A new, local, ultra-specialised record label, Sam? Quite sure about that?

Record labels are risky ventures... but this one has an impressive ace up its sleeve

So here we are, well into the internet age, with all the upheavals that the web has meant for recorded music. This has been picked over and dissected on this blog several times. 

The general consensus? The web has returned music makers to a state of penury and servitude not known for over a century. Music flows everywhere, regardless of who has the rights to it. This is nothing new: when Mozart staged his own concerts – he was a star pianist, the best in Vienna at the time – people in the audience transcribed every note. His work was available on the street the next day. And Mozart, in turn, was not above lifting other people's ideas without credit. 

So my general reaction, when I hear of a new record label, especially a label that deals with specialist, adventurous and demanding music, at a time when returns from recordings have hit an all time low, is to wish the people behind it well... and then ask if they are quite in their right minds. 

Sam Slater, on tour with TG Collective

Sam Slater, of TG collective and Stoney Lane, was remarkably cheerful when I threw this question at him.

"I think it's a natural progression for the scene here, almost what the area needs, in the genres that we're working in: Jazz, Classical and various 'World'-related music.  If you look at several major cities around the country: Manchester have one or two artist-led jazz-based labels that have done really well, and really pushed some of their artists internationally; Edition Records grew out of Cardiff and has a great vibe and quality of output; in London there's two or three...... "

...which doesn't surprise me. I'm not disputing the range of talent that you can draw on. We know that there's brilliant talent in the Midlands. The question I really need to ask you is – can this enterprise wash its face? It has to be daunting.

"Absolutely! But not so much daunting as exciting - we've been successful in releasing TG Collective recordings in the past, so I think when the music and personalities are interesting enough, the live side of things is original, dynamic and varied, and the promotion intelligent, people will still listen and buy an awful lot of music. Just that now it is consumed and sold over many more types of media and formats, and you have to be on top of them all, consistently.  Everything has to be of a very high quality, so the music, production, artwork and physical product of everything we release will be just that!  Silly as it sounds, 'success' will not necessarily be solely about financial gain, as a label or as an artist - if it helps to push careers, new artistic directions, opportunities and projects, great happenings, more national and international prominence for the musicians and scene here, and not losing much money in the process, then we're on the right track."

So Sam's not daunted. The label has sprung from the fact that there are maybe half a dozen people thinking of releasing, or ready to release, albums in the region. Kindred souls, ready to go. So why not create a focal point for all this?. 

"There's us – TG Collective, Percy Pursglove who has a fantastic project, there's Lluis Mather with an album done and ready; there's the Mike Fletcher Trio who are putting an album out in January. Chris Mapp's Gambol has recorded too."

"What happens in the Jazz world is – you release an album, you don't really tell anybody, you're a little bit embarrassed. You've made some wonderful music, and you occasionally sell a copy or two for whatever somebody will give you at a gig, in a pub, twice a year.... "

Sam's got a point. Musicians are not necessarily the best at self-promotion. The more involved, the more demanding the music, the more business issues can retreat to the background – often with disastrous long-term financial consequences. 

Jazz record labels have never existed as serious money-making enterprises – but they can be very effective career platforms and reputation-builders. Blue Note, which is celebrating 75 years of often precarious, hand to mouth existence, helped dozens of great musos get stated: Jimmy Smith, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Miles Davis... the list goes on for pages. But it's worth noting, too, that in their early days, before they were absorbed into a conglomerate, that their sessions were recorded live, improvised, and straight to stereo: one take stuff, with no corrections. And that's about as cheap as you can make it when recording Jazz. 

That sort of approach isn't how Stoney Lane will do things in the 21st century. 

"It's more of a collective support thing for everyone on the label. We're all doing this, so let's use this to point to the collective talent here."

You guys can take months, years to get the result you want. Are we talking about Stoney Lane picking up on finished works, acting as a distributor rather than a commissioning label?

"Initially, mostly yes, although the time it takes to record will really vary depending on the band, orchestration, complexity and their ideas for the vibe of the recording. We've got no serious money, as is always the way.  Most of the projects are recorded. Mike's had already been recorded. Lluis – I think he did a couple of days live studio recording, and a live performance recording with that band, and Chris did something similar.  So in some shape or form, all of the albums have been funded – self-funded in many cases; a bit of sponsorship and artist grant support here and there.." 

So far so good. But that doesn't allow for really big, ambitious projects. Listen to this early sketch of an extraordinary work from Percy Pursglove. I think it is amazing, fresh and ambitious. You can find it on the Stoney Lane Soundcloud page:

"When I first heard this, I found it really, really exciting. But that's a big, big project of you want to do it right. The album we will hopefully do, if ECM doesn't pick it up first, which would be wonderful, by the way... will be one from Percy Pursglove. He came to the end of a fellowship project which produced a piece, about a month ago, called 'Far Reaching Dreams Of Mortal Souls'... which was pretty heavy." 

I think it's breathtaking; absolutely wonderful. I wouldn't call it Jazz, though.

"No! This the exciting thing that I like about the label. I'm not shy to have it as a Jazz-based label, because that's what's here. But in time it would be great to branch out. Percy's is a mix of jazz and classical contemporary composition. It's composed for a choir and a seven or eight piece jazz band with space for improvisation within the work. It's all written around famous speeches and quotations from historical figures. We've got a nice live recording, but that's the first outing of the work. They had one day to rehearse it. The reviews are wonderful."

If that's a first recording, then the piece is very likely going to evolve and shake down.

"Probably, But now we've got the small tasks of raising funds to record it properly. With that many people and that level of musician involved, we're talking a fair amount to record it." 

Ouch, You'll have to bring in a lot of kit – a decent digital desk, a lot of mics, and a seriously good engineer. And you'll need a place with great acoustics, to house maybe forty or fifty musicians and singers. I can see why money is an issue. 

"We may have the venue, and we have the engineer. The guy who recorded the last TG Collective CD – Alejandro Merola – he's done a lot of work with us already. He recorded Percy live, and his attention to detail is way above and beyond." 

So it's really down to finance

"Yes. We're looking at a mixture of crowdfunding, and maybe grant bodies. Three or four different pots of funds."

The label has grown from the existing Stoney Lane operation. TG Collective's last album, 'Release The Penguins' came out on a Stoney Lane 'label' because it made sense. But now it's rather more ambitious. Distribution is sorted; promotion, where funds allow, is in place. But the big ambitious project is Percy Pursglove's. That's at least a year away, but what a goal to shoot for! I wish them all the success in the world. 

And if it does pay off, they there's a new Birmingham focal point for some very adventurous music-making.

Links
Stoney Lane Records website

The roster
TG Collective
Lluis Mather  Chris Mapp  Mike Fletcher
Percy Pursglove

See more posts on music business and infrastructure on Radio To Go

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So where are we? A conversation with Jazz enablers and new generation players.

OK, go ahead - you define Jazz for me, because I don't know where to begin. 

Defined or not, it’s one of those areas marked by love for musicianship, experimentation, willfulness, and avoidance of genre definition. Fashionable? Hell, no, but that’s never a bad thing. And, from it, a steady flow of new genres seems to emerge – also never a bad thing.

It's not surprising that 50s Jazz was so tightly bound up with 50s existentialism: both are centred on the individual and the moment. And like too many other music areas, Jazz is a place where pigeonholing, snobbery and tribalism can seriously taint the music-making process.

And it seems to be heavily freighted with assumptions and contradictions. At one end of the spectrum, it's seen as safe, just arty and just nicely experimental enough for countless cosy festivals each year. It's also a cute label for record companies to bolt on to their offerings to give them more credibility.. At the other end, it's full of explosive, passionate and uncompromising music that simply isn't going to wait for you to catch up. 

OxjamBrum: not just a festival; it's a boot camp

Logotastic Lyle and Nic...

What, exactly, is a Music Festival these days? The term has become somewhat... stretched. From this year’s rain-swept wellies-and-mud rural affairs, to one-day events like Simmer Down and Reggae City, through to Birmingham City Council’s Arts Fest - all of these are termed 'festivals'. 

When you organise a festival, you take on a lot. It’s an enormous amount of work. For this post, OxjamBrum  Takeover Managers for 2012, Nic Toms and Lyle Bignon, in between compering and cajoling at a pre-festival fundraiser and artist showcase in Sutton Coldfield, very generously walked me through exactly why they got involved in such a back-breaking activity, and, interestingly, hint at where this all might lead in the future.   

Look, Scott Matthews! He's playing...

Many festivals have themes; some have agendas. Some (Shambala, Flyover Show) are overtly idealistic; others are there to promote or celebrate some institutional corporate thing – or to make a bit of money, or at least to break even, in as pleasant a way possible. Too many are simply part of the well-oiled entertainment industry, set up to relieve attendee / victims of as much money as possible as efficiently as possible. After all, in terms of exploiting a market, what could be better than to drag your audience out to some remote location miles from anywhere, corrall them, and then charge them inflated prices for food, showers and warmth?

and so are Bluebeat Arkestra

Festivals rely a lot on perception and image. Glastonbury has long been the granddaddy, basking in extensive media coverage and luvvy attendees. In reaction, boutique festivals offer a totally different vibe. And as a further reaction, the one-off, pop-up, alternative alternative festival has emerged as well. 

It's instructive to look at OxjamBrum Takeover 2012, a one-day multi-venue music festival. The 2012 festival, one of many such localised events organised for Oxfam each year, showcases local talent. 

So in my book, we're in positive territory already. Compared with Birmingham Council’s ArtsFest, it's tiny: twelve hours of gigs, performances, sessions and discussions in a handful of mainly independent music venues, for which you will pay a nominal admission fee. But tiny or not, Oxjam Brum punches considerably above its weight with an ability to attract credible local star names and assemble coherent line-ups. That counts for a lot, especially among the participating musicians.

Dan Whitehouse is popping up too...

The event is run by a team of relentlessly passionate, enthusiastic and engaging volunteers, with organisational support from Oxfam. Oxfam has come a a long way from the 70s brown and beige institution many of us still imagine it to be. OxjamBrum is deliberately pitched at a more diverse and mixed audience.  

Nic Toms: "It’s not by accident. People at Oxfam have researched and built a model that different teams across the country can pick up. The idea is to take a multi-venue event, before ‘Oxfamming’ it."  

So were Oxfam aware of the image issue? 

Nic: "Yes. But I would also say that Oxfam has changed too. They do other things: there’s a big country-wide festival stewarding initiative, for example. "

Lyle: "The model that Oxfam has created and shared still gives us lots of flexibility room. We can take that model and shape it."

Nic and Lyle met at Flyover Festival in Hockley, Birmingham, in 2009; both were volunteers. Lyle did PR for the 2009 Takeover while Nic was involved across the entire event. Now they’re joint managers. In addition to Flyover, Nic had also worked for Moseley Folk. 

Nic: "I thought there was a gap in the market - Birmingham didn’t have a city centre based multi-venue music festival with local artists. We’d had Gigbeth, but I wanted to see something in the city centre. And Oxjam gave me the model to do it. They gave me some training, some organisational back-up…and a good reason to do it."  

... the Dhol Blasters play as well...

It’s pretty obvious to me that Nic and Lyle are driven, first and foremost, by the wish to see a decent local music festival running in the city. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to do good by Oxfam as well; they’re extremely grateful for the organisational support. They're by no means the only people working hard to set up music events with more than a dash of idealism in the city, and I’ll be returning to this in future posts. But along with the passion and, let’s be fair, the downright fun that you can have with such an event, there is a hefty fundraising target to be met. 

Lyle: "Can we mention this? Yes, I think we can. Last year, the Oxjam team raised £6,000. This year, our target is £10,000. "

But you can’t just be doing this on your own... the two of you and a few pals?

  Nic: "No. We are collaborating with a range of promoters. We try to work with as many people as possible on the Birmingham music scene.  

...and watch out for these guys too....

So having set out your stall, the next step was to chase artists? 

Lyle and  Nic together: "Mmmmm… no!"  

Lyle: "It’s more about vision. Nic and I had to agree on some fundamentals from the outset. We wanted to represent more of the diversity in the city."

Nic: "Back in 2009 myself and the then team were mainly focused on getting a festival of this type off the ground.  We started by approaching indie and guitar based bands we liked, and Brum has lots of great ones.  Perhaps we had to stay close to that genre in order for it to work.  A lot of credit for our first festival must go to JP White (Victories at Sea, This is Tomorrow) because without his production and programming foundations we wouldn’t have been able to grow or develop in future years. OxjamBrum is now four, and this year’s focus is to represent Birmingham’s demographic and ensure the music is more diverse.  But yes, of course there will still be indie bands and guitars!" 

Not forgetting Paul Murphy...

"The next thing was getting a good team on board. Oxjam suggest teams recruit for three coordinators covering marketing, fundraising and production. Recruiting is really difficult, getting the right people in place, and asking the team to do it for no money, in their spare time – we’re asking a lot. We spend a lot of time together, and as the festival date approaches, we’re asking them for more and more. " 

Lyle: "Then it was picking dates and venues. We wanted more venues, so we needed to sort dates early. We didn’t want to clash with existing festivals like Supersonic, BASS Festival, Moseley Folk, Mostly Jazz, Artsfest and the like." 

Dates fixed, team in place… you’ve also added some seminars and industry discussions. What was the thinking? 

Lyle: "I wanted to give it more of a festival ‘feel’. One of the driving factors is supporting young and emerging talent. As well as having gigs, it’s a nice addition for a new young musician to be able to get some advice, where there’s more to it than standing in front of an act and seeing what they do."

You are assembling a unique skillset in your team. In making this huge effort, there is now a team. What happens when’s it all over? Are you just going to melt away, like the Olympic games makers?. 

Lyle: "We need to see how good we’ve been – for Oxfam, for our team, for the musicians." 

Then it’s a case of seeing what’s gone well, and what could be built on? 

Nic: "Are you saying there’s a niche, Robin?" 

Lyle: "I don’t mind stating that Birmingham is in need of a big music industry festival that matches The Great Escape, Sound City, Unconvention, In The City, etc – one that brings in fans, professionals and artists alike, gives the music community here a voice, a chance to share and showcase to the region, the country and even internationally’ "

Finally – repertoire….?

Lyle: "To broaden the festival's reach, we worked with more people: Birmingham Zinefest, Sugarfoot Stomp, Eye Candy, Speech Fewapy, Brum Town, Louisden, Secret Walls… This is Tomorrow, Brum Notes, Jazzlines, Eatgood. Maybe 20% came to us, and the other 80% we went out to.  We wanted to spread the range.  And the decisions on the acts were made by the whole team."

It’s fair to say Nic, Lyle and team are about to enter the most all consuming phase of the festival, and I am ever so slightly jealous.  From where I’m sitting – as  someone who will happily spend the day bouncing around the various venues to try and catch as much as possible, and who will contribute to one of the media seminars – the organisers and team are living it and loving it. 

But it’s also hugely encouraging to see new blood channel the ideas that that Clare Edwards put into the Birmingham mix with Gigbeth, to put something purely idealistic together that could grow into one of the most positive parts of the city’s music calendar, and to raise a bit of serious money. 

And where is it going in the end? We don't know yet, but I'm optimistic. This sort of thing works best when you play the long game. 

OxjamBrum website and Facebook page
Sample some of the music at the OxjamBrum 2012 Soundcloud group