Much of it was cleaning windows, picking up sandwiches, and writing mailing labels. But it was the most impactful job I ever had. I started working at that independent record store when I was 15 and arrived for a week of work experience. By the time I was finishing sixth…
Posts tagged Music, Media & Entertainment
The $15m unbranding
When Matthew McConnaughey decided to stop doing romantic comedies, he told his agent, Jim Toth at CAA, to make sure any romcom scripts did not make it past the desk. For 6 months, that’s all that came in. Nothing got past the desk. Then, another romcom, but with a strong…
The Entertainers
This piece was originally the introductory bit to the 40th edition of my monthly newsletter ‘Adventures‘ There’s been a piano in my family home for as long as I can remember. While I never got past ‘chopsticks’, my mum still plays almost every day. Back in my (fairly) innocent youth,…
Serious Fun
10 years ago The End nightclub in London closed its doors for the final time. It’s hard to overstate the impact The End (along with close neighbour fabric) had on the electronic music landscape in the late 90s and early 2000s. Over the venue’s 14 years, the crew led by…
SXSW 2020: The Remix
A blog post I keep coming back to is The Rise of the Remixer. I wrote this quite a while ago, and didn’t think much of it at the time – or rather, I sensed there was something interesting to explore further but wasn’t sure exactly what that something was….
Orbiting the Orbit: On Tour Again
A couple of months ago the Webster Hall music venue reopened in New York City. As a relatively new arrival to the city, I’m not an expert on the city’s nightlife history, but I know although it’s not in the same category as the likes of CBGBs, Webster Hall is…
Great (Un)Expectations
Below is a very lightly edited version of a brief introduction I gave at the final presentation day for the second cohort of the AMP NYC media & entertainment accelerator program in New York. I’d had a busy few days and showed up at the venue with nothing prepared at…
22,000 songs in your pocket
Back in 2001, Apple CEO Steve Jobs uttered his now legendary one line pitch for a new product his company were about to release. ‘1000 songs in your pocket’ It’s unlikely even he knew how rapidly things would evolve from that point on. From iPod Classic to iPhone X; Pioneer…
The Circuit
The challenges — and the importance — of being out on the road, in the middle, on the circuit as a creative professional When I was a talent agent, something I didn’t do as much as I should have was developing a deeper understanding and empathy for the experiences of my clients. They all…
The Music Industry’s 73%
This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the top 1% of musicians accounted for 60% of concert revenues – up from 26% in 1982. The top 5% of artists get 85%. Yesterday this popped up on my Twitter feed: In another post, I wrote at length about the challenges…