Music: September 2007 Archives

The magnificent Lyndon Hayes, the painter of the image that The Scaremongers used as the cover of The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side, is in The Guardian today, page 28 if you have a copy to hand. He was asked to come up with a series of designs for adverts the Guardian are to run about themselves, and as usual he did a particularly glorious job of it as you can see for yourselves below, with the first installment:

Smith was straight on the blower to Armitage on Friday night after Marc Riley played You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) for the second time on his magnificent Brain Surgery show. Neither Armitage nor Smith had caught the show as it went out on Wednesday, so they didn't get the chance to witness their first radio appearance as a band as it was happening, (and all hail the Listen Again feature, otherwise they would never have heard it at all). So on Friday night, they were positively giddy to hear it live:

"Did you hear it?"
"Aye. What did you reckon?"
"It sounded alright!"
"Did you hear the email request?"
"Eh? No. When was that?"
"At the top of the show."
"I only got home about twenty minutes into it."
"Then you missed it."
"So it seems. What did they say?"
"They asked for it again."
"Who was it? Anyone we know?"
"Someone called Petra."
"Petra? She left a comment on the site."
"She's a bit of an early adopter, eh!"
"Smart girl, that!"
"Aye. Smart girl!"

In honour of the outstanding Superfan Petra, we grabbed the audio of Marc reading out her request as well as The Scaremongers bit from later on. Thanks again to Marc and his team, and once again I hope it's OK to borrow a few minutes of Friday's show.

Wanting to get a copy of The Scaremongers brief but (for me!) thrilling inaugural radio appearance on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery on Wednesday night and without all the connectors that would have made the job easier and that would have ensured a pristine recording, in true 1970's fashion I propped a microphone against the front of the computer speaker and pressed play. It took me back to Top of the Pops during the heyday of the Glitter Band and Mud: the two things missing from the experience was my Big Sister pushing me to the side, pressing the off button and saying 'The Scaremongers are rubbish, and you'd best not be taping over my David Cassidy' and my mum ruining the fidelity of the recording by opening the Room door and calling me through to the Living Room for my tea. (Calling the two downstairs reception areas The Room and the Living Room - was that normal or was it yet another of those inexplicable quirks unique to the sub-genus of our family, like calling dessert 'finish off'?)

Anyway, I hope Marc and his team don't mind me half-inching four and a bit minutes of their show, which I only caught on Listen Again. It's what is known in the trade as a 'ropey copy', so I don't think it's going to put anyone out of business. I just wanted to record it for posterity! It's my first time on the radio, don't you know!

To mark the first day of Autumn, The Scaremongers will be played on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery again tonight, (21st September, 2007). That makes two nights in one week. It really is thrilling, but scary at the same time: as the guy who organised the manufacture of the CDs, I live in perpetual fear that the radio copies we're giving out don't work when they're played on the radio.

As for the song - which I'm guessing will be You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) - it sounds different every time I hear it. I still don't know what to make of it. I'm proud of it, sure enough, but I keep listening for flaws and mistakes and things that aren't quite in time. I keep telling myself the best thing is take what we've learned and use it on the next song, but that's easier said than done.

Anyway, should you ever read this, thanks ever so much, Marc: you and your team have made two middle-aged men very happy.

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet and the kindness of the good people at Vinyl Tap, The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side is online ready to be bought! It's a limited edition, it's two songs - You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) and Nodding Dog - it's on sale at £2.99 plus postage and we're as proud as punch.

I've become my own hero for the day! Thanks, Tony!

Let it go down in the history books that the great Marc Riley was the first person to play The Scaremongers on the radio. All hail the Mighty Marc!

And all hail Marc's mighty team, who not only made the latest show available on their site, which is particularly useful for those who missed it - eg the whole of The Scaremongers who, instead of being crammed around their transistor radios tuning in to Marc's show, were stood in the middle of the roundabout by Highbury and Islington tube station having their photographs taken - but the team also listed the tracklisting for me to stare at in amazement! It's a triumph of technology and librarianship, it really is!

20-odd years since The Scaremongers first got together, we now have something to show for it. The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side arrived this week, and quite frankly, it looks beautiful. The painting we used for the cover, painted by the great Lyndon Hayes, has scaled wonderfully well and though we've spoiled it by blazoning The Scaremongers across it, it can't detract from the natural beauty of the image, although in the photo below, Smith certainly seems to be making an effort to ruin it with his gurning:

The people at XPress CDs did a fine job putting it together, and there's a collective thrill from The Scaremongers' camp at this object we've created. But we must stress, this was a team effort, with vocalist Speedy Sue, bassist Glen Smith, guitarist Geoff Bird, engineer Jason Salisbury and a whole host of others doing their bit to bring it into being. Thanks to everyone who helped: we might have been able to do it without you, but it wouldn't have been the same, and as we love the way it turned out, we're glad that you were the ones who helped us!

That Armitage interview in full:

Just got word that The Scaremongers' First Double A-Side is due back from the manufacturers on Tuesday. Barring mishaps and problems with the CD, hopefully we can get it to our distributors by the weekend. They need time to process it, but fingers crossed we should be able to make it available by the end of the following week, ie the 14th September. You'll be the first to know when it's ready!

I'm both super-hyper to see it and yet deeply apprehensive that something is wrong with it and that I might be disappointed. I spoke to Emma from The Pocketbooks a couple of weeks ago about their single, and she said she hadn't dared play it for fear it wasn't as good as she hoped it would be. I can understand exactly how she feels! It's silly really - these are simple problems that can be sorted out, but it's more than that, it's all your dreams going into one piece of plastic, and you don't get too many opportunities in life to create these artifacts. You want them to be as good as they can possibly be.

What I keep forgetting is that everyone else involved wants it to be as good as it can possibly be, as well. The dreams and reputations of the engineer in the studio, and the CD manufacturers themselves ride on the fact that they come up with something professional and cool whenever they are paid to do it, so they will make an effort with our CD just as much as they would with any other band. In some ways doing a good job is even more important to them than it is to us because their livelihoods rely on it: they need strong word of mouth to get them the next job and the next after that. They want us to come back because it's a tough market out there, and they are banking on repeat custom and recommendations for new business, and they know that those are far more likely if they show commitment and diligence. So we have to trust we are in safe hands.

It all goes to show how collaborative creative endeavour is. These two songs will find their way into the hands of others only because a team of people came together to make it happen. Beside Armitage and Smith, the aforementioned CD manufacturers and the studio engineer, Jason Salisbury, are in the mix. The musicians Glen Smith and Geoff Bird helped us out big time, as did Speedy Sue with a glorious vocal performance. Lyndon Hayes painted the original art that we used for the cover, and Fiona Macnab let us use it. You could get even further into it: the ladies in the sandwich shop where we bought food while we were in the studio - whole moods can swing on the quality of a sandwich; the people who made the equipment - the band's gear, the studios gear, the cars we drove to the studio in; the people from Typepad, MySpace, Spice, Indie Store, Last.fm; certainly Tony and his team at Vinyl Tap for making the CD available. All of those people influenced the making of the CD in a very direct and positive way. It's awe-inspiring, when you think about it, bewildering - swap out any one of those people, and the record would have been different. I'm sure it would still have been made, but it wouldn't have been the same: they certainly made it easier.

Music is collaborative - don't let anyone tell you any different.