Tops' Blog

Going Up and Going Down

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:04:00 -0400

Oh, hello. It’s been a while.

Today I want to talk about football and the MLS. I know, to some it isn’t real football - or even real soccer - but it’s the only live football we have here in North America.

In particular, I want to discuss passion - and the lack of it in the MLS. Not in the stands but on the pitch. Now this can’t be put down to the relatively poor skill levels on display. There are many worse teams in the lower reaches of the English league system and what they lack in ability they definitely make up for in raw emotion. Very raw in some cases. No, I think it is down to a lack of incentive. And that can be explained by one simple fact: you can’t get demoted in the MLS.

Last week I went to two TFC games, both against Vancouver. The first was a regular league game. It was 22 men running around but clearly not killing themselves for a win. The next game was the Voyageur’s Cup final. The difference was startling. Suddenly there was action, excitement, end-to-end football and goals. Why? Because it mattered if you won the game.

For MLS teams like TFC, it’s fairly obvious - from about the fifth game of the season - that you won’t be going to the play-offs. And at that point, because there’s no relegation, it doesn’t matter if you lose every game - there’s no consequences if you’re bottom, other than fan irritation.

For an English team relegated from the Premier League, it’s a disaster - not only because it means second tier football the next season but because of the serious financial hit the club takes. This means that there are terrible consequences for both the players and the owners. And because of that, the owners invest and players play their hardest.

Because the MLS copied the set up of every other American team sport, the owners only have to react when fans fail to show up. And the fans in North American sports tend to turn up (hello, Leafs fans). But football needs relegation battles - it what’s keeps the season interesting and it’s why European fans keep coming back to support the biggest losers. The MLS should change the system. No-one was born a TFC fan. We’re not invested enough that it isn’t easy to vote with our feet.

John Lennon Speaks Zen

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:48:28 -0500

I finally got round to reading the amazing last interview with John Lennon in the December 23rd issue of Rolling Stone. I’d love to link but I can’t find it on their site, sadly. Anyway, I’ve always thought he was a bit of a tiresome peacenik but this interview made me remember that he was actually one of the more intelligent musicians we’ve been blessed with. I highly recommend finding it, if you can.

Anyway, at one point he recalls a zen story that Yoko once told him. It made total sense to me, particularly the way I write (not necessarily this blog but definitely for work). Here it is:

“A King sends his messenger to an artist to request a painting. He paid the artist the money, and the painter said ‘OK, come back’. So a year goes by and the messenger comes back and tells him, ‘the kings waiting for his painting,’ and the painter says, ‘Oh, hold on,’ and whips it off right in front of him and says, ‘Here.’ And the messenger says, ‘What’s this, the king paid you 20,000 bucks for this shit, and you knock it off in five minutes?’ And the painter replies, ‘Yeah, but i spent ten years thinking about it.’”

I love that story - it is exactly how I try to explain to people my writing ‘technique’, if you can call it that. Yes, I may look like I’m dicking about - reading books, or the paper, or blogs. But actually, in my mind, it’s fermenting. At some point, I’ll just know what I want to say and I’ll immediately have to find a piece of paper, or a computer, or whatever. And then it’s done, generally, in the first draft. At least that’s the way the best pieces come out. Sadly, people always want it in an hour. That’s how the lame writing happens…

I did an interview last year

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:20:32 -0500

It got printed here last week. Enjoy.

Bad Gifts Don't Save Lives

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:45:00 -0500

So, here, rather late, is the War Child Holiday Gifts campaign. It launched a while ago but, being rather slow, I’m only getting to it now. Anyway, don’t buy crap this holiday give something worthwhile. You know it makes sense.

Videos are funny, too…

When it all came together...

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:51:29 -0400

So, 15 years ago today we were number one on the UK album chart. Well, because it was a compilation album they refused to put it in the actual chart, but the day before, War Child’s Help album had sold 72,000 copies - more than any other album in the country had managed over the previous six days. It was all pretty amazing. Help went on to raise $2.5M for Bosnia. Tony Blair gave it an award (we still quite liked him in 1995). The BRITS had to make up a new award.

The album had been first discussed about a month before, just after the Srebrenica massacre hit the headlines. It was the brainchild of my good friend, Tony Crean. We all thought Tony was crazy when he said we should get the top stars of Britpop together on one day in September to record an album. Oh, and release it, physically, five days later. This, remember was pre-internet. No-one had email. There was no file sharing. The whole thing had to be organized by fax and recorded on tape. Although, to be honest, we didn’t know any different back then.

Anyway, a week after that first meeting, Tony came back with Oasis, Massive Attack, Portishead, Paul Weller and, I think, The Stone Roses, confirmed. The Roses had spent five years recording their last album. Now they’d agreed to record a song in a day? Yeah, right.

What can I say? The rest is history. Twenty tracks were recorded on Monday, 4th September and released on Saturday the 9th. In the end, they all signed up - Blur, Radiohead, the Manics, KLF, Sinead. The Roses did make it on deadline. Even Macca got involved. He joined Weller and Noel Gallagher at Abbey Road to record a version of Come Together. With Johnny Depp on guitar. And Kate Moss on tambourine. It was that kind of day. The best of days.

You can read about what we achieved in this Observer article. And you can listen to it at War Child UK.

I don’t normally write about work on here but I thought this anniversary was worth breaking the rule for. I hope you agree.

Let's have a listen to Robyn!

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:00:00 -0400

So, in case you hadn’t spotted it, Robyn’s new album leaked all over the interweb today. Rumour has it, it’s the first of three albums for 2010. This is a very good thing. We like Robyn.

So, let’s take a little listen - it’s not very long, so this shouldn’t take long…

Track one is up and running. So far, a lot of things are killing poor Robyn. More importantly, she’s listing each and every one of them. She’d also like you to know that she’d rather you didn’t tell her what to do.

The next one is the single - the one about tech stuff, just for the geeky boys and girls. If you haven’t heard it, here it is:

Oh dear, Robyn’s spotted her ex-BF snogging another girl. Poor love, at least she’s dancing but she seems a little sad, if we’re honest.

So, this next song seems to have about three choruses. No-one’s going to complain about that. It’s about crying as well though. You may think from this that it’s a miserable album but it’s actually very pop and really quite a toe-tapper….

So, now she’s gone all dancehall. Well, dancehall in a Scandinavian stylee. So a really quite blonde and white kind of dancehall. She does occasionally try out a Jamaican accent, though (clue: she’s not very good at it).

Ooh, Royksopp! This is all quite dark because Robyn is bored in whatever town she’s in. Probably Quebec City. The club she’s in sucks, the girls aren’t stylish and the drugs don’t work. You can see why she’s not very happy.

Oh, so now we’ve got the acoustic ballad! It has strings and everything. This is the breakup song. Sob.

OK, so this last song is in, I’m guessing, Swedish. It sounds like a a folk song and I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that it is. Wow, a Swedish folk song. It is neither sad nor dancey but it is kind of cute. However, it won’t feature in many playlists, at a guess.

That’s your lot. Quite short but, as I said, the first of three Robyn albums this year! Yay! I have to listen to it again now…

The Word and other stories

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:18:00 -0400

So tonight’s post is an ode to a lost age. It was an age when music mattered more than life itself - kinda - and when those who documented it were like gatekeepers to a secret garden.

At this point you think I must be talking about the 60s or 70s but that was before my time. No, I’m thinking about the next decade and a half. My coming of age period. I would like to claim - and often do - that I grew up listening to The Smiths, New Order and The Fall. But who am I kidding? No, my 80s in not so sunny Manchester in the early 80s had a different soundtrack - hello, Soft Cell, Human League and first ropey period Bowie! When later I developed what I thought was taste, I was disdainful of my youthful folly. The first (and last) record review I ever wrote was a scathing indictment of Let’s Dance. Oh the shame when a girl I fancied introduced me to the wonders of the thin white duke.. Writing it down now, it’s not such a bad list. There was more - Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet (GOLD!) and A-Ha. Yes, you may mock but that Take On Me video was like looking into the future. It wasn’t, but hey, I was a kid.

But back to the point. The 80s and early 90s were the last period of truly great music writing. OK, it wasn’t Julie Burchill and Nick Kent, granted. But it was still Smash Hits at it’s towering best and Sounds, the NME and the Maker were still a must buy every week. It was writing by people who were writing about stuff they loved. Stuff you may never have heard of but the enthusiasm and wit of those writers would send you out to HMV - and whatever the dodgy cheap import store was - with the sense that unless you got that record you were missing out. That you’re life was incomplete. That somehow the world was a step ahead of you unless you came home with that 7 or 12 inches of vinyl.

But that was then and this is now. And now I’m in a country that doesn’t really do music journalism. Not that the UK is better - the NME is practically unreadable. But there is still hope and that hope has a name: The Word. It’s a magazine that every ex-music journalist I know either writes for or subscribes to. Or both. It’s a collection of the best writers from that period writing about stuff they love because, well, that’s the point. Just read this opening paragraph from editor, Mark Ellen:

In the formal, fully indemnified world of the modern music business, you’d be unwise to put your manager in a drum case and roll him down the stairs. There would be repercussions. Rumours of “unprofessional conduct”. Suits and counter-suits. Names blackened forever. Yet this is precisely what happened when Robert Stigwood arrived to “help produce” the album Fresh Cream.”

How can you not read on? It’s just stunning writing. I want to pin it to the door in my office and tell everybody ‘this is how you start an article/press release/post’. And the quality and passion run through the entire magazine. It’s rare that I don’t read every word of each issue, regardless of the subject matter. It’s like a masterclass in how to write engaging copy.

It’s not the only example. Mojo Magazine is more worthy but still hires the likes of Charles Shaar Murray and Paul Morley. My great friend Paul Gorman writes an astonishing blog on fashion and music at The Look. Neil Mason, one of my oldest friends and former Maker/NME scribe, blogs passionately about new music at My New Favourite Band. And, of course, the spirit of Smash Hits is kept very much alive at Pop Justice.

It’s just a great, great shame that the baton never got passed. That the decline of the music industry went hand in hand with the decline of proper music writing. Should I really have to pay $14 to get what used to cost 60p? And as for Toronto - Now is headed for the Dumpster.

I did an interview the other day

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:16:06 -0500

I think it turned out pretty well as a War Child 101. Thanks to J.P. Douglas at 56 Rebels. And thanks to a creative collaboration between @photojunkie and @brundle_fly for the image…

How a girl called Sarah turned me on.....to amazing old music.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:22:00 -0500

So, on Friday I met a new friend who we shall call Sarah, for that is her name. Somehow the conversation around the table got round to the subject of favorite music. You know, how it used to be back in the day - favorite band, best album ever, perfect song.

And that’s the point of this post. Much as this new, instant update, totally connected, ‘me and my community’ world has made sharing the new black, do we share like we did ‘back in the day’. Yes, we are constantly fed the thrill of the new, the latest gadget, the best new social possibility (hello, Google Buzz!), the best new everything. But - and I accept this is an arcane point - has anything come close to the sharing possibility of ‘the mix tape’?

Ah, heady days. The joy of a clean C90, a record/CD collection and the possibility of introducing friends, family and partners to (a) genius tunes and (b) your impeccable good taste. The hours people of a few generations spent making perfect mix tapes could have kept major economies running for years. But they fuelled a love of music in a way almost nothing does today.

Apparently, the whole thing was illegal - ‘home taping is killing music’ was the catch phrase. But in reality it was the social glue that kept me - and the people I knew - hooked to the power of the perfect pop song. I cannot even begin to list the music I was turned onto by mix tapes. But let’s just give an honorable mention to Billy Mackenzie, while we’re here.

And what’s the equivalent now? blip.fm? Hardly. There’s nothing. Nothing that requires that much time and effort from both the creator and listener. For a while there, you couldn’t even FFW through tracks - you had to listen to the whole 90 mins to find that one, true gem that would push your taste in a whole new direction.

Anyway, back to Sarah. She raved about an album I would never have found - Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music by Ray Charles. Insisted I had to buy it. Wrote it down on paper and insisted I emailed her my favorite song. So I did buy it and it’s amazing. I don’t know what my song is but I’ll get there - I’m only on listen three. But that was the nearest experience I’ve had in years to the joy of being turned on to genius by someone’s passion for music.

Turns out we are also among the few people who consider 1963 by New Order to be a total, 100% solid classic. But that’s another story.

So, new hashtag anyone? I’m thinking #faveoldrecord. Mine? Hmm…next post, I think, need to spend some time on this…

Thank you Sarah.

What the egghead of pop taught me

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:53:00 -0500

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.

Changing The Game. Which Game?

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:23:00 -0500

All the talk around the iPad (other than name jokes) has been whether it’s a game changer. Well, is it? That depends on what game you’re talking about. It may be, if you’re just talking about how it will affect the consumer habits of the ‘connected’ and affluent tech-heads in the west. Maybe it will change the way you surf, read magazines, play games. Hell, you might even be able to take pictures with it one day.

But is that the only game here? Because the implication of all these new tech developments is that it is ‘making the world a better, more connected place’ and that the social web means we’re all just a click away from speaking truth to power, albeit in 140 characters.

But isn’t this missing a crucial point? Isn’t it ignoring a fairly large constituency? Like most of Africa? And large swathes of China and India? How connected do they feel? How will the iPad change their lives? How many of them have heard of Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr?

If we really want to talk about a connected world - and let’s face it, a lot of people blithely throw that phrase around - shouldn’t we be looking at how we can make it a reality? Wouldn’t a real game changer be comprehensive electricity coverage? Or a cellphone network that worked outside the major urban centres? Shouldn’t we be looking at ways to get technology working for the poorest, using our skills in cooperation with theirs to help them lift themselves up.

The gap between the connected and unconnected grows every day. And it contributes significantly to the growing chasm between the North and the South. I’d like to see more entrepreneurs looking to use their abilities to reverse this trend. I’d like to see development agencies embrace the the idea that people from outside their closed society may have a contribution to make outside of monetary donations. I’d like to see north and south collaborating and sharing ideas, so that the promise of our new connected world is not a private members club that only the rich can play in.

A pipe dream? Maybe. But Open Development has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?