AHRC/BBC Project Co-ordinator and Researcher
Matt Grimes is the Degree Leader for Music Industries at the Birmingham School of Media. He is a researcher and the project administrator for the AHRC/BBC Radio Listeners On-line research project. Matt is currently working on his research degree within the Birmingham Centre For Media and Cultural Research where he is investigating British anarcho-punk and the construction of the punk canon.
Matt has worked extensively in the West Midlands as a radio trainer, bringing radio production to marginalised groups such as Romany and Gypsy Travellers, young adults and children in rural areas, community groups, prison inmates and the long term unemployed.
His rationale for the training is using radio, an accessible and affordable media, as a vehicle for raising self-esteem and increasing confidence, giving marginalised people a voice, skills acquisition and development, social and cultural bridge building.
He still works closely with Travellers where he is currently recording Traveller histories for a forthcoming cultural archive.
He has also previously worked as an art technician and consultant, a sound engineer and a member of various bands that never “made it”.
Conference contributions
Chair on “Music in the Digital Age” Panel SWN Festival, Cardiff, Oct 2011
‘Anarcho-punk webzines – transferring symbols of defiance from the print to the digital age?’ Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change: A cross disciplinary symposium London Metropolitan University, September 2011
Chair on “Stream or Sell” panel at Tuned On symposium, Birmingham Symphony Hall April 2011
Music Webzines: Acts of Defiance in a Digital Age?
Shifting Ground II: A Symposium on Music and Publishing. Oxford Brookes University April 2011
Radio for Rehabilitation and Inclusion.
The Radio Conference: A Transnational Forum. Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. Jan 2011
Punk’s Underbelly: De-canonizing histories of punk.
Sights & Sounds: Interrogating the Music Documentary. Salford University; June 2010
Using radio for health promotion in prisons, World Health Organisation International Conference Prison Health Protection 2009, Madrid
Publications:
‘Call it Crass, but ‘There is No Authority But Yourself’: Re-canonising Punk’s Underbelly’ in “Sights and Sounds: Interrogating the Music Documentary” forthcoming publication by Routledge, May 2013
‘Radio as a tool for rehabilitation and social inclusion’ (with S. Stevenson) in ‘Radio & Society: New Thinking for an Old Media’ forthcoming publication Spring 2012
Website: www.mgrimes.co.uk
Linked In profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/
Academia Edu profile: http://bcu.academia.edu/
Email Matt: matt.grimes@bcu.ac.uk