The Saturday List #468 - My top ten plans for 2025

Man makes plans and God laughs! That is the old adage, but hey ho, as field Marshall Montgomery once said, a bad plan is better than no plan at all. As I am rather good at making bad plans, there is some solace in this! Every year, I set myself objectives for my business, my band, my health and my fun. This year, if I had a filofax (if you are a millenial, you may wish to Google that, or even ChatGPT it), it would be pretty empty! So I've spent the last two days with my ink pot, my quill pen and a sheet of parchement working out what needs doing. So here is my list

Click image for cheap advanced tickets

1. False dotsBand gigs. I'll start here, as we actually have something in the diary! We are playing at the Dublin Castle to celebrate the bands 46th Birthday. Keeping the band going for 46 years and keeping it fresh is an achievement. Last year, we set an objective to do 12 or more gigs, we blew it out of the water, doing fifteen. I've decided that we won't set aa target for this year. I hope we'll do a few more later in the year at the Dublin Castle, play at a few local festivals. We'd love to play at some bigger festivals but these are a difficult nut to crack for a band like us! We will also play a couple of local shows. There are a few pubs we will be speaking to soon, as we have a few local fans to keep happy. We will also do a few shows at the studios and put on some local, up and coming bands with us, giving them a showcase.

2. Songwriting. Having released "A finger in the Sun" last year, we are working on our next album. Last years album was very much, for me tying up a lot of loose ends. It was a selection of Dots songs from the very start of the band, up to when Tom Hammond joined the band on trumpet in late 2023. Only one of the songs featured Tom playing. our single "We all love a party".  I wrote it before Tom joined and the trumpet parts were pretty much bolted on. Now Tom is properly integrated into the band, he's making a much fuller contribution to the process, I think we are writing songs that are very strong. We have provisionally titled the new album Groovetown and I hope to release it in November. We have four songs that are just about ready to record. I only need to write six more! As I enjoy songwriting, this is not a chore. The recording will mean less time for gigs, which is a reason for not setting a target.

3. Finish studio refurbishments. The pandemic nearly wiped out our Mill Hill Music Complex business. We had to batten down the hatches, stop all investment and cut maintenance to the absolute minimum. Last year, 2024 was the first year since 2019 that we made any sort of operating profit (less than 2% of our turnover, in 2019 it was 20%). This will be totally wiped out by the governments changes to business rates rises and NI rules. We've had to raise prices simply to tread water. In 2023/4 we have been doing a lot of modest refurbishments of studios and renewing of clapped out equipment as finances allow. We are starting to see the benefits of this. We have two studios left which need some TLC. These are studio six and studio four. They are older rooms. Ideally, we will repaint them, renew the flooring and in studio six add some natural light. The studio had severe damp problems, which we hopefully have rectified. That makes the refurbishment feasable. As for studio four, this is the worst condition property. It will be a tougher nut to crack as it is an old industrial unit with a leaky roof. But if we can sort it out, then we will resolve the one recurrant gripe that we get on google reviews (well there is the parking, but we can't really help that in London, unless we start charging and that will be even less popular!).

4. Sort out our studio retail business. The studio was the first UK music retailer to have an online presence, before it was fashionable. In 2004, we turned over nearly £250,000 mostly through selling on line on Ebay. We sold everything in auctions, starting at £1. The natural process of bidding meant we got great results and it generated huge interest in the shop. Then Ebay brought in 'Buy it now' and killed our model. We more or less stepped away from online retailing and our retail business has shrank every year since. I had more or less given up on it as anything other than a nice to have. However, we redesigned our website last year and our turnover went up significantly on the retail side. I have come to the conclusion that we actually have a decent niche business, if we can develop it properly. We do not want to become a bulk shifter of boxes, but there is a call for local music shops that give good, specialist advice. The problem is you spend hours helping people then the greedy b@ggers simply go home and buy it on line. They then turn up six weeks later asking for help when they realise their guitar isn't properly set up. We charge them to do it and they end up spending twice what they saved. It is always a joy seeing their faces when they realise that their greedy ways have cost them. If we get it right, I believe we could double our turnover this year on retail.

5. Make some money from the music of The False Dots. I've never been motivated by money when it comes to making music. I do it for the love of the music. I have always wanted to avoid making compromises in music. However, a couple of people have suggested that we could make some cash if we marketed it in the right way. I've told Mrs T that this year I'll make some serious money from it and I'll take her on a good holiday with the spoils. How? Well if I told you, you'd nick the idea!

6. Sort out my weight. Until now, all of the plans have been for music and business. Now we are on to personal goals and objectives. My weight is the biggest problem in my life right now. I weighed myself yesterday and following the Xmas and New Year excesses, I am 17 stone and 2 pounds. This is too heavy. I was also showing as pre-diabetic in a blood test in November. I rather stupidly decided to  put off the surgeries request to go to the diabetic clinic. In November I was actually 17st 13lbs. I started doing a 20+4 diet three days a week and it dropped a stone. Sadly Xmas derailed it, but I am back on track now. I will go in the second week of January and we'll see what happens then,. My target is 14st 7lbs in April. I believe this is achievable

7. Meet my gym targets. My weight has caused problems with my ankles and knees. I believe that if I can get down to 14st 7lbs, I'll be able to run again without pain. If this works, I might even start playing five a side football again. A pipedream maybe, but I am pretty convinced that I can at least get back to running. Last year, I set a gym target of doing more than 1,000km in the gym. I beat this by 80km, with a mixture of exercise bike and rowing. This was almost derailed when I damaged my shoulder in July last year, I couldn't row for nearly two months. This year my target is 1,500km. That will be 400km rowing, 1000km cycling and 100km running. The running will most likely start in April or May. I hope to start doing 5km  a week then.

8. Finish my book and get it published. It is more or less done. I just need to get some pictures and tout it around. My target will most likely be to coincide it with the album launch in November.  It has been difficult for me to write. It has stirred up a lot of old resentments in my brain. I am not quite sure whether I can put everything I want to in it. I've given it to a couple of friends for feedback and they tell me it is very harsh on some people. Can you be too homest. 

9. Be nicer to Clare. I have a confession. I take my missus for granted and don't show her enough appreciation. Whilst I am 100% sure we love each other, I often wonder if we actually like each other. She finds many aspects of my behaviour deeply annoying, including the way I speak, the amount I drink, my complete lack of effort tidying up the house, my refusal to engage with rubbish on TV like Strictly that she likes whilst obsessively watching football, that she doesn't like. I think that in her mind, I am someone else completely different, who speaks, dresses and behaves differently. That is until there is a crisis, when she realises that having someone who is not afraid of anything (apart from snakes) is a good thing. I am not one for making promises I can't keep, but I am trying to figure out how to be nicer without addressing her major beefs as listed above. 

10. To make The Barnet Eye blog better.  When I did my roundup of the years blogs at the end of December, I realised that whilst there are some rather good blogs in there, I reading the blog was rather irritating. When I started the blog, I thought that it added a look of legitimacy. Google have sought to maximise their revenue from ads and I realised that they were actually putting ads in the middle of the content and even when you first arrived, you were getting advert before you could see the blog. I realised that this was not only intrusive, but very annoying. If it was someone else's blog I wouldn't read it. I was getting about £50 a year, it simply wasn't worth the effort. When I first used the google ad service, it put an ad at the top and an ad in the sidebar. It wasn't intrusive. Like all social media companies, they have got too greedy. So the ads had to go. 

And I'll finsh this blog with a favour to you. I've removed the adverts, so your experience can be better. I never really needed the money. We'd go for a curry when we got the payments, and raise a glass to you the readers. Now I don't want you to pay for my curry, but there is something important you could do if you want to show your appreciation. The drummer in my band, Graham Ramsey lost his son Daniel to suicide in 2021. Daniel left two young children. Daniel was 28 years old. Graham has set up a go fund me page to raise the money to put up a memorial stone for Daniel, so that his children can have somewhere to pay their respects. Graham has had his own mental health challenges over the years, nopt least coping with the tragic passing of Daniel. It happened during covid. Graham had covid on the day the police broke into his flat and found Daniels body. Graham had to wait to identify it. Can you imaging that? One of the reasons the False Dots have been so active since, has been to give Graham a postive focus in life. If you appreciate this blog and put any value at all on the efforts of artists, please make a donation, however small. Lets face it, most people reading this happily spend a pound or two on a tea or coffee every day - The link is here www.gofundme.com/f/daniel-james-murphy-ramsay Please give something.

2025 - Time to Save London Music

Why am I writing this blog today? Did you know that 2024 was the first year ever when no British artists featured in the UK top ten sales charts? I was listening to Jim Davis on BBC Radio London earlier in the week and he mentioned this fact. I was absolutely stunned and devastated when I heard this. As someone who has worked in the music industry in one way or another for 45 years and who runs a music studio, it was the worst possible belated Xmas present I could receive. It has been clear to me for a couple of years that something has gone badly wrong with our music industry. I have written about aspects of this before recently. The blog provoked some considerable debate. It became clear that the problem is not the lack of great bands and great musicians, something that I'd experienced from playing at The Dublin Castle with the False Dots this year  seeing some incredible bands play with with us, as well as the all of the cracking artists passing through the studio. The problem is that, at the moment, the industry is simply not interested in promoting and developing talent. Whilst it is true that it is easy for artists to independently release music, you can get a full digital release on Spotify/iTunes etc for a tenner. The problem is that the gatekeepers, who decide what the casual listener will hear, seem to be willfully excluding anything that doesn't meet their narrow, flavour of the month tastes. Your music may be there for the world to listen to, but how do you tell them about it?

I have a wall of posters from The Dublin Castle from our gigs over the last two years. I can guarantee that 99% of the bands on the posters  are amazing, Tony, the promoter doesn't put rubbish on. Sadly, the only place you will hear most of them is on Tony's 'Tales of The Dublin Castle' radio show on 365sounds - BTW you can sign up for free, so no excuse.

Sadly, you hear no such music on the mainstream broadcasters (apart from a few niche, graveyard slot shows, when none of the required demographic are listening).  I totally get that they can't play new music all of the time, but they are massively failing in their public service commitment to 'be different and promote UK culture'. This pattern is followed across all of the BBC these days, with mandated playlists imposed on presenters. Last year the False Dots launched our new album. We spoke to some professional pluggers, who told us that cuts to the BBC have meant that there is almost no new music being played across the whole organisation, unless it is bland pop by major chart artists, who have the profile to buck the system. Of course, the False Dots are fairly niche, but ten years ago, we'd have got played on a few stations. What is more worrying is that there are plenty of up and coming bands that never get anywhere near airplay on the BBC (apart from if they win the bingo and get on BBC introducing, which most of the time means a single play to a niche audience).

Another effect of all of this is that younger people have no interest in the output of BBC stations. My kids who are in their 20's cannot understand why I listen to Radio London, when the playlist music is alien to them and they know I don't like it. When I was their age, there was a whole host of shows that were essential listening.  The art of having radio shows that is a mixture of great new and old music, in the right balance to maintain an audience seems to be lost. What worries me is the lack of trust the BBC management seemingly have in presenters and producers to play good music. 

So do younger people actually like bands, or have they been superceded by DJ's and Dance music, as a cursory listen to Radio One may indicate? From my own, experience, before Xmas, we had The False Dots Xmas gig at The Dublin Castle, supporting Radical Dance Faction. My kids came down with quite a few of their friends, for an Xmas night out. They'd not heard the music of Radical Dance Faction, but by the end of the show were all grooving to the heavy dub beats of the band. The consensus was that RDF were a very good band and the evening was excellent. For a few of the group, it was one of the few live gigs they'd been to and one commented to me "How did you hear about RDF". The band have been around since the 1980's and if I'm honest, I can't recall. It was most likely either by reading a review in NME (which isn't published anymore as a magazine), on the John Peel show on BBC Radio One (he's dead and they don't really play new music in the way John Peel did) or a mate told me about them and I checked it out. I really don't see the teenagers and twenty year olds doing that anymore in the way we did. They all listen to music but, most are not really interested in going to bands, unless the band has a profile and is already on the radar. Going to see unknown bands on spec is a bit of a dying tradition. As a music lover, I want to hear new, exciting music. If I want to listen to the Sex Pistols or the Ramones, I can stick on a playlist. What I want is to be signposted to the best new music and that is what I believe the job of radio and magazine reviewers to be,.

I am by trade, an engineer. I fix things. That is why I started writing a blog. The first stage of fixing anything is to identify the fault. So what has gone wrong with British music. It isn't that there isn't good music out there, because there is. It isn't that people have stopped listening to music, because they do. It is because the current gatekeepers of national taste simply are not interested in promoting the best British music. I suspect that the upper echelons of the BBC simply have no understanding of the British music industry at all or the importance of the BBC to the health of the UK Music Industry. 

Of course not all of the fault can be laid at the floor of the BBC. The music industry and in particular the streaming services have a lot of blame to be put at their door. The owners of services like Spotify make billions, whilst artists get peanuts. I might be inclined to feel more charitably towards them, if they put anything back and helped up and coming artists get up the ladder, but all they do is sit back and watch the royalities stack up. The EU and the US government have, over the years taken a dim view of companies that have monopolistic businesses, which take advantage of this to fleece customers. The sad truth is that new bands are forced to put music on all manner of online social media platforms and get a pittance in return. It is pretty clear to me that there is an imbalance between the profits going into the shareholders pockets and the mony going to content providers, which needs to be addressed. 

As for the labels, who's job it is to nurture and develop new talent, they seem to have forgotten that this is their reason of existing. They seem more interested in churning out a stream of fairly non distinct tunes from the current flavour of the month influencers. There is almost no interest in helping artists to become established and produce great music. Record companies used to have some of the most innovative marketing teams in business on their books. They were constantly thinking up ruses to get signed bands to get coverage from TV, Radio, music press and the tabloids. This wasn't always done in a way that was conducive to happy artists or good mental health, but it ensured that artists were given a platform and it was up to them to do what they could with it. Now, it seems to me that they don't want to make any investment. They want a finshed product that they can simply market and throw away. Where does all of this take us? To 2024 and no British acts in the top ten best selling UK tunes.

You may wonder how any band can move up the ladder at the moment? The big launch pads in the UK at the moment are the festivals. These give up and coming bands a chance, usually on the stages of the smaller tents. Whereas when the False Dots started in 1979, it was getting played on John Peel or getting on TOTP, now the Holy Grail is a festival gig. Glastonbury is the big one and if you are lucky the BBC may even show a bit of your set. The only TV opportunity that really matters seems to be Jools Holland, who has become the gatekeeper of the nations TV tastes. I can't knock Jules for his efforts, in some ways it is the perfect blueprint for a national TV music show in 2024. It introduces an established audience to a couple of new bands every week. It is great, but it is just about the only thing the BBC positively does for the UK's up and coming artists and music in any sort of 

So what can we do? The title of the blog is "Time to Save London Music". As I said, I'm an engineer and if something is broken, I look for ways to fix it. I know little of the regional music scenes around the UK so I can't really comment, but I do know about the scene in London. I hark back to the days when I started my band, in the ashes of punk. The thing that is often missed is that the ethos was not about waiting for someone to do it for you, as a band you got up and did it yourself. You formed alliances, shared information and supported each other. When things reached a critical mass, things started to happen. Last year, something happened in London. I was contacted by a guy called Dan from a band called the Neversheds. Like me, Dan was sick of the way the industry was treating up and coming bands. He decided to do something about it. He set up a network called "Band Up" which was a network of independent bands, putting on their own gigs and promoting themselves and each other. The network mainly runs on Whatsapp groups and bands share info on promotors, gigs, labels, streaming services, etc as well as organising gigs. 

It is clear to me that this is the way forward. It ain 't easy, but if bands get their acts together, organise merch to sell at the gigs and support each other, then they will start moving towards the critical mass you need to have to change things. Here is a list of up and coming Band Up! Gigs

Forthcoming Band Up Gigs

Sat 18th Jan - Fiddlers Elbow, Camden (Hosted by Foreign Shapes)

Fri 24th Jan - Lvls, Hackney Wick. (Hosted by myself, The Neversheds)

Sat 25th Jan - Cart and Horses, Stratford (Hosted by The Silent Era & is a charity fundraiser)

Fri 31st Jan - Off the Cuff, Herne Hill (Hosted by The Belladonna Treatment)

Sat 22nd Feb - Bacchus, Kingston. (Hosted by Almost Aliens)

Fri 28th Feb - The Engine Rooms, Bow. (Hosted by Life in the Dark)

Sat 15th March - Venue TBC (Hosted byTales of Perdition)

Sat 22nd March - Venue TBC. (Hosted by Sweet Anna)

Band Up has also put together a Spotify Playlist, which has 481 tracks, about 20 hours of music on now and is all original music by UK bands 

The secret power of the UK music industry has always been its abilty to regenerate itself when the people at the top become stale. They have never been more stale. When I wrote the blog last month about the state of the UK music industry, Tom, our trumpet player pulled me up and made a playlist to prove that I was wrong about the lack of great new bands (in truth I wrote the blog to provoke such a reaction).  Everyting is there and ready. All we need to do is take a leap of faith, get out to the gigs, download the music, buy the merch and listen to the stations that play it. If you consider the UK music scene to be something important, then the way to save it is to get out there and support it. If you don't, may I suggest that maybe you need to get out a bit more, before life just passes you by!

I'll end this particular rant with a request. Please come and see my band, The False Dots, for our 46th Birthday Party at the Dublin Castle on Sunday the 16th February at 2pm. It will be a blast! CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND TICKETS

2025 - My predictions and resolutions!

I always have some fun at the start of January, with some predictions for the year. In past years, I've done these on a month by month basis. This year, I am simply going to make a set of predictions that I believe will happen by the end of the year.

Politics

Donald Trump will not end the Ukraine war on day one of his presidency as promised.

Keir Starmer will raise taxes on businesses by even more in the next budget, as well as nicking more cash off pensioners.

Nigel Farage will continue to be the bloke most invited onto #BBCQT whilst claiming that the 'mainstream media' gives him a hard time.

Sir Sadiq Khan will continue to annoy people of the right and will raise tube fares again for ordinary Londoners

Sport

Manchester United will not finish the year with their current manager

Manchester City will win their case with the Premier League

Arsenal will win nothing

The Weather

Winter will be cold and miserable and at the end of it, we'll be told it's the hottest winter on record.

Summer will be wet and miserable and at the end of it, we'll be told it's the hottest summer on record.

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My new years resolutions

1. To lose 14kg by April

2. To get back running on the treadmill by April

3. To release a new album by The False Dots in November

That's it for today!

Happy 2025 to all the friends and readers of the Barnet Eye!

 So here we all, safely through to 2025! We are doing our usual trip away with friends. This year, we are in a rented mansion near Stratford upon Avon. We've had a lovely couple of days, but soon set off back to sunny Mill Hill to walk our doggies (the kids have been taking care of them). Last night we had our traditional New Year takeaway curry. Not quite up to the Mill Hill Tandoori if truth be told. but very pleasant none the less. I've taken a bit of a break from my diet of late, sadly it all starts again today. We'll have lunch then it is back to the 20+4 regime that has lost me a stone in a month! By this time tomorrow, I'll no doubt be most grumpy!

I was reading last years message and was reminded of a rather disturbed nights sleep and a nasty dream. I am pleased to report, this year, I slept like a baby, although I did have a truly bizarre dream. I think it was inspired by a scene in the new Wallace and Gromit film that we watched before the Hootenany. I dreamed that I was part of a team checking the sewers under the White House in the USA, ahead of the inaugeration of Donald Trump. Oddly, my daughter Lizzie was part of team as well. The rest were top Admirals and Generals from the US Navy and Marines. For some reason, I was the boss and I'd brought Lizzie to give a 'different perspective' on the risks to Trump. I had a massive argument with the top General who wouldn't let us into a secret chamber in the network. In the end, he opened up and to my surprise, it was an empty brick chamber with nothing in. Lizzie started teasing the General saying he clearly didn't know what was down there, which he didn't take very well. All rather odd. Then I woke up. It may (or may not) surprise you to learn I have no experience in sewerage systems or presidential security, although I once met the US Navy Secretary on a business trip to Washington. Nice chap, into Ice Hockey. If Trump gets blown away by an exploding turd fountain on his first day of office in the White House, they'll wish they got me & Lizzie to check it out properly!

Last year I wrote these words in teh equivalent blog dicussing my break from boozing for the first two weeks of the year "In truth, I really don't feel like drinking at all at the moment. We had a lot at Xmas and I was looking forward to the two week break I always have at the start of the year. We had a really busy December and it was cathcing up with me. Normally at this time of year, I make New Years resolutions. I have decided that this year I won't. There is a saying that "men make plans and God laughs". I have things to do, the band have gigs lined up and a single & album to release. The studio needs some major improvements, that we put off until we knew that the business had a future. We need some serious work on the house. I really feel like I need a couple of weeks in the sunshine somewhere."

This was interesting. I feel exactly the same about drinking. Last night, I had a relatively tame night. I had some IT admin on the studio website that had to be done this morning, which meant I needed a clear head. The band got their album out and did some cracking gigs. We did some of the work needed on the studios, but the finances are still 'difficult'. We've been forced to raise prices substancially and we need to see whether this works. If it does, we have a business. The feedback from customers so far has been good, but we will see, We need to raise our revenues by at least 15% simply to break even in 2025, once the NI and rates changes kick in. If this happens, we will do some more refurbishments and push on. If it doesn't, then we will need some serious restructuring. I never got that holiday in the sun last year. It is needed more than ever this year.

I usually feel positive going into a New Year, this year I feel very pensive. I don't want to go into it here and now. I just hope I'm wrong and it's a classic year. Looking at the bright side, The False Dots have our first gig lined up. I have a brand new song to present to the band, when we start rehearsing. We have a few gigs booked that look good. 

Finally, my hopes for the new year? All I can say is that I hope the idiots we seem to keep electing in the UK and elsewhere receive some divine inspiration and start governing for people rather than bankers and their rich mates. I hope that our religious leaders step down and hand over to people who don't think noncing is OK. I hope that the people who run football wake up to the fact that without fans, football is nothing. They need to put fans ahead of TV companies. I hope my family and friends all stay healthy and are happy. After a year packed with elections, it seems that it is likely to be a quiet year. Be grateful for small mercies!