Jack Martello

Perspective

2011-12-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

'It’s been a while…'

So – I’ve been concerning myself with ‘important music industry business’ over the last few months. As a result, I’m not entirely sure what day it is, I’ve acquainted myself with every Starbucks in London, New York and Los Angeles and I now know that the guards at train barriers do actually run after you if you jump them…

(Excuse the immediate digression here, but all will eventually revolve back to the relevant…)

I didn’t study music academically whatsoever; no guitar or vocal lessons at all as a kid, just patient parents who could tolerate a pitchy rendition of ‘Hero’ by Enrique Iglesias for three hours every night after school. (I even had my hair styled kinda like him – bad times.)

I am so grateful for both my folks’ tolerance AND the fact that music never transitioned from passion into education.

(WAIT – don’t think that I’m bashing those guys and girls that classically train in their instruments. The music industry would not exist if people couldn’t score string sections, or transpose and transcribe parts for players, etc. I’ve been lucky to work with people that can do this, and once they’ve handed my guitar back to me after playing it, I‘ve felt like I should just stick to ‘Good Riddance’ by Green Day and stop pretending to be good. I’m totally in awe of how incredible these guys are.)

The point – and there is one somewhere here, I assure you – is this:

I have been in and out of a ‘complicated and open relationship’ with music since starting this adventure in January. At the beginning, music was the most natural and cathartic escape from the life of a routine that I’d grown to hate. It was a pure, untainted passion. 'Acoustic over abacus' and all that.

When this passion suddenly redefined itself as a ‘career’, I was so excited that I burned the mushrooms that I was cooking for my girlfriend at her flat. Then LA happened, thanks to the generosity and unrivalled passion of two people that started this all and rescued me from 'beige'. Then New York - thanks to a refreshingly human attorney. Now London – thanks to various new and old friends and those that have loaned me their floors, kitchens and sofas.

I have worked my ass off to make meetings and sessions happen on tiny amounts of sleep, two changes of clothes per week and fortnightly ‘where the fuck am I sleeping tonight!?’s.

Somewhere in all of that, I was supposed to preserve this passion. It's tough to do that. You start questioning your instincts. ('You Need Me, I Don't Need You' by Ed Sheeran is something that has become far more understandable).

I think I lost sight of the passion that made me send that email on day one. Carts were put before horses and cliché metaphors took over…

Double level Inception-like digression:

Last month, I was giving my kid cousin a shoulder ride so that he could see over the crowd at a Bonfire Night parade. He leant down, and shouted out above the drumming and explosions:

“When you talk, it vibrates my willy!”

This made me giggle properly for the first time in ages. Mainly because ‘willy’ is a funny word, but secondly because I suddenly realized, (in front of tens of giggling overhearing strangers), that I have been taking myself FAR too seriously.

Since then, every time that I’ve picked up a guitar it’s because I want to. The songs I’ve been writing make me smile and I finally feel like I’ve got something to say with passion.

“THE POINT”:

You can’t bottle my little cousin’s innocence. ‘You can’t force something natural, man’.

I’m starting to let myself stumble upon these pure little ‘happy accidents’ and I'm avoiding sitting around desperately trying to force something transparent. I know that we could create something amazing if we’re all willing to do that.

New music rarely makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but, to me, these guys (below) represent everything that is incredible about humans if they’re allowed to explore their passion:

‘I’ve Got This Friend’ – The Civil Wars.

I’m gonna go with what feels right, and take that forward into what is going to be an exciting New Year.

I hope that you’re all good and having at least a little fun with whatever you're doing.

Don't take it all too seriously,

A recently re-enthused and content Jack.

Exclusive Exam Tips From Someone Who's Actually Been There!!

2011-05-10T03:36:00.000-07:00

It's 'that' time of year. A Level exams are coming up, and having gone through this stressful time myself, and then having gone on to do my (somewhat irrelevant, admittedly) degree and Masters in Economics, I understand exactly what you guys are going through right now.

You are all at an age where alcoholism is now legal, but exams are more important than ever - you think they would have thought about this coincidence and planned around it accordingly, but hey ho...

Anyway, when I was revising for my exams, I was desperate to learn some things that would make it easier on me. My folks were broke when I was studying, so there was that added pressure that I might actually have to go work at Gregg's, should it all go tits up during my exams. This meant that I wasn't just going to go and work for daddy's accountancy firm if I failed...

Well - here is my guide to guaranteed academic exam technique, tailored for the fact that the UK government have today made 'revolutionary' proposals to how University entry can work:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/09/universities-extra-places-richest-students

I'll run you through it, step-by-step:

Enter the exam hall, but don't worry about taking a pen with you; this is an unnecessary inconvenience under the new proposals, and will weigh down your trousers past the 'cool low' point that you've specifically found.
Open your exam paper, and find the centre pages. Fold open neatly, to ensure that your "2 minutes per paper" incompetent examiner can easily find what they need. (They are paid per paper they mark, not on time spent, FYI.)
From your pocket, remove the neat stack of cash that your parents have given you for that Starbucks Frappe habit, and pile symmetrically in the centre-fold.
On the said cash, attach your pre-prepared note, informing the examiner that your folks are now simply just going to 'financially reserve' your place at the prospective University, so there's no need to actually provide any answers.
Spend the compulsory 15 minutes in the examination hall looking around at your peers, smugly smiling at the fact that, despite having similar or better grades, they don't have a chance of getting into University now.
After the exam, inform daddy that he needs to sell the yacht, because you have taken it upon yourself to become 'independent'...
Once you have secured your grades and guaranteed entry, start calling body-warmers 'gilettes'.
Now, find someone who's place you have stolen, and attempt to rationalize why their University has opened up a spot for you, but refused them despite suitable grades. (Disclaimer: during this step, it is advisable to raise your boxing guard, because studies have shown that they might try to haymaker you.)
Return home, and organize for your parents to set up the direct debit for your fees, food, accommodation and spending allowance, and to stockpile 3 years worth of breast milk, should you have to feed yourself between outings with the sailing club.
Consult a dialect coach. You may well need to learn to drop your t's in order to not get punched in the head when being loudly self-righteous at night-clubs during your studies.
Use the Jack Wills store locator to ensure that your prospective city has a store that you can walk to in your flip-flops without too much inconvenience, despite it being winter... If suitable, then use your mother's phone to inform daddy that he needs to add this necessity to the monthly debit.
If there is not a store within a proper distance, immediately change your University. Not having someone else's name on your chest is totally unacceptable.
Approximately 10 days before Fresher's week, consult a doctor (BUPA only) and get yourself fitted for a neck-brace. This will allow you to minimize the effects of 'umbilical whiplash' that you are experiencing, and will allow you to at least appear financially independent to your peers.

So there you have it, a comprehensive guide to a successful academic career for all of you wondering!!!

I hope you take these tips onboard, and good luck, Giles!!

Jack x

** Oh, by the way, if you don't have rich parents, you are totally and utterly fucked. **

LA PART 2 - The Music

2011-01-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

I shared a flat at University that had a tiled bathroom with no windows. I would spend hours sitting in the empty bath; doors closed, lights off, enjoying the perfect reverb that I could surround myself in. I’d worked out how to turn the extractor fan off, so my flatmate, Charlie, would check on me from time to time, making sure I hadn’t passed out due to the lack of fresh air, or to inform me that it was actually midnight and that I’d missed 7 hours of the day.

I would sit in lectures, pretending to show interest in “Two-Stage Least Squares Regression”, so that a man from a bank would let me fetch him ‘grandé lattés’ after graduation. But really, I was thinking about being back in my little cave, where I could sing Little Richard and Counting Crows songs and no-one would ask why.

Consequently, I developed this socially inappropriate habit of ‘testing’ the reverb of any bathroom I go in, public or otherwise, searching for that same warm space.

"There's a fine line between 'artistic' and 'autistic'" so I'm told...

Cut back to LA. The night before Demo recording starts. You think I’d be out with Leonardo DiCaprio, sipping Mojitos and talking Scorsese. Actually, I was sitting in my boxers, cross-legged on the bathroom floor like Year 3 assembly, playing to my audience – the shower room. The closest thing I’ve ever found to the cave.

Let’s call the Producer ‘Hagred’. There was something reassuringly casual and honest about the way he wrote in his emails, so I felt safe that Andrew Lloyd Webber wasn’t going to turn up in his Bentley and kidnap my simple little songs. I sat on my guitar case on the kerb, waiting to be picked up by Hagred’s motor-bike and sidecar.

The neighbours walked their multiple dogs past me, sensing a foreign object in their close-knit community. Admittedly, I probably looked half way between Oliver Twist and a musical prostitute, but my over-size sunglasses, (way too cool for how plain I really am), made smoothie drinkers feel safe that I wasn’t singing for gruel.

A black 4 x 4 pulled the fastest U-Turn at the end of the road and pulled up at the kerb. The window rolled down and a happy looking dude smiled at me from behind dark sunglasses and long hair. The ‘trunk’ didn’t stay open, and it whacked me on the head as I put my case in the back. Didn’t hurt…

"Hey Jack. Nice to meet you man. You wanna go get food?"

Hagred worked in A&R/Production for an un-nameable label, and we talked Motown all the way to the Farmer’s Market. Lunch was ‘on him’ until it came to the bill and he’d forgotten his card, meaning that I had to get it. He was honestly and happily embarrassed, and I bet he laughs now. The whole thing was so clumsily human that I felt relieved and comfortable from the get-go.

He’d set up a small ‘under-home’ studio with leopard-print carpets and a vintage upright piano. The rack of guitars ranged from $100 pink Strat copies, to priceless Jaguars that had been played by Nirvana on their last ever tour.

I was introduced to his musically-incredible wife, “Hermoine”, and their young son, “Little Dude”, who was fascinated by my acoustic and danced perfectly in time as I played riffs on the living-room floor. What a happy little kid. I was invited to dinner and found out how LA had changed over the years, and what it was like growing up in Tinseltown.

If any of you guys get around to reading this, I just want to say thank you for making me feel so welcome in your house, feeding me and allowing me to touch on a small piece of home in a city full of strangers. It put my mum and dad’s minds at rest…

Acoustic scratch Demos were recorded to suss out what songs we were going to try full-band, and we both made non-drummer drum noises with our mouths, using the phrase “Pat Boon, Debbie Boon”. Hagred was well connected within Hogwarts, and had called in some favours from a guitar player and drummer that he knew.

In another studio, beneath a Mediterranean-style house that overlooked the city from the hillside, I sat in an old chair, quickly realizing that I was out of my depth. While Mr Drums made notes and suggested tempos, Mr Guitar silently pondered over the chords and Hagred tuned his vintage bass, I played my song through once.

“Shall we go for one then?”

I sat behind soundproof glass, feeling like the father of a baby while the wife is giving birth, wondering what I should do/say.

“One, two, one, two, three four…”...

A song came out. Just like that. A real fucking song!

[I’m not afraid to tell you that I thought I’d peed myself a little bit, and that it’s real hard to hit certain notes when you can’t get rid of your pathetic smile.]

After the take, I really did have to pee. It hit me…hard. Casually lining the walls on the way to the bathroom were dozens of gold records; The Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, Elliot Smith, R.E.M… Try peeing after that…

We ate $20 salads for lunch and I obliviously talked to Mr.Guitar about the band he’d just joined, asking naïve questions such as,

“So do you guys get many gigs around town?”

and

“It must be really hard competing with so many bands in L.A, right?”

Meanwhile, the three of them shared some inside joke, and giggled at my innocent expense, but I couldn’t figure out why...

So I Googled him when I got in.

He’s the new guitar player in the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Shoot me in the face.

The next day, we ALL laughed at my expense.

On a serious note, thank you to all of you guys for your help. I owe you several beers.

Hotel Café

For anyone that doesn't know about this place, it's a curiously intimate little venue, that's at home on North Cahuenga Blvd.

Essentially, it is the singer-songwriter nucleus of LA, and has acted as a platform for John Mayer, David Ryan Harris, Jason Mraz and so many more people that I have on my iPod.

[I know, I know, the name-dropping even makes me think that I'm an asshole...]

The concept that some guy from Youtube, (whose mum accounts for most of his views), got to play there is still ridiculous to me. This was a place for musicians, and I think I'll always have the view that I'm 'some bloke that sings'. BB King is a musician. Point proven.

I was first on, and the sound man had to tell me that I still had my tuning pedal on after I asked for 'more guitar' in the monitor. (Score Jack another classic moment.)

Now, having gained most of my gig experience at the Thai Restaurant and open-mics around Southampton, I'd never come across one of these 'monitor' things. Imagine my surprise when the stage lights came on.

American crowds are a different creature to English ones. From the first note of the opening song, they went completely silent, deliberately listening to the lyrics and picking up the subtleties of the melody. I nervously played my set, experiencing the steep start of my learning curve.

The manager of Hotel Café really took a leap of faith in putting me on there, and for that, I am so grateful. I can't wait to play there again in March, where I can put aside the nerves and really take it all in this time.

This has been a stupidly long blog entry, and from hereon I'll keep them short and sweet, I promise.

I just wanted to finish up with something that really makes me feel good about what's coming around the corner.

Our generation has really struggled with finding an iconic sound that really represents the honesty of reality. We didn't get our own Stevie Wonder, Sting, Elvis, Roy Orbison or Nina Simone, because they wouldn't sell records like the "Cast of Glee" nowadays, and that's a fucking tragedy. In the long-run, it can't be sustained...

BUT

From what I have been incredibly lucky to have experienced, I know that there are people in the music industry that recognize that something beautiful can occur if you have a little faith. And that if we don't trust our instincts with what we feel, or ignore our first impressions, then we will never recover, and we'll never again hear something as authentic, original and honest as Sam Cooke, or Nirvana, or Bobby McFerrin.

I'm not claiming that I will ever touch on what they created - I'm just a girl-voiced kid.

My point is that us people who can't afford to sit around and write songs because they have to survive, don't get chances like the one these people have made for me.

I will enjoy every second of the ride and never take myself too seriously, because life should be fun.

Some real, decent and fun people have made this situation from scratch, and that is so inspiring.

There is something wonderful happening in the music industry, I just hope it sells enough records to survive...

Thanks for reading,

Jack.

"So glad to meet you, Angeles"

2011-01-11T04:45:00.000-08:00

5,456 miles. 11 hours. Three meals. Four

movies.

Sunglasses hanging out of my shirt pocket and rolled-up trousers, I was representing the British traditionally at LAX.

I had smuggled in a box of Kipling’s French Fancies and two packets of Walker’s Sensations Crisps. This felt like a massive victory against the system and I coolly answered, “No mate” when the guy with the moustache and gun asked if I was bringing in any food or vegetation. One-nil, America.

I had vaguely arranged to be picked up by the guy who I’d emailed, and I’d lazily written down his ‘cell’ number on my flight details sheet. Despite four years at University studying Economics, amounting to tens of thousands of pounds, I still have an embarrassing problem:

“Is that a 3 or an 8!?”

Relying on my student instincts of beggary and cost-avoidance, I searched for a kind-faced stranger. (What really happened was that I couldn’t work out where to put the stupid dashes in US mobile numbers, so I looked completely mental at the payphone.) A friendly dude let me use his iPhone. For free. Two-nil, America.

So having not been shot, frisked, or generously searched with Vaseline and no trousers, I stepped out on to the bus station where I had organized my lift. In the heat and hustle of afternoon LAX traffic, I was half expecting a Bonnie and Clyde style situation, where I would hear a car screech around the corner, and some lunatic would swerve across three lanes of traffic and skid up to the kerb.

Ten minutes passed, and my mind began to introduce the notion that this was all a massive, expensive (but admittedly) hilarious practical joke, and a camera crew would sneak up on me for Ashton Kutcher’s new show, “Punk’d for Poor People”. I even began to prepare my reaction…

Also prepared, was my ‘play it cool, kid’ first impression.

‘Don’t seem too desperate and excited, Jack. Don’t be pathetically over-friendly…’

I was revolving from time to time looking for a slowing car, like I was being watched but couldn’t figure out where from. On rotation number three, I glimpsed a figure walking towards me, phone in hand. No camera crew – phew. Cue a characteristic composure fail.

My first impression will forever be a grinning man-hug.

“It’s real, kid.”

Jet-lag is a bitch no matter how excited you are, so I was dropped off at the place I was staying for the fortnight to get a few hours rest before some dinner that night. The place I had been set up with was right near the Beverley Centre, and the pool-house in which I was sleeping was better than my flat at University. I will always be grateful to the couple that put me up there, you have an incredible house.

LA has this weird three-topic conversation list. Learn this, and you can survive the first twenty-five minutes of conversation with anyone in town. Then you better have a personality, or be rich and willing to invest in the project they’ve been working on for the last thirty years:

1) The Weather – The slightest indication of rain sends everyone scrambling to the basement like they own flying monkeys and hate tin men. Town shuts down.

2) Traffic – I nearly lost my life on several occasions to the ‘silent tarmac assassin’ that is the Toyota Prius. A hugely embarrassing way to die, but LA is crazy about them. If you’re speaking about LA to anyone, but you haven’t been, here’s the skinny on traffic: It’s everywhere. Always. Done.

3) Eating Out – If you can’t recommend a new restaurant, or don’t know the ‘staples’ of Los Angeles dining, some people look at you like you’ve walked into their house and set fire to their pets on Christmas Day. However, there is this trendiness that transcends snobbery which is awesome. Eating at a top new place is socially balanced by these little delis and pancake places that sell-out every lunch time, but resemble shanty-towns from the outside (in a good way!). It’s a truly uniting theme and really puts a lot of people in perspective, which is awesome. More on this later!

First night in town: Barbeque.

Dumbledore, (we’re using Harry Potter names for the sake of identity by the way, he’s not just the weirdest-named dude ever), established early on that he has a hatred of two things: bullshit and onions.

To my relief, there was no bullshit at all, leaving only one vegetable to avoid. We made this clear to the standardly attractive WAIT/ACTress, who I was told are numerous in their ambitions. She seemed nice enough, just trying to force the champagne lifestyle from a lemonade turnover.

It’s really hard to know someone without the visual element. Dumbledore had gone out of his way to rescue me from under the stairs and he’d been giving me advice for months via email and 3am phone calls due to the time-differences. Still, without the physicality behind the delivery, conversations can drift into ambiguity, like hearing the script without Jack Nicholson’s expression. But as soon as my nerves and the social decency of professionalism had been put in their rightful places, the whole situation felt completely natural and everyone could breathe out. Just as the situation found it’s own equilibrium…

“What the fuck!? These beans have onions in them!!”

At/With? Who cares, I laughed.

A brief tour around the offices that evening, meeting other people at the company, some of which had naturally asked the obvious question that I still struggle with, “Why THIS kid?”. That’s not a false modesty right there, just the reality that a kid from Youtube, with no numbers, no EP, no real fan-base, no real original gig experience, is given this chance. People are bound to ask that question, because I do.

The next day, after being sucker punched by the realization that I was waking up in Los Angeles, (and doing a little excited dance in my boxers to ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by Katrina and The Waves) [Yes – really], I got to meet my Trans-Atlantic homeys, who were my designated carers, tour guides and drinking partners for my stay. A brief introduction is in order:

Ron – Like most people in LA, she wasn’t from there and spoke in a diluted soft Southern accent. [Kinda like she had been weaned off of shooting guns from porches at an early age and moved to California.] A genuinely kind and generous person, that knew every song on the radio and touched the roof of her car whenever she ran through a yellow light, in an infectious apologetic gesture of superstition/guilt.

Harry – Just like Ron, Harry wasn’t from LA originally. She had grown up in New England, and had only moved to town in the past couple of years to work in the music industry. Externally a chilled and passive person, Harry had mastered the ability to combine confusing human anatomy with East-Coast slang in order to insult rude strangers. For example:

“Man, that tour bus driver is a wicked dick-face!”

Neville – An ex-brit, whose family had re-located to California. Full of a super-fast wit and generic optimism, she was a genuinely fun person to be around. We managed to negotiate a free luxury box to see Aziz Ansari, in which we drank from smuggled Margaritas like mischievous school kids. It sucked that she was sick during the first week, but seeing a Jesus lookalike at the 101 Café made us both laugh at our stupid private joke, even if no-one else did.

As well as the secondary objective of my music career, my main concern during this trip, was the location of cult hero and basis for my physical appearance, Chuck Norris. Ron and Harry were on the case, hunting down Mr Norris, who can only be found if he wants to be.

I saw the Hollywood sign, and my inherent English pessimism allowed me to point out that they need to move the ‘D’ in a little, as it reads, “Hollywoo…d”. My 1990’s digital camera, which weighed more that my checked baggage, lasted literally five pictures with new batteries, so this became an object of immediate ridicule among the Hogwarts students. I was emailed this picture, with the filename “JacksCameraIsBiggerThanLA.jpg”:

One thing that really puts you in perspective in with the music industry, is getting to visit somewhere like the Hollywood Bowl. Ron’s parking brake was broken, so we just used my camera behind the wheel to stop the car moving…

Let me pretend I know what I’m on about here. The bowl was built in 1989 JUST for Hall and Oates to play “You Make My Dreams Come True”. If that’s not right, then it should have been. All I know is that it hosts the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and is constructed in such a way that a clap on centre stage can be heard perfectly resonantly in every seat. That’s cool! Here’s me not getting my posing time right for a photo in the bowl:

Later, we ate at the Hard Rock Café, and the waiter immediately went into ‘impress-to-get-tipped’ mode, when he picked up that I was visiting town. Let’s call him Dobby:

Dobby: Hi, Sir. Did I hear that you were visiting town?

Me: Yeah mate.

Dobby: And that you’re in town as a musician? Are you a fan of The Doors?

Me: Yeah, kinda I suppose.

Dobby: Well you see over there, that table in the booth at the back?

Me: Yeah-huh.

Dobby: You see that guy sitting there in the black shirt, to his left?

Me: (Perching up out of my seat, totally sucked in like they were going to have Jim embalmed in a case wearing a shirt saying ‘You Rule Jack!’) Yeah…!

Dobby: (Pointing to a glass case, smiling at my obvious excitement) Those are Jim Morrison’s trousers!!!

Me: (Sitting back down, as Ron and Harry laugh behind their drinks) So… I’ll have the burger…

The same day, (that I have now reclassified as my birthday), this happened:

Oh, man, I totally forgot to talk about the eating out thing that I said I’d go back to. That’s just bad narration, so let’s tick that one off right now.

Eating out in LA:

There is a universally unspoken exception to the rule of high-class eating snobbery that exists to a certain extent in Los Angeles. Not even in a ‘guilty pleasures’ kind of way, or a ‘don’t mention the war’ taboo. You could eat $1000 sushi and be seen in places with the cast of The Hills and Gossip Girl, and socialites would applaud your correctly-spelled tattoos and how much you contribute to the environment by only having a 3 litre engine. These are, from my experience, luxurious and perfectly reputable places to eat, and the niche food they offer is really good. On the flip-side, there are the places that you can’t tell are still open and, on a daily basis, people queue for hundreds of yards to get in. One such place, is my favourite: Irv’s Burgers.

The hut that you see there, is the kitchen/take-away collection/service area and storage. The lady behind the counter is one of the most genuinely happy and friendly people I ever met in my 22 years as a large-faced child. She asks you what you’re doing that evening, or how your day’s going and you think it’s just friendly business. When you sit down on the plastic table and chairs under a make-shift outside roof, it feels like you’re waiting for you dad’s bad barbeque. When they bring your burger over, the lady is still smiling and is very specific about the order in which she places your burger. This is because every single burger comes with it’s very own caricature of you, with a caption picking out something you’d forgotten you’d said in the earlier conversation. That is enough to bring a smile to the faces of everyone that eats there. A few years ago the city tried to shut it down and the people of LA signed petitions in their thousands to keep this miss able little place alive. That is fucking awesome, and transcends the elitism of $2000 meals in one tiny little drawing. Everyone can relate to that.

Eating out: done.

As you would expect due to our similar life achievements, we had to take Chuck bowling. Turns out he sucked…a lot.

Santa Monica Boardwalk

The cool thing about the boardwalk, is that not a lot of people that live in LA have been there. Both Ron and Harry hadn’t. Ron at the wheel, we repetitively tapped the roof as we sailed through multiple yellow lights and tried to rinse the overwhelming smell of jasmine that the cleaner had overused from our noses. Five minutes into the journey, just as we drove past Bel Air and I kept an eye out for Uncle Phil, ‘American Pie’ by Don Mclean came on the radio, causing the patriotic reflex of volume increase. Twenty-five minutes, and thirty verses later, we arrived at Santa Monica with the same song still playing just in time for the sunset. I had some fantastic notion that David Hasslehoff was chilling in this cradling that weird red mini-surfboard thing he uses.

If you hang around town long enough you might get to see some odd reality of a supposedly ‘glamorous’ industry. Here’s an example. It was pretty chilly that evening at the boardwalk, so much so, that even I – a British holiday maker – was wearing a couple of layers. As we navigated the boardwalk, dodging running children and guys selling extremely cheap hats and Chinese versions of you name, we got to see LA in action. Struggling to balance, freezing and pouting, these girls were ‘living the dream’:

Now the boardwalk is great at sunset, but actually comes to life at night, in all its neon loveliness:

Right, that’s the tourism part of the trip out of the way. In the interests of your sanity, and my fingertips, I’ll split this blog up into two parts, the second of which will give you a run-through of all the industry-based stuff I got up to.

So here’s my interpretation.

Los Angeles is the kind of place that really messes with your expectations. The ‘high flying’ and the ‘shutdown’ co-exist and no-one bats an eye-lid, like there’s some natural selection to what survives and what turns into a liquor store.

Culture defies mathematical logic, and 400 people queue up outside a club that only lets 50 people inside to maintain its exclusivity. Those inside will tell you what they do before you ask, and you become protectively aware of your assets as a result; like you’re holding Mayfair and Park Lane but have no cash-flow.

Migrants come in their millions to audition for one role, all with their suitcases and rehearsed spontaneity, and even if you ‘make it’ you might wind up with your star outside a closed-down theatre.

Hollywood isn’t as shiny as you think, and you don’t get shot in the face every time you go to Compton. A bus driver told me, “Son, it’s like anywhere in the world – don’t be an asshole and people will be cool with you.”

He’s right. I went over there with half measures of naivety and honesty. Be willing not to take yourself too seriously and realise there’s thousands of people out there that do what you do, but better.

Smile at your good fortune and have faith that, like me, you will meet some of the gentlest, fun and kind people that make a town full of make-believe a very real and happy place.

Second part coming soon,

Jack.

'That's Some Dream'

2010-12-06T05:53:00.000-08:00

In the interests of good narration, let's start from the beginning...

'One day, Mr and Mrs Martello were very much in love, and they decided that they wanted to try for a baby. That night,....'

I'm kidding! I'd rather not discuss the details of that video ever again... (Double disgusting).

Let's skip the 'Growing Up', 'Falling in Love' and 'Puberty' chapters....

(In that order, unfortunately).

So there I am, back in January learning this:

(The equation for Chuck Norris' Roundhouse)

One of the side-effects of becoming Dustin Hoffman from 'Rain Man', is not the awesomeness of counting cards, or even adding up spilled match-sticks...

Instead, I acquired the handy skill of waking up at 3am every night to pace and scream at myself:

1) "WHAT AM I DOING HERE!?"

2) "WHERE AM I!?"

3) "WHO DID THIS!?"

4) "HOW DO I DO THIS!?"

5) "WHY AM I HERE!?"

6) "WHO'S BAGPIPES ARE THESE!!!??"..etc

So - mid-exams, I'm in the library, desperately trying to imprint irrelevant equations and statistical theory into my E.T-shaped head.

Music was the only real anchor to reality that broke through the Red Bull auto-pilot, so I Googled one of my favorite chill-out artists to get a playlist to listen to. This is when I came across their management company.

Suddenly, (and this doesn't happen all that often), I was actually able to think laterally and independently!

I knew I had to make the most of this moment, as my over-educated tunnel vision would soon kick in again and I'd snap back to [not] thinking about pensions and labradors...

Temporarily optimistic, I noted two people's names and opened my email. Here's the strange/cool bit:

I completely guessed their email addresses!!!

It's only now that I realize that these could have been literally thousands of other combinations of words, hyphens, underscores, nicknames etc. and my guesses were not as standard as you may think:

E.G

"James Smith ≠ 'james.smith@host.com' or 'smith_james@host.com'...

I entitled the email: "Dude: I'm not a massive douche!ha."

(Told ya!)

So, naturally I expected one of two things:

1) I would get 'failed delivery' report the next day.

2) The email would deliver, and they'd write back saying "We've called the police, we know where you live, leave us alone...etc."

Now here's where the Universe came into play.

Not only did I get BOTH email addresses right, but BOTH people were actually really cool about it and replied!!!!!

The odds of reaching out and two awesome strangers reading my email, (let alone replying), are just staggering. I realize this now more than ever.

So - we talk on the phone a couple of times.

Meanwhile, back in reality, I'm revising and pretending to be composed about all of this. Months go by and emails are exchanged...

Skip to October. I'd been pregnant with this Transatlantic distraction for the last nine months, but (like a good person, kids) I'd kept my grades up.

At this point, if nothing else, talking with these people had offered me enough buoyancy to keep my head above the academic swell, but still, this was just them keeping an eye on what I was doing, nothing else.

Cue the phone call at 'ridiculous o'clock, GMT'...

"How's your November..?"

As my girlfriend will confirm, I played it so cool on the phone as I wrote down the dates I'd be going out to L.A...

I sounded like this:

But off the phone, I was actually like this:

Six of the longest weeks followed, and my mum started making a confusingly comprehensive list of things I'd need to take for my fortnight in L.A:

"Toothbrush. Toothpaste. Pants. Socks. Haircut. Tea. Walker's Sensations Thai Sweet Chili Crisps..."

Suns set, grass grew and student fees went up overnight. Seems fair...Pftt.

So, here I am, on the 14th of November 2010, writing this blog in the Heathrow Terminal 3 departure lounge.

It's 9am and I've been awake for five hours already.

This will probably take me months to post, so here's an internal ironic apology.

The biggest smile on my face and "That's Some Dream" by Good Old War in my ears, the kid from Lydd needs to go to his gate.

More soon,

Mr. M - Living proof that embarrassing yourself pays off.

Blog Version 1.1

2010-09-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

A Little About Me:

I'm a singer-songwriter from the UK. I started playing guitar when I was a very little kid, maybe 10 years old? (Ron Burgundy Grammar)

This was mainly because my dad thought I should stop playing with the pretend Hoover that my nan had bought me one Christmas when I was super little, so I got a fake silver electric guitar (and an AWESOME Mickey Mouse tracksuit, may I add). This pic was in the height of Hoover usage, pre-awesome silver plastic guitar:

(If combining flat peaks and jellies comes into fashion, you saw it here first circa 1990).

I grew up in a house full of windsurfers/surfers and various instruments came and went with all of the people we'd meet at the beach, who'd then come and stay at our's and eat mountains of toast on Sundays. An acoustic was always floating about, and eventually my dad got hold of this one, which I still played until I was 21:

(This had to be repaired with surfboard fibre-glass, as there was a huge crack. I later learned that this damage was caused by someone being hit with the guitar. I'm pretty sure my guitar is, what's the word...."Evidence"?)

At the age where I picked up this guitar, my ears were too big for my body, I had a side parting, and I had a habit of doing all of my shirt buttons up and looking like a bit of a knob:

(Trivia Fact: "Fibre Glass" was known as "Parcel Tape" until 1996.)

I learned to play the theme song from 'Friends', and that was all for about three years. Patient parents...

Like all other creative kids in an adolescent environment, I kept my guitar playing pretty quiet for fear of being called "gay"*

*DEFINITION ALERT: Despite what you may think, the term "gay" doesn't mean 'homosexual' in British State Secondary Schools, as is commonly misconceived. It actually means "a bit rubbish" as in "You're bad at sports and your shiny Raichu Pokemon card is gay!"

Keeping guitar as a strict home activity, I thought I'd take up something more mainstream: Education. As it turns out, this also makes you 'gay'.

Naturally overcompensating, I grew a footballer's mullet and wore my collar up for about six months:

[Side parting at the front + Mullet = 'I own my own calculator, BUT I can write "boobs" in upside-down numbers...']

It was only when I went to University that I came out of my musical closet and started trying to write songs. And they were TERRIBLE! It was like Chaz & Dave vs. Jamie T.

In my third year of Uni, I started going to an open mic night called "Monday Night Blues" in Southampton, which is where I wrote and tested a lot of the original songs that you hear now.

I started up a Youtube account, and my mum subscribed to me and watched each video maybe 200 times. It felt like I had gone platinum, and I started wearing shades in nightclubs and interrupting Taylor Swfit award speeches with self-righteous opinions...

So I graduated University with a degree in Economics, and was offered a scholarship to take a Post-Grad Masters, which I'm just finishing up now.

SO! There it is, everything I think you need to know about me so far. I'll use this blog to share what's going on in my world and please get in touch, it would be cool to hear what you think.

My Youtube Channel is:

www.youtube.com/donaldminnie

and I'm on Twitter at:

www.twitter.com/JackMartello

Look forward to hearing from you,

Jack :)

(who has aching fingers now.)