If you think that the best way to further your music career is by just checking on the Jobs Board once a week, then you really are missing out. UK Music Jobs has many tools to aid you on your journey. This blog and my wise words being one of them of course and also, the members directory is a great place to network. We all want to have contacts in the industry, and here are a few suggestions how to get started, along with some great member profiles…

Artists & Musicians – you should constantly be checking out other artists & musicians! Inspiration is everywhere, listen to the music that other people in your genre (and outside it) are making, look at the way they promote themselves, take tips on their promo shots and demo tapes. Of course, there is also the huge possibility of collaboration. Merging backgrounds and experimenting often create some of the most interesting and successful records in history. (Roxy Music anyone?)

Check out Maria Alessandra Dangelo or Simon Noble

Producers & Engineers – The competition is fierce for any kind of studio work, and you need to keep on top of your game. Look at some strong profiles and try to improve your own. Keep your CV up to date, and adding a picture and a sample of your work will help encourage companies and members who browse the profiles. Looking at your peers you may notice some new or updated courses you can check out – there may be some great certificates / extra qualifications you can learn right on your doorstep and then add to your achievements.

Check out Mark Stevenson or James Kerr

Journalists & New media – whilst looking for work, why not try interviewing some of our talented bands? Why not get in touch with an established producer and offer your help on a music video or press releases? Maybe a fellow journalist’s profile will give you a clue as to how they got started and how you can gain some experience, or open your eyes to new companies that may require some kind of written skills.

Check out Joe Ward

However you decide to start networking, remember to update your own UKMJ profile – people are much more likely to interact if your page has photos / links / press clippings / list of achievements / uploaded documents. Check out my own profile for examples.

Remember, these are just my own ideas that I have thought up to help you – the UKMJ network is there for you to use in any way you can, and by doing so you will improve your networking and chances of finding your way through this crazy industry, maybe even with some new acquaintances!

Lee.

PS - Why not start getting involved with a comment if you find this helpful / ludicrous / interesting / obvious / etc. You may draw my attention and find yourself in one of my future blogs!

LL Cool J once said “I can’t live without my radio”, but do people still have radios nowadays? Hasn’t internet broadcasting killed off Tim Westwood, Pete Tong, Tony Blackburn et al? Not quite, but you catch my drift; you certainly can live without your radio. With the vast array of gadgets and gizmos available, it got me thinking what I can’t live without. We have personal mp3 players smaller then a matchbox and phones that can email and take photos (not forgetting, make the occasional phone call).

Apple have just unveiled their new iPods, and are rumoured to be announcing the launch of the Macbook Touch in October, combining the touch screen usability of their iPod Touch and iPhone ranges with their already successful MacBook laptops. Yet more kit that we don’t need but we all want.

For us recording artists, the gadget list snowballs. Learning my basic skills on an Akai 3000XL sampler, I’ll always have a soft spot for that. Popular dance artist Monika Kruse just yesterday told DJ Magazine that her Oscar Synthesizer will never leave her side.

Maybe you’re more classical and there’s one particular instrument that you will never sell. Maybe you are an aspiring music journo and you can make do without any of this, but you still can’t do without your inspiration (and maybe a pen that’s also a voice recorder).

Finally, those crazy Latvian disc jockeys, well, they just can’t live without their DJ Sport Games, so much so that they made an official event out of it! (Thanks to The Sound Republic for the heads up on that one).

Please share what you can’t live without by adding your comments. Or even pictures of you and your beloved

Lee.

John Webber was a freelance engineer in several studios throughout the UK before becoming resident engineer at Blue Pro Studios. He has established himself mastering, mixing and producing for a wide variety of indie, jazz, pop, rock and world music acts from unsigned prospects through to major label talent. Previous clients include Universal, SonyBMG & World Music Network for artists including Whitey, Rooster, Simon Webbe and Polar Bear.

Hi John, what have I interrupted you doing today?
I have just completed mastering for Candid Records’ new signing, Joe Stilgoe, a really impressive Jazz album featuring a wonderful cover of the scarecrow’s song from the Wizard of Oz ‘If I only had a brain’.

How would you describe your role within the music industry?
Primarily within the industry my main role is as a mastering engineer. We have slowly built up the mastering facility at Blue Pro over the last 2 years to be truly world class and have become known for consistent high-end results. We do still offer recording and mixing but our mastering work does dominate our schedule these days.

How did you first get into the industry?
Well, I have always been into music and started playing guitar at a very young age. My first paid audio related role was making speaker grills at a local sweatshop, sorry factory, near my hometown (Southend On Sea). Feeling like I’d never escape, I got lucky and was employed as a technician in a local studio, which eventually led to engineering work. I was then invited onto the second year of a degree at LCM (London College Of Music) which resulted in meeting with Charles Westropp, which soon after resulted in mixing for Rooster (Sony BMG/Brightside) at Blue Pro Studios.

I understand you are launching a new website soon, can you tell me a little bit about it?
Well over the coming weeks www.blueprostudios.com will be replaced with what we feel is the most informative and interactive studio website around. Users can create accounts to upload material and book sessions. The site will also contain news feeds and offer lots of useful industry insight and tips.

Soon after the main studio site goes up we will also be launching www.remotemastering.com, the worlds most ‘easy to use’ and ‘functional’ online mastering facility. Nothing particularly groundbreaking on paper but the interface and site design is truly unique. Users will be able to check DDP masters, compare mastered and un-mastered material in real time and effortlessly submit work with a 5-day turnaround.

What projects are you currently working on?
Well as I mentioned I just finished the master for Joe (Stilgoe). I am about to start a mix with songwriter/producer Adam Crowe. I am also working with Goodbye/Delete on their debut EP (John is actually the founding member). I’m doing more work with The Operators who are on the cusp of being very big. Aside from this I am always mastering and often do several records a week.

Who have you enjoyed working with?
I enjoy anything that pushes me to enhance my own skills. If the music’s good and the people involved are passionate then I get a kick from it.

Who would you like to work with in the future?
Any artists who have the potential for greatness!

Where do you see yourself in 5/10 years?
It would be great to win a Grammy Award, as being noticed for your efforts is always cool! Really though, to be associated with great music in any shape or form would be fine. I also intend to do a bit more writing for other acts.

What tips could you give to help people survive the crazy world of music business?
What I tried to do was to be diverse and see what direction my opportunities led me in. I can write, produce, record, mix and master music. If you’re looking to make a living you certainly will find it hard to survive in one area exclusively, so be smart and dare I say it ‘think outside of the box’.

In general be persistent, be stubborn and never say no to anything work wise. Talent is not enough alone, it takes seriously hard work!

John Webber’s UK Music Jobs profile: http://my.music-jobs.com/john.webber
John Webber’s Myspace blog (full of advice on Home recording!): http://www.myspace.com/johnwebbermusic
Blue Pro Studios: http://www.blueprostudios.com

Lee.

It has just been announced that London clubbing Mecca, The End, is to close it’s doors for the final time in January 2009. Known and loved by many all over the world, The End has been a true pioneer of underground dance music over the last 12 or so years, hosting groundbreaking nights across house, techno, drum&bass, breakbeat and much more.

Director Layo Paskin states “Even though the past few years have arguably been our most successful as a club and as a business, I don’t particularly believe that there’s anything more that we can achieve”, and I have to say I’d find it challenging to think of how they could continue to top their record, especially with some key members of the team eager to try new things. It’s not as if the club were over the hill, far from it, but that almost makes it even greater, to go out on a high, and be remembered as outstanding.

Built by Layo (as in ‘Layo & Bushwacka’) and Mr C (as in ‘Ebeneezer Goode’), The End was often seen as the perfect club in many ways for DJs and clubbers; that circular DJ booth in the middle of the dance floor, the incredible sound system, and the friendly and diverse crowd.

Layo continues, “It’s partially a circumstantial decision, and partially a decision of choice”, adding, “We’ve had offers for the club before, and yes, this was the best one. But I wouldn’t say that it’s so good that it makes this a purely financial issue … If it was seven or eight years ago, an offer like this wouldn’t have been accepted. It’s a lot to do with the timing.”

On a personal level, I know I will certainly miss the club; my first ‘proper’ night clubbing was about 7 years ago to see Steve Lawler play a 6 hour set in the main room, and I’ve been hooked ever since, returning for the likes of Jeff Mills, Layo & Bushwacka, Chew the Fat, and the infamous Jaded after-hours parties. I know I will not be alone, judging by the eleven pages of comments on the website since yesterday’s announcement!

On a business level, add this to the other superclub closures of 2008 (The Cross, The Key, Canvas and Turnmills), and clubland has been well and truly shaken up. What will the future hold for the likes of a newly refurbed Pacha, a re-launched Bar Rhumba, and new-kid-on-the-block Matter, opening any day now from the people who brought you Fabric? Stay tuned for more news and interviews

Lee.

The LA Times has reported that an arrest was made by the FBI following a leak of unreleased material from old school rockers Guns n Roses. Kevin Cogill, a Culver City resident known as Skewl online, was arrested on suspicion of violating federal copyright law by posting the nine songs on his blog Antiquiet.

I’m not sure what possesses these people to do it, whether they think they are offering a service to the underground internet-savvy youth who torrent millions of songs every year. Well, unfortunately for them, there’s an internet-savvy federal department after them, and rightly so I say - what the culprits are doing is morally wrong.

With all the new laws coming into effect to give the FBI extra clout, I expect a few more of these stories. Although, I think they were devised with the big-wigs running huge file-sharing sites in mind, as opposed to some dude in suburbia blogging in his basement.

Now, 24 hours and many blog comments later, some people are saying how this smells kinda like a publicity stunt, some say the whole thing was set up to warn people off sharing / downloading illegally hosted music (My GNR forum has plenty of controversial comments to wade through). The fact that Cogill and friends were back on the blog talking about the case the day after the FBI took them in for questioning seems suspect.

I’m sure there’s a whole heap of rights and wrongs and in betweens, so feel free to pick a side and let the slanging begin in the comment section here…(!)

Lee.

Post War Years

Post War Years announce their UK tour with the hotly tipped White Lies, in between recording their debut album in their self built Russian Club studio.

WHITE LIES UK DATES

21st September - Club Ifor Bach, Cardiff
22nd September - Night & Day, Manchester
24th September - Little Civic, Wolverhampton
25th September - Bodega, Nottingham
26th September - Leadmill, Sheffield
29th September - Komedia, Brighton
1st October - Arts Centre, Norwich
2nd October - Cluny, Newcastle
3rd October - King Tuts, Glasgow
6th October - Carling Academy, Oxford
7th October - ICA, London (SOLD OUT)

You can keep up to date with Post War Years as they record their debut album on their band blog;http://therussianclub.wordpress.com/

You can also listen to some of their fantastic new material on MySpace;http://www.myspace.com/thempostwaryears

By Tim Weissberg

Word association time. I say “Field Day 2007”, you, or at least most of the Field Day 2008 previews, say “teething problems.” Yes, you’ve probably heard it all by now – the toilet queues, the four bar staff spread between two bars and the three-hour crush to get one of them to serve you a drink. Ironically, the one thing you probably wouldn’t have heard was the music, especially when Justice, a duo not exactly known for their peaceful sets, took to the stage at the end of the night. Well at least it was sunny.

This year, Eat Your Own Ears promised it would be better and that there would be a professional company brought in to ensure the punters could hear the music, buy their drinks and then make room for more. Ok, thought the dubious public, let’s give in another try.

And then the heavens opened. Rain at a British festival is certainly nothing unusual and most people just got on with it as normal. The only problems arose when it really started to pour. Those people with umbrellas decided to put them up and those that didn’t made beelines for the tents. This provided me with two bugbears.

First off, the bloody umbrellas. Seriously, if you are going to a festival and it looks like rain, wear a waterproof with a hood, leave the umbrella at home. During Les Savy Fav, a band which centres its live shows around the visual antics of front man Tim Harrington, my view was entirely obscured by a sea of selfish umbrella wielders. Occasionally I caught a flash of the stage to see Harrington’s belly spilling out over his tight white jeans. The sound was about as good as the general view, no not the view of Tim’s fetching ginger-haired stomach, which indicated that maybe a few lessons from last year were still to be learned.

Second, the tents. Yes, they may be undercover, but they will not stretch to accommodate everyone looking for shelter. My attempt to see Crookers in the Bugged Out! tent was thwarted by everyone fleeing the umbrellas outside and piling into the already packed area. To add insult to injury, just as I’d fought my way through the tide and into the open, they went and dropped Wearing My Rolex by Wiley. What timing.

Right, after that slight excursion into self-indulgence, let’s get back to the event. The bar situation was infinitely better. There were more and they were big. The bar staff were not so good though. But then maybe I was asking for trouble by veering from the sensible festival drinks order of beer and cider. I’ve no idea what drinks I came away with but by that stage no one in my round seemed to mind. Red Bull Cola, on a side note, is disgusting and I can see why the more traditional cola drinks had run dry. Toilet-wise there still appeared to be a problem. This was indicated by the very long lines of women snaking out of the porterloo clusters and the extended periods of absence by female members of our group. At least that was their excuse. There was less of a problem for the men, especially since someone – official or not – had put a set or portable urinals in the woods by the bandstand.

From what I could gather, half of London’s police had been invited along. The place was crawling with them. Ok, I know that people will be of the view that the police are there for the good of everyone and if you’re not doing anything wrong then you’ve nothing to worry about, but when it gets to the stage where one of my friends is stopped and searched three times before even clearing the gates, maybe the presence was a little heavy handed. For the second time that day I also had my entry into the Bugged Out! tent blocked by crowds, this time all in uniform, looking like they were about to form a police cordon around the entire tent. I don’t know, maybe James Holden is particularly popular with the Met Police. His acid-dripping set certainly sounded amazing from outside.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. The steam pouring out of the Bloggers Delight tent may have made it look as if it was on fire and inside, musically, it was. Mikki Most and Ian Robinson played a blinding set of upbeat electro that made any gripes about the day disappear.

The night was rounded off by Simian Mobile Disco’s live set in the Adventures In The Beetroot Field/NME tent. Again, it was ridiculously packed to begin with but the other headliners, such as Foals and Richie Hawtin, soon thinned the crowd down to a level where some upper body movement was possible as opposed to the rhythmic head bopping. Standing still, obviously, was not an option.

In conclusion, there were a lot of things right with Field Day 2008 but a few things were still wrong. Maybe next year, they’ll get it right. And, if this year’s line up is anything to go by, I’m sure I’ll be tempted, yet again, to give it a chance.

All this new music at our fingertips and all these new ways of buying and selling it. Aren’t we all so lucky. I recently reported how Madonna’s album was available for mobile phone downloads prior to the physical CD release (We’ve also had Bryan Adams selling his album exclusively through Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the US (not quite as Rock n Roll, but you gotta take what you’re offered, right Bry?)).

Yet, amongst the digital revolution and traditional record shop mass-exodus, us dance music fans still like to buy physical products. It sure is hard for the retailers to keep on making money, times have changed, and a few vinyl junkies aren’t enough to keep a business afloat, but it was a very pleasant surprise to read about the recent RISE in sales of vinyl (RIAA 2007 Year-End Shipment Statistics - PDF). I’m not saying it’s saved, or making a comeback (especially after one year’s rise compared to nine years decline), but i realised that my own buying habits have changed over the years. I still go hunting for the odd 2nd hand bargain, or an old release with a killer B-side that everyone looked over at the time. But, i’m afraid i feel it hard to pay more than 8 quid for a piece of wax. Unless…. it’s an LP.

After a saturation of big brand mixed compitlations and a handful of rather weak superstar DJ full-length ego-massaging CDs, exciting dance music producers are making a bit of a comeback with artist albums. Canada’s Deadmau5 is planning an album release around Halloween, supported with a Puma/Beatport sponsored 50-date tour. The UK’s Mike Monday has his ready to go with US dance giant OM Records, complete with music videos!

There’s something about albums that give you a warm fuzzy feeling (not just the value for money). Maybe the artwork, or the expectation of the full spectrum of music that will (hopefully) be on there, with all the thank you’s and shout outs written inside the cover. Maybe there’s free stickers! Everybody loves free stickers!

If either of the above mentioned will be made available on vinyl, i think they will be sure purchases for myself, and even if not, I hope i’ll be able to continue hunting out some great vinyl LPs for years to come… whilst downloading the odd promo single

Lee.

After missing the actual Space Opening Party yet again this was always going to be a big one. My pal Dave Phillips was playing his usual set in the Discotec but the big news this week was that my best mate Andy Baxter was playing his first set for We Love; and he was doing it on the sunset terrace. We normally don’t make it into Space until after we shut the beeZwax shop (at 11pm) but this was no ordinary day so afternoon entry was a must. I got in about 15min into Andy’s set and the dancefloor was already packed even though the club had only been open for an hour. Unusually for the summer time we had a big gang – seems like everyone managed to skip work!

I pitched up to the right of the booth with my posse and we watched Andy absolutely smash it – literally the whole dancefloor was jumping for most of the time and it was not even half past six in the afternoon!

Jonathan Ulysses came on after Andy to a great reception as usual and soon after that I went for a wander in my massive sombrero.
I’d heard that one of my other mates was playing on the Premier Etage so I went upstairs for a butcher’s only to find out that it was someone else playing. That someone else turned out to be Mat Playford who I went to school with and hadn’t seen for years. After a quick catch up he told that me that he’d been both elated and deflated halfway through his set. If you’ve ever been on the Premier Etage you’ll know that it’s very chilled up there and the music is not exactly loud. Whilst Mat was up there playing quietly he heard the sunset terrace going right off downstairs – to one of his own remixes! He was pleased that it got such a good response but absolutely gutted that someone else (Andy Baxter) was the one that dropped it.
I think I headed straight to the discotec after that and that’s pretty much where I stayed – Dave Phillips, DJ Pierre, and Felix Da Housecat were all excellent and the atmosphere was awesome. Managed to squeeze in a bit of 2manyDJs near the end as well and all things considered, I reckon it was my best party in Space ever – which is no mean feat!

Ibiza 2008 - Hard to believe that we’re over two months in already!
It’s been a crazy start to the season even though everyone seems to think that Ibiza is dying again. I’ve been very busy since the start of the year so my spacial awareness hasn’t been great but the start of August was the first time when I looked around and said to myself “feck, it’s busy”.

My personal & work life has been a bit of a mess recently so the old blog has suffered somewhat. It’s time to pull my finger out now though and I reckon that speed is of the essence so I’m just going to ramble my way through my year in Ibiza – please feel free to criticise it if it’s too boring or too stuck in my own little bubble and I’ll try and make the effort to take a step back and start writing properly…