A new music team programmes at Town Hall and Symphony Hall

Before we get to the core of this post... what exactly does the word festival actually mean? 

Artwork courtesy Sound Lounge 21

The ones that get the coverage are full-on affairs featuring tents, endless mud and excess, often with clear intent to relieve you of as much money as possible. But there are also benevolent and idealistic affairs that stretch the imagination, not expressly commercially driven, like Shambala. Then there are the (relatively) sedate non-residential affairs like Moseley Folk or Reggae City. And that’s not counting classical institutions like Three Choirs or Lichfield.

So, a wide range of definitions. But all of them ask you to pay to get in. When you look at free festivals, it’s different rules. Summer freebies covered on this blog (Simmer Down and Ben Drummond’s Sutton Roots festival) are driven differently. Music and doing something good and right go together much more obviously. What the ‘good and right’ might be varies enormously.

That’s what makes this coming weekend’s Sound Lounge 21 Summer Music Festival really rather interesting. It’s not just the music, appetising is it is; it’s also how the thing came together, and why.

UB40’s new album might just be a stroke of commercial genius. But they won't see a penny.

Lots of questions to ask about UB40. Where are they after years of turmoil? What's the real story? Brian Travers gets this a lot. He gives some of the answers.

Brian Travers bearing up under the strain

Seems like the only time the papers write up UB40 these days is to report bad news. They’ve had their fair share: bankruptcies, Ali leaving with harsh words about their financial management, the old Dep studios on Fazeley Street now a car park, and dark stories aplenty circulating round town. 

Recently, The Sun newspaper had a lovely time painting Brian Travers as so hard up that he’s had to play with UB40 cover bands. That little ploy backfired, leading to favourable coverage on 5 Live and WM, and even scoring a mention on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. 

Beautifully timed, though. Next month sees the release of Getting Over The Storm, UB40’s new album, their first in years. If you thought the title might refer to the band’s troubles, you could be right. And the content? Well, it’s Country. I think it works. 

Getting your music on the air - get the basics right and then work up.

UPDATED as of August 2013: Kris Halpin, who kicked off this whole post, has now scored  favourable reactions from Tom Robinson at 6music

It's never easy to get your new stuff on the radio, but you can do a lot to help your chances.

Plenty of barriers to get round, past, through, or over

I got an email from a muso pal, Kris Halpin....  “I’ve got a new direction. I think it’s commercial – certainly it’s my best chance for success to date. And it’s picked up a bit of local airplay. You’re a radio guy – what do I do next?”   Kris's new direction - and it is indeed well-crafted and commercial - can be found later in this post. 

So what do I tell Kris? Does radio work for musos in 2013? It’s not what it was. I hear that with a few exceptions, big radio is over as a tool to sell records. We don’t need radio to get new music; its importance has declined. 

But I think that the right local music programmed the right way can serve local radio very nicely as part of the mix. So maybe that's where to start. But to do this, to use radio, you have to do the legwork: all of it, consistently, all the time, everywhere. 

I talked to a lot of people about this; here’s a distillation. A basic and incomplete recipe for 2013 progress. It may be what you need; it may be entirely wrong. There's some great tips here – like Toy Hearts’ detailed social media strategy tips, quoted verbatim because they are so good. All after the jump. 

2013 Festival Season #2. Simmer Down in Handsworth

A chat with Simmer Down co-ordinator / stage manager and all round go-to person Clare Edwards. 

On Sunday 14^th July, two weeks from today, the fourth Simmer Down party takes place in Handsworth Park, Birmingham. It’s a free festival, and it runs from morning to mid-evening. The event is preented by the Drum Arts Centre, directed by Mukhtar Dar and is co-ordinated and stage-managed by the able and unflappable Clare Edwards. 

Every town needs a Clare Edwards. She swims in shark-infested musicbiz waters, negotiates her way through stifling and complacent bureaucracy, charms officialdom, all this spanning a ridiculously wide musical range of activities, while retaining the respect and affection of her peers. Oh, and did I mention the choirs she sings in and/or manages? Or the major London Classical music activities? Maybe another time...

Dealing with losing that radio gig

As another local broadcast veteran exits, now is a good time to ask: what do I do next?

It’s funny how newspapers never bother with radio unless there’s bad news to report. This week, they’ve been full of stories about the departure from BBC WM of Carl Chinn, after 19 years at the station. 

June has been a bad month, with the closure of Kerrang on local FM – so, lots of lovely radio distress copy for the papers to feed on.

In the meantime, for the radio people affected, there’s the awful matter of learning how to let go of something that you absolutely love.

Tom Martin: letting music breathe at the Tower of Song

A tiny venue in a south Birmingham suburb that does right by its musicians.

Last week’s post on crowd etiquette and the need to keep schtum and give some space for performers kicked up a nice ruckus - you can follow some of what happened in the comments section for that post; Facebook and Twitter also saw action. 

Understandably, most people agreed with me. But some said musicians need to be able to command the stage, and if they do, the audience will play along and make nice. And that’s not a bad point either. However, that only works if you’re that kind of battle-hardened musician. The big question then is: how do you get to that stage in you career? And do you even want to? Some people are all about the song and the music. And everyone has to start somewhere. 

One of the musicians I cited last week holds passionately that musicians need the chance to develop their craft on a live stage, and that the audience absolutely must play its part too.

You there, in the audience. Yes, you. Shut the f@ck up!

When you go to a gig, do you go to listen - or what?

Like the artwork? Want a copy? Email me

I’m at a venue in Birmingham City centre – a pretty unappealing place, all told - standing in the audience with a member of the headlining band; we’re two thirds of the way to the front, by the desk to get the best mix. We're also thoroughly enjoying the support act - it’s a hell of a good band. That’s what support gigs are about: getting yourself in front of a different crowd, and try to reach them. Seems to be working. 

But there’s a problem. It's a couple, ten feet away, who are positively braying. They’re well into each other, and oblivious to the band. The bloke clearly thinks he’s on to a good thing; the girl is REALLY LOUD. What’s onstage zips right over their heads. Their loss; they missed a lovely set. 

My friend's a bit embarrassed. The support act are pals, invited up to play in Brum by her band, the headliners. And the crowd are not exactly treating them with respect. So she feels uncomfortable, and so do I. My attention shifts away from the braying couple, to the rest of the room. There’s a LOT of chat. This is really pissing me off now. 

Ian Danter: National sports radio guy, Birmingham muso, point to make...

Radio person actually makes good, literate, listenable classic rock album shock horror. Cheek! 

It’s not often that someone in his mid-forties, not known for his music, delivers a debut album. It’s unusual when the album turns out to be really rather good. 

More unusual still: this is 2013, and it's a Classic Rock album, and the man who made it is known for spouting about football on national radio, after a career start in Birmingham. But he started out as, and still is, a local muso: Ian Danter. 

Ian is affable and good-natured about all this, despite some carping. Carping? Oh yes. Rock,  like some other music genres, can be stupidly tribal. Me? I’m impressed. He’s done a good job.

The bell tolls for Kerrang Radio

Sad news - another local radio service exits the Midlands. 

On June 3rd 2013, Bauer Media, the second largest UK Radio group, announced that they were taking Kerrang! off their West Midlands FM regional frequency, to replace it from Friday 14th June with the newly acquired Planet Rock, previously only on digital and online. Planet Rock comes from London, so yet more good West Midlands radio people will hit the scrapheap. And it’s bad news for local musicians who lose another outlet sympathetic to their efforts. 

Kerrang will limp on as a youth-positioned voice-tracked rock service on digital, with a much-reduced on-air staff, delivered from London. There is one really interesting angle to all this. Planet Rock had a smaller reach than Kerrang. The station has never made money, and its previous owner unloaded it last year. Planet Rock, if truth be told, had a considerably smaller profile that Bauer was hitherto able to give to Kerrang with cross-platform positioning. 

So why kill the bigger brand? 

Jasper Carrott: a long time ago, in a folk galaxy far far away…

Before Jasper Carrott became an 80s TV fixture, he was an agent, booking folk acts countrywide, working the clubs. Then, a throwaway comedy song you couldn't play on the radio changed it all.

It may seem strange – especially if you saw the Made in Brum tour - to think about Jasper Carrott as part of the Midlands folk scene. But he most definitely was. At the show, I asked Jasper if he would be interested in talking about how he got started, and how it was in the Midlands folk scene of the 70s. 

Jasper was interested, and he graciously reeled off a positive goldmine of stories. We know the old folk club days are long gone. But there is ample compensation to be found with the new breed of 21st century folk musicians, experimenting, collaborating, and taking huge risks to produce inspiring and thrilling new music. But it wouldn't - couldn't - have happened without the people who ran those old clubs getting things rolling in the first place. Jasper's part of that.