sgjourno-blog

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PR Strategy

I am a music business student at the Academy of Contemporary Music in London, and play no instruments despite being an avid fan of music. I believe this gives me a unique insight into music and music journalism as when listening to music I listen both as a non-musician and someone who recognises the industrial merits of music. I watch a lot of live music both gigs and dance events and am rarely found without a pair of headphones glued to my ears.

I am interested in the music industry and the behind the scenes work that goes into the production of music and so find myself attracted to articles on these topics. I read Music Business Worldwide, The Guardian’s music section and a variety of music and industry blogs.

I would be interested in writing pieces on:

The Drain of Revenue From the Music to the Tech Industry

How Brexit will Affect Copyright and Licensing of Music in the UK 

I believe these kinds of articles suit Music Business Worldwide well as they are articles focused on the industry as a whole, and would require a lot of statistics and figures to be done properly. The editor of MBW is Tim Ingham.

The Future of Live Music in a Virtual Reality 

I believe this is the type of article that would appeal to The Guardian being forward-looking and based on the industry but more on experience rather than financial. The music editor for The Guardian is Tim Jonze.

Could a Drug Free Dance Music Festival Not Only Exist, but Succeed?

An article like this would suit Noisey as they are comfortable with discussing drugs and their readership is young and metropolitan. The editor is Eric Sundermann.

How Can we Protect London’s Music Venues?

I think this would appeal to Timeout London as it is focused on London specifically and would be of interest to their readers. The city life editor is James Manning.

I am a fan of genres depending on my mood but listen mostly to dance music, normally Progressive & Electro House, Bassline, Techno and old school Electronica. Classic artists I enjoy are Leftfield, Groove Armada & Basement Jaxx, more recently artists are AC Slater, Dwin & Tuxedo. 

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Media Plan

Dear Ms Sia Michel,

‘I found a great festival this January, let’s go!’

I’m sure you’ve never heard that sentence uttered before and neither have I, however when our festival periods end the southern hemisphere’s begin.

I saw this article and it struck me that there are few articles on music festivals during the winter, obviously because there aren’t any on in the US or even over here in the UK, but across the equator their festival season is just starting and so I believe a piece on out-of-period foreign festivals would sit well in your section of The New York Times. Very few other American publications have articles on this topic out at this time in the year, and people will be be getting a bit sick of cold and grey and be looking to sunnier pastures. 

‘Winter Festivals, No Not The Kind You’re Thinking Of’

I believe The New York Times readership is widely spread, especially online articles, and would be both interested in and able to consider going to a music festival across the equator, and it would stand out in newsfeeds and on social media.

I have created and written pieces for an independent music industry magazine here in London called ‘Soundcheck’, have conducted interviews for the same and run a online music blog called ‘Musical Musings’. I have studied music journalism with legendary music journalist Everett True, and have been to a variety of festivals in and around the UK. While I have not gone to any festivals in the southern hemisphere I have traveled through east and south east Asia and have contacts over there, and have experience travelling for many months at a time. 

Please let me know if this is an article you’d be interested in.

Many thanks,

Samuel Garratt

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Feature Interview - Slovenian Dreams - July Jones is here and wants you to know it

In this industry you need drive, and July Jones makes Ryan Gosling look like a stoner living in his mother’s basement. I was lucky enough to catch a moment in her busy schedule to talk about who she is and how she got here.

‘I know my sound, I know who I am, I know what I want to represent, and I also realised how much more I have to do to get the sound that I want’

Born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, July Jones came to the UK after finishing high school in the US. First signed at 14, Jones’ has done this all before but feels that she’s more prepared this time around. 

‘When I was signed the first time, I think I was just happy to be signed. So I just thought instantly, you know, I’m gonna make it, and that was it. But once I got signed and started developing with the company, I realised I had no clue what I was actually doing, I didn’t know who I was as an artist, I didn’t know what my beliefs were and they were kinda throwing me around.’

Jones’ has been studying music in one way or another since 6 years old and was offered a scholarship from Berklee College of Music in the US but after a summer in London decided to head to the big smoke to really sink her teeth into writing, performing and working on her sound.

Currently enrolled at The Academy of Contemporary Music in Clapham, Jones is using her studies to improve and streamline her musical career while she finished her EP and worked on her new album ‘Bad Influence’. While all of this goes on, she has played at The Great Escape, Pride in London & venues around London. On top of this, her track Jump in The Water was picked up as The Co-Op radio’s track of the week and played in stores across the UK and has been remixed by the likes of Mugun and Memtrix. 

Jones embraces her sexuality and has played at multiple pride events, but doesn’t make it the main focus of her image, as she explains

‘I’m very loud about it, and proud of it, because I think nobody every expected that from me, so it was quite a shock for a lot of people and I think it opened a lot of people’s eyes. That you don’t have to look like a lesbian, you know to like girls. So I think it definitely does affect it, but it doesn’t define me as an artist.’

‘Bad Influence’ has just been released, and Jones feels it is a step closer to the sound she has had in mind for the last few years.

‘With the team I have around me I’ve produced an album that has been a long time coming, I’ve had a chance to flex my muscles and really sink my teeth into writing a commercial pop album.’

‘Bad Influence’ is an excellent example of Jones experimenting with her range and the range of pop as a genre, with some dance, some soul and a little bit of je ne sais quoi, but I’m looking forward to finding out.

Thanks July!

Check July Jones out on social media:

www.soundcloud.com/JulyJonesOffical

www.instagram.com/JulyJones

www.facebook.com/OfficalJulyJones

www.youtube.com/ThexJulijax

www.twitter.com/JulyJonesMusic

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Opinion - Kill The Killers

Ostriches have the right idea, sometimes sticking your head in the sand can save you some heartbreak.

As for many people, my music taste was built on what my parents listened to. I have a distinct memory of me at about 12 years old, sitting infront of my parents CD drawer, flipping through the jeweled cases and pulling out albums that caught my eye. One of those albums was Hot Fuss, The Killers’ landmark first album packed with some of the most sing-alongable indie classics. ‘Somebody Told Me’, ‘Smile Like You Mean It’ & of course, ‘Mr Brightside’. The following week I went out to my nearby Woolworths (oh the good old days) and bought Sam’s Town and the lesser appreciated Sawdust. My god, these guys came to me at a perfect time, enough rock to speak to a boy entering his teenage years but enough pop not to scare off a kid finding his sound and I tell you what, my parents’ coolness rose substantially in my almost-teenage eyes.

Let me preface this review by taking you down memory lane for a spell, and listen to some of what lead to myself, and the rest of the country, nurturing some real love for the band.

Now bands normally take one of 2 paths. One is to stay true to their roots, and not compromise their sound. Few bands accomplish this as the fanbase of their particular sound is limited, and to reach more people and therefore higher record sales they’re pushed either by financial desire or a pushy record label to water down their sound to have a wider audience, normally by straying ever closer to what is in the charts at the time and pop in general. Guitar based indie bands in particular seem to be vulnerable to this phenomenon (see Kings of Leon) and it seems the best they can do is to stretch this effect out as much as possible, which to their credit both The Killers & KOL managed to accomplish fairly well, spreading a decline into pop across 2-3 albums rather than the often seen 1.

You can only put off the seemingly inevitable for so long however, and both bands reached that point, The Killers with Day & Age. A little bit of my childhood died on hearing ‘Human’, and was further desecrated by ‘Spaceman’; over-produced trollop barely reminiscent of the band I grew up with. I mourned the loss of the sound that spoke so much to me back then, threw Day & Age in the bin and spent the rest of my life fighting back the urge to utter that hipster adage ‘Their early stuff was so much better’ any time they were brought up. Then I saw they released an album this year titled ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ and thought I’d give it a chance and see if now, multi-millionaires that they are, they had plucked up the courage to return to what made me respect my parents that much more.

NOPE

Whyyyyyyyyyy Brandon? What did you do with The Killers as I know them? Does the slow increase of people saying ‘Oh wow, are The Killers still releasing music? I haven’t heard anything since ‘Human’’ please you somehow? There isn’t a man, woman or child in the UK that doesn’t feel a flutter in their heart at the first few bars of ‘Mr Brightside’, a track that is still streamed 3/4 million times a week, and hasn’t left the Top 100 charts since 2004 and yet you refuse to return to the sound that lead to a song which has become the song of the Noughties for the whole country. You can’t hide the watered down nonsense behind a little funk.

Pop bullshit, now leave me alone because I’m going to bed and my stomach is sick. Perhaps it’s all in my head. And she’s touching his...

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Album Review - Digital Acid with St Vincent’s Masseduction

In a world of vastly more music than is physically possible to actually listen to and with Youtube being a major platform to find new music, A music video is at the very least as important as the music itself.

St Vincent’s new album ‘Masseduction’ and accompanying videos have gone the way of Tame Impala and Aphex Twin by taking a shit load of acid and jumping behind the camera. The concept of image has been important for a band with sleeve art and clothing but with the advent of television and then the internet the music video was born, and who hasn’t told a friend to check out a band based on the band’s image/videos alone? (see below for my personal go to example of this)

With only 12/54 lines in ‘Los Ageless’ unrepeated and 15/40 in ‘New York’ with similar ratios throughout the album St Vincent is not a tour-de-force in writing to be sure, the title track of the album has 16 ‘Masseduction’ and 13 ‘`Mass Destruction’ repeats, which accounts for almost 1/3 of the song.

St Vincent isn’t aiming for mindblowing writing however, Masseduction delivers a bass heavy pop fare that fits in with the vocal-sample house in the charts right now, a bridge over the every shrinking divide between pop with house beats and house music with pop-vocal samples. Does this appeal to fans of both genres, or does it run the risk of appealing to neither? 

Decide for yourself by checking out ‘Los Ageless’ & ‘New York’ and let me know because I still can’t decide, but it’s hard to tell since after an hour on her Youtube channel I’m still tripping balls. Perhaps that’s the idea.

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Live Review - If You Can Roadie for YAK You Can Roadie for Anyone

If you go to a rock gig, music aside you are expecting a certain type of show, and Yak deliver, sending you home covered in sweat & beer with your ears ringing.

Bare bricks, high ceilings, spinning lights. ‘YAK’ in 6ft letters lit up like a Christmas tree above the stage. Shoulder to shoulder with leather-clad indies drinking £5 cans of beer. Bass builds and sends tremors through the crowd. Guitar follows with a punch.

Yak's music is worth a listen but their real strength is their stage presence and energy, and the energy they give to the crowd. Early on in their set the lead singer fell off the stage but must have enjoyed it because he performed more stage dives and crowdsurfing than this writer has ever seen, along with tossing his mic into the mosh pit so often they seemed to sing as much as he did.  

The true heroes of the band however are the roadies. Often forgotten by fans, of all genres this is the one where roadies are truly as part of the band as the musicians and without whom a show of this calibre just couldn’t succeed. Whether it's single handedly hauling the lead singer back on the stage after his 8th stagedive, frantically reeling back in mics thrown into the crowd or holding amps in place while they're clubbed like a baby seal by a swinging guitar, these black-t shirted men are left literally holding everything in place, and do a fantastic job. The bassist even managed to snap his thickest string, which is no mean feat, and it was restrung in under 3 minutes.

Yak intend to provide a spectacle, and even their set list reflects it. With little to no gaps between songs, and no titles at all, the gig feels more like an extended art piece using the music only to provide context to their shenanigans. Catch a show for the high-volume clothes-vibrating rock, but stay for the 90 minute mosh pit and to witness a man spit in his own face.

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Tileyard Sessions

A good networking event relies on a sociable and friendly atmosphere to encourage and facilitate conversation, and the monthly Notting Hill Tileyard event has this in spades. A mix of a good open location, cheap bottles of beer and a host with the unchecked enthusiasm of someone running a singles night meant that there were very few people not engaged in animated conversation or scattering business cards amongst the crowd like dandelion seeds in the wind. Music student stood shoulder to shoulder with artist and industry professional to bring together a crowd diverse in age and experience, truly representative of the industry as a whole (hell of a queue at the bar though, double up on drinks to reduce time waiting and increase time spent in front of the stage!).

Networking is only half of this event however, as it also provides a showcase of acts & bands who are catching eyes and making waves this month. As always with showcases it was a variety of genres, styles & degrees of talent, but a few acts stood out and drew out stronger responses from the crowd.

The standout acts of the night are all students at ACM Guildford, proving ACM to not only be producing some solid talent but also getting them out there and ensuring they get the attention they deserve.

Bruch held the audience in rapt attention, by no means an easy feat at any networking event, with a strong ethereal sound and an image reminiscent of Fever Ray. Accompanied only by a guitarist her strong stage presence and impressive branding will no doubt have lead to her name being on many people's lips on their way home. A breath of fresh air in amongst the blonde solo pop/soul vocalist act inundating the grassroots level of the music scene at the moment.

Chinchilla owned the crowd in a different way. Her voice has a power and range a step above her peers, and drew bursts of applause when hitting those high notes. Accompanied by 2 backing vocalists, the sheer force and solidity of the combination of their voices brought to mind themes from James Bond movies, taking her sound to another level from the influx of Adele-style vocalists relying too heavily on that deep soul sound to their voice and neglecting the higher notes.  

Beth George brought some electric to the line-up with her blend of pop vocals and bass heavy sound. Standing at a keyboard alongside her drummer utilising an electric drumpad to the best of its ability her set felt like a live sampled dance track, proving there are other ways to produce electronic music than one person with a laptop and much more appealing to watch and listen to live. A great example of where a female vocalist & pianist can take her sound.

The quality of production was impressive for an outdoor stage with a strong collection of lights, smoke & gear, giving the acts the best chance to show their best performance and focus completely on the music. There were a few small sound hiccups but most acts got through their set without a hitch and the volume was impressive and it could still be heard around the corner and down the street.  

Overall, this is an event that shouldn't be missed by anyone wanting to make connections while also enjoying good company and even better music.