Alec Malloy's Lets Blog!: May 2011

Thursday 5 May 2011

It Might Get Loud - Southampton's Social Music Project

It Might Get Loud – Southampton’s Social Music Project

Budding Southampton superstars now have the chance to shine thanks to the SOCO Music Project.

The Soco Music Project is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the creation and musical development of people of all ages in Southampton and the surrounding areas. Included in this are the Creative Hub situated in the Bargate shopping centre in Central Southampton as well as projects running in Thornhill, Basingstoke, Weston, Romsey., Redbridge and Freemantle.

“Originally we just worked with schools in the area, but we decided to expand to allow people of all ages and ability to come and create something,” says Matt Salvage, one of the workers at the Bargate site called the Creative Hub. “The Creative Hub is a place where anyone can come down and have a go at creating music or film or anything creative that they can think of” Matt says.

Soco's Creative Hub at The Bargate Centre.

The Creative Hub is located on the top floor of the Bargate Centre and is equipped with all sorts of musical instruments and equipment from guitars and amplifiers to far eastern instruments and computers for recording. The Hub also features a stage area for local artists to come down and rehearse and perform. “The reason we have so much stuff here is just so people can pop in and play without having to go home and lug around a big amp or a drum kit” Soco worker Louis Duarte explains. “We recently ran an event called the Balcony Sessions where local bands could come and play a set, and we’d film and pop it on YouTube. It was a great success and we hope to make it a regular event. On the last Saturday of every month we also run the Saturday Showcase, which gives local bands another chance to come and play for free in front of an audience.”

The stage all set up to rock at the Creative Hub.

Things really took off in November 2009 when the project was granted £50,000 from the People’s Millions scheme. “That was a real boost for us and allowed us to expand and create so many more projects!” Matt explains.

A rock star in training taking advantage of the equipment available at Soco.

Along with activities at the Hub, Soco run projects in the greater Southampton area including the Contact Festival, which took place at Romsey School on the 31^st July last year. The People’s Millions win also lead to the development, with Thornhill Plus You, of Hightown Studios at the Hightown Youth Centre in Thornhill. Matt says, “We’ve always been keen to work with other community projects in Southampton and the Hightown Studios project is such a boost for Thornhill.” Thornhill is currently going through a multi million pound regeneration project, which includes new homes, shops and a new community centre. “We like to think we’ve helped out in someway,” Matt smiles.

The Soco project is also looking to expand into more multimedia avenues. Matt explains; ”we have plans to include more radio in the near future, as well as creating an online magazine, so it’s not just the performers who can get involved in our projects. All are welcome!”

The Soco official website.

http://www.socomusicproject.org.uk/index.html

The Soco Official Facebook Page

http://www.facebook.com/socomusicproject

People’s Millions article on Soco’s £50,000 grant.

http://www.peoplesmillions.org.uk/past-winners/hightown-studios

Friday, I'm Not In Love

Friday – I’m Not In Love

As wondrous as the digital revolution was, the Internet hasn’t half produced some insipid dross over the years.

From Rick-rolling to cats playing keyboards, YouTube has brought us some smash hits of Internet culture. Indeed, this is the system that has created Justin Bieber’s career from nothing, and now Rebecca Black is the latest in the parade of absolute tosh that the interwebs has churned out in the current few years.

Her song, if it can be so called, “Friday” has gone viral, and the Internet hate machine has got fully into gear. The song itself is some auto tuned rubbish not worth anyone’s time and yet has some how has 42 million views, Even the hideous, child exploiting, crap merchant gargoyle Simon Cowell has come out in support of Black saying in an interview with People magazine that 'I love her [and] the fact that she's gotten so much publicity. People are so upset about the song, but I think it's hysterical.'

The thing is though, even though the song is a poorly written pile of awfulness, Rebecca simply doesn’t deserve the abuse and death threats that cover the YouTube comments page. That’s tantamount the child abuse. Fact of the matter is she’s a 13-year-old girl who is a product of the 21^st century music industry. Some self styled svengali type manager saw Justin Bieber’s career skyrocket and in typical fat-cat American style decided they wanted a piece of that big ol’ pie. This isn’t anything new. This kind of packaged manufactured approach of leeching off someone else’s success has been happening for decades (one’s thoughts turn to Andrew Loog Oldham and the Rolling Stones and Brian Epstein’s exploitation of other, less talented Liverpudlians in the 60’s).

And according to an article published on Billboard’s website, Black hasn’t even made that much money from those 42 million views. Stalling at number 42 on the ITunes sales chart, and including costs of her distribution, she stands to make about $15.000 to $20,000. Small change for so many views.

My point is that she is just another novelty one hit wonder who will fade away into obscurity. And although her song has become a talking point amongst hipsters and Internet tough guys, she isn’t responsible for the lyrics, which seem to be getting the most derision. She’s 13 years old for Christ sake! Everyone had a crappy music taste then. She obviously thought it was a good enough song to record, and some greedy Cooperate shill has attempted to cash in on it. If it wasn’t for the Internet, the public would’ve had no knowledge of her, and a 13 year old girl could go on living with out the need for anonymous idiots to threaten her with cyber, and real, violence.

Pictured: The Only Sane Reaction To This Whole Debacle.

I’ll repeat this; She’s a 13 year old product of a money hungry, capitalist system, who has recorded a song she thought was good. Lay off her people and grow up.