Well here we are at the outset of what was once solely 74 Music, a concept that was borne out of frustration at the....well, to be honest, pretty appalling way that I experienced bands and musicians being treated whilst organising a charity festival with my good friend, and inventor of the phrase "the revolution of nice", Chris Taylor. Whilst trying to book bands for the week long event, we seemed constantly to be running up against a brick wall when communicating with band management and booking agents. Hey, the musicians themselves were terrific - enthusiastic, keen to play, willing to lend their not inconsiderable talents to a worthy cause.....but could we please call / email the management teams to sort it out ? Well yes.....but then the wall of silence was a quite damning endorsement of how little these people seem to care about something that should be driven, in the main, by passion ? Surely ?

So what to do ? Well I've had experience working both within the music business (plugging at Waxworks, general everything and more at Ninja Tune and A&R at Parlophone) where the writing was on the wall in some senses - I was criticised for joining the industry late on, the phrase "if  you really loved music you'd have done this when you were 16". Ahhhh....not necessarily. And therein lies part of the problem. If you staff an industry with people that have been there since dot, you are surely cutting off the bloodline of experience and vision that might just come from people with knowledge and capability gained from outside that industry ? Well, as I say, I had experience both of this and previously and more recently in the highly corporate world of the likes of Accenture, Mace and most recently setting up a business with James Caan. There I learnt the value of professionalism and business practice and the skills required to survive in cut-throat corporate environments....

...so why not apply that to music ? You know, doing things like answering the phone ? Replying to emails...?

Hence 74 Music was born.....

.....and 74 Promotions followed soon after. But I'll go into that in my next blog.

For now, much love to you all.

Andy