S4L Radio Show Playlist #17 Let's Start A Band

Okay, the idea for this Playlist came to me in the middle of last night. I have no idea why on earth I was thinking about Amy MacDonald's Let's Start A Band but I woke up and shuffled around to find pen and paper and hastily scribbled the song titles for 21 songs down in what I now perceive to be the worst kind of chicken scratch ever (my Doctor would be proud as it's as readable as the notes he makes in my medical folder 😀)! Along with that there were some brief musings (well it was at 3am and it's hard to have long musings when you have just woken up! 😏) and then I put the notebook on the table and drifted back to sleep!

Looking at it this morning I could just about make out the song titles but the musings were unintelligable! Anyway, what follows is the S4L Not So Serious Guide To Starting a Band and What You Need To Claim World Dominion! (Okay, that's too bold a claim, but hopefully you'll enjoy this fun look at the process).

The Playlist

What's On The Playlist

Broken Radio - Jesse Malin (featuring Bruce Springsteen)

As is customary (and not really related to the theme of the show so much) we begin with a beautiful song by Jesse Malin that features Bruce Springsteen and also Ryan Adams on it.

The Beginning

Let's Start A Band - Amy MacDonald

Ask many kids these days what they want to be when they grow up and you'll probably get similar answers to when I was an ankle biter - a footballer, an astronaut, a fireman, a doctor, a brain surgeon, a grave digger (I kid you not!). Then there are those who actually have a musical talent of some sort that goes beyond playing the scales correctly on a Recorder or being able to sing I'm a Pink Toothbrush, You're a Blue Tootbrush without making a mistake. These folks almost seem destined to be able to live out their dream and be a Rock and Roll star (oh I didn't include that song in the playlist!) or Popstar...you get my drift.

It could all begin like it did for The Rolling Stones with Keith Richards meeting Mick Jagger at a Railway Station and a common interest was formed because of music.

So it begins with those famous words, "Let's Start A Band"!

What You Need For Your Band
The Singer

 You're The Voice - John Farnham
Now you don't have to have a voice like Pavarotti to be a singer, some of the greatest frontmen/women have not been great singers: Springsteen, Strummer and Bono for example! It does help if you can at least sing in tune (though not being able to do so has strangely helped Bob Dylan have a rather long career!).

The Guitarist

The Guitar - They Might Be Giants
He might not be as great as Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Devlin (he's a mate of mine and I just know he'll get a kick out of seeing his name in the same breath as Hendrix! 😎) but not all the great guitarists are Male, take Sister Rosetta Tharpe (congrats to her family for finally getting her name into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) or Sophie K. Powers from Duncan Reid and The Big Heads (she might even be better than Jimmy Devlin! 😁).

The Drummer

Let There Be Drums - The Ventures
Whether it be someone with absolute talent like Buddy Rich or Animal from The Muppets or one who can play three and a half hours every night like The Mighty Max Weinberg it's vital to get someone who can keep in time and not just get all fancy and bang off 15 minute Drum Solos because he once saw Rush play live!

The Bass Player

Bass So Low - MxPx
Not every Bassist can be as cool looking as Peter Hook or Skinny Crimmings (another friend who will be chuffed to see his name here!) but you want a guy who can at least communicate with the drummer because they form the foundation of the band. So you don't want someone like a Sid Vicious type who actually sounded better when his Bass wasn't plugged in but rather a Dee Dee Ramone type (without the baggage) who won't have flights of fancy and pressume he's the second coming of Mark King (Level 42)!

Piano/Keyboard Player

Piano Man - Billy Joel
Piano and Keyboards are optional and if you get one then make sure he/she has the split personalities of say Billy Joel or Professor Roy Bittan who play with such grace and charm and also someone who can play with the savagery of Jerry Lee Lewis or Keith Emerson (though you may want to make sure that the catering staff have removed all knives from the backstage area before showtime!)

Where The Bands Are - Bruce Springsteen
Every effort should be made to learn from others and so going to shows is important. This helps you to dream of yourselves up there on stage rather than the reality of playing the school disco etc!

Practice Practice Practice

Garageland - The Clash
You need to rehearse if you are going to be a good band and whether that be in your bedroom, a church hall or a garage then make sure you do it often (though if you are doing it in a garage make sure the drummer doesn't turn the car engine on just to keep warm otherwise you might end up becoming famous for a stupid reason rather than for your potential musical output!).
Larry Norman was once asked by Norwegian Press whether he agreed with the Bishop of Norway's assessment that Heavy Metal was bad. His response was, "Yes, Heavy Metal is bad but it could be good and better if they practiced more!"

A Word for Potential Fans and Gig Goers

Listen To The Band - The Monkees
There can be nothing more annoying for a band when they are playing (especially if it is the quiet emotional number) to hear the endless chatter of the crowd who seem more interested in what so and so posted on Facebook and whether it's okay to wear a Mankini to the beach (well we know that it's not okay to wear one anywhere in Public or even in Private!). This crowd chatter is not because they are bored with you as a band because it happens to even the biggest stars. I have a Southside Johnny Bootleg and the poor fella who recorded it was unlucky enough to be standing next to some folks who were discussing the toilets at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park and whether they were up to the standard of other venues! The place was so packed I believe that the poor taper couldn't move to another position to provide a decent live recording for those of us who are interested in these things (the music not the toilets!).
So people, if you have gone to see and Listen to the Band then do just that and save your conversations until after the show!

Wrote A Song For Everyone - John Fogerty (featuring Miranda Lambert and Tom Morello)
Now, no one is going to listen to your band unless you have songs, and by that I mean songs of your own. 
If you just want to play cover songs then be prepared to forever be the band that gets the Wedding Gig, the 18th Birthday Party, the Bar-Mitzvah and Children's Parties as warm-up to the Clown who makes Balloon Animals!
Now songwriting is not always easy, we all can't be Noddy Holder and write a Christmas #1 in July whilst sitting in the toilet for twenty minutes (that he was in there for that long suggests a poor diet, something else you need to consider!).
But what should you write about? Well the list is a long one and all manner of subjects have been written about down through the years from Clowns (The Everly Brothers), Prison Riots (There's A Riot Going On In Cell Block #9), Sex (far too many to list), Love (again far too many to list), Bowling (as in Take The Skinheads Bowling by Camper Van Beethoven), God (U2, the world of Contemporary Christian Music, John Lennon and many others), Anarchy (the Pistols and Crass), Politics (Billy Bragg and a whole tribe of others that would take a book to fill), Grandads and Grandmas, Pizza, Beer (and Brokenhearts - a useful theme if you plan on being a Alt-Country band), War, Peace...I'm sure you get the picture, you can write about pretty much anything and everything even feet (a nod to the mighty MUD and the classic Tiger Feet)!

Travellin' Band - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Gigs do not always fall into your lap on your doorstep, most times you have to be prepared to travel. Now just because you maybe have started to get attention and are being booked for shows in other places doesn't mean you should be thinking right away about getting an 18 Wheeler Lorry to cart you equipment about in (that might come if you take the leap to play stadiums - not outside them but inside and if you are doing that you will probably be selling a good number of records and not just the five you sold three weeks ago that were just pity buys!).
So you need to get some decent transport to get you around, we all can't be like TV Smith who carries his beat up acoustic in weathered floppy guitar case and travels to shows by Public Transport (unless he's flying somewhere).

Touring, Touring It's Never Boring!

Touring - Ramones
The fact that we are now talking about Touring is a clear demonstration that your band has begun to gain a name for itself and people are interested in hearing and seeing you live. It might be a tour on your own and by some stroke of fortune you might find yourselves on a tour as Support band. There are two different approaches to these.
1- A tour of your own means that you are all crammed into one vehicle for a period of days or even weeks and because you don't have lots of readily available cash you will eat, sleep and do whatever you can to amuse yourselves in that very same van without actually killing one another. Rest days might mean booking a hotel room for a day where you can actually sleep on something that is not a drum case or a guitar amplifier and it also gives you the opportunity to shower at least once every four days! I speak this from my own experiences as a roadie!
2- If you are on a tour as a Support act then things are a little different, it means that your tour manager has a budget and that you get to stay in hotels pretty much all the time unless an overnight drive is demanded. There is usually a catering service (if you are playing bigger venues) so you will at least be able to eat more than once a day (breakfast in the hotel and a catered meal at the venue). If not you will have a food budget from your Tour Manager that will at least get you something that will sustain you so you don't drop dead from starvation whilst on stage! If that happened it could be very bad for your band (or if you have a crafty manager and label they can exploit the tragedy to the full and have the story running on endless music websites and maybe even the tv news and your record sales might go up!).

Welcome To Our Big Rock Show - All Star United
Things are going well and success looks like it's coming your way.
Your setlist is honed and includes crowd pleasing favourites, maybe even your hit song on Spotify or whatever streaming services people are using and because Simon Mayo played it on Radio 2 (which means you are no longer trendy with the kids!).

To quote Paramore:
"Things are looking up, oh finally!
I thought I'd never see the day"

Looking Up - Paramore

Whilst on Tour one of the things that has become evident that you need is a Road Crew!

(We Are) The Road Crew - Motörhead
This motley crew is made up of Technicians for every sphere of your performance from lighting to sound, and to the personal instruments of your craft and your Merch team (after all that's where a lot of the money is made these days!). Where once you huffed and puffed to carry your own gear into a venue (unless you are TV Smith of course) you have now lost that superpower and your underlings are hired to carry out this most basic of duties!
Treat them well and the show will flow and you'll wave your hands in the air and act like you just don't care! But treat them badly and you'll sound like One Direction in one of those Shred Videos on You Tube and maybe come across like Echo and the Bunnymen playing in darkness!
There's a Technician for everything! It must be the easiest job in the world to be the Triangle of Glockenspiel Tech, I want that job! 😅

The Dangers
A word of warning must be issued regarding the life you are now living as a fully fledged rock and roll star (or whatever genre you find yourself fitting into).
The two biggest dangers are:
1- Girls!

Mood Rings - Relient K
Whilst it's kinda nice that women would throw themselves at you because of your status (well sometimes the Bass the player if he's not overly attractive and the Drummer because he's always sweaty are not the benefactors of this generosity) it should be stated that Women are complex human beings and are sometmes beyond our understanding. The lyrics to this song should be studied hard by one and all! 😲

2- Drugs

The Drugs Don't Work - The Verve
Never a good idea to dabble with drugs as they can kill the creative process for a band (of course there are exceptions to this rule, namely Keith Richards!).
They have ruined many a good band down through the years and of course many who have fallen prey to them have found themselves visited by The Grim Reaper a lot earlier than would have been expected!
An over abundant partaking of alcohol can also lead to disquiet among the band and is maybe best avoided especially during the daylight hours and left for a certain part of the night, like after the show!

One Last Love Song - The Beautiful South
And so we draw near to the end of this Playlist and of course one has to think of what the final song in the setlist is going to be and how you want to send your fans off into the night.
It could be a storming anthem, a nice mellow tune like the one chosen for the Playlist or something to give your fans some food for thought. Every band is different in the way that they do it, some leave the final song to their best known (and best selling song) others like Stiff Little Fingers used to end it on a note of fun with a hilarious cover version that you never quite expected.

The Parting Shot

The Load-Out - Jackson Browne

Now the seats are all empty
Let the roadies take the stage
Pack it up and tear it down
They're the first to come and last to leave
Working for that minimum wage
They'll set it up in another town
Tonight the people were so fine
They waited there in line
And when they got up on their feet they made the show
And that was sweet,
But I can hear the sound
Of slamming doors and folding chairs
And that's a sound they'll never know

Now roll them cases out and lift them amps
Haul them trusses down and ge t'em up them ramps
'Cause when it comes to moving me
You know you guys are the champs
But when that last guitar's been packed away
You know that I still want to play
So just make sure you got it all set to go
Before you come for my piano

But the band's on the bus
And they're waiting to go
We've got to drive all night and do a show in Chicago
Or Detroit, I don't know
We do so many shows in a row
And these towns all look the same
We just pass the time in our hotel rooms
And wander 'round backstage
Till those lights come up and we hear that crowd
And we remember why we came

Now we got country and western on the bus
R&B, we got disco in eight tracks and cassettes in stereo
We've got rural scenes and magazines
And We've got truckers on the cb
We've got Richard Pryor on the video
We got time to think of the ones we love
While the miles roll away
But the only time that seems too short
Is the time that we get to play

People you've got the power over what we do
You can sit there and wait
Or you can pull us through
Come along, sing the song
You know you can't go wrong
'Cause when that morning sun comes beating down
You're going to wake up in your town
But we'll be scheduled to appear
A thousand miles away from here