One of our partners for the Knowledge Transfer Fellowship project is Moseley-based Reggae Collective, Friendly Fire Music. Producer, composer, DJ and guitarist Robin Giorno leads a multi-disciplinary group of Birmingham musicians, DJs and vocalists, organises public events and, recently formed a record label to release some of the musical output of the group.
The first release is the Chunky Riddim 12″ – featuring a single backing track with three different interpretations and treatments by different vocalists, as well as a straight instrumental.
In consulting with Robin, it became apparent that one of the biggest problems facing the collective – and particularly when it comes to releasing vinyl – is that of traditional publicity routes for independent music. And in this case, the problem is more pronounced than in many other areas of independent popular music.
In particular, the problem is that there is no specialist reggae publication in the UK – and very little coverage of British reggae in the international publications. Robin explained that without coverage of British reggae in media, promotion of British reggae releases is next to impossible. There’s no review process, no feature articles, no gateway to other media and no unifying outlet to act as a taste leader in the scene.
Pointing to the vibrancy of the UK reggae scene, the single page coverage that British music receives in German and French reggae magazines and the fact that viable European reggae publications can exist, Robin identified the gap in the market for a specialist reggae magazine focusing on reggae music and culture in the UK. As a significant centre of reggae activity, Birmingham seems well placed to form the hub of such a venture, and as a key organising member of the local scene, Robin seems right to spearhead such a venture.
However, starting music magazines requires capital, and this is a perennial problem for organisations such as Friendly Fire, which operate on a shoestring, primarily for cultural rather than for profit motives.
As an advanced internet user, Robin is very familiar with blogging, so the suggestion we arrived at in thinking through the problem was to start a group blog, featuring the writing of some key members of the British reggae community on topics such as Rastafarian lifestyle, music reviews, features and profiles – much as a magazine would – but in the voice and tone of a collective blog.
Robin arrived at the name BassLion and we discussed image and branding, which can be seen at the fledgling site now live. However, the site has been slow to get off the ground due to some inherent characteristics that seem prevalent in these kinds of ventures.
First, impetus for writing must come from Robin, and as all submissions are the work of volunteers (no matter how influential they may be), writing and posting takes a distant second place to all of the other activities these contributors are committed to in their day to day lives – much of which concerns directly making money from music. While all participants seem to be able to see the long term benefit of such a site, and the indirect impact upon the potential for growing the scene, planting seeds can often take a back seat to activities that will generate income in the here and now.
Second, the site must fit into Robin’s own schedule of activities, and with his ongoing work, he finds it difficult to commit to chasing contributions from people he feels are doing him a favour by writing. In the meantime, record releases aren’t getting promoted, and the more pressing matter of getting income for him and his fellow artists takes priority over taking what he perhaps sees as something of a gamble – that would, at least, require a good deal more time and energy before it bore fruit.
Third, once the site is active, it would not be promotion for the local reggae scene until it was itself promoted within the local reggae scene. In other words, BassLion would act as a free online fanzine – the production and promotion of which would draw energy from other, moneymaking activities.
As it stands, BassLion is sitting idle, but the project is incomplete. Not only are there new ways of publishing and distributing, but there are also new ways of organising workflow to accommodate the increasing complexity and heightened demands on the creative worker, as well as new ways of automatically generating revenue to cover the (relatively small) expenses inherent in these new ways of working.
In our next meeting, we will be exploring these patterns of work and income generation, and applying them to the problem of BassLion, which we have now identified as the site of a three-part fix, rather than the fix in itself:
Infrastructure – Workflow – Sustainability
We’ll post our progress here on the site.
http://www.myspace.com/friendlyfirecamp
http://friendlyfiremusic.com
http://basslion.co.uk