The life cycle of a band.

Stage one

Band forms with hopes of fame, riches and artistic integrity. Band members contrasting personalities seen as ‘a good thing’

Stage two

Band starts meteoric rise to success. Diferent agendas emerge. Although fractious due to long hours trapped in the back of a splitter bus the band are ‘united by their love of music’. They respect each other as people and musicians and are a ‘family’

Stage Three

Band are offered a record deal on the condition that they sack the drummer because ‘he doesn’t fit in’. Band immediately sack drummer citing ‘musical differences’

Stage four

Local press report ‘band signed in million pound record deal’. The reality being that the band have signed a five album deal, with the record company having an option to drop them after the first single if it doesn’t do well. The £1000000 advance is actually £150000 for the first record and the rest divided between the following four records if they don’t get dropped in the interim. The album costs £50000 to make. Out of the remaining £100000 the manager takes 20% leaving the four band members with £20000 each to last them for the lifecycle of the first record which will be approximately 2 years. Each member of the band is earning a magnificent £10000 per year!

Stage 5

The album is a huge success selling half a million copies which earns the record company about two million quid. The record company spent half a million on advertising, making a video and tour support. The band are owed five hundred grand in royalties (most bands make an average of a pound per record) but this goes back to pay back the record company (they also still owe the label £150000 from the initial advance).

Stage 6

Often at this stage the band are dropped, owing a fortune or the cycle begins again with a new record with the four hapless band members at the mercy of an A&R department’s whim for their future security. Just as a final amusing twist, even if the band pay back ALL the money they were advanced from the record label they still don’t get ownership of the recordings they’ve paid for.

The moral of this story is…..

Well without getting heavy about the whole thing, most musicians are unaware of how difficult it is to make a living in the music business when they first pick up a guitar and start dreaming. Unfortunately, over the last 5 years the public have become slowly convinced of the fact that music should be ‘free’. This has been exacerbated by the record companies giving away CDs free with newspapers and historically by overpricing CDs (as well as some CDs having one hit single and many dreary ‘fillers’). Whereas I doubt many of you reading this would sneak into a gig or steal a guitar from a musician, every time you torrent an album you are often making the difference between a band’s survival or demise. In the case of Radiohead giving away their album, it’s a ‘loss leader’ for the ensuing tour, which is now the only musical experience (except merchandise!), which can’t be had gratis. A band at Radiohead’s stage of career is in no danger of penury. It’s the bands such as Farrah and other bands in a similar position hat have the most to lose by the ‘freebie’ culture as they are on the periphery of the mainstream. Often these bands are self funded and do not have a major label behind them. In these cases especially you are stealing money directly from the band rather than a faceless evil corporation which can sustain this kind of loss.

New year resolution?

Go and see more gigs (buy a t shirt) and if you torrent a record and like it, buy it and tell all your friends to buy it as well!

Happy New Year

Good lord, this Christmas excess is catching up with me. I’m in York today suffering with an immense hangover after partying til 6a.m with lots of dear friends. Every year my mate Mike who used to be the bass player in Farrah organizes a Christmas dinner. He bills it as ‘the works-do you actually want to go to’. It was held in a pub and much revelry was had by all. I have vague recollections of performing a spirited version of the Christmas classic ‘Mistletoe and wine’ which I seamlessly segued into Shakin Steven’s ‘merry Christmas everyone’.

My friend Richard invented a new drink by mixing Vodka and red wine together. He described the tipple as a ‘very very very strong Rose’ he then attempted to kiss everybody. The highlight of the night was a singalong to ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ and Mike’s speech, which I imagine he can’t remember.

Today I’m getting to grips with Logic 8. Which is an audio sequencer and seems pretty straightforward even for someone as hungover as me.

Tomorrow I’ll be in town to have a Christmas Eve pint.

I hope all of you have a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year!

Hello all, long time no blog. Apologies for that. What have we been up to I hear you all say? Well…

We've got a new drummer for a start off. He's called Dana, he's fantastic. Mike left the band to pursue other interests and we all wish him the best with that.

We've been gigging a whole bunch in Spain over the last couple of months which has been amazing. Such great crowds and splendid tapas. We have a couple of gigs coming up:

• The Purple Festival in Northern Spain on Sat December 7th
   
• The Purple Turtle in Camden Town, London on Fri Dec 21st (supported by The Culture and the 45 revs - download a flyer to get in cheap HERE)

We hope you can make it down.

Keep your eyes peeled for our brand new website. It will be up soon!

Trying to write songs is a bit silly. It's not like a proper artistic pursuit like sculpting a face of Jesus out of elephant dung or writing a performance poem about earth worms. Met a good friend yesterday and she'd written a list of things she had to do and things she wanted to do. The list of things she wanted to do include painting a fish (we narrowed it down to a painting of a fish) and writing her book. The list of things she had to do include sorting out her tax and payslips. Such is life's rich tapestry. We all spend a lot of our lives doing stuff we don't want to do in order to spend a little time doing what we love. Today I've been trying to write a song. A songwriter I know says it's akin to having a poo. What I wrote was crap so I guess he's right.

Went to see a friend's band called 'The Return Of The Furies' last night at The Clapham Grand. They rocked. They had some really complex and interesting arrangements and some killer riffs to boot. . The night before I went to Camden to see a mate's band. They were supported by a 5 piece rock band who'd obviously flown in from the 80s on a magic carpet. They were unselfconsciously like Def Leppard. This is both amusing and upsetting.

We got review in Mojo this month which gave us three stars (this, according to their rating system means 'good'). Although it was a positive review I didn't really understand some of it. It said we were 'quaintly and unselfconsciously out of time'. We're actually totally conscious of the fact we're 'Out of time'. Ironically if we sounded 'of the moment' we'd sound like 'Television' or 'Joy Division'. This would be impossible for us because of our fear of 16th hi hats. I'm pleased we're not flavour of the month, it hopefully means that we won't be flavour of last month either.

What I'm really amazed by is the fact that Mojo gave us a review at all. We're a tiny band on a tiny label so good on them! I think there are a couple of hundred releases each week. The other reviews we've got have been really great and we're had a bit of radio play on radio 2 as well.

It's like climbing Everest this whole small band against the music industry world. Actually it's more like carrying all our own equipment to base camp to see all the bands on bigger deals arrive in helicopters with loads of sherpas.

We're from Yorkshire, we thrive on hardship.

Ahh, the famous words of JFK as he stood by the Berlin wall mean 'I Am A Doughnut'. I've just got back from Berlin and I've made many linguistic mistakes. It's the first time I've been to Germany since working a as a washer-upper in a Hotel when I was 18. Back then I hitched there and listened to the Beatles, this time I flew there and listened to MP3s of The Beatles so not that much has changed.

A warning to vegetarians about German foods; The German chef will try and secrete meat in the most innocent looking dishes. Peas (shredded ham), a cheese sandwich (schinken will often nestle under the cheese). It's like a sick game to test a vegetarian's skill. The trick is to eat in the abundance of great Thai and Vietnamese restaurants there.

There's so much to see in the German capital, I wish I had a week there. There's so much tumultuous history in one city. It's hard to believe the wall existed when you go there now. I really recommend it to anyone who likes beer, art and history.

By the way, the album is out and is getting some great reviews. To all of you who have bought it, I hope that you like it. We're really proud of it and already wondering what the next one is going to sound like…

Message to God. Thanks for the rain but you can stop now.

Hello everyone, we've just been on a whistle-stop trip to Spain and had a great time.

First on the schedule was a Radio show on Spanish National Radio. We were invited on DJ Charlie's evening show to choose some songs to play. For an hour we had the chance to broadcast songs by everybody from Brendon Benson to Feist. It was a great show (especially the large quantity of fine quality cerveca).

After the show we headed off to see our friend Santi Campos D.J in a club. I can't remember too much after this…

When I woke up, I realized I'd left my jacket somewhere. I just don't know where. That afternoon we drove to Valencia to play at Club Wah Wah. We were supported by a great band from Madrid called Belco. The music was reminiscent of Wilco, Josh Rouse and Ryan Adams. The show was fantastic. Everyone seemed to know all the songs and we saw a fair number of punters afterwards who had seen us before. There was one couple there who had 'First And Last' as their wedding song. I was flattered and confused as it is a song about breaking up with someone!

When we woke up the next day I realized that we'd left our brand new and very expensive backdrop hanging up at the venue. I hope we can get it back. I have visions of it being used as a Farrah duvet cover.

The show on Saturday was after a long drive back to Madrid. As a band of erudite individuals we spent the journey trying to remember the theme tune to Magnum P.I and arguing about where and when the first queue in the world was (I'm convinced it was Stonehenge when they'd just finished it). It was Euro Gay Pride festival all weekend so the atmosphere in the city centre was amazing. Unfortunately for us, the City centre was closed off to traffic so we had to lug the equipment through the thong wearing throng of people. Even though many men were quite muscular, not one offered to carry an amp!

The show was short but sweet and we caught up with a lot of friends from the many other times we'd played in Madrid. A few vodka and tonics later, Mike and I exited the club bleary eyed to be confronted by 100000 gay men all trying to hail a cab. We wandered the streets for an hour before a kindly cabbie took pity on us.

My hangover on Sunday was quite severe. After a fantastic lunch at the home of our Record Company boss we sadly headed back to the U.K. We're always sorry to leave Spain as the people are so into music and the shows are always great fun. I think we're planning to head back in October.

Hello everyone. How are you all? We've all had a hectic couple of weeks. We've been gigging in Liverpool and Madrid and we had our launch party for the record at the legendary 100 club on Oxford St. It was a fantastic night. The place was rammed with people and we played really well. It was great to see so many of you there. We really appreciate your support.

We really hope you like the video for Fear Of Flying. It took us a long time but we're really proud of it. If you would all have a look at it on Youtube and send the link to everybody you have ever met then we have a chance of getting some momentum!

On a completely different note, I met Chris Difford (the amazing lyricist from Squeeze) yesterday and had a fantastic chat with him about song writing and his experience of the music industry. He was a really lovely and frighteningly talented guy. There's always a worry if you meet your heroes that it will be a letdown. It's fantastic when they inspire you to improve your writing.

On a final note, please buy our record. It's out on Monday!

I’m delighted to tell you all that we’ll be holding an exclusive album launch party in the heart of London on Wednesday June 6th. We’ll perform some songs from Cut Out And Keep and there’s even a rumour that there will be free drinks!

It’s an invitation only event but if you want to come, keep your eyes on the site for details of how to get a ticket.

Have a great Sunday

jez

Hello everyone, although all might seem quiet, in fact we’re busy preparing for the launch of ‘Cut Out and Keep in the U.K’.

I’m impressed by the amount of you who noticed that Avril Lavigne ripped us off for her new single “Girlfriend”. It shows a remarkable similarity to ‘I Wanna be Your Boyfriend’……..

My brief interlude moonlighting for ‘The Click 5’ has resulted in me co writing 3 songs for there sophomore album which comes out in July.

Look out for a few shows in the U.K and Spain coming up. We’ll be playing a lot of new tracks off the new record.

I hope all is splendid with you all

Keep on Rocking!

Jez

P.S. Farrah's football team York City (don't laugh) have reached the playoffs of the Conference league. fingers crossed that they defeat the mighty Morecombe tonight!

So here we are playing in our third continent in as many weeks. Our show was originally booked for last Friday but we were bumped off the bill because the guitarist from Midnight Oil stole our night. How Australian is that?!

It’s been cool in a way, as we’ve had chance to see the best this beautiful city has to offer and act like tourists for a few days. Michelle has been telling us for years that Sydney was ‘Oztopia’ and much as I wanted to be disappointed, I couldn’t really disagree. The climate is great. The food is excellent, it has beaches and bars galore, everyone is easy going and friendly. It makes you sick!

After a week of sleeping and drinking I was itching to get on stage again and the gig was great fun. We were supported by ‘The Gronks’ who include a few members of Montana (Michelle’s old band who are ace) and ‘The Ancient Marinators’ a Sydney band who had some great tunes. We were playing in a pub called ‘The Cat And Fiddle’ which was pretty full of pretty pissed people and I had a ball on stage. I can’t believe it was the last gig of the tour and I have to endure a 24 hour flight to the U.K.

I really hope we have the chance to go back to Australia, it’s a fantastic place

What an amazing show in Tokyo! Where do i start? Well firstly, we'd heard rumours that the show had been selling well as the tour progressed. When we got to the venue we we're blown away. Unit held a few hundred people, had had a fantastic stage and great sound and lights. We arrived at the venue to see flowers sent to us from our friends in Asian Kung Fu Generation and from Sony Publishing. It's so thoughtful. As soon as we hit the stage i knew it was going to be good fun. We played everything at punk speed and the audience were moshing along. Afterwards i was whisked off to do a show presented by Kaela Kimura. She is a huge star in Japan and i was lucky to write a couple of songs with her earlier this year. She also sang on 'No Reason Why' Her show was a real laugh. We sang live on air together on air which was a huge buzz even though i was a bit knackered as it was gone midnight. After the Radio show we headed to the Farrah aftershow party where Andrew had been DJiing to an intrigued (and possibly baffled crowd). there we so many lovely people there from the show who i had photos with. By 4 A.M i'd drunk enough to take over the wheels of steel to play an ill advised and eclectic mix (van halen anybody?) We staggered back to the hotel at 6.30 A.M after Michelle's 'Jazz dance' interpretation of Xanadu. I was tragically pissed. BANZAI!

Okay, I admit it, I got pissed last night and have a mild hangover, which has been partly cured by eating noodles on the train platform. It was a late one last night and we had a great time.

Nagoya is a huge industrial sprawl and home to Japan’s Toyota factory. It’s about an hour from Tokyo on the train (we’re on our way to Tokyo for an in-store at Tower Records in Shinjuku today). The gig was the most rock ‘n’ roll we’ve encountered so far. The backstage toilet didn’t even have a warm seat. It was a tiny club but had a great vibe. I get the impression that Nagoya likes to rock, or perhaps to rockabilly. We didn’t have much time to explore but did encounter some guys dancing in the local square dressed head to toe in black leather and sporting astonishing quiffs. They’d set up some speakers in the square and were trading Elvis moves (including some back-flips and break-dancing). It all seemed quite surreal.

The first support band was MJ Classical, but I missed their set as I got lost from the hotel to the gig. The other support band, called Golden Goose, was an astonishingly good metal band (think of a more accomplished Iron Maiden played by 18 year olds). The musicianship was awesome and made us look very shabby by comparison.

We changed the set around a bit, which hopefully keeps it interesting for the fans that come to every show and it keeps us on our toes. We blasted through the songs at breakneck speed and the crowd was fantastic. The promoter, DJ Hideo, was a really cool guy and his wife Michiyo presented Steph and Michelle with beautiful sleeping eye masks she’d made herself. Every member of the band was also given gorgeous lucky rocks and gifts by Moe (a fan who has been to lots of the shows).

We ate at a really fantastic restaurant after the show. It has some of the best food I’ve tried in Japan; yam in raw egg, garlic miso, marinated shitake mushrooms… it just kept coming (as did the Sapporo!). We then staggered to another club until stupid-o-clock to sample the local tipple, which is a shot of gin in a pint of lager. I think there was some dancing. It was a really memorable night until that point. Now it gets a bit hazy.

More news tomorrow.

Jez x

Hello again, sorry about the delay in getting these on the site. We haven’t had the internet for a couple of days. Last night we played in Osaka and had a fantastic time. Osaka is the second-largest city in Japan and has a real up-and-coming feel about it. Fast cars and cool clothes abound. It also has some of the most amazing neon signs. If anyone has seen the film ‘Bladerunner’, it has a look of that film about it. The people seem to enjoy spending their money. Our Japanese friends tell us there is some rivalry between Osaka and Tokyo about which is the coolest place to live. It’s brash, loud and a consumer heaven!

Once again, the gig was absolutely rammed but unfortunately I overslept in the hotel as I was knackered after our laed night in Hakata and missed both support bands (Totos and Afterpilot). I hate turning up late to shows, as I like to see the other bands and see if there’s anyone there!

The gig was really great and the crowd seemed to know a lot of the new songs. ‘Do You Ever Think Of Me’ always gets a huge reaction. You never know which songs from the record are going to connect with the crowd until you get on stage. ‘Dumb Dumb Ditty’ is also loads of fun to play live. We sold out of T-shirts and the fans were so lovely.

After the show we all went to eat. It’s a great Japanese tradition that after the gig, everybody from all the bands eats together. The food was amazing. We were served all kinds of tofu, noodles, kippers and even chips, which is quite unusual for Japan but Osaka is a potato-growing area.

Tomorrow is Nagoya.

See you then!

Hello again, I’m once again writing on the bullet train. We’re on our way from Hakata to Osaka after a crazy show last night.

Hakata is one of my favourite cities in Japan. If Tokyo is über-cool and Osaka has a tough upwardly mobile vibe, Hakata’s populace seem to focus on ‘having a good time, all the time’. The staple diet here is ramen noodles, a thick white soup made from ground pork bones and consumed with eager slurping and spicy pickles on the side. I sampled the vegetarian version, although my taste buds definitely detected porky undertones. It was just what we needed after battling through a blizzard to make our first radio interview of the day. Our label has made sure we’re kept busy this tour and there’s hardly time to catch our breath between interviews, meet-and-greets and sound check.

The British Pavilion night at Kieth Flack is legendary in Hakata. Overseen by bowler hatted-Carnaby-Street attired DJ Terry (who we dedicated the song ‘Terry’ to), it’s a celebration of English pop and rock music, which seems to go on until no one can drink any more. The place was absolutely rammed by the time we hit the stage at 12.45. The hardest part of the night was the fact we had to wade through the heaving sweaty crowd to get to the stage. It took about as long as the set to do that.

The show was great, hot and vibey and we chatted and signed stuff until the early hours. A 9am lobby call means I’m going to try and catch some shut eye as soon as I can.

It’s pretty amazing to be back on tour again after spending most of last year in the studio recording Cut Out And Keep. It’s like being in two different bands in a way. The studio based Farrah is quite poppy, thought out and methodical but the live show is a lot more rock and hopefully gains in attitude what it lacks in subtlety!

We had our first show in Okayama last night. Okayama is an industrial city located quite near Hiroshima. It took five hours from Tokyo by high speed bullet train to get there. As always, we were met at the station by people to help us with our equipment. In this case, it was the members of Comatose, (one of the support bands) who helped us to the hotel with our guitars and bass. We arrived the day before the show so we had a rare evening off. We were taken to a great Japanese restaurant near the station. The food was ‘oishi desu’ which means really tasty. Being vegetarian can be a pain on tour (especially for the poor organisers who try and locate meat and fish-free for Michelle, Mal and me) but the restaurant had great tofu, deep fried edemame, cheese in tofu wrappers and (of course)cold beer. You’ll be pleased to know that I’m drinking again after a month off. I am back to my inebriated self again.

We got up the next day to have a tour of Okayama Castle and the surrounding gardens called Koruko-en. These gardens are meant to be one of the three best gardens in Japan. They were really serene despite the sub-zero temperature and biting wind. The castle was bombed in the Second World War but a replica made of concrete stands in it’s place. After the castle we popped into Tower records to sign the wall of fame and buy our own single! Yohei Kikkewa is the singer of Comatose and he also works at Tower. He’d done a great job getting Farrah racked out and on the listening post

We we’re playing Okayama’s new club called Image and were the first non-Japanese band to play there. Whenever we play in Japan we’re always amazed by the meticulous attention to detail. Image had great amps and Kit, a carpeted stage and even a backstage toilet with a self-warming seat and choice of flushing sounds!

The club was rammed and after great support bands (The Telepathys and Comatose) we played a really good show. The audience seemed to know the new songs from Cut out And Keep (probably better than we do) and we signed a bunch of albums after. I’d like to say that after the show I partied hard and snorted cocaine of dwarves buttocks but tragically enough I went back to the hotel and washed my pants. Rock and roll. This morning I got up stupidly early as my body clock is still a bit weird. The hotel breakfast is traditional Japanese fare of Rice, miso soup, pickles and oolong tea. A sickenenly healthy start to the day.

I’m writing this on the Train to Hakata. We’re playing a club called ‘Keith Flack’ tonight. It’s the third time we’ve played there and we’re still non the wiser as to why it’s called this ridiculous name. Perhaps the mystery will be solved tonight, perhaps Keith will be there. Stay tuned for more exciting updates tomorrow.

Sayonara

Jez

Everyone was rocking at Image tonight! The club was great and the Telepathys and Comatose played great sets. The DJs were cool too, and we had lots of fun meeting everyone after the show. Thanks to everyone who came up and said hi!! Right, next stop Keith Flack in Hakata tomorrow night, or tonight really... Good night! Love Michelle xxx

Hello everyone, i hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. This is a very exciting time for the band. We're finally playing some of the songs from the new record live. We played a show in London on the third and we played six songs we'd never played before. Besides me forgetting the lyrics occasionally, i think we survived. Thanks to everyone who came to support the band.

We've got more shows coming up in London, York, Madrid and then we head over to Japan and Australia. We've been rehearsing a lot as the new songs are pretty complicated for our simple brains.

I hope to see some of you at the shows. I hope you enjoyed the little teaser of 'Fear Of Flying'! We had a great time making it (except poor Andy who was still editing it when he was eating his Christmas dinner!)

Keep on rocking!

jez