This is from the BBC website, posted just before Christmas:

Listen to Florence and the Machine’s cover of Last Christmas

On Tuesday of this week, BBC Introducing hosted a very special Christmas gig at a tiny London venue to celebrate what has been a fantastic year for new music. You can read all about it in my previous post and check out the photos.

Headlining the gig was a good friend of ours, Florence and the Machine. Our love affair with Florence began back in March 2008 when, unsigned, we took her out to Texas to perform at the BBC Introducing showcase at South by Southwest, where she was introduced by Steve Lamacq. She’s gone from strength to strength since then, enjoying phenomenal success this year. So we were extremely proud when she came to the gig on Tuesday night to thank us by performing an acoustic set to a packed out pub. To say it was ‘intimate’ would be putting it lightly.

The highlight of Flo’s set was undoubtedly her hauntingly beautiful and forlorn rendition of Wham!’s Last Christmas. Accompanied by acoustic guitar and harp, Flo’s incredible voice had us all transfixed.

It’s been proving popular on Radio 1 this week, where Greg James and Huw Stephens have both been playing it, but for those of you that haven’t heard it yet, here it is in all its glory. If this doesn’t get you feeling festive, nothing will…

Is it just me or does it suck that the BBC is promoting this ‘artist’ (I use the term loosely, as to my mind this is the worst case of ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ since Little Boots and La Roux came prancing into town). ‘Flo’…the ‘wacky’ theatrical chick who actually cannot sing in tune. Sponsored by the BBC! Played by the BBC! Flown to Texas by the BBC! How ‘Alternative’, how ‘Indie’ that this stuffy old corporate institution is now informing us how great this ‘exciting new talent’ is. Wake up kids!

BIG Question: Who is going to make your band truly great and get you where you rightly belong?

Answer below…

First, please go though this seven-question checklist and as long as you answer yes to all of them you’ll be fine.

Question 1: Do you have good songs?
Including…
Time to rehearse those good songs (regularly)
Time to book gigs, (and not just in the street you live) get to those gigs and play those good songs live.

Question 2:  Can you communicate well?
Here is a small sample of people who you may need to communicate well with. Please feel free to make notes.

The band; People who like the band; People who are helping the band; Friends of the band; Fans of the band; Manager of the band; Promoters, and on the periphery a vast array of people who can assist the band to complete this questionnaire.

Question 3:  Do you collectively have chemistry – do all of the members of a band add up to a giant great mass of greatness?
As Spock said “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one”
Translated. If you aren’t all pulling one way, for the collective good and looking after each other, with respect you are fucked!

Question 4:  Do you have good looks and style?
Including, but in no particular order, good hair, Twitter fingers, Blog-ability, a love of fried chicken and cheap lager, big moustache (you know who you are!), sex appeal, charisma and a vacant stare.

Question 5:  Do you have a powerful desire?
Also phrased as, how bad do you want it?

Including…
(a) Will you sleep in a van, telephone box or friendly police cell if you need to?

(b) Can you sponge off your girlfriends, for as long as they’ll have you and then move on to fried chicken in another part of town?

(c) Can you drop everything for an opportunity?

(d) Can you dig deep when you need to?

Question 6:  Are you happy to…
Do a gig, then give out flyers with your web address on or tell someone to sign up to your mailing list, sell a CD or a 7″, stick a sticker in places you shouldn’t stick a sticker and finally talk to people about your question 1’s. If you are lucky, later you’ll get to show off your question 5, but don’t piss the fans off along the way.
You need them more than they need you and you never know, one of them might turn into a 5b.

Question 7:  Do you understand facts?

E.g.  iTunes has more than 10,000,000 tracks within it’s walls. Most of which don’t even sell one copy.
Great to be there but if SJ decides to dump music you’re gone.

MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch – yes that old music lover.
Use it please do, but don’t rely on it solely because if Newscorp decides to dump you you is dumped.

Facebook is owned by some bloke/corporation who pretends he listens.
See MySpace.

Xfactor is not about music.
Power Rangers.

Bread has loads of salt in it.
Toast is good…..crumpets are better.

BIG Answer: Obviously it’s you. Right?

This is not meant to be a lecture, although I guess it could read like one. The truth is there is so much competition out there that you just have to do more, be better than and be more flexible and creative than the rest.

You need to make your own story before anyone will read you.

Write, get better, play, write, get better, play, communicate, get up as early as possible, email people, tell them how good you are, ask them for opportunities, drop the cunts that use you, dump the dodgy promoters and then start again.

Please do:

Get a web domain of your own and collect data. Be nice to that data.

Use MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and the other social networking sites smartly while they are there because sure enough they’ll fuck you in the end.

Find good people to moan at you like: www.360degreemusic.com

Find great promoters like:.myspace.com/strollonnights

Read stuff like:

Music Think Tank: www.musicthinktank.com/

Lefsetz: www.lefsetz.com/

Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

1000 true fans: www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

Add to this list and tell your mates.

Remember when Paula Radcliffe stopped for a piss?
You need to piss on the go in this world to get in front.

Be careful out there…

I have been periodically watching Orange Unsigned and think there are actually some good bands/artists appearing. I am unclear however how being on this show will be beneficial to them in the long term? Maybe someone can explain why you’d think playing in front of a Cheese Farmer and Lauren Laverne is a positive step. Surely every sane musician knows the only way to succeed (and it ain’t quick) is to build your audience by playing gigs, work hard and craft your songs and engage with your fan base. Don’t take the devils money and Don’t give away your rights!

Be like Robert Johnson CLICK HERE!

You might as well take those Morgan Stanley cheques they send you in the post, (at 105% interest) cash them in and pay for some recording. At least you’ll keep your rights… Forever.

I guess being ‘Unsigned’ still has a stigma attached to it.  I for one am not sure what unsigned means. If you put a single out yourself, on your own label are you signed?  Lawyers find bands these days before the majors, which leads me to use the words Frying Pan and Fire in close proximity. Just visualise it. It’s you, standing at the Crossroads but now you’re flanked by two devils with Nokia and Orange waiting in the wings to delivery the fruits of your work to every phone users under the ‘everything-you-can-listen-to-and-we-may-pay-the-record-company-a-chunk-who-might-pay-you-if-you-have-filled-in-the-right-ppl-prs-mcps-forms-if-we-remember-to-tell-you’ tarif.

I hope I haven’t lost you.

Orange Unsigned had a band on called ‘Glass Shark’. I know these guys and have seen them play many times and think they are awesome. I was lucky enough to get a copy of their self funded album in the summer and it is chocked full of great tunes and really deserves a wider audience. The single ‘model’ is available through iTunes, but this is only one of many great tracks they have written . Go and see them live, enjoy the show and make your own mind up.

The panel loved them, but I think the cheese farmer said they were too old. Someone didn’t like the ties they were wearing or something. One of them looked like someone else. The drummer, Tam sings, so he became Phil Collins!

Advice like this you can do without?

Just touching on the age comment for a moment. I am not sure in law whether you can discriminate against age in this way and not have your cheesy digits rapped. But is the ‘cool’ Industry outside such remarks?

It’s OK  to be old and play as long as you started when you were 14.

Colonel Sanders never got his ‘Finger Pickin’ sauce right until he was 49.

John F. Kennedy never became president until he was 43.

If I ever need an appendectomy please can it be at the hands of a 50 year old surgeon.

Blessed Are The Cheese Makers.

Laurence