It’s also me and Steve Lopan’s 30th, and a few other people’s birthday’s so we thought we’d have a joint celebration…
Mar
12
A while back, John Mostyn played me this video, asking if i’d like to try putting a different soundtrack to it. The video i believe is made from a talented bunch in Amsterdam and seems to have been played in a planetarium recently. The alternative soundtrack i’ve added is “Nothing” by Nitin Sawhney, and “All things to all Men”, by The Cinematic Orchestra.
While it was a mission to get the video programs to play and then render correctly, i think the music fits pretty well considering. It’s not a commission piece or anything, but i think it’s being sent to the makers to see what they think, so any comments are welcome
Mar
10
Two very useful blog posts from two very talented people about setting up your own wordpress site.
First is by Stef Lewandowski on how to setup a website in about 4 hours, and second is by Andrew Dubber on how to upgrade it. Both are essential for anyone that is wanting to setup or improve their site (and both use wordpress.)
Mar
9
Heard about this from created in birmingham, and very glad i went.
With at least 4 of the speakers already in my thinking rock to arrange meetings with, i found the seminar very useful, and suitably inspiring. I recorded the day on my binaurul mics, and you can have a listen to the bits i can post at the bottom
I think the most useful and time effective way would be to share my notes in bullet point fashion,so here’s some of the bits i found useful.
- Grab every opportunity, offer something the station wants
- Approaching a company show your wide range of skills
- Offer to do radio station jingles
- Offer a formula/something that is repeatable, instead of reinventing the wheel each time in running a successful business. Make it seem like a new thing to each customer.
- Growth will be in live gigs.
- Radio growth needs fresh ideas. Demonstrate how you are filling a niche. Resonance F.m is a good test bed.
- Skills that should be taught in education - Business Skills, Opportunity to sit in on real life sessions. Charm/Personal Skills, How you are going to get paid - Publishing, Prs, Pamra.
- Creative industry is a service industry
- Get the music managers bible
- Get a good lawyer
- You can’t copyright an idea
- User to make a custom made radio station
- What would i like the future to be and build it
- Offer freely and then when you get to a level, add a members section
- Micropatronage - Users become a patron to keep an idea alive, by donating money
- Bham music network has 3000 members on list
- Have a story
- Check Reverbnation
- Big public events, have a coffee with your local counciller
- Viral marketing. Make a video that people will want to send on.
- If you want someone to have something pretend they cant have it.
- Pretend the music industry doesnt exist - Dont send to record labels. Let it work first.
- Business link and feasiblity fund for creative ideas / businesses.
———-
There was a lot more great information of course, but i tried to pick out some of the relevant bits to me at the moment, (plus i had learnt some of the information from previous courses that had been organised by the panel). Either way i hope the random scribblings are useful or inspiring in some way.
Here’s the audio recordings (unfortunatly the 3rd recording wont come off my mp3 recorder 
Heres the links to the speakers :
Mar
3
Today i got the chance to view the culmination of over 6 months work by Ann Jones (Music/B.A.M) and Pyn Stockman (Dramask/Drama) (with guitar from Daz), directing a performance for Cov Cool kids of over 750 children from 4 schools in coventry @ Warwick Arts Centre….. (and they totally pulled it off!!;)
For legal reasons the picture has to be blurred, but it was all too inspiring not to blog about. I know how hard they’ve worked, and i was privileged to be there to see the final performance go sooo well..Big things ahead for Dramask and Bridge Arts & Music me thinks!
Mar
2
Another great event last night from the Jibbering crew. With highlights coming from Jahman Silla, Bongo Damo & the mighty Freefall Collective.
More pics can be found here
