The (mostly) Fun Side of Music – Guerrilla – October 2019

Dave Morgan (left) and Tom F-H (right, also me) live with Guerrilla at Zombie Shack Manchester, October 27th 2019.

Organising Everything

Since I last wrote about our band we’ve had more changes, more stress, and even more fun. The big one being the loss of our drummer who dropped out two weeks prior to our debut gig with our new material. Throughout my life I’ve generally avoided taking leadership roles as I’ve always been the smaller, quieter, less witty member of the group but somehow, one day I woke up with a sneeze and an epiphany that I should be the one to manage this project. Well, that’s not exactly how it went but after having to make some tough decisions early in the year I’ve found the requirement to step up more and more, taking it upon myself to organise rehearsals, gigs, travel and all of the fun admin stuff that you don’t see at surface level in the creative industries. While I’ve enjoyed feeling important for the most part, there have been a few walls I’ve faced that have seriously challenged my patience and ability to remain professional, the main themes revolving around the members of our troupe and managing my time so that I have space to breathe. Some people enjoy being a d*ck, I don’t however, which means chasing people up on their responsibilities is not one of my preferred past times, yet it has to be done if we hope to achieve our goals and stick to a schedule. Regarding our now ex-drummer, there was a period of time where I thought there was a personal feud going on, but we eventually put it down to a lack of motivation and stress involving various factors and parted ways in a friendly manner, which I think is very important to note – always, always talk to your bandmates/co-workers/people who are relying on you if you have any reasons to avoid doing what is expected of you, because it is usually resolvable and if you don’t they’re just going to assume the worst. However, this gave way to a new debate.

The sad truth of the music industry is that it is hardcore. Where most people see pretty lights and rock-stars worth millions, we see crippling student debt, anxiety about maintaining income, and on top of all of it; failed dreams. There’s no easy way into show-business, the tales about selling your soul for rock ‘n’ roll are almost true. That devil comes in the form of your free time, mental health and your withering bank account. The reason I want to hammer this home is because, despite the lows, your highs are achievable and are there, if you are willing to sacrifice for it. The effects of a music career on the health of musicians is another wormhole so I’ll avoid that for now, but in short – you have to be prepared to give everything and more to work the best job in the world.

Siege Planning

Leading up to our first gig at the end of the month I found I was enjoying using social media more and more; promoting our music, image and antics on our Instagram using darker imagery, but also tongue-in-cheek stories because we like to have a laugh behind the scenes. For the first time in my life I booked meetings. The first was with a close friend and media student regarding photography for the band, live and press. I also organised our performance to be filmed which we spoke about over a pint: the standard way to organise anything with students in Manchester. The second was with a band manager who gave me a few tips on social media marketing, and finally a chat with another friend about organising and planning more events in the future. What I like the most about this is, firstly, that I’ve gone out of my way to talk to these people in person and it feels good to create real dialogues instead of doing everything over Messenger, but secondly that it allows me to offload some of the responsibility so I have more time to focus on other areas of the project but also more time to myself. For the first time in about a month I sat down and played Pokémon, with a cup of tea, and a livestream.

The Gig

Walking to the bus I decided to draw out some cash. A brief scare that the machine had eaten my card lead me to find out that my account had been cancelled temporarily and I had a tenner to my name. I messaged a couple of extra people who I thought might be about to trek down last minute to see us play, as most of the people I have contacted had cancelled the day before; something you have to get used to when starting gigging. I was honestly nervous, but not about the fact I was going to be playing in front of an audience, but more that I wasn’t sure there would be one. Arriving at the venue, I met Jordan Simm (@simmjordan), our session drummer and friend who also worked at the venue. He told me that he had managed to secure a rider which lifted my spirits, so to speak, and he was confident about our set despite having learned the tracks in less than two weeks. I was shortly joined by Aaron and Dave, and Ben Charleston (@ben_charleston) from local metalcore band Where Oceans Burn (@whereoceansburn_uk) which was a lovely surprise. We had a catch up outside and waited for our camera crew. I had managed to organise our set to be filmed and photographed by Katie H-M (@katie_hmphotography) as we intended to use the gig for press shots and social media content. For my third pleasant surprise of the evening Katie had also brought three other members to record video and audio. As of writing this I am yet to see the footage, but have been told it is “f***ing insane”, so I look forward to that. We are also being featured in a short documentary that Katie and her fellow students are shooting about local music and the venues of Manchester, along with Where Oceans Burn and another bunch of lovely musicians known as The Elephant Trees (@theelephanttrees), but more on that later.

We caught the previous band’s set which was incredibly reminiscent of the Arctic Monkeys, to the point where they played a song that had the same beat, structure and chord progression as Brianstorm, and a cover. Gripes aside they played well and were very charismatic despite the small crowd. Finally, after a bottle of lukewarm Becks and a pep talk, it was our time to set up and we did so smoothly, sound checked without any indication of whether the guys at the desk wanted us to and after shrugging and deciding we were happy, I set my delay and we began our first song. I had forgotten how difficult it is to enjoy yourself in front of a small room but we did, and I even opened my mouth and spoke, which at first made me think “oh my god what are you doing,” but seemed to go down well and I, for maybe the first time ever, didn’t get tangled up in my words. From the stage I could barely hear my own playing despite asking for more bass in my monitor, but the drums and guitar sounded amazing, and Dave smashed the vocals which we had only finalised the week before. My only regret is that I spent too much time terrified of what Ben would say to me after the set, but even that turned out to be positive. He recommended we start looking into backing tracks as it would allow us to use impacts to make section changes more, well, impactful. Another benefit to this would be the ability to rely on a click to keep time, instead of the drummer, because a click won’t make mistakes. I personally dislike clicks as I find them unnatural and I prefer the raw feeling of relying on a kit, but from a professional stand point it is something I will consider.

All in all I think the gig was a success. We were thrown a number of curveballs leading up to the event and, despite my stress, they were all dealt with effectively and smoothly, and I want to give a huge thanks to the people who came to our show, the people who I have had talks with about future projects, and to you, the reader, who has taken an interest in our antics. Our next show is later in the month, 20th November at Retro Bar Manchester, but between now and then I have a lot of fun stuff planned and to plan; new material, a new band member, and a photoshoot to do with a load of rubber ducks. Until then, thanks for reading and remember you can get in contact with me or the band any time via Instagram and Facebook. Please do if you have any feedback or want to work with us, we don’t bite and I can’t wait until I have more stuff to write about.