Voicing the X Factor
What a madhouse the Cheryl Cole/Simon Cowell school of hype is. It seems that the success of American Idol has been too much to handle, Simon thought he would be missed and clearly no one gives a toss! Tyler, Lopez and Randy dog have given it such a new lease of life that it’it’s become more popular now than it has been since the early days. It all makes for an interesting time ahead.
Cheryl Cole, for the Americans that don’t know used to be on the UK X Factor and became a bit of a star. Never quite worked out why with such miniscule talent but that’s what happened. It didn’t last too long though and the backlash had already began so Simon Cowell decided he’d break her in America. Very good for his ego, he must have been feeling a little lonely out in the cold and starved of adoration. Let’s have them write about how I am the finder of talent and please share my Cheryl Cole fixation. Apparently they didn’t care what he thought and neither did Fox so after a very lame performance in rehearsals they wanted her out. Ego’s this huge don’t take kindly to a battering and daily front page headlines in the UK reporting the madness kept the public talking. Sadly, and for all the wrong reasons she was starting to get known here in the US. As a reject!
The publicity machine rubbed it’s ugly hands and saw all this as perfect fodder to start the ‘He’s back’ furore. The interesting thing however, is that while he’s been away not only has American Idol come to life again but the new NBC show ‘The Voice’ has been very well received both by the media and the public. Why? Well because it’s very good actually and doesn’t have a very opinionated ‘You sound like you should be on a cruise ship’ judge together with his vitriolic put down.
So let’s leave it there for now, the jury is out on this one. Will X Factor achieve the kind of success it did in the UK? After all there was no ‘Voice’ there to compete against when X Factor became so popular. This will be a huge challenge for Simon Cowell. He isn’t stupid, that’s for sure and a little publicity whether good or bad he’s hoping, will go a long way for him. All the way to the bank.
Seeing Bowie
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Risk
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Challenges
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So it Goes, a tale of two Tones
I’d met Tony Wilson properly in 1978 when he was at Granada TV and one of the anchors on their local news program. Within the format they used to have a What’s On section which Tony presented……. which strangely enough was about what was on in the area regarding music, the arts etc. Tony had been and gone with So it Goes, Granada’s attempt to oust the BBC from their dominance of music on television…… more detail to come when I approach music on television, a worthy topic in itself, and something I remember fondly because of the people in television it introduced me to.
So it Goes had started in the summer of 1976 and had a second series run in 1977 only to see December bring it’s last ever show. When Iggy behaved rather outrageously and Granada was fending off criticism from the network Tony too was done with it and agreed it had run it’s course. With Granada being a TV station governed by advertising it was always treading dangerous waters. To give them their credit they always were more adventurous than nearly anyone out there for many years before and after So it Goes.
What Granada did and Tony especially was to break all the rules, it was anarchic and certainly the right show at the right time. I think more than anything what it did do was give Tony a buzz and make him want to be part of the scene that was developing. With his partner Alan Erasmus they started the Factory club in legendary outskirts of Manchester that was Hulme…..I say legendary because less than 100 yards away was the BBC Playhouse where I took U2 for their first UK radio session. In 1962 this was where The Beatles recorded their first radio session too, and the first time they wore those Beatle jackets! It was an old Victorian music hall, and although I’m not positive I think The Beatles played in front of an audience……..can you only imagine what it would have been like being there. I say that because I was familiar with what an incredible building it was and throw in it was the start of the sixties…..wow but 9 was far too young for my mum and dad to let me be out late!
I think Tony and Alan were captivated by CBGB’s in New York and the Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, The Ramones…..all the stuff that So it Goes had exposed him to. Prior to that Tony was in to Van Morrison , Neil Young,Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen and brilliant as these guys were this was something totally different and very visual with it. I love Van the Man, but the word visual doesn’t always spring to mind….. They wanted somewhere to put bands on and managed to get a Friday night at The Russell Club which became The Factory for that one night……Andy Warhol recreated in their own home town. There were some amazing nights there, although I do remember wondering if my car had been stolen each time I went to a gig there…..something that later on happened once again every time I went to The Apollo in Ardwick.
Joy Division played there in October 1978 and I remember Tony turning plugger on me. After I’d been bending his ear about putting the B52′s, Grace Jones, Eddie and The Hot Rods n all on TV he was now telling me I had to come down to his new club….not only that he’d put me on the door…..and all I was thinking was that I was terrified I’d have my car nicked. I’m glad I relented.
Brooooce is in the house
Looking back rarely did a day go by where I didn’t hear of or didn’t tell, a story. It’s left me wanting to phone everyone I ever knew to fill in the gaps. Just this week I received a note from Tash, my pal from back in my A and M days. We’d been to few gigs together, notably Springsteen and U2 and I think ironically enough, the last one we attended was when The Boss popped along to see U2 supporting Talking Heads at the Hammersmith Palais. Springsteen had just finished his River tour and delayed his return to the US….methinks that makes it 1981?
I made the trip down from Manchester especially and my photographer friend Kevin Cummins came along too. Even though U2 weren’t big then it certainly turned out to Kevin’s advantage, much the same as on Christmas day in either 76 or 77 when he went along to see the Sex Pistols in Huddersfield. Kevin had a knack of being at the right place at the right time and how wonderful, not only to have the photos but also to have built up a memorable archive….. and made some money at the same time.
The Talking Heads /U2 show was enough just being there but it turned in to a magical evening. Bruce was mingling in the crowd in his beret and T shirt (well he had trousers on too) and although he was recognized by the crowd, they said hi and left him alone. He was there for the same reason they were and they respected that. U2′s set was good but I do remember the sound suddenly dipping a little after they’d been playing for 30 minutes…it’s never good for the support act to go down too well so sound levels nudged down a little. Bono was parading around the stage and making the audience pay attention, something he’d perfected from day one.Brucie boy was nodding away and clearly having fun. He had got in to U2 quite early on.
After the show I stuck my head backstage with Tash but Bruce had beat us to it and was deep in conversation with Bono, so we left them to it. Adrian Boot was there on behalf of Island that night and got the shots of them with Bruce which appeared in the music press. There’s a particularly good one which made it in to the U2 tour book and I have some great shots of my own which Kevin gave me.
My wife Marie was a huge Springsteen fan and although I knew Springsteen was going to be at the gig, I made no promises…she’d have died to have been there. After the show had ended we ambled out in to the street and who was there on his own with his legs dangling out of the van but the man himself. We went over and said our hellos, what a lovely down to earth bloke Brucie boy was. I asked him to autograph the back of my ticket to Marie and he duly obliged…..and only last week when I recounted the event to Tash she said ‘do you remember you didn’t have a pen.’ ‘No’ I said. ‘Do you remember who lent you one?’ ‘Er, no’ I said once again…..’Pete Townsend’. oh my God, I had no recollection whatsoever, apparently she hadn’t kept her ticket stub and Bruce had signed her hand. She told me she didn’t wash it for a week.
Makes me think how normal huge stars compared to todays wannabees ….another idea to write about in this reality crazed world of ours
Kids and gigs U2 at Gateshead
Well it looks like I got my daughter’s birth date wrong but I got all confused with my dates in the previous bog. I do know Jessica was born on 9th August 1982 so that makes the Gateshead, U2 and The Police gig the end of July and 82 not 83. That year, 1982 from that show through to Redrocks on 5th June 1983 was a crucial year for the band. They’d just started to make an impact in the States and Redrocks turned that right around for them. MTV and their new channel Showtime showed Redrocks in it’s entirety instead of a clip as was originally intended and it kick started things from there on.They also did the Midsummer nights Tube a couple of weeks after Gateshead as well as a prior Tube performance in the March.
That’s all incidental, I was talking about daughters and births so to finally repair any damage meant that me and Marie were following the band out on the October tour ..we did the same on the War tour but for the purposes of being factually correct and in the context of the blog….October. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t started….I must check dates before I start to write.
What I do remember about the gig was that it was far from sold out which was weird because for Sting it was a bit of a homecoming, The Police had been out on the road for years and this was supposed to be a celebration. I also recollect The Beat, Lords of the New Church and Gang of Four being on the bill. The Gang of Four were really good that day and U2 were great…but I do confess to a bit of bias. I have some brilliant photos which I’ll get round to posting, Bono being passed around the crowd above their heads and Adam’s famous haircut…certainly not top of any bill !
Bono saw every opportunity from day one to connect with a crowd, to make them pay attention and for hem to watch everything he was doing. He was a great front man and what he lacked in singing ability back then was more than compensated for by his charismatic stage presence. Their tour manager Dennis Sheehan hadn’t started to work for them then and they had an old school friend called Tim taking care of that function. There were two guys I remember, Tim and a guy called Pod, no his initial wasn’t I. Bono used to climb the PA and wave the white flag and it was impossible to stop him. Time and time again his manager as well as the rest of the band would tell him to stop it, he could fall……..and time and time again he agreed but when show time came he just went off and did it all over again. That day the PA stack was particularly high and Bono was up on the scaffolding and shinning his way along to the top of the columns. Never mind anyone else, I was shitting it ……it looked very precarious.
Away again I drifted in to U2 live stories which should give me more than a good excuse to remember those brilliant times we had back at The Edge…………that being the name I awarded to the family home. It seemed appropriate for the time. I remember once doing an interview somewhere and someone asked me why did I call my house The Edge……’Well Bono is a pretty stupid name for a house’ I replied.
Tales from The Edge about me , Radcliffe and a bunch of notable suspects will be forthcoming.
One man was an Island
Last year marked the 50th celebration of Island Records and while that in itself is worth celebrating it makes me wonder what exactly is being celebrated. It also triggers off very found memories of Island 25 and the time when Island really was Island and it’s founder Chris Blackwell stood proudly at the helm. That was a wonderfully festive time celebrated by the coolest TV show of it’s generation ‘The Tube’…. Oh how we danced. What made it special was it was celebrated by the people who had played a part in it’s success. For me, and I doubt I am alone in my opinion it ceased to be Island the day it’s founder Chris Blackwell sold it.
It always seems weird and somehow wrong when people retain a name that rightfully they have no claim to, other than they paid for it. Why in fact is it still called Island at all? It irritates me really because Chris Blackwell has nothing to do with anybody that they sign, it’s an insult to his legacy. They could sign a pile of shit and it would sour his reputation…..probably not but you get my drift. I doubt they have a ‘no crap clause in the contract….we’ve paid for it, it’s ours , we’ll do as we see fit. Island Records was his vision and his dream and now it’s a corporate brand that doesn’t make it much different to any other label…..except that they are using the name.
‘ I am just a dreamer and you are just a dream’… Neil Young ‘Like a hurricane’
To all of us that worked there we were dreamers and Chris Blackwell’s Island was our dream.
One man was an Island back then and we were all happy to be shipwrecked there. Chris Blackwell was our Robinson Crusoe and we were all his men/women Fridays. He saved us from EMI,Warner, Sony(CBS as it was back then) eating us up!
Bidding for your singer!
OK let’s do normal for a minute….well maybe not then. I often used to think wouldn’t it be great if there was a transfer market in the music industry much the same as in soccer. When you get Real Madrid paying around 75 million for Ronaldo, what could the boy Bono go for? Can you imagine if Radiohead took a dip in sales and they put Thom Yorke on the transfer list and bid 30 million for Bono. It could be a straight payment, part swap where Thom goes to U2. Maybe they even part ex drummers. The popularity of a band might dip if they knew the singer had been transfer listed, it would keep everyone on their toes though.
Just think if Pink Floyd were still touring they could have two subs. If Dave Gilmour lost his voice and it went ‘Comfortably numb’ then they could bring on another singer with a number 12 shirt on. It would be a strategical managerial decision, Dave wasn’t cutting it and his manager would lift a card at the side of the stage and at the end of the number, pull him off. The audience would be cool,they’d understand……it’s tactics
You could make it even better if the band didn’t announce their squad before the gig so you’d have no idea who the sub(special guest) was. It could even change the result, there may be extra time….no penalties though, that may be a little harder.
Look at the publicity, you’d have the photo of the manager and his new artist leaning over the contract and the headline ‘Bono goes to Kiss for 30 million’ If you had someone like Robert Plant who was a great singer but getting on a bit he could maybe go to The Jonas Brothers on a free for the season. What would happen if Sheryl Crow blew it in rehearsals and she was dropped on the night, and her backing band went on and did just instrumentals. If a singer was drunk and off key he could get sent off and again the band would have to play instrumentals. You would have to be strict in the event of a sending off, naturally you wouldn’t e allowed to bring a substitute singer on. It would be the equivalent of playing out for a scoreless draw away from home.
Of course you could get a scenario like Nicolas Anelka though when he was swapping clubs every month,that would attract the greedy agents. Every time an artist went to a band they’d get their 20% so it’s in their own interests for them to move around. It could get messy though because you could have a situation where a four piece have four different managers. It makes it interesting though, don’t you think?
I’m off for a little lie down now……….
