MDN for Gloucester

Andrew and Emma have summarised the half way point nicely.  I’m not so sure I want to do that as there’s too much to talk about and I prepared a report for our funders during the summer.

However I’d like to update for the week.

Yesterday I travelled to Taunton for a Heritage Lottery Fund training day.  The development officer for the Young Roots scheme to which I am interested in applying for soon is keen for our project to be submitted.  I’m aiming for the end of November.  IT was interesting to hear from successful applications with exemplary projects one of which was led by Gloucestershire Archives and included people that I know from my arts networking in the county already like Kate from the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Jake from Bourneside School and Sara who used to work at the Folk Museum in Gloucester.  The day blew out some cobwebs and I’m slightly more focused on how I can make the project work and get it ready for application to this fund.  The difficulty for the GMF is that it’s core focus is music not heritage or young people and it seems that most HLF successful applicants are heritage based or young people focused specifically for the Young Roots scheme, but there obvious points of crossover and it gives the GMF a brilliant opportunity to work with youth and heritage organisations.

The first Wired gig took place on Saturday.  All of the bands were fantastic, we recorded it, photographed it and I’ve even got a review written up by a young journalist too.  I’ll be creating a new blog for Wired tomorrow or next week and mixing down the recordings and getting creative with a short film of the evening as well.

This week coming is half term and that’s why I’m able to write today as I’m not contractually obliged to attend my other job today.  In fact my contract ended on Tuesday and I’ve asked to reduce my days so that I can concentrate my efforts on funding and the website for GMF over the next month or two.  It’s important that the GMF get some funding applications in now as the decision period for these things are often 3-4 months by which time it’ll be near to the end of our funded period.  I’ve got a plan but I’ve got to get more organised to make it work and there’s not enough money to get paid help.  Still I’m cautiously optimistic.

Anyway I’m sure I’ll be writing more next week.

working with young people, but the regular routine of my weekdays is actually helping me to be more productive.  On Wednesday and Friday I have time for this stuff so here’s my list:

funding applications: awards for all (county music “yearbook” idea), HLF (young roots project based on the heritage theme of diversity of language and culture) and cursory glances at the deadlines for Youth Music Open Programme and Youth Opportunities/Capital funding programme and the Community Foundation Grants are also there in my thoughts too

website: I’m going to re-design the look of it so that it’s less funky and more smooth after a few comments put my way.  I talked to Dan the website designer we’ve commissioned and he’s cool to do the extra work and keen for me to do my bit and give him something to work with - I’ve promised him sometime next week so may have to do some work over the weekend on that

admin: it’s incredible how long it takes to pay everyone, chase those up who don’t send me their invoices (Emma!!!!) and sort out dull things like insurance and generally keep tabs on the finances - I do it well and everything’s under control, but it takes too much time and there’s not enough money to put in someone’s pocket to do that for me - oh well…..

what I’ve been neglecting: I have to hold my hands up and say there’s just not enough time to get around to everyone and everything I have in my mind - I figure I increase the chances of GMF getting more money by focusing on the funding stuff for the moment (up to Christmas I reckon) and then with any luck I’ll be able to devote what I want to devote to the ideas and contacts I’ve made over the past 5-6 months doing this.  It’s an experience and I now know that the most important thing is to keep things do-able rather than overloading with work.

the other districts: Cheltenham seems to be v.healthy and Andrew is even more crazy than me with things going on.  Emma’s got the bug with a project and seems to be throwing heart and soul at it which is good - with a bit of luck and support something great will come of it - she’s also got her rock school thing coming up soon.  Zac’s been quiet, but he’s coming back on line at the end of October with some good stuff hopefully - keeping an eye on him at the moment.  Mark’s been supporting a CD compilation project called Out of The Woods - we’ve stumped up some cash to add to that which they’ve scrounged from Nick at Music Industry Services and Ros at Voices and also Dave at DMS has given us a massive discount on CD copying in return for a logo featured on the artwork.

tuesday night music project: this is something I’m doing without funding for fun, but also as a tool for bringing Gloucester musicians together to work collaboratively.  It’s taking place in my Guildhall Wired room where I’ve set up a load of music gear ready for recording and production.  We’ve got Tenzin (from Tibet) coming in to sing next week and urban producers Mikash and Glen are working on some stuff as is Peter and I’ve started to pull in some of the musicians I know to be involved - the project will evolve and when the time is right I may look at funding some of the activity - thing is the project began because I was frustrated with nothing happening because I was waiting for a funding opportunity - then I realised I could mobilise people to get involved without funding and then perhaps some excellent outcomes regardless of funding will follow then we might be in a stronger place to get funding for music’s sake because we’re fulfilling criteria anyway.  You never know!

Getting slowly used to the new routine….

Here’s what I’ve been up to for the last couple of weeks….

Gloucester Moves project - On tuesday evenings I will be spending time in the Wired/GMF office at the Guildhall making music in collaboration with local musicians, songwriters and performers.  We’ve a mixed bunch showing interest including: an artist working with refugees and asylum seekers, a tibetan singer, urban music producer and rapper partnership, a 4 piece young rock band and a couple of singer songwriter guitarists.  The idea is ambitious - to collate and produce a body of original material that reflects the diversity and heritage of Gloucester’s musical community.  There is no deadline or funding (that will hopefully come a little later), but the project may link in with my ideas for the Young Roots heritage project.  At the moment that isn’t seeming viable due to the difficulty of engaging young people directly for consultation - it’s something I will overcome but it’s taking more time than I would like.  The GM project will simply evolve as time goes by and it will be my responsibility to fit the pieces together, facilitate resources and co-ordinate everyone’s efforts

Met with Dean Hill from Exposure Music Awards - in the spirit of collaboration and mutual appreciation for what each of us do with Wired and Exposure we’re thinking of creating a Wired award for the music awards this year - something along the lines of submitting the best 5 bands that have taken part in Wired over the season to the Exposure panel (made up of industry bigwigs).

Wired 2009 - booked all 12 bands for the Oct, Nov and Dec gigs, designed posters and flyers - ordered the printing - sent them to all 42 secondary schools in Glos.

Other snippets of action:

Mark, our GMF networker in the Forest of Dean, has been helping out with a group of bands that gig regularly in Coleford together.  They are wanting to put out a compilation CD.  There is a small amount of money available to help them with their project.  I’ve offered the same level of financial contribution to the other districts in the hope that it will result in a compilation CD or similar for each district by the end of the funded period.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the Cheltenham based Walk The Line festival set up by Stefan Edwards of Kiss My Face.  Go have a look - it’s happening at the end of October.

Last month Michael J Sheehy was recording in the MusicHut with local musician Laurence Ash and a bunch of others.  I’ve heard the results that are likely to be released as an album by his label and they are exceptional and showcase the MusicHut as a great space to record in.

Got back from the Isle of Man yesterday.  Wedding tomorrow followed by time spent (hopefully camping if the weather is good) with our nephew and niece who’ve come over from Germany.

So today I had a day to catch up on emails, facebook and try to do a bit of project work.

Before I went to the Isle of Man I was privileged enough to work a recording session at the MusicHut with Midnight Mile.  Their label istartedthefire have arranged for them to work with a producer who has worked with Steve Winwood at the end of August.  They are to record rhythm section parts with Andrew Lansley at the uni’s studio then go to the producer’s studio to do vocals and embellishments/mixing etc.

They were slightly concerned that they weren’t up to scratch and ready to work with a name producer so I suggested they treat our session like a pre-production demo session, get used to working with the click and get some drum takes down with a view to adding stuff on top later at some point.  If there’s time and we can complete the process before their session with Winwood’s man then they’ll have a map of what is working and what needs attention before they start.

Not sure where this session will go given that the other sessions are on the calendar not to far away but they were very appreciative and were seeking my assurance and advice so that’s nice.  Hopefully we’ll be able to finish off what we’ve started.