Category Archives: Music as Culture

Broken Record

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Broken Record

Goldsmith University MA students Nicolle Smith and Stefan Peters have just finished work on a short web-documentary series called Broken Record.

They interviewed me for the series, and there’s a lot of stuff in here that is pertains to my Music As Culture interests and the Deleting Music book as much as it does to the general tone of what I research and discuss as part of the Interactive Cultures team at BCU, and what I usually write about on New Music Strategies.

The series is definitely worth watching, and features some good insight from some interesting people from different parts of the British digital music world – and it’s presented for your entertainment below.

Share and enjoy.

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Let’s have a conversation

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Representatives from the Interactive Cultures team are at IASPM in Liverpool on the week of the 13th to the 17th of July. If you’re going to be there too, please find us and track us down. We’ll be around most of the week, so there’s a good chance you’ll meet Tim, Jez, Dubber (that’s me), Simon and Paul.

And there’s something in particular we want to talk about.

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Outside the Box

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Outside the Box panel
Steve, Amran, Abi, Stef & Caro in a church hall in Salford

This is the audio recording of the panel session I chaired at Un-Convention in Manchester last month. It was about music that falls outside the indie rock band tradition you’d normally expect represented at these sorts of events. I wanted to know if there were any lessons that could be drawn from outside the margins.

Some really amazing and insightful stuff from Stef Lewandowski, Steve Lawson, Amran Ellahi, Abigail Seabrook, and Caroline Churchill.

You can listen to all of the panel sessions at the Un-Convention Soundcloud page.

Un-Convention Salford 2009

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Music as Culture
Nick Webber, Jez Collins, Andrew Dubber, talk music as culture at Un-Convention Salford

We recently attended Un-Convention Salford 2009. Organised by AHRC KTF partner Fat Northener, Un-convention is a not for profit grassroots led music conference for DIY and Independent music makers and companies. Born in 2008 as an alternative to Manchester’s mainstream In The City event, it has already inspired Un-Conventions in Belfast and Swansea and future events in Glasgow, London, Barcelona and Reykjavík. This year’s UK national event in Salford featured a range of key musicians, bands and industry personnel.

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Music As Culture

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An Invitation to discuss at Un-Convention Manchester, 4th – 6th June 2009

Recently an organisation called Featured Artists Coalition was formed to give a lobbying voice to performing artists wishing to protect and advance their rights in the music industries. We find this a positive, admirable and understandable move for musicians.

We believe that most musicians create primarily for artistic and cultural reasons, and that while the commercial benefits are critically important (and we do understand the imperative for music to create economic reward), this is not the purpose of music. Moreover, music as culture is not represented at any policy level and so important decisions are being made without consideration for the cultural aspect of music itself. Continue reading →