Runrig – An enduring legacy

Check this new article out on Runrig at Scottish Bylines.

If music is to mean anything in our lives it must have a root. Sure, we also consume music as aural wallpaper in shopping centres, at the gym, at leisure and so on, but music which stays with us often has something more to it than just a backdrop to modern living. There is a long history of music that reflects cultures, and another lineage that reflects protest and politics. Arch exponents of the art form include Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Nina Simone, Pink Floyd, U2, Billie Holiday and, of course, Big Country, who I wrote of previously.

Click for article https://bylines.scot/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/runrig-an-enduring-legacy/

Read on via Scottish Bylines.

Music for TV

We wrote and recorded this piece of music for the lead presenter Faisal Rajput of XIN TV in Pakistan to head their news, politics and current affairs programme. He had contacted me about our work in politics and I created a piece of music for the programme in my basement studio. XIN TV is the first Pakistani and Chinese collaboration in broadcasting. Here is the introduction to the programme.

Get in touch via The Academy of Rock for bespoke music production to fit your TV / radio or online media.

Join us this Wednesday on ZOOM at WorldWide Wednesday for a masterclass on changing minds about Europe and Brexit.

Global Music Collaboration

Technology enables us to do amazing things.  One such amazing thing was an album I was asked to collaborate on, featuring musicians from several continents and members of Tuff Darts, Mod Fun, TV Toy, Joe Jackson, Captain Storm, Bram Tchaikovsky, Bon Jovi, Greg Abate, The Royals, The Punster, Ghost Walks, Puzzle Monkey, The Larks, and Bill Nelson’s Red Noise. 

The album “Steve’s Theme Park” was masterminded by Steve Peer in Miami and produced by Jeff Crossman who had the patience of a saint in bringing together so many diverse contributions.

Read the story of this Herculean enterprise, with many transferable lessons for people trying to do complex things across continents, such as:

1.       Global collaboration relies on strong leadership and direction.  Steve provided this from the outset.

2.       Global collaboration relies on excellent systems of co-ordination.  Jeff provided this essential mechanism without which we would not have succeeded.

3.       Global collaboration relies on give and take behaviours on the part of the team involved.  Guided by Steve’s leadership, the various experts were able to give of their best.

A couple of the songs from Steve’s Theme Park are included here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyEPkEIxYCc&ab_channel=Steve%27sThemePark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrCE0-KMteg&ab_channel=Steve%27sThemePark

Check out The Peer Reviews on You Tube – classic rock tracks distilled and dissected by Steve Peer and myself.

David Bowie

Check out this article about Tom Hagler, author of “We could be … Bowie and his Heroes”. Tom and I offer superb participative masterclasses about business lessons from Bowie:

Bowie and the art of business leadership

Major Tom

Peter “Kooks”

Jah Wobble

I managed to snatch a mini interview with the legend that is Jah Wobble after a two hour performance recently. The video also captures some of the performance that covers jazz, dub, reggae, punk, experimental music – what a complete joy to watch:

Wobble gained his name after Sid Vicious misheard his name John Wardle. He had a period as a station announcer on London’s Underground where he once broadcast “I used to be somebody. I repeat, I used to be somebody” over the tannoy system. It seems that he learned some of his stage skills from this period of his life as much as from musical performance. Having played with a diverse cast of music legends, from Public Image Ltd to Brian Eno, Sinead O’Connor, Can and members of U2 and one of my own local colleagues Clea Llewellyn, he has a supremely talented band in the form of The Invaders of the Heart. You can see some of their skills in this video:

Find all our interviews with music celebrities at The Academy of Rock.

Breakfast For Champions

Check this video out by Tibor Shanto, award winning author, speaker and B2B sales execution specialist from Toronto, Canada:

Check Tibor Shanto’s weekly podcasts out and follow him on Twitter.

Red Noise

Bill Nelson formed Red Noise having become restless as a guitar hero and leader of the band Be-Bop Deluxe. After a string of successful albums and singles, this change of style was a difficult change for both fans and record label alike. As a result, his record label Harvest dropped Nelson and this commenced his solo career which has seen him produced over 150 albums.

In this interview I discuss Bill Nelson’s Red Noise album and one of its tracks with Steve Peer, who performed on the Red Noise live shows. The lyrics on the album are inspired by science fiction and are a joy in themselves. Although the album was dismissed by some audiences in 1979, it has gained critical acclaim as being ahead of its time.

Find all Bill Nelson’s work at Bill Nelson.com

Bill Nelson – A retro-futurist

The Police on Television

Check this video out in our series “The Peer Reviews”, where we discuss Marquee Moon by Television. My co-presenter Steve Peer was Television’s roadie and has previously unheard insights about the band and its music, including stories about Brian Eno, Patti Smith and other aspects of their development.

Also The Police – Synchronicity II. This song foretold a lot about the times we live in and I still go back to it for some stimulation in dark times.

Celtic Angel

Our tribute song for Bernie Torme is now released with a contribution to the Teenage Cancer Trust. Get copies of the songs on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify etc. There are both male and female vocal versions.

Click to download on Apple Music

Click to download on Amazon

Click to stream on Spotify

Prince

Prince defies classification. Funk, Rock, Jazz, Pop, fusion, ambience and so on. In this video we take a look at one of his early tracks and look at his ability to seamlessly fuse genres, genes and jeans.

Read our article on Prince at Linkedin which achieved record numbers of views.

Download our homage of songs for Prince at Bandcamp.

Listen to our interviews with Prince collaborators and band members Ida Nielsen, Andy Allo, Marcus Anderson, George Clinton and Sheila E at interviews with music giants.

Ask us to deliver a Prince masterclass with parallel lessons for leaders.

Read our books “The Music of Business” and “Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll“. Contact me for signed copies. The books contain analysis of Prince’s contribution to music and of course his philosophy on life.

Prince and me – extract from the Linkedin article

The last few days have been something of an emotional roller coaster for me, as someone who is the same age as Prince and who has followed his career from start to finish. Prince Rogers Nelson’s untimely death at 57 has deprived the world of one of its greatest polymaths and on Friday I was compelled to give a talk on his life, creative contribution and perform some of his songs at Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money Lounge. Whilst preparing to give the talk I listened to Marvin Gaye’s rendition of “Abraham, Martin and John” and finally broke down in tears – I always think “better out than in” 🙂 and 10 minutes of uncontrollable sobbing gave me enough energy to carry the rest of the day without losing control. I also recalled our wedding day some 22 years ago – we had “The Beautiful Ones” as our wedding dance, much to the surprise of my Father in Law, once the screaming started … 🙂 As part of my own cathartic release of energy surrounding this very sad event, what then can I say about the man behind the controversy, sexual ambiguity, a symbol which journalists could not type on a keyboard and platform shoes that has not been said already in the media?

Download “The Pauper and The Prince” by clicking the picture