Mojo

When I started this journal I said I had planned on this space being used to house many different ideas I had, and to include many different sub-sections, themes and ideas for separate journals I had. This never really happened. A lot of things, such as generally keeping this journal updated, never happened. I never stopped having ideas, but what to do with them just became so much of a headache, as I was never able to quite make a decision, that everything just ended up getting scrapped.

I have decided to try and give this another go. I can't promise frequent posts. I can't even promise that I will manage to keep this thing going knowing I didn't last time, despite having very real intentions to do so. But I'm going to give it a shot, and I'm going to begin with this first post focusing on a theme I mentioned at the beginning - local music.

I'm going to share with you an article I wrote about local music in my area and my experiences with it this year. What exactly I plan on doing with the article I haven't quite yet decided, although I am considering starting a blog so it may end up being included in that. It isn't written for an MB audience so I fully appreciate that a lot of the content may not seem relevant to you, as it is mainly intended for the eyes of local music fans and gig-goers. Hopefully it won't matter too much and I will try, where possible, to share some of the music I am writing about with you. The content of the article could well also be related to your own local music scene, depending on exactly where you live, and the struggles people can face when it comes to promoting it.

At the very least I figure this could serve as a starting point to begin to briefly introduce people to the sights and sounds of the North East of England. Something I plan to go on to expand upon and to cover in much more detail.


Local music here in the North East of England is somewhat hit and miss. Newcastle is a thriving cultural city and presents plenty of opportunities for the local musician. To be honest, the only people that disagree with this must not involve themselves within it to even see it. The city is full of smaller venues, independent venues, and with a steady, decent load of varied musical traffic passing through it. From the beautiful, modern concert halls of The Sage, Gateshead to the 11,000 or so capacity Metro Radio Arena, to the O2 Academy, to that wealth of smaller, independent venues that have helped to mould the cities musical culture - such as The Cluny, The Head of Steam, The Tyne Bar, Heart Attack & Vine, The Star & Shadow Cinema and The Cumberland Arms in Byker to name but a few.

Sunderland, on the other hand, is different. Sunderland has no arena, it has few structures capable of staging a big gig, and for the local musicians of the area offers few venues that are likely to entice a performer away from the hive of activity of the bigger city or, if the performer resides within Sunderland, little to convince that performer that the short, 14 mile trip up the A1 isn't worth their while for what will likely be a bigger, more established venue and a larger, more profitable audience. It seems reasonable to say that for the vast majority of artists, they play in Sunderland because they want to play in Sunderland.

This year I have taken particular notice of what the area has to offer and it certainly hasn't been without promise or without choice for the areas gig-goers. The city is really reaching out to its people and embracing it's musical culture.

On 20th April earlier this year Sunderland celebrated the music within it's city, and Record Store Day, and showcased a quite staggering array of live entertainment in some very interesting settings. Promoting mainly it's independent and budding talents, Sunderland Soundscape made use of its some of its more established, fit for purpose venues, across many of the cities pubs and clubs, and also some of its more unlikely ones including settings such as Pandora, a stage in The Bridges shopping centre, Costa Coffee and Krispy Kreme.


Over the course of the day, which begin at 12pm and ended around 12am, it was possible to go and catch the wonderful, Tori Amos-esque, pianist and singer-songwriter Ani Sandwith at the charismatic bar and real ale house The Ivy House. The timid and talented Rebecca Young aka This Little Bird hidden away in a tiny, intimate setting upstairs in one of the areas more suitable venues Plugged Inn. Indie band Red Letters in arguably the cities only known rocker bar with a solid history of booking live bands, The Borough, whose misfortune as the electric went out, I feel, resulted in actually good fortune as the audience sat on the floor and got intimate for an impromptu unplugged performance as the band played on. The brilliant, Sundays-tingled dream pop band Lets Buy Happiness returned to Sunderland just in time, after a brief jaunt to the US and Canada where they played SXSW, to headline upstairs in PURE and the area saw some of its other more established, successful artists return to support live music in their city, such as The Lake Poets who took time from their schedule to play a rare set in a local tea room and a member of The Futureheads join a day of acoustic sets in Hot Rats, the local record shop.


The ideas that went into creating such an event cannot, in my opinion, be faulted. The idea is brilliant. The idea presents an opportunity for music lovers in the region to come out to support something they feel passionate about, as well as stage an event that is accessible to people of all kinds of musical interest, exposure and taste and may just open some eyes and ears to what Sunderland has to offer.

I also attended another event this last week. Oxjam Takeover is a national fundraising project to bring live music to various cities, showcase that cities talent, and raise money for Oxfam in the process. Another idea I cannot really see a flaw in. After all the venue, PURE, showcased local live music over two stages and four days, from around 4pm onwards for six hours, and were only charging £3 entry. It is, at the very least, a cheap day and night out and offers an alternative to the usual weekend traditions of the cities pubs, clubs and bars.


I attended the Saturday night. Earlier in the day audiences were eased into proceeding with some singer-songwriter sets from Andrew Wilkinson, Ashley Lowes and the aforementioned Ani Sandwith. Bonsai Five and their poppy, reggae-influenced melodies began to inject some adrenaline, and the 60s influenced, typically British indie/britpop of both The White Elephant Band and The Face played to a slowly expanding crowd. While the second stage upstairs began to kick off their day, attempting to appeal to a vastly differing palette of post-grunge and death metal, with Indigo Vertebrae and Eternal Ruler respectively, while Lets Buy Happiness again returned to the city to headline downstairs.


Oxjam, much like Soundscape, was another very good day out and a sign that local promoters are attempting to highlight the cities culture and the musicians living within it as well as reach out to an audience that, lets face it, is probably satisfying it's urges just mere miles up the road where the opportunities to do so are vastly superior.

While this can only be good for the area, there is however one small problem. Not many people are turning out to see it. This Little Bird, as beautiful a voice as she has and as talented a songwriter as she is, played in the tiny, practice room sized space upstairs in The Borough to me and around ten other people. The vast majority of people that attended Oxjam seemed to be performers, and friends, partners and family of the performers and at no point was an invasion of personal space expected of live gigs, going to cause the most claustrophobic among us an issue. That one small problem, and the underlying reasons for it, really just seems to mask far bigger issues beneath it. These events are not well promoted, few people probably even know of their existence, and as a result the shows are criminally under-attended and appear, on the surface, to be poorly organised and publicised.


David Callaghan, local comedian who also attended the Saturday night of Oxjam, took to Twitter and asked "How long do we have to wait to get competent organisation in the North East music scene? So much talent being squandered." and reluctantly, I am forced to agree with him wholeheartedly. He really hit the nail on the head when he also suggested that the same event held in The Cluny in Newcastle would have been packed. An assumption I feel that isn't completely without merit. If promoters in Newcastle can make a go of these kinds of local showcases then why can't Sunderland? What can we learn from them in order to ensure that any Sunderland-based talent willing to continue to play here, rather than completely focus their attention on Newcastle and beyond, are making it worth their while and are being nurtured and exposed to the regions music fans and giggers? Every promoter has to start somewhere when it comes to establishing venues and a reputation for good live music, but I can't help but feel that addressing lack of exposure and publicity has to take top priority.


Sunderland is not comparible to Newcastle. It is not a hive of activity, it continues to take strides forward in promoting its culture, but still has a long way to go to achieve a status of a cultured city. Criticising the flaws within its organisation of these events and the promotion of them should also, in my opinion, be done so carefully. We aren't helping to improve matters by attacking those responsible head on, but should be looking at ways in which in we can help to change things for the better. Sunderland is firmly in Newcastles shadow in many ways, and this is certainly one of them. Without care, nurturing, and the input and involvement of the very people promoters are looking to cater to, this will continue to be the case. Can Sunderland ever step out of that shadow? It seems unlikely at this point in time, but the fact is nobody can know for sure and every revolution has to start somewhere.

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