Storme Witby-Grub so desperately wanted to work in the music business that she packed in her Manchester University course at 18 without a job or even telling her parents. It was a gamble – but it has spectacularly paid off.
At first intent on becoming a sound engineer, she wrote off to countless recording studios “offering to make the tea and learn the ropes.”
A decade later and with a touring CV that includes the Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party, it’s fair to say that she now ranks as an esteemed tour veteran. “People are coming into touring younger and younger these days, so I do now sometimes feel a bit old,” she laughs. “Whereas when I started touring myself at 21, I was considered an absolute baby-face, it was so unusual. The guys I was working with were way older. “Then when I became a young female tour manager, it was considered even more unusual. Fortunately, there are lot more of us now.”
The recent interview in the Independent with Linford Hudson follow spot operator at the London Palladium for 47 years started me thinking about the job of spot op on a show.
I hadn't really given it much consideration as on most rock shows the follow spots, if there are any, are run by the truck drivers or local crew and not specialists. While those part timers often do a reasonable job it is quite a tricky gig. I've done it a few times in the past when trucks have broken down or people not turned up and I was surprised how tricky it was to just point the thing in the right direction and not just wave it all over the place.
Additionally to pointing it at the right place you have to be able to respond to the lds instructions in your headset about where and when to shine it.
It's also interesting that in an age where nearly all lighting equipment is automated the follow spot is entirely in human hands.
Some of us at FTTS are PRS writer members but when we joined we had no idea what PRS do exactly. So we spoke to Barney Hooper head of PR at PRS for Music to find out.
What does the PRS do? PRS or PRS For Music as it is now licences music on behalf of its members. We ensure that any time it is played, performed or reproduced whether live or on record, PRS collects money for its members. So that includes live performances, radio stations, TV, online, DVD, CDs, other products. Its members are songwriters composers and music publishers.
Not when I buy a CD and play it at home? No – only outside the domestic environment – so any business using music has to pay royalties (click 'read more' to see full article).
Live and Unsigned talks to The Agency Group’s Geoff Meall
Geoff Meall talks to Live and Unsigned about how to make it in the music industry. Geoff is the director of one of the world’s leading booking agencies, The Agency Group. Geoff is one of the most well known music industry agents in the UK. Like many agents, he started his career in live music as College Social Secretary at Oxford Polytechnic before taking the step into the booking agency world.
Based in the UK, Geoff is responsible for the London arm of the international Agency and books some of the biggest acts in the music industry. He’s worked with the likes of Muse, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Doves, Funeral for a Friend, Super Furry Animals, The Zutons and The Pogues. click here for the full article on Live and Unsigned.
The recent interview in the Independent with Linford Hudson follow spot operator at the London Palladium for 47 years started me thinking about the job of spot op on a show.
Some of us at FTTS are PRS writer members but when we joined we had no idea what PRS do exactly. So we spoke to Barney Hooper head of PR at PRS for Music to find out.