The Queens Death and the Fallout For Musicians

 I’m reading lots of different opinions on the cancellation of gigs this last weekend. Many people understood and accepted it whilst others have become very angry and are demanding compensation.

I think this discussion is far more nuanced than some people realise.

We musicians are at the bottom of a very precarious food chain. Entertainment is a luxury. It’s the first thing to be kicked into the long grass when the shit hits the fan. Pubs, restaurants, bars etc have faced unprecedented hardship over the last few years and it shows no sign of letting up any time soon.

Pubs are shutting at an alarming rate. The cost of energy is making this winter seem insurmountable for a great many venues and that's a scary prospect for a lot of us. Therefore I appreciate the anger at having a gig cancelled over the death of someone you don't even know but we have to be understanding of the circumstances.

Pubs don't tend to cancel events for the sake of it. They weigh up their options and the pros & cons. Will the neighbours get upset and complain? This can lead to the cancellation of all entertainment at their venue. Will the punters not turn up or get offended? This can lead to a loss of revenue and therefore again, the cancellation of all entertainment.

We musicians rely on venues to support us. Venues rely on punters to support them. We must be flexible and understanding.

I'm not saying that we should charge less or play longer sets etc but a little understanding of the pressures faced by everyone will certainly help in getting us ALL through this tough time.

Yes of course there will always be venues that will try and rip you off but then I've seen plenty of bands who charge for their services and really shouldnt. There's always a few bad apples but let's all make sure that we aren't one of them.

Sorry for the epic nature of this but I feel it needs to be said.

A little more love and a lot less hate.

Cheers, Milo x

Lockdown Thoughts From A Musician

 Well it looks like we might soon be getting back to an actual normality after 16 months of absolute shite. Fingers crossed we shall be gigging to full (standing) houses again and being able to walk around without someone shouting "MASK!!!" every couple of seconds.

As a musician it's been a very rough time. I realise that many people have suffered losses far greater than mine and the thoughts of a person who still has his health, family and friends isn't of any great importance but there we go. Everyone has been put through the wringer (with the exception of Jeff Bezos) and it's worth remembering that the great majority of us suffer in silence. For every person using social-media as therapy, there are many more people putting on a brave face and ploughing on like everything is fine.

Small and medium sized venues have been devastated. Musicians have been forced to do online busking just to pull in a few shekels and still a great many people view what we do as a hobby. Not a real job. I can't tell you how angry this makes me feel. Government has thrown the entire industry under the proverbial bus.

Because of this, some of our old venues, pubs etc. have made the tough decision to scale back their live music programme. This is completely understandable. On the other hand, there are certain venues who have decided to cut their budget and try to get the same performers for (in some cases) half price. This is a total kick in the cannisters for anyone who's been struggling recently. One can only assume that these places are also paying half price for their booze and only paying the staff a similar cut price rate....

...somehow I doubt it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm hugely appreciative of every venue that books me and I would be nothing without you but to simply halve my worth because I'm only a musician is bullshit. Surely it would be better for everyone to have half as many gigs but pay the right money?

After all, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

I'm sure there are a great many people with differing opinions and I absolutely accept that but I feel I should let my point of view be heard. 

Thank you for listening x

PS. Go and find me on Instagram, FB, YouTube etc. Please like and subscribe and all that stuff. It all helps in lieu of gigs x

Keep On Keeping On

It looks like Neal Casal killed himself. If you don't know who Neal is it will only take a cursory search to discover he was a musician who covered a lot of ground. A guitarist who played with a great many bands and a singer/songwriter who wrote some beautiful songs.  He was 50 years old. He had just performed at a very large music festival this weekend. He has fans all over the world and yet he decided for his own, personal reasons that it was better if he ceased to be. That the world or at least HIS world was better without him in it.
I'm not a fan of these "repost to show someone is listening" memes that do the round on Facebook. The bottom line is that sometimes it doesn't matter if somebody is listening. The bottom line is that you feel so sad that you can't carry on. That you have nothing more that you can give. You have done all that you can.
We must change our attitude to sadness. We must not put all mental health problems in the same basket. We must learn to recognise the difference in people's suffering. We must appreciate, understand and most of all accept the fact that there are people in this world who are sad. There's no rhyme or reason. There's no logical answer. There is however, the ability to understand and we can help by understanding the person. We can help by recognising and being considerate. We can appreciate and love people and make them aware of it. This doesn't just pertain to those in an extreme mental state but to any other human being. We are a compassionate species and we must make sure that even the most sad, lonely, upset and emotionally troubled are aware of that.
Chin up x

School Days (R.I.P. Chuck Berry)

When I was in my first year of secondary school we were all tasked with giving a presentation on something. It could be anything we wanted so being of that age i chose guitars. I couldn’t actually play the guitar back then but that wasn’t the point, I was still obsessed by them.

As i gave my talk, the picture I showed to illustrate my love of guitars and guitarists was Chuck Berry. It was a great photo of him wide-eyed with a terrible multi coloured shirt and his trusty 345 around his neck. That photo basically became the template for my whole career as a musician.

A lot of guitarists work backwards to Chuck via the Stones etc. but i didn’t. Even before I learned to play, I loved his songs. His riffs, his lyrics, his stagecraft and that tempo. That awesome rock and roll shuffle. He was the man.

Later on as I got into more music from the 60s it became obvious the huge influence he had. I remember watching the woodstock movie and spotting half a dozen Chuck Berry guitar solos.

When ‘Hail Hail Rock & Roll’ came out I rented it a dozen times from the video shop. Finally I had a chance to watch his fingers and learn some of it. It also made me realise that he wasn’t the nicest chap in the world but I shrugged this off as i was only about 12.

Anyway, my point is that whether you like him or not, if you think his music is old-hat, even if you’d be happy to never hear a bad pub version of Johnny B Goode again; we can all agree that popular music as we know it would not exist without him. 

Hail Hail Rock & Roll indeed x