Have you ever watched a band and thought "They're great, why aren't they top of the charts?". Having run a studio, managed artists and played in a band for fourty six years, I've seen hundreds of bands and artists who I was convinced would hit the big time but didn't. People have often asked me why I thought The False Dots didn't make it. At various points, we had line ups that certainly had the potential to do bigger things, but like many bands, we made bad decisions, had fights and split up or just were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When we made our first demo with Alan Warner of The Foundations at Lane Studios, we were convinced that we would hit the big time with it. We had a simple strategy to get signed. We made a list of the labels we wanted to sign to and turned up on their doorstep with a ghetto blaster and said we wouldn't leave until they listened to us. The two that I still recall clearly were Rough Trade and Chiswick Records. We turned up at the office of Rough Trade and made it clear we were going nowhere until they listened. I can't recall the name of the chap who had to endure our demo, but at the end of the tape he said "Sorry mate, it's not our thing". Pete Conway demanded to know why. He responded that we were a bit too "mainstream pop and commercial" for them and they preferred stuff that was a bit more 'out there'. Pete's response was "So what you are saying is you want stuff that will sell less records?". The bloke just stared at his feet and we shuffled out.
We were a bit deflated as we both liked Stiff Little Fingers and The Monochrome Set as well as The Rough Trade ethos.
Next up was Chiswick Records. The label was set up by Ted Carroll and Roger Armstrong. They gave us a cup of tea and a biscuit, listened to the stuff and said "You need to do more work on the material, we like your attitude but it sounds like what we were doing last year, record some more stuff and come back". We took this as a thumbs up, rather than a brush off. We immediately went back and started to write some new material. By the time we recorded our next demo, Pete had left the band. I made my way back to Chiswick Records, played Ted Carroll the new material. His first question, asked with a touch of disappointment was "Where is your mad mate?". I explained Pete had left. He said "That's a shame, he had attitude". The second song on the demo was a track called Fog. I'd borrowed a synthesizer and replaced all of Craig, our new guitarists tracks with synths. Paul Hircombe sung it. Ted Carroll loved it and suggested this was the way forward. He said "Come back with a few more tracks like that!". The problem was that I didn't have a synth and also that Paul hated singing live. Things stalled and we never went back.
I discussed the response with Craig. His response was actually pretty sensible. He said "Let's write a set of material we can play well at gigs before we go back to any labels, we don't want to embarrass ourselves". At the time, I had to concede that he was probably right. In hindsight I have concluded he was absolutely wrong. We should have begged, stole and borrowed synths, put together a strong three track demo and gone back to Ted. A deal would have facilitated making the band fit for purpose. A bad decision.
Two years later, we had another go at the labels. Eleanor Caine was singing and we recorded a sort of sub Blondie demo. The idea was to make something that would get us a deal. All we succeeded in doing was making something that didn't really cut the mustard. I played it to an A&R guy called Golly Gallagher, who was very nice about it, gave me some good advice but was quite brutal in his assessment of the band. "You won't get a deal with someone who looks like her singing". He also said "If you are going to write catchy pop songs with a female singer, you can't have such morose lyrics, so decide what you are trying to do". He added that he liked it and if we could sort those things out he'd be more interested.
A year later, Eleanor had gone, Venessa Sagoe had replaced her and the band was truly amazing. We had put a really dynamic and exciting show together and we did an amazing gig at Dingwalls. At the end of it, a bloke called Dennis approached us and offered to act as our manager. He said he'd put us in the studio and get us a deal with EMI. We did the demo, and he went to work. The only problem was he stopped calling. We waited for the gigs and the deal and nothing happened. Eventually, I tracked him down and asked what was going on. He simply said "EMI said Venessa was too fat and too black to be a pop star". I was devastated. I thought she was brilliant. I also couldn't tell her what had been said. In the 3-4 months that we'd been hanging around waiting for Dennis, we'd lost momentum. That was really that for The False Dots chasing deals.
A decade later, I was managing a band called The Sway. I thought they were brilliant. They had a great front man in David Casson and a great Britpop sound. To my amazement, none of the big labels went for them. I was given a few reasons. The main one was that they lacked a really strong single track. All of their stuff was a bit too album material. So we signed with a bit of a dodgy indie label and put two singles out. Despite a lot of plugging, they did nothing. They got a fair bit of regional air play. About two years after I stopped working with the band, I met a record company A&R who had been looking at them. I asked if they could tell me why they weren't interested. The answer was illuminating "All of the labels already had bands like The Sway and they last thing any of us needed was another one to worry about, if you'd been around a year earlier, we'd have bitten your hand off". Wrong place, wrong time.
Fast forward to 2011. Connie Abbe was working with The False Dots. We recorded a couple of brilliant tracks, with a view to trying to get Connie a solo deal (and have a bit of fun on the way). We did a couple of great gigs in Camden and I approached a label to see if they were interested. The response? What really disgusted me was that it was the same as the response to Venessa in 1984. I concluded that I really didn't like the industry.
I am long past the point in my life where I dream of record deals. I was speaking to a customer of the studio recently who had been working with an aspiring artist. It had recently gone rather pear shaped. After he left, I concluded to myself that the music industry is one of the nastiest, most vicious and least forgiving industries on the planet and as far as I am concerned, the citizens of planet Earth have been denied a lot of brilliant music by te gatekeepers, who preside over what the masses are allowed to listen to.
Back when The False Dots started, Pete Conway had a really novel idea "Why don't we rob a bank and use the money to start our own label, where we sign all the brilliant acts that no one else will touch witha bargepole". These days, anyone can release music on electronic platforms for mimimal costs. It is great to see such democratisation. The only problem is that artists earn almost no money from these platforms. That is the next hurdle. Anyway, here is the video we did with Connie. I will go to my grave believing she should be a superstar!
