MDN for Gloucester

Back in September I invited local musicians to participate in a community music project where I would be present every Tuesday (except when doing the sound for Musiclab every month).  I posted the results of Mishak’s freestyle rap a few weeks ago (scroll down to listen).

This week I did sound for Musiclab.  Musiclab is the Guildhall’s open mic night.  It takes place every month and has been going for ages - longer than Wired in fact.

There’s a bunch of musical people that come every month.  This month Tom Browning from the Forest turned up and played some of his songs as did James Watson with his classical guitar and twins Phil and Charlie Campbell, (pianist and guitarist respectively) brought along Shanice to wow everyone with her vocals.

This week I sat there hatching a plan.  I’ve booked the Guildhall cinema for March 2010 and I’m going to search for suitable original songs written by local musicians that can be recorded as demos and circulated amongst a bunch of musicians I’ve been talking with.  We’ll have some chats together and jam a bit before meeting together in March to rehearse together in the cinema using the Guildhall’s soundkit and record it to see what we come up with.

This morning I met with Phil Campbell to discuss ideas and share my idea with him.  He’s up for it and we’re going to work together on getting his song ready for the group.  I’ve also asked Tom, hopefully he’ll give us permission to use one of his songs and participate himself.  Then I’m going to challenge Dan to write a Gloucester song over Christmas for the project.

Whilst I’m here check out the Wired blog at http://wiredgloucester.tumblr.com

On Thursday I attended Music SW in Bristol at the Watershed.

I saw many different folk that the GMF brings me in to contact with at these conference type events including Jo Beal from Youth Music, Shaun Thorner from Saint Grace Music, Dave from Disc Manufacturing Services and Jack Kingslake a Bristol based practitioner all of whom I had good chats with about GMF developments.

Jo is Youth Music’s SW music development officer.  We’re going to put in a bid for open programme money for their February deadline so it was good to be able to run through a few things with her.  She’s planning on bringing Jackie Haigh, the musicleader manager to Gloucester for a workshop for the open programme.  I’ll make sure our network team is at that one.

I met Shaun at the Great Escape.  His son Josh is lead singer in Pinstripe and also has his own project.  A band that he is helping has stepped into play one of our Wired gigs this season and I’m interested to see if Josh can come along too to do a set on the same bill.

Dave at DMS has given us a healthy discount on the Out of The Woods CD that Owen in the forest has been co-ordinating.  We’ll continue to ask for discounts as I encourage the other districts to compile a CD each.

Jack’s watching and waiting on my community music project on tuesday nights.  When we’re ready I’d like to see him visit us to critique and provide some tips as he’s an experienced community musician.

The sessions I attended were interesting and thought provoking, although I don’t generally hear much new stuff as I spend a lot of time following industry developments online.  It was good to be there, although I must confess to getting frustrated by hearing about the progress that is going on in the rest of the SW and not being given an opportunity to share Gloucestershire’s progress.

There’s been quite a bit bubbling under the surface in each district for the GMF’s networkers.  I’ve spoken with Emma, Andrew and Mark today and they are all exceptionally busy.  All three have had some successes recently and I’ll allow them to post their own news up.

Zac’s back online now as well, after a break from the network for a couple of months, and is working hard to establish some projects in Cirencester although there have been council infrastructure changes there which may cause inevitable delays in progress.

As for myself I’ve been getting my head around what could happen in April 2010.  I have to think this far ahead as our network’s funding will end then and it’s my job to co-ordinate funding and projects to push the GMF forward after this time.  Everything I do has an eye on the future, but now is the time for me to do my research, consultation and collating to get appropriate applications in by the end of 2009 so that we have some decisions by April 2010 and hopefully some successes too.

Providing we receive some funding the projects we want to deliver will establish firm partnerships in each district and provide an effective smart way of celebrating and publicising the work of the GMF and all those involved in the grassroots musical community in the county.

Here’s my brief timetable for the rest of the network funded period:

Nov/Dec - 1. write applications and submit  2. finalise website details

Jan/Feb - populate website with network members

Mar - write up reports for network funders

I’ll also be running the Wired programme and working on my Tuesday night community music club and strengthening the GMF’s relationship with the Guildhall in 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.