I'm Not A Fan

I'm Not A Fan

The only time you'll find me spinning around is on the dancefloor, though come to think of it, just being in my presence will make you instantly cooler, so maybe I am.

Fan, short for fanatic: –

(informal) a person who is extremely interested in something, to a degree that some people find unreasonable

(disapproving) a person who has very extreme beliefs that may lead them to behave in unreasonable or violent ways

Not admirable qualities right? Those with the patience of a toddler who hungrily pre-order every release from their favourite band/author/movie franchise/crockery creator etc. The people who camp out in the streets to be first to get the new shiny thing/tickets for band that should have stopped touring thirty years ago/a look at a posh baby. The one-upmanship of those desperate to be first, who fuel the ebay sales with 500% markups of things that will be easily available at a huge discount in a few short weeks time (hi record store day friends). Handy for a certain sector of consumer capitalism that relies on blind hero-worship and impatience though.

Once upon a time I did pre-order books, movies and records to get them at full price on release day, then pore over them for days until I knew every part of them. Now I know if I leave it a bit, I can probably get them for less than half the price when those early adopters have finished, and it has been a long time since I read anything twice (although that is more to do with my fear of dying before I have managed to get through the mountainous to-read pile next to my bed – which is quite likely to be the cause of that death).

This isn't some smug money-saving tip like the millionaire fashion icon 'oh I get all my stuff from charity shops' might give you in order to fuck up the chances of anybody else ever getting a bargain again. It's because that deadly to-read pile has sibling to-watch and to-listen-to piles and the last thing I pre-ordered was still sitting around unread by the time I first saw it as a 99p kindle special offer. It's really just me: getting old leaves a lot less time to laze about consuming pop culture. I have had The Last Jedi DVD sitting on my shelf for nearly a fortnight now, and am starting to regret paying full price – cheapskate twat that I am.

This is how I will die – although not in such a hideous shirt

It's the competitive nature of fandom that will always confuse me. Those who, when I mention that I quite like band A, will immediately tell me 'I've seen them live,' with a smug face as if buying a freely available ticket in accordance with market forces is some kind of achievement. The tracking down of rare bootleg recordings did indeed used to be a difficult game, the sense of achievement could be earned, until you removed the treasured tape-of-a-tape-of-a-tape-of-a-tape from its photocopied cover and played a crackly, not-quite-as-good-as-the-officially-licensed-live-recording-from-another-date version of a song that should make you question your life choices. Being smug about owning a rare record these days is just being smug about having a lot of money and a discogs account, before it was a sign of having way too much time (also money) on your hands.

In my youth I did indeed bow down to the gods of rock. Until I learned to play well, write killer riffs (spoiler: they may not have been that killer) and understood how it all falls into place. I had no time for contemporary heroes – Kurt Cobain, Thurston Moore, Graham Coxon, Bernard Butler – the grunge-lords and britterati. But the ancient titans of rock – Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Alvin Lee, Jerry Garcia – still held a certain magic: even once I had read biographies pointing out just how spoiled, twatty and broken most of them really were. But then I got older, I came into real life contact with a few actual rock stars in the course of my apathetic failed musical career and they lost their glitter. I still love the songs, but their creators are no more to me than craftsmen doing a job. Love the song, not the singer.

With that realisation I stopped with the envy, and the contempt and all the other vague, bitter stirrings from my artistically unfulfilled heart that I aimed at the unworthy contemporary chart toppers. Truly blinkered fans – you know the ones, they'll tell you 'Octopus's Garden' and 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' are just as good as the overwhelmingly excellent finale of Abbey Road, that Titus Alone is every bit as brilliant as Titus Groan, that Star Wars movies aren't just jolly adventures for kids (they are, and that's why they're great), the kind who think Tusk and Physical Graffiti should not have been single albums without all the shit on, who want to hear David Gilmour do his non-Pink-Floyd material live and didn't cancel their Amazing Spiderman subscriptions when Dr Octopus took over as Spidey – never get to this realisation. Their religious fervour for their idols is truly terrifying. I have friends who, if I were so inclined, I could drive to tears with a pithy take-down of their favourite Green Day album. People whose entire identities are so entwined with their obsessions that to lose one is to lose the other entirely.

'Sheldon, you didn't have a personality, you just had some shows you liked'

Separating art from artist becomes increasingly necessary in the current environment – especially if you're a bit of a lefty and you like Morrissey: like most Morrissey fans. You can try and draw a line and say you only like his work up until the point he became an awful racist cunt, but I think he may always have been an awful racist cunt. Also 'Spent The Day In Bed' is a fucking great song. So are 'Cat Scratch Fever', 'Rock and Roll part 1', 'Rooftops' and 'Jake the Peg' and I will still listen to them however cuntish their creators.

Difficult people can write great music and if you didn't know the terrible crimes of the artist you wouldn't care. Bowie and Jimmy Page both slept with underage girls (consensually, as far as I am aware, which is a crucial difference) but we're all still very happy to listen to their music. Phil Collins was always a massive tax-dodging tory but... okay, only tax-dodging tories like Phil Collins – same goes for Gary Barlow. But there are fans who are devastated when the ideals of their idols fail to align with their own.

Kill your idols, believe in nothing but yourself, your false religion will ultimately disappoint you. Believe in the music, for it shall set you free, worship the power of the instrument in your hand to change the world, for this machine kills fascists.

Love the art, fuck the artist.

Some rather more helpful things that I have learned in four decades of singing in front of people for money

As I mentioned in my last blog (which I have been told was unhelpful and had a misleading title) I have an average at best voice which has been forced into the spotlight out of necessity. This was brought into very clear focus last night when the lead vocalist of one of my bands couldn't make it and I was once again thrust into the singing spot. At least it gave me an excuse for the music stand full of lyrics I had (I've used one for the last twelve years of acoustic duo Rob and Dave, despite rarely adding new material, and make no excuses for never having cared enough to learn the words). Lyric learning tip, run through the words in your head (keep the words out of sight, just check you're doing them right occasionally) while you're doing something entirely mundane like walking to work or washing dishes and they stick easily. I haven't bothered, but I used to care enough to.

I know, I used this photo last time as well, but I honestly can't think of any better one to use

In light of last night's near-disaster, I figured the best thing I could do is share what little I have learned over the years in hopes that it helps others who don't want to sing but find they have to. As opposed to the self-indulgent snark of my last piece, sorry.

The first piece of advice I can give anybody is know your range and stick to it. If you can't get to the note you are aiming for it will both sound rubbish (somewhere I have a recording of an eighteen year old me trying to hit the chorus of Self-Esteem by The Offspring which demonstrates this to great effect) and destroy your voice. I was reminded of this while screaming American Woman by the Guess Who last night and then having to croak the rest of the set: I really should have practised the songs earlier in the day. If your band are dicks and won't change the key to a more comfortable one then drop the song, do something else. Then remind your fuckwit guitar player that people only listen to the singer anyway.

This leads nicely into the obvious one, practice. Practice a lot, and at full volume. I don't. If I practice at all then I tend to do it mumblingly and about an octave lower than I'd do the song live (unless I am in the car, and then it is both loud, out of tune, and probably the best workout my voice ever gets these days). Hence all the trouble with The Guess Who. You can go for stuff outside of your range when you practice, since increasing that range is a good thing (though less likely to work the older you are, sorry) and nobody is there to hear you miss those notes.

Inhibition is your enemy. Have none, fear nothing and don't worry about being embarrassed. I should have curled up in a ball and died a few times last night, since trying to play John Entwistle bass lines and sing at the same time is a very good way to not be able to do either. By manfully singing all the wrong notes and fluffing the bass lines (lot of root notes, really a lot) I got through it and, depressingly as always, nobody in the audience even noticed I had fucked it up. That's how little they care, just go for it. It is both terribly sad, and incredibly useful that even when they're paying attention they can't tell when you get it wrong.

This link takes you to a video of me last night, missing the first note and hitting the wrong strings

Learn an instrument so you can accompany yourself. Singing along to records with a voice already there as reference is no good for getting your tuning ear going. Karaoke machines with flashing words don't help you develop your sense of timing. Learn to read music, understand intervals, scales, keys and dynamics. Your voice is an instrument every bit as hard to master as any other. The more you use it, the better it gets. But you can't get to the fiddly mechanical bits if you break it and you can't buy a new one: if it hurts, stop and do it differently. (From the guy who tried to fix a completely knackered larynx with 3 pints of cider and a marlboro light last night – do as I say, not as I do. In my defence, it worked in time for War Pigs).

Take lessons, really. I know I don't, and am always claiming to be self taught, and may have taken the piss out of you for having lessons, but that's because of my selective memory. While it's true I never had a lesson, a solid ten years or so of choir practice and GCSE music does give you an advantage. And is, in fact, comprised mainly of singing lessons that I have pretended not to have taken. This will also help to increase your range – in a much safer way than trying to scream as high as Ronnie James Dio.

Up above the streets and houses, Rainbow flying high...

Finally, stand up. Really, don't ever sing sitting down, and not just because it scares people into thinking there's going to be a key change when you stand up. It constricts the diaphragm, stops you being able to access your lungs properly and makes you look like a dick. If your back is so fucked that you can't support yourself anymore, get a stool so you're still upright or find something to lean against.

Be aware that none of this is approved by any actual singing teachers. These are just things I have noticed over the course of my accidental singing career. If you follow them then you too can manage to achieve mediocrity. In case you think this is all just false modesty, check out the massively multitracked vocals on this track I recorded a year or so ago.

A Few Things I Have Learned Over Four Decades Of Singing In Public For Money.

Once upon a time in the relatively recent past, they made a movie in which you not only had to believe that Gwyneth Paltrow was Huey Lewis's, naïve, angelic, virginal, Las Vegas Showgirl daughter, but that Huey himself made his living as a karaoke hustler. That's right, a karaoke hustler. I don't think that's ever been a real thing but I would like it to be. Duets is a movie with many faults, but Paul Giamatti's performance remains the single greatest portrayal of midlife crisis/breakdown ever. Michael Douglas in Falling Down and Kevin Spacey in American Beauty are hailed as benchmarks, but they lack the heart. They lack that spark of crazy that Giamatti brings to 'popping out for some cigarettes', and neither of them ever made me cry singing 'Try a Little Tenderness'.

The sheer joy of singing at full volume to a room full of strangers cannot really be represented in a batshit crazy movie that represents Karaoke as a viable career option, but it does a good job. Music soothes even the savage beast, supposedly, and has an unreasonable effect on our moods. I maintain that anybody can sing, given enough time and practice. Certainly well enough to sing in a choir, do karaoke or impress their friends. The trouble begins when easily-impressed friends suggest that those of average ability should do it professionally. It does, admittedly, lead to the only bits of X-Factor worth watching, but also to some of the most excruciating pub bands I have ever had the misfortune to watch (and occasionally find myself depping for). Luckily I'm too polite to tell those who are willing to pay me money for my musical services that my dog's angry requests for a walk are more tuneful then them.

This is how you sound to me when you sing

Stop it

Singing is not black magic, but you need to spend a hell of a lot of time doing it with no sense of dignity or shame in order to be able to hold your own. If you hold back for fear of being laughed at, you will suck; if you give a shit what other people think of your voice, you will suck; if you are not using every single part of your being to project the very essence of the song out into the world, then you will suck. Even if you are doing all of this, you will probably still suck – join a choir or an am-dram group instead, there is strength in numbers. I have, at best, an average voice, but ever since I was twelve and every band I put together failed to find a singer, I have been resigned to having to do it. Having grown up singing in both church and school choirs (once at a big posh do in Exeter Cathedral, and once on the telly), I was the default best-of-a-bad-lot choice for frontman.

I was about sixteen, a little drunk at a family party and singing AC/DC's Crabsody in Blue when I received the review that gave me hope. My big sister turned round to me and said, 'shit, that was actually quite good.' It has stuck with me forever, and any time I am worried that I might not be able to pull a gig off, I remember. My sister is not one for unnecessary compliments (she also once mistook a Led Zeppelin record for me practising, I took her shout of 'Turn your fucking guitar down!' as high praise).

I seem to give less fucks as the years go by

Sorry I couldn't find any pictures of me in the choir

It's no different from learning any other instrument. I gave up piano lessons when I was about 8, and took up guitar a few years later. I spent every minute I could between the ages of 11 and 20-something with a guitar in my hand, playing, playing and playing it some more and am now good enough to play without really thinking about it. Whereas, I am currently re-learning how to play the piano properly and it is hard going thinking about the mechanics of what my hands are doing and what notes I want to play. Because I am old now, and it is less intuitive. In the same way, those singers I am lucky enough to work with that have been singing in front of bands for as long as they can remember are – for the most part – fucking heavenly. Whilst those who hit mid-life crisis and decided to give it a punt because they always wanted to try it are – at best – pretty good, you know, considering, etc etc. Like most things, if you leave it too late, you will never be great. Just accept it.

I am unreasonably critical of other singers, because I cannot understand how, if a song is inside your range (mine is incredibly limited – but I know what notes I can and can't hit) and you've got an instrument to pitch to, you can still manage to not be in tune. I understand that years of angry choir masters rapping my knuckles with rulers refined my tuning, as has the last more than thirty years of singing in public, and that my knackered right ear is now a permanent monitor allowing me to hear my own voice in my head above everything else. And that I lack empathy for others. Maybe somewhere in there is the difference between the fan/karaoke/choir singer and someone with the brass cojones to stand at the front and tell the rest of the band what to do?

You Have To Earn The Fucking Cape

Pay Your Dues