From Brass Bands to Colombian Hip Hop. This year’s national Un-Convention event promises to be the biggest and best yet. Taking influence from Un-Convention events around the world and inviting some of the most inspirational and influential figures from the global grassroots music scene – this year will use Un-Conventional spaces – including a barge, [...]
Categories: Music,New Music Strategies,Technology
Tagged: Music, Seminar, unconvention
[Video link] My friend Saskia (from New Music Strategies) sent me a link to this trailer for a Dutch-made documentary film about young people in South Africa using music to escape or improve their situation. It’s not all in English, of course – but you’ll get the idea from the video above, and there’s a [...]
Categories: Music
Tagged: South Africa, unconvention
[Video link] We’re in a home studio. Lupa (in the baseball cap and black t-shirt) runs it as a drop-in recording and music workshop facility for the local kids, as well as the headquarters of his crew, FB7. Bibiana translates as rapper Fly So High explains why Un-Convention in Medellín is so important to them. [...]
Tagged: Medellin, unconvention
The next Unconvention event is in Medellín, Colombia. I’ll be on my way there first thing Saturday morning. In the meantime, I’m preparing myself for what we’re going to encounter when we get there. In particular, we’ll be doing some work in the barrios with hip hop artists – and so one of the Unconvention [...]
Categories: Music
Tagged: unconvention, Video
This man took an impression of my face. Not something you do every day. As part of UnConvention Factory, there was an art project in which ten people’s faces were made into a sort of circuit board mural thing. Still not quite sure why, but it was very cool. Weird experience, of course. My face [...]
Categories: 365
Tagged: Photo, unconvention
As they set up the venue for Unconvention Factory, Saskia takes my photo – and I happen to catch it just as the flash blasts. Never done that before. Utter fluke.
Categories: 365
Tagged: Photo, unconvention
I’m in Macclesfield for the next couple of days attending Un-Convention Factory. It’s the 30th anniversary of (Joy Division lead singer) Ian Curtis’s death, and we’re marking that with a special event unlike any other we’ve ever done. There’ll be 8 bands, 100 invited delegates from across the creative industries and 300 attendees who have [...]
Categories: Music
Tagged: Conference, Seminar, unconvention
I've been told I'm hard to buy for. I suppose that's because I don't really need much of anything. I'm not that big into owning stuff. Except records. Records make me happy. If you want to make me happy, buy me a record.
With that in mind, here's a link to my Amazon Wishlist
