The Essential List: Toby Jarvis

Toby Jarvis is founder of A-MNEMONIC Music in London. Providing memorable music for brands, advertising and TV.

Lifestyle

• Place of birth: Unglamourous Croydon. At the Mayday Hospital. Aged four, our family moved to West London where I grew up - going to the local comprehensive school. Playing in the local orchestra.. then at 15 forming a band! I was a not-very-good bassist, with a not-very-good voice! Our drummer – older than us and a roofer, had a van. We’d load up and play gigs at colleges and universities. It was very badly paid. There were five of us and sometimes we’d get twenty quid each!

• Vacation: I love Spain, especially up the Sierra Nevada mountains. I love the people and the terrain. During winter the mountains are covered in snow. In the summer vultures and eagles fly overhead. The dry heat, smell of pine and dusty earth is the antithesis of London.

• Pet: In London we’re surrounded by other people’s pets. Especially dogs! I have a psychotic dachshund next door, and endless dog owners in my road who aren’t bothered with dog socialising training.

• Place of work: In Lexington Street Soho. I’ve been working in and around Soho for ages. It’s always going through some kind of change. It’s certainly not as sociable as it was pre covid. And certainly not as much the creative campus I used to think it was.  

• Place of workout: Local gym in Essex Road. I do a push, pull, upper and leg day each week. Having a somewhat obsessive nature, the routine suits me, and I can easily be in the West End or at the studio by 9am ready to go.

• Good Habit: I hope, thanking people for their hospitality or generosity. I think people have forgotten how to do that.

• Bad Habit: Far too many to mention.

• Mode of transport: Lime bikes! These fab zippy electric bikes are the best transport idea in the last few years. You can reserve them from your phone and simply walk to the nearest available bike, scan it and ride off! There seems to be an endless availability of them in London. Usually piled up in a heap on the pavement. I realise they annoy many pedestrians. Even the slightest gust of wind seems to knock them over, so I’m not surprised they are the scourge of the pavements. If you book one after 9pm, the app forces you to do a sobriety test. An animated STOP sign flashes up on your screen. You must click it within a few microseconds. If you fail (as I have done a few times) It assumes you’ve had a drink and locks you out of the app. A great idea, and a great service. They’re incredibly convenient and cheap (ish). Their sonic branding is not brilliant, we’d love to develop it for them!

Culture

• Artist: There are sooo many artists and musicians out there I love. One of my faves from the last couple of years is Tom Mundell who performs under the name Metrik. He’s a London Drum and bass producer but manages to combine a cinematic almost orchestral element to his sound. Very filmic and clever. We’ve just finished working on ‘Mamma Mia! I have A Dream’ for ITV. We had to produce contemporary arrangements of 12 Abba songs. It gave me a new respect for their writing genius.

• Author: Ian M Banks. Sadly, cancer took him in 2013. He had an incredible visual writing imagination. Not usually a huge fan of sci-fi books, but he’s a compelling storyteller. 

• Series: ‘Succession’. Like everyone else I loved this. A perfect example of brilliant writing by Jesse Armstrong. No matter how outrageous the story became, it somehow always had a grain of believable truth.  

• Invention: Google maps is the greatest invention of the 21st century to date. I use it everyday.

• Commercial: Haribo. The one where the adult actors mime to the voices of children playing. It’s such a silly simple idea and executed so well. And makes me laugh every time I see it. Hilarious. Humour is such a great vehicle to convey emotion from a brand.

• Music Video: “Outside” George Michael. Also hilarious. 

• Book: Perfume by Patrick Susskind.

• Obsession: Music, fitness, bass lines.

Food and Drink

• Breakfast: Day starts at 6am. 50g giant porridge oats with water. 50g blueberries, Icelandic yoghourt and a banana. Total: 367 calories. It sets the tone for the day ahead, and will just about keep you going until lunch.

• Working lunch: Mem & Laz – a broadly Turkish restaurant in Theberton St, Islington. Many working (and non-working) lunches there! It’s not exactly Michelin starred, but the atmosphere is friendly and warm. You can sit outside and watch the world go by.

• Dish: In winter - tandoori chicken, pilau rice, sag bhaji and papadums is the perfect comfort food. In summer -Salad Niçoise. You can make it with any fish or steak and sauté potatoes. It’s delish.

• Snack: English cox apples. One a day when in season. In October they have the perfect balance of bitter/sweet. Then it’s Braeburns or Gala. Apples are incredibly good for you, and I think underrated.

• Guilty Pleasure: Cadburys Twirl. One a day. And peanuts. As kids when our parents went to the pub, my brother and I would have to stay in the car outside as they drank. By way of a bribe we had to sit in the car, eat peanuts and drink coke. We made up songs. A healthy taste for peanuts grew from then!

• Booze: Macon Village Muscadet. £6.99 in Sainsburys. People say it’s quite watery - which is why I like it. It doesn’t have that perfumed, Air-Wick type aroma Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc has.

• Not Booze: Diet Coke.

Kit

• Phone: Galaxy. You can smash, drop, crack and throw them and they seem pretty robust, plus they don’t cost a fortune to replace. Plus it has better voice intelligibility than the iPhone.

• Computer: Various – all macs. 

• Headphones: As a long-term sufferer of tinnitus, I was gobsmacked to recently discover ‘bone headphones’. Instead of a tiny speaker which sits in your ear (ouch!!), bone headphones press against your skull, just behind your ear. It works by vibrating the sound directly into your head rather than using sound waves. I believe helicopter pilots use them. They’re brilliant and the sound quality is surprisingly good. Because there is no speaker, you can even wear them swimming. And they won’t give you earache or tinnitus.

• Pen / pencil: I was told as a youngster ‘Whatever you’re creating – all good writing starts with a pencil’. HB with a rubber on the end is most versatile. You can use the rubber plenty of times without it getting too smudgy. If you need to produce it later on, in court say, it can be very helpful.