Chris T-T

An under-priced industry

Chris — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:25:55 +0000

In the past few weeks I’ve written and deleted this a bunch of times but now I’d better force myself to finish and publish it because I keep flaming other people’s discussions on Facebook, so desperate am I to make the points. So.

I am convinced there is a major under-pricing problem for live music events at small UK venues – and this is doing critical unseen damage to the live industry as a whole. It’s caused primarily by the mixing up of the small but heavily hyped ‘up and coming’ scene with the much, much larger but less exposed world of professional, lifelong gigging. So obviously (since I am in that industry) it’s hard to write, without sounding greedy or pompous.

First the exceptions: local bands; ‘first time outers’; and certain genre sub cultures (Americana and trad folk, for example). Apart from that lot, take a look across the board at ticket prices, they should be approximately doubled for most evenings of live music in <250 capacity rooms. Specifically I’m talking about the crazy prevalence of £3-£5 entry, which absolutely should be £6 or £7 in advance, rising to £8-£10 on the door. The ‘step’ above that is bad too; where tickets are now £6-£7, they ought to push towards £12-£14.

People react badly to this thought, until they start comparing an evening of live music in a small venue to any other kind of cultural experience, or even any other kind of evening out. The cinema is more expensive. The theatre’s a ton more expensive. Sometimes even medium sized ‘selling’ art shows are more expensive, although they’re in themselves a shop window. A lineup of non-famous stand-up comedians playing to a similar sized crowd for a shorter amount of time (and with lower running costs) will be 1.5 times as expensive.

It’s wrong for the following reasons: (and please assume I’m not including free gigs / parties etc. in this bit of the argument, they’re an entirely different issue)

1
If you pay so little for something that it’s meaningless money – pocket change – then you’ll expect it to be worthless and value it as such. As much as punters and staff, this includes promoters and artists themselves.

2
Therefore, however much they deny it, people who’ve paid negligible entry are less interested in the music and are simply less good audiences. They’re more likely to use the gig as a meeting place and end up thinking of the music as background to their social occasion.

3
Which can reduce performers to having to ‘work the room’ to draw attention and win them over, instead of performing our craft or show. I’m the first to agree stagecraft (this ‘working the room’ business) is a crucial skill for ‘first-time-out’ artists to learn. But forcing our hand like that, dealing with a bunch of disinterested people, lets down the fans who’ve come specifically to hear music.

4
It also doesn’t work economically: any belief that reducing entry price will attract significantly higher numbers (to the point of being more lucrative overall) is simply a myth, it doesn’t work. Even when it does bring a few more people to the show, the figures never add up to an improved overall take. And I’ve just explained why those extra people are useless for the atmosphere.

If a promoter sits down and does the sums for a second, it’s bloody obvious: say you need to make £350 to break even. Charge £7 and the 50th punter puts you in the black. Charge £3 and you need 117 people before you’re at the same financial point. The difference between those two break-evens in small-scale / small-town gigging is enormous.

5
Worse (this may sound counter-intuitive but) the economic truism of ‘supply and demand’ balance is screwed too and I believe this is a core of the problem in the UK:

People increasingly stay away from ‘small’ live music I believe because they think of it as a cheap and nasty experience. Partly, the entire live industry is skewed by over-attention on the ‘up-and-coming’ circuit. These are young, ambitious artists, working hard to get heard but at this point in their ‘career’ (rightly) not remotely earning a keep from the music they make and still learning their trade. They have a 20-30 minute set. Their reasons for being in the game are multitude and often temporary. Now that sub-set is the most highly publicised bit of the small venue circuit, yet it is forgotten that – by number of performers and shows at least – that sub-set is actually tiny compared to the vast swathe of lifelong professionals swimming in the same pool. The ‘first time outers’ drag down the price because they’ll do fucking anything to play. Then when someone puts a gig price up to a reasonable rate, exhausted gig-goers think that show is uncharacteristically, noticeably expensive compared to the general scheme of things.

Funny thing is, the hopefuls are only ever in that ‘first time outer’ role for a very short period of time, yet in that period they drastically undercut the circuit for the huge majority – including themselves in the future, if they continue to make music beyond their first burst. By the way, oddly, the same is true of big stars at the other end of the industry: musicians in big name bands who sell out arenas usually only do that for a very few years, before they drop back to the same circuit. If they want to be life-long working musicians, in the vast, vast, majority of cases, this paradigm I’m banging on about is where they’ll likely spend the rest of their days.

To sum up; the assumption that it’s only cheap because it ‘has’ to be cheap falls flat as soon as you observe how the entire country has been brainwashed into mis-perceiving small shows as being in that ‘up and coming’ category. You pay £3 for three hyped bands, four times out of five you get newbie shit barely worth £3 with an audience chatting through it and the venue stinks and the sound is awful. Why would you go back? Making music has become cheap because it has become easy – and it has become easy because it has become cheap. Too many providers in it for the wrong reasons. Raise the price, raise the quality, separate the wheat from the chaff.

From a personal perspective, if I’m truly honest about it, if you’re the sort of fan who would come to my gig if it was £3-£5 but wouldn’t pay £7-£9, then I’m not bothered if you stay away. Regardless of the recession, if people argue they “can’t afford it”, does that mean they’re not buying a bottle of wine or a few beers either?

Artists.
Off on tour, then as soon in your career as humanly possible, please ask to be paid for your show. At the very least get expenses covered, otherwise you’re effectively paying to play. Then if you’re relying on a door-split and my argument about the economics has convinced you, have the balls to tell the promoter what you want the tickets to be priced at.

If you can offer an audience a longer set of decent quality material, that some of them already know and love, and/or a show that will enrich peoples’ lives in some way, perhaps have an opinion on the ticket price when you’re first booking the show (or discussing the tour with your agent). I’ve taken too long to learn this, only just got it figured out to think about door price, even though I’ve been expecting to be paid for over a decade.

Promoters.
The question is: who really won’t come if you stick a couple more quid on the ticket, in order to cover the expenses of the support band? Please, please, book with your heads as well as your hearts: if you can’t make the gig work, don’t do it. As a touring artist I would *much* rather you turned my show down at the first email, than I show up, 300 miles from home and the night doesn’t work and you don’t want to pay the pre-agreed amount at the end because you didn’t know how to make a proper poster. As I posted in a (good) promoter’s discussion thread on this subject recently, one key uplifting thing to remember if a night has gone horribly wrong is: at least you get to go home to your warm house, partner, cats. The touring band looks forward to another night in a cheap motel, or worse on someone’s floor, before having to drive on to the next show.

Venue (especially bar) owners.
Please don’t rip off young promoters and bands by sticking them in a corner unpaid while you rake in beer money from their mates. If you’re using live music to improve booze sales, respect and value that music too. Be picky. Be generous with fees and pay what was agreed. Think about long-term reputation, not just for our sake but for your own. If everyone’s calling you a dick behind your back, chances are it’ll never reach your ears, you’ll just be putting on worse and worse bands. And conversely there is nothing better in this world than being known as a special place to go see (and play) live music. Everyone wins.

Punters.
If a gig is £8 please don’t fucking moan about it, if you’d happily drink £8 in two hours out after work. I would rather you went to fewer shows overall, were a bit more picky, if it means you’ll go see things you’re prepared to pay properly to see. If you really, truly can’t afford to see live music, the solution is to get involved. The very first method of payment for helping out at any level in the live music industry is free entry. Stick some posters up, do some Facebooking for the promoter or email the artist and offer to help with merch. Nine times out of 10 your help will be welcome. Or start a zine and blag in free that way. We need you guys, not the moaners who think shows should be £2.

Gig tickets: auction meets pay-what-you-like

Chris — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:04:56 +0000

I just had a killer idea for selling advance tickets to concerts online – a way of migrating ‘pay what you want’ across to the live music world, without having to do loads of gigs for £1.50. I think someone needs to build this app (or Eventbrite and other online sellers need to add it as an option). By the way, if this is already happening somewhere and I just missed it, I’ll happily stand corrected.

The ‘pay what you want’ model (popularised by Radiohead I guess) is now widely used by artists to sell downloads. It’s available as an option on Bandcamp for example; I tried it myself for 2010′s Christmas download and it worked beautifully. But to my knowledge nobody has set it up for gigging in a way that works: Eventbrite does have a ‘donation’ based ticketing option but it has two deal-breaking flaws: 1) they still charge a booking fee on the donation (!) and 2) if you reach capacity mainly from people who donated nothing, you can’t then prioritise those people who donated more. You get a room full of people who valued the experience at zero and turned away some folks who were willing to donate a chunk. So here’s a simple twist on the system that would make it beautiful:

Pay-what-you-like but the promoter can keep offering tickets after capacity has been reached. At close of sale (based either on a fixed point in time, or on a total amount of money donated), the highest offers (bids/donations) are the people who get the tickets and have their money taken.

The promoter can even set a cut-off point, so they want to earn a fixed amount and (once capacity has been reached) the system keeps prioritising higher offers (bids) until that amount is reached, then cuts off – which will still allow some lower bids access to the show. Meanwhile punters can keep checking back on a gig’s popularity and raise their bid / donation if they start worrying they won’t get it. It needs to be open to be fair, I guess.

*EDIT* and I guess it needs a reserve amount too, below which the gig doesn’t happen!? Hadn’t thought of that…

I bet this would be a relatively simple add-on for an advanced system like Eventbrite or The Big Cartel. (Not to even mention good old WeGotTickets, because they’ve got some catching up to do)

*EDIT* Luke Beesley (@LukeTotD) has found a catch: it makes life tricky for people who travel to gigs via public transport, since there’s an element of risk involved, yet you get much cheaper public transport bought in advance. And you’re more likely to want to donate *less* if you have to travel, because of the total cost involved. Yes, this is a problem.

I wonder if you could include in the model an option for a ‘secure it now’ price, for people who don’t like the risk. This would have the added bonus of encouraging gig prices upwards (from my point of view that’s a bonus since I fundamentally believe most non-’heritage genre’ or ‘tribute’ small live music events are currently underpriced), while taking the risk out for those willing to pay a little more. It’d also be fun and perhaps, with a forum-style comment space under the ticket thing, create more of a community out of gig goers?

Am I now over-thinking it all? Comments welcome below, as always…

*BIG EDIT* Rhodri Marsden made a strong critique of the idea on ideological grounds on Facebook, and he’s agreed I can add our conversation in below:

Rhodri
I thought “Wow! that’s a good idea!”. And then I thought, no, it’s not. The reason it works for music is that there isn’t a finite number of products. If people want to pay more, then they can. That’s fine. But excluding people from gigs because people with more disposable income pushed ahead of them in the queue just seems a bit crap.

Gigs shouldn’t be about exclusivity. Certainly not in our world. Part of the reason it’s nice is cos everyone has paid a tenner to be there. Except the freeloaders, but I don’t believe in freeloading either and always pay even if I’m on the guest list. (I’m rambling now. I also appear to have become more left-wing in the last 3 minutes than I thought I was.)

Me
my starting position (which you may disagree with) is that most small gigs (discounting ‘heritage genre’, ‘tribute bands’ and ‘lineup of local hopefuls’) are currently underpriced. Secondly, surely this system is no more exclusive than setting a fixed price in the first place? I believe a key to the gig industry is the disconnect between what promoters and artists believe people will / can pay for live music and reality. The myth is: people won’t pay £10 for a evening of live music but they’ll pay £8.50 for the cinema. To counter your ‘exclusivity’ issue, you can still run the ‘auction’ but stick in a ‘buy it now’ price.

Rhodri
Oh right. Yes. For some reason in my head we were talking about a room full of people who’d paid £20 squeezing out those who could only afford a fiver. If it’s a roomful of people paying a tenner squeezing out those who are only paying a measly quid, somehow it becomes more palatable.

Me
In many places in the country a glass of wine in a bar costs almost £5. I’m not feeling bad about people only prepared (able) to pay that, perhaps (sometimes) getting edged out. But fundamentally, folks would set their own levels.

Rhodri
But doesn’t supply & demand economics set gig pricing levels in any case? Popular gigs cost more money, less popular gigs don’t. I don’t think there’s going to be a rush of people (say) desperate to pay £15 to watch something at the Buffalo Bar.

Dismal first versions

Chris — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:21:57 +0000

Today I’m sifting through piles of old songwriting notebooks, piecing together best bits of lyrics, looking for new songs and ways to complete nearly-done songs. The main job is juggling all these incomplete bits til they become ‘finished’ (whatever that means). For me it’s the toughest part of songwriting: in my opinion it’s not (mostly) ‘art’ because the art already happened when we had the ideas in the first place, so it’s more ‘craft’ – the bit that takes effort and experience. And it’s boring. And you come out with far less than you go in with.

Not moaning though, it’s not like an actual job or anything.

Anyway, I just uncovered the original first verse of ‘Elephant In The Room’ from Love Is Not Rescue and I like it as an example of how far a lyric might need to travel. So, shared with a red face, I swear my first written version was this:

I forgot how to ride a bike
I forgot how to swim
Put me in the Guinness Book of Records for being the most forgetful
Oh, I forgot, y’already put me in.

fml.

January 2012 news – loads of bits

Chris — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:18:43 +0000

Wishing you a magnificent year ahead; I hope you find 2012 more exciting and more prosperous (in the broader sense of the word) than current news cycles might suggest.

In lieu of any real news yet, here are 10 new T-T-ish things for you to check out, if you want…

1
I’ve put the gorgeous new ‘Binker’ video up on my Youtube channel HERE (made by Meatbingo, dir: John Panton) and you can still download the Disobedience album HERE.

2
I’m hosting and performing at MIDWINTER PICNIC 4 in Brighton on Sun 22 Jan. Facebook page HERE. Get tickets via Eventbrite or WeGotTickets and we’ll put physical tickets in Rounder and Resident Records in Brighton, as soon as we can.

3
Anthony J. Melton’s stunning fast-cut short film Fourteen Weeks Of Flights is on Youtube HERE soundtracked by my piano music. It seems abstract but unfolds into a lush elegy. This is one of the things I’m most proud to be associated with, Melton is a major talent as well as my friend.

4
In #loo2011 news, I have archived all the 2011 loos to my Facebook pageHERE. I’ll make a new limited edition print this month and #loo2012 will kick off as soon as I find myself in a loo I haven’t used before, probably today.

5
I sang a cover version of Sebadoh’s ‘Willing To Wait’ in a stairwell in York, for Moon And Back Music HERE. I didn’t rehearse or plan this song, had no idea I could even play it through: I was getting my head around the vibe of the stairwell, which was odd. But in the end I like this version a lot, especially the soundchecking noise in the background.

6
I wrote my Top 10s of 2011 on my website HERE.

7
My most recent article for The Morning Star is about USA stand-up comedian Louis C.K. and DIY culture HERE.

8
Yesterday I made Maggie’s Farm, a Spotify playlist for Mrs Thatcher HERE.

9
My new year’s resolutions are:
1 Walk up the hill. Get fit, for fuck’s sake.
2 Say ‘yes’. Do stuff. Never say ‘no’ when the alternative is sitting at home.
3 Say ‘no’ if the offer’s shit, even if you want to do it. Better offers come.
4 Try DMT.
5 Finish the book… but only after the Hoodrats & ‘other’ LPs are both done.

10
MJ Hibbett’s magnificent new sci-fi rock musical Dinosaur Planet features me doing some acting (and singing) in the role of Grandfather. Find out all about it HERE

And that’s it for now. I’m in the studio with Jim Bob in the next few days and hooking up with Hoodrats to figure out a full band record. One last thank you for making 2011 my most fun year making music for over a decade.

Christopher xxx

She Makes War’s Little Battles LP

Chris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:29:58 +0000

Earlier in 2011 I sang and played piano on She Makes War’s brilliant new album Little Battles.

She Makes War is London-based Laura Kidd and Little Battles is her second record on her own label. I love her stuff, it’s grungey and slick with some excellent live looping. But also, Laura’s a determinedly DIY artist and speaker, who works in video, plays session bass and runs her entire career digitally, apart (obviously) from fantastic live shows.

Find She Makes War HERE

MJ Hibbett’s Dinosaur Planet

Chris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:17:21 +0000

I’m very proud to say I performed the role of Grandfather in MJ Hibbett’s new rock musical Dinosaur Planet which is out this month via Artists Against Success.

You can find out more about this album at MJ Hibbett’s website HERE

TOLPUDDLE MARTYRS FESTIVAL 2012 | solo

Chris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:06:11 +0000

Sat 14 July, from 7pm
TOLPUDDLE MARTYRS FESTIVAL 2012

Chris will perform a solo set in the Saturday evening lineup at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 2012.

More information and ticket details to follow.

TAKEOVER FESTIVAL 2012 | Chris T-T Sings A.A. Milne

Chris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:18:05 +0000

A one-off performance of DISOBEDIENCE: Chris T-T Sings A.A. Milne at York’s beautiful Theatre Royal, as part of the TakeOver Festival 2012.

Details and ticket information to follow.

Top 10s of 2011

Chris — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:25:17 +0000

MY FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF 2011

I think it’s been a fantastic year for LPs. Even if fewer punters want to listen to whole records, still the classiest talents want to make them. How did Decemberists, Sam Duckworth, She Makes War, The Horrors, MJ Hibbett, Standard Fare, EMA, Grace Petrie, tUnE-yArDs, Metronomy and Matt Creer not even make it into my Top 10? All made superb records in 2011. But oh no they di’in’t, my 10 favourites are…

1 PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

2 Scroobius Pip – Distraction Pieces

3 Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know

4 The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient

5 Nicola Roberts – Cinderella’s Eyes

6 British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall

7 Something Beginning With L – Beautiful Ground

8 Fucked Up – David Comes To Life

9 Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones

10 Tom Williams & The Boat – Too Slow

SONGS

The Muppets – ‘Am I A Man Or Am I A Muppet?’

Standard Fare – ‘Darth Vadar’

Joanna Neary – ‘Youth Club’ closing song

Franz Nicolay – ‘Do The Stuggle’

Jim Bob – ‘Mr Blue Sky’

James Blake – ‘A Case Of You’

This Is The Kit – ‘Easy Pickings’

tUnE-yArDs – ‘Bizzness’

The Singing Adams – ‘The Old Days’

Hugh Laurie – ‘Swanee River’

Second annual honourable mention for Jon Boden’s Folk Song A Day project, which in June successfully completed a new recording of a traditional tune every day for a year. Inspiring and brilliant. Also excellent was Darren Hayman’s January Songs, where he wrote and shared a new song each day for a month. Insightful into process.

FAVOURITE GIGS OF THE YEAR (AUDIENCE)

Carter USM, Tim Ten Yen at Edenfest, Mr Spoons’ garden, south-east London

Clowns at The Hydrant, Brighton

ONSIND and others at Book Yer Ane Fest 5, Dexter’s, Dundee

Robyn at The Roundhouse, London

Jim Jones Revue at Blissfields 2011

Midwinter Picnic 3 at West Hill Hall, Brighton

Tom Williams & The Boat, My First Tooth, She Makes War, The Borderline

The Singing Adams at The Basement, Brighton

Frank Turner, Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo, Franz Nicolay at Newport Centre

Dive Dive at The Frog & Fiddle, Cheltenham

FAVOURITE GIGS OF THE YEAR (PLAYED)

In 2011 I did 112 shows (solo, Hoodrats, Milne, activist stuff, short spots and a few public talks). This top 10 is just based on how much I enjoyed the time onstage – doesn’t mean much about the whole night, or audience quality, or even how well I played. It’s just that magic (hard to explain) ‘thing’ onstage:

1 Laurence, Jølle and Kenneth’s basement party, Copenhagen

2 The Hoodrats in Cheltenham, Swindon & Art Uncut gig, London

3 Falmouth University on their new Yamaha CF6 grand piano

4 Carter USM, me and Tim Ten Yen in Neil’s garden

5 Cambridge Portland, supported by MJ Hibbett and Anna Madeleine

6 The Church stage at Indietracks Festival

7 frantic Pecha Kucha talk about Twitter and post-Capitalism at Brighton Digital Festival

8 Edinburgh Fringe – pretty much the whole thing, especially the final two weeks

9 York, maybe Edinburgh and/or Reading on Franz Nicolay’s tour

10 Robin Ince’s late night show, Comedy Stage, End Of The Road Festival

Honorable mention to Matt Creer’s brilliant gig in a church in Douglas on the Isle Of Man, which was magic but for the absence of some Manxie friends. Also honourable mention to the Aberdeen Lost & Found show where (entirely coincidentally) the stage set was toilets, because they’d had a play on set in a public loo.

FAVOURITE TV OF THE YEAR

Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle

Game Of Thrones

The Shadow Line

Breaking Bad

Human Planet

Curb Your Enthusiasm

30 Rock

Bruce Parry’s Arctic

Rev

The 10 O’Clock Show

(I’m sure The Killing and The Slap would be in here but I haven’t watched them yet)

*EDIT* just realised (watching Adam Curtis on the Screenswipe review of 2011) that I forgot the magnificent series All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace. Stick that in at number #1 and drop the 10 O’Clock Show off the list.

FAVOURITE OTHER CULTURAL THINGS

1. Isy Suttie ‘Pearl & Dave’ at Edinburgh Fringe

2. Adam Curtis’ BBC archive blogs

3. collection of English and Scottish ballads Franz Nicolay found me in Buxton, published in 1868

4. Private Eye, a vintage year for Hislop & co.

5. Joanna Neary ‘Youth Club’ at Edinburgh Fringe and the Three And Ten, Brighton

6. Jason Burke – The 9/11 Wars (book)

7. Louis CK’s Beacon Theatre $5 special

8. debate about protest songs at Interrogate! Festival in Dartington Hall

9. Caitlin Moran – How To Be A Woman (book)

10. Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast, thanks to Franz Nicolay

11. Margaret Cho at Edinburgh Fringe and Brighton Comedy Festival

12. Boring 2011 (even though I only saw 2 hours)

13. Tom Price ‘Say When’ at Edinburgh Fringe

14. MJ Hibbett & Steve’s ‘Moon Horse’ at Edinburgh Fringe

15. Charlotte Young and Mark Dean Quinn’s Darwin show

16. Josie Long in various places

17. revisiting Chomsky vs Foucault

18. Crunch Festival in Hay-on-Wye

honorable mention: Jim Bob’s second novel is extraordinary and brilliant but I’ll list it when it’s published (2012 I believe).

HERO OF THE YEAR

Time Magazine named ‘the protester’ and I agree. Specifically, my heroes of the year are: UK Uncut, Anonymous, Art Uncut, @BendyGirl and The Hardest Hit, Josie Long and Neil Griffiths’ Arts Emergency campaign and the global Occupiers.

VILLAIN OF THE YEAR

Of course: government, bankers, corrupt media and the tax dodging corporates are ugly villains but I’ve got a personal one this year: celebrity conductor Charles Hazlewood. He briefly got involved with a project developing an orchestra for musicians with disabilities, which UK charity Drake Music had been working on for years. But when his participation didn’t work out and he walked away, suddenly he was developing his own near identical project with TV production company What Larks. I wrote about it in the Morning Star and Private Eye picked up the story – but mainstream press steered clear, with the Evening Standard even publishing a puff piece for his plans. I can’t imagine much worse than stealing ideas from a charity.

Thank you

Chris — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:11:34 +0000

Thank you very much if you came out to see me over the past month, on Franz Nicolay’s UK tour, or one of the shows I stuck around it. I’ve had a brilliant, exhausting time and finishing so close to Christmas has left me even more excited than usual about domestic things like seeing my family and getting time off.

An unusual tour for me: I learnt a ton about the DIY punk scene; in several towns we played in a different venue from any I’ve ever played before, with mostly brand new faces in the crowd, so it felt like being in a new world.

Anyway, you guys if you’re out there, were gorgeous.

I also love being support act – less responsibility, less pressure. Unlike other tours in recent years, I kicked off with no solid idea of what to sing – and it took ages to settle into any kind of set list, so each show had a contrasting feel. Plus throw in a couple of festivals, two Milne shows and even a short PowerPoint talk at Boring 2011 and you’ve got scarily refreshing levels of variety for a performer. All good of course.

My biggest mistake was not doing CDs of Disobedience, or any exclusive tour merchandise. Franz is brilliant at merch, has shitloads of it, all high quality and loads of tour exclusives. I’ve got few copies left of Capital and Love Is Not Rescue (after the PIAS fire) so I feel mixed about even selling them.

Seriously, thankyou Franz, for taking me on the road, being such excellent company and very funny (one of those dry wit guys) and also being inspiring night after night. Franz listens to brilliant American current affairs podcasts like Slate’s Political Gabfest that I’d never heard of – and they’re right up my alley, so we ended up piling through loads of them in the car.

Thankyou also Jon Curtis from The Cut Ups, who booked the tour. I’m regaining more and more self-confidence as a booker and it was great to score a load of new contacts off Jon and see the UK through his DIY punk scene eyes.

I’ll thank everyone privately but a bunch of kind people made this tour possible – more than usual because we stayed in a lot more private homes than I normally do. I’ve gotten too used to hotels! So if you were one of the supporters who made it possible, or one of the lovely people who came out to a show, thank you. xx