This is a post about driving safely.  I’m a well trained driver but I still drive badly sometimes so, if you read this, prepare for a bumpy ride!

“Put your seat belt on, I want to try something. I’ve seen it in a cartoon, I think I can do it!”

A few months ago I was driving down a dual carriageway when I came across a car sitting in the overtaking lane.  There were no other cars nearby so I flashed my lights for them to move over but they ignored me. For the next mile or so, the road was quite windy as it went down a steep hill so I thought I’d wait till we got past this area before pressurising them to pull over. Once we got to the bottom of the hill and we got to a three lane section of the road, they still didn’t move over. I started to consider undertaking when the car finally moved out of the way. I kicked down my accelerator, partly to get around them quickly and partly to let them know I was annoyed.  As I did so, I noticed a police speed check van on the bridge about 400 metres away, I checked my speedometer which read about 87 mph so I hammered the brakes to get me down to around 77 mph.  As I sailed closer, I looked up at the policeman who continued aiming his radar camera towards where I’d come from.

Sure enough, a week or so later, a letter from the police arrived saying my car had been recorded doing 83 mph in as 70 mph zone and they wanted to know who the driver was. I wrote back saying it was me and, after a few days passed, another brown envelope arrived offering me an option to take part in a driver safety course rather than get points on my licence. I decided to take up the invitation. I went on the course today so I thought some people might find it interesting to hear about some of what happened on it.

I  probably sped a bit to get to the course; not much, just a little but, a few days ago, I’d been  in a situation where I’d pulled off from a set of traffic lights and the driver in the lane to my left started to race me. I was sure my car was faster so, rather than just let it go, I raced him. Ahead of us was a car parked in my lane so I checked my mirror.  I could see I was ahead of him so I pulled into his lane.  I knew he wouldn’t like it but I thought “tough luck mate; you wanted to race and you lost”. As I pulled into his lane, the car that had been previously parked in my lane pulled into the left lane too, revealing another car parked ahead of him, so that both lanes of the road ahead were blocked. I had to slam down hard on my brakes; I felt my anti-lock system kick in and the car’s automatic braking system took over, bringing me to a very harsh stop. The car behind sounded his horn and drove close up behind me. As we passed the parked car, I pulled back into the right hand lane to continue on my route.  Of course, the driver who’d raced me, passed me so I slowed down ready to confront him. He gestured at me and I stared at him; he looked around at me but, as he did so, the car in front of him came to a stop, which meant he only just managed to avoid going into the back of them.

*             *             *

“How do we learn?” David, the Driving Safety Instructor asked us. “We learn from bad experiences.  However, sometimes bad experiences can kill you.” These words resonated with me as I remembered the “racing” incident.

A few minutes beforehand, I’d arrived at the council buildings where the course was to take place.  About 30 people were sitting in silence in the foyer.  I signed myself in, made a joke to one of my co-attendees which made us “course buddies”, and then we were directed to a room full of tables at angles to each other.

As the course progressed, I wondered if what we were touching on could get to the root of what makes people speed. This is some of what we covered.

There is a problem, we all know it, even if, thankfully, most of us haven’t experienced it, and it’s this. Every 6 seconds, someone is killed in the world in a road traffic accident and around 60 people are seriously injured. ( www.makeroadsafe.org ). Speed is logically a major factor in accidents that cause serious injury and death.  I mean, if someone is hit in a modern car at 20 mph, they’re likely to survive without getting seriously injured. Most occupants of vehicles are well protected in modern cars so it’s not surprising to find out that a large proportion of those who die or get injured in accidents are bikers or pedestrians who get hit by cars. It was at this point that we homed in on the issue of community; that, by speeding, we are putting at risk people who we may care about.

Something happens when we get in a car; it’s almost as if we inhabit a slightly make-believe world.  We feel like we can take risks, we become knights of the road, where we challenge others, become abusive to others and generally take our feet off of the ground and lose contact with reality. There weren’t any graphic photos or videos from real life crashes but we were shown a few. Here’s one that touched on the sense of community.

As you can see, when a crash happens, it affects many people, especially those we love. Maybe we become stigmatised, or lose our job and, consequently, our family home or, worse still, our family. Maybe we find the reality of damaging someone else’s life, or even killing them, kills a part of us that we’ll find unbearable to live with.

There are many consequences of crashing at speed, however, even though many of us are aware of the risks,  we still do it. We listed the reasons and of, course, none of them tended to be justifiable. Even those “noble reasons”, such as taking someone to hospital in an emergency, were deemed unlikely to save that much time. So, in my mind, I was thinking that many of us speed because we kind of like it and think we’re going to get away with it.

Over the next 10 years, the world will focus on making it much harder to get away with speeding, with the introduction of satellite spy cams, cats eye cameras, digital speed cameras and many other detection devices. Many people believe that speed detection is about raising revenue for the government.  However, whether that’s true or not, the reduction in deaths on the roads has been close to 30% (from around 3000 to 1800) over the last 10 years and much of that has been attributed to slowing people’s driving down. I’m not sure if that’s true but that’s what we were told.

A great deal of emphasis of the course was put on reducing speeds in urban areas; the obvious reason being that there are more pedestrians at risk here. Many of the course members felt it was OK to speed slightly at night time, however, but we were informed that a great proportion of accidents occurred between 11pm and 7 am as, of course, the chances of people either drink driving or drunk people falling into roads was far more likely during these hours.

Another factor that was focused on was the difference that driving at 40 mph would have compared to 30 mph in terms of stopping distances and damage to a human. In many incidents, the impact occurs before any braking takes place.  This means that the chances of someone surviving being hit at 40 mph are almost zero whereas, at 30 mph, it is much higher. “The thing is, 30 mph seems so slow” cried the group (well it was more of a swelling murmur). I pointed out that, generally, most police forces allowed a 10% plus 2mph leeway and, given speedometers have to legally show higher speeds than are actually being driven at, that most of us could really drive at 35 mph on the clock (and not get prosecuted) which actually doesn’t feel too slow.

At higher speeds, the effect of speeding becomes more dramatic. Let’s say you’re going 70 mph and have to do an emergency stop. The distance you need to do that in, we’ll say is around 315 ft. (96 m). Well, if you were to try stopping from the same point at 80 mph, you’d hit the same spot where the 70mph vehicle would have stopped at 38 mph and, had you been doing 100 mph, you’d hit the same spot at 71 mph.

So if you want to curb your speed what can you do?

The first trick is to use cruise control, if you have it, the second thing to do is use a lower gear, e.g in town, use 3^rd gear (it’ll have a negligible effect on fuel but it will make you keep your revs and speed down.) Another thing to do is drive with your window down so you can get a sense of your speed from the outside noise.

There were quite a few things that came up on this course that I didn’t know. Here are a few of them:

1. A dual carriage way is not defined by having two lanes on a road but by the fact that there are two roads separated by either a barrier or a verge. So, if you’re driving on a two lane road  in a car at 70 mph, you can be done for speeding because the national speed limit may actually be 60 mph there as, technically, it’s a single carriageway.
2. That, if you drive for your job, your employer must provide you with a policy in terms of your driving, possibly some training and most, likely, a contract relating to your driving for them, otherwise they may also be liable to prosecution under the Corporate Manslaughter Act.
3. Want to save on fuel? Then drive smoothly, only fill your tank halfway, keep your tyres at the correct level and you will probably do 10-20% more miles per gallon (annually saving someone who drives 12000 miles per year between £250-£500)
4. Most of us know to keep a gap of around 2 seconds between our vehicle and the one in front but, “when there’s wet on the floor, make it 4”.
5. Look properly when pulling out onto a main road.  Recent experiments have shown that the third look we do (especially to our right in the UK) is done so fast, and not far enough to the right, that we don’t really see any fast approaching threats, especially small object such as cyclists, motorbikes and drunk skateboarders.

So you think you’re good at paying attention? Well check out this video.

Finally, this wasn’t mentioned on the course, but many of us are really tempted to deal with our mobile phones as we drive.  I’m not talking about taking a call on  a hands-free device but dealing with a text or looking up a number. I’m not sure why we can’t wait but we often feel compulsed not to.  However we are 23 times more likely to crash when texting. One option for those of you with smart phones, is to get an app that will read out your texts to you and let you dictate a reply (sadly that bit often doesn’t work very well) but if you don’t have an app that works and you get that urge to deal with a text etc… then try to force yourself to wait until you can pull up somewhere as so many people are swerving when they do this and many accidents are occurring due to this kind of distraction. Really, the phone makers and car companies should be working together to make communication in cars much more integrated, given the seriousness of this problem

I had spent a year after passing my test practicing driving, including being taken out for lessons by a police driver and, at the end of the year, I passed my advanced driving test.  Even so, I know there’s a lot I don’t know about driving and this course reminded me of that. At the beginning of the course, one of the instructors asked us what we hoped to get out of it and I had facetiously said: “I’d like to get out of here!” but actually, by the end of it, I wanted more and felt sad it was over. For those of you in the UK who’d like to do further driving training, here are a couple of useful links.

I hope you found this interesting.

Be careful out there!

www.iam.org.uk

http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/default.aspx

This video was also shown on the course

This one is very graphic but a warning for those who think the risks of texting while driving are low

Text related

I’ve tried to keep my objectives slightly limited, try and get some articles written and a bit of radio play then ask a few record companies as to whether they’re interested in dealing with us.

Please join me for the ride.

Simon Smith
http://www.facebook.com/Simonmarksmith?sk=app_2405167945

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F14874587 Facebook192kb-Simon Mark Smith by simonmarksmith

Day 1

Before going ahead with anything I decided to try to create a strategy with limited objectives, this would allow me to have end points in view and measurable outcomes… not because I’m particularly organised but just so I’d know when to pause.

So here are my main objectives:

Objectives

Get coverage in the media: Get interest from local and national media, maybe get some interviews and hopefully get noticed by bloggers.. so I’d better research a list ASAP.

Try to get tracks on the radio: Send out CDs to all the appropriate DJs / So get a list, contact people, send out packages and follow up.

Create a bit of a buzz and contact Record Labels

Work towards 2 release dates: Album release date:  10^th October 2011 and Single Release Date 10^th December

So with all this in mind I started by getting a 4 week free trial to Music Weekly and buying a cheap copy of the music directory from Amazon for £16 compared to £40

I also looked up a load of CD printing services and came across 1 which seemed quite reasonable however when I got a quote it was for more than their own special offer, a quick phone call remedied that though… I felt like saying “Don’t try that old Jedi shit on me”.

So the next job is the design, however as this is for radio stations and the press it’s a whole different approach, it’s not about looking good but about looking like what the industry normally submits. More about that later though.

Tonight I’ll design the CD print, re-master the album so the tracks I want radio stations to consider are first, and work out the blurb for the labels on the CD envelope and any accompanying paperwork.

I’ll hopefully have something to show you tomorrow.

Day 3 ~ If you want to make God laugh show God your plans ~

I’m in to “next week” and still designing the CD cover. I already had one set up, but it needed a bit of colour correction. I’ve printed out quite a few trials and I’m not getting the strength of colour I need so sometime this week I’ll have to visit a print house and get some help… Ker-ching!

The other development has been a decision to create another CD, this one will have the same tracks on but in a different order (basically the more immediately impacting songs first) and an 8 page booklet, this CD will be available for those who want a more luxurious product and for use as a promotional disk. The other CDs tracks are ordered as Id originally wanted but as it’s an on demand service (as in the company manufactures and sends out the CDs when an order is placed) there was a limit on the book size, which is 4 pages. Getting 19 songs to fit over 3 pages has been quite a challenge for both me as a designer and no doubt anyone trying to read the bloody thing. Anyway the upshot is, 2 CDs, one is cheaper because it has a smaller booklet and the other is slightly more expensive but is more luxurious. Plus I can also send out signed copies of the 8 page one. Phew, did you get all of that… the messes I get myself in to sometimes. So this week is about getting the new Master CD and graphics out to the UK manufacturers and getting a corrected set of graphics out to the US ones.

Meanwhile I’ve just done 2 email interviews, I’ll post the links on here once they’re published, and I am trying to produce a new song too.

As the saying goes: “If it was easy, everybody would be doing it” Hold on! Everybody is doing it!!!

Be back soon~ish.

Two Weeks Later

The designs all got sent off, but both the US and UK companies made mistakes, fortunately it hasn’t affected my schedule. However the main problem has been in terms of printing. The Uk company printed the tray card even though I’d informed them the proof showed the file was corrupted, I mean it had big pink and green stripes running across it. Plus the print out of the cover is too dark. The US version has come out pretty close to my mock ups, but the UK one is way off. If there’s any more runs I’ll be making sure they get it right  next time.

Whilst I was waiting for the CD’s to be manufactured I created a database to collate information about radio, magazines and other media that might help run articles or add my music to their playlists. Just going through Radio and magazines created a shortlist of over 600 entries. I still have to add newspapers and music blogs to the list, but one thing at a time. I’ve spent this week contacting college radio stations and specialised medium readership magazines. This has helped me get in to a work flow and become more focused when it comes to phone calls. Next week I’ll move on to higher profile organisations. So far the response has been minor, a couple of companies have got back to me, but given how many of my messages were written directly and relevantly to those concerned I’m surprised by how little feedback I’ve had. Next week I’ll try to establish more contact via the phone than just by email and send promo disks out to the majority of contacts, hopefully that’ll establish more engagement.

So far one highlight has been chatting to DJ’s using their studio chat module whilst I listened to them talking back to me on the show. Also two articles have been published so far. I shall leave them with you for now, and will report back soon.

http://www.bn1magazine.co.uk/frontpage-featured-articles/37-articles/382-simon-smith-interview

And

http://audiorokit.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/simon-mark-smith-interview/

October 17 2011

It’s been a few weeks since I last reported back on what’s been going happening promotion-wise. I’d say sorry about the delay but I think it’s probably been for the best.

It’s really hard not to come over as sounding a bit bitter, but that’s how I feel. I have emailed around 200 radio stations, I mean these are college, community, hospital and local commercial stations and I’ve only had 6 replies. I’ve also sent out disks to about 20 stations and once again only had one reply. I’m annoyed, not because they’re probably inundated with disks and can’t cope, but because it’d be good if they just had written on their webpages, “Please don’t bother sending emails or disks”. Of course it maybe that our music isn’t up to scratch, but we now have over 85,000 followers on the Internet so I don’t think it’s that, but of course I can’t be sure. What it maybe is this, and tell me if I’m wrong please, is this:

Commercial radio stations need to play music people want to hear in order to bring in audiences to listen to the adverts that keep the station going. Most people want to hear music that’s in the charts because that’s what’s deemed as good. What gets in to the charts is music that is played a lot on radio and TV, and what gets played a lot is music that’s placed on playlists. Music that gets on playlists gets on to those lists through a few main ways. Firstly panels on some stations choose the list, sometimes DJs get to choose what gets played, but in the background are pluggers, record companies and companies interlinked in some ways to the radio stations. In the UK Global Radio owns most of the major radio stations, what they play becomes the chart music and consequently that gets played on the BBC.

I recently went to an AIM (Association of Independent Musicians) meeting with the top brass of Radio One and their take on it was that their playlists were formed by a multitude of influences. Submissions, pluggers, chance hearings and so on but at the end of the day how different is what we hear on Radio One to any of the other major commercial stations? Not much, so the proof is in the pudding.

Now BBC Radio has made a gesture to opening up opportunities to new artists via their BBC Introductions scheme which is also expanding to its other stations e.g Radio 2, as well as making a proportion of air time available for the scheme in every program. However it has already received 55000 applications so it’ll be interesting to see how well it filters through such a massive submission.

Meanwhile I’m sitting here re-assessing the situation. I’m aiming to contact the major radio stations and record companies over the next few weeks whilst at the same time approaching more prominent publications, but I’m already beginning to get an idea as to what I’ll be saying to you at the end of this process and that’s this. The Internet is going to be the place for me, the mainstream is tied up. MTM (An Internet radio station that promotes new artists) has already featured me and my music and wants to do a second interview about the album, GMH Café Radio and Stray FM have also featured us, so some things are happening but there’s definitely a feeling of impasse in the mainstream if you don’t get picked up by a record company. In fact the BBC guys said the same thing when they told us that they would avoid non-label artists, mainly because of the worry that they would not be organised enough.

So as you can see it’s a funny time, I don’t really know if I’m coming or going. The CD is ready to sell and is available on line at www.simonmarksmith.com/store even though its “Impact Day” is scheduled for November 28^th 2011. I’ll announce its availability to my followers sometime over the next fortnight.

One thing that has sunk in is that promotion isn’t something that one stops and starts around albums but is continual so if anything this project has given me that realisation. I’ll let you know how this next stage goes and I’ll post links to the radio appearances as and when they become available. I’ll post them here: http://simonmarksmith.com/epk/articles1.html

Talk soon

The lights went down, and we got straight in to some Private Investigations. But within seconds, what I’d been warned about hit me, you weren’t all there. And whilst it was you, (it looked like you, and sounded like you), it didn’t completely feel like you. As your words vibrated in to me, I felt a sadness, like a friend had died, had come to haunt me, and would be going away again soon… but you didn’t fade away, instead you wound yourself around me, lifted me from my seat and straightened me up again. I realised that my sadness was partially self-inflicted … I had grown older and your very presence served as a constant reminder for a while.

As you danced with me to songs the old you had sung to me and the new you had once played with the very same hands, movements neither of us could never forget, those same hands guided me still, and I let go. Your new look had its own appeal, something of you belonged to the old you, enough to keep me attached.

Now I am home, looking at the photos, uploading the videos, and rewinding my memory, I can feel it was a bitter sweet meeting. Oh you truly had me dancing, you made my spine tingle, and  your touch just blew me away, but the bit of you that wasn’t there, was always there, conspicuous by its absence. You were always good at being magical and this was definitely your latest trick.

*      *     *

If you’re a Dire Straits fan go see “The Straits” and take a trip down memory lane, it’s well worth it, but don’t expect it to be a particularly straight and narrow route, it’ll be rocky too… but we both know you like that.

For more info go to http://www.thestraits.com

Here’s a video I made:

The Straits performing Private Investigations May 22 2011 at The Royal Albert Hall

Simon Smith

http://www.simonmarksmith.com

http://www.simonsdiary.com

http://www.facebook.com/Simonmarksmith

A couple of years ago I went to see Roger Waters perform at the O2 arena near London, which is a big venue. Throughout the whole performance people wandered in and out, pushing past me, falling on me, mostly in order to get to the drinks kiosk. Perhaps the size of the venue meant that people felt they weren’t really at a concert, but after that experience I felt I wouldn’t want to return to that venue and consequently missed the now legendary Leonard Cohen concerts held there.

Steve, my co-song-writer, told me that he’d once gone to see Daniel Beddingfield play and the audience was so loud during the warm up act that Daniel came out and sang with her because he was so disturbed by their rudeness. The audience wouldn’t have been able to know if she was worth listening to as they hadn’t given her the chance to be heard in the first place.

I have a video of one of my first live performances and during it I rather unprofessionally looked at a group of people who were talking so loudly I could hear them over the PA system and said “Yeah and see how you feel when I speak over your band”… a slightly embarrassing moment for all concerned. But in a way I was right, if you’re in a music venue it’s not like being somewhere where someone starts performing whether you asked for it or not.

So my point is have we got to a time when we need to re-define some social decorum again or is too restricting to do so? Is this just a phenomenon in the UK or are there other places that have it too?

I’d be interested to hear what you think?

Best wishes

Simon

www.simonsdiary.com

If you asked me if I thought commercial success was a true measurement of achievement, I’m pretty sure that, philosophically speaking, I’d say it wasn’t. In reality though, when I meet people who have done well in their fields, (commercially I mean), then I can’t help but feel more impressed than those who have not done so. I can do that because I’m a hypocrite. We all know that loads of people who get rich and famous are probably there more by luck than by measure. Often people who seem to be far better at what they do than other, more well known, people often go unrecognised. It’s just a fact of life. So what is it about commercial success and fame that a lot of us are so impressed by?

Perhaps one thing it particularly relates to is the “Pursuer, Distance Dynamic”, again this is one of those things that most of us have experienced. It’s basically the more someone wants us, the less we want them, and of course the more they don’t want us, the more we desire them. It’d kind of the first rule of love as well. The second rule of love is: When you’re single no one wants you and when you’re with someone people won’t leave you alone, but I digress.

So when it comes to fame there’s a connection between these principles. People who are desired by others may trigger our own desires for them, because a subconscious message tells us, “Well they must have something, if everyone else thinks so”. I mean if you were to see two restaurants next to each other and one was full and the other was empty, which one would you be most likely to enter? So in a way fame feeds on itself and that’s partly why it doesn’t always relate to ability.

One of the other ways we measure success is by how much others will pay for their services. I would happily pay £40 to see Leonard Cohen, it would be an experience well worth every penny for me. There may be other artists who are “almost” as good, (not likely), but they haven’t been in my head for as many years, and to me, seeing Leonard Cohen in real life would be like bringing my inner and external worlds together. Again my willingness to pay to see Leonard Cohen isn’t just about his ability it’s about our relationship. So what’s my point?

The thoughts that motivated me to write this article came about because I saw a video in which, Chris Cox , a marketing consultant, suggests that artists give their music away for free. His main argument is, that in a world of pirating and media companies that dominate our world, he believes, artists who want to sell their work without, or sometimes even with, corporate help are going to have a hard time doing so. Therefore he suggests that one option, is to give the music away, at least that way it’ll get heard and connections with people all around the world can be made.

The only thing is, in the past when I’ve paid for albums, if I didn’t like the music at first I would still struggle on because I had made a financial commitment to it. I wanted to see if by digging a little deeper there would be anything worthy of my hard earned cash, and more often than not there was. BUT if I was given a disk for free and didn’t like the first track I’d probably just put it aside and never come back to it. So by giving one’s music away there are two possible side-effects. The first is that people may feel you can’t be any good because you’re unable to sell your work and secondly they probably won’t even listen to it because they haven’t made any commitment to it. There is a third effect which is music that needs to be struggled with may be abandoned too early so both the artist and audience end up losing in the long run.

When Leonard Cohen is in concert and says to his audience: “I want to thank you friends, I know some of you have had to undergo financial and geographical struggles to be here tonight” the audience cheer. He touches them because both he and they realise there is a connection, a deep emotional one between them. Plato said that we recognise something inside others that is inside ourselves too and that’s what contributes to us becoming true friends with certain people. It’s also true that our closest friends are often very different from us, that it’s something in their essence that connects us.

When I write songs my music comes from a deep part of me, so as it moves around the world it touches some people and they then link up with me, for instance via my Facebook music page.  What ensues between us is a two way dynamic, well more so than the traditional musician and audience relationship. Perhaps as the Internet changes the nature of how music is distributed, the type of relationships between artists and audience may well change too,  becoming much more intimate. Ironically that’s probably quite like relationships that existed between many musicians and singers when society was more of a community. People would often gather to make music and sing together. Also the isolation caused by the relationship, or lack of it, between artist and stars, might be why so many stars have collapsed emotionally after they found their “dream”.  When TV and radio took over, the “stars” sang to an audience that didn’t really exist in any real way to them, and though the audiences might have waved and thrown their under garments at the TV, the person singing to them would have been blind and deaf to their antics. But now, now there’s the Internet and it’s becoming a two way process, so it’s going to be interesting to see what happens next!

I thought I’d put some adverts out on Facebook to see what would happen and so far I’ve been quite moved by the response. It’s not so much that people like my music that’s so touching but more a case that multiple connections with people all around the world are starting to take place. As each person links in to my page I normally have a look at what can be seen of their profile, and many of them have interesting links about themselves there. So in a way it’s been a two way process and I’m hoping this is the beginning of some interesting adventures.

Even today I was feeling quite angry with someone who had betrayed a deal we’d made. In fact I was having a bit of a Sopranos meets Tarrantino moment when I read one of my “new connections” poems page and was quite touched and calmed by the lines:

“This life taught me to forgive and forget,
Each of its trivial and unpaid debt.”
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=26827942&postID=2848330677811264562

It’s been an interesting ride this last week, and I hope to tell you more of my travels, and if not now, then when I can.

Simon Smith

I can feel our excitement, our expectation and it’s driving me to distraction. I know it’s about flowing, about connection about reading the writing on the wall, between the lines and in your eyes.

Are we flowing together?

Are we there yet?