Since the last post, I ended my stay in New York, fully educational in purpose and travelled to my second home of Toronto. Where I stayed for three weeks. I then returned to London having missed every festival (leaving the day before Glastonbury and returning the day after Reading) .
Having left behind full time education in June 2006 with a place at Goldsmiths in my back pocket I spent the past year working four days a week at a small independent music promotions company and helped run a small record label. Having been at this company a year prior as a work experience girl whilst balancing such with running a small music website and doing some freelance journalism, not to mention completing my final year of school shifting to actual employment was more of a case of just being in more, than a sudden variation in responsibility. I spent the year at a lot of parties, venues, openings, club nights, awards, countless gigs and many, many “drinks things”. I met a large amount of people, bonded with some who I had been previously acquainted, learnt a lot about business, a lot about the nature of people and a lot about the industry that I somehow ended being a part of. Mostly though, a whole lot about people.
I worked with some amazing people and some really wonderful bands, coming across types of people who I could not have imagined existed and some of whom grew to be of my closest companions. Many nights were spent flitting from one gig to another, and many sit hazily with fuzzy detail in my mind, littered with all sorts of characters and colors. In this year I also started my own record label, Records. Records and put out a single by a band I adore called Little Death. I started a clothing line, albeit somewhat as a half hearted joke (but one thats potential will come into greater fruition in the new year) called hotels. I began to DJ here and there, and I travelled. Working only four days a week I had the privilege of having time to explore London the way I never had done before. As opposed to just wondering the streets of Soho in my free periods between classes at school I went and walked and walked North, West, East, South. I took many trips to Paris, mostly alone to just walk and sit in cafes. I travelled to Leeds, Brighton and Glasgow. I became acquainted with Kingston and its wonderful scene, spent a spectacular 19th birthday and Christmas in Toronto, as well as a surreal New Years in New York.
From the age of fourteen I had been intent on working in the Music Industry and had never stopped to even consider any other profession. Perhaps it was because I had never given myself enough time to stop and think, maybe I was too busy consistently doing things to further my ambition, maybe I didn’t think myself capable of anything else and I panicked. Though all of the good things I’ve been able to do from working in the industry hold some degree of merit- helping out friends, bands, musicians and people wildly talented, it took some time before I began to wonder if my intentions were starting to waver from my initial stance on the music industry, which was just wanting to listen to good music and help people.
When I left for New York in June 2007 I thought I would give myself and my increasingly fragile body a rest. So I went, and went to only seven gigs that summer. I went and studied literature, among other things. I wrote for hours a day. I read dozens of books and roamed a city and lived alone for the very first time. I entertained visitors and found homes. I completely and utterly fell for the city finding companionship in its avenues and hollows. I felt it truly meant things had changed when I realised that I did not miss London, the music industry and constant bewildering nights out.
I became content with just silence, I barely made use of my I pod and its docking speaker that summer. I did not take up the wonderful internship I had arranged at a local music venue. I was content and thought, that is it, I am done with the music industry. It felt amazing to listen to records and just listen again. Not hear any background thoughts when listening to music. Listening to old records, new records, wholly through and through and not thinking- who’s put this out? Or, I wonder who’d play that on the radio? I wonder what size venue they’d fill? I wonder if they’re managed?
I fell in love with countless records again that Summer and felt so happy that that feeling of gut deep excitement when hearing songs that you love for the first time had returned. In New York music and people felt inspiring again and I could hear the difference between the music that I needed and the music I wanted. My time in Toronto after the stint in New York was somewhat similar, I spent time listening to Dave Bazan and Bob Dylan. Voices who I love. Great Lake Swimmers and Nassau. I went to beaches and Queen West and heard dozens of great young new bands, and listened to them for fun. Not because I wanted to be on top of all the new music, just because the people who told me about it genuinely seemed to care. The local magazines, the record store clerks, acquaintances in cafes, as in New York all seemed to genuinely care and love what they were telling me about, which was something which had seemed to become devoid in London at the time of my departure. Sparks of passion and pinpricks of creativity seemed to exist again and that was very exciting.
I returned to London in early September superbly well rested and slightly jaded, thinking that’s it. I am done with the industry. Really, it is filled with questionable people who don’t care about music that says anything. Music was just means to an end, the end being money which is devastating when it promises to compromise the musical integrity of an entire city, nee country, so full of potential. I don’t doubt that a lot of people in the music industry love music and still do, perhaps more than I ever have done and that’s why they’re better at the ‘industry’ part than I, but so many seem so content to stew in the sterility of the British music scene it scares me. I’ve been there, I know how it works, I’ve lived it in as many capacities as you could possibly imagine, from every view point, and it became evident that there was such a lack of inspirational figures in music-those making it and those helping those making it.
It’s the question of the moment and one no on has a good answer for-Is there really anyone playing today who we will care enough to go see in ten years? Or twenty? Is anyone really saying anything anymore? Anything worthwhile?
With all this in mind and responses bleak, I took a break. I thought, I will go to university and be done with it. I shall figure out what to do and I won’t miss it at all.
I was very wrong, I did begin to miss it. There is something about being in London that makes me want to seek things out. There’s almost a magnetic pull, so that even though it is so apparently stagnant , after just six weeks in absence I felt compelled to feel involved again. I just wanted to figure out if there was anything I still wanted to do in the industry that I had become so disenchanted with and if there was anyone , my old colleagues aside, I would want to be like. I decided all of this in the midst of not being sure whether University was actually for me after all, finding the people very young and the course somewhat un-challenging, something I am still debating.
I met with a fair few people at the dawn of my “university crisis” to gather advice and among the assortment, there were some who I encountered who gave me the faith that there are still people in London trying. Trying to be creative and initiating things that they feel are truly visceral and integral, people who are good at their jobs and care enough to constantly want to better themselves and what they do for others. People who want to do something different and be a part of something, that I suppose lives in the greater collective unconscious. These people were making things to give London some culture, and it became nice to know at least some were still lighting fires. These sub-cultural impresarios had built themselves. They were mini moguls, and while I stood no clearer on where I wanted to go, I was given an idea of who I wanted to be.
I’m not going to take music as seriously as I once used to, I’m not currently actively involved in the industry and I’m very much okay with that. Once more it's something to take pleasure in. I don’t believe any of the music that’s being put out right now is wholly original or life changing, but perhaps I’m not listening right or looking hard enough. The music industry may appear to be for all involved a sinking ship, but perhaps it’s a sign that we need to rip it all up and start again? I know all of my favourite things seem to be stemmed from disasters, small and large.
I suppose we shall have to explore and see…
Next post I shall put up some new bands, I have lots and lots of good ones. I am also very excited to talk about the new Maritime record...
Until then...
