Rock and Roll Stories #68 - The changing face of getting people to come to gigs

 As a band with a four decade legacy of geting people to come and watch us, I was thinking about the way grassroots bands interact with their audiences and get them to come to gigs has changed over the years. Ever since The False Dots first started, the basic proposition has been the same. Come and see us and you'll have a great evening. Perhaps our biggest strength is also our biggest weakness. We are a great live band, we have always got a good audience engagement. But our secret weapon has pretty much been that as a lot of people who come know each other, it is also a chance to catch up. But people only come to gigs if they know about it. You could put The Rolling Stones on at the Dublin Castle, but if no one knew, then no one would go. You have to get the message out and create a buzz.

When The False Dots started, this was easy. I was still at school, as was the rest of the band. We simply told all our mates at school and they came. For the first coiuple of years of the band, this ensured we'd have a decent audience. By the time we got to 1983, most of our friends were at Uni or we were not in contact. however, we'd built up a bit of a reputation and a following. People would see our name on a listing in the NME or Melody Maker and just show up. I'd also ring up all of my mates. Most people who liked music, read the music press and gig listings. Promoters knew we'd pull a few people in and they'd put us on with decent bands. Getting gigs was not a problem. 

By 1987, things had changed. Our music was out of vogue, our mates who had been music nuts were doing other things and the younger generation were not interested in our style of music and stupidity. Promoters were not interested unless we paid to play. We'd still get a few people along, but the days of 100 fans turning up were gone. I'd ring my mates, they'd promise to come and then not bother. In 1990, I was fed up with it all and we stopped playing until 2002. 

In 2002, we restarted. It was meant to be a one off gig, to raise money for the family of my former business partner, Ernie Ferebee, who had passed away. Facebook wasn't really on the scene, but as it was for Ernie, we did a big ring around. The gig at the Red Lion was packed and loads of people we'd nots een for years came. Rick Collins, who promoted it, put ads in the Music press. It seemed nothing had changed, but we were on the cusp of the digital age. The band was not particularly busy, we did 1-2 gigs a year, mostly to mates. 

By 2007, many people were signed up to platforms like Facebook. I failed to spot the potential initially for band marketing. However, in 2008, when I started this blog, I had my own platform. The music press and its role promoting music was diminishing. By 2018, the NME stopped printing. Whereas previously its gig listings were the bble for muso's, it became irrelevant. Facebook changed and evolved. There are all manner of special interest groups, these are well suited to music fans. If you like Ska music, you join groups that focus on that genre of music etc. Bands post links etc. 

I can't recall the last time I rang up a mate to come to a  gig. We do engage with the printed press. We have a good relationship with The Camden New Journal, who have kindly supported the band. However, the main way of engagement is by posting in online groups. We also get a lot of support from radio. We do a lot of work on On Line Stations, such as Rock Radio UK, and also get plugs on BBC Radio London. My view of such things has always been fairly promiscuous. We try everything to get gigs mentioned. It works. People we've lost touch with turn up and re-engage, but it requires a fair bit of work. 

I am amazed at how lazy many bands are at self promotion. Many seem to think that people will magically turn up to see them, They won't. People only come if they know about it and are given a good reason to part company with their hard earned cash. But that only goes so far. Once they are at the gig, you hve to ensure they have a good time and want to come back. There are two elements to this. The first is that you have to be entertaining, but the second is, you need to find an audience that likes what you do. The best live band I've seen is The Ramones, but at their peak, they supported a well known heavy rock band on a tour. They went down like a lead ballon (not a Led Zepplin BTW!).They were simply playing to the wrong audience. Do your homework!

What is undoubtedly true today though, is that when you play a gig and ask people along, there is much more competition for peoples attention. When we started playing gigs, people would come along because it was relatively cheap and there was not much else on. We figured out eaarly on, that if people had a good night, they'd come back and often bring a friend or two. We also learned that if we had a bad gig, all the good work could instantly be undone. Our first truly terrible gig was on the 18th August 1980. We had been promoting gigs at the Harwood Hall in Mill Hill, this was the third. It was so awful that we never did another one there. We also changed our line up and made sure that we were ready for anything. We did a few duds, but it wasn't because we weren't prepared. At Tumba Gymansium Stockholm in January 1982  , the PA blew up. At the Prowlers Rally in October 1984, it was a bike rally in a Marquee and the temperature was freezing, it was too cold to play guitars and they kept going out of tune. Those sort of things you can't control. What you can control is knowing the songs well enough to deliver them in an entertaining way. I think we've never missed the mark again. 

There are a few basic rules to try and follow. Don't over gig. People will get bored if you gig all of the time. We try and ensure that we only gig four times a year at any venue and if we have a friendly promoter in an area, we only gig for them. We try and build up a degree of trust. We also find that some people will only come to certain venues. 

But if you really want to develop, there is a secret. Network with other bands. Make alliances. The False Dots have several mates that we've done lots of gigs with over the years. We've introduced our fans to them and a few of their fans now come and see us. This has always been our ethos. When we first started, we used to invite a band from Edgware called The Vektors to play with us. They had a really solid fan base and we became mates. You can see one of their early performances supporting us  at The Harwood Hall here. 

We also were mates with a band called "NO Biscuits" and did a few gigs with them. They headlined at The Bald Faced Stag in Burnt Oak for a CND Benefit gig. Here is The False Dots peforming at the same gig. You'll notice a healthy audience at both gigs.

Why Donald Trump has proven the conspiracy theorists have got it all wrong

 When I was a wee nipper, my favourite program was Gerry Andersons UFO. I loved the idea that there was a secret organisation with bases on the moon and a hige military infrastructure that no one knew existed. It sparked a lifelong interest in the subject. I had assumed at the time (around 1969/70) that by now, humanity would have reached the stars and made contact with Alien civilisations. I used to read all manner of books and magazines on the subject. This was to some extent futher encouraged by my Dad, who was a WW2 bomber pilot and was also fascinated in unexplaonable ariel phenomena. He'd not seen such things, but knew people he trusted who had. Hiss view, based on his experience as an officer in the RAF was that all manner of things that were difficult were covered up. There are still plenty of files that have not been released from the period for reasons of national security. I can understand some of these. For instance, papers related to the Manhatten project, where the US developed nuclear bombs are probably best kept secret.

This convinced me that there was all manner of dodgy conspiracies going on. When the internet first became popular, I trawled for all manner of weird and wonderful tales. There is so much stuff out there, that is real and verified and totally unexplainble, which hints to conspiracies. My favourite is the fact that there are traces of Xenon-129 on Mars, a product associated with nuclear weapons. There is plenty of plausable evidence that Mars once had a civilisation and it was destroyed by nuclear war. There is also plenty of other plausable explanations why this is a load of old cobblers. The truth is that until we acutally explore the planet properly we can't be certain. I am always highly suspicious of scientist who given mundane explanations for such issues, when it is clear that they are speculating in the same way the conspiracy theorists do. 

But I have to say my interest in conspiracy theories has waned to some extent. Not because I believe the official line on UFO's, the Kennedy Assassination, The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, etc. The reason is because it is impossoble to get to the bottom of any of it, With AI, there is no such thing as a trusted source. To categorically prove anything, we need evidence and if it can be mocked up and forged by a bored 7 year old, to a level that can fool experts, is it worth worrying too much about?

When I was a kid, conspiracy theories were entertaining diversions for people like my Dad, who had inquisitive minds, knew a bit about the subjects and were prepared to read a lot. Dad would get books by authors such as Eric Von Daniken and devour them. Sometimes he'd summarily declare them "a load of old cobblers" as he'd find the riddled with obvious errors. Others fascinated him. Being familiar with firearms, the details of how JFK was shot fascinated him. His view was that it was highly unlikely that Harvey Oswald shot him. The theory that America didn't land on the moon was just raising its head around the time Dad passed away. He explained to me exactly why it was cobblers. The USA was in a Space Race with the USSR. By the simple process of triangulation, the USSR would have spotted the Yanks were cheating and would have humiliated them. The RAF used triangulation to bomb Berln, it is a relatively straightforward concept.

But now the conspiracy industry is different. People do their research on Google and Youtube. They generally know nothing of the technicalities of the subjects. All you need is a plausable story and a reason why the information needs suppressing to build a conspiracy theory that will fly. Conspiracy websites. When I first started looking at the net for UFO stories, I found a wonderfully entertaining site called rense.com. I'd check it every day for the latest stories. I doubt I've looked at it for ten years. But I did as I put this together. It still has some of the stuff about evidence of nuclear war on Mars, but little of that is new. Most of it concerns conspiracy theories about Donald Trump, Israel, Ukraine and Covid.

I guess I realised fairly quickly why I stopped looking at such sites. The more I look, the less interested I become. What I have come to realise is that the whole thing has become an industry. In truth, much of it is click bait, trying to lure people into buying 'alternative' therapies by undermining trust in qualified experts. It seems to me that the whole UFO issue etc, is simply a gateway to lure people in. Once in, they are bombarded with information suggesting that if you follow treatments prescribed by doctors, you will get cancer and die, and you should be taking various suppliments instead.

The other strand is that there is a dark governmental conspiracy, leading us all towards doom and destruction. What shocks me most is the fact that a cursory glance at the history of the last ten years completely debunks this notion. I have come to the conclusion that criticising Donald Trump is a complete waste of time. I don't believe he has a clue what he has doing, or even why. Many have pointed out the continual U-Turns and shifts in position. I don't believe he's ever consciously made a U-Turn or changed his position, as I don't believe that he can actually remember what his position was previously. He simply looks as the situation as it is today and makes a simplistic decision based on current facts. I believe his advisors are either too scared or to lazy to point out the contradictions. I suspect that they know the best way to get on is to simply tell him he's a genius. One of my favourite clips on Youtube was a chimpanzee with a machine gun and a bunch of paramilitaries. They are all laughing and joking, until the Chimpanzee finds the trigger and starts shooting them. 

If there is a dodgy cabal that was pushing for Trump, I suspect this is the situation they are now in. Much of the mantra of Conspiracy Theories centres on a "New World Order". If there is, it has gone spectacularly wrong. Both Ukraine and Iran have shown that tanks, fighter planes, etc are so last century when it comes to warfare. The new game is cheap drones The US economy has, for nearly a century, been geared around the arms industry, where the USA is second to none. Trillions have been spent on all manner of fancy weapons, yet Iran is thwarting them, with drones etc, which they are knocking up for peanuts. Russia is learning a similar lesson. You can have the fanciest weapons in the world, but if they are the wrong weapon for the battle you are fighting, you will lose. France learned this with the Maginot line. The USA learned this in Vietnam. Both the Russians and Americans learned this in Afghanistan. But the same mistakes are made repeatedly. 

So who is makinhg money? The answer is obvious. The people who make and sell weapons. They do not want a 'New World Order'. They want a level of managable chaos, with safe havens to spend their cash in. Sadly the mundane truth about the Conspiracy Theories I see, is that they are actually a conspiracy to get people who have enquiring minds, to go down rabbit holes and get lost, whilst the rich men who sell weapons watch the cash roll in, and young men die, without a clue as to what they are really fighting for. 

I wrote a number on the subject in 1982. It is still true.

Don't worry, it is perfectly fine to dislike people!

 Last week, when I was on holiday, I surprised a friend we were away with, by expressing my intense dislike for a certain individual I know. There are various reasons why he was surprised, but the gist of what he said was that he'd never really heard me say such things about anyone. I generally keep my views to myself if I dislike someone and I think I regretted the fact that a few beers on holiday had loosened my tongue.

I was thinking about this yesterday. I am generally fairly forgiving. I try not to allow myself to get wound up and seek revenge or retribution (I was not always like this, but I have grown up a little over the years), but that doesn't mean I like everyone. Generally there are three reasons I dislike people. The first reason is I dislike bullies. The second is I dislike liars. The third is that they upset my kids (I am far more forgiving when they upset me, as I usually assume it was all my fault). To really dislike someone, they need to tick all three boxes. There are very few people who have managed that feat. As someone who was raised as a Roman Catholic, I always feel guilty about disliking people. The Good Lord taught us to "Love our enemies" and said that just loving your friends is something anyone can can do. I realised long ago that this was a high bar, one I could never possibly meet. In fact I struggled with the doctrine. If someone murdered one of my children,  I doubt I could forgive them, let alone love them and I would never judge anyone harshly for not having forgiveness in their heart.

Last week, I was reading about Donald Trump saying he'd like to meet the new Ayatollah of Iran. There was much comment about whether the Ayatollah would want anything to do with a man who ordered the murder of his father and much of his family. I am not a fan of the current Iranian regime, but as a human being, I think it must be a terrible situation, where you have no choice but to deal with the fact that your adversary murdered family members, but for the good of your nation you may have to cut a deal with them.

I have come to the conclusion that it is perfectly OK to dislike people, so long as there are grounds for it and your actions are fair. I have a few customers who I dislike, as they are rude, dishonest and bullies. But I am usually just an observer wathcing them act badly towards others. They pay their bills and life goes on. Which, I guess, is how it should be. 

The Sunday Reflection #87 - Even people who are not nice can enrich your life

 I never knew any of my Grandparents. My Dad's parents died before he met my mother. He didn't really talk too much about his mother, other than giving the impression that she was very bright and capable. They lived in the outback of Australia, his Dad was an engineer. Dad would tell stories of his genius for engineering. He was a specialist in boring wells and in the oil industry. In the Australian outback, artesian wells provided water that kept cattle stations and towns running and his expertise was highly sought after. Dad really never discussed what sort of a man he was. On my Mums side, all of my siblings got to meet my Grandmother. She was, by all accounts a lovely lady. I was hugely jealous. I am the youngest of six and I missed out on Nana, she passed two years before I was born, in 1960. 

However of all of them, the one who I am most curious and interested in is my Mothers Father, A certain James Fanning. Born in Dublin, his family had Republican links, but his father was a policeman in the Dublin Constabulary. After retiring as a Policeman, he had properties and used to get my Grandfather to collect debts. My mother told me he left Ireland as the family had IRA connections and he was getting hassle from the authorities. My cousin, who has done some research, suggests it may have been to get away from his dictatorial father. He stowed away on a boat to England, only it wasn't a boat to England. It was going to Argentina. When he didn't arrive in Liverpool and his food and drink ran out, he presented himself to the Captain and was made to work his passage, doing the worst work possible. When he arrived in Argentina, he hated it, but had to work their for six months, to pay for his passage home. When he eventually arrived in England, he met my Grandmother and got married. Apparently he was dapper and intelligent. However, fate intervened and he was conscripted into the Army, gassed and badly injured. When he got back, he was a different man. A bitter alchoholic. My mother was born in 1925 so never knew the old version. She just new a bitter man, who was selfish and often very embarrassing and unpleasant. She grew up hating him. He died in 1948 at 66, when his lungs failed. 

When I was a kid, most of the stories she told about him, were of his acts of selfishness and inconsideration. How he would eat all of the bacon when the family rations were given in the war. The kids got the bacon rind. How he would drink eight pints every day, regardless of family finances. How my Grandmother had to work to keep the family afloat and hide money and food from him for the children. How he embarrassed her when she brought boyfriends home. He would have a sixth sense. The only days she recalls that he didn't go to the pub was when she was bringing someone to meet the family. He would then proceed to humilate her and the chap would never be seen again, He would tale care to show the worst side of himself. 

When she met my Dad, an Australian pilot, and thet decided to get married, Dad had to ask for his permission. Mum was terrified. Dad said he'd meet him at the pub. That would spare Mums blushes. They got on like a house on fire. Permission was granted. Mum's fears were unfounded. Shortly before he died, she challenged him on his behaviour. He said "Laurie didn't care what I was like, he wasn't a snob, if those other fellas had really liked you, they'd not have cared either, they'd have wanted to save you from all this".

Sometime in the late 1990's, I was chatting with my Mother. She told me a startling thing. She said that she'd changed her mind about her Father. She had realised why he did what he did and why he was like he was. She had forgiven him. I was intrigued. She told me that she had once asked her mother why she had stayed with such a tyrant. The family all called him "The Encumberance". Her mothers answer saddened her. She said "I was lucky to still have a husband after the war, many didn't. The war changed him, but he gave me the best things in life". My Mum asked what she meant and she replied "All of you, my children are the best things in my life. I've never minded working hard and making sacrifices and seeing you all grow up happy has been the best thing in my life".

My mum then explained that she had been reflecting on many of the things her father told her and she'd realised that he was preparing his children for a harsh, unforgiving world. He told her he was delighted when she married my father, as he had an English name and she wouldn't have to put up with anti Irish prejudice. In London at the time, many hotels etc had signs saying "No blacks, No Dogs, No Irish". The Irish were assumed to be think and uncouth by many of the English, only fit for working as labourers. He was exceptionally intelligent. A socialist and an internationalist. He hated Nationalism in all of its guises. He ensured that my Mother understood this. He also said "The Boys will have to look after themselves, they will get by, you and your sisters will have to survive by using your brains". He told her that if she wanted to get on, she would have to take responsibility for everything. Women who rely on men, often end up with nothing. At the time, she thought this was his wallowing in self pity, but her and her sisters all, to some extent, benefitted from having this drummed into them. She was a far better businesswoman than my Father a businessman. She wouldn't fritter cash away in the bookies, orspend impulsively.

I was thinking about this conversation this morning. I often think about Mum on a Sunday morning. I miss her a lot, although towards the end of her life, she was not happy and I was actually relieved when she went. She was very intelligent and insightful. As I get older, I understand her relationship with her father much better. If she was around there are a lot of questions I'd have, but I will never know. One of the things that intrigues me most though, was whether she thought having a rather difficult father actually meant she was better prepared for the world as it really is.  We probably hate to admit it, but people who are not nice can enrich your life. In my life, people have badly let me down on a few occasions. Te perverse thing is that they've always ended up doing me a favour. Mind you, I am pleased that I did not have such a difficult relationship with my Dad. 

Have a wonderful Sunday. Here is a song I wrote a few years back when I was looking back on my own youth.

Normal blogging service will resume tomorrow

Greetings from Benidorm! Normal blogging service will be resumed tomorrow upon my return

 

Has anyone personally seen any benefits from Brexit?

 I’m writing this in Valencia. We travelled on Saturday. We had the joy of the new airport checks when we arrived. In truth for me it wasn’t too bad, the airport was empty and I sailed through. My wife wasn’t so lucky, the system failed to read her fingerprints. She was held up for 15 minutes. We were lucky. It got me thinking. Can anyone give me a single tangible benefit they have personally experienced as a result of Brexit? Spare us any ideological waffle. If something in your life is easier, cheaper or better I’d love to know. After ten years, we should be in a position where Nigel Farage has big long list. I’m a democrat so if it is to be reversed or undone, the British people should have some sort of vote. For me a majority for a party committed to Rejoin would be enough. Labour didn’t put that in their manifesto so can’t. But any vote must be on the basis of facts, not opinions.