We’ve been increasingly interested in the idea of ‘Music As Culture’ in the past few months. I’ve presented under that banner at a couple of conferences and events in London and Berlin recently, and Jez has been hard at work developing some projects on that topic.
The central idea is very simple: that most of the discussions and many of the important decisions being made today around popular music, copyright and online participation are from the perspective of music as a primarily commercial enterprise.
In fact, to read the newspapers and blogs, and to attend the music industry conferences, you would be forgiven for thinking that music itself has failed, because it is no longer as profitable as it once was.
But music is not just commerce. It is an important part of our culture, and we’re interested in the ways in which that is manifest – and in particular, the consequences of overlooking that very important point.
So we’ve launched MusicAsCulture.org. It’s a place to bring together projects that highlight this very important point. It’s not an organisation as such, and nor is it a body with a specific political agenda. It’s an umbrella under which we can explore and discuss ideas and issues around popular music, archives, cities, scenes and creativity.
Live, Loud and Local
We’re launching MusicAsCulture.org with a very special project. Here in Birmingham, as with many places elsewhere, heritage music venues are in danger of closure or losing their live music licence because of issues of noise. Areas that were once not residential now have tenants, and the clash between apartment dwellers and local music venues has demanded a response at a policy level.
From the Birmingham Post:
Digbeth Pub The Rainbow Facing Closure After Noise Complaints
And Pete Ashton predicts a riot.
UB40 step in
Brian Travers from the band UB40 approached us to discuss ways in which we might collaborate around this issue – and on November 3rd, the band will play a one-off gig at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth to raise money for a new roof on the building, in an attempt to reduce outside noise.
Brian and the band believe that live, local music is vital to the city and its cultural life. Their performance at the Rainbow serves to draw attention to this issue.
Under the Music As Culture banner, we’re bringing together a group of interested people to help document and communicate this effort, using all of the tools of the digital age, and some old-school ones as well. We believe these conversations and debates are important ones, and it’s gratifying that such an incredibly successful international act such as UB40 are so involved and interested in their local community and the ongoing creative lifeblood of their hometown.
Follow the UB40 Campaign Live, Loud and Local at Music As Culture here – and look for more projects coming soon.
