Recently I read about someone who will ’provide a strategic direct
marketing resource’ to BMP DDB. The day before a certain Gary Crossing
wrote in The Big Issue about the ’God-like genius’ of Kevin Rowland, a
musician with the not entirely amazing Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Two such
pieces of drivel close on each other’s heels convinced me: it’s time to
unveil Bird’s First Law of Tripe.
This states: ’The volume of obfuscatory codswallop in any industry is
largely related to the volume of money made in that industry.’ Thus,
management consultants talk marginally more bollocks than marketers -
and they make more money. Perhaps even more pervades the IT industry,
but I can’t tell, because I don’t understand a word anyone in it says. I
am, though, quite well equipped, if only by proxy, to say a few things
about the music business, because three members of my family work in it.
Music, you may be surprised to know, throws off even more cash than the
cinema (also not unknown for producing a fair amount of pretentious
hogwash, much of it conveniently transferred onto the screen).
To illustrate my thesis, I call in evidence the experts. First, the
delightfully funny Frank Zappa, who observed: ’Most rock journalism is
people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who
can’t read.’ And who should know better than the radiant Neil Tennant,
Pet Shop Boy and ex-music journo himself, a friend assures me. Recently
he said his hero was Noel Coward - at which point he should have shut
up, but went on to say Coward ’invented the idea of playing Las Vegas’.
If young Neil were to withdraw his head from the further reaches of his
derriere long enough to educate himself he would discover that hordes of
people played Las Vegas before Coward, including unknowns like Frank
Sinatra.
But the thing I read that gave me most pleasure recently, and which
demonstrates my proposition perfectly, was an article on music
festivals, which ended, ’If we can’t sustain the integrity of the site,
it’s quite simple - there will be no more Glastonbury.’ Speaking as
someone with a home nearby I thought, ’how wonderful’, but I decided to
consult an authority on these matters who happens to be firstly more
beautiful, secondly more talented and thirdly better able to comment
knowledgably - my daughter Martina, one-time festival aficionado, now
the warbler in Tricky. I read it out and said, ’I’ll give you one guess,
Martina. What does that mean?’ ’I don’t know,’ she replied. ’But since
it’s about the music business I suppose it must have something to do
with money.’
What a brilliant creature she is. She was, of course, quite right. The
verbally-challenged soul who uttered it was trying to convey that they
must stop people crawling in without buying a ticket - just like she did
before they started paying her to turn up. He’d make an absolute fortune
in database consultancy.
Drayton Bird runs the Drayton Bird Partnership.
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