The New Big Plan

On the sunny day back in July (2017) as I sat in my garden reading David Byrne’s wonderful book, (if you haven’t, please do), synchronicity clicked in and for the first time in a couple of years my great friend Jeremy emailed to say it was time we met up.

Ninety-percent of Mr Byrne’s book is about exactly what it says on the front: How Music Works. Ten percent is a chapter on how the Business of Music works; specifically, the many and varied ways in which a musician can market and distribute their work and importantly, what kind of incomes and liabilities these can generate. He reckons his long career has spanned all six main methods, from an all-encompassing, old-fashioned “Standard Royalty” deal with a major label, to the total Do-It-Yourself way, the artist paying for and arranging EVERYTHING. Delightfully, he was happy to name names and show how all the money-math(s) panned out. Fascinating stuff to anyone who’s ever been remotely interested in making a living in music.

Since summer, researching for my own next steps, I’ve been struck by how much and how speedily things have changed in the five years since I was last up-to-speed with it all and I noted that even this revised version of his book might be now three or four years behind the times, but I decided his assessment was a great place to start my New Big Plan.

Jeremy & I met up that week. He’s a fellow self-starting, autodidactic polymath and indie music entrepreneur. We did the same thing musicians of all ages tentatively do when they get together after an absence: I played him some of mine, he played me some of his and I was instantly reminded how inspiring it can be to have a conversation with someone who understands exactly what you’re waffling on about. And how rare it is too, the further away you move from that late-teen musicworld, when it seemed everyone you knew was a fellow aspiring Rockstar.

We’re of a similar age and time; we met in 1987 as a pair of just such fellow aspiring/competing songwriter/engineers at a splendid little recording studio in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Later on, mid-‘90s, as I executed the latest in a long line of overwrought Masterplans (this one resulted in the “Britpop” band Blunder) I drafted Jez to be the live musical director (and bassist!). Twenty years later, like myriad re-formed bands of the period, it’s comforting to find we’re simultaneously compelled to “have another go” at the music game. “Scratching the itch”, he calls it.

I briefly told him of my nebulous new plans for a third BTF album and he reciprocated with his idea to market his couple of decades’ worth of commercial, ambient and broadcast music tracks whilst working on new pop songs to license for sync. fees and publishing.

As we parted, full of new ideas and optimism, he put me onto Cooking Vinyl’s excellent “Future of Music…” forum: expert panel videos, available on their website. I settled down and got stuck in to watching a couple (easier than actually DOING something, eh?) and hearing the first-hand opinions of today’s “players” caused further scales to fall from my eyes.

Now fast-forward to a Friday last month in Manchester. After we’d taken a self-portrait photo outside the Night & Day Café on Oldham Street commemorating our first return to the scene of Blunder’s triumphant debut gig in 1996, the pair of us, currently well into our respective new plans, strolled down to Methodist Central Hall to attend Manchester’s Off the Record music conference; more panels, similar content to CV’s: streaming, licensing, distribution, broadcast, touring, labels, digital marketing and so on. This time, “in the flesh”. Panel members were a good mix of locals and nationals, small and really quite large (Heads of Music Licensing at Sky TV and the BBC spring to mind.)

After my weeks of intensive research, I was pleased to find myself familiar with a lot of the content of these discussions and it was satisfying to have some of my hypotheses echoed by those supposedly in-the-know. Chief Fundamental Take-home Message was:

If you’re not an “Adele”, no-one has got a clue what to do any more.

I don’t for a minute mean that to sound like the negative, bitter comment of a failed provincial wannabe – instead, provided you have accepted that there is very little chance of ANY income from ANY source and that YOU are now paying for EVERYTHING, this means that the world is, in fact, now your oyster. You can make your plans for your label, your band, your tracks, in an isolated and self-contained way, specifying exactly what you want to do, when and how – and then, simply go ahead and execute it. Want to release an album worldwide? Go ahead. Stream it all on Spotify? Sign an open-door publishing deal for TV or Film licensing? It’s all out there. Play festivals? Tour Europe? Get your credit card out and fill your boots!

A bit like private health care, if you are prepared to pay for it, every service now exists to help you facilitate this. All you have to do is: EVERYTHING.

Inspirational quote of the day came from Elbow’s drummer Richard Jupp:

“It’s like the ‘60s again!”

When we’d had enough, we trundled off to the station and away home. All fired-up, I pulled out my ream of notes, sharpened my pencil and condensed it all into the finished article: my New Big Plan. I'll give you a quick tour next time. Meanwhile...

Rule Number Two:
Never leave the site of a good idea without taking action...

Well, I can start now.

James