Dj Marc Reck Djing Events Tutorials and life in Birmingham

After another inspiring meeting, this time with Ant from Open Advantage, and with the website very much laying itself out and looking exceedingly promising, we headed to the hare and hounds to catch the last two sets at the generally excellent Bohemian Jukebox night run by Ben Calvert

 Above was my good friend Rich who played a magnificent vocal piano set to end the night. (The photo was shot by Ant with his iphone and then uploaded to facebook straight away!)

 Before Rich was a great band i think made up of two bands? The Lazy Lizards & Los Crocodilos

 I bought their cd’s anyway, and recommend you check them out.

 Ben’s is quite good too

After a sleepless night from the heat and noise, i was suitably refreshed by a great meeting with Dubber as part of the AHRC Knowledge Transfer Partnership Fellowship. We discussed the forthcoming website idea, and after a while of getting all the ideas down, (or out in my case!), we had a great plan of action, ready for the build with Ant and open advantage.

Dubber also kindly offered to write the page to summarise and send to Screen Wm, as part of the 4IP, and Cultural Olympiad. There were big plans for the idea back and now even they seem realistic, and in turn have sparked off  a whole new strand of activity for Mr Elephant ideas, and its ethos. More news as it happend, but if it comes off, it will be a dream of mine, and a direction of Pyn’s that has been a long time coming.

Tonight i’m djing for Night Times editor Ric and Una’s wedding at chi bar. It’ll be quite a different bag of records, being a wedding crowd, so hoping it will go down well. Ric will be hosting the warehouse on the forthcoming Mr Elephant on the Beach party we got lined up on Sat sep 20th 2008, as a launch for his new Night Times events as he has a similar ethos of wanting to promote local promotors.

Its worked out really well, as we will be representing the two sides of the underground with a great big party. More news on that soon too, but i can tell you that the rainbow beach is absolutely one of the best venues i have seen, and i got chance to see for myself when i was next door djing at my Custom Made residency.

Custom Made was yet another great night, with really good sets from everyone, and that special custom made atmosphere. I got to drop a real mix of music, which thankfully went down a storm, and should pave the way for a nice evening tonight.

Here’s a few pictures from the night, and please put Sep 20th in your diary, as we have got some very special suprises in store.

I relooked at the business plan this week, and thanks to a brief chat with John Mostyn, and Pyn, have been looking into funding applications, through the arts council and lottery big fund, and am noticing that there seems to be quite a lot of support for developing creative practises, bringing them to new audiences, and even integrating social media ideas.! More news on that later but for now, here’s a couple of events for the sunny weekend in brum i definitly recommend to attend.

and i’m booked to play the surfs up festival in newquay, playing 3-4am friday night with Dave Minns in Apply the Breaks room, (but just noticed i’m not on the flyer…Apparently its been an organisational mission)

and tonight you can find Sam Redmore at both the bulls head and the hare and hounds!

Hope you have a great weekend, wherever you be

Last week, our Finished with the War piece seemed to go down real well at New Vibes 2008, and since then i’ve been continuing on my crusade to get all my open loops, ideas and projects into thinking rock… (for which there seem to be literally hundreds!)

Its a good feeling to know that most of the ideas and projects now have next their actions defined, and can now be taken forward without neglecting other projects, (and an equally good feeling to have stopped smoking again!) However some of the ideas and projects are often difficult, (and in some cases impossible), to move forward without the technical know how to make them happen, (or of course the money to pay someone who does!)

This week,  i’ve noticed 3 ideas i’ve been working on for Mr Elephant, spring up online in various almagamations, and while i don’t doubt that the similarities are coincidental, i did start getting a little worried that one of the bigger ideas i’ve been investing a lot of time in, and it kick started me into thinking how i can make it happen with my current resources.

Its a common challenge for anyone “starting up” for want of a better term, as obviously lack of money can often mean you have to do most things yourself, and that normally involves learning and developing new and sometimes quite technical skills to a decent level.

The more you learn, the more ideas, you have, the more ideas you have, the busier you become, the busier you become the less time you have to learn, and quite soon you can find yourself working for days on things that you never expected or even dreamed would be part of the plan, project, or big picture in the first place.

Obviously all that learning has great benefits too, and having many strings to your bow takes you in all sorts of directions, and can offer many opportunities.

Over the years, as a result of all the ideas and projects, I’ve learnt how to make and edit video’s, design and produce flyers, create and manage a variety of websites, organise and promote all manner of events at various levels, write, record, and produce music, evolve pretty much all aspects of djing, host and create workshops, teach and share various levels of knowledge, and have gained a pretty broad understanding of online technologies, (and the wealth of ideas they create!), with even some business and management knowledge along the way.

There are many things however, that you can’t do on your own, and its important to build a strong network, by creating mutually beneficial ideas and opportunities, and obviously good bonds. Thankfully through the events, projects, ideas, and courses, and often of course just life generally, i’m fortunate to have met, worked, learnt, taught and befriended some very talented and lovely people, and together have created stuff that wouldn’t have been possible on our own, and often has produced much better results and mutual benefits, than if it would be have been a “pay and display” type affair.

This said i’ve often been cautious about asking friends and “de network” to get involved, often thinking they might be too busy, that i should just learn/do it myself, and/or sometimes because i’ve been unsure or unclear about the end result, especially with the bigger ideas, and that i should work out the whole picture, and all its steps to completion before involving anyone else.

That waiting for feeling was however, often a product of having so much stuff going on, and not knowing the next action. Now that all is getting into thinking rock, or the Getting Things Done system i’ve been able to see where the projects were at, what i’ve got going on, and then took the plunge so to speak with inviting people i thought may be too busy to collaborate on the things i’d really like to make happen.

And i’m pleased to say that this week, i have found the dj partner i’ve been looking for, (who was also apparently looking for me), the workshop of the world idea is actually going to be built properly using Rails, together with a friend who recently built the livebrum site, and i’ve started three mutually beneficial business ideas to take forward the mr elephant workshops.

This week, i’ve also started training again, which i’ve really missed, i’ve been cooking up some innovative ideas with my favourite vj, and yesterday it was all crowned with receiving my 30th birthday Djembe, hand made, with a sound similar to the very best you can buy, (for a third of the price), and hand carved with the Mr Elephant Presents Logo!.. (And while writing this, i’ve just been offered a residency for the Night Times new event)

So if i could share anything useful from this week i guess my top tips would be, to get organised with the help of getting things done, share the ideas you believe in with people you trust , and who have skills you don’t, and when the time’s right, have a look at stopping smoking, cus it’s really made a difference to me.

I’m going to be blogging the process of my approach to the getting things done idea, as its been quite a long ride with it all, and the relevant or useful bits might help someone else in the same boat.

And on that note, I’m off to prepare some records, and go celebrate Anne-Maries leaving do. (We’re at the Lamp if you want to come down)

So this thursday is the screening of the Finished with the War Piece as part of this years “New Vibes”.  It’s a dance on film piece choreographed by Lucy Nicholls, directed by Liam D’Authereau, with performances by Saffy Setohy, Pippa Lund, and Krista Vuori, and also features my first 12 minute soundtrack.

 This is the first time i’ve been asked to compose a track for a dance on film piece, yet this will be my second outing as part of new vibes, as a dj/vj/dance piece i worked on with Birmingham Dance Collective (originally for our peace not war room at drop beats not bombs) was featured at last years New Vibes.

This has been a really good experience for me, and again i’ve learnt a lot from working in collaboration with some real talented people, in areas that are relatively new to me. I’ve been learning quite a lot from the studio point of view, and seem to be constantly reaching new levels with my music. While i still feel i’ve got a long way to go, i’m pretty excited to be previewing the finished piece of our collective efforts in such a forum, (especially as i didn’t get to see last years, as i was djing at the Anti-World Festival.)

 After looking at over 30 venues, (and having to say goodbye to some real life financial support from New Generation Arts because of it), i am pleased to announce that we have finally found the perfect venue to house, our 3 stages and 80 participants for our forthcoming Project X Presents event, to be held on Saturday September 13th 2008…

First a skate park, …then a warehouse, …. a brief experimental X-Lab:VL to break in Concrete ….where next???

 But we can’t tell you where!!! Apparently licensing law states that no events can be promoted in a venue before the license has been granted and unfortunately in this instance, the license has yet to be granted. So we’ve got to keep our mouths shut, tight! Suffice to say work is currently being carried out in the venue, and we’re set to move in on the 7th September to prepare for the production which is on Saturday 13th September.

Well, aside from needing at least a week setup time for the production of the show, it needs to be somewhere that’s big enough for three stages in the main room, and can accommodate an audience of at least 300 people in there, ideally have at least 2 other rooms, with a suitable smoking area, and of course be somewhere that we can make all the ideas generated by 9 months of planning and meetings happen to maximum effect.

It’s also becoming a bit of a tradition to “break in” new venues before they open fully to the public. As Rich pointed out, what we’ve done in each case, is got involved with a venue as it is becoming a venue. That is, at a time when it’s in the process of development - that “twilight zone” when it has some or all of the facilities we need, but isn’t yet a regular venue.

Before then however our merry band of participants will be continuing to work hard on developing our biggest show to date, with all manner of ideas being put into action to explore and create an unforgettable multi-sensory assault based on the theme of Digital Distopia, inspired by 1984, Bladerunner, and the impending threat of I.D cards.

With our full line up spanning over two rooms, musicians, performers, dancers, DJs, VJs, percussionists, comedians, poets and installations already confirmed and collaborating, Saturday September the 13th 2008, is most definitely a date for the diary, and i for one really hope you can be there to experience it.

was a lovely evening with highlights from Aa’shiq Al Rasul, and its curator Rich Batsford. Here’s a little video of Rich performing one of his latest tracks entitled Chromazone.

This weekend started with the gig at the Hare and Hounds. Giles Peterson was upstairs, and me and Sam Redmore were downstairs. I didnt get any time to check out Giles, as it was going off downstairs, but i bet it was good. Here’s a little bit of the end of my set (before the Aphrodite/Bobby Mcferrin/Al Green/Nitin Sawhney encore)

Its important to mention that the drum n bass only came out for the last 20 minutes btw. Before then from my side, was 3 hours of Quantic Soul Orchestra/Dj Food/Dj Shadow/Coldcut/Kruder and Dorfmeister/Mr Scruff, that kind of thing, alongside classic soul tracks, some underground funk, and of course a few musical numbers.

I got some decent scratching practise in (after Andy the hare sound man, had valiantly sorted a working 1210 from the bulls head out), and Sam kicked us off with his own unique blend of soul, funk, reggae, and personal edits that he is fast becoming known for. Sam’s a thoroughly lovely chap, and a really talented dj. He runs a night at the bulls head called Freestyle, and he edits pretty much all the tracks he plays. Check his myspace for his forthcoming gigs.

The rest of the weekend was spent half with my lovely girlfriend, and half completing the final draft for the Dance on Film Finished With the War piece, ready for shooting on monday. We had to edit a couple of my favourite bits, so that they work with the dancers, but i’m really feeling like this could be the one that also doubles as my first breaks release..There’s a fair bit to do on it, before releasing it into the wild, but its definitely on the right lines.

Oh and tonight i wanted to mention that my good friend Rich Batsford his hosting his fantastic Music by Candelit evening tonight in Moseley. Well worth a visit, and something that seems to be growing with each year.