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August Bank Holiday Weekend IS Greenbelt. Sometimes it feels like the banks are closed in honour of it. For 19 of the last 21 last-weekend-in-Augusts I’ve spent my time in a field (til ‘99) or racecourse (the fest has been in Cheltenham for 11 years) engaged in four simple pleasures:
It seems that one of the many obstructions to the balanced discussion about resourcing talent development is the semantic gulf between the (perfectly understandable) sense of entitlement that some artists have about their art, and their art-practice and the impartiality that has to be built into the structure of any resource body (whether its an arts centre, educational facility, funding body, collective or festival). The outworking of that impartiality can often seem like a personal affront to the artist’s sense that their own work is of huge significance (More …)
Today I’m in Edinburgh with Amplified, at the ‘Talent Development Symposium’, co-sponsored by Festivals Edinburgh and The Arts Council. The Amp stuff will be posted at http://www.amplified10.com/tds10/, and there’s already a post I’ve put up there with a series of questions that face The Arts Sector.
So one thing I thought it’d be good to chat about is funding, and experiences with funding thus far. So, as the title says, have you ever been funded? (More …)
As a band we have applied for – but have never received – any funding from any grant body. We’ve always been unsure why, as we would think that we’re ideal candidates – a small, apparently “niche” or “specialist” (whatever that means) band, entirely self-funded, with a growing back catalogue of work that has attracted a decent amount of national press/radio play, who have toured the UK and Europe pretty extensively for the last few years building up a small but fairly dedicated fanbase. Its got to the stage now though where we’ve had to take some time off from playing live as all our equipment is in serious need of repair, and we’ve literally spent all our money. And plenty we didn’t have in the first place.
We’ve been turned down for funding a few times, most recently to attend the NXNE festival in Toronto which we had been invited to play. To make the tour make more financial sense, and to make the funding more worthwhile I had organised a whole Canadian tour around this event, including sessions and interviews at a number of radio stations around the country as well as gigs in venues and at house parties. I had to organise all this in advance as not only did we feel it would massively strengthen our application, but also because we suspected that it would take so long to process that if we waited for the application to come through there wouldn’t be time to organise anything before we left! This turned out to be very accurate, as we only found out a short time before we left that our funding had been declined, and as we couldn’t afford the plane tickets ourselves (as we’d previously spent all our money on the band up to this point) we had to cancel the entire project, letting down a large number of people who had agreed to help us out purely out of the goodness of their hearts. Which, as prolific DIY promoters ourselves in the north east of england, we felt dreadful about. We’d spent literally weeks organising everything – scouring the internet researching Canadian venues/DIY promoters/magazines/radio stations & shows, not to mention car hire/hotels/etc. – so to see it all go up in smoke was pretty disheartening.
It pretty much knocked the stuffing out of us, especially as we weren’t even given a reason as to why funding was declined. We felt like it was a fairly bullet proof application, although we understand there must be a large number of bands in a similar situation – we definitely don’t feel as if we have a god given right to get funding or anything like that. But, on the whole, the whole process meant that we spent weeks away from actually making music, let down a whole load of people who were kind/foolish enough to put their faith in complete strangers they’d only spoken to briefly over the internet, and ultimately ended up feeling completely dejected and demotivated. A totally negative experience!
It probably sounds like we’re bitter, but we’re truly not – we’ve just decided that as making music is something that we really love doing that it should be its own reward, and if that means we have to constantly lose money to do it then so be it. We’ve had to move back in with our families to continue to survive as musicians after 10 years of living away from our home as proper adults, but there’s no way we can even afford to rent a place and continue being a band, so what can you do? As depressing a thought as that may be, at least its not as depressing as funding! We’re not even concerned with ‘making it’ as a band, as most bands that ‘make it’ seem to completely suck – making music is just something we feel like we have to do to stay sane.
This is just one example, we’ve also tried to get involved with the Arts Council to help set up music workshops (similar to the US Rock & Roll Camp For Girls), small independent festival, etc. all to no avail. Working as DIY promoters we brought bands from all over the world (Melt Banana & The Warm from Tokyo, Kid Commando from Gothenburg, Death Sentence: Panda from San Francisco, Persil from Amsterdam, etc. etc.) to Middlesbrough, Teesside – somewhere where they almost certainly would never have played were it not for our hard work. We never made a penny out of it, as we wanted to keep door prices as low as possible so anyone who wanted to come could afford to – Teesside is not an affluent area. We never received any funding help whatsoever, but it was still worth it. Obviously we are in touch with a large amount of people in the arts, and we’ve seen a number of heavily funded projects flush so much money down the toilet on stuff that really is doing no good at all other than attempting to justify an arts organisation’s own existence… that’s pretty depressing. I can’t give any examples as I’d get in trouble, but that’s what we’ve experienced. Its all led to a feeling of “how come these self-serving charlatans keep getting tens of thousands of pounds of funding each year to just fritter away on nonsense, and we can’t even get a penny for either our music, or other projects that would actually be worthwhile?” Over time time the answer has become clear to us – this is the nub of this whole rant:
*clears throat*
In order to get any kind of meaningful funding, you have to become an expert at applying for funding. You have to dedicate your whole mind, soul and being to chasing funding. You have to become a Funding Chaser. And, when you get that funding, and because you’re prepared to do anything to get it – to tick any box, to water down your ideas, to forget about what it was you were applying for funding to do in the first place – because of all that… your project will suck, and you will have become One Of Them. A Funding Chaser.
This is why we’ve decided to completely forget about ever applying for funding ever again, even if it means living the rest of our lives in abject poverty. At least we won’t suck.
(apologies for typos, its hard to proof read in this little comments box!)
x
thanks Andy, It certainly doesn’t sound like you’re alone in your experience. I’ve seen this from a few different angles – I’ve done one tour that was funded (a Jazz Services UK tour with Theo Travis, for which we got £1500 but had to spend some of it on magazine ads that clearly weren’t going to do any good at all…), I’ve seen a lot of projects go without funding that they were told they would ‘almost certainly’ get and then struggle to stay out of bankruptcy. In my own career, I’ve avoided it entirely, instead pursuing ways of making music that don’t require any outside assistance. Which has, obviously, put me in a more resilient position because everything I have to make music with is built around long term sustainability.
I’ll see if I can put your story to some of the funding people here today, and see what they say!
That’d be great, at least I wouldn’t just be venting into thin air then, thanks!
Oh yes, we had a similar experience another time when we were specifically asked by a certain arts council/prs funded ‘musicdevelopment service’ based in the north to put together an application for In The City in Manchester. *They* approached *us*. So naturally we did it, and spent a lot of time again away from making music putting said application together. The impression was definitely given to us that they were very keen to put us on. Guess what? Yep, we got turned down. We got turned down even though they requested we apply! I was livid. We’ve since known other people to have other problems with them being messed around in a variety of interesting, creative ways.
A lot of these services just seem to act as middle-man ‘funding hoovers’, sucking up all the funding allocated to an area that would have been better spent going direct to the people that need it, as their means of redistribution are so haphazard. But, unfortunately, they’re experts at getting funding.
I do agree that its a difficult issue – as much as we put up with losing money in order to continue making music I suppose at least we’re in a position where we can actually afford to do so. Its not like our families are amazingly well off or anything, but at least they have a spare room in their houses where we can live. Not everyone is that lucky, and that’s where funding should be very useful. I’m just not convinced that it often finds its way to the right people, and whilst a whole industry exists to cream off as much funding as possible and redistribute it in as ineffective and nepotistic way as possible, I’m not sure this can ever be fixed. In which case perhaps that funding should be cut, meaning that we have to make fewer cutsto make in the health and education sectors? Bleak, I know… but aren’t we artists/musicians a little self-important anyway a lot of the time? I love art and music, but I can’t appreciate it without a working body and brain.
Much has been made of this article in the New York Times about the work of the BMI in enforcing the law that any business in the US playing music (radio, CDs, spotify, live etc.) needs to pay a public performance license, the cost of which is based on the size of the business.
There’s much in the article that has been attacked - the suggestion that they take money from struggling businesses, the idea that their ‘enforcers’ are referred to as ‘sales people’, and of course, the much bigger problem that very little of what gets played ever gets paid for thanks to the reporting process using ‘sample data’ – from local TV and radio – to decide what’s likely to have been played. (More …)
Makes perfect sense to me. When I worked in radio, ASCAP/BMI only took a sampling of what was played throughout the year (usually a week or two window) and based payments off of that. We have the tools and technology – why not make sure everybody gets what they deserve?
Hey Steve – I just had a flashback to my days in college radio when I took over as manager of the radio station and saw an invoice from ASCAP and called them – they were extremely rude as this punk kid from the suburbs did not know who they were and was asking them to justify the expense!
I have always said that if the RIAA and other agencies spent half of what they spent on lawyers instead on R&D we would have some amazing tools and experiences for music! We certainly have the technology for anything we could do, but what do we want to do?!
I don’t have an answer here, but as a small businessperson myself, if I were playing music openly say, using Sirius/XM or satellite, then I would want it billed thru there. If I use an online service, roll it into there as well. Make it easy for me, and heck, everyone else.
One of the wonders of the ‘tearable web’ (cf. David Jennings book, Net Blogs and Rock n Roll) is that we can put our music and video up in sharable, widgetized formats that allow them to become elements in any site that wants to help us spread the word.
So, for you bloggers, here’s a suggestion - add a Bandcamp album embed or Soundcloud widget to each post. Assuming that your blog readers are predominantly desktop readers, it’s a great way for people to discover new music while reading about a wholly unrelated subject. the player is pretty lightweight in terms of load-time, and any time soon they’ll be adding an HTML5 embed so that it’ll work on iPhone/iPad as well… (More …)
Bah, What’s wrong with auto-playing MIDI files? That’s how we did it back in the day…
hahahhahhaha – I remember those so vividly. I once had auto playing WAVs!! On a loop. unbelievable. Thought giving each page it’s own loop soundtrack was a good idea. What a buffoon 
The nice thing about the Bandcamp widgets these days is that they’re all HTML 5 so they’ll play on an iPhone, iPad, etc. as well. Now the iPeople can enjoy their Steveness on the move.
at the moment, I think all the stuff on the bandcamp site is HTML5, but the external embeds are still flash… at least the code still says it’s flash and the embeds that I have are still flash… am keeping a close eye on the site for them launching the HTML5 external embeds. It’s going to be so cool
thanks for that I’ll give it ago. From time to time i add music to family video clips. It is quite easy to select (legal) music clips to add to video in youtube and in imovie BUT it would be good to get a wider choice for this type of thing.. any suggestions Martin (from DEAPPG)
Anything that’s on bandcamp is embeddable – so I guess the simple fact that someone has put it up there means they want it to be shared (especially as you’re effectively expanding their webshop, as the download link takes the person straight back to their page) – finding stuff on bandcamp can be tricky, though there are ‘tag’ pages – http://bandcamp.com/tag/ambient – change the word ‘ambient’ to anything else you like
If you want to be able to use it on your videos, then you need Creative Commons licensed works – neither bandcamp nor soundcloud seem to currently have a way to search just for CC licensed stuff (the way that Flickr does) but I’ll suggest it to both of them, as it would make them a fantastic resource for people doing videos like that…
Let me know how you get on with the embed stuff. See you soon!
Mick Grierson is Co-Director of the Masters in Fine Art – Computational Studio Arts, BSE program in Creative Computing at Goldsmiths College in London. He’s also very interesting indeed. Here’s an audioboo from my chat with him this morning about the Centre For Creative Collaboration Website:
Goldsmiths are an ideal early partner in the Centre For Creative Collaboration as they’re already fairly focussed on interdisciplinary work, and as you’ll hear Mick explain as you listen to the Audioboo, they are already working on projects with some of the other colleges within the University Of London and with UCL
Mick highlights the need for collaborative work, given the focus on delivering measurable output for the public funding that the department is receiving, which often just doesn’t happen without collaboration.
Also, computing of the kind that Mick and his department do lends itself to modular work – where different teams can share the load and do what they’re great at.
The limitations of funding are what makes a project like the Centre For Creative Collaboration so vital in the current climate – as Mick says, the relationship between tiny-but-deeply-significant ideas and observable outcomes that the funding bodies need to see to be able to measure the value are often found when people have time and space to throw ideas around, to experiment, collaborate and see what’s possible.
The neutrality of the Centre For Creative Collaboration makes it an ideal place for that kind of idea-development to happen. The range of interested parties will allow for cross-disciplinary involvement in a way that may rarely happen if left to the departments within the various colleges to organise.
Have a listen to the whole conversation with Mick for more of his thoughts on this.
If you’ve been to Tuttle over the last few months, you’ll at least know where the Centre for Creative Collaboration (C4CC) is – it’s physically a building near Kings Cross. A former sculpture studio that acts as a fabulous multi-purpose space for the kind of open ended fun and games that drive the thinking behind the Centre.
The idea is that it’s a ’safe’ space for collaboration, firstly between the different colleges within the University Of London – UL covers a huge range of subjects, most of those are siloed even within the colleges, let alone across the various colleges that geographically cover a BIG area of London. Like so many other big academic institutions, collaboration is often an after-thought, in a world where the race for funding, accreditation and dominance in a specialist field drive evermore-focussed specialisation, with little room at the margins for the serendipitous goodness that happens when, say, a musician and an architect meet up to swap ideas. Or a physics undergrad gets to talk to an environmental scientist about the application of their work in eachother’s fields.
It does happen, but it’s pretty rare and the terms are often loaded.
So what happens when you create a neutral space for such things, one that’s well resourced and has a dedicated team making things happen there? Well, that’s what the project will find out.
And today, in the collaborative spirit that drives the entire project, we’re going to assemble a website in a day. And by ‘assemble’, I don’t just mean ‘install and design’, I mean concept, content, everything.
‘We’ in this instance is a collaboration between C4CC and Amplified – so the web monkeys that are doing the back end and design stuff are Ben Walker and Xander Cansell, the co-ordinator is Brian Condon (who straddles both worlds, running C4CC and being a core Amplified person too), Laura Kidd, Debbie Davies (co-opted in from the amazing pool of creative collaborators that gather at the C4CC for Tuttle on a Friday morning) and me, with the incredible Lucy Windmill making it all actually happen, as is always the case with Amp stuff.
So, follow the #C4CC hashtag today on twitter, or each of the participants, and before too long, we’ll post the URL and you can hopefully see it all happening before your eyes. The content will start diffuse, existing in each of our own web environments, but Twitter is the place to look for the links…
I had an email from an MP earlier today, asking for some background info on my position on the Digital Economy Bill.
So I sent him this list of links (it’s far from complete, but the poor guy’s got a lot on, so 50-odd links weren’t going to help!):
http://www.stevelawson.net/2010/01/quick-thoughts-on-obscurity/
http://www.stevelawson.net/2010/02/warners-mistakes/
http://www.stevelawson.net/2010/01/dear-rock-stars/ (particularly the bit about Bono claiming Hollywood is screwed on the same day that Avatar became the first movie to gross a billion dollars)
http://www.stevelawson.net/2009/12/transformative-vs-incremental-change/
http://www.stevelawson.net/2009/04/art-first-why-the-present-of-music-is-the-best-its-ever-been-for-musicians/
and the one I sent last night,
http://www.stevelawson.net/2009/09/independent-music-manifesto/
oh, and the point in this one about spending on Entertainment Media being WAY up, is vital…
http://www.stevelawson.net/2009/11/online-music-balancing-the-scales-of-free/
Enjoy – please do share the link around to this page, or to whichever of the individual posts resonates best with you.
the now show on bbc had this amazing rant about the DEbill – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgt7 (close to the end.. )
I’ve just watched 6 hours of live debate from Parliament. I can’t remember the last time I watched 6 hours of anything. Some of it was riveting, some of it was appalling. Major respect to those MPs who had REALLY done their homework and stepped up to the task of debunking some of the nonsense in the Bill.
As far as I’m aware, my MP Jim Dowd wasn’t there. I don’t know why – he may have a really good (professional or personal) reason for not attending. But I’ve written to him again asking him to turn up tomorrow to the 3rd reading and oppose it.
Here’s the email – (More …)
brill letter… may I send it to my mp too? you write what I think much better than I do. but that is illegal init, so I will just send her the link. problem is I don’t think she knows how to click on a link, she gets her emails on dead trees. hmm.
feel free to use it…
[I wrote to Jim before, but didn't post it here. Anyway, here's the follow up that I just sent him.]
Hi Jim,
just a quick note ahead of tomorrow’s debate to express again my fear that highly contentious and misunderstood elements of the Digital Economy Bill will get pushed through in the wash-up. I was most grateful to receive your message that you don’t think the majorly contested parts of the bill will get pushed through in the wash-up, but I’m seeing a lot of reports elsewhere that suggest that that is still a possibility. (More …)
Dan Bird 1:22 pm on August 29, 2010 Permalink |
Most of the festivals I play through out the Summer are the smaller/medium sized festivals and most of the time I never see the artists because I’m immersed in the social side of the festival. Sometimes spending a whole morning just laying on the grass sipping away at your favourite tipple can make a festival the best ever. Like music, a festival is made by you.
Drbexl 1:44 pm on August 29, 2010 Permalink |
Great post! I’m only on my 3rd full Greenbelt but last time had my 1st go at one of the art sessions … So this year I have had to respond to the question ‘which is the best talk you’ve been to?’ with ‘haven’t been to any’ – (yet anyway). Have chatted to friends & strangers – undertaken 3 unusual forms of Eucharist, 2 art sessions and fallen asleep in a film … Great!! Just enjoying some time out… And with all the talks on MP3 I can buy the talks to listen to later…
Steve thack 1:51 pm on August 29, 2010 Permalink |
Doing nothing? Well there was that panel you were on. Oh and introducing flap jack to a couple of thousand people. Pretty full weekend i’d guess. Guess i’m increasingly in the luxury position of managing to see most bands i care about outside the festivat so seeing everything less essential. Talks for me work almost as well on mp3. So definately more relaxed than i once Internet helps too, i can check out new bands gb books without needing to slip into back of a gig for two songs. Think in the last three months i’ve listened to maybe 600 tracks by around 75 of this years bands- so i know what is truely essential. Still bloody annoyed i’m only on site for one day this year.
Todays top three acts i’m pissed off at missing kitty the lion, jon gomm and the floe. Will download communion when i get home from work.