Cock & bull story
First published: MI Pro, December 2003
It’s that time of year, so let’s have a laugh. Early to bed, early to rise, that’s a laugh, especially if you’re Danish, but I’ll come to that later. It’s definitely a laugh if you’re a pro musician, at least on the side of the street I worked. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Probably does; there’s no denying that the opposite is the case – which is why a great many of our readers, along with this magazine’s editorial staff, now have day jobs… though we’re still not convinced about the wealth bit.
Being a professional muso is all about humping. First you hump the gear up a slippery fire escape with a tight turn at the top and in through a narrow side door and then you have an argument with the management about the size of the stage, the position (and condition) of the main electricity supply, the lack of any sort of dressing room and the refusal to allow drinks on stage, even though you’re (reluctantly) prepared to fork out full whack.
Then you hang around for hours, hoping someone will turn up to watch you. Then you play. Then you say goodnight and, if you’re lucky, you get some sympathetic applause. These, though, are mere incidentals. The really hard work starts after everybody else has been shooed out of the venue and there’s just the band and a jobsworth left. And no groupies, by the way. There’s no opportunity for that and anyway there’s humping to get on with.
The fire escape is much more slippery on the way down and in the dark, and the bass bins, whatever Newton says, are harder to carry down than up. The chivvying jobsworth doesn’t appreciate that after a great gig (and even more after a duff one) you need to chill in the dressing room, savouring your successes and reflecting on the things that didn’t go quite as planned. Facing the chill midnight air with a sweat on is not wise and it’s certainly not good for the health. You sink into bed in the small hours, rise late and if you count wealth in the small change you trousered for twelve hours’ hard slog, your values definitely aren’t the same as mine.
That’s not the dream we sell, of course. Down the pub, it’s ‘I’m a musician’ and watch the girls’ eyes light up. Of course, they’re free on Saturday night, but you’ve got a gig in a village hall 35 miles away, and if you were available you could never afford to take them out anywhere half decent, but you sell the glamour anyway. Just as we all do in the MI business. Become a musician and spend your life humping, ha ha. It’s a damned sight better as a pitch to a teenager than ‘early to bed, early to rise… ‘ Except if you’re Danish.
Early to bed etc is definitely a desirable attribute in MI salesmen, and so that was one of the businesslike virtues, rather than rockmusicianly vices, that a Danish company sought to flag up in press release announcing the arrival of a new member of staff. The equivalent native phrase probably doesn’t even raise a titter in Denmark; translated word for word into English it comes out as ‘Quick into bed and up with the cock’. Ho! Ho! Ho!