Sood s Corner

Without being too simplistic about it, he's almost certainly looking for something that he thinks his company can make money from. More specifically, he may be looking for an act to fill a gap in the company's catalogue, perhaps to replace acts who've passed their sell-by date, died or broken up, or to compete with a rival company who have accidentally stumbled on a new twist on an old rope. Or he might just be passing the time on a quiet day.
The criteria he brings to his listening process often have less to do with the actual musical quality (or otherwise) evident on what he hears. You might be a hotshot singer-songwriter, but if his company has that market covered, they don't need you this week, thank you. On the other hand, in that same pile there might be a moderately interesting but not exactly earth-shatteringly brilliant heavy rock band who might seem ideal to fill a gap in the roster. That, partly, is how it works in those companies where they take demos seriously.
Contrary to the views of most failed bands, A&R personnel do tend to be enthusiastic music fans. They are certainly not immune from hearing something that's so fresh and exciting that it renders the commercial niceties irrelevant and sets them off to spread the good news with true missionary zeal. But it takes something truly special to elicit that kind of response from someone who probably spends most of his life eating, drinking and snorting music of one kind or another.
It could be said that the A&R man is attempting to do the impossible, to second-guess what you or I might want to buy in 61/2 months time, when we don't even know what we might pick up next Saturday.
But what would your average A&R chap make of the new demo CD by Terry? His full name is Terry McGuinness and he's produced an admirable CD called Acoustic City with some seriously commercial and tasty songs on it, supported by some uncluttered extra vocals, guitars and, on 'Dream On', a few taped effects.
But there's one problem with Terry. On a bad day you could be convinced that these are virtually John Lennon out-takes, if not actually by his son Julian. On tracks like 'Love', 'Dream On' and 'Avalon' the vocal resemblance, both soundwise and stylistically, to White Album-era Lennon is uncanny. Oddly enough, on the track 'Far Out Things' he replaces his Lennon fixation briefly with a loping guitar rhythm "borrowed" from The Beautiful South.
So has Terry no ears, (or no friends) to tell him this? Or is it a deliberate plot to target a market of Lennonites not being adequately catered for? In some respects it hardly matters. Terry proves he can write quality songs with irritatingly catchy melodies and acceptable words and sing them in a classy pop voice. So what if it's totally unoriginal and cribbed from music 30 years old? That didn't stop Oasis, did it?
The first track 'Younge' (sic) on the demo tape from Supercube, from Naas in Co Kildare, is a basic guitars-and-drums workout healthily saturated with a loose skiffle feel. This hot on the heels of Van Morrison releasing a skiffle album with Lonnie Donegan. Coincidence? Fate? The track also has echoes of The Stray Cats, and Supercube play with commendable vim and vigour.
But that song is followed by 'Paint Me A Mood', a slow, introspective effort that could be from a totally different band. Then along comes track three, 'What A Day', which translates the breezy energy from the opening track into a Supergrass-style romp. Three genres in three tracks, all written by their guitarist Archie Dea.
Versatility in any art form is a virtue, but from a practical perspective this multi-style approach rarely helps, especially at the start. Supercube could be a great band, but they'll probably have to decide what kind of great band they want to be before they take get much further.
This problem also arises on a cassette demo received from Adrian Sood, from Newbridge; it s titled When I Had Sense. With everything apparently written, arranged, produced and performed by the man himself, this is an ambitious project. The opening noises of 'Into The Pause' momentarily suggested that he might be traversing a more contemporary techno route, but it slips too easily into a whiny Britpop-meets-run-of-the-mill heavy rock groove, interrupted pointlessly by a short piano-strings bit before reverting to more whining.
'Halfway There' is a gentler, more restrained song with a Robert Wyatt-esque melody and vocal style and, stylistically speaking, might as well be on a different planet from the previous track. It has a quite catchy chorus, a cute organ riff and decent harmonies, but is short on essential magic. 'Swinging Around' is softer still, drifting into MOR territory before the ubiquitous fuzzed guitar takes over. Technically Adrian seems to know what he's doing, but there's a lot of work to be done in refining exactly where he's going with all this.
This fortnight's lesson: True originality is still hard to find.