My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): Shed Anthems

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>Even while the mad whirligig of Hey Hey 16K Mania (that's DEFINITELY what Future Historians will call it) was slowly dying down there was still WORK to do, as we moved forward in our Plan Of ROCK.

The plan for our next single came from MANY directions. First and foremost was that I'd had SO much fun singing "The Fair Play Trophy" on Steve Lamacq's New Year show - especially the bit where I talked about what a MASSIVE hit it "had" become - that I fancied one last shot at releasing it. I also wanted to put out "Things'll Be Different" from Rolling Stone's Album Of The Year 2003 just as an excuse to go out and do some more gig, and there was also the small matter of the "Select-A-B-Side" competition, which rather required an A-Side to put it on with!

Thus was born "Shed Anthems", the name chosen to AMUSINGLY echo "Terrace Anthems" (as in football chants) and "House Anthems" (as in The Dance Music). We REASONED that a) The Humble Shed is a GRAND metaphor for The Independent Record Label, being somewhere that a Gentleman might go to pursue his HOBBIES and b) one could argue that a Shed is next in the sequence after a Terrace (of houses) and a Single House.

I thought this was quite clever... until our distributors saw the title and categorised it AS a dance album, put it in completely the wrong category for ordering and, as it was an album, QUADRUPLED the dealer price! When I pointed that this error meant nobody would be able to find it and, even if they could, might BAULK at paying TWENTY QUID for it, they begrudgingly said they'd fix it but that it would take about a month to put it right in the catelogues and online stores. With this in mind they advised that we should delay the release by at least six weeks. I VERY SLOWLY and VERY CALMLY explained that perhaps this might have SOME SMALL DETRIMENTAL EFFECT, as it would mean we'd be releasing our Euro 2004 tie-in single TWO WEEKS AFTER THE COMPETITION HAD FINISHED.

Aaah, Distribution! Talk to ANYBODY who's put their own record out and they will have their own DELIGHTFUL stories about the problems they've had with distributors. With some notable exceptions (and they're VERY notable because they ARE such exceptions) most record distributors are inefficient, uncontactable and somewhat reluctant to COUGH UP CASH.

The first distributor we had was actually all right - OK, they never paid our invoices on time and had no idea what was going on, but they DID answer the phone and talk to us. This was largely because we KNEW the person who was working on our records, and when she left we pretty much never heard from them again. Our next distributor was fine for the first few months and then went DEADLY SILENT. We ended up having to go and visit their OFFICES, where MYSTERIOUSLY all of the people we usually spoke to were "out to lunch" (for three hours), but we were assured that everything was FINE... only for them to go bankrupt a couple of weeks later, owing us several hundred pounds and a LOT of CDs.

We spent a couple of years without distribution, taking advantage of the PAYPAL to sell our stuff directly to people who wanted it, and only returned to it for this EP in order to get it listed on Amazon, ready for the MASSIVE HIT that I had predicted on the radio. The experience only REMINDED me of how appalling they usually are. It would be two more years until we'd dip our toes in these waters again, and we had to go to the world of FOLK MUSIC to do it. The company who do our distribution for us NOW not only answer the phone, they also SEND emails, post sales sheets without being asked AT ALL, let alone threatened with legal action, and PAY UP promptly when you ask them. They're lovely!

As I say, talk to ANYBODY who's put their own record out and they will corner you for HOURS to RANT about this sort of thing - BE WARNED!

So ANYWAY, we conducted negotiations between band members as to what we'd put ON the EP and came up with a mix of Designated A-Sides, Chosen B-Side, and a couple of new songs. The first was one called "City Centres", written after a long in-car conversation between me and Tim discussing how ANNOYING all those articles are that you get in Newspaper Supplements saying that all city centres are now EXACTLY THE SAME, just because they tend to have the same range of chains in them. As we AGREED, if you're so witlessly dull that the ONLY THING you look at in a city centre is the names of the shops on the high street and completely IGNORE the architecture of the buildings, the landscape around them, the layout of the town itself or - here's a thought - THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE then yes, maybe if you're particularly thick, they do look a bit similar, but otherwise NOT SO MUCH.

Another was "Let The Weird Band Win", which was the first song we ever JAMMED as a BAND. JAMMING songs is a difficult and frightening terrain to navigate - you often find that a song which FELT like a MASSIVE GROOVE whilst In The Studio is actually just LONG AND TEDIOUS, and you always need a JAM CHAIRPERSON on hand to say "that's enough verse - now perhaps a chorus?" ALSO all JAMMING is subject to the immutable rule of jam: the first song you try during ANY session will always turn out GOTHIC. This is TRUE and FACTUAL, and one can only assume the entire GENRE of Gothic Music came about because Siouxsie Sioux had a train to catch one day and didn't have time to try again. "Let The Weird Band Win" was the SECOND song we did that day, and seemed to come out all right.

The final piece of the ROCK JIGSAW was the EP cover, and this was probably the easiest bit. For several years I had been staying over at Machine Mansions whilst visiting Derbyshire, and had come downstairs every morning to COVET the SHED of Mr Francis Albert Machine. It used to sit, LOOKING at me, from the end of the garden saying "Yes! I am a SHED! The birthright of any Englishman! Haven't you got one then? AHAHAAAAHAHAHAA!" The picture on the sleeve of the EP is the view from his kitchen window and, oddly enough, is also NOW the view from the living room window is his new house, as he took his shed with him. I think he did it just to TAUNT me.

Thusly equipped with a fully functioning EP we were ready to ROCK, starting with a STRING of Radio Appearances. Next stop: BRENTWOOD!

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