The Firefly Eco Festival earlier this month was, by all accounts, a massive success. Held at the Fieldgate Centre in Fishlake (near Doncaster), the event surpassed the expectations of all involved. In fact, I think even Denise and Andrew (the organisers) we’re impressed by how smoothly the whole event ran.

A number of Musoswire bands were playing, including Hotel Brown, The Hopper Ward, and Tiny Little Secrets (coming soon to our online store). We were of course there taking photos of the event, and the results are now available on www.flickr.com, as follows…

Hotel Brown
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wavelengthrecords/sets/72157601394109737

Tiny Little Secrets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wavelengthrecords/sets/72157601387928118

The Hopper Ward
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musoswire/sets/72157601392165625/

We were also given a CD of photos from Dave Angel (of The Angel Brothers and Hotel Brown). Some of these photos can be seen here…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/musoswire/sets/72157601699401905/ 

…Cheers Dave!

There is talk of the Firefly Eco Festival happening again next year - we can’t wait!

Boy do I feel sheepish
Those of you reading the Musoswire Blog via RSS may have noticed my slight ‘oops’ moment yesterday when, all of a sudden, you received the last 10 articles again!

I know I did in Google Reader, so I *assume* everyone else did?

Please accept my apologies. As I said yesterday, I updated the feedburner feed with the new feed URL and it seems to have regenerated itself slightly more than I was expecting!

All is well now though I believe, and normal service should have resumed with this post.

Those of you paying attention will have noticed that the Musoswire blog has been going through a bit of turmoil and change the last few hours. There are a number of changes that have been implemented, which I’ve outlined below…

First up is the location of the blog. It now has it’s own subdomain of Musoswire.com (blog.musoswire.com). I’ve done this to make it easier to find, and it will also make life easier when I launch the new site in a couple of months.

I’ve also moved it to a completely new server. It’s now on a dedicating hosting account which I’m using just for blogs. It’s running a different configuration, and should be much faster.

The theme has had a bit of an update again, although not as dramatic as the last one. Incidentally, I must take this opportunity to thank Imoko Set and IDP Photography for allowing me to use the live band photo as the header image. Much appreciated guys!

Finally, I’ve tidied the categories up a bit, reburned the RSS feed, and changed the title and tag-line.

There’s still some stuff to do… I need to add an RSS subscription link, install some more plugins, and remove the non-existent feeds from the categories list.

But, slowly… it’s getting there. I’ve also got some really great content lined up, so keep your browsers peeled (or something…!)

The Firefly Eco Festival is three days of music, dance and vision taking place from August 10th-12th 2007 at Fishlake, near Doncaster, in aid of the Firefly cancer awareness and support foundation.

There are a number of Musoswire / Wavelength Records bands playing, including Hotel Brown, Tiny Little Secrets, and Dave Angel and Rory Garforth.

Musoswire will be there of course, and I’m particularly looking forward to seeing The Hopper Ward live for the first time.

So come down, listen to some great tunes and support a very worthwhile cause!

More information can be obtained by telephoning either 07738 390541 or 07793 967139.

Download the Firefly Festival Leaflet (PDF, 231k)

I’d like to introduce you to orichalcum - World of Brass, the brainchild of James Stretton, virtuoso brass multi-instrumentalist and former member of Black Dyke Band and regular guest performer with the world-famous Grimethorpe Colliery Band.

Through orichalcum, James performs Formal Recitals with duo partner Iain Jackson, and innovative Children’s Concerts and Composing Workshops, as well as brass teaching, corporate training and much more.

Hardly new, right? Well no, but the great thing about James is the way he presents his shows. You see, he plays 16 different brass instruments - instantly swapping between trumpets, tuba, euphonium, trombones, etc. No mean feat, in fact - it’s taken him many years to perfect!

So, if you’re looking for something a bit novel for a corporate team building day or a Children’s Concert (they won’t even realise they’re learning!), why not try orichalcum - World of Brass?

Visit James’ World of Brass now… www.orichalcum-worldofbrass.com

Now there’s a thought.

It’s actually a quote from a blog post on Hugh Hollowell’s A Politically Incorrect Entrepreneur blog, but if you think about it, it’s just as relevant to independent musicians as would-be entrepreneurs.

You see, it’s all very well being a better guitarist than Brian May, or having more balls than Mick Jagger, but if you don’t get out there and maximise your potential, who’s gonna give a damn? Who’s gonna know you even exist?

Read more »

Andrew Dubber over at New Music Strategies has released his ‘20 Things’ e-book.

The e-book contains 20 articles Andrew recently posted on NMS, detailing his basic principles for new media. Whether your a music company, a singer/songwriter or an independent band - if you understand and apply these principles to what you’re doing, you’ll have a good start in the new media environment.

Download the e-book Now or visit New Music Strategies

For a while now I’ve wanted to start posting regular updates giving you a heads up on some of the great new music to hit Musoswire. Hopefully this will turn into a monthly event, but in the meantime, lets play catch-up…

Read more »

I’ve just had yet another phone call from Jim of The Hopper Ward… they’re gonna be on the radio - AGAIN!!

This time they’re gonna be on Trax FM (Doncaster), having a couple of tracks played and chatting to the presenter (he didn’t see who it was).

He’s also informed me that there might be a little competition to win some tickets to their gig supporting The Inspiral Carpets in Doncaster on the 29th.

So that’s Thursday 7th June, on Trax FM - 107.1 fm, sometime between 6-8pm. If you’re not local to Doncaster, you can Listen Online.

The government are in the process of reorganising the licensing laws for live music performance here in the UK. However, not all is well with their plans…

These new laws would (or so it seems on the surface) make it very difficult for musicians to perform live in small venues, or for schools, pubs and charities to raise money for causes through musical events.

I hope you’ll agree that’s bad for all concerned, and I urge you to sign the petition on the Downing Street website.

Have your say… http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/licensing/