your merchandise in with your book – there’s a big tech element in The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, so I’m thinking mobile phone or iPod socks (but be careful, and I’d advise steering clear of the legal minefield of using proprietary brands). Does your book have a key theme? An orange chrysanthemum, for example. The masters at this are the Coen brothers – think Miller’s Crossing hats, Big Lebowski bowling balls, O Brother Where Art Thou hair wax (not to mention the Soggy Bottom Boys CD).
The special edition. Musicians and film studios are masters at this. The Smiths even wrote a song (Paint a Vulgar Picture) about it. When I was at university, bands would routinely bring out 5 or 6 versions of a single and fans wanted ALL of them. Needless to say eventually the fans got rather tired of “a slightly different cover” and “bonus tracks,” but the special edition has evolved.
The point of the special edition isn’t really getting fans to pay twice for the same thing. That’s what the bad old days turned it into. It’s about just what it says – giving them something special. Something that’s a badge, that marks them out as a “real fan” as well as satisfying the fans’ desire to know more about anything and everything to do with your work And the advantage to you is you can charge a premium, making more profit per unit. There are whole books to be written on getting the price right – my rule is simple: never take the p*** - it’s as much for them as it is for you. They may grudgingly pay £20 but wouldn’t you rather they willingly paid £15? But always charge more than the standard version (or if you’re giving the standard version away, more than the RRP of similar books) – otherwise it’s not special, it just looks like the different cover double profit trick.
So what goes into a special edition to make it special? In a way that’s up to you and will depend on what you write about. But make it something YOU’D want, and be prepared to pay for. And make it specific to your book (don’t just stick a generic pen on the cover, for example, or give them 20% off a MacDonald’s). Is there more information you could give on some of your characters? If you have a great cameo character you know people will love but can’t really expand for story reasons, why not write a short, or even a novella, and include it (The Man Who Panited Agnieszka’s Shoes is about a man’s search for his missing daughter. There’s nothing about her childhood, but from June 1st I’ll be tweeting her childhood story on the username dadpleasefindme – the collected tweets would be a perfect companion piece to a book)? Does your protagonist keep a journal? Why not give a customised blank journal of the kind you’ve described so readers can keep their own (would work perfectly if you’re writing a Bridget Jones type book)?
Writers need to think like musicians and artists; we need to be showmen and women, to work in the public eye, and to make our money from selling an experience rather than a piece of hardware.
This is the thing that sparks the most intense conversations with my fellow writers, with “we’re just different” being the standard answer, and the reason why my constant references to the music industry are taken as a sign the pressure’s finally got to me. And when I’m at a gig, surrounded on all sides by fans united by the sound and the experience, I can absolutely see the uniquely collective appeal of music. But…
Even during the most intense set I can’t get that “but” out of my head.
The fact is, I would happily pay £10 to sit in a hall and listen to Murakami reading from Kafka on the Shore (I DID fork out a fiver for this year’s Murakami diary even though the paper’s so shiny you can’t write your appointments on it). And look at flashmobbing; and those giant nude crowd photos set in department stores. Art’s clearly not so different from music. That’s the big “but” filling my thought screen – it’s not music that infects the collective consciousness. It’s culture. And culture is writing as much as it’s a rock concert.
I want to aside her, but I’m not going to because I’ll bore you stupid. Just let me know if you’d like me to talk about culture and collectivity in general and I’ll happily do so. For now, I’ll limit myself to the single observation that’s relevant to my argument. For most of the time we’ve had stories, they’ve been public and not private experiences, passed on by storytellers to a live audience.
All of which is jolly interesting but of no help in explaining how to make money from doing something other than selling books.
OK, I’m not writing a textbook, I’m writing a post for my blog and my thousand words are almost gone on my intro, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to look at three ways musicians use to make money and see if there’s any transferability.
Take it for read, please, that this post is to be read in conjunction with my earlier post on giving your work away for free. Because for me there’s a real synergy there. Give your story away, and make your money from selling something else. If you can do this you really are on to a winner – and you’re obeying last week’s commandment of putting the fans first. Of course there’s the question of whether writing creates fans like that. But for now I’m going to refer back to my own example. Either I’m unique (in which case I should have figured out a way of getting rich by selling myself to research by now, and my bank account is conclusive evidence to the contrary) or writing can produce real fans.
So here’s our packet of three:
The tour. In the free download age, we’re always hearing that bands rely more and more on making money from live performances. I want to make two points. First, the live tour is something writers can replicate perfectly well. Second, whatever their multitude of benefits, unless you ARE Murakami, or Oasis, they’re not really a way to get rich.
I paid (sorry, my wife paid) £7 to hear The Boxer Rebellion last Friday (as an aside, that’s ridiculous value [we got 3 and a half hours of which 2 hours was live music form 3 great bands, including the hottest property in the UK] – gigs are ridiculous value, even the humungous ones – but the humungous ones aren’t really what we’re looking at as a replicable business model). There can’t have been more than 150 people there. Even allowing for an average price of £8 to include those paying £9 on the door, that’s £1200 from door receipts. Split with the venue. Less the cut for main support (assuming first support are doing it for nothing but the kudos). Less manager’s cut. Less paying the road crew. Less transport, accommodation, food, kit maintenance. Then split four ways. Even my maths is good enough to tell me it pays better to sew the tour T-shirts in a sweatshop.
You don’t make your money on tour from playing. You get a kick from playing; you spread the word by playing; you delight the fans by playing. You make money on tour by selling merchandise. And that can include selling something you’ve already given away. We went to see The Charlatans at The Astoria last November. They got a vast amount of publicity by giving away free downloads of last year’s album You Cross My Path. CDs of the same album were on sale with the other merchandise, and within an hour they were sold out – bought by people who already had the free download. The point is, get a group of fans together and they’re not just PREPARED to pay for something they’ve already got for free. They’ll WANT to. But those who missed out on the night probably won’t all go to HMV the next day – that’s the importance of the gig.
So can writers do this? Well, yes. Book tours, with readings and signings, don’t have to be impossible to arrange. And they don’t have to be dull, dry, reverential affairs (although they can be – what form they actually take probably depends on your genre). Nor do they have to take place in bookstores. Chains will probably baulk because if you’re self-publishing they won’t get a huge slice of the pie. Independent bookstores are more likely but not great venues. I’d take a leaf out of bands’ books. Start in small venues you can get on the cheap – why not ask pubs and coffee shops (these are great because people go there anyway). Give away free downloads to build publicity, put up flyers, then sell the book on the night and split the profits with the venue. Move on to town halls, leisure centres, other public amenities, when you think you can cover any cost (and why not find local bands and ask them where they play/rehearse?).
Merchandise. Yes, merchandise. This is where the money is made by bands on tour – those 50 T-shirts at £15 a pop will earn them as much as the door money. Then add the badges, hats, mugs, and lanyards. But how on earth can a writer sell merchandise? Well, I bought my Murakami diary…
As a writer you may not be able to do the whole traditional gamut straight off – chances are people won’t want a Joe Wannabe mug, for example. This DOES illustrate the importance of branding yourself, though – giving yourself a visual as well as a verbal identity (think about the font and layout of your covers). One of the most important parts of The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, especially given the subject matter, iconic images and viral phenomena (although I obviously chose the subject matter for a reason) was the creation of a brand image to go with the website and novel. Agnieszka Kitty is an instantly recognisable, simple image that would look fine on anyone’s T-shirt.
Your audience might want different merchandise – I think Agnieszka Kitty eco bags would look rather nice. Then there’s the obvious – bookmarks. The other thing you can do is tie your merchandise in with your book – there’s a big tech element in The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, so I’m thinking mobile phone or iPod socks (but be careful, and I’d advise steering clear of the legal minefield of using proprietary brands). Does your book have a key theme? An orange chrysanthemum, for example. The masters at this are the Coen brothers – think Miller’s Crossing hats, Big Lebowski bowling balls, O Brother Where Art Thou hair wax (not to mention the Soggy Bottom Boys CD).
The special edition. Musicians and film studios are masters at this. The Smiths even wrote a song (Paint a Vulgar Picture) about it. When I was at university, bands would routinely bring out 5 or 6 versions of a single and fans wanted ALL of them. Needless to say eventually the fans got rather tired of “a slightly different cover” and “bonus tracks,” but the special edition has evolved.
The point of the special edition isn’t really getting fans to pay twice for the same thing. That’s what the bad old days turned it into. It’s about just what it says – giving them something special. Something that’s a badge, that marks them out as a “real fan” as well as satisfying the fans’ desire to know more about anything and everything to do with your work And the advantage to you is you can charge a premium, making more profit per unit. There are whole books to be written on getting the price right – my rule is simple: never take the p*** - it’s as much for them as it is for you. They may grudgingly pay £20 but wouldn’t you rather they willingly paid £15? But always charge more than the standard version (or if you’re giving the standard version away, more than the RRP of similar books) – otherwise it’s not special, it just looks like the different cover double profit trick.
So what goes into a special edition to make it special? In a way that’s up to you and will depend on what you write about. But make it something YOU’D want, and be prepared to pay for. And make it specific to your book (don’t just stick a generic pen on the cover, for example, or give them 20% off a MacDonald’s). Is there more information you could give on some of your characters? If you have a great cameo character you know people will love but can’t really expand for story reasons, why not write a short, or even a novella, and include it (The Man Who Panited Agnieszka’s Shoes is about a man’s search for his missing daughter. There’s nothing about her childhood, but from June 1st I’ll be tweeting her childhood story on the username dadpleasefindme – the collected tweets would be a perfect companion piece to a book)? Does your protagonist keep a journal? Why not give a customised blank journal of the kind you’ve described so readers can keep their own (would work perfectly if you’re writing a Bridget Jones type book)?
Saturday, 16 May 2009
The Last Night of the Fair
(Regular readers of this column, and all the members of the Agnieszka’s Shoes Facebook group, will know I’m always talking about The Boxer Rebellion, currently the most exciting band in the
Sitting in the Master Fryer on St Mary’s Road, throwing a badly skewered sausage across the table, I had a sickening sense of déjà vu. We’d been to see The Boxer Rebellion play three times since I first read about their label-less success on iTunes in a metro article this January. Twice we’d seen them play to sell-out venues in
The doorman struggled to find something to keep the micro-crowd happy on the giant plasma screen in the bar as the sound checks finished (he eventually settled for a QVC session selling crap-cut topaz rings). Which was when we got the first hint of what was to come. At first I thought they’d put Morrissey on the radio, until I realised the venue was so small we could only be hearing the first support, Red Drapes. Things were looking up.
“The last chance to see them play intimate venues,” the listings magazine we were flicking through said whilst a pissed bloke hectored the under-employed doorman “Who are they? Are they any good? Nine quid, that’s a bit steep.” That’s why we were there. On Saturday TBR were performing their first festival of the summer,
Red Drapes finally started half an hour late, after a long stint of piped Kate Bush. By then there was a half decent crowd, even if most of them looked like the support’s parents and classmates. The drummer (a ten years and a thousand pints or so younger lookalike of TBR’s Piers) clambered onto the stage and off they went with Reflections, eerily reminiscent of Morrissey’s masterpiece The Last Night of the Fair, which only added to the whole Twelfth Night feel. It was a marvellously apposite start to an evening that had a deliroius feel of the kind of heady excitement that only a certain pervading melancholia can bring on. I'm delighted to see Red Drapes have now started tweeting. Things are starting to grow for them, and long may it continue. This is a polished young act, and the Smiths-like sound they have off so well is something I can never hear too much of.
Once they’d sorted out a couple of the technical issues that dogged the whole evening (“it’s a shit keyboard,” said Nathan, defusing the situation with his trademark “lovely apple pie, Mrs Jones” smile when the sound went tits-up after We Have This Place Surrounded), Kaputt launched into their frantic set, with frontwoman Silke screaming “I want to fade away” in a way that sounded bizarrely like Lenny Kravitz had walked into the Scotch video tape advert from the 80s. In a way they were the unlucky odd ones out of the night’s trio of bands – Red Drapes had clearly dragooned everyone including the postman’s niece’s dog, and everyone else (like the guy next to us who – like us – had driven miles to see them, and was a veteran of their knockout Scala and Dingwalls gigs) had come to see TBR. Which was a shame, because Kaputt are really rather good. Their punky two tonish sound and minimalist lyrics had a real energy to it, a bit like a hard core version of The Slits at times, and when Silke shouted “Do they dance in
By the time the stage was set up for TBR and the sound guy had finished trying to get any sound at all from the “shit keyboard” with his penlight and screwdriver, the place was packed. It was nothing like the cold Sunday night at The Bullingdon. It was clear that in the two months since then, something had changed. For good (“Hello, Wembley,” shouted Nathan at one point, with only a hint of irony). Adam and Nathan made what’s now a highly practised and highly polished entrance to Piers’ and Todd’s drums on Flashing Red Light Means Go (long gone are the nerves and fumbles and “oh my God”s we’d witnessed in February when the sell-out Dingwalls crowd had overawed them).
Throughout what followed there were all kinds of little signs of the way things are changing for The Boxer Rebellion. For the first time at one of their gigs, whenever I looked across the room I could see people singing along. Their songs are beginning to enter the collective psyche, beginning to become anthems, sounds you could imagine filling arenas. By the time the band reached All you do is Talk, the whole crowd was screaming back “you don’t seem to listen.” Then there was the encore after Silent Movie. In an intimate venue like Joiners you can’t go backstage and wait for the cries of “more!” to reach a frenzy so much as hover at the side looking a bit embarrassed, shrug you shoulders and skulk back. “That was fucking lame,” mumbled Nathan into the mic with a laugh and yet another disarming smile, delighting in a moment of complicity with the crowd. Their act no longer really belongs somewhere like this. This was a massive gig in a tiny venue, and the rush and the shame of it made for a mesmerising cocktail.
One of the great things about seeing TBR is that they always have a drink and a chat with the fans after the show, and when they’re outside
Today The Boxer Rebellion will be playing The Great Escape in
(On Tuesday I’ll be looking at what we as writers can learn from the example of bands like the Boxer Rebellion. Hint: it involves prodigious talent, originality, persistence, large amounts of very hard work, and never forgetting what you’re doing it for.)
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