Voices of Experience

Helping new musicians is a thriving industry.

As well as the tens of thousands of pounds spent every year on a radio show like mine, there are numerous courses, schemes and initiatives, the funding of which -- even in a country as small as Wales -- must run into the millions.

I wonder how proportionate the amount of money spent on supporting new music is to the amount of money subsequently made by those musicians.

Obviously it's not -- and should never be -- about balancing books. It's about empowering people to express themselves musically, and to help them get that music heard by as wide an audience as possible.

I've been thinking about these things a lot since the turn of the year.

I've been wondering about radio and how a show like mine can better serve the aspiring musicians within the audience, as well as the audience itself.

Economists go on about how we've lost our manufacturing base and how that isn't going to serve us well as we try to rebuild our economy. However, our most successful musicians [whether that success is measured artistically or commercially] create a magic no traditional industry can match.

They create something out of nothing.

Some of those somethings -- like Duffy's songs, for example -- bring millions of pounds into the British economy.

Others of those somethings -- say, the Gallops' progressive mathematical blip storms, or the Jabberwocky metal of Klaus Kinski, lay down artistic statements that will inspire their peers and generations of musicians to come [if they get to hear the genius].

All of the rest of those somethings are shit, of course. Which is a shame, but the way it is always going to be. The shit's important because it gives the good stuff something to float on and stand out against.

So, for those of you who -- like me -- have lost me: how does a show like mine best serve those likely to create that small proportion of somethings?

My strategy is as follows.

*1* First and foremost, I need to broaden the audience so that more people hear the best of this music.

This poses a some problems / challenges:

1) Few people want to listen to the radio at 10pm on a Sunday night.
2) Few people, unless they have a vested interest in New Welsh Music, want to wade through 3 hours of it.
3) Few people are aware that the show / this music exists.
4) Most people want to hear what they already know they're going to like.
5) Some people can hear rubbish a mile off, so it's important not to play shite. Even if you're tasked with finding 3 hours of new, Welsh music every week, you'd still best not play shite.

The BBC's iPlayer addresses the first two points. If you have access to the technology [still not a given] you can hear the show at your leisure, and listen to as much, or as little of it, as you want.

I don't know about 3). Radio Wales has to make stringent cuts over the next few years. Very stringent cuts. Knocking on marketing's door with a begging bowl isn't going to do me much good. Asking the bands themselves to get their family and mates to listen might help.

The people in category 4) ['most' people] aren't going to want to listen to a show like mine, anyway. So I should stop worrying about them. Bye bye.

There is plenty of good music about in Wales. If I put the effort in to find it, the shite factor should not come into play.

*2* I want to offer the bands information and enlightenment. Not me personally, you understand. I mean, via the kind of people we approach and talk to on the show.

This is why I have started the F.A.Q. section on the programme. Did anyone hear the previous questions / answers?

We have already dealt with: 'How do I get to play at the Glastonbury Festival?' [answered by Laura from Glastonbury's emerging talent competition]; 'How do I get my music played on Radio 1?' [answered by Ed Richmond at Radio 1 Introducing]; & 'How do I get my music onto a download store?' [answered, brilliantly, by Lisa Matthews from Welsh Music Foundation.

IS THIS INFORMATION OF ANY USE / INTEREST TO YOU? YES, *YOU*!

Do you have any questions that you would like us to answer?

If you do: themysterytour@gmail.com

Our other new section of the show hasn't really got a name, yet. I want to call it 'Voices of Experience' -- but that sounds like a pompous mini-serial on Radio 4. I toyed with the idea of Nuggets, but didn't fancy getting sued by Rhino or Lenny Kaye. Plus Nuggets also reminds me of little pips of poo.

This is the section where we ask the great and the good, the maverick and influential, to pass on a piece of advice or wisdom that they wish they had known when they first started out.

In my experience young & aspiring artists only ever listen to the words of their heroes or the words of the people whose influence and success [again, commercial or artistic] cannot be questioned.

There is no point, for example, in me passing on my advice.

So, first up we had Black Francis. The Pixies have been rather influential. And Charles is a gentleman.

His 2 minutes were wise & profoundly illuminating. If you're in a band, that 2 minutes could have shaped your entire future. It would, certainly, have asked you to face up to some difficult decisions. The kind of decisions that sort that-there wheat from that-there chaff.

Kim Fowley graced us with 50 years of accumulated knowledge on this Sunday's show. Again, it's priceless stuff. It knowledge eked out of vision, struggle and perseverance.

These kind of lessons are writ large and long in every music biog ever written. But here we have forced the artists into a corner so that the advice is distilled and concentrated. So that you music people of Wales, unsigned and eager to carve your name into the eternal rock face, can benefit from those who carved before you. Some of them even shaped that mountain.

Coming up, we have Manda Rin from Bis [Sunday 25th January]. Bis didn't sell millions of records, but they were unique and those records they did sell were their vision through-and-through. They became the first unsigned band to play Top of the Pops. They never compromised.

Clive Langer [Sunday 1st February] co-produced some of the finest singles to have ever come out of the United Kingdom: all of Madness's greatest singles, 'Reward' & 'Treason' by Teardrop Explodes, 'Too-Rye-Ay' [album] by Dexy's Midnight Runners, 'Shipbuilding' [which he co-wrote] by Elvis Costello / Robert Wyatt. The man knows a great song when he hears one, and he also knows what to focus on to turn a great song into a great recording.

Alex Paterson [Sunday 8th February] co-founded the Orb, but also brought spaciousness, ambience, dub and psychedelia to dance music. He started as a roadie for Killing Joke, soaked up the reggae sounds in the 100 Club, eschewed Punk narrow-mindedness for a true punk desire to break down the walls between genres [a punk working with Steve Hillage?]

These are some of the people whose varied experiences and attitudes I hope you nascent musicians can learn from and be inspired.

I genuinely think that Frank's advice, alone, if acted upon, would have transformed at least 4 of the good bands that never got out of North Wales into great ones.

There are a couple more 'things' lined up [a refinement of the Unsigned Advice Panel] that will appear in 2009.

Sorry if this comes across as a sanctimonious ramble / rant.

I've overdone the flu medication in a last gasp attempt to shake the snot demon.

Wish me luck & please leave your thoughts.

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