E.W. Harris is a singer/songwriter who is based in Brooklyn and performs internationally. This interview speaks to the logistics, realities and significance of touring and playing live, both at home and abroad, from a North American perspective. This blog post is based on an email interview with Emma Webster on 29 November 2017, which was part of the UK Live …
Blog Archives
Interview with Razor, Musician, London/Brighton
Razor is a London-based grime artist who performs regularly in London and Brighton. This interview highlights some of the issues for musicians still at a relatively early stage in their career, particularly around artist pay, and about discrimination against certain genres. It is based on a telephone interview with Emma Webster on 15th November 2017. The interview forms part of …
Interview with Gavin Sharp, Chief Executive, Inner City Music (owner/operator of Band on the Wall)
Band on the Wall in Manchester is one of the city’s longest-running music venues. This interview with its Chief Executive highlights some of the difficulties in running a small music venue in 2017 and shows that even Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations are not necessarily immune to the issues posed by city centre development. It also highlights the importance …
Interview with Guto Brychan, Chief Executive, Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach is one of longest-running small live music venues in the city. In this blog post the Chief Executive Guto Brychan talks about the history of the venue, its position within Cardiff’s live music ecology, the Save Womanby Street campaign, the ‘Agent of Change’ principle, skills development and funding within the sector, and the importance of developing …
Profile interview with Richard McCallion, Bar Manager, The American Bar, Belfast
The American Bar and its sister pub The Sunflower are small music venues in Belfast. In this profile interview, bar manager Richard McCallion discusses the history of the venues, some of the challenges faced by a new music venue like The American, and a brief account of the problems that The Sunflower has had with property development and noise complaints. …
An interview with Emma Rule, Musicians Against Homelessness
Musicians Against Homelessness is an initiative set up by Emma Rule in 2016 with a twofold aim: to raise money for the homeless and to help young musicians to get gigs and exposure for their music. The following blog post is based on a telephone interview with Emma Webster on 18th October 2017. It is one of a number of …
Making festivals accessible: Chase Park Festival, Gateshead – Alistair McDonald
Chase Park Festival is one of the UK’s most inclusive festivals and is one of very few to have been awarded Gold for accessibility by Attitude Is Everything. This week’s blog post by the festival’s organiser, Alistair McDonald, gives some background to the festival, lays out some ideas for best practice around accessibility, and offers some more general advice to …
Ten things learned at Venues Day 2017 – Emma Webster and Adam Behr
2017 saw the fourth instalment of the (hopefully) now annual Venues Day, which gathered over 300 venues from across the UK in one room. The day was kicked off by an impassioned introductory speech by BBC Radio 1’s Steve Lamacq in which told the assembled venues and promoters that ‘We must never stop telling people how important you are’ and …
Valuing small venues: The Cellar, Oxford – Live Music Exchange team
Anyone following the Live Music Exchange blog will be well aware that the UK has seen an alarming number of small music venue closures over the past decade or so. The latest venue under threat is The Cellar in Oxford, an underground 150-capacity venue which has been a music venue for more than 45 years. The owner, St Michael’s and …
UK Live Music Census begins amidst concern over the threat to gigs from budget tax – UK Live Music Census team
The UK Live Music Census – a Live Music Exchange project – began at noon yesterday, on Thursday 9th March. The first strand to the data collection exercise – snapshot censuses in Glasgow, Newcastle, Oxford, Leeds, Brighton and Southampton – finished today at 12 noon. Volunteers have been out and about trying to get to every live music event in …