Author Archives: Tim Hall

This, from Mark Rowan of Breathing Space is just depressing.

I need to pre-empt this by saying that it is worthy of note that Breathing Space are what may be called (for want of a better genre) a ‘classic rock band’. We’re a six piece band with 2 keyboard players. Some of the sounds we use are quite complex as you may know, for example Distant Train – we play this to a basic click track (this has always been that way, even when MA performed it), Iain and Ben play numerous different sounds during the song. I myself play the original flute motif on guitar synth, then switch to standard guitar for the build up chords and the closing solos. As a band we nominally play 2 x 45 minute sets.

So, after explaining all this to the promoter, they get a gig at the Mixing Tin in Leeds. Then this happens…

Unfortunately the promoter unbeknown to us until yesterday, booked us along with 7 other bands, each playing 30 minute sets using equipment provided by the headline act. :\

OK if you’re an indie band, (thrash/bang/you’re my wonderwall/thanks goodnight/go home), but not much good when you’ve got Distant Train in the set!!!!

Trying to get something booked in it’s place at a more suitable venue.

Breathing Space are a great live act. They’re good enough that I’ve travelled from Manchester to York to see them, got home at 5am, and still think it was worthwhile. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with the music scene in Britain when a band this talented struggles to get gigs.

I’ve been asked very nicely to post a digital version of this flyer on my blog.

As my review of last month’s York gig indicates, they really are worth catching live. I will be seeing them at the MA convention on 25th March (I’ll actually be there all weekend), and most probably at the Gravy Train in Newton-le-Willows (of Vulcan Foundry fame!)

That band readers of this blog with have heard of by now get a mention in an Independent article claiming that in the age of downloading, the CD is far from dead.

Someone who does make a living from his albums is Bryan Josh, the leader of the nu-prog-rock band Mostly Autumn who, over nine years of diligent touring, have built up enough of a following to fill places like London’s Astoria, without any major-label assistance. This week’s Heart Full of Sky album is their sixth studio one.

“It has been full-time for five years now,” Josh explains. “We fund the band through record sales and ticket sales, selling albums at concerts and through our website. That generates enough money to enable the band to keep going. For the initial funding of an album, we make a special limited edition – the last one was two and a half thousand – and sell them first, which covers our costs. Then afterwards we release a standard edition on general release.

“If it goes as normal, we’ll probably do about 12,500 of Heart Full of Sky. Anything above that depends on publicity and radio-play. But we generate our fanbase from people coming to see us, which is the best way. We do two main tours a year, and some festivals, writing and recording the albums in between. It keeps us busy – too busy, in fact, so we’re trying to reduce the number of dates we do, but do bigger ones, because we like to put on a good light show.”

‘nu-prog’? That’s a new genre on me. I prefer the ‘York/Swansea Sound’, since there are enough bands in it to qualify as a ‘scene’.

As for the general thrust of the Independant article; no, the CD album is not dying. What downloading might kill off is the sorts of albums made up from two or three singles plus a load of filler. We may see a return to the days when the music world is split into ‘singles artists’ whose work is largely downloaded, and ‘album artists’, who will continue to sell most of their work on CD.

Fish and Heather Findlay have announced their engagement. And read the whole thing; I know Fish is an incurable romantic, but you couldn’t make stuff like this up!

After hearing of Fish’s presence in the audience at Mostly Autumn’s Astoria show two weeks ago, I’m sure I’m not the only person who isn’t really surprised by this. Congratulations to both of them.

Deep Purple don’t want people to buy their newly released album, a dodgy live album recorded in 1993 as the Mk2c lineup of the band were in the final throes of disintegration. As quoted in The Guardian:

Speaking on this morning’s Today program on Radio 4, Gillan explained that tensions within the band led to a dreadful performance on the evening in question, saying, “It was one of the lowest points of my life – all of our lives, actually.”

Gillan believes his label Sony BMG were wrong to release the record and that they were “opportunist fat cats”.

It seems that every time a band changes labels, their old record company always churns out as much cynical cash-in product as they can get away with; too often they manage to find creative ways of ensuring the band don’t get a single penny of royalties from the sales. The other victims are the fans, especially new ones, who find themselves having to sift through dozens of dodgy compilations containing the same songs in different orders, or dubious-quality live recordings.

When the revolution comes, the cynical record company executives who oversee the production of this drek will be sent to the same re-education camp in Rotherham as the people who invented DRM.