Armchair Advice.


Though it happened sixteen years ago, I still vividly remember the time my dad’s friend told me that my band should be like Shed Seven.

It was actually worse than that. He said, “You want to be more like Shed Seven”, which implied that we already resembled the band a little bit, but could do with sharing more of their traits. It also suggested that he knew my feelings on the subject better than I did.

He couldn’t have been further from the truth. If we’d showed even slight similarities to that nondescript Indie rock band, I’d have wanted to knock them on the head. If anything, we needed to be less like Shed Seven.

It seemed an odd band to aspire to. I can’t remember any of their songs. It would be like deciding to be a politician, then modeling your career on Lembit Öpik.

(Though he isn’t bad on the harmonica.)

My dad's mate also said that we needed only one lead singer, as bands with more than one frontman didn’t work. The Beatles, The Beach Boys and ABBA had apparently completely escaped his attention.

What irked the most was he wasn’t even a musician. He’d never been in a band. He was an engineer. While he may have been able a build a stage, he wouldn’t have had the bottle to step up onto it.

He gave his advice after we’d played our first heat in a county-wide Battle of the Bands; a competition that we went on to win. We were lucky Shed Seven weren’t competing, or we would have had to make do with second place.

He’s probably forgotten this conversation even took place. I haven’t. If I’m alive in 2030, I’ll still be pissed off about it.

Shed Seven? Fuck’s sake.

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