Busting Myths about the Music Industry - Jimmy Mulvihill, Bally Studios

Really enjoyed this catch up with Jimmy to reflect about the studios now 17 years in Tottenham Hale. The studio really shows the community vibe that we often pride ourselves with here in Tottenham. Especially his answer to my question about their highlights ... If you play an instrument and you are not jamming there, why not?
I will add his musician top tips on the website.
Bally Studios website: https://www.ballystudios.co.uk/
Bally Studios twitter: https://twitter.com/BallyStudios
Bally Studios Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ballystudios/

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Transcript

Jamila  0:04  
Hi I'm Jamila and anybody everybody Tottenham is a bimonthly podcast, introducing the good people of Tottenham to you. In this last proper episode for 2022. I'm talking to Jimmy from a local recording and rehearsal studio. I really enjoyed his insight into the music industry, and how certain things are probably different to how most of us would assume they work. Hope you enjoy it! Today on the pod, I have Jimmy Mulvihill from Bally studio. It is both recording and rehearsal studio as well. Is that right?

Jimmy  0:41  
Yeah, mainly - years ago, we used to do a lot more recording. But now it's mainly rehearsals. Mainly because the, it's a lot easier for bands to record themselves. (Okay.) And most of the bands that come to us aren't signed to a record label. So they'll bring their own equipment in. For now, if you spend about 1000 pounds, you can basically get all the equipment you need to record your own album. So most of the bands now bring their own equipment with them. Yeah, okay.

Jamila  1:09  
All right. So you've been actually for quite a while in Tottenham, even though when I was reading a little bit about you. It wasn't your first choice. You were even looking in South London.

Jimmy  1:20  
Yes. Yeah. Bermondsey first Yeah.

Jamila  1:23  
And then, so how come you ended up in Tottenham and stayed?

Jimmy  1:27  
Me and my girlfriend at the time we founded the studios together. We were living in just off Upper Street at the time in Islington. And we were putting on about four or five band nights a week. And one day, we had to replace a window. So we just went down the road. And while they were cutting the glass, the estate agent next door started talking to us. And he asked where we were living, we said Upper street. And he said "I can get you about three times the space. If you move to Tottenham for the same amount of money actually, for a bit less." We'd never actually been to Tottenham, and that was in 2004. So we moved up to we came up there got into the car with him. And yeah, it was the first time we'd ever been there. We really liked it, you know, because we were putting on gigs every night, there was no point living in a place with great bars on our doorstep. Because we were always working at night, we never got to use them. Whereas we found that Tottenham had a much more community vibe to it than upper street does, you know, on upper street, it's just quite transient, you know. So we got we kind of had the best of both worlds. We had the bigger place and we had the community vibe during the day. And then we worked at night. So that was in 2004. And you know, we're still there now so and we didn't realize that there was already a Rehearsal Studio in Tottenham, which was trading as sync city, which opened in 1989. Yeah, the owners for the last few years they hadn't really promoted the place. That's the reason that I didn't know about it, even though I only lived a 10 minute walk away.

Jamila  2:52  
So what is your background? You said you were putting on nights like for for different bands? How did you get into that? What was your journey?

Jimmy  3:01  
Yeah, I played in bands myself. So I played lead guitar in one band and drums in another. I was just playing in lots of bands. And then I started doing sound engineering. I bought a PA system. And I used to just go to Irish bars because I'm Irish originally, I used to go to Irish bars and say, "I'll do the sound for you if you give me 40 or 50 pounds." That was when I was 16 years old. And then I just basically started from there. I started putting on my own gigs and everything. Then I started recording the live sessions. And then soon, we had a music venue up in northwest London Kilburn. And we invested about two years into it. But in the end got closed down for noise complaints. One person made a noise complaint and the venue got closed down as a result. And then I thought, well, I don't want to risk that happening again. So I thought I want to start my own studio. That's why we were looking in South London. But then we found this studio in Tottenham that the owners wanted to retire. They wanted to sell the business on so we basically took the business on from them. Yeah, 

Jamila  4:03  
Okay. Right. Nice. And how did this go, this process? Because you said it was a bit sleepy wasn't really promoted. So but did you have already your own group of people that were willing to then come to Tottenham to record or to rehearse?

Jimmy  4:19  
We didn't. We didn't have that. No, we worked with about 300 or 350 bands over the past two years, putting on live shows, but they were based all over London, very few of them were based in in Tottenham. When we took over the studio, I think there was about six bands who used to come every week or two but that was it. You know, so it was quite a you know, a small business when we did but we just found the old diaries and we just found all the contact numbers in them. And you know, we spent about two weeks cleaning the place and then we just took photos and messaged them to all the bands, you know and said "oh, you know, we're getting the place going again. And if you want to come back" and you know, (???), I think we've had over 1000 bands now in the last 17 years, you know, over 40,000 sessions. Yeah. So it's the last two years has been very hard, of course, you know, but, yeah, that's been going really well.

Jamila  5:15  
So what would you say if we're going to the Tottenham side? So you've seen that over the last 17 years? What have been some developments? or what have you noticed about the changes that have happened?

Jimmy  5:27  
Yeah, Tottenham Hale has changed. Just because that's where the studio is, is basically just around the corner from Tottenham Hale Tube Station that area has changed so much. When you come out of the tube station, you walk down ferry lane, and then you turn towards black horse road and turn left into Mill Mead Road, which is where we're based. That used to be the old storage depo for the Transport for London, they used to store buses there. They're the old buses. And now you've got hale village, which has got, you know, so many apartments, so that's changed, like beyond recognition, you know?

Jamila  5:57  
And can you tell like, from the people that have moved into the area and out?

Jimmy  6:03  
well, we used to live in Tottenham, just off Lansdowne Road on a road called foyle Road in Bruce grove. And then when we started the studios, we were coming back every night, you know, we're basically doing 15/16 hour days at the   time, so we moved to green close, which is just off ferry lane, just around the corner from Tottenham hale, at the time on our estate in the green close estate, there's a lot of air stewardesses and pilots. (OhYeah,) that's because we found out a lot of the airlines had bought up the flats, when they came on the market in the late 80s. So every day, we used to hear the suitcases being dragged in. And, you know, there was a lot of that. So and then ferry lane estate had / was very different. Used to have people who've been living there since the 40s and 50s. You know, it'd been passed from generation to generation - the apartments. But apart from that, apart from the Ferry Lane estate, there wasn't really much of a vibe in the area, because, as I said, the pilots used to just use it. I mean, there was a, there's an apartment in our building, which had about six pilots sharing the studio flat, you know, it was, there wasn't as much of a community there. But now with the Hale village, you have the playground in the middle of the Hale village, whenever we walk through the middle of it, you know, you'll see kids playing, kids playing basketball, you know, just there's like a real vibe about the area. So it's not a case of the vibe improving. Before there wasn't anything, it was just, you know, it was a very transient area, you know.

Jamila  7:28  
So it's also quite interesting. You had a blog, I mean, you're always now dipping in and out. But it's quite nice to look as well, because you had it like for almost 17 years, didn't you? Like some of the comments that you've made. And like one of the things that I found quite interesting, what I read today was, that you make a difference between the music industry and the music community. And how both have changed over the years. So could you tell us maybe what kind of changes you've noticed?

Jimmy  7:58  
I find the music community is a lot more collaborative. In the music business, you'll have people basically bluffing their way through saying oh, you know, because they're earning money from it, they have to give this impression that they know what they're doing. I've worked with record labels in the past, and some of the record labels that I would work for they'd signed 20 bands, 19, and then would fail, one would succeed. And then they'd use the example of that band who was a success as proof that they knew what they were doing. When really, it's you know, they would just ignore  all the ones that failed. So in the music industry, you have a lot of people saying, "Oh, I know what to do. If you do this, you know, everything will be great." In the music community, you have a lot of people asking questions them saying, "I don't know what to do, can you help me? Do you know, a good place to gig? Do you know, a place to you know,? How do I do this?" it's a lot more open, there's no pretense because these people, it's not their job, they don't need to put on a pretense they you know, and I find it's just a lot more authentic. You know, in our building, there's about six or seven recording studios upstairs. A lot of the Tottenham based rappers are based there. And again, it's this thing that they'll come down and they'll say, "you know, we're really good at, you know, doing the rapping and the lyrics and all that, but we don't know how to do a live drum kit. Can you help us?" And that's, that's what the community is about. It's about, you know, there's like an honesty and authenticity to it. That's why very few, I think less than 2% of the band sessions we have at the studio are paid for by record labels, the vast majority of them, it's just bands, you know, paying it for themselves, you know, they're not, they're not professional musicians. And that's why our business is mainly based around the, you know, music community. Some of the recording studios in central London, 70 / 80% of their business is record labels, so we deal directly with the bands. Yeah.

Jamila  9:44  
And do you feel like it's harder with - I don't know, what about live music? I'm thinking because we know like a lot of small venues are dying out, but at the same time, there seems to be a desire to watch live music. If you see then the huge venues are sold out? So what is / what has been that development overall, within the music industry over the last few years?

Jimmy  10:09  
Yeah, it's, there are music venues now coming up, but it's a lot harder than it was to get people to go to gigs. I personally think, and I've spoken to quite a few people who feel the same that London is actually one of the worst places to be in a band, simply because there's so many, so many things to do. On any one night, you have some of the best football teams in the world, you have world class theater, while you know everything. It's so competitive in London, we've had bands who've done tours of like Canada in the past who come to us, and they'll play like one venue in Toronto, the next night, they need to play in Montreal or two nights later. And they'll they'll stop off in a little village halfway between those two cities just to stay the night. And the town might have 10,000 people in it. And they'll think we might as well play a gig, you know, as we're here. And they'll get, you know, 500 people come to the gig, because nothing ever happens there. You know, when there's a band in town, it's like, Oh, my God, there's a band in town, we need to take advantage of this. The problem with London is that if you miss an event, there's another one the next day, there's no real, you don't need to go to an event. So there's so many more music venues than there was in the 70s or 60s, back then, you know, it's quite rare to see these bands. So therefore people would take the time, you know, and even in like Liverpool in the 60s, like the Beatles used to play lunchtime gigs. Like it used to be put on at one o'clock in the in the afternoon until 1.45. Because again, it was so rare to see like music, people would go out of their way to see it. Now London is great. It's got so many more music venues. But the feedback we're getting from the bands is that because there's so many events, it's kind of hard to attract people.

Jamila  11:51  
What's the future gonna bring? What do you reckon? 

Jimmy  11:53  
At the moment, I think a lot of the music industry has been taken for granted in London, you know, to me, and when you think of all the amazing music that's happening in London, and it doesn't really get much support at all, whenever there's a big event like the Olympics or anything, they always have new music as a centerpiece. You know, they have a three hour extravaganza at the opening ceremony. And one of our bands Bombay Bicycle Club, they played the Olympic ceremony, the closing ceremony, but then there's no funding given to it. There's very little funding, there's funding given to the opera house and to the classical music, but there's no you know funding given to rock music, you know, and I think at some point in the future, they'll realize that they've taken it for granted.

Jamila  12:34  
I'm just thinking like the council, they also really don't because, you know, like, I feel like haringey council is putting a lot of stuff into promoting local artists, etc. But I don't think you know, any of the boroughs wants to be known as the little gig music (Exactly) borough.

Jimmy  12:51  
If any, if any council should do it/s Haringey because just the fact that Adele is from Tottenham. That's like, I've spoken to American people. And when I say Tottenham, the first thing they say is Well, that's where Adele is from,

Jamila  13:03  
but she moved out when she was like, eight. 

Jimmy  13:06  
No, but still, you know, she has, you know, she posted on instagram about the Tottenham, she's got the Tottenham Hale tube sign in her apartment. Yeah. So I have spoken to people who have that association with her. Yeah, at the time when COVID happened. We were refused any grants from Haringey Council six times. Eventually, we got it the seventh time. We spoke to David Lammy, he said that it wasn't a concern for him that you know that we were going to close down. Thankfully, we got some help from the Liberal Democrats. But in the end, but as I say, you know, we've created 17 jobs in the area, but we didn't really get any backing at all. And we've done that all off our own back and, the Prince's Trust helped us in the start. And I do think that at some point, they will start to realize that when the when, when the warehouses start emptying, because we're on an industrial estate, when we moved in, it was, you know, a bit more down on his luck than it is now since then, like the beaver town breweries moved in and the pressure drop brewery. But we've spoken to security guards who said that they were really happy that bands are rehearsing in the warehouses because it meant they didn't need to look after them as much they were secure, you know, for that. They've been used for other things. And now we're starting to see the warehouses are starting to empty again, some of the music studios is starting to close down because of COVID because of lack of support. And I think in a few years down the line, there might be some problems with that. And I think that's when the local council will start to realize that, you know, the music industry really does serve a great purpose. Not not just the music, but just the fact that there's a vibe about the area, you know, it kind of keeps an area alive it kind of, you know,

Jamila  14:34  
What do you think about the influence and how technology has developed like with Spotify, I wonder as well with tic toc because there it becomes very sound bitey.

Jimmy  14:45  
Because most of the bands that we have, they're kind of album bands. We have had a couple of bands who do singles and we had one of them recently, they seem to do very well. They were happy to pay for loads of sessions in advance and all that, you know, off the back of Tiktok you know, so basically they did well out of it. But most of the bands that we do, they self release their stuff, they put it on Spotify, it costs like 30 pounds to put your stuff up there.

Jamila  15:08  
Do you make money off Spotify as an artist?

Jimmy  15:11  
It depends, I'd say very few bands do come to us do make a living from the music, I would estimate about, I don't know, 45 or 50 bands out of the thousand who have come to us. Actually will make enough money, you know, to live on. Most of the bands, you know, they have their day jobs and then you know, they do the music on top. It's a lot easier to earn little bits of money. But yeah, it's very, very difficult to you know, but I think one of the problems is that people, they say, Well, back in the 60s, you know, these bands would make a living, but they are forgetting about the bands that didn't make a good living, you know, barely 5% of bands back then would make a living. But the problem is we remember those bands because they're known, you know. And that's, you know, I've spoken to so many musicians, you know, we've spoken to bands, who - we had a band who played in the same bill as The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, you know, but they're still you know, they spent their life being plasters and decorators and all that. And, and, you know, they were happy with their thing. But then they say, it was funny when kids say to us, well, back in the day, you could earn money, and they're in their 70s now, they say  "we couldn't, you know, we were playing on the same bill as", you know, there's photos of them sitting in between John Lennon, Mick Jagger, you know, yeah, that's back then, you know, it's not everyone was successful.

Jamila  16:27  
Do you feel like sometimes people entered the music world with this? You know, not the joy of making music, but the hope that you know, it's gonna, I don't know, it's gone. Yeah, they're going to be famous or something, or? Yeah.

Jimmy  16:42  
I've had quite a few discussions with people who say that they get into music, basically, as escapism. And I remember  one guy about a year and a half ago, he was saying, Well, when you look at the current wave that COVID is in everything. And he said that with the housing situation, he said, I realized that I'll never get on the housing market. I'll never, you know, he was I didn't know probably about 35 now, he said, by the time I'm retired, there won't be pensions, he said, probably not, oh, it won't be enough to live on. He said, So music industry, for me is an escapism. He said, If I was to face up to this realities, you know, of, you know, having to be in my 70s and renting an apartment in London, you know, he said, it's kind of like, it gives me distraction, that I don't need to think about all the other things that's happening, which is kind of sad, but I guess it's cheaper than therapy. You know, a lot of people do  music for therapy we have like, because Tottenham Hale, it's only 12 minutes from Liverpool Street. So on the train, Standsted Express, so we have a lot of people who work in finance, who basically come in trash, the drumkit you know, from 6pm to 7pm, you know, just get rid of all the aggression, you know, (just as individuals?), yeah, as individuals. Yeah. So they'll book a room just to play the drumkit just by themselves. And they say that they sit in board meetings for seven, eight hours a day, or they've done the spreadsheets, and they're just so bored. And they just want to get behind a drum kit and just, you know, unleash all their frustrations, you know, and that's a big part of the music industry, people just doing it, just to be in a room with your friends and just, you know, play live music. You know, it's just like, as I say, it's, it's, uh, especially when you compare, if you bring a few beers with you and everything, it's a lot cheaper than going to a pub. And, you know, before COVID, maybe that was 5/ 10% of our business now, that's about 20/ 25%. People just, they have no, you know, I mean, they might want to be a musician, but they don't seriously think they're going to become, you know, a professional musician. But they're just doing it just for the you know, (socializing) socializing. Yeah, you know.

Jamila  18:49  
So it's like a gym, gym gym for musicians. Yeah,

Jimmy  18:52  
yeah. You know, that's exactly that, you know? Yeah. Yeah,

Jamila  18:57  
I like that. The other thing I was wondering, was about women. Do you have any?

Jimmy  19:04  
Yeah, I'd say about, I would, I would estimate about 30 to 35% of the bands have a woman okay. I would estimate about five to 10% are just all women. We have a there's a Slade tribute band called Slady. And that's they do, you know, it's just four women in the band, and they're, you know, but they're doing very well, at the minute I've seen on social media a lot of their gigs are selling out and everything, you know, and they played the ??? festival a few months ago. Yeah, you know, it's, it's not you don't get as many as many bands with women.

Jamila  19:42  
Has there been a trend? Have you noticed a trend? Is it going up? Or is it been pretty stable over the 17 years?

Jimmy  19:49  
It increased from 2005 until 2010 to 2011, then there was an increase, but then from 2011 or so it's just plateaued. The whole way. It's stayed at the same level for the last 10 years, I'd say. And it's a shame because, you know, we were posting our albums of the year to our blog and everything. And somebody pointed out to us, about 60% of them are by women, you know, and yeah, so I honestly don't know what the, you know. Yeah, the solution to that is, yeah.

Jamila  20:23  
And what are you hoping for the future? What is your future plan, your 10 year plan?

Jimmy  20:29  
Yeah, well, this year, we launched a new eight track recording service, because a lot of the recording studios there, you know, 64, track, 128 track and all this. But then when we're watching the Beatles get back documentary, we realized all of that has been recorded to eight track, which basically means that there's eight microphones in the room. Yeah. And now there's this thing where the more the better and everything. But we've seen sessions that bands have done go on for three, four months, and I just don't think anybody has the money for that anymore. Now we're having bands who come in, and they'll spend 200 pounds, Friday evening, Saturday the whole day and Sunday the whole day, and they'll knock out their album in three days. It's not perfect, but it's, it's eight out of 10, you know, it's good enough, then they'll put it on Spotify, and they'll start to get buzz around them, you know. And I think that now this is, a lot of people are realizing there's no point, you know, trying to do everything perfectly, there's no point trying to, you know, hit that perfect standard. Now bands are saying, well, let's just release it quickly, ourselves. If a record label likes it, they can always pay to be rerecorded. Now we're seeing more bands using the eight track service, mainly because of the Beatles, you know, we're also doing this new scheme, which was meant it was meant to launch on the 21st of March 2020. And it was like (Jamila laughs), Yeah, and it (perfect timing) was 4 months preparing for it. And the first two events had sold out, it was very frustrating. But it was basically, it's basically like a mix between speed dating and like a jam night. So we have five studios. And we have five drummers, five bassists 10 guitarists, five singers. And then they play for 40 minutes in their individual studios, then we mix them up, you know, the bassist moves to this studio, that guitarist moves to that and everyone switches rooms. Yeah, so by the end of the four hours, each person's played with  20 to 25 musicians, you know, and then you trade each other's contact details at the end, just like speed dating, you know. And as I say, the first two events sold out, but then we explained it to an epidemiologist. And he said, If this event had gone ahead, this would have been ground zero for covid in London because it you know, thankfully, it was the 21st. And I think the lockdown happened on the 16th of March or the 15th. But we were thinking about doing it at the end of February, originally, then we said let's put it back to March. And thank God, we didn't do it in February, because of course the rooms are sealed, then, you know, the air gets recycled in the rooms, you know,

Jamila  22:57  
so are you still dreaming of it? So are you gonna relaunch it? 

Jimmy  23:01  
Yeah, we're having quite a few people message us on Facebook saying, you know, we really want to meet people again, you know, we haven't really, and you know, and these events they would be about 15 pounds a ticket for four hours, which again, is cheaper than a lot of other events. You know, (it sounds fun). And it would just be so that everybody's been sent a list of songs they can learn, you know, that start off with cover versions, just because it's easier, you know, if everybody knows the songs, everybody would learn their parts. And then you just throw a drummer or bassist two guitarists and a singer who'd never played before. And just say you got 40 minutes to get on with it, you know. And I think a lot of people are scared about going to band rehearsals because they think, oh, you know, what if I'm making a mistake, or what if this goes wrong? And that's the whole concept of speed dating that if you're nervous to talk to somebody for the first time, by the time you've spoken to 20 people in one night, you've lost the fear? And that's what we want to do. We want to encourage people to meet people, you know, there's no, there's no need to worry about making a mistake. Because, you know, if you make mistake to move on to the next person, it's London, you know, there's always the next person around the corner, you know, so yeah,

Jamila  24:06  
Or anything or big, your biggest successes so far. What are you most proud of?

Jimmy  24:13  
I mean, we've had yeah, as I say, we've had seven number ones that have been either written or recorded or demoed at our studios. But I would honestly say the biggest success for us is just, you know, we've had certain bands, we had one band from Leytonstone and the singer, he was going through cancer at the time, you know, and he just used to say, every week, it was just, it just gave him something really to look forward to that he just sees his friends and he just, you know, he just screamed his lungs out for the four hours at a time. And, you know, then we spoke to his wife years later, and she said it just like just gave him something  ... you know, that to us is just as good as getting a you know, I mean, it's like because you really see it, it really means so much to that person. And now, because when we have so many bands, it's just great to see each little person has their own story. That to us is, you know, it's not as good to, of course, like a number one record is easier to sell the place on. Yeah, you know, but when you see these stories, for us, it just means so much, you know?

Jamila  25:11  
Do you feel like - probably the answer is no - if you look at the number one songs and really successful bands, are they really that much better than some other bands that you see? And you feel like, why are they not? You know, why are they not catching on? They're so amazing. And why does nobody see it?

Jimmy  25:33  
I think one of the things that we've seen over the years is that a lot of the bands who come to us now are quite savvy, business wise, years ago, if you'd put a contract in front of a band, you know, there'd be terms in it that the band wouldn't understand. Now bands can just go and Google and just, you know, Google what these terms are. And there's legal forums where you go, and you say, have been offered this contract. And you'll have retired solicitors on there, quickly reading over it and saying this is an awful contract, you know, Don't sign it. Those bands who understand what a contract is, they won't get picked up at the record label, because the record labels only want bands who they can, you know, get a great deal out of.  (exploit) Yeah, exploit yeah, so and the big record labels, they have the connections with the, you know, the big radio stations and the, you know, social media and that, you know, a lot of the owners of Spotify are owners of record labels, as well as a big, you know, big shareholders and that. We had a band sports team, I think they got to number two in the album charts last year. But you can tell when they came to us, they only came to us for a few sessions, I think they had one member who was based in our area at the time before they moved. You could just tell that they understood what they were doing. You know, they were very savvy, now they're doing the European tours, they just finished the European tour, I think played Brixton Academy, and that kind of band, you can see that, you know, their record label they signed with seems to be at a record level, that actually wants to work with the bands, you know, but for those record labels, they might spend five or six months leading up to promoting an album, you know, whereas the big record labels who have hundreds of members of staff, they can release albums every few weeks, you know. And again, 19 out of 20 of those albums won't be successful, but the odd one will. And that's the reason why a lot of these successful bands are from the big labels, it's just because they will sign 20 / 30 /40 bands at a time, whereas the smaller record labels will sign three bands a year, you know, and if they only released one album every year, you know, a lot of it is luck. A lot of it is being at the right place at the right time. You know, a certain person retweeting something a certain you know,

Jamila  27:41  
Do you still buy music? 

Jimmy  27:44  
Yeah, yeah, I do. Mainly, I, a lot of the time I actually go on Spotify, there's a function on Spotify, where you can make a donation to the band. (Okay). And if you make a donation about one pound 50, you're actually paying them more than they would have got if you bought the album. (Okay). Yeah, because it goes directly to the band.

Jamila  28:01  
So what do you think everyone should be doing to support the music industry more, our music community to support the music community more?

Jimmy  28:12  
The best thing to do is to share the news about great music just as far and wide as you can. Because if each person has 200 or 300, Facebook followers, you know, Facebook, friends or followers, if each of them just shares the music, that's like a huge thing, you know, because the way that the algorithms work, if more people click on the links, then it will get promoted more by by the algorithm, you know, it is circular, like that. So that's, that's definitely the thing. Also, to go to concerts, if you buy an album, maybe 80 pence of that will get to the band out of 10 pounds, we found that a lot of people instead they'll go to a concert, and they'll buy a t shirt, and the t shirt might cost 15 pounds, but 12 that will go to the band, you know. So that's a much, much better, you much better off, you know, just listening to Spotify or you know,

Jamila  29:02  
Before we do top tips, Tottenham, I was thinking we could do like your top tips, top musicians that have brought out music recently or that come from your studio, who are your top recommendations?

Jimmy  29:16  
Okay. Just trying to think about  - the two bands that I've enjoyed the most this year. Yeah, the murder capital. They're a band from Dublin. And they rented one of our rooms for quite a few months, three months or so. There's a really big scene because Irish bands have the advantage now that they can tour in Europe after Brexit there's a big market out there for English for music with English lyrics in Europe. And now there's so many Irish bands that are getting booked on European festivals. It's It's unreal. It's yeah.

Jamila  29:50  
It's great to hear Brexit was good for someone then.

Jimmy  29:53  
Exactly. But yeah. And then yeah, we've had bands here that used to do 12 to 20 gigs a year in Europe that haven't done well now for the last two, three years because of the extra paperwork. But yeah, the murder capital, we have a guy called Darren Hayman, who is in a band called Hefner. And he's just done a triple album, I think, it came out about a month ago, but he's very prolific. He's done like 20 albums in the last 15 years or so.

Jamila  30:22  
Okay. All right. Shall we move on to top tips? Tottenham? Yeah, have you got some top tips?

Jimmy  30:28  
Everything transformed so much? I mean, the post bar, that's, you know, that's been there for quite a while. last summer's over is, whenever that was not the last time when at the end of times T chances, you know, the music venues, you know, that one? It's almost like a like a community hall. It's on Tottenham high road. (Okay). Bruce grove? I would say the post bar, I would say the postbar, but yeah,

Jamila  30:53  
what do you love about it?

Jimmy  30:54  
you can just tell that it's the people running are passionate, you know, and it's one of those things that it's not too generic, you can you can see that. Instead of them saying, you know, we want to you know, this is our grand vision. It's almost like, like when we started, you can tell it, they're just seeing what's good. And yes, we'll do that we'll do that this this sounds good, you know, following their nose and that's, what you want in the music industry. You want people who just you know, whatever is good works.

Jamila  31:19  
Okay. Okay, thank you so much. Thanks. Bye. Bye. What is going on with the top tips, I got one and a half top tips of Jimmy. At this rate, the compilation will be like five minutes, but what I'm gonna put into the show notes is I'm gonna put their website because I think it's really good. It has the blog. It has the price of booking a studio. If I was musically inclined at all, I would definitely do this book a studio with a couple of mates, get some beers, and then just jam. Unfortunately, unless I bring a triangle, it's probably not the right place for me. I hope you have a lovely, lovely end to this year and starting the next one. Bye. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, learned something new. And let that Tottenham love grow. Take care. And until next time, byyyeee

Transcribed by https://otter.ai