The BLMP team recently presented papers on a dedicated panel at the IASPM UK & Ireland annual conference. The conference was originally due to take place at the University of West London this summer, but was moved to an online format due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation. Papers were pre-recorded as video presentations, and the…
This post was originally published on The Conversation website. Icons – and gigs – come in all shapes and sizes. July 6 marks the anniversary of the day that Paul McCartney and John Lennon first met at Woolton Fête in 1957. Sixty-three years later McCartney has played at massive and historic events: Olympic ceremonies, Royal…
In this blog post, BLMP researchers Patrycja Rozbicka, Craig Hamilton and Adam Behr explore what a return to live music in the city of Birmingham may look like, and consider the implications of venue capacity reductions that will be required by the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. At the end of the post, we provide an…
As part of the Birmingham Live Music Project, we are looking at live music in our home city of Birmingham, UK. As part of that work, I’ve been exploring the API of Songkick in an attempt to generate an initial map of the music venues in the city. Songkick is a service that provides discovery…
I recently published another piece on The Conversation UK – part of their series on “five things…”. This one is a brief overview of some of the different musical responses to Covid-19, from rush-released singles to Twitter listening parties, Randy Newman’s croaky (but fantastic) public service announcement, and a live streaming campaign to #saveourvenues. You…
As social distancing and self-isolation become a 2020 lifestyle mainstream in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, an emphasis on our physical needs is often apparent in our surroundings. Finding toilet paper, long-lasting food products, and antibacterial products in supermarkets, is a particularly difficult task. And, as we witness a shift in popular demands, are the…
We have a great team of Research Assistants working with us on the BLMP project. They have been helping us with a number of tasks around data collection, organisation and analysis. One of those assistants, Godrick Tshiteba, recently wrote a blog post about his experiences with the project. The full text is below. The Sound…
I recently published a new piece in The New European about Brexit and the threats it poses to the music industry. The full text of the article is available via the link below. The piece presents a discussion of the new UK Immigration policy, and refers to some of the results of the BLMP project.
Birmingham has a long and rich history of producing and consuming popular music. But how will Brexit affect the live industry in the city? Alongside Dr Patryja Rozbicka (Aston University) and Dr Adam Behr (Newcastle University), this is one of the things we’re looking at with BLMP and we have a number of events planned…
Last week I travelled to the town of Lüneburg in northern Germany for the ‘Groove The City: Constructing and Deconstructing Urban Spaces Through Music’ conference, held at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. This was the second time the conference has been organised, with the first taking place in 2018. Broadly the conference aims to set…
