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Mic Check......By Dope Demand

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Boris Johnson and The Reading Festival Paradox

Division is seemingly the current state of play in the UK. As hard as some try to homogenise our culture and identity into handy packages, reality has a nasty habit of atomising their efforts back into messy parcels of tendentially related groupings, a Rorschach blot test of overlapping bubbles. This is as true of the howling of Reading and Leeds fans at the temerity of booking Dua Lipa and Kendrick Lammar as it is of Boris Johnson’s current speech on Brexit; the latest salvo in an increasingly pointless exercise to seek consensus where there is none to be found. 

Leaving aside the former case for the moment; the politics of Reading and Leeds bills being, as I know from painful personal experience of a decade, a minefield of fiery passions and entrenched opinion on the validity of artists and genres to spend a day in a field in Berkshire and a field in West Yorkshire, Johnson’s speech is a doozy. Combining a contrarian desire to both soothe the ‘remainer’ faction whilst telling them, ostensibly, to get over it and a continuing reliance on not listening to any of the expert opinions on offer, it essentially boils down to an appeal to being ‘British’; a flawed thinking that drives so much of national discourse containing, as it does, no quantifiable or identifiable fact on which to hinge its arguments. Given his track record there is an overwhelming sense of plus ca change so at least he is consistent. Set against this is the usual Johnson tactic of throwing in something that isn’t real, in this case the undeniable march towards a United States of Europe, presumably with Turkey still involved.

A conception of British subjects as a unified whole is an idea that has been on perpetual drift. It doesn’t take a PHD in British history to identify that the idea of ‘Britishness’, itself a construct of a Stuart (and then Hanoverian) monarchy forging two disparate kingdoms and a couple of acquired landmasses stripped of their power structures into one whole via politics, bribery and war over the best part of a century, has been on shaky ground throughout. Close reading of the public mood even in times of crisis reveals that the myths that ground the nation are just that – it is easy to cite many moments at which this nation state has teetered on the edge of becoming a very different entity from the Peterloo massacre and the Corn Law Riots to the General Strike and the Winter of Discontent. At essence, the very idea of the nation state is a wobbly thing, full of contradictions and, in a continuously expanding globalised world, a concept whose time is long past.

The purpose of the nation grouping is both political and economic. With the decline of religious authority, the growth of intra cultural experience and settlement and the imposition of flawed democracy – that limited franchise that allows a direction but not a direct input into the political road map – its remaining purpose is to gather a group of people under a banner to allow them to trade and (theoretically prosper) under a set of agreed laws and relations to other groupings of people based on geographical location and guarantee security in exchange for money. Johnson would have us believe that there is more; that at heart there is some mystical shared experience owing to our place of birth that binds us together in an unspoken shared purpose. That is hogwash. If the nation state remains as anything in the modern world, it is a very vague set of cultural values that cover shades of opinion with the majority holding sway whilst accepting all but the most extreme objections to a myriad of issues and adjusting our outlook accordingly. This is our liberal democracy.

It makes sense that it is the more reactionary cultural (though economically radical in the worst sense of the word) wing of the Conservative party that is leading this charge. Forever blessed with a tin ear when it comes to questions of popular culture, the right wing of the Conservative party has been on the wrong side of the debate over every cultural change of the post war years. Anti- gay and openly racist in the 50’s, pro-apartheid South Africa in the 70’s and 80’s, anti-EU in the 90’s and 00’s.

So, a call to ‘unite about what we all believe in’ is meaningless. I don’t believe in what they believe in. They don’t believe in what I believe in. The gulf between those two positions is so vast that it is untenable. Debate requires shared ground, Beyond the Ten Commandments (or most of them) there is nothing to share here.

The perpetual mantra of the ‘will of the people’ is itself proof positive of this schism. The will of a slight majority of those who voted, less than 50% of those eligible to vote and containing none of those under 18 who the vote will most affect has proven once and for all that the entire ideal of representative democracy is a failure when it comes to leading people in a determined direction. Leaving aside the much-discussed warnings from history about using such phrases (always deployed to strongarm objectors into compliance) Johnson’s new iteration of the phrase is the soft power arm to the Mail and Telegraph’s talk of ‘Saboteurs’ and ‘traitors’, a mask across the ugly reality of his true message.

 

What Brexit risks in its current hazy, shambolic creation is far more than an economic disaster designed by chance or deliberation to hit those with the least the hardest. Behind the reports from experts lies a far deeper cultural timebomb primed to explode. 

My cohort of the Thatcher generation and those who came after having grown up in an individualist, global culture. We take our sense of belonging from multiplicitous sources that have no grounding in national identity. We are variously Northern, Lancastrian, Southern, Cornish, white, black, Asian, gay, straight, internationalist, ecological, European, global, regional, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, British etc etc. Our identity is grounded in our experience, not our locality. The same is true of those unlike us within our generation. This was always the case, but the seams are coming undone. The binding weave of nationhood has unravelled in the opportunity (or lack thereof) experienced by us. 

Experience and outcome is now so diverse depending on a variety of factors that the idea that we all share some common experience is a nonsense. I have nothing in common with most of the people I went to school with, let alone strangers in other parts of the UK. Such is true throughout the West. Somewhere in here is a delicious irony that the very project that claims as its ultimate goal the ‘taking back of control’ over our nationhood is the very thing that we do not care about. We see fellow feeling with like minds, not blue passports. Little wonder that the loudest new voice in the debate, ‘Our Future, Our Choice’, is the remainer youth.

To return to my original parallel, old rock fans complaining about Kendrick Lammar at Reading isn’t the end of the world but comes from the same place. Appealing to the populous to come together under a meaningless banner is as futile as asking Kings of Leon fans to try listening to a new genre of music. Telling them that Kendrick is as revolutionary as Nirvana is to attempt to import a heap of cultural experience that they simply do not have, likewise with Leavers and Remainers. 

At Reading the worst expression of this will be bottles hurled towards a stage, in the UK it will be far darker. Deepening a schism between future generations and aging generations cannot end well. That is one of the coming battles that Brexit has exposed, and it is now very live and growing. The only way to lance the boil is to return to first principles about what is, after all, membership of a trade area.

The EU debate should have always been about the cost and the benefit. The reality of the position as it is and the realities possible as they are perceived. That is now the only sensible political position to pursue. Experts, ironically, are exactly what we need. The decision as to how to trade with other countries is not a cultural exposition. It is an economic decision based on analysis and fact. 

A best first step would be to silence Johnson. Then some sense may reign.

2017 - Lists

One from each category rather than 10 / 20 / 50 that seem to be the rage these days with honourable mentions to some other stuff.
Here is what has kept me sane this year. As ever Loudhailer artists are not included, obviously I think they are great.

BAND OF THE YEAR

IDLES


With thanks to Jeremy at Coda for first introducing me to them, this lot lit up my year and made me believe more than any other band that there is a future for that old guitar / bass / drums thing. The album, 'Brutalism', is easily my most played of 2017 and gets better with each listen. I'm scratching my head a little as to why they aren't all over every end of year but that's how media works now, the compartmentalism means no one can really get that clean sweep from a standing start.

By next year I fully expect 'Brutalism' to be regarded in the same way as 'Modern Life Is Rubbish', an album that kick starts a new expression for UK music and sweeps away a lot of the stuff that has been hanging around for too long waiting for someone (anyone) to pronounce it dead.

Were I not inclined to share the spoils this lot would also be Single Of The Year, Gig Of The Year and Album Of The Year. That's how much I love em.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Given it can't be the above then its a bit of a fight between some very different records. Stormzy's 'Gang Signs and Prayers' and Sampha's 'Process' are up there, Arcade Fire's 'Everything Now' reconnected me to a band I had once loved and drifted away from but, for sheer charm and because I am a sucker for a duet it is Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile's 'Lotta Sea Lice' for reminding me how much I love music that feels like it is on the verge of falling over.

GIG OF THE YEAR

Justice at Brixton Academy narrowly pips Stormzy at the same venue. In both cases, shows that realised a sympathy between production and performance that characterises the best shows and which has been my obsession since working with Gus Gus and trying to achieve the impossible (at the time) over 20 years ago. A roaring, beat heavy journey through versions of their catalogue that combined the deftness of the best dance DJ with the showmanship of the greatest rock bands. Chapeau.

TRACK OF THE YEAR

Reading BTL comments on a recent piece on Dua Lipa on The Guardian was one of the most depressing things I have done of late. The tired old 'doesn't write the songs', 'just pop music' cliches betray a misunderstanding of the history of pop music as a whole. These people would no doubt have greeted Aretha's 'Respect' with similar disdain as they would have been stuck in jazz world. So nuts to them, 'New Rules' is a wonderful piece of feminist expressionist pop up there with 'Independent Woman' and 'No Scrubs' and a ton of other FU songs from women to men (and other women) that deserves the blanket airplay and the massive streaming and all that whoever wrote it plus it's a tune that understands the transition of dance music(s) over the last two decades and brings a touch of much of them to the table. 

FAVOURITE RANDOM THING OF THE YEAR

Teen Titans Go! futbol episode if the perfect explanation for why, if you have kids, sometimes what they watch can be as good as the thing you want to watch instead

A Summer Of Mixed Content

The recent Wish You Were Here live music study - has led to celebratory headlines once again as the growth in both domestic live music audiences and tourism related to live music demonstrate growth. But dig down in the data and the picture becomes more mixed. Apply that data to experience and the picture is increasingly murky.

What we can see with our own eyes is that the growth of live music as a customer driven experience has been exponential in the past decade. The amount of stadium tours, large scale live events and arena tours has multiplied as sales of recorded music have fallen, money has shifted from ownership to experiential, of that there is no doubt, but the nature of that experiential offering is changing and it feels like we are at the beginning of a shift that will either remake the large scale live event or freeze it as a spectacle of the age, doomed to decline as performers retire or disappear.

Whilst there is a 12% growth in the number of people watching live music, there is a 13% fall in the amount of money spent at venues under 1,500 capacity. This should be an alarm bell for an industry that depends on new talent. It is certainly not news, for years many in music have been bemoaning the lack of clear pathways for new artists to reach a financially viable status and I have written previously on the huge challenges that continue to face new artists and their management in sustaining a coherent promotional approach for their music in order to grow fanbase and achieve some form of security.

The preferred strategies to mitigate the removal of traditional financial support for new artists – advances replaced by sponsorship, recording costs replaced by home studios, recorded music sales replaced by gig receipts and merchandise take – are, at best, a patchy and unreliable option and at worst a kicking of the can down the road from an industry that has no answer to the significant dilemmas it will face in the coming decade.

Chief amongst those is that the live circuit is currently in the growth phase that can be compared to the boom recorded music saw with the advent of CD. The glut of reformed bands touring classic albums whether real or imagined (or debatable) and artists whose best days (or certainly most popular songs) are behind them is not a sustainable model for a healthy live sector. The positioning of decade old career bands at the top of festival headline slots is beginning to look threadbare; some would say we are way past that point. Even the camping plus three days model of many of the UK’s key festival names is under significant threat as audience age shifts and the idea of being under canvas with a cold water tap for washing fails to have the same appeal it did twenty years ago for those of us who began our festival lives in the late 80’s. 

That is the nature of the market, I would anticipate more of the familiar names of our festival circuit will disappear in the coming three or four years. Already T In The Park, once a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut, has transmuted into a city festival sans camping. More will follow. The desires of the audience are handily aligned with the needs of the promoters in such a model, the costs of securing camping sites (significant in terms both of land use and security costs) are moved out of the picture. That, in theory, leaves more money for talent. The challenge for promoters is what talent they spend that money on – short term gain or long term investment?

If that leaves a new path for promoters to rejuvenate a tired and increasingly unappealing multiple day event offering, there remains a bigger issue for both promoters and the wider industry. That drop off in venues under 1,500 capacity points to a decline in the audience for artists that make up the majority of festival bills. The cycle of promotion that saw artists run through club venues to those theatres and then to mid ranging second and third stage positions on an October through September cycle is fractured and, consequently their further progress through festival and touring shows to headline status is now blocked. Kudos here to Latitude who have, in recent years, enabled Foals to make the leap but there is scant evidence elsewhere of such long-term planning amongst event organisers. Possibly Chvrches, again with a Latitude hand up, may be the only other act to my mind that achieve that movement.

The malaise could go deeper. Many of my conversations on this subject with managers and agents come around to the one strategy that currently offers hope – Europe. If you can establish an artist at even a small-scale level across the continent, live receipts from festival touring can be the difference between a viable business and failure. As an aside on this, artists and managers who are label resistant should consider the wider benefits of a label that has presence throughout the continent, personal experience tells me that being in market even with low recorded music sales can offer benefits come summer time that more than make up for shortfall on album sales projections. Yet the current black hole of Brexit which leaves us incapable of making long term strategic decisions on Europe – will there be visa costs, will tax harmonies evaporate, can withholding tax be reclaimed etc etc? – feels like a kicking away of the last chair from under us. 

Given the multiple factors at play here, single solutions to the problem are not possible. It is all very well for John Whittingdale to offer positive comments to the report (whilst ignoring the negatives) but government strategies for artists in the form of tax breaks and a solution to the VAT black hole – many artists are below VAT income threshold meaning they lose 20% on a variety of spend for touring and recording – would be a start. Further aid from government in terms of cost reductions for small venues would also be very welcome. Within the industry, more investment is necessary for new artists. Management cannot continue to shoulder the burdens of start-up investment alone (as is often the case at present) whilst continuing to be offered deals that reflect a past age of advances with points structures and deductions that chip away at any returning income.  If not, we face a decade of decline, marked by a circuit of old stagers on big stages sucking the money out of live music until what should be a vibrant, forward facing industry becomes a heritage product, frozen in time.

Resistance may not be futile. Idles @ Rough Trade, Cabbage @The Scala

Two shows separated by two weeks. Two bands drawing on differing genres as their starting point yet finding common cause in their expression. Two moments that suggest reports of the demise of guitar music may be, as is often the case, somewhat premature.

Rough Trade East for Idles. A band that have been talked about in ever increasing circles since people got wind of their ‘Brutalism’ album. Built on US Hardcore and post rock dynamics yet shot through with a palpably English expression, their run through the album tracks in a record shop transcends the usual ‘meh-ness’ of an instore and becomes a rallying point, an out-poring of communal disgust at the system as represented by Grenfell, DUP bribes and public sector slash and burn. 

If that sounds less than entertaining know this. These volleys of lyrical subversion, these tales of horror on the breadline, of the sheer mental stress of trying to live in a society that divides to conquer are presented with a showmanship that echoes The Blockheads and flirts, in guitarist Mark Bowen, with the ghost of early 70's Roxy Music. Between the songs, sharp, clever bursts of intricate noise that go way above and beyond the reductive idea of ‘punk’, singer Joe Talbot contextualises and humanises these tales of anger and spite and, most of all, resistance, with off-hand remarks and explanations that are by turns revealing and touching.

A fortnight later, to the current zeitgeist accompaniment of ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn’; the modern equivalent of the CND pin badge in the 80s, Cabbage land at the Scala. The vein is similar, the base different. A more English post punk augmented by the likes of Dead Kennedy’s cartoon bile is in play yet that is too reductive. The Blockheads spring to mind once more, as does the angularity of The Fall (in both bands), a sardonic yet pinpoint series of revelations that skewer the sheer awfulness of the society we have created and currently ‘enjoy’. The whole could be dry and hectoring yet Cabbage and Idles are here to celebrate with their community, not lecture them. Stage divers are present at both, a phenomenon until recently reduced to sub genres of rock yet now breaking out as an expression of freedoms and the lack of band / audience barriers. 

Cabbage nail the DUP deal with the appearance of the ‘ghost of Ian Paisley’, beamed in from the 70’s in beige lounge suit to goad the crowd for the finale of ‘Uber Capitalist Death Trade’, a track that suggested guitars might again be wielded to political statement to create a (potentially) mass audience once more. The ghost of English theatre subversion all the way back to Shakespeare’s mechanicals hovers over the Scala stage.

There is joy in both performances. Joy in the sense that here are artists that are ready to communicate meaning in ways that are inclusive and accessible. That guitar bands can find new ways to take old formats and ideas and reinvent them to carry new and important messages. That shows can once again be a coming together of more than a group of people wanting to sing along to a clutch of hit singles before going back to their conveyor belt in the morning. That music can change minds and make a difference. The audience at both shows exit talking about their night but also the relevance of that to the wider world outside the venue doors.

It’s a long way from a chant to real change but here are two moments that suggest guitar bands may again play a part in the process to come.