What the egghead of pop taught me
When I was a young man, I had the luxury of working for Brian Eno. Watching a documentary on Roxy Music the other night, I was struck by just how much my approach to pretty much everything bore Brian’s influence.
I went to university in York (England), studying music. Not the greatest career move at a time when the UK was at the bottom of Thatcher’s second major recession. But I didn’t care. It was what I needed to do.
The music dept at York was the perfect set-up for a job with Eno. It was like a weird throwback to the 60s - all early music and 60s experimentalism. Steve Reich, LaMonte Young, Ligeti were the soundtrack to my time there. And Brian Eno and his associates, Harold Budd, John Cale, Gavin Bryers and Jon Hassell. So when, stuck in a dead-end job at the PRS, the chance to run Brian’s publishing company came up, I leapt at it. Within a year I was in managing his management company as well. Sweet.
Brian was a hero of mine. They say you should never meet them but there was no crushing disappointment here. Brian was everything I had hoped - intelligent, curious, mercurial, erudite and charming. The range of his activities was staggering. One day he was producing U2, the next inventing generative music. I’d arrive one morning and he’d announce that he wanted to start a futurist magazine (it would have been amazing if it had happened) but at the same time we were organising a light installation in Milan. And he was writing a book and collaborating with Stewart Brand - one of the pioneers of the internet. And then, of course there was War Child, a cause he took up out of horror at the Bosnia conflict, a mere two hour’s flight from the studio.
I would describe Brian’s approach as ‘if it ain’t broke, break it’. Never repeat, always look for where things could go next, never be pigeon-holed and never be afraid to do what you’re told you shouldn’t do, because the people telling you simply don’t see what you see.
With War Child (where I still work) his attitude was simple. Charity events and products are terrible. They are rarely what you want to do that night or buy for yourself. They are sold on guilt. Well, you’re better off just donating £10 than wasting plastic on a CD you hate. So, our approach was always ‘if this wouldn’t sell without the charity element, it’s pointless’. And it worked. We did three extraordinary events. And we made the first charity record that got 5 stars across the board - ‘Help’. Tony Blair even suggested that the album had influenced UK foreign policy. Which is terrifying if you think about it.
Well, War Child is still here, 16 years after he first got involved, and that’s in no small part down to Brian Eno’s almost pathological fear of ‘boring’. And almost every day I think ‘what would Brian do, what would he say about this?’ I can’t claim to get it right every time but at least my formative education at chez Eno makes me question. At least I try not to be boring.
Thanks, Bazza.
