Can I take you back...?
a global grassroots music event and community – that meets physically and virtually to share ideas; discuss and debate cutting edge issues around music, technology and creativity; and facilitates members engagement with their peers. Un-Convention is not about the business of music. The community is driven by a not for profit initiative that sees opportunity for the grassroots in the changes to the way music is being produced, consumed and sustained.
The event took place on a barge where which we pondered a range of contemporary music heritage projects. Floating on the Irwell amidst a torrential and interminable downpour, the session brought together some really interesting people that demonstrated the range of archiving projects around popular music and culture in the UK.
It was ably chaired by Jez Collins, the originator of the Birmingham Popular Music Archive, who is also my esteemed colleague. Panel members were: Dr Marion Leonard, who was the curator of Liverpool's The Beat Goes On, and who oversees on ongoing project to examine how museums collect and preserve (or not) popular music; Alison Surtees of the Manchester District Music Archive; Eve Wood, the director of the documentary Made in Sheffield (2001) and Mike Darby of Bristol Archive Records.
Speakers offered insights into each of their projects, revealing the variety of practices in this field, the public appetite for music heritage and the innovations and connections that curation has been making. Surtees for instance outlined how the online MDMA had generated input from around 2000 individuals, half of which regularly posted material on the site. Some of these were members of the bands featured and indeed, these explorations of music past also connected with the present scene in ways that avoided the potential necrophilia of such work.
The dynamic aspects of each of these projects was evident in the way in which they plugged into and galvanised cultural memory and generated positive responses from users and contributors. Each of course was located very firmly in the character of its respective location and had a part to play in civic and community identity. Many of the core activists worked on the archives as a labour of love (there was very little financial support available here) and a belief that music and its attendant cultures and meanings transcends the demands of the industries alone. This was an important point as one of the potential problems of work in this field is presented by copyright issues, not only around recordings but the attendant artefacts - album covers, posters, photographs etc. For many projects, the involvement of so many 'forgotten' bands and their good will means that these challenges can be overcome. Indeed, it is interesting to note that while one would expect such projects to feature more well-known (and potentially litigious) bands, public interest has tended to focus on some genuine retrieval work in digging up lost names, venues and events.
As a filmmaker, Eve Wood had some interesting points to make however about the cost involved in repurposing archive footage in her work. This was particularly striking with regards to the BBC and she quoted a standard rate of £3000 per minute for the use of footage (and that is exclusive of any further rights complications that may arise). As it has struck me on many an occasion in pondering the jealously with which the BBC guards 'its' assets, this seems to be a manifest injustice, especially if one wants to use footage for public/educational purposes after all, we've all paid for this once already.
In addition, Wood also outlined some of the problems filmmaker-historians have with commissioning bodies. This related to the way in which there was an expectation that narratives should revolve around famous names and faces, although it was often the case that in pursuit of interesting stories, obscure yet interesting material would demand attention and explanation. Certainly, I've paid some attention to this issue in terms of the BBCs 'Britannia' series and the way in which the pre-ordained narrative determines what can be done with often interesting and conflicting archive footage and new material.
Notwithstanding the paucity of funds available for the archiving projects, Wood's experience also raised questions around the other kinds of pressures impacting upon these projects. Where they seek alliances with city agents and established museums and so on, there were potential demands on the nature of the stories one could tell.
All of these points of course highlighted the ways in which any kind of historical work is always inflected by a politics of practice -whether between contributors and users (why is X and not Y covered), or even by greater institutional powers.
Certainly, the growth of heritage projects around popular music is part of a challenge to the more formal and conservative ways in which archives and museums are perceived to have pursued their agendas (although I think this was a little over stated at this event). While the projects discussed on this panel have sought to expand the domain of the archive, where they have also proven to be innovative is in their participatory nature and use of online sites. In this, and given their ad hoc, enthusiast-driven origins, they have something important to impart to established institutions.
Having had a long association with Jez Collins and BMA (and to some extent our local Home of Metal), I was interested in hearing more from the archive project managers about their own take on music in order to understand their investment in its cultural discourses. In their enthusiasm, can-do and make-do approaches, they all had something of the punk ethos about them I thought which was reflected in part in their understanding of their position in relation to 'official' cultural projects and institutions.
Overall, there was much to take away here for further discussion and thought.
The Bristol project for instance offered an intriguing model for collecting and making available its artefacts and of course, Leonard's academic research activities were of great interest to me. As I was accompanied by post-graduate student Rob Horrocks, who is embarking on research in this area, I was gratified to see that here was much to engage with for any investigator.
This handful of projects is indicative of a much more widespread international practice that has a relationship with the music and leisure industries but also operates independently of them (sometimes at odds with them), demonstrating the value of what some colleagues of mine label music as culture. In light of the loss of so much material in the archives of the music business, the activities of the enthusiast, and fan, in informal (sometimes semi-legal ways online in file-sharing sites), performs an important job and indeed does much to underline the importance of popular music to communities: to us.
As an afterthought, a discussion of popular music and heritage taking place in Salford struck me as apposite. While there is a rich heritage in music to boast of here, if we think of popular music as in some ways connected with the pleasures of the majority, ie working people, this city is resonant in symbolism.
Salford is the site of the classic community anatomised by Engels in 1844 in Condition of the English Working Class in England and a rich history of portraits in film, literature and music. This was after all, the Dirty Old Town immortalised in Ewan MacColl's much covered song -the subject of a forthcoming post.
