February 2012 Music Network Meeting Minutes

The Music Network Meeting Minutes February 28th 2012

Attendance:

Mark Badger – Birmingham Music Network / Iron Man Records

Yanhua Jiang – BCU

Robert Sharl – BIAD / Futurilla

Katheryn Taylor – Singer Songwriter

Matt Gaffiney – Composer and Performer

Ilvars Veinbergs – Photography, Arts Projects

Steve Rubinstein – Musician Songwriter

Christina Sabbagh – Vocalist / BOA

Adrian Kimberlin – Exit Recording

Richard Battye – River Studio (Photograph) The Undercocks (Band)

Robin Valk – Radio To Go

Kirsty Lowrie – Motivated by Music

a number of other people showed up late but I didnt get their details as the conversation was flowing…..

Apologies: None

New points:

Robin Valk:

Campaign For Regional Broadcasting Midlands

“There are many reasons to bemoan the huge loss of broadcasting jobs in the Midlands. The best is simple economics, but a bit of fair play wouldn’t hurt. The Midlands region pays more license fees, but sees less BBC spending, than any other region.” 

Robin talked about thoughts and his latest blog post Regional bias? Perish forbid! How could anyone even think it?
Website to raise awareness http://www.crbmidlands.org.uk

Petition:

Petitioning Lord Patten – BBC: To increase network TV and radio production by the BBC in the Midlands

more info on http://radiotogo.blogspot.co.uk/

Robin also mentioned some West Midlands artists are racking up viewing figures numbers that outstrip viewing figures for established names. Time to take a closer look… West Midlands acts: the YouTube numbers

The Hare and Hounds – UPDATE: This story has not died down. There’s been huge response to this post, and a lot of fresh coverage in local media (BBC WM, the Birmingham Post, Birmingham Mail (with a terrific comment from John Mostyn, which you can also read here), Phil Parkin via Chamberlain Files, along with much Tweeting and Facebookery). There is a huge groundswell of protest against this. And as yet, no statement or explanation has emerged from Birmingham City Council to explain why they suddenly reversed their previous decision.

George Barnett. 19 years old. Unsigned. 120,000 YouTube views in 14 days
A strategy to consider: build your online profile first. Do it systematically. Then think about going on the road. It can work splendidly. So… how to approach it?

Discussion followed…..

Richard Battye:
Talking about playing covers and mixing music with theatre and asked the question about what licence issues need to be considered. A conversation followed and suggestions made of joining PRS and asking them the questions direct.

Steve Rubinstein:
Steve is looking for a publishing deal, he has songs he would like to offer to a publisher, he has a manager. A discussion followed about routes to publishers, approaches, idea of building a relathionship, choosing the most publishers to approach etc.

suggestions included www.taxi.com

conversation followed on peoples experiences trying to find publishing deal etc

mention of site called “tribe of noise” www.tribeofnoise.com
Tribe of Noise is a music community that connects artists, fans and professionals. The music is uploaded by independent artists

Robert Sharl:
Looking at licensing digital content and issues associated with this.

Doing a series of podcasting projects. Essentially looking at finding interesting stories for discussion.

Have a look at www.futurilla.com Project is looking for “interesting stroies” around culture design culture, media, music etc…..

“A couple of weeks ago we quietly added a second horse to the Futurilla stable: The Doom Ray podcast sprang from the brain of recent BIAD alumni Kyle Jobson, who also collaborated with us on the iBooks project. Kyle’s a self-confessed geek and lover of all that geek culture entails, so it was pretty much a no brainier to schedule and record a weekly call in which he could let off steam on games, films and comic book culture, with me acting as a co-host and as someone to bounce ideas off. We began planning in December to try and do it in a way that we could learn from, with the intention of getting better at the business of recording and distributing audio media, and of learning how we might scale and extend it to other topics. In the course of our daily work we come across lots of fascinating, informed and opinionated people, and we’d love to find a platform for more of them. Some of these people get invited into BIAD to give lectures (which we’re generally poor at capturing), some of them become trusted advisers and eventual collaborators. Audio is a fast medium for capturing and disseminating these various conversations and dialogues.

….So, now we’re moving into the next stage by developing a second show. Again, it’s an idea that we’ve been discussing for over a year, and in that time it’s moved from being a written project to an audio one. It’s taken a month to think through what we needed in terms of recording a pilot show, and developing a strategy and timetable. We’re very excited about the topic and the format, and we’ve got some big new things planned for this one. I’ll be sharing more details as the week progresses, both here and on twitter (@sharl).”