This is un update on a post I wrote in March last year. It's quite extraordinary as well as somewhat enervating to see just how little has changed.
Understandably there has been much discussion in recent days on the topic of leadership, and my instinct tells me that it's going to get worse before it gets better. Largely neutral and free of any deep seated political allegiance makes this easier for me to deal with than a great many people I know. I treat politicians from across the entire spectrum (with a miniscule number of exceptions) with the contempt they deserve. I find them largely lacking in any genuine empathy or compassion, merely affecting it as part of a spin initiative to gain some notional advantage.
So whether you like our leaders or not, they are there. Imagine for a moment if we had no leadership.
Frightening isn't it?
No voice, no help, no sense of purpose nor unified direction.
In other words, a bit like being a self employed musician right now.
Obviously millions of self employed people work in other sectors apart from music and much of their current experience will be entirely similar to ours, although since I wrote this original post we have taken a few very cautious baby steps towards an at least partial return to normality, but even this has not been without incident. Lamport Hall and their appeal for top quality performers to appear without payment was rather like our industry having a 'European Super League Moment'. Their retraction was as swift as it was churlish, very much in the manner of a teenage sulk.
Possibly the most thoroughly abhorrent development is the announcement that when Phantom of the Opera returns to the West End it will be doing so with its orchestra cut by fifty percent. We are told that this is to 'take advantage of technology that was not previously available'. This is barely believable. Can you imagine buying tickets to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and arriving at the venue to find twelve musicians onstage playing synthesisers. That's not to say that Andrew Lloyd Webber's compositions in any way measure alongside the masters of classical repertoire, even if one or two of them do sound quite similar, but you know what I mean. I had the chance to go down the West End Theatre Musician path back i the 90s and declined, as I didn't feel it was for me. Call it ego if you like but I like the audience to be able to see me. Our theatre pits contain some of the most gifted and experienced instrumentalists you will find anywhere and they are almost entirely heard but not seen.
That working professionals should be treated in this fashion by those whose vast personal fortunes have been earned from musical performances would be pretty low at the best of times (and is not by any means unprecedented) but on the back of being out of work for more than a year? That, folks, is the trouble with empathy. You don't know when you haven't got it.
Thirteen musicians' jobs slashed. If each one of them has three regular deps that therefore means that 52 people will have some detrimental effect on their incomes. Mackintosh then adds insult to injury by claiming to be "creating art", whilst actually looking more like an accountant.
Phantom of the Opera, like every other West End musical is just a pile of pieces of paper, a script, a score and some band parts. Without the people to get the words, notes, stage directions and technical instructions off the paper, it's just paper.
What will the theatres do next? Sack all the bar staff and replace them with vending machines? Or perhaps they will replace professional actors, singers and dancers with selected Am Dram companies from the Home Counties, or promising school groups even. All of whom would almost certainly be thrilled at the opportunity for precious 'exposure'. And while you're at it, just have one bloke in the pit with a kazoo, or maybe this is the way forward......
Personally I would like to see a big name, enriched by the West End (Alfie Ball or that other fella perhaps?) step up to the plate on behalf of the musicians, without whom they would be little more than entirely capable if over indulged karaoke performers.
Meanwhile, theatregoers with a conscience can do their bit by voting with their feet and boycotting this show and any others whose producers see fit to behave in a similar fashion.
There is a bit of noise in the MSM at the moment with regard to restaurant staff being in short supply which is causing wages to increase dramatically. No sous chefs, matres d', nor your humble kitchen porter is getting asked if they would like to work for exposure, or for a free dinner while they get their cooking chops (sorry!) back up to speed.
And then there's festivals. Tens of thousands of people in a muddy field contributing to the fortunes of a lucky few headliners and to a greater extent, faceless industry moguls. These lucky individuals can afford to take a couple of years off in many instances and for it not to cause them undue concern financially, which is nice.
However, lots of those headliners have backing bands comprised of freelance musicians, whose annual income would astound readers outside the industry. That, of course, is the trade off. Getting to spend your life doing something you love but probably earning less than (often a good deal less than) £25,000 a year.
An easily and oft made mistake, there's a common assumption that everybody who does this professionally at whatever level is comfortably affluent. I get it. When you consider that it's perfectly possible for an undistinguished, journeyman footballer playing in League Two to earn north of £100,000 per year, (source, Manchester Evening News) people erroneously think that this is the case across all the supposedly 'glamorous' professions.
Not forgetting the sound and lighting crews, all the techs, the riggers, the roadies, drivers, caterers and all the rest of them. Everyone having to fight their own battles without a trusted commander to display that all-important leadership.
Don't be fooled into thinking this is a self-pitying bleat; I have had a fairly reasonable pandemic and have not needed to drive a van, an ambulance, stack shelves or empty someone's bedpan, but I know plenty of supremely talented people who have had both the need and humility to go out and do all of these tasks and more besides.
As I said elsewhere the other day, one day you're performing with Van Morrison, the next thing you know you are driving a van for Morrison's.
What disappoints yet again is the fact that no one in a position of genuine influence (with the possible exception of Sir Reginald of Pinner) has even so much as said "boo" about this. Maybe the headliners are afraid of being blackballed by the corporate moguls. Who knows?
Still we wait for a global music icon to take up the cause (maybe someone like Paul Simon perhaps?) but all we hear is the sound of silence.
The industry is in crisis. Speak up!
You are the people who can afford to employ publicists who get you coverage in the mainstream media; media that have no interest in people like me. It's almost as though you have to be famous in order to have a point of view or raise awareness of the problems of being in an industry that even on its best days can be a bit of a challenge (case in point X Factor finalist Rebecca Ferguson's recent stance on bullying in the industry: an unknown would simply not have got any attention at all. Whether this gains any traction in the long term and turns into some sort of #metoo moment for the music industry remains to be seen. Don't hold your breath).
So when it matters, who is going to be the much needed mouthpiece for our beleaguered industry? Somebody with a new record to sell probably.
You only have to look how influential certain music industry types were on matters such as the EU referendum and the last general election (in quite a few instances rightly so as things have played out, but that's neither here nor there). So now that the very industry from which you have so enriched yourselves is crippled, possibly never completely to recover, where do I read your words? How do I witness your deeds?
Stormzy, Bono, Sir Bob, Lily, and all the rest of the usual suspects.
Where are you?
