mostly on a music tip

Jon Clee

My friend Jon Clee died last week. He was hit by a car on Saturday night whilst walking home, and the head injuries from the accident proved to be fatal. He died on Monday afternoon. 

The phonecall I took on Sunday from his girlfriend, Laura, completely shook me up. I'd known Jon for about eleven or twelve years, and over that time we'd become good friends. I just hadn't realised how good a friend he had become until that call came.

He wasn't a social animal, though in the past few years he'd been out a lot more. Mostly that was because of meeting Laura - who began to show him a good time. Partly is was because my friend Carl began putting on live music shows in Cardiff that Jon actually wanted to come too. Recently we'd seen him out three or four times in one week. I think that was unheard of.

His reclusiveness disguised the reach of his friendship. He wouldn't be out every night, but he'd be on email to people almost daily - talking about music mostly - and in that way he made a lot of friends. I'd be swapping emails with him about work - Jon worked as a graphic designer, but being the hermit he liked people to imagine he was, he chose to work from home. He always said it was so he could make lots of tea. When it came to design jobs for our company, he was always my first choice, and if someone else was looking, I'd always recommend Jon. He did pretty much everything that came our way. He was a great designer.

There's a lot I will miss about him. I've realised since he died I've been out bidding for a lot of Rolling Stones records on Ebay. They're a band I've never really got into, but they were one of Jon's favourites. I feel like I should play catch up. He loved lots of obscure music - mostly West Coast psych - but conversely his favourite acts were some of the biggest names around - Neil Young, The Beach Boys, Elvis and The Rolling Stones. It was Jon who got me into the Beach Boys. About seven years ago I was working in a magazine, and when the designer left I bought Jon in to take over. Jon would come in a few days a week to do the layout. I remember one particular day he strolled in around midday (he used to say 'I Don't Do Mornings'), and before he'd done anything, even say hello, he went up to the stereo, looked at it, shook his head, said something like 'I think not, eh?', pressed stop on whatever was playing, and put in a tape of his own. It was 'Smiley Smile' . I had no idea who it was, and had to ask. I'd pretty much never heard any Beach Boys apart from Pet Sounds and I was blown away. I left work early to go to HMV and buy up the 2-for-1 Beach Boys compilations that were doing the rounds at the time. I was hooked.

I'll miss Jon immensely.

NME - a sham and a shame

It's easy to rip the NME to shreds these days. It's become an embarrassment of a publication. But, for me, it stooped to a new low this week.

They ran a two-page spread on the NME / TopShop tour and it's opening date at Cardiff Coal Exchange. For a spread of this size you'd expect some sellout show - something quite spectacular. And as you read it you were painted such a picture. If you'd not been there you'd be kicking yourself for missing out on such a great event.

Well, that was all well off the truth. In fact just 144 people, guestlist included, made it into the 1,000 capacity venue for this opening night 'extravaganza'. That's barely one tenth of the venue capacity. Not, really, a success eh?

But I guess Top Shop were paying for the tour, and thereby paying for the space in NME too. NME wants to send the message that it's the UK's leading new music publication - that it's readers jump every time it tells them. That headline band The Rumblestrips are really at a level where they can sellout a 1,000 capacity venue. What utter toss.

You could lay the blame on the promoters - LiveNation. I mean what were they, and the band's agents for that matter, doing putting four bands that could barely fill their local pub into such a venue? Live Nation are meant to be 'promoters'. That in my book means doing something more than taking some ads out in NME.  Why, when these days it takes barely 20 minutes to read NME, would you place an ad with them anyway? People pick up NME, flick through it, and bin it. Ads are priced and sold on NME's readership, but that's worth nothing if people don't have the magazine kicking about their house or office for the week. Maybe LiveNation have just learnt that lesson and maybe NME's other advertisers will take heed, jump ship and finally let this empty vessel  sink.

Expanding

A month since I last posted. That went a bit quickly. I've spent most of the month, it seems, moving office. We've only gone across the road, but it's been a huge upheaval - trying to get everything across AND carry on work at the same time. It's a big commitment too - suddenly we have a space four or five times what we had before (up until now we've had seven people working in a room that should only hold 3. Naomi hasn't even had a desk to work from - she's been working on the window sill most of the time) and it feels like a massive responsibility. Still, straight away we've felt the benefits - lots of room to kick back in, nobody falling over each other. About the only drawback is that until we find the key to the fire exit it's a much longer trip to make a cup of tea.

Over the month I've had Marissa out on a very successful European tour too - well, a string of dates across Europe and the UK. It's been a good run of shows playing to some great crowds. It's been enjoyable and pretty stress free for everyone - if only all tours were hassle free.

I've just been to Norway too - to Bergen in fact to see Lisa's friends ahead of their wedding. BergenFest happened to be happening too - it seemed like a great festival in a small city centre of what is a reasonably big city. Gruff Rhys was playing, so we had a bit of a busman's holiday to catch his set - a nice bonus. Bergen is a cool place - I think I was sold within a morning of being there!

On Friday I finally saw Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog - a young bunch from Wales who've just self-released their debut album. The songs I had heard before didn't do their set justice, which was, in parts, brilliant. I think a condensed version would be splendid - they have some great moments and some ace songs. They're still very young too - they're going to do splendid things.

I went to see Elvis Perkins support Willy Mason last night. I saw Willy play too, but can't say I enjoyed it much - just not my thing. But Elvis put on a great show - I haven't heard his finished records but the show was well worth catching.