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JEFF LANG LAYS IT ON THE LINE

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AC: Congratulations on receiving four stars in Rolling Stone for ‘Half Seas Over’. You really set the bar for lyrical story telling but would you say your songs are small vignettes of your life or are they less personal?

JL: My initial response would be to say ‘well, it’s mostly fiction - they’re stories, they are coming from characters’. But it would be a little dishonest to pretend they don’t get filtered through my worldview to some degree, especially the way I write, which is trying not to let my conscious mind interfere too much when the idea is flowing.

AC: Does what you write ever surprise you?

JL: Yes, sometimes I’ll read my lyrics and think ‘wow, why did I write that? Why would I be writing about, a dying prostitute in the first person for example?’ But because I use that kind of unconscious writing style as much as possible, it’s impossible to say for certain that there’s not some sort of metaphor for my own life woven in there. Could I tell you definitely that it’s not in some way a reflection of me? It kind of has to be doesn’t it? You don’t have anything else to draw upon but your life.

AC: You’ve had a pretty full life to date, has your career unfolded the way you expected?

JL: I didn’t have any expectations to be honest - I kind of had an accidental career in music. Looking back, it seemed obvious that I would play music as a living, because that’s all I liked to do. When others were playing sport, I was off in my room playing guitar and playing records. Yeah, a little bit sad really, (laughs) but that was what I was passionate about. When I finished high school, I didn’t think, ‘right, now it’s time to go and make a living playing music’, it was more ‘well, thank god school is over, I hated that, now it’s time to go and have some fun playing’…

AC: Did you always write and perform only original music?

JL: No I actually started playing in cover bands, but I got tired of that pretty quickly and got a hankering to write my own songs, and as there was no one else to sing them, I sang them. The next thing you know I’m playing gigs, doing my own songs and playing solo. Then my songs started getting better and people were asking if they could buy a CD. I guess that’s how it happened, just slowly but surely… til I thought ‘whoa, look at that, I’ve got a career,’ (laughs). Looking back it was done in a very haphazard kind of way. I wouldn’t have necessarily predicted it because I was too irresponsible to think that far in advance back then.

AC: It sound’s as though you like to stay very much in the moment…

JL: yeah, yeah, that’s a good way of putting it… It’s kind of cool because in a lot of ways, it’s just been about following a dream. That’s what I was passionate about doing. If you can find a way to make a living out of something you would happily do for free, sshhh, don’t tell anyone, (laughs), then you’re doing alright. So, I’ve been lucky like that.

AC: Yes but you’ve also been pretty pro-active, I understand that you’re a member of AIR and you have your own label, ‘Furry Records’?

JL: Yeah, that’s all the back catalogue stuff. The most recent albums have been licensed to the ABC and they get Warner to distribute them. It’s been good; they’ve got more money to spend on advertising than I have and they’ve been very trusting with my musical vision of the record with no interference at all – which is what you hope for.

They just help promote what I actually do rather than try to tell me what to do, which has been great. Before that I did a couple of records with Shock, but most of my albums are my own label and distributed through MGM.

AC: Why did you decide to set up your own independent label?

JL: Well, it’s all so backwards - my career has been kinda funky like that. With the first album that I made - Ravenswood back in 1994 - the only reason I actually made that record in the first place was because when I was doing gigs, people kept coming up to me and asking, ‘so, do you got a CD?’ and I would have to say ‘no’. It took me a year of saying ‘I don’t got one’ before I finally said ‘well ya know, I’m doing all my own songs, maybe I should do a record!’ So, that was when I made my first CD.

AC: Did you know what you were doing at the time?

JL: I was pretty stupid actually, the CD didn’t even have a bar code on it, I didn’t send it out to independent community radio stations, I didn’t send it out to people to get it reviewed and I didn’t really have it on consignment either except for two shops in Melbourne - Gaslight Music and Greville Records. I convinced them to put twenty in their shop on consignment, then I forgot about them and never collected! Back then I was living in my van, doing it all myself and just surviving from gig to gig, I didn’t have a manager or anything.

AC: When did that first ‘break break’ come?

JL: I don’t know if there has been a big break, it’s just been a gradual continuation of what I do. I think for me, if there was any moment when there was a crystallised feeling of ‘oh ok, yeah this is actually starting to go somewhere’, was probably around 1997, when I’d made three records and played at Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival for the second time. I was kind of knocked out by how many people were there. I’d played a bunch of shows that year and after the festival it had this knock on effect, where all of a sudden there was a big jump in attendance at gigs.

AC: So the Byron Bay Festival was the clincher?

JL: It was one of those things when you go: ‘finally, all the people who like this sort of music are in one place’. Because before then, it was just touring around in back-water pubs, playing to 20 people, you know? They were the sort of crowds who didn’t want to hear anyone doing songs that they hadn’t heard before, so it was a real kind of struggle gig to gig, just making enough money to get to the next gig and sleeping in my van, but I had no complaints, I was doing what I wanted to do.

AC: What advice would you give musicians thinking of setting up their own independent label?

JL: The first advice would be ‘don’t ask me for advice,’ because I did it in such a funky way (laughs). I think if you’re going to do your first record, the main thing is to make sure you’re not rushing into it. I mean, I was playing my own shows at gigs exclusively for a good three years or more before I made that first record. Just because you’ve got 10 songs that you’ve written, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are ready to make a record, maybe wait till you have 30 songs and then pick the best 10. It seems fairly obvious, it’s probably not news to anyone but it’s just to give yourself a fighting chance.

AC: What about the actual production?

JL: In terms of the actual making of the record, I would say don’t worry about it being a magnum opus that has to sum you up. Your body of work will do that, no one record has to have that much pressure loaded on it. Just let it be a natural representation of you, so do it pretty accurately to what you are doing on stage, but in a way that you really feel is reflective of where you are at now.

AC: What’s the best way to get things started?

JL: Sometimes having someone help you produce the CD can be good, just to have that objectivity, because it can be hard to tell whether your songs are any good when you’re the songwriter. It feels exciting when you write a song but it’s not until a couple of weeks later that you can revisit your song to see whether it’s actually any good or not. You can also get gripped with self doubt and racked with feelings of inadequacy and then what chance does any song have if you can’t deliver it with confidence?

AC: Does it help to test it out on stage?

JL: It’s not necessarily a good test to play in front of people, it can seem like a good and obvious thing to say, ‘oh, just play it in front of an audience, and if you’re good they will respond’, but that’s not necessarily true. If you go up there and feel self doubt and deliver it with an almost apologetic mind set of ‘well, we’ll just get this piece of crap out of the way’, then they’ll probably respond more to your state of mind than to the actual song. That’s where your performance is really important.

AC: Have you got any stage performance tips…

JL: I guess sometimes, in the early part of your career you have to do things at gigs that are maybe a little brash to get people’s attention. My first record was a lot mellower than what people expected from seeing my gigs at the time. But by the time I made that album I’d had a long time to think about those songs and that helped me to know which songs were any good and which ones got a flash response at gigs but weren’t actually that good as songs. It can take a bit of time to work out what your style is.

‘Half Seas Over’ is available now through all good CD stores including ABC shops. Jeff Lang is on a national tour so be sure to catch him by keeping an eye on his official website www.jefflang.com.au or www.myspace.com/jefflangmusic

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Dear Brendan, 

Friends are friends and business is business, never confuse the two. Yes I do think you should put your agreement down in writing. If you don’t then there will be no record of what you agreed other than your individual memories, this is a recipe for disaster. Never be embarrassed to ask someone to formalise an agreement. If they are reluctant to do so, all it indicates is that they were probably not serious about intending to keep it. If both parties are serious about keeping the agreement then a written notation of it is a clear indication of what was agreed and only helpful to everybody concerned. The written agreement does not have to be a fancy legal document and should be simple, clear and unambiguous.

Unfortunate experience has taught me that unaided memories are often fallible, even with honest intent so there is good reason to commit agreements to a written form even if both parties trust each other.

Uncle Terry

Dear Uncle Terry,
I do a lot of work in the pit for musicals and I’ve always billed as a business so that they wouldn’t take tax out. The show I’m doing now wants me to provide public liability and personal illness and accident insurance. Are they allowed to do this?

Sallyanne

Dear Sallyanne, 

Yes is the short answer. Any conditions such as these can form part of a contract of engagement such as you describe unless they are discriminatory or contrary to some other law. The situation does raise the question of whether it is really worth pursuing the arrangement you describe. You need to add up all the costs such as the premiums for the insurance and analyse realistically if you are really better off. Don’t forget that you are going to have to pay income tax on your earnings in any case so all you are doing is delaying the inevitable. The actual financial advantage would really only be the notional interest on the money deducted if you were an employee.

Uncle Terry is not a tax accountant so you should chat to one of those, ask them about deductions also. Many musicians are not aware of the considerable deductions available to musicians even when they are employees.

Uncle Terry

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“Minor seventh flat 5” or “Half diminished” chords

Don’t get confused by all those “double flats” (they look like this: bb) they simply mean lower the not by two semitones. E.g., “Ebb” is the same as “D” (one semitone from E down to Eb, another one down to D). We dealt with double flats in part 5 [INSERT LINK TO ISSUE 5] so if you are confused go back and check.

We've included a couple of the alternative names and chord notes, eg: DbØ7 is really the same as C#Ø7. Remember that all chords, like all notes, can have a number of different names depending on the circumstances. The actual notes will, however, remain the same.

Here are all 12 minor seventh flat 5 (or half diminished) chords in musical notation (with the alternative note names in brackets):

Some chords with more than 4 notes

It is possible to have chords with more than 4 notes. The first group of these that we will look at is “Extended Dominant Chords”. As the name suggests they have a flattened seventh and are therefore part of the Dominant Family. They also have more than 4 notes so get called “extended”.

EXTENDED DOMINANT CHORDS

The first of the extended dominant chords that we will look at is the ninth chord.

The ninth chord

This chord has a very simple symbol but it packs in quite a bit of information. The symbol is the root note name followed by the numeral “9”. For example the symbol for C ninth is “C9”. We are familiar with the root note name indicating the first, third and fifth notes of the major scale built on the root but the “9” indicates more than just one note. The first thing it indicates is that we must have a 7 and it must be flattened (necessary for a Dominant Family member if you recall). The second thing it indicates is that we need the ninth note of the relevant major scale. “Wait a minute!” I hear you call, “we have always only considered 8 notes in the scale, where does this ninth one come from?” The answer to that perfectly reasonable question is quite simple. The 8th note of the scale is the same as the first but an octave higher, so the ninth note is the same as the second but an octave higher!! Mind you it makes absolutely no difference to harmonic function which octave any of the notes in the chord come from so this is largely just a convention.

Sooo…

C9 must have the first, third, fifth, flattened seventh and ninth (same as the second) notes of the C major scale.

OR:

Here’s how it looks in notation (notice that the line, line order continues):

Too easy!! You know the drill, work out all 12 ninth chords for homework

Contact me on musosunion@aol.com if you have any questions. See you next time.

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