Sometimes when I’m looking around for inspiration for a post I’ll start researching one then wander off into a completely new subject matter all together. I began the weekend writing a piece on physical music distribution tips and ended up stumbling onto the KLF (again) via a 2007 link on Metafilter.

* “Be ready to ride the big dipper of the mixed metaphor. Be ready to dip your hands in the lucky bag of life, gather the storm clouds of fantasy and anoint your own genius. ”

That reminded me of when I first discovered the book ‘The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way)‘ . It was the early 90s (though the book originally appeared in 1988) and I’d been stumbling around as lead singer of the Fruit Eating Bears (not the 70s punk band of the same name) traveling from one disastrous gig to the next for a while and it was getting boring.

* “All bands end in tantrums, tears and bitter acrimony. So if in a band, quit. Get out. Now. That said, it can be very helpful to have a partner, someone who you an bounce ideas off and vice versa. Any more than two of you and actions develop and you may as well be in politics.”

I’d happened across ‘the Manual’ at the local library (pre-Google!) and was fascinated by the straightforward and easy to understand instructions on how to have a hit record. I quit the band after one more drunken gig and fled to London from South Yorkshire and decided to pursue a ‘career’ in dance music.

The appeal of getting involved with dance music was mainly due to the fact that you didn’t have to learn to play an instrument first, and you could steal all the best ideas using samples from other records. Brilliant.

* “If you are already a musician stop playing your instrument. Even better, sell the junk. It will become clearer later on but just take our word for it for the time being. Sitting around tinkering with the Portastudio or musical gear (either ancient or modern) just complicates and distracts you from the main objective.”

Every other book on the music industry then and probably every one since has made getting involved in the music industry sound about as exciting as a lifetime career as an accountant in a sewing factory and as complex as studying to be a brain surgeon.

I’ll relent a little and say that Moses Avalon made it all sound interesting again with his two popular books in the early 21st century. I’m sure there are more but I’m only talking about ones I’ve actually seen.

It took me about two years (compared to the books suggested three months) but by 1995 I’d had that illusive hit record in the UK top 40 pop charts with a record that had the vocals stolen from an acapella from the b-side of an Italian single and the disco hook from an old disco record (naturally). This blatant disregard for sample clearance protocol lost me 40% of the publishing but looking at it philosophically, 60% of something was always better than 100% of nothing.

Better still, the hit record and a follow up had both been released by 80s pop factory PWL, the hit machine given the thumbs up by the authors Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty in the book.

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”—Hunter Thompson (#source correction)

Surprisingly the book hasn’t lost much of its appeal since it first appeared twenty years ago. If you’re American lots of the 80s cultural references will be lost on you (thats what Wikipedia’s for right) but a lot of the instruction is still relevant today and with the advent since of social media, 90s Napster/P2P and downloads counting towards sales charts (none of which were around in 1988) its probably even more easier.

Other successful acts have since used the long since out of print book as a ‘blueprint’. Edelweiss, the Pipettes and most recently successful UK ‘nu-rave’ act the Klaxons have confessed to having also used the book as an ‘influence’.

* “It’s obvious that in a very short space of time the Japanese will have delivered the technology and then brought the price of it down so that you can do the whole thing at home. Then you will be able to sod off all that crap about going into studios.” (Bill Drummond/Jimmy Cauty-1988)

* Quoted from ‘the Manual’ .

Related Reading

Seeing as the book is out of print (and listed at $100+ at Amazon.com!) there’s a txt download of the whole book here, or if you prefer a PDF download here. And at Scribd.

Getting Permission for Sampling Others Work (Nolo.com)
How To Have A Number One The Old Fashioned Way (PYLB)
How to Clear Samples (BBC One Music)
The Self Made Pipettes (Exclaim!)
The Easy Way (Philip Sherburne)
99th Floor Elevators (Discogs)
Nu Rave (Last FM)
KLF Burn a Million Quid…. (Boing Boing) August 2007
The Manual (How To Have a Number One – The Easy Way) (Metafilter) July 2007