No wonder British music industry prospects are so poor

They spent a whole day and £2,000 putting one word into a verse, only to remove it the next day

Drummers have not, on the whole, had a good press. In the Beatles, Ringo Starr was the "cute" one, ie not too much upstairs. Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones is of morose expression and few words. Keith Moon of the Who was a maniac. Probably, the best summing up of the status of rock drummers came in the seminal film satire Spinal Tap. The band's drummers died in ever more bizarre circumstances, one exploding into flames on stage. Neither the band nor the audience seemed to mind the change in personnel this necessitated. It was, after all, only the drummer.

But this week we were forced to reassess the drummer's intellectual ability. Nick Crowe, the drummer with Gay Dad (best not to ask), was given six pages in the political magazine Prospect for a thoughtful thesis on the current plight of rock music. Most fascinating were the little financial asides from Crowe, a rare insight into the sums of money that go into developing a pop act. Gay Dad were treated to £200 bottles of red wine, finally signing to London Records in a two-album deal worth nearly half a million pounds. Recording their first album, they spent a whole day and £2,000 putting one word into a verse, only to remove it the following morning.

No wonder it's cheaper to find your pop stars on an ITV talent show. Crowe, who seems to know the business well from the inside, confirms that where the major labels used to drop an act only if there was no impact by the release of the third album, now that figure is one. In-house A&R departments are closing, with indy labels being used as out-of-house A&R departments for the majors. And, while CD sales in Britain are high on the back of Pop Idol, British album market share in the US fell from 32 per cent in 1986 to 0.2 per cent now. Earlier this year there was no British single in the American Billboard Hot 100 for the first time since 1963.

One reason is the reluctance of A&R talent scouts, even those that work in the independent sector, to slog round the pubs and clubs of British cities looking for new bands. Now they wander round New York to capitalise on the vogue for American bands.

Nick Crowe laments this trend; but British bands are not guiltless. Too many refuse to do the promotional slog in the US that paid dividends for Dido and David Gray. Crowe admits that Gay Dad thought it a chore to have dinner with retail sector area managers and refused a request to change the order of songs at their gigs so that retailers could catch the potential hit early, in case they left before the end. Understandable pride, but Gay Dad failed to make it in America.

¿ In an interview on Channel 4 News on Wednesday, Sir Simon Rattle repeated his criticisms of British politicians for failing to support the arts adequately. I think I may know one of the reasons why Sir Simon has such an aversion to politicians when it comes to funding of the arts.

I first met him when he was at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and was engaged in a campaign about cuts to music teaching in schools. It involved him dealing with Kenneth Clarke, then the Conservative Education Secretary and a dab hand at spin-doctoring before the phrase became fashionable. Rattle would wake up to find his campaign suffering in the press, and in no doubt who was to blame. "The man is a street fighter," he told me, clearly shocked. That battle, I'm sure, left its psychological mark.

It was also interesting to hear Sir Simon discuss in his Channel 4 interview how he "wooed" the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic. Were they not suspicious of the first Englishman to lead the world's greatest orchestra? Sir Simon revealed that he was so nervous at their first encounter that he simply started rehearsing a piece with them straight away and didn't talk at all.

When they went off for a coffee break they talked among themselves and apparently decided that they rather liked him. I suspect that this is a tactic that works rather better in Germany than England. Here, musicians appreciate a little conversation with the first rehearsal. In Germany, perhaps, Rattle's instant embrace of the work ethic, to the exclusion even of pleasantries, would have marked him out as a true maestro.

¿ One unguarded remark at the recent Edinburgh Television Festival may yet have repercussions. Dan Chambers, the head of factual programmes at Channel 5, admitted that most of the performers in the reconstruction scenes in the history series Kings and Queens were amateurs, or, as he put it, friends of the crew and production team.

It is a slap in the face for Equity, which is preparing its retaliation. But, on the plus side, it's a great incentive to wannabe actors and actresses. Forget drama school; just hang around the pubs near Channel 5, buy the regulars a drink, and look regal.

d.lister@independent.co.uk