David Ford -The Dwarf Sincirely Apologises For Any Trouble We Have Caused - Part Two

Welcome, dear readers to the second instalment of The Dwarf’s monumentous, memorable and monstrous chat with the beguiling and beatific David Ford. In this the final chapter of our two-part mini-series, David discusses the mechanics of popular music, the Idol phenomenon and the distant possibility of using olfactory incentives to win over the record-buying public.

The Dwarf: Now, you are in Australia to support the Augie March tour, how did that come about?

DF: I really don’t know, the same way all these things come about, like I am sure somebody had to beg somebody, somebody had to pay somebody else and somebody else had to have sexual intercourse with another person. Eventually the people who do those things on my behalf obviously did a good enough job to persuade Augie March’s people to let me come and do it

The Dwarf: Well we are glad to have you here. Have you had a chance to check out any Australian bands while you have been here?

DF: Do you know what, I haven’t at all… I haven’t even had a chance to check out Augie March yet, which has been distressing to say the least because I have been very much looking forward to seeing them… I'm definitely going to see them tonight; wild horses will not drag me away. I’ve been at the mercy of … see these promo tours are really funny, you come into town and you have fifteen interviews in a day then you go to the show and then as soon as you come offstage there’s a car waiting for you at the stage door to whisk you away. It’s really embarrassing to have the whole kind of faux celebrity thing going on, whereby people are almost encouraging you to think that you are a lot better than you are by fussing around you and saying ‘can we do anything for you? Can we get you anything?’ and I really don’t find that stuff very comfortable. So today if the driver is there at the stage door at the end of the show I am just going to run off and hide.

The Dwarf: It reminds me of a quote from David Bowie when he was talking about his first manager who had the idea of ‘If we treat you as if you are better than you are, then people might buy it, despite the fact that there isn’t often the money to pay for it’

DF: That’s the thing, particularly in music the message is bigger than the truth and like any emperors new clothes scenario; if you put forward the idea that something is better than it is then everyone will think it’s a lot better than it is. Which I think is how we have ended up with the state of music today.

The Dwarf: It’s a bit dire isn’t it?

DF: Well, I don’t know, it’s really easy to go ‘Oh the music business today, it’s a shit business’ … as much as I kind of believe it I don’t think it’s the fault of musicians so much as I think that, as I said before, business and fashion working hand in hand. They are more aggressive than art, I think that art is essentially, a fairly pacifist force and it just can’t compete with commerce which is, by its very nature, a far more aggressive force of human invention. I think it is always going to be the case that some people are going to get up much earlier and work much harder and there is far more incentive if there is a fat paycheque involved in it or there is the potential to earn a million pounds for your shareholders. I think those incentives are always sit rather heavily on the incentives (of artists) but its such a beautiful sentiment…but the beautiful sentiment never made anyone rich...

The Dwarf: It explains beautifully the Australian / World Idol phenomenon. They are not really selling the music, rather, the idea of being famous.

DF: Which I think is a very dangerous idea. We’ve had the game show format in Britain for a long time and each year there are probably three or four different programmes. There’s Fame Academy, Pop Idol, X-Factor and there used to be a programme Pop Stars. And every single show will end up with, its not even just the winner, like two or three bands or artists will put out an album that year and at any given time there will be three of these ‘manufactured on TV’ albums riding high in the charts. And then, without fail, you wont see them a year down the line and they probably won’t have made any money from it. Its weird because the real pop stars and the real winners in those scenarios are actually the business managers behind it, it’s the production companies or its old Mr Fuller and his Nineteen company which owns the rights to the TV shows, which manages the bands, releases their records and owns the publishing to their records. So it’s a massive money spinning idea and it’s a win-win situation because your artists are entirely disposable, faceless and they are a commodity that you use up and throw away like a disposable razor. So I think music’s gotten to a stage where it’s a very blurry line between selling music and selling TV and selling baked beans and tomato ketchup or any other product that people are going to habitually consume just because they are told to.

The Dwarf: Its like ‘You will buy what we tell you to buy’

DF: Yeah, and we do. You know I do as much as anyone else. Maybe not so much with music, the way I get around music marketing is that I just don’t buy any music at all. I buy music from 30 years ago because I figure if its still good now then it was probably really good then.

The Dwarf: That’s why I'm working on my Beatles collection at the moment.

DF: Yeah, that’ll do it. Although, strangely I was never a fan of the Beatles. I think the Beatles are undoubtedly the greatest band ever, but I don’t actually like their records. They don’t really do anything for me somehow and I'm not exactly sure why.

The Dwarf: I think the thing with music is that it has to touch you and that’s what music can do.

DF: Yeah

The Dwarf: That’s why its so powerful and I think that’s why multimedia conglomerates have started using it because its probably the most powerful tool that anyone has to persuade someone to think a certain way. That said, something either floats your boat or it doesn’t.

DF: Yeah, I think that music is so evocative and possibly the only thing that works as well to stimulate your memories and things is smell, but until you can sell albums of smells then I guess that music is probably the closest thing.

The Dwarf: It’s like how Subway actually pumps out the smell of baking bread to get people into the store.

DF: Yeah, it’s the same as like, cooked bacon or in England, the smell of a fish and chip shop is amazing. I’m sure there is some kind of drug in it.

Share this article on Facebook