Supergrass 25 years on - whey they resonated for their generation

Supergrass playing Alright on Top of the Pops

Supergrass - Alright?

I first saw Supergrass playing on Top of the Pops performing their son 'Alright', which curiously featured Danny Goffey and Mick Quinn swapping instrument roles on this one.

Gaz Coombes toting the Burns Hank Marvin greenburst guitar 

Immediately as a guitarist (and Shadows music player), I spotted the front man (Gaz Coombes) with a Burns Hank Marvin greenburst guitar (designed by Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin in 1963 - check him out!), as the reverby pub piano intro to 'Alright' played, the song was catchy, it resonated and still (just) in my 20's, I thought it sounded great. I still do.

Looking back to this about a quarter of a century later, it is still one of my favourite songs. I was thinking about why good bands are successful. I came to the conclusion that it was because they resonate with their audience.

The young Supergrass - 

if you were in a band with your schoolmates you just understood this

Oxford's Supergrass came along in the Brit Pop era, along with a roll call of bands including Oasis, Blur, Pulp and any other number of post rave music performers. As with the above bands, they all resonated with their (mostly) young audiences who were growing up and finding their music.

If you were in a band with your schoolmates (as they were in those just pre-internet days), you'd likely done the apprenticeship of the pubs and clubs scene as I had done about a dozen years earlier. They'd honed their act live in front of an audience, not in the bedroom in front of the mirror. They weren't manufactured, they were doing their thing, their way. Something that has been largely lost these days with the image conscious industry.

'Alright' inspires and resonates in the same way the Beatles did with 'I wanna hold your hand'. It was upbeat, fresh, new, from a new band and just good. 'Alright' is still played on the radio today and it still sounds fresh and good, which is the sure marker that establishes it as a classic from the also rans of chart music that have largely faded into obscurity.

Supergrass - 'Moving', the CD single cover

Supergrass worked as a group well, as a four piece group, their sound was big and melodic, there isn't any real formal training to be a pop musician, you learn the instrument, get inspired, hopefully write your own songs and play. You need an ear for what sounds good, you need to write songs and find an audience for them. 

Another great track that resonates with me is their song 'Moving'. I came across it on a CD single in a local second hand shop early in the 2000's after I'd moved away from the South East, where I'd lived most of my life up until then. 

Travelling back home up the motorway from the South, I remember looking out over the fields in the fading light at a string of electricity pylons going out into the distance and the song 'Moving' came into my head, yes I had moved and it was a new life and a new place.

The later Supergrass

Again, if we take a Beatles analogy, comparing 'I'm only sleeping', a later Beatles track with its minor key sound, to 'Moving' with a lovely big opening chord which sounds like a minor chord, (but is a sustained chord) and there you have the 'introspective sound', someway away from the bright youthfulness of 'Alright'. 

In the same context, (as was 'Moving' for Supergrass,) 'I'm only sleeping' shows how the Beatles before them had matured in a short time from their initial years, to the more mature sound of what would be described as their later 'introspective' work. Indeed, as their audience matured and the world around them moved on too, so did they. I love playing around with the sound of fragmented and open chords in my songwriting. 

Is there room for more music from Supergrass as a band? I think so, Gaz Coombes remains interested in writing and performing and provided there is the will and the diary co-ordination, the group could still come together to make great music.

Inevitably though people will want to hear the early material. Early as it is, it should not be written off as immature, it is anything but, it is quality because it is still played years after it was in the charts. 

Look back at chart acts of the time from the mid 90's and study the top 40's lists of the time, how many of those records on there are played on the radio today? Not as many as you might imagine.  

The internet brings us many things but it has also brought us too much choice in some respects, many bands out there might put their own songs on YouTube, but they can be lost in the sea of songs, song how to play demo's and cover versions. 

The pubs and clubs putting on live music seems to be less than before, the money for playing in one is less than it ever was, and the opportunities to do so and get a career in music are less so - sadly it seems.

Youfilm - has the Internet killed film and music as a career choice?

'Flying Squad'  a Tin Hat films production -

a retro film similar to the Sweeney series of the 70's -

in my opinion, this 'youfilms' approach is the future.

Then there was YouTube

YouTube is a great resource for old videos of things gone by, but at what cost is the Internet killing off future talent?

I can remember in the 1980's when I was in a pub band with some friends I was at school with, that all we needed was to go to a pub where an A&R man from a record company was likely to go and see if we could get lucky and get signed. 

Much the same had been the case since the late 1950's when luminaries like Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde had been talent spotted.

I remember going to music shops and seeing someone trotting out a note perfect rendition of something on a guitar and likely that was all they were good for, the music shop player I called them.

Fast forward about 30 years and we got television shows like the X factor and the like. It hasn't surprised me to see that some of the performers have been outed as semi professionals or even professionals who are looking to make it bigger. Not the amateur performer who does it and thinks they might have a chance.

Going on youtube you can see countless people copying note for note music performances, but then you don't get the same amount of original material.

The music industry took a real hit when applications such as ITunes and Spotify started up, bands could circumvent the old A&R circuit and get 'discovered' on the Internet and then sign a contract when they had an established audience and greater pull. And get a better deal in the round.

The advent of the digital music download has hit the big companies who sold CDs, DVDs and the media packaging cases too. But, the trend for 'Big Noting' your CD and DVD collection by having it on show in your front room, has meant an upsurge in physical media unit sales.

The future of film

So how will films fare in the future? You can find any number of films on youtube and under a 'fair use' policy, it seems getting around copyright issues?

Films today are big business and big money. The cost has always been there, but is there not now a trend for the 'art house' film making its presence felt?

About twenty years ago, I was involved with a group of 1940's scene enthusiasts and we made a short video on a preserved steam railway, they later wanted to do a film set in the winter of 1944, but there were changes in the group membership, so it never got much further.

Recently I came across a company called Tin Hat films, who were making self financed small films. I saw their 'Flying Squad' film, a sort of version of the Sweeney for want of a better description.

It was impressive, they had the 'right' cars, the right sets and proved that a small independent unit of enthusiasts could turn out a quality, professional film for little finance. The problem is how to get the investment back. Would 'the industry' support these people or see them as some sort of 'black leg labour' taking away jobs from the 'established' arena?

With an episode of something like 'Morse' or 'Lewis' likely to cost a million pounds an episode to make, quality productions clearly cost, but only the large television networks have the pockets deep enough for them. True, these get sold around the world, but is there not also a place for the smaller players?

This 'youfilm' type of product is not new, but in my view, it is the way forward - that is a gathering of people with the resources and talent to come together and create good films. Essentially a script, players, film, locations, props is the recipe to start with. 

Having written books for stage and film adaption, planning is also a big and important part of the project. 

With many actors out there already, is there the room for these independent productions? Indeed, Euston films that filmed the Sweeney was such a company and that was over 40 years back. 

My parents both worked for the BBC in the heyday of the organisation and I have been out on location to see the creative process taking place. The difference is the money. 

The small, 'youfilm' units need some money, but by a collective process and gathering, they can and do achieve results as good as some mainstream broadcast providers.

The question remains - in the 'youfilm' future, how do these smaller players fit in and can they make sufficient living from it?

I think they can. 

In the next 12 years one in three jobs is likely to be lost to automation, this is going to leave some people without livelihoods. This is where a Basic Income Guarantee payment will have to come in and will start a new 'cottage industry' situation - films will be a part of that.

The BBC as a publicly funded broadcaster is an anachronism now, in a world where there are countless commercial channels.

The BBC model will have to be rethought, it is a poll tax on viewing and should commercialise as much as possible to compete.

I thought twenty years ago that demand viewing would be the future, this has now come to pass.

The BBC as a televison model is over - the licence fee is no longer valid and demand viewing via internet is the new model

Television has changed - for the 'wired' generation who are now 'wireless'

'Wireless' - a term that up until a few years ago was probably used by an elderly gentleman in a sensible cardigan and cavalry tweed trousers, who probably wore a cravat and smoked a pipe to refer to his radio.

Wired for wireless - your electronic devices are likely created in Asia now

the days of a crusty looking old Bush are... back, they call it 'Retro' now.

Nothing like a fiddle on the old Bush, to get tuned in to the light program

But 'Wireless' is hip again and with this world going unplugged in a frenzy of data packet technology, never the twain shall interface as they might have to say now. Or put in simple terms, your data unique to you is coded and passed or should that be parsed between you and the source and not crashed.

The 'Ekco' radio designed by the architect Wells Coates, noted for his Moderne style

So how does this effect our only public broadcast provider the BBC? It makes it difficult for it to justify its position as the sole transmitter than requires you to possess a valid licence to watch its output.

With the advent of 'new' BBC channels post BBC2, the on-line I-player has become something I predicted before it arrived - Demand TV.

Basically, with such busy lives, people want to watch their media when they want and where. The model of fixed schedule broadcasting is starting to wane thanks to the YouTube generation.

Mobile phone and tablet use to watch media content has rocketed out of all proportion. A retailer I spoke to recently said that his television sales had gone right down to a few years ago as people are switching to other means.

Some are even watching live content via the Internet, something the BBC is trying to close out as a loophole.

The problem is that the BBC model is no longer viable. Given that it has shrunken its in-house program making from the heyday of the 70's, it relies on much bought in and repeat material to bulk out its schedules. 

Sadly, the game is up for 'Auntie' and she is no longer the attractive proposition she once was. New media and new audiences are moving to the watch on demand model and it is questionable how the BBC can justify the fee for the old model.

It cannot last and it will soon be as anachronistic as horse drawn carriages from the Victorian age.

The BBC has got to 'didge' up, that is get more archive out on sale either as downloadable format or onto disk. But even disk seems to be losing out to the recordable hard disk.

The risk averse culture - beyond health and safety, whatever happened to common sense

The Risk Business - life is a risk, manage it safely

We manage risk everyday in our own lives, whether that is crossing the road, making a cup of tea, using a power tool, risk is involved.

A self-appointed industry has sprung up and as such created a monster of hectoring, in many cases unregulated 'experts' who diploma in hand, 'advise' us, sometimes badly. Very.

Risk has become an industry, rather as race relations was in the 1970s.

Risk management is important but common sense should prevail.

Any Tom, Dick or Harriet can become a health and safety consultant. And that is the problem, they often miss out real risk, where it is obvious to the lay person that a risk exists. I have experience of this, having identified a list of possible risk situations which a consultant had missed or not appreciated.

Issues such as paint fumes, lack of eye wash information in case it got into the eyes, no suggested use of safety footwear, the list went on and was not rocket science. Just plain and obvious common sense. A most uncommon commodity it would seem.

This may have stemmed from the business model of the company being of the FCNK type - that is fur coat, no knickers.

Even basic and obvious requirements such as backing up of computer data was not done on a 'cost basis', even though the business would have been finished if that data had become corrupt or destroyed and the 'cost' solution was perhaps a couple of hundred pounds. This was an area where risk should have been managed but was chosen to be ignored. So it went from that basic disregard and extended into a production environment. Dangerous. 

Managing risk is good, but has to be balanced with common sense

We are breeding a new generation called 'Generation Snowflake' this has come about as a part of the 'health and safety' (often gone mad) industry. A few years ago, I worked in a workshop and we had a couple of school age students who came for work experience. This was to be an education.

The first student came with a two page list of hectoring do's and don'ts from a teacher. Use of power tools was banned, the use of hand tools had to be supervised and the best bit.... yes, the kid was not allowed to boil a kettle! No I am not joking.

So what did we do? We adopted common sense. We ripped up the list in our own minds and empowered the student with the use of common sense and moderate supervision.

And nobody got killed, or injured and actually did learn something. Essentially the student could see how we managed risk, adopted responsible working practices and worked safely.

Looking at risk should be kept proportionate to the situation

The real fallout of this situation is that we are now creating a generation of people who stand on the sidelines, who are dependent on other peoples for decision making and to do things FOR them.

How many people have recently drowned in a few feet of water because someone stands and waits for somebody to do the necessary? Too many.

It is essentially a control culture of dependency. We now have people who cannot change a fuse in a plug, cannot use basic hand tools, so it goes on. But there is on the other side of the coin, plenty of youtube evidence of 'fails' where people foul up on camera.

We read about it in the papers of someone being injured doing something really stupid.

We have lost the ability it seems for many to know what common sense is. The fact that people make dicks of themselves with ladders etc. is because they have been 'cotton woolled' and have little risk management ability it would seem. Rather like a child that runs into the road without apparently thinking.  

Its about time we got real.