The ‘Billy Nomates’ Debacle: A paradigm of the challenges faced by working-class women in modern music
If you strip away the flagrant misogynic abuse, then the bulk of objective criticism that Billy Nomates faced following her Glastonbury Festival performance was related to her use of a backing track. There is a distinctly cruel irony to that, considering that Tor Maries initially got her stage name after she took to a local spotlight alone for her first gig, and an audience member hurled out the heckle, “Billy no mates!”
To understand how we have now arrived at the point that online abuse has prompted Maries to consider her place in music and whether she should step under the spotlight ever again, we need to take a look at her journey through the music industry. The 33-year-old grew up in Leicester and played in several bands in her younger days. These acts sadly failed to make a dent in the scene, largely devoid of any outside support.
So, with very little income available to unsigned musicians, she, like many of her generation, decided to give up the arts. Then she fatefully attended a Sleaford Mods gig where their simple backing track set-up inspired her towards the conclusion that she might actually be able to make it from grassroots beginnings. She realised that amid these trying times, on nothing but her own steam, she may well be able to make it as a performer.
Now, Maries has two acclaimed studio albums to her name, and – contrary to how the internet crowd may have reacted – a very well-received performance at Glastonbury under her belt to boot. This is a highly creditable feat by anyone’s standards. The fact that she is also a multi-instrumentalist and producer, who largely makes her music from start to finish in a solo capacity, is also praiseworthy by any measure; in fact, I’m sure that many of the people delivering the abuse might cower when faced with that indictment of her skill.
However, this all went amiss for a few moments when her performance was broadcast, and the internet’s fast-paced knee-jerk kicked in. Online, we are forced to pass instant judgement, and a woman having the nerve to take to the stage alone is sadly fodder for all kinds of pelters from the unthinking flashflood of instant opinions. From the ground level, you are greeted with the artistry of her act. The collectivism of the crowd breeds a sense of empathy and goodwill that is sadly lost amid cynical online individualism.
From the more considerable viewpoint of the Park Stage, you are able to identify Maries live act as one that artfully embodies a paradigm of our time. Austerity is rampant, and in some ways, it is more apparent in the music industry than most. So, with limited funds available, Maries has not only dug deep into the reserves of her burgeoning talent to become the ultimate DIY star with Billy Nomates but also incorporated this into her act in a brilliant meta flourish. She is a woman out there alone, up against it, and politically skewering the times while basking in the upbeat of music.
Her act makes a lot of solid points beyond the lyrics. Quite a lot of artists these days simply can’t afford to put on a full band, so they rely on the technology around them – technology that is thoroughly ingrained in all levels of music, including the highest stages of live performance – to put on a show. Hundreds of artists are doing this – one of the best shows I have seen this year was H. Hawkline support Aldous Harding, and Hawkline himself used a humble tape alongside him and his guitar, and not a grumble was heard in the crowd.
However, it seems obvious that Maries caught the brunt of misguided backlash that paid no consideration to the current plight of musicians, not just because she is a female, but because has the temerity to be a bold and daring female… and on a Glastonbury stage at that.
Furthermore, the final fatal misassumption by those cruelly levelling abuse is that surely an act playing Glastonbury has enough funds for a lavish stage show, if not a band. That is not the case. And that is what makes Maries representative approach so artful. It would even miss the point of her performative embodiment of the times entirely if she did have a band. Thus, while the fallout might have highlighted the sorry problem of online trolling, hopefully, in time, it will also ironically elucidate the triumph of her work. And it is on every one of us who empathetically support acts of creativity to back her and every other struggling artist in every way we can.
