The SPACE Music Big Busk

This Saturday and Sunday in the sumptuous St John’s Square in Blackpool SPACE Music is putting on a gig with the help of the lovely people at Visit Blackpool.

SPACE Big Busk starts here SPACE Music The Big Busk in St John’s Square

Here are the artists playing… we will start at 1pm on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st of August 2011.

Just click on the name to go to the artists website or Facebook:

Saturday 1PM

Steph Fraser

Dean Tranter (of the Pretty Thunder)

Sunday 1PM

Joe Coleman (of The Locals)

Alex Hulme

Aniya Das

Big thanks to all the artists… so why not come on down and support them. They are all brilliant!

Whether the weather

If it rains we will be in the foyer of the Winter Gardens.

This is a trial that we hope will lead to alot more events working in partnership with Visit Blackpool to make more creative stuff and events happen.

Ooh new stuff

SPACE Music the new label and website coming soon. If you are interested in helping us by volunteering or gaining work experience just give us a shout here.

SPACE Blackpool CIC is a profit for a purpose company that has run rehearsal rooms and events in Blackpool for nearly 5 years.

Call or text 07515 685955 if you want to find out more.

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Unconvention22: Where are Lancashire’s music blogs?

So a few weeks ago Unconvention22 happened in Preston.

A very inspiring experience for me but scary too because there’s a lot to do now to unite this county of musicians, promoters, venues and music lovers!

On the last session of the day we tackled this panel discussion title: “Local scenes; collaboration, co-operation and ways to make things happen.”

A few points came out of it but mainly that in Lancashire, music and creative businesses are in different towns and not in one place like Manchester with the obvious geographical consequences and pitfalls.

This area will be looked at shortly in terms of meet ups and possible online assistance too.

Some similar points came up at BBC Introducing’s break out meeting the Thursday after where, with two days notice, more than 60 people came to exchange ideas, to talk and to try and make Lancashire better.

It turns out that most people think blogging about the local music scene is a really positive idea for everyone. The blogger, the bands, the venues and the whole scene.

So armed with only a popular search engine and a laptop I went in search of Lancashire’s music blogs.

There must be more than I am finding surely! The obvious searches reveal… well some blogs but not very much. (I know people do blog but if they are not in the first three pages of a search then they are hard to find.)

Best of the blogs

So last week on Twitter and Facebook I asked who wanted to get involved with BBC Introducing Lancashire in a music-journalism-type way. I had a ton of responses and this is my response to those people.

The BBC Lancashire website has a BBC Introducing section and on there I’d like to feature the best writing about music across Lancashire.

So who is out there doing this already? Do you want to do a blog? Would you be interested in meeting up and discussing how we make something really inclusive and positive happen here in Lancashire?

If so please email intro.lancashire@bbc.co.uk and let us know. Or if you’re in touch with me via Facebook or Twitter just let me know there too.

My plan is in the next couple of weeks to set up a meeting or even two in a town somewhere yet to be organised and see how we can kick start the music blogging scene in the county.

Sorry in advance

If you are a music blogger already and are wondering why we have not been in touch it may well just be that we haven’t found you! We are going to do some hunting in the next week and will tell you more about what we have found and how we think we can make stuff happen around music blogs on the programme next week.

This blog thing is only the starting point. There were other ideas which we’ll explore in the coming weeks but if you have an idea that would link us all up more and make the music and creative scene better just get in touch.

Sean McGinty presents the BBC Introducing Lancashire programme on BBC Radio Lancashire from 8pm each Thursday.

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Tags: BBC Introducing, Blog, Lancashire, new music, Sean McGinty, Unconvention
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Sainsbury’s, the self check out and a little old lady

Coffee addict

I like Caffe Nero coffee. So quite regularly I go to St Annes to work on the laptop, drink a foaming brew of loveliness and demolish a croissant.

There’s a Sainsburys here too. So this morning I popped in (pre-cappuccino) for a few things we needed at home before coming here to Nero.

Like other supermarkets they’ve installed those bloody self service check outs. No big deal for me really and sometimes it can be quicker right? Although there is something about them that makes me annoyed that I am not important enough as a customer for them to be arsed actually serving me in person.

Little old lady

The staff at Sainsburys I have found to be brilliant since I started going in there. I know they help older people with their shopping and generally try to offer good service.

St Annes has a lot of little old ladies and I speak to them from time to time. More than one of them has said that their trip to Sainsburys is probably one of the only times in the day they will speak to another soul. ALL DAY! Imagine that. Your whole day with one human encounter, a sobering thought.

Supermarkets don’t need to do this

So forgive me for being absolutely bloody furious when I see that old lady’s one human contact (with generally really nice staff at Sainsburys) being in doubt because some suit at head office says they can shave 0.003% off costs.

I know the supermarkets say you can always use a till with an employee. Not true when you have two staff asking people to use the self service till and only one staff on a standard till.

Final point

My point is this… how much money does it save reducing an old lady’s only contact with the outside world to that bloody self serve till woman shouting at them? To de-humanise the act of buying food is not the future I want and we should fight to keep people helping people.

So Sainsburys… come on you don’t need to “try something new today” you have offered service to customers for generations. But you should also lead the way here.

Your profits last year were £827 million so now consider the little old lady and ensure they always get the service they deserve with a smiley human face not a cold, shouting, beeping machine.

Don’t end up like the other money grabbing shops we know and hate.

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BBC Introducing & #Uncon22

Email sent to delegates of Unconvention22 in Preston

You are welcome to get involved even if you didn’t go to #Uncon22 last Friday

Hello,

Apologies for the intrusion! It’s Sean McGinty emailing you from BBC Introducing Lancashire and SPACE Blackpool CIC.

The #Uncon22 peeps kindly let me contact you so we can try and take forward some of the ideas that came up last Friday and make some more “joined up stuff” happen here in Lancashire.

Background: It was the last session of the day and it became clear that Lancashire’s big problem is that we are all over the place geographically. That makes it harder to work together for bands, managers, venues… everyone.

The starting point for taking this forward for us is tomorrow night at 8pm at the BBC Lancashire studios in Blackburn. I’d love it if you could come and get involved too.

The organisers and some guests from Friday’s Unconvention22 will be talking to me on the radio and I hope you will join us to throw your ideas at us and get involved with the conversation.

If you want to come down to the studios to chat, to give us your new tunes or just drink BBC coffee and talk about your experiences please email me back to let me know who you are and what you do please. You need to be there before 7.45pm.

If you can’t come then you can still email me back and ask a question or make a suggestion.

You can listen online from 8pm on Thursday 23rd June 2011 just click here! Or use one of those retro radio things.

Thanks for reading this… all I am trying to do here is help start the conversation that could lead to some solutions for bands, managers, promoters, service providers and venues alike.

I hear so many talented artists and bands every week as I put together the programme but artists tell me they need more opportunities to play live, work with promoters, producers, designers, video makers etc from all over Lancashire. If creative types across Lancashire could get together more and chat we could really build something here. That is what we are trying to achieve and I hope you can support that.

So if we can help make that happen then it is a winning/tiger DNA type scenario.

Muchos grassiass,

Sean McGinty
BBC Introducing Lancashire
SPACE Blackpool CIC

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LINKS AND STUFF
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http://seanmcginty.co.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire

http://facebook.com/seanamcginty

http://soundcloud.com/seanmcginty

http://bbc.co.uk/introducing
http://www.twitter.com/seanamcginty

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Tags: #Uncon22, BBC Introducing, CIC, Lancashire, new music, Sean McGinty, Social Enterprise, Unconvention
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Get up to £2,000 With Live UnLtd in partnership with SPACE Blackpool

You have a good idea that would be good for you and your friends… you need some money… come to Baristas Coffee Shop Next Tuesday 3rd May at 6pm and apply… read on…

Get up to £2,000 With Live UnLtd in

partnership with SPACE Blackpool

Live UnLtd and SPACE are on the hunt to find some
young people who want to make a difference.

Live UnLtd are offering awards of up to £2,000 to help
11-21 year olds in Blackpool to create positive change in
their community. You will be given help and support to
develop your idea from and Live UnLtd and SPACE (run
not for profit rehearsal studios and events.)

What is it you want to do that would make
a difference to young people in Blackpool?

This is a GREAT opportunity to apply for this grant and to meet
UnLtd and SPACE in preparation for a Dragon’s Den Style
event where eight to ten young people will get the opportunity
to pitch their amazing ideas to a panel.

Applications forms will be provided on the day as well as all the
help you’ll need. You just need to get to

Tuesday 3rd May 2011

Barista’s Coffee Shop

Birley Street, Blackpool, FY1 1DU

At 6pm

For further information about the project please refer to the FAQ
section of our website here: http://www.LiveUnLtd.com/about/
faq or email sean@spacemusic.org.uk

Please share this around so anyone who might be interested gets a chance to see it!

Email me if you have any questions please.

In the meantime here are some cakes.

Muchos grassiass,

Sean

mmmm cakes

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Tags: Blackpool, Blog, CIC, Lancashire, Live UnLtd, Sean McGinty, Social Enterprise, SPACE, SPACE Blackpool, UnLtd Awards
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