Be original or die

So I fired an ad out on Gumtree for bands for the Guildford gig. Slipped it through the net that catches those that are banned from advertising there, as I am.

Now, there are plenty of blues bands out that way (Surrey), just visit The Scratchers (at the Three Lions pub, Farncombe) website and you'll find a whole host of 'em. But what about non-blues, non-metal, non-jazz/funk bands that play original material? I know what I mean. I hate to say 'indie' or 'alternative' but these are the best descriptions for these bands.

If bands that made 'indie' or 'alternative' rock, which encompasses 'punk' or 'post-punk' by the way, and spans the late-70s to the present day; if they don't 'make it' - and they should have come to realise and come to terms with this by their late-30s - do they then give up on this music and turn their creative musicial energies to playing covers or the blues or jazz-funk, or do they simply give up? I'm beginning to think it's (mostly) the latter.

Does the imagination for writing original rock music disappear some time in the 30s? Or does interest (from your peer-group) in what your doing take such a downturn that you no longer have an audience, and you have to give up?

Not if you're Paul Weller, it doesn't but if you're not, you do start to wonder who the fuck cares? No one really buys records or CDs anymore anyway. There's enough music as it is. As Axevictim Colin Gillman points out in one of his blogs, you got iTunes, you got Spotify, you got LPs, CDs, Mini-discs, cassettes , too much of the stuff as it is. There are plenty of young bands making very interesting music. Or older established bands and musicians, like Weller, still knocking them out. Who needs an unknown 40-something doing what a well-known 40-something (or 50-something) does so much better, on a bigger scale. Besides, I don't even need to part with a tenner or more to buy his new CD, I don't even need to leave the house in order to get it, I can probably stream it for evermore on Spotify.

On the bright side - I hope there is one - one of my songs has been chosen for use in an independent feature film called 'Ambleton Delight'. It'll be playing on a radio in the background during a scene in restaurant kitchen. So I think, right, maybe this is a perfect time to give that song the publicity and promotion it deserves, that I should have given it first time around in 2003, when I was too weary and dissilusioned with the whole business of making and promoting music to bother with it.

So, I start by redesigning the CD cover to reference the film. It looks great. The film gets it's premier at the End of the Pier Film Festival in Worthing at the end of April, so I fugure I will try and get it played on local radio - that would be a start? So I write a press release on phoney Rock-Til-You-Drop-Records headed paper. Looks fine. But what is the chance of getting played on local radio, I wonder? Is it worth all the effort? And if it gets on the radio in Worthing, what next? Will anyone care? My therapist descibed me as a 'catastrophist' - now you can see why.