Plastic fantastic

A few years ago, Gerry Norman could easily be mistaken for the cheerleader of Belfast indie.

His band, A Plastic Rose, were still in their formative stages – their galloping momentum powered not so much by memorable songs, as by sheer exuberance and up-and-at-’em glee. No venue was too commode-like; no bill too crammed; no soundcheck too brief.
If it was possible to distil in human form all that made being in a band so great – the camaraderie, the fearlessness, the restless optimism – chances are it would have had the same hairstyle, accent and trainers as the APR frontman.
Cut to last month: and while the Gerry chatting about Promise Notes, the band’s debut mini-LP, has many of the eager beaver characteristics of his younger self, he’s also casting a bit of a war-vet shadow.
“Anytime I see a young band now I have a sense of dread,” he says at one point. ”I want to run over to them and say, ‘Don’t do it. You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for’.”
Then there’s Robyn G. Shiels. It may perhaps be a stretch to paint the Kilrea folk rogue as a wide-eyed ingénue, but his decision to give up the day job and devote his energies full-time to songwriting was hardly an act of cold logic.
Again, though, a recent chat found him in pensive form. A broken jaw wasn’t helping matters, but the unreleased album still lurking in the vaults (an album that could quite comfortably go toe-to-toe with any number of the alt. country big boys) had left perhaps the more significant bruising.
Davy Matchett tells a story of a conversation he had ten years ago with Gary Lightbody. Recently dropped by their label, Lightbody was fretting about an upcoming rent demand, and wondering if maybe it was time to knock the Snow Patrol thing on the head. Davy reluctantly offered to help his old school friend find a job. Gary said it sounded like an idea. And a few hours later, Davy rang back, with the time and date of an interview. “Cheers,” Gary said. “But I was thinking I’d maybe give it another go.”
It’s a brilliant anecdote, but also a maddening and deceptive one.
Because for some people (both financially and for the good of their mental health), maybe giving up the night (and weekend) job is a wise and sensible option.
It’s tough out there.
A few years back there was much chatter about the liberating potential of the internet for aspiring musicians. With the label monoliths crumbling, and the tried-and-tested means (demo, A&R showcase etc.) by which they hooked up with the suits suddenly redundant, it’s easy to see how a sprightly MySpace site could confer a comforting sense of empowerment.
These days, however, expressions of faith and confidence are much thinner on the ground.
The ‘death of the label’ doesn’t seem to have made it any easier to reach an audience, and more disturbingly, the drift of the culture – the tendency for music to be ‘consumed’ now in bite-sized morsels; the rabid championing of the ‘new’ – appears to have killed the dream of long-term, productive and evolving, careers.
It’s easy to see why people are tempted to throw the head up.
In fact, like Gerry, the temptation is to wave red flags and set up a cordon at the approach of every eager new contender: Run, flee – It’s only going to mess you up.
But then you get an email from someone like Paul Archer – a guy with a bigger back story than Ken Barlow – and hear his (as Burning Codes) new song, ‘We Are Like Gold’ – and, for a moment anyway, all doubts are washed away.
More spectacularly, you get your hands on a copy of To The Death Of Fun, the all-bells-and-whistles (and ten years a-coming) debut album from Cashier No. 9 – and, seduced by its gorgeous classicism, a wired-up counter argument starts to form. One that says: Hell, everyone should give this a go.
Add The Promise Notes, and Shiels’ new EP, The Great Depression (and the slew of fantastic, left-field material released by Peter Wilson since setting up his own label), and a strange kind of truth seems to be emerging: that the best music being made in the North at the moment is not just born defiantly out of straitened circumstances – it’s defined by it.
These may be tough times for musicians. But the music seems to be doing just fine.