Birmingham Live Music Project Team (UK)
Patrycja Rozbicka is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on different stakeholders in policymaking, music and politics, and the regulation of the live music industry in the UK and the EU.
Adam Behr is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary and Popular Music at Newcastle University, UK. His research covers cultural policy, the politics and sociology of music – particularly popular music – and the music industries.
Craig Hamilton is Research Fellow in the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR) at Birmingham City University, UK. His research explores the role of digital, data and internet technologies in the business and cultural environments of popular music.
Music ecosystems. Why do they matter?
Music ecosystems are places within which, alongside the venues, bars, and clubs where live music takes place, we also find recording studios, musicians, managers, agents and promoters, production companies, sound and video engineers, graphic and video designers, and venue staff, all contributing to the businesses of varying sizes in a complex supply chain. While all these are localised in their respective urban centres they are also tied to regional, national and international economies and policymaking. They are crucial community and socialising hubs, having impact on a wider culture and the wellbeing of people and places. Music ecosystems are essential to both local and broader economies and to the cultural and social lives of both individuals and communities. Music ecologies bring people together.
What does the music-ecosystem future look like to you, post-pandemic?
The crisis revealed longstanding faultiness in music ecosystems and pinpointed a number of nuanced characteristics of how they operate, and consequently the challenges that they face. Many of the venues that make up a given cities’ ecosystem, for instance, sat uneasily alongside the parameters of support schemes like the UK government’s Culture Recovery Fund (CRF). Self-employed workers – who are predominant in music ecosystems – were often unable to supply evidence of a stable track record of income in previous years, and so also fell outside standard governmental support models. While crisis conditions militate towards a necessary tactical approach, governments’ responses over the longer-term will need to work closely with venues’ and musicians’ representative bodies and start taking greater account of strategic considerations, including the large variety of spaces and participants diffused throughout the music ecosystems. Hopefully, a longitudinal, strategic approach will start including those that are harder to reach through established frameworks.
Name one other music-ecosystem builder that inspires you
The focus of the Birmingham Live Music Project (BLMP), is on a localised music ecosystem. In this particular context, then, local music-ecosystem builders and enhancers are a source of inspiration. Jez Collins (@jezc) is one such enhancer as the founder of the Birmingham Music Archive and an encyclopaedia on Birmingham’s music history. He is also a prominent voice in raising the profile of the city’s music. Ammo Talwar is the CEO of Punch Records (@punchrecords) and part of the West Midlands Combined Authority Culture Leadership Board that is influencing regional and national policy around diversity and inclusion in music. Erica Love (@EricaBLove), a Director of Culture Central (@CultureCentral), spent the pandemic working countless hours to bring the West Midlands creative sector around the table to create support networks, prepare joined-up responses to policy, and making sure that none in the local ecosystem felt left behind or under-supported.
What personal commitment can you make towards a world with better music ecosystems?
The BLMP Team keeps an eye on the music ecosystem in Birmingham and its immediate surroundings. Our aim is to inform the public, policy-makers, and the different stakeholders involved within the live music ecology in the city about the impact of changes that are occurring at national and global levels that have a potential impacts on music ecologies. We aim to contribute to enabling the city to continue to be one of the most vibrant places in the country to enjoy and create live music. In the future, our research will expand to other cities and regions, allowing us to help other urban and regional music ecosystems to thrive.