Remember how, when I go on holiday, my friend Ben fills me in on the news I missed while I was away?

Turns out a cat got put in a bin.

I wanna talk with you guys today about the role that record labels can play in a musician’s life, or rather, if there is still a role to be played. Instead of doing a big opinion piece, I’m gonna focus on a case study of my friend Greg Holden.

Greg recently joined a site called Kickstarter in which musicians can set financial goals for their musical projects (in Greg’s case, raising the money to fund his new album) and collect donations from fans of his music to raise said money. Initially, I have to admit I wrote this off thinking it would never work, but Kickstarter has an intriguing twist; if the artist doesn’t hit his goal, they get nothing. So in this example, Greg needs $20,000 by a specific deadline to fund his album, but if only $19,000 was donated (or even $19,999) nobody would be charged and Greg wouldn’t see any of the cash.

I actually love this because it means the normal model of ‘donate and help me’ doesn’t just end with the donation. People who donate want their money to count, and so they’ll continue to spread the word about the goal. That’s probably part of the reason I feel compelled to write this entry; I wanna help Greg, but it only works if other people help too.

Furthermore, it’s not just a one-way take of ‘fan gives artist money, artist says thanks but doesn’t really do anything else’, which happens so often in new media. Instead, the website dictates rewards for donating (devised by Greg) depending on the amount you pledge. Fifteen dollars, for example, guarantees you a digital copy of the album you’re donating for when (if) it’s recorded, so if you’re interested in supporting Greg musically, you don’t have to pay twice for the music; the donation is basically a pre-order. Then the rewards go up and up; $35 nets you a signed physical copy of the CD along with the physical donation, $100 gives you original demo MP3s and your name printed inside the album art (along with the aforementioned signed physical CDs and a digital download of the finished product), and right at the top is a reward for donating ten thousand dollars – Greg will be so happy that he’ll tattoo your name on him.

Greg has said he’s looking at this as an alternative to working with a record label. With this model, he’s engaging in a direct relationship with his fans, and doing great things for them in return for his help. I checked the site today and he’s already hit nearly $15,000 of his $20,000 goal, so clearly a lot of his fans feel the same about this as he does. My questions:

a) What do you think about a model where artists and fans have an equal say in the artist’s career? I noticed a lot of people didn’t warm to my new album because of the lack of so-called ‘real’ instruments, so I’ve recorded an acoustic EP for those of you that want it, and that’ll be out soon. But at the same time, I’m proud of my new album and would never want to change it. I love it as it is. If I’d been releasing demos and individual tracks as I went along, maybe I’d have been more influenced by your feedback and the quality of the album might have shifted from what I envisioned it being. So: can fans of an artist really be trusted to dictate what’s best for the artist involved? What’s the line between working with your audience and compromising yourself for them? Greg’s project is a fantastic example of the positive impact of a community on one’s work; but if more musicians shifted to this model, would it be good or bad?

b) Do you think, as Greg does, that this model is a good substitute for a record label deal? He’ll only be as big as his fans want/can get him to be, but he doesn’t need to rely on a company for an advance on his recording because he’s rewarding his fans personally for helping him. Overall, will reliance only on fans end up helping or hindering his career?

If you’re a musician yourself, or even if you’re not, leave me a comment (or a blog/video if you’d like) with your thoughts, and be sure to back Greg’s project :) His first album and EP are available on iTunes if you’re new to him and you can hear a lot of his songs for free on YouTube.

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Ahh, I wish there were a whole genre of films like that :D

Alex also rates this month: Inception (which he saw in a cinema in Zambia) and Toy Story 3 (which men cry at or something).

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I’d officially like to pledge my allegiance to this airline. They’re the first (and so far the only) airline that I’ve travelled business class with, so I have a loyalty there. And they’re on Star Alliance, so I get miles, which are always good :)

I’m in a good place right now, considering I thought this was going to be the worst flight I’ve ever taken in my life. It’s eleven hours from Johannesburg to London Heathrow, flying 5644 miles sat in economy, tired but unable to sleep, with plane food and no elbow room and I don’t have a copy of Mockingjay to read. I asked if I could upgrade to business class but they said all of the business class spots were taken. That was when I had to face the reality. x.x

Just for good measure, as I headed through the departure gate (after sadly saying goodbye to Shawna) I asked again if any spots had become available – you never know, someone doesn’t show up or switched to a later flight or something. But the woman took my ticket, going through her motions, scanning it as she told me that all the spots in business were full.

Then she scribbled out my seat, 85K, and switched it to 18G.

“Is that a window seat?” I asked.

“No, it’s aisle,” she replied, “but it’s all I have left.”

“Cool,” I shrugged, “thanks”.

But in my head, my casual “cool thanks” was far more than a casual “cool thanks”. In my head it was a whine: “what? Now I have to do everything I’ve already mentioned IN AN AISLE SEAT?”

(In the argument of aisle vs window, I’m firmly in favour of window because it means I only have to move for myself. I’m not inconvenienced unless it’s for my own benefit. Also you can sleep against the wall of the plane.)

I should clarify that I wasn’t that bitter. Planes are a modern miracle of machinery. My life is a happy one. I was just anticipating the oncoming discomfort with less joy.

So I get on the plane, show the woman my ticket, and she says “straight on and to your left”, and I say thank you and assume there’s some strange bit of the plane I haven’t noticed that’s to the left of me but is also still economy.

And then I notice 18 is the back row of seats for business class and somehow I’ve been UPGRADED FOR FREE.

And then my nonplussed “cool thanks” comes back to haunt me. Now I sound ungrateful. “Cool, you put me in the next class up for no money. It’s an aisle seat, so thanks, I guess.” I obviously wouldn’t have whined in my head about it being an aisle seat if I’d known it was an aisle seat in BUSINESS FUCKING CLASS :D

So this was just a wonderful turn of events, and means I’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight, which I am a happy about :) I was worried about not being rested enough because I’ve decided to visit my nan and grandad tomorrow – I haven’t seen them in a while, so I’m heading straight there off the plane. I’ve also decided to have a long bath tomorrow evening because I haven’t had a bath in years, not since we moved house and got a standing shower. Oh, and I’ll have Mockingjay. So it’ll be a wonderful peaceful day <3 Lessons learned in Zambia; take each day slowly, do things worth doing and enjoy the experiences, no matter how small.

Thanks to all the people who said I should write more in the comments of my last blog entry, by the way :) This blog is just a little outlet for me, so I’m glad people appreciate it.

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My time in Zambia has been world-changing, but is sadly coming to its end. People have been asking if I miss the UK at all, but I never get homesick when I’m away. I enjoy the opportunity to explore new places and live a different life for a while – I love my life as it is, but travelling is an easy way of forcing you to experience new things. I think there are a lot of lessons that you can take from travel and apply back home, the main one being to make every day count. If I was only in London for a week or two, and then I went somewhere else, I definitely wouldn’t spend all day checking emails and reading Wikipedia, I’d be out exploring the world. So I want to do more of that.

My Zambian experience has felt like a self-contained story. The peripheral characters in our lives these two weeks have slowly become more meaningful. We noticed a tall guy who sat near us at breakfast at one morning, and he turned out to be Ignacio, the guy with dual citizenship from the cocktail party. There’s a blonde woman staying here who we keep seeing around, and last night she was having dinner with Ignacio, so we wondered if they had come here together or if he was trying to score. We also ate dinner at a rival hotel one night, and saw the blonde woman there too, concluding that she was a spy.

The staff are great here, too – you’ve already heard about Adrian, but there’s also a waiter called Kelvin who started working here just over two weeks ago, so for as long as he’s been at the Southern Sun he’s seen us twice a day for meals. He said he’d got used to having us around and would be sad to see us go. Another waitress, Tracy, came over ‘just to say hi’ because she recognised us this morning during breakfast.

I read a book while I was out here called A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Don Miller; it’s a real perspective-changer and my favourite book now. It puts forth the idea that a good story is just life with the meaningless scenes removed, and that if you can understand the principles of what makes a good story, there is something to be said for removing the meaningless scenes from your own life to make everything you do more meaningful, more memorable and generally enabling you to live a great tale. Being someone who already documents his life on video, this really struck with me. I really like the more documented videos I’ve made while I’ve been in Zambia and I’d like to continue that style, upoading a video maybe every Monday to talk about what I’ve been up to, and leaving time later in the week to do a Twilight reading or a song or whatever else I feel like. Anyway, once you finish Mockingjay, I’d definitely recommend you read A Million Miles In A Thousand Years – here’s an Amazon link.

So my Zambian story is over, and the Sons Of Admirals story is waiting for me back home. We’re taking this re-release really seriously and aiming Baby at press and radio, so I’m really excited to see what we can do :)

To the next story!

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Paul did a cover of Georgia :D I can only apologise that it took so long for me to see it – check it out:

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Last night was brilliant.

The hotel we’re staying in is called the Southern Sun, and it has the nicest hotel manager I’ve ever met. He might well be the nicest person I’ve ever met. On our first evening here, he came up to our table and introduced himself, asking if everything was okay and if we were enjoying our meal. He did this with everyone in the restaurant, and once we knew to look for him, we noticed he was always there at breakfast and most dinners, eating the same food as everybody else and in some cases sitting down to join people as they ate. We’ve since learned this guy is called Adrian Penny, and last night (as he does every Wednesday), he through a complimentary cocktail party for the guests of the hotel.

Since we’ve not really had an excuse for a party since we’ve been here, Shawna put on her party dress, I changed into what’s now been dubbed my ’stud shirt’ (the purple hippy one) and Tom didn’t do anything because he just had a series of graphic tees to choose from.

First order of business was name-tagging. Backstory: it’s been a running theme in Zambia that we can never get the food we order. For the four days we were in the lodge, I tried ordering spaghetti every night but never got it; we tried ordering caterpillar every night because we wanted to try it, but never got it; no matter what I ordered, I always got chicken and potatoes. One night I didn’t even get the potatoes. (The rorshach t-bone steak is the one exception to this rule.) I ordered a smoothie at the hotel, and what I got tasted like strawberry yoghurt in a glass. I ordered a smoothie at a restaurant, and got a slushie. Tom ordered a vanilla milkshake and what he got tasted like “lime – although it might just be off”. The general trend is to expect the unexpected when it comes to Zambian dining.

We ordered lunch at Subway yesterday, which worked out okay because we could go through the ordering process step-by-step, but we discovered it’s just as hard to get names down as it is to get orders. Once the guy had finished making my six-inch chicken breast with lettuce and cheese, he asked for my name, so he could write it on the packaging and thus discern my food from the others. “Alex”, I said. “Alex,” he repeated. “I’ll just write ‘R’.” And he proceeded to write a capital R on the packet with marker pen.

Richenda was next. I said jokingly to her, “what letter would you like?” and she said “RG”. I passed it on. The guy wrote “AG”.

So when we arrived at the cocktail party and discovered that the first order of business was to get a name tag, we had low hopes.

The tags were arranged by country with little flags on each one, pertaining to your nation. Richenda was up first and said she needed two Australian tags. “Name?” the woman at the counter asked. “Richenda,” said Richenda.

The woman proceeded to write out two Australian tags that BOTH said Richenda on them. Presumably, I thought, this woman was choosing to assume not that Richenda was getting a tag for her and another for her Australian friend, but rather that she wanted to have her name and nationality displayed on her body in two different places for no reason at all. But then she baffled me by giving the first tag to Richenda, picking up the second and asked “who is the other Australian?”

So all along she knew it was for two people; she’d just assumed that both Richenda and the Australian guy in the graphic tee next to her bore the same name.

Tom came forward and made himself known. I was the only person that had been paying attention to this mistake, so I was the only person who noticed the woman at the counter subtly crumpling up the second tag with her left hand, picking up the pen in her right hand and saying “your name please?” as if nothing had happened. She had to be commended for that.

Tom said, “Tom”, and she wrote his tag, then looked at me. I said “I’m from the UK” so she could get my tag ready. She wrote Tom’s name on an Australian flag tag, then turned to the UK one, and wrote Tom again on the UK tag.

“No, my name’s Alex”, I said. Baffled. It appears that this woman takes the first name she hears and applies it to every other individual she meets until she is corrected. Whoever put her in charge of name tags was either an idiot or a genius.

Anyway, we finally got our tags and it was all well and good (Shawna spelled her name out one letter at a time so there was no way they could screw it up). The party was a mingling thing to try and get the guests to hang out more with each other (hence the tags), but given there were four of us alerady, we figured we’d just use it to hang out together with complimentary drinks. It seemed the people at the party had other ideas.

A fair few people came over to say hi, one of which (a girl called Alexandra) was from West Sussex, so we bonded over that. I marvelled at how an English girl made the effort to talk to someone she didn’t know, which would never have happened if we were in England. There was also a guy called Ignacio who was at least a head and a half taller than me, and was notable for having two stickers on his chest, both with different flags. He said he had dual citizenship, but knowing the sticker-writer, I reckon he was just trying to save face. Ignacio had spent some time in England, so when I said I was born in Essex, he put his huge hand on my shoulder and said “I’m sorry”.

We were interrupted by Adrian Penny, who took the stage to make a speech, by the end of which I’m sure everyone had decided he was the best person in the world and should be president because he’s genuinely lovely.

Then Tom had an idea.

“Dude,” he said.
“Yes?”
“When we finish these drinks,” he said, indicating to his gin and tonic and my vodka and coke, “we should order a scotchka.”

My favourite film of all time is WALL•E, but coming close second is a film made in 2003 called The Room. It’s the brainchild of Tommy Wiseau, who is credited as the film’s creator, writer, producer, executive producer, the director, and the star. In one of the scenes of the film, Johnny (our loveable protagonist) is being persuaded by his future wife Lisa to have a drink so he can loosen up, and we see her putting two scotch glasses on the table and then topping up the scotch with vodka, creating a drink that fans of The Room have dubbed “scotchka”.

So Tom and I headed over to the bar, where Tom ordered a red wine for Richenda and a vodka and orange for himself. I was hoping he’d be the one to do it, but he turned and said, “I don’t have the balls to order a scotchka”.

So it fell to me.

“Thanks,” I said as our unassuming bartender handed me the red wine. “Also, do you have any scotch left?”

He lifted a bottle to indicate he had.

“Could you mix some of that with vodka?”

They looked confused.

“I know it sounds weird,” I said, as if to alleviate their concerns. “It’s not for me,” I added, hoping I could encourage this crazy concoction by mocking our imaginary third party.

And then the bartender responded with something that made him an instant legend.

He took the scotch, and the vodka, and simply said, “with ice?”

I drank a full glass of scotchka last night, and it was fucking disgusting, but I did it.

Bonus anecdote: Richenda bet me 50,000 Kwacha (which is Zambian currency, and equates to about ten dollars) that I couldn’t get someone’s tie around my head by the end of the party. Tom then doubled that bet. I already thought the bartender was going to be the hero of the evening, but of course, I underestimated just how beautifully the Southern Sun is managed…

Nobody at the cocktail party was wearing a tie, because they were all in their party outfits, which were the same as their work outfits except missing a tie. So, after the cocktail party, the four of us headed to dinner, where I had chicken, potato and a bit of calamari. (I’d just tried calamari – squid – for the first time earlier that day and it was a treat. Much better than the deer curry I had previously at the Southern Sun, which was incredibly tough to chew.) Like clockwork, Adrian Penny walked by to ask if we had enjoyed the party and whether we were enjoying our food.

“It’s all great, thanks,” I said, “can I wear your tie?”

It was probably the scotchka talking. But without missing a beat, he reached up to his tie.

“Absolutely you can,” he said. He put the tie on me, and started walking off.

“He’s just leaving!” I whispered loudly to my dinner companions, not understanding why he didn’t immediately want his tie back; and Adrian Penny turned and said casually, “I’ll get it back,” before he continued making his way around the tables and greeting his guests, without a tie.

I had a red wine with my meal, paid for out of my 100,000 Kwacha :D

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Baby’s not available on iTunes at the moment, wanted to explain why – we’re going to re-release it in October, giving us the proper time to target TV and radio and just do everything we can to make sure it makes the right impact this time around. We have a deadline, we have ambition … it worked for Chartjackers, so we’re giving it another go, using what we’ve learned to see how we do with a song of our own :) We just threw it out the first time around without much direction, so we wanna try again with something more targeted.

However, it’d obviously be really shit to just ask you to buy the song again, so we’re gonna release it as part of a digital bundle; you can include up to four songs and it still counts for the charts, which means you’ll get awesomely new things for what you’re paying, including hopefully new songs and videos and all kinds of fun stuff that’s exclusive to iTunes :D

On that note, out of interest – if we do a video for the digital bundle, what would you have us each do? Think of it like a Challenge Charlie but for all four of us. What do you think would be fun for us to attempt? <3

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Everything’s okay now :) Shawna and Tom are brilliant, as is Richenda, who organised this trip. I just wanna write a list of things that Tom has said (must be a thing with Toms) but most of them don’t make sense out of context. My favourite so far, though:

“If I was in a band, every album we released would have the same name, but then, in between each album, I’d change the name of the band.”

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Well Zambia isn’t what I expected, so far.

The signs on the outside of the airport had an immediate effect. They were handpainted. It gave me a feeling of nostalgia that it took a while to place, before I realised it reminded me of the seaside. Or the abandoned London Underground station I saw, when all of the old signs were still intact and they were painted on wood, not mass-printed with a glossy sheen.

That much was enough to get me thinking about how much I take things for granted. Then everything went crazy.

I always have a bit of awareness when I approach an immigration desk that the person I’m talking to has the power to deport me if they don’t like what I have to say. (In America, they also have a gun.)

My first problem came when they said I needed a visa. I’d completely forgotten about that. In the US I’m electronically registered with an ESTA and in Europe I get a waiver because I’m a British citizen. But here, I needed a visa. I guess I assumed Worldvision would have thought to take care of it and so I didn’t ask.

The visa costs fifty dollars. Simple enough. But I don’t carry cash with me, so they held on to my passport and told me to go to the bank outside the airport to withdraw the money.

After the confusion of 50 in dollars being 270,000 in Zambian money, and terrified I’d press one zero too many and accidentally clear out my bank account, I attempted to withdraw.

Nothing.

I used my Visa, my other Visa, my Mastercard and my American Express, pressing every button on the machine, and nothing worked.

Finally, the guy behind the counter said he would need my passport to approve the transaction.

“But they won’t give me my passport back until the transaction’s approved”, I said hopelessly.

The guy said it would be fine if I just went back and explained the situation to the boys at customs. This I did, but not before having to battle the guy at security, who (quite rightly) pointed out that once you pass a certain point in an airport, you can’t just turn around and go back again. He lectured me for a while on my failure to inform him that I would need to return, cutting me off each time I tried to explain myself to further chastise me. When he finished, I said “okay, so what are my options apart from flying home?” And with an impatient huff he let me back.

After waiting for all of the passengers of the newest flight to be cleared through, the guy with my passport escorted me to the bank – for all the good it did, as my cards still failed to work. Going through my emails, I found that all of the contact numbers I had for the Worldvision staff I’d spoken to were Australian numbers; none of them were contactable with African phones. And when I tried to phone my bank in the UK to see why my cards weren’t being approved, I was met with the words “this number is not in use” and then the line going dead.

Finally I phoned an African number for one of the Worldvision staff, who passed details of my plight on to our organiser, who is now coming to the airport to meet me and apologise profusely for the oversights. Meanwhile, while I wait, I’m sitting in the Zambian immigration office – the guy with my passport is gone, but he very kindly bought me a Fanta – and I’m thinking that for all the upheaval I’ve had getting into the country, it’s a good thing I flew business class.

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The first thing to mention about sleeping on a plane is that, despite the chair folding out completely to make a full-length bed, it’s still a chair. The surface doesn’t have give like a mattress does. So I woke up many times in the night to roll over or adjust myself. Also, it feels strange sleeping in your shoes.

Obviously none of that really matters, though, because you’re sleeping on a plane. Actually sleeping, and not struggling to do so. It’s wonderfully refreshing. The little jostles feel more like relaxing rocking motions than intrusive disturbances. And it’s nice when you do wake up to look outside and see how clear the stars are.

Breakfast now – hot flannel, small bowl of cornflakes, cup of tea, fruit, bread, that’s my starter. By the time I get through the fruit and the tea, my bowl of cornflakes have lost their molecular integrity. (I stole that from The Big Bang Theory, but it’s the only thing worth stealing. They have one episode playing on loop on one of the in-flight channels. If you like it, you should be held under suspicion.)

After the starter, I got a selection of cold meats and cheese. All the meals I’ve had on this plane, by the way, come with little salt and pepper pots for flavouring. And lots of complimentary water bottles are given to me – I’m on my third now.

Just went to the bathroom. They had six different squeezy bottles in there; hand wash, face wash, face gel, toner, facial moisturiser and hand/body lotion.

This is blog entry 151. The originals end here – it can only go downhill from this point. THIS WE HAVE LEARNED.

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