Athena Doc on Five

Subject: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 08:08 AM

Hi All,

Just a quick reminder for the next 'My Music' programme on Athena. It's on at 11am.

http://www.fivetvonline.tv/culture/
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=31630867

Eddie

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 09:13 AM

Why?

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:42 PM

Thanks for the reminder, Eddie. :-)The series has shaped up to be a great introduction for those who may not be familiar with the work of the series participants

umm.. the other guest intervention is now no longer funny, if it ever was in the first place

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 02:18 PM

It wasn't intended to be funny. I am familiar with her "work". Why is she part of this series? What is her connection with the English folk scene?

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 05:31 PM

Nowhere in the blurbs about this series of programmes does it say that they are exclusively about English music, though three out of the four participants are English themselves. Athena was born in London but grew up in Greece.

This from the Proudfoot Productions blurb...

Executive producer Michael Proudfoot has secured exclusive behind the scenes access to all artists – as well as in-depth interviews that reveal the highs, the lows, the history and aspirations of these influential musicians. Michael said: "We wanted to get under the creative skins of these artists. The songs they write and the music they make are products of the places in England that they live in, so the My Music documentaries are not just music shows, they are about the English landscape, or in Athena's case the Greek landscape.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 02:30 AM

Who is Athena then ? I've never heard of her, maybe thats my bad luck, but why does she deserve a programme about her ?


eric

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 07:12 AM

"Who is Athena then"

Here's herMySpace

She's an Anglo/Greek singer songwriter. When I first heard of her she used to sing Greek songs but now seems to be hiding her Greek heritage and doing her own singer/songwriter stuff. She has a very good voice. I believe she got general attention when Froots helped her by sponsoring some tours, apparently that's how the programme makers discovered her, looking forv somebody who was a contrast to the subjects of the other ones. She was in the press a lot a year or two ago but I've not heard much of her recently. Presumably we'll find out more about all this in the film on Sunday.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 03:39 PM

Anything like Nana Mousecurry?

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 09:21 AM

No but a lot like Nina Moussaka.

eric

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 09:33 AM

hmmmfff!

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:30 AM

George Papavgeris wrote "hmmmfff!"

Stop speaking Greek and explain yourself man!

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:48 AM

It was a muffled laugh at eric's joke...
I nearly came across Athena 3 years ago (I think), just before the fRoots campaign on her behalf and her subsequent UK tour. She became my MySpace "friend", which means bugger all of course. On hearing that she was thinking of coming to the UK I offered to meet, exchange views etc, given her own mixed parentage. never heard back from her (or from whoever was managing MySpace for her, as I now believe). I listened to her stuff on MySpace - good voice I thought, though too clinical delivery for my taste; and the arrangements were very good indeed, but I was not taken with her own songs. I found many of the tunes too much in the style of Hadjidakis, i.e. passe - sort of 70s and 80s Greek contemporary; and the lyrics were OK, but didn't set the world on fire for me either.

I wish her well, there will be many who will like her and as I said her voice is indeed good. And for those who were not brought up on Hadjidakis songs in their youth (i.e. most of the UK), the songs will have sufficient interest.

But I see her inclusion in the series as a promotional affair, rather than a useful episode in explaining UK folk and the influences on it. A little like the celebrities appearing on chat shows only because they have something to promote.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:59 AM

a) From her website (http://www.athenaandreadis.com/):
To coincide with the documentary broadcast, a new version of "Breathe with me" featuring 2 bonus tracks will be released on April 7th.

b) Her first concert in Greece was only last November.

Both of the above support my theory that we are seeing a promotional push rather than an educational documentary on "what makes established artists tick".

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:39 PM

George - I think she has been here a lot longer than 3 years. What biogs I can find from Googling - here and here- says she's British, born here of Greek parents, went to Greece young, came back here for university (Bath) and stayed. She must be in her early 30s so that means she's been living here a good decade or more. I remember she did an Andy Kershaw session of Greek songs about three years ago, though I seem to remember it also included a British trad song too, maybe Black Is The Colour, and then the very well promoted Froots tours. Though as I said above, she seemed to vanish after that, maybe back to Greece then? Hopefully all will be clear after Sunday.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 02:24 PM

I only became aware of her three years ago at most, but I don't think she is quite that old, Folknacious - you may be confusing her with Athina Terzis, a fiddler. In any case, her potted biog garnered from interviews is:

Born in London, but her family moved back to Greece (Thessaloniki, where I come from myself!) when she was still young (pre-teen, I believe). She grew up there and then came to London to study Business Management (age 18 presumably). Went to New York briefly, then back to London where she studied Jazz and classical singing.

"Breathe with me", released last year, is her first album.

Interestingly, in her interviews she quotes Hadjidakis as her main influence, so I wasn't a million miles away with my guess (but then his style was so characteristic, it's hard to miss).

I'll miss her programme on Sunday, myself, as I'll still be at the Crediton festival. But I would certai9nly like to read your views - and others' - from it.

She is young, good looking, has a decent voice, but more than that, she is a "kardasina" (sister) from Thessaloniki - so power to her!

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 02:54 PM

She's may not look it but she's 30, unless big brother lies. There's nothing like a quiet day at work (hence the time to waste Googling). A simple search on 192.com - which is completely public - lists Athena Andreadis, 30, singer and director of Embraceable Records, living just off the Kings Road in Chelsea (she must be quite well off too then!) It's amazing how easy it is to find public info on people these days if you know what town they live in. Have you ever checked on yourself?

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 03:09 PM

No, I haven't - I have little to hide, my 37 years is all...
(and the rest!)
That's her, in any case. Kings Road in Chelsea must be a proper folkie den! The Sloane Folk Club must be heaving.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 10:36 AM

Somehow, thinking about this, I can see that if they wanted somebody as a contrast to the other programme subjects then a Kings Road company director is fairly unlikely to be talking about miners and lifeboat men as have the previous two! Still, some background from another culture will be interesting - I've not heard this Hadjidakis you mentioned but his
Wikepedia entry makes me want to hear more. Sounds like we could use a few (more) of those in English culture.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:45 AM

I'm on Athenas mailing list and received this today

.....

Dear Friends,

The time has finally come! I am so excited that the My Music documentary I've been talking about for so long, is FINALLY going to be on TV this Sunday, Channel 5, at 11.00. Please tune in and join me on my exciting journey through the Greek countryside and my favourite beach, a glimpse into my UK touring with a show at St Ives and backstage footage, and my live performances in the fabtastic Olympic Studios in London!

You will see lots of familiar faces - Tom, Werner, Ben - and a few special guests like the great Geoff Martyn who flew in for a surprise appearance on Shades Of Grey, and joined us on Pretty Things as well - and Ben Trigg with his exquisite cello playing!

For those of you who aren't UK based, you can get a 6 minute taste of the documentary on You Tube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3bL89IiSO0. Hopefully the whole documentary will be available for all of you to see soon. Will let you know when I know more!

Don't forget that the new version of Breathe With Me is out now, with 2 new songs This Life and For This Love Affair (avaliable from iTunes, Amazon UK, HMV and Play) - and that there are still a few tickets left for the Pigalle Show in London on April 29th ( www.seetickets.com or tel: [phone]).

I will have some exciting news soon about more dates and some special shows in Greece - stay tuned.

And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the documentary.

PEACE!

Athena

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 09:45 AM

A lot of familiar faces, Tom, Werner, Ben and the great Geoff Martin, familiar to who ?

I think I'll have to watch it just to find out.

eric

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: mattkeen
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:53 AM

I think it said this bit refers to eric the red on her web site........


Or it might have referred to her and her fans

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST,Tonia
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 05:29 PM

Bump to remind you My Music is on at 11 in the morning.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 07:44 AM

A little disappointing, this one, all icing and not much cake. I expected more background colour after the standard set by the previous weeks. I quite like some aspects of her writing on her CD so was quite surprised that the programme concentrated on her more easy listening songs and not those with more depth, and hardly any Greek. Roll on Eliza next week.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Western Suze
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 09:59 AM

I have seen her live a couple of times, in fact I was one of the select crowd of around 40 i.i.r.c. at the St Ives festival concert in the film. I adored her the time that I saw her before do a packed gig in Basingstoke around two years back, with less musician's, as she seemed more connected with the songs and the audience, mind you St Ives must have been a bit disappointing for her with the low turnout. After seeing this film it looks like shes being groomed for something a long way away from how I saw her the first time which I felt was a lot more organic, genuine and filled my heart. Now its a glamourised, airbrushed image and from her news quoted above shes playing posh West End supper clubs instead of arts centres and WOMAD. That is a pity but can we blame any artist's for going where the money is instead of slogging round the scene she was in before?

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: r.padgett
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 02:40 PM

Well I like it and enjoyed the background the music and musicianship with the Greek background etc

Thanks for the information too George

Ray

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 03:09 PM

Ian Anderson of Froots says on his MySpace page that he:

"generally co-ordinated the careers of artists including Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyateh in the '80s, Tarika in the '90s and UK-based Greek singer and songwriter Athena from 2005 to 2007."

Seems dodgy that he should give her high-profile articles in a magazine he edits, when he is her manager. But maybe he has mechanisms in place to ensure objectivity. In any case, it explains her becoming suddenly well-known on the folk scene.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST,Ian Anderson
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 04:58 PM

Quote from "Nerd"

----
Ian Anderson of Froots says on his MySpace page that he:

"generally co-ordinated the careers of artists including Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyateh in the '80s, Tarika in the '90s and UK-based Greek singer and songwriter Athena from 2005 to 2007."

Seems dodgy that he should give her high-profile articles in a magazine he edits, when he is her manager. But maybe he has mechanisms in place to ensure objectivity. In any case, it explains her becoming suddenly well-known on the folk scene.
----

Just to put the record straight: I was never Athena's manager, she was self-managed until last year. What I did was help her as a friend and fan by booking her two tours and tour managing them (a different matter), co-ordinated her two independent record releases for her, and generally helped out, introduced her to people etc. fRoots acted as media sponsor for her first tour in 2006. I worked on that first tour without payment, and it was one of the most artistically fulfilling and successful things I've ever been involved in.

Athena has never had a main feature in fRoots, she's only been in our smaller Root Salad section of shorter pieces, and had the CD reviews to which any artist is entitled. The only thing I wrote myself was a live review well before I started working with her in summer 2005: since then what has appeared has been written by independent writers like Colin Irwin. Our readers also contributed some enthusiastic but unsolicited reviews of dates on her first tour on our message board.

Athena and I stopped working together at the end of her second tour over a year ago and I have had virtually no contact from her since then and had no involvement whatsover in her Channel 5 film, which I didn't see until after it was finished.

I think my "mechanisms to ensure objectivity" are pretty well tested. In the early days of the magazine I sent the debut album by my then partner Maggie Holland out to a reviewer and printed the bad review he bravely submitted. When I was looking after Madagascar's Tarika in the 90s, they'd had 2 or 3 No.1 albums on the world music charts in Europe and the USA before I felt comfortable with having them featured in fRoots (something any other band in that situation would have had before), and then I handed complete editorial control over the feature to my assistant.

It's quite difficult when you wear a number of hats, and everything you undertake is because you're a genuine enthusiast for it. I feel comfortable that on the whole I've generally got it right, as I know people would soon jump up and scream if I didn't.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 07:59 PM

Thanks for your explanation Ian - seems fair enough to me.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Nerd
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 01:40 AM

As to Ian not being her "manager," of course there is no official definition of this term, so if they both say he wasn't her manager, then he wasn't. But someone who books the tours, acts as tour manager, co-ordinates the album releases, and does much of the pr (eg. shoots the photos, shops the band to contacts, and gets CD cuts onto fRoots samplers), is pretty much doing the work of an artist manager, no?

I should point out that it was George who first referred to a "fRoots campaign on [Athena's] behalf," not me. With two cuts on two different fRoots CDs, several of those "smaller" features, fRoots sponsoring her 2006 tour, and her being interviewed and discussed in two of only twenty features to be placed on the fRoots website, this one , and this one, I can understand his impression, despite the fact that she's never had a "main" feature.

Actually, anyone could be forgiven for thinking there was a full-fledged pr campaign. In that last article, for example, the producer of the Doc we're talking about says that he'd never have heard of Athena except for all the great coverage in fRoots, which is essentially the only reason he gives for picking her: "we were looking at fRoots to work out who the other one should be, to find a face and music that would complement these other artists, and we found Athena...." It seems my observation that all the fRoots coverage "explains her becoming suddenly well-known on the folk scene" was pretty much right on. Again, despite the lack of a "main" feature.

That article, by the way, is from fRoots 298 (this month!) and Ian wrote it. In it, Athena gets more coverage than Seth Lakeman and Kate Rusby combined, and more than Eliza Carthy, too. She is interviewed at some length. So it's not quite true that all the coverage of Athena since 2005 was by other writers--there's been a hefty dose by Ian. And who made the editorial call to focus so much on her? Was it her friend, her fan, her media sponsor, her former (tour) manager, the article's writer, or the magazine's editor-in-chief?

Oops, they're the same bloke!

Seriously, I'm sure no-one doubts Ian's genuine enthusiasm. But when your business and your reputation as a pundit revolve around your enthusiasm, it's no longer the case that you do things purely "because you're a genuine enthusiast for it." You also do things to secure and protect your business and your reputation.

For example, once your business decides to sponsor someone, it's in your best interest for that person to succeed, even after the sponsorship is officially over. This will ensure that others will enter similar relationships with fRoots--"hey, she did it, and look where it got her!"

And once you've introduced someone around the scene, and been a pretty visible champion for them, it wouldn't do your personal reputation as a trend-setter any good if they were to crash and burn.

This is why one's natural tendency to be enthusiastic can easily be helped along by self-interest, when such editorial decisions are afoot. This can even happen unconsciously, which is why sometimes the only thing to do is turn over control to someone else...as Ian says he has.

I appreciate Ian's mentioning those two previous cases in which he was romantically involved with an artist and turned editorial control over to others. I've no reason to believe that the romantic angle has any relevance to the Athena case, but it seems to be the first thing Ian thought of. (Well, you can't blame him...just LOOK at her, will you? As my mother would say, "you should BE so lucky!")

In the end, Ian is quite right that it's difficult when you wear so many hats. I'm sure his mechanisms to ensure objectivity are fine. And his mag's a fun read, too!

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:47 AM

The film did her no justice, she came accross like a lightweight pretentious [ quote, don't think, feel ] pop singer, perhaps that was the fault of the programme makers.

eric

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 04:58 AM

Very fair answer from Ian, and I think your penultimate para a little unnecessary, Nerd, "casting nasturtiums" as it does.

I am guessing here, but I think that my compatriot pitches herself at the pop world anyway, rather than folk or even World Music. I get no feeling of her wanting to carry much of her Greek musical background over (certainly no traditional elements that I can perceive), just enough to make it interesting and different to western ears. Nana Mouskouri's story must be there at the back of Athena's head somewhere - and who would blame her? (Nana too covered several Hadjidakis songs by the way, though I cannot think of any where she had the first recording). Or perhaps she is thinking of Anna Vissi's more recent success in the pop arena (another one who began her career in Greek folk only to be dazzled by the possibility of international stardom, though Anna's hubby and manager is as much to blame as anyone, having also written many of her songs).

Not quite World Music in my view, then - Savina Yiannatou and George Dalaras went well further down that path than Athena seems willing to go. And not folk either, even by my own wide definition of the term: I get no sense of the importance of lyrics (or of the song overall) over the performer, or of any nod to a debt to any kind of tradition (Hadjidakis was mid- to late 20th century).

As I said before, I wish her well; I just wasn't sure of the context in which she was included alongside Eliza and Seth in the C5 series, and because of the timing I am therefore suspicious that it is as a result of marketing efforts on her behalf, just like various celebs turning up on our screens only when they have something to sell.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: Folknacious
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 07:25 PM

Nerd ref "fRoots campaign": I think you are being a bit unfair if you see things in context of other artists, but since you are so full of facts and figures I wonder if you have some insider knowledge. I looked back at my fRoots copies from the past year and I can easily see three newcomer female artists, Devon Sproule, Bella Hardy and Mor Kabasi, who have had bigger spreads (two of them covers Devon & Bella, Kabasi a major feature), top reviews and regular news items. As far as I can tell Anderson/ fRoots don't have business connections with any of them but they got more exposure than Athena did, so maybe you know something different about them? Theres also an African artist Bassekou Kouyate who they put on a cover and seem to have been media tour sponsor for but again I can't see any other connection.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST
Date: 02 May 08 - 09:09 AM

Guardian Review today.

Subject: RE: Athena Doc on Five
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 09:40 PM

I just saw her videos from Pigalle in YouTube. The review is spot on - albeit more polite that it should be.