MUSIC

Sound words on making the media work for musicians, from Bristol’s one-woman promotion powerhouse. Julian Owen listens up.

Sometimes it’s good for the unsung to be sung a little. “If I had to describe her position and the work she does in three words I would say: vital, vital, vital,” says local label head/promoter, Artscare’s Dave Thomas. Thus, Jodie Humphries, founder and editor of tune-touting website, Live Music Scene. Website? Yes. Though we realise it may come as a shock, we’re aware that – obviously, once these here printed pages have been scoured for every last morsel of potential musical nourishment – there are those who will hook themselves up to the world wide web in a bid to search for more.

Since April 2007, Jodie’s corner of the net has racked up a welter of interviews, a couple of hundred live reviews, more still of CDs. Useful for punters, certainly, but – as Mr Artscare says – vital for bands. For here lies validation, concrete and quotable proof that the hard labour of turning out songs isn’t passing unnoticed; when it comes to finding the energy to carry on turning out more, there’s no fuel quite like recognition. And this from a woman whose efforts are – as Marcus from local metallers, Merrick, points out – “done at entirely her own cost with no financial gain.”

Now, we know there’s nothing unique in that per se. What marks out Jodie’s operation is the sheer volume of work, the dedication to promoting local acts (she’s a link-forwarding, retweeting queen) and, perhaps most admirably of all, the overcoming of a severe handicap that would flatten most (she lives in Trowbridge). Though a gig attendee almost from toddlerhood, thanks to her dad, it was when she was 15 that the catalyst came for what would follow. “I saw an advert for [anthemic indie troupe] Halo’s EP on some website, picked that up, saw they were from Bristol, that was it! It was the atmosphere of the gig.” The pleasures of seeing live local bands instilled, writing them up came about when “I was doing creative writing at uni. We had to do work experience, so my Mum suggested, ‘Why don’t you start a magazine?’. That would have been impossible, but the blog came instead.” Blog begat proper website begat starting to be taken seriously. “The first request I had to go and review was from Substatic [by neat coincidence, see live review on p.XX] when they were known as Sublime – a horrible wet Thursday night at The Croft.”

“If people were asked to list the key people in the Bristol music scene,” says Left Side Brain’s Rich Sadler, “they’ll often go for the ones with the biggest gobs, stupidest hairdos, most gynaecologically revealing trousers and/or biggest messiah complexes. Essentially, it would be a popularity contest. Jodie, on the other hand, is quietly earnest, enthusiastic and hard-working – she represents the real life blood of the local scene.” Sadler’s group (currently celebrating their 10th anniversary – see Sounding Off) quickly became – and remain – Jodie’s local faves. Longer term, that accolade might possibly go to the favourite of her father. “I’ve grown up with Hawkwind, first saw them when I was six or seven and they were fronted by Ron Tree. Recently I found myself sitting in a pub in Frome interviewing him. Just really surreal.” And speaking of Hawkwind... “I was sat in the office at work and my phone started ringing. ‘Hi, is that Jodie? Nik Turner here.’ He’s my Dad’s hero. I think that phone call was one of his proudest moments.”

Though Jodie is now head of a team of similarly enthusiastic LMS contributors and owner of a doormat piled high with new releases – “I’ve got hundreds of CDs lying around and am running out of room very quickly” – the value of free publicity to both act and venue has yet to be realised by everyone. Some of the sharper PRs see the worth of guest listing established, respected online bloggers (DHP’s Lou Trimby, for example, allows Jodie and team to access Thekla and Cooler with ease), while of local promoters she enjoys a “great relationship with Dean from Offbeat. But there does tend to be a problem with bands not realising that we’ve got to have the guest list provided for us – they expect us to turn up and pay. All we do is done from a love of music, and that’s our little reward.” And that’s not the only thing bands should be alerted to. “Although we – and the press in general – can help bands, they’ve got to help themselves. If they get coverage they’ve got to put it on Facebook, put it on Twitter. People need to work together a bit more.”

TO CONTACT JODIE EMAIL This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . FFI: WWW.LIVE-MUSIC-SCENE.CO.UK
 

Copyright Julian Owen 2010

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