June 21, 2010 – 4:23 pm
I’ve been doing a little more travelling recently. After I got back from Dublin, I went to Groningen in the Netherlands to do a research project with my friends Ard & Lykle from New Music Labs.
I really like Groningen, and I try and get over to the Netherlands as often as I can. This time, I spent a couple of days there working on a project called Tribemonitor. It was funded by a university research initiative called IDEA (which stands for something, but I can’t remember what) and I’ve written up the outcome of that research in two blog posts:
- Measuring popularity in online music
- Social media reversals
I also took a trip down to Amsterdam with Lykle (above) to do a bit of consultancy with an artist named Jenny Lane.
Jenny’s a Dutch artist whose debut album received critical acclaim, and she supported Joss Stone on her European tour – but she’s ready to record a new album, which takes her music in some new directions – and she was looking for ideas regarding what to do online.
It was Lykle’s gig more than mine – and I was just along for the ride, but we had a good lunch and an interesting discussion. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of that.
Here’s one of Jenny’s music videos:
Also joining us at that meeting was Saskia – one of my partners in New Music Strategies. She’s based in Amsterdam, had some time to join us – and also had some really good and practical advice to offer (no surprises there).
And then – two days later, I met up again with Saskia in Frome (in Somerset) for the Being Human Conference. Her and Ian joined me (as three fifths of the NMS team) as well as my friend Clutch and Toby Marks, who records as Banco de Gaia.
Saskia and Ian check out the ‘Being Human’ yurt
The five of us booked out a meeting room at the hotel I was staying at down there, and we did a live video discussion about music online with a bunch of people in Nashville. Steve Lawson (also one of the New Music Strategies team) is over there doing a house concert tour, and he brought together bassist Bryan Beller, singer/songwriter Kira Small, and bassist/singer/songwriter Brittany Frompovich).
Jake was particularly impressed that I was having a conversation with Bryan – who plays bass for Dethklok (a TV cartoon death metal band that Jake’s a fan of) and Steve Vai.
The video conference went really well – and then it was off to Being Human. The conference was a small gathering of artists and other creatives. It was further down the hippie spectrum than I usually venture, but there was some really interesting stuff there.
I particularly enjoyed the music. Reverend and the Makers performed, as did Laura B and Banco de Gaia but I thought you might enjoy this experimental piano piece.
The travel continues this week. I’m off to Vienna for the launch of a European jazz research project I’m involved in. More on that soon – but the ongoing thread is one of music, talking and travel.
Tagged: Frome, Groningen, New Music Strategies