Irish Music: More Collaboration… More Cowbell…

I don’t know about you, but when I meet up with like minded individuals I come up with more ideas in ten minutes than I do in a week of sitting on my own, thinking. And often when I meet up with people that I’m not necessarily friends with, but still share a common interest such as local music (or just outstanding music), films, comics or whatever…connections are made and the ideas can start to flow.

There’s certainly a creative movement happening, or at least seems to want to happen, in Irish music. Some people have suggested there is no music industry in NI; there’s radio stations, plenty of bands, a couple music magazines, lots of venue promoters, NIMIC events. But as Davy Sims quite rightly points out – no band managers, no-one that really has any clue about sustaining the business side of running a band; the accounts, tax, funding, marketing and so on. “DIY til I die” is a fine slogan, but too many times I see great artists burning themselves out by spending their evenings and weekends marketing themselves (often inexperienced and poorly; spamming social networks and resulting in a negative marketing campaign), when they should be resting, practising or writing.

Penny Distribution has started out on the right foot; we’ve already seen their work put into action by the release of a Tom McShane and Escape Act split 7″ and tour. But we need more people to come out of the woodwork and roll up their sleeves. Everyone from the media in Ireland to the bloggers to the loyal vinyl-buying, gig-going, MP3 downloading music fans, need to be putting the work in. Otherwise, this sucker could go down.

The solution? That’s anyone’s guess, but this might get us started;

• More collaboration: Between artists, radio DJs/podcasters, recording studios, event promoters. Splitting costs, doubling ideas.
• More experimenting: How many clubnights are out there with the same thing evey week? More interesting concepts and exciting events would get the tongues wagging. More bands need to start thinking about whether their are musicians, or indeed artists. If you consider yourself in the latter category, let’s get a little more creative; if it’s sincere and genuine, you will pull it off.
• More unity: Dublin is only a 2 hours drive away from Belfast, and yet you would think we were in different time-zones the way we ignore eachother and look out for our own. More support for visiting bands and cross-border gig-swapping! This isn’t the 1970s anymore, Lonely Planet describes Belfast as an up-and-coming cosmopolitan city so let’s not make them out to be liars.
• More positivity: People like Tracy at Soul Ambition are bringing a bit of confidence back to the city; set some goals for this week, this month, this year. Let the bitterness go and let’s make some noise…