MUSIC

Bath’s International Guitar Foundation, Future Bath Plus and BANES council have teamed up to launch a new company promoting music in the city – including the imminent Bath Guitar Festival. Tony Benjamin adds it up.

“People say ‘You’re the guitar people!’ and I cringe. Yes, we’re guitar-centric but we’re not obsessed and it certainly won’t be the focus of Bath Music Plus.” Thus manager Phil Castang recounts initial responses to the involvement of Bath-based International Guitar Foundation (IGF) in a new venture. Started in Bath some 19 years ago, the IGF now promotes events at London’s Southbank, the Sage in Gateshead and other far-flung venues. “We’re a national organisation but our roots are in the South West where we started.” Phil explains. “Bath Music Plus (BM+) is a new company launched by the IGF in collaboration with Future Bath Plus and BANES council with the aim of creating a market and venues for headline acts to play in Bath.” The initiative is a response to concerns about Bath’s over-reliance on its heritage industry and the annual formal music festival. “All the resources tend to get concentrated into that short season but we want to develop an ongoing scene across the whole year.”

Part of the problem, he feels, lies in the lack of a prepared infrastructure to cope with the expectations of major league tours. BM+ is working with Bath’s Forum Theatre in central Bath to get it fit for the job. “Right now it’s a church and certainly not geared to a professional music environment. If you turn up at the Colston Hall or the Sage in Gateshead you can just plug in and go, and The Forum doesn’t have that yet… but we’re working on it.”

Venue was speaking to Phil shortly before the first BM+ event, a mid-May night of rock and musical theatre anthems called… er… ‘Anthems’ and starring Queen’s hair-guitarist Brian May with stage vocalist Kerry Ellis. Phil’s pretty chuffed about snagging that gig for Bath: “It would normally have gone to the Colston Hall but we stole it away. We’ve got KT Tunstall and Newton Faulkner coming, too. We’re not elitists about this, we’ll consider anything from high art classical commissions to top pop stars. If we could get her, we’d happily put on Kylie Minogue.”

But, visiting ‘stars’ aside, of course, there is a whole lot of grass roots musical activity in Bath already and Phil is keen to give the best of that a platform. “We may be bringing headline acts to Bath but we want to pull in our talent from the South West to support them and get a wider audience. We know about the power of music for (community) development and we want to develop the music scene in a way Bath hasn’t perhaps had before.” It’s ambitious stuff, and he knows it, but there’s no doubt that Phil believes there’s scope for Bath to become more of a centre for live music and that BM+ will play a big role in that.

Meanwhile, however, there’s still those guitars and the imminent Bath Guitar Festival (15-22 June), the IGF’s annual showcase of international fretworkers, with the aforementioned Brit-nominated singer/songwriter Newton Faulkner (Forum, Wed 15) one of the heavyweight headliners. Phil sees him as having an impressive heritage: “I think he carries the tradition of the minstrel going back to (16th-century miserabilist and lute player) John Dowland via the likes of Davy Graham and the US folk tradition. He’s done a great job for a style of acoustic guitar that’s reaching a new audience and he looks young and cool, too!” Veteran Spanish guitarist Juan Martin (Guildhall, Thur 16) is another festival highlight, particularly as he will be leaving his usual ensemble behind and playing a rare solo set. That’s a much more usual thing for Mississippi-raised one-man band Ben Prestage (Chapel Arts, Sat 19), who could well be a big discovery for the Bath audience. Lazily likened to Seasick Steve, thanks to a hillbilly beard, faded denim outfits and a hand-hewn guitar made from a cigar box, Prestage makes a much more sophisticated music using a dismantled drumkit and loop pedals to build a full band sound for his blues-derived songs and slippery solos. “He’s the real deal,” enthuses Phil. “The grandson of a sharecropper and an incredible slide guitarist.”

THE BATH GUITAR FESTIVAL RAN FROM 15-22 JUNE AT VARIOUS VENUES IN BATH. CHECK WWW.IGF.ORG.UK FOR FULL LINE-UP. DETAILS OF OTHER BATH MUSIC PLUS EVENTS CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.BATHMUSICPLUS.CO.UK