It's 6am on sunday morning and i have some truths to tell.

Good Morning.
Please disregard anything i have ever said. It has been a lie. a complete and utter lie. and i am sorry for lying to you.

FIRSTLY. this blog has been for the purpose of an assignment and now it isnt. please do not go and look up winterlong, they are terrible. and teriffically useless and unreliable.
i finished the essay on thursday and usually the best bit about finishing an essay is putting the word count at the end, not with this one. the best bit about this one was dropping the band and hopefully having no contact with them ever again, good luck to them i say, 7 years and waiting guys.
7 years.
so.
here are some of the real things that you should know about the music industry.
ONE: lie. seriously. my teacher told me this one. it is easier to lie about ti all, like when your doing PR, Promotions or general pimping. it is easier to lie.
take this sentence: Winterlong are waiting for gigs in manchester and are currently in talks about up coming reviews.
now take this one: Winterlong are due to headline manchester venue SUB61 this week and have just secured several reviews in blog and publications nationally.
which one sounds better? the second one, of course, is the lie. Winterlong havent got jack shit.

SECONDLY: the music industry may as well just say BAA. they are all sheep. thats the worst part. One goes, the others follow. HOWEVER. at the moment, what with record sales going down and the music industry facing a change it is not yet ready for the sheep just do not want to move.
its a simple as looking at a field.
The music industry needs to start taking risks.
now, i know that the music industry has not been hit that hard by all the credit crunch mess that has happened, but it has been affected and somehow it needs to adapt to all of this. Its as simple as this.
you cannot get a job if you have no experience, but you cant get experience without a job. the music industry is much the same and there is not a set way to actually get noticed, it is simply a case of right place, right time and a huge amount of luck.
The book 'Kill Your Friends', about the A&R process puts it very well and, even though it is fictional, it says alot of very well put truth about the music industry. 'There is no formula, no way of knowing if what we do is right, we only have to hope that the general public like it, and then we can relax. for a while.
BAA.
At my paying job a couple of months ago i was talking to the former promotions manager for the famous Manchester nightclub the Hacienda and he told me that you have to have an ultimate goal, he asked me what was mine. I told him that i wanted to make it easier for women to not only make it in the industry, but overcome prejudice.
THIRD: The glass ceiling exists. its not as bad as it used to be. but it is still there. i may be a little feminist about most things but really, this is not my feminist dig at men in power. i respect a great many men who were and are in power, but i can draw on this from personal experience. The industry is a very testosterone driven thing. There is still hope yet though girls, dont go burning your bra and sucking every cock yet. women in men dominated industries tend to be driven, and more hard working than our male counter parts. its true. a man told me. this is because we want it more, and honestly, i thing the cocksucking career woman is now reserved for trashy novels only.
we have power. where it counts now.
maybe its time we used it?

FOUR: dont accept anything less than the most professional. dont ever take on a band that are not professional about what they do. if they treat it like a hobby then why do they have a manager, if they are not going to give it their all then why are they wasting your time? and if you know this then why are you wasting yours?
and if you are in a band then please...dont ever waste the time of someone doing you an unpaid favor, you will just upset alot of people along the way. be professional and give it 100%, always.

FIVE: the best song is always the last one written. The former manager of the strokes told me this one. if the best song is the first one written then people will believe that the band, or you for that matter may be one hit wonders.

SIX: music does trend, to an extent. but you cannot know where music is going untill you know where it has been. study music history. pick up a book that will teach you something.

SEVEN: LEARN TO READ AND WRITE MUSIC. AND I MEAN NOTATION. i am sick of people calling themselves musicians when they do not know what an E Minor and A minor chord is. you are not a musican untill you know what the names are.

EIGHT: thicken your skin. When someone hits you, get up and do it again and again and again, and then maybe one day you wont fall down. ALSO get some fucking balls. no one will believe in you untill you believe in yourself.

More Soon. night night.


Come for the music, Stay for the fun.