#Happy 48th Birthday! 🎂🥳����

[brian-in-finance]

A Tale of Two Tonys

and Brian knows the difference 😉

Part One of Four

It was suggested elsewhere in July* Brian confuses the Tonys’ roles. Brian’s own posts say otherwise. 🙃 (*Waited for today’s Happy Birthday 🥳)

Tony the band manager ⬇️

Band manager Tony McGill with Caitríona Balfe, his wife, in London England, 29 November 2023 (Image: Dave Benett/Wirelmage)

Tony the music producer ⬇️

Music producer Tony Hoffer with Joanna Sims, his wife, in Lyon France, July 2024 (Image: Instagram)

Here are some examples that dispute Brian confuses the Tonys’ roles. (Try to laugh with me. 😉)

Five posts, one theme

1.

Screenshot from Brian 27 March 2021

2.

• • •

Screenshots from Brian 30 April 2021

3.

The actress and her Scottish music producer husband tied the knot in August 2019, at St. Mary's Church in Bruton, Somerset, in the U.K. Much like their pregnancy news, the couple was discreet with their intimate nuptials.

• • •

Screenshots from Brian 18 August 2021

4.

• • •

Screenshots from Brian 6 March 2023

5.

• • •

Screenshots from Brian 8 March 2023

Remember… he’s not a music producer, by the way. I just have to do this... He really hates this because he manages bands. He's in artist management. One person wrote it and now everybody does. — Caitríona Balfe

Later edit: “Waited for today’s Happy Birthday” in the first paragraph should say “yesterday’s.” The birthday is 12 October. I got busy, posted late, and forgot to update. Oops… (This bit won’t show up on reblogs posted before 19 October 2024.)

[dalyankiz1981]

Wishing this beautiful, talented and huge-hearted individual a very happy 48th birthday. Someone who clearly suffers from vintage wine syndrome! (He’s never looked better! 🔥)

Happy Birthday lovely Andrew 🥳🎈🎂 🎉 Know it won’t be the same without your mum 💔 but I hope you can enjoy your special day with many friends and family around you. Thank you for the amazing content you continuously give us, whether it’s film, theatre or TV. And thank you for taking on the wonderful projects you have for 2025 - the fandom are going to be seriously satiated this time next year! 😍 Never give up doing what you do best (but don’t burn out either - take some holidays when you can!)

Mostly have an ABSOLUTELY MARVELLOUS day today sweetie. All our best wishes xxx

[odyssey-xxartsy]

Today, June 3rd, is Russel's birthday. Happy 48th, Russ! 🥳🎂🎉💞✨

[brian-in-finance]

A Tale of Two Tonys

and Brian knows the difference 😉

Part Four of Four

It was suggested elsewhere in July* Brian confuses the Tonys’ roles. It’s also suggested one Tony entered the spotlight only when a(n imagined) narrative required a participant. (*Waited for today’s Happy Birthday 🥳)

Longer still before TV-Outlander…

The Fratellis — Jon, Mince, and Baz — and manager Tony McGill at SXSW 2007 (Photo: Wikipedia)

Music agency wound down after discord over funding

A MUSIC organisation which helped Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol find fame has been wound down amid uncertainty over its financial future.

One official from NewMusic in Scotland (Nemis) has criticised the government and the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) for failing to give contemporary music the level of support of other art forms.

However, the SAC said Nemis had failed to provide audited accounts and a business plan, and pointed out that a number of its board members had resigned recently. It has already had GBP 100,000 of public money.

Nemis, which has an office in Jamaica Street, Glasgow, offers advice to musicians and bands on a one-to-one basis and through organised seminars, as well as helping with marketing and promotion. It also has had a pivotal role in the annual Musicworks convention in Glasgow.

Two years ago, it produced a promotional CD of Scottishbased bands which went to some of Europe's most influential industry executives at the MTVEurope Music Awards in Edinburgh, including offerings from the-then little known bands Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol.

But now the four-year-old development agency has said it has run out of money and it will effectively have to halt operations. Only its website, offering contacts and diary dates, will remain.

The agency has had arts council grants worth GBP 70,000, and GBP 30,000 in start-up help from Scottish Enterprise.

Alec Downie, new music development officer forNemis, said the body could not continue its work and was scathing of "elitism" in arts funding.

"In my view, the arts council is nepotistic and bureaucratic and, most of all, is out of touch with what is happening now. I would argue that the likes of The Delgados, Chemikal Underground, and Belle and Sebastian are culturally significant, but they (the arts council)would not.

"That shows the mentality of the people that control the arts here."

Scott Twynholm, of the Glasgow electro-pop band Hoboken said help from Nemis had proved vital. The band released an album last year and will release a single next month.

"Through Nemis, we appeared on two CDs which were distributed at the majormusic conferences throughout the world, " Mr Twynholm said.

"There is no way we would be in the position of recording our second album, or our new single, were it not for the help and advice Nemis has provided."

Tony McGill, manager of The Fratellis, who recently signed to Island records, said: "I have got the MD of Island to send a strongly worded e-mail to the SAC because the work Nemis does is crucial.

"When you are starting out as a band, you don't knowwhat to do, you don't have the contacts or the knowhow, and Nemis supplies all that. I am shocked this is happening."

An SAC spokeswoman said there was no doubt of "absolute commitment" by Nemis to its work, but the council was "a steward of public funds and needs to be confident that public funding is being spent to best effect in an organisation that can clearly articulate where it is going".

She said it was not accurate to say that Nemis's funds had been cut, as it was not given revenue grants, but one-off assistance. Neither, she said, had it officially applied for new funds of any kind, nor did it raise any of its own income.

The SAC statement added:

"Essentially . . . it is an issue of confidence: information requested has not been supplied - fundamental information such as audited accounts and a clear business plan.

"We are primarily concerned with the governance and structure of Nemis. It is unclear whether Nemis is a membership organisation solely or is a limited company purporting to represent the contemporary music sector in Scotland."

SUCCESS STORIES

NEMIS promotional CD given out at MTV Europe Awards in November 2003 included:

The Darts of Pleasure - Franz Ferdinand

Spitting Games - Snow Patrol

I Love You Cause I Have To - Dogs Die in Hot Cars

Sons & Daughters - Johnny Cash

With Aplomb -Biffy Clyro

Maybe It's Time -The Grim Northern Social

Black Path - Aereogramme

Destroy Rock & Roll - Mylo

The Herald 26 October 2005

Music Week 2 September 2006

World Radio History 26 April 2008

World Radio History 7 June 2008

Remember… when you are starting out as a band, you don't know what to do, you don't have the contacts or the knowhow, and Nemis supplies all that. I am shocked this is happening. — Tony McGill

MD - music director

Later edit: “Waited for today’s Happy Birthday” in the first paragraph should say “yesterday’s.” The birthday is 12 October. I got busy, posted late, and forgot to update. Oops… (This bit won’t show up on reblogs posted before 19 October 2024.)

[brian-in-finance]

A Tale of Two Tonys

and Brian knows the difference 😉

Part Two of Four

It was suggested elsewhere in July* Brian confuses the Tonys’ roles. These album covers, previously reposted on Brian’s blog, suggest otherwise. (*Waited for today’s Happy Birthday 🥳)

2006

Music Brainz

Oh look! Two distinct Tonys, two distinct jobs (BIF edit, duh)

2008

45 Worlds

One Tony, no waiting (BIF edit, duh)

2020 (2021… Hello Covid-19)

The Fratellis Joseph Eley Instagram Story

Two Tonys thanked, and not alphabetically (BIF edit, duh)

Incidentally… anyone can contribute to Discogs. And similar to IMDb, Wikipedia, etc. anyone is prone to errors, omissions, and preferences.

Discogs BIF / Contributors: tdlucas, Kunstfather, jackiuana • Discogs Elsewhere / Contributors: WolfxCIX, Punkywull

Remember… what you miss when you never read (or GAF about) the small print on music albums?

Later edit: “Waited for today’s Happy Birthday” in the first paragraph should say “yesterday’s.” The birthday is 12 October. I got busy, posted late, and forgot to update. Oops… (This bit won’t show up on reblogs posted before 19 October 2024.)

[brian-in-finance]

A Tale of Two Tonys

and Brian knows the difference 😉

Part Three of Four

It was suggested elsewhere in July* Brian confuses the Tonys’ roles. It’s also suggested one Tony entered the spotlight only when a(n imagined) narrative required a participant. (*Waited for today’s Happy Birthday 🥳)

Long before TV-Outlander…

A chuffed Tony McGill, The Fratellis’ manager, enjoys watching music legend Pete Townshend perform with the band at the Spin Magazine Party at Stubbs BBQ during SXSW 2007, 16 March 2007, Austin, Texas

‘We don’t want to be a pop band’

A multi-platinum album, songs sung by football crowds - it's all rosy for the Fratellis. Not that they think so, they tell Caroline Sullivan

It's late afternoon outside Amsterdam's Paradiso club, and the small group of teenagers hanging around on the steps have just seen something to get excited about. "Jon!" a girl calls, as Fratellis singer Jon Lawler - Jon Fratelli when he's on stage - appears from around the side of the building, on his way to soundcheck for that night's show. The girl and two friends detach themselves from the others and scramble over to Lawler, whose skinny frame and halo of curls say "pop star" as surely as if he were toting around a platinum disc.

"Jon, can you do us a favour?" When Lawler nods indulgently, she continues: "Could you send the support band out?"

After an instant's bemused silence, he echoes: "The support band?"

"We really want to meet them," she explains.

"I'll see what I can do," he tells her and walks off, shaking his head as if he can't believe it. This must be one of the times when Lawler wonders whether selling 1.5m copies of the Fratellis' debut album, Costello Music, actually means anything. For every true believer who sings their songs at football matches and crams into venues to see them, there seems to be someone else who would rather meet the support band. Or, worse, is a critic who regards the group as beery louts.

There are reams of reviews, both for Costello Music and their new album, Here We Stand, that portray the Glasgow band as yobs making music for yobs. Like it or not (and they don't), the Fratellis have been designated this era's custodians of the oik-rock tradition. So Lawler and his bandmates, bassist Barry Wallace and drummer Gordon "Mince" McRory, are in an odd position. On the one hand, they're a proper pop phenomenon: Scotland's biggest group, winners of the 2007 Brit award for British Breakthrough Act, inescapable to anyone who watches football (Chelsea Dagger has become the nation's terrace chant of choice) and all-round band of the people. But on the other, they're reviled by many for the very reasons others love them. And that greatly annoys Lawler, who, as the middle-class son of two teachers, probably has more in common with the Fratellis' critics than with the people who buy their records.

"You can't pick your fans, can you?" he asks, having settled himself at an outdoor table overlooking the canal that runs behind the Paradiso. "But we're grateful to have fans. And I think when people describe us as a band to get drunk to, or a party band, it shows you how out of fashion rock'n'roll is. We get described as a pub band, but that's what rock'n'roll is. Twist and Shout was three chords and 'C'mon, c'mon, c'mon' - it was nonsensical. But that was why it was effective."

Lawler's passion is melody; he wants to write songs that postmen whistle and football crowds chant and radio stations keep on rotation. "People don't trust melody," he says. "I've always been a huge fan of the Beatles and Pink Floyd, people who use melody. I don't understand dance music. Melody, a tune - it's primal."

Is that what accounts for those 1.5m sales? He laughs softly. "I don't know the complex answer, but the simple answer is that a good band will get an audience. I knew as soon as we started to play together that we had it, 'cos I'd listened to the radio and it was all Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, and I knew from the first minute that this was the one that was going to work. There was a click, and I knew."

His instincts were spot-on. Brought together in 2004 by an ad posted in a Glasgow music shop, the trio played their first gig early in 2005. By the end of 2006, they had a No 2 album. Lawler was then 27 and had been around the block several times, working by day at a Ministry of Defence call centre - most of his wages went to his ex-wife, who he'd married as a teenager, and their son - and writing songs at night. Wallace and McRory were similarly dividing their lives between day jobs and nighttime music "careers" (the new song Shameless draws attention to the fact that many of their competitors are "half as old as I am" and seem "younger every night", though Lawler claims to be unfazed by the prospect of turning 30 next year).

The initial media coverage was adulatory, but the Fratellis reacted as if the media were a particularly pesky fly. In early interviews, they sulked, fabricated stories (their Wikipedia entry still lists Fratelli as their common surname, as per their lie that they'd all dropped their real names and adopted it) and failed to charm. "[The press] did dance around us for the first few months," Lawler acknowledges, making it clear that he hadn't been happy about it. Eventually, though, the press got the message: the Fratellis didn't like them. They responded in kind. "Lots of the bands we love, like Zeppelin and Floyd, were also hated by the press," Lawler says with an air of quiet vindication. "We did two cardinal sins with the press: we took the piss, then stopped talking to them."

Despite the chippiness, Lawler is very likable. He's articulate and introspective - in contrast to colleague Barry, who whiles away the pre-soundcheck minutes by showing a group of roadies that he can insert a lit cigarette into his belly-button and "smoke" it - and admits he's not a natural frontman. "I'm introverted by nature. I'd give it to Mince in a flash, 'cos he's got that exuberance." Well, there's a revelation, since Mince doesn't do interviews or photos, and today is out visiting Amsterdam's famous coffee shops.

Seeing himself as a lyrics-and-tunes man rather than a performer, Lawler now confesses that he doesn't think much of Costello Music. "I agreed with some critics about it. There was a decent percentage of it that I didn't like. It has a pop sheen, and we don't want to be a pop band." He's much happier with Here We Stand, which the band insisted on producing themselves. "The only reference people had for us was the first album, and that really bugged me. That's why we didn't use a producer on this, 'cos we didn't want anybody else getting their hands on it. It was the album I was desperate to make, and I think it'll change a lot of opinions."

A tiny spider chooses this moment to appear on the table. When he sees it, he blanches and hastily moves to another seat. "I'm scared of spiders," he says, mildly embarrassed, which leads to an anecdote about his wife phoning him on tour in Munich a few days ago to announce timorously that she had found a spider in their house, and what should she do? Mrs Lawler is a key character in the Fratellis' story, a burlesque dancer whose stage name was Chelsea Dagger, she was the inspiration for the band's signature hit. "Her name was a play on Britney Spears. I remember the night I wrote it - I found the notebook with the lyrics the other night. It came to me really quickly. I was going [sings the familiar refrain] 'Do-do-do-do-do-do' and it was so easy to write that I couldn't believe nobody had ever used [the melody] before."

He is, however, much more satisfied with the music on Here We Stand, which, unlike most second albums, is not much concerned with the experience of suddenly being famous. "I don't like to reveal too much or pour out my heart and soul, but I'm really proud of the lyrics on this album. When I hear them, I smile to myself and think I've done some good work. I'm really proud of a line in Shameless: 'Won't you make sure my mother gets half my weight in gold/ Tell her I just did what I was told.'"

He sits back and waits for my reaction. "Hmm," I say. He goes on: "If someone else had written that, I'd have been really jealous." But is he as pleased with Here We Stand's first single, Mistress Mabel, which is a load of rhyming gibberish ("Headline ratbag, so they told her/ Last night's nametag across her shoulder") set to mid-tempo pub-rock? He isn't. "Mistress Mabel is absolutely the worst lyrics I've ever written. I'd had the song for ages and just couldn't think of lyrics that meant anything to me."

Later, the Fratellis provoke the same reaction from their Dutch audience as they would from a British crowd: it's all unbridled dancing, singalongs and a sweaty sense of fraternity. The band's manager, Tony McGill, watches with me. Chelsea Dagger, of course, spurs the place into a frenzy of churning hands and feet, and McGill is shouting. It's hard to hear him, but he's saying something about the tune having been used as the theme to a Dutch TV show. Which seems about right. Pop like this is universal, and the Fratellis have earned their place in the pantheon of British groups who move crowds by hitting them with songs that they'll be singing all the way home.

· Here We Stand is out now. The Fratellis play the Glastonbury Pyramid stage tonight.

The Guardian 27 June 2008

Remember… we get described as a pub band, but that's what rock'n'roll is. Twist and Shout was three chords and 'C'mon, c'mon, c'mon' - it was nonsensical. But that was why it was effective. — Jon Fratelli

Later edit: “Waited for today’s Happy Birthday” in the first paragraph should say “yesterday’s.” The birthday is 12 October. I got busy, posted late, and forgot to update. Oops… (This bit won’t show up on reblogs posted before 19 October 2024.)