Excerpt: Strummerville’s director, Trish Whelan, is trying to maintain an ethos where young people feel comfortable expressing themselves through music. The charity’s website gives a platform to aspiring artists, who can offer free downloads and links to their bands’ websites. “It gives them a platform to communicate with a community of people who actually care,” she says.
Read the full article here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/strummerville-a-place-where-all-the-young-punks-can-play-to-win-6284476.html
Excerpt … it was well worth the wait as a couple of hundred or so lucky people who had found out about their set crammed into spaces around the campfire to see the band play a 5 song set including a cover of Neil Young’s “Dance Dance Dance”, “Roll Away Your Stone”, “Lovers Eyes”, “Nothing Is Written” and the bands biggest hit “The Cave” which was lapped up by the jubilant and excited audience.
The set was best surmised by M&S lead singer Marcus Mumford who said, during the set, describing The Strummerville Stage: “It’s a good secret spot of goodness at Glastonbury.” – continue reading →
As ever, it was in the peripheries that the magic happened. At Strummerville, an early hours performance from south London hip-hop trio Sound of Rum was as thrilling as anything all weekend.
On a rain-soaked Friday, Radiohead appeared at The Park stage, bringing half of Worthy Farm with them. Who needs the Healing Fields when you have the cracked magic of Thom Yorke’s voice?
Over on the Pyramid stage, Bono was being his usual unassuming self, describing his band’s performance at Glastonbury as “a pilgrimage” and singing a capella versions of Jerusalem … continue →
Excerpt:
“the truly special Glasto moments this time round were generally all linked by one thing: not being announced beforehand. Take Mumford & Sons’ after-dark campfire singalong at Strummerville … and as Ben Lovett told us after the band’s Strummerville surprise: ” I kind of wish every gig was like that!” – continue reading →
Earlier last week (24th June 2011), M Magazine caught up with Strummerville who were already down at Worthy Farm, knee-deep in mud…
What’s it looking like down there today?
Really bloody muddy, actually! But we got most of our setting up done on Tuesday when the sun was shining. Our stage is up, our bar has been set up, our fire pit has been dug out and our wood is here. We’re good, and now we’re trying to save the land! We started the prep on Saturday.
How do you arrange the Strummerville Glastonbury campfire sessions, is it quite ad hoc?
We’re pretty organised in the chaos really. We have five bands a night, on the hour from 10pm until 2am. Realistically, we aim to showcase the cream of our crop. We’ve got 387 bands on our DIY profile, so the cream of our crop are the best ones, simple as that.
The ones that are doing well and will attract a big crowd?
Yeh, it’s a really great showcase for them because we’ve got so many guest performers who come and share the stage with them. It’s really inspiring for them. Whoever is going to play before [the secret headliner] on Saturday will have a really great experience. It will really help their profile.
Do you have a fixed line-up? Have you announced any of the headline acts yet?
No we don’t announce anything until the morning of, and then it goes up on our chalk board. We’ve got some great headliners planned though, like The Kings Blues and Emmy the Great.
What makes Glastonbury so unique?
I’ve just walked from one end to the other, and there are just so many things that make it so amazing. It’s just not comparable to any other festival on the planet. It’s so magical and diverse. I think the whole thing has come from such an open heart. People are so nice and friendly. Human nature and human spirit have really come to the fore and people are so nice to each other.
When did the Strummerville charity sessions start up at Glastonbury?
Joe Strummer had his campfire here for years – he always hosted a huge campfire at the festival. After he passed away and the family set up the charity, Michael Eavis put an amazing memory stone in place for him. We burn the campfire by the memory stone. He died in 2002 and then in 2003 the charity began running the campfire.
Strummerville is a registered charity and you are all about helping aspiring musicians. What projects do you run that feed into the campfire sessions?
We do quite a lot. We work with FairTunes and funded them to open a recording studio in Bogota. We worked with Support After Murder and Manslaughter up in Merseyside, and we funded the making of an anti-knife crime record and video. Support After Murder and Manslaughter is a charity set up by mums who had all lost at least one child to murder in Merseyside. That was a really positive experience for those kids.
We support Jail Guitar Doors, which is Billy Bragg’s initiative to bring guitars into prisons for people who are rehabilitating. That was a nice project to work on. We’re also putting a music room into an orphanage in Malawi in August.
Your work is really far-reaching…
Yes. We’ve funded quite a few communities in Africa, where we’ve set them up with a full PA van and all of that. We are also working with some people in Detroit. The city has been completely fucked after the collapse of the motor industry. We are opening a Strummerville room there. And we’re opening a rehearsal room at the Roundhouse in London, where kids can rehearse for a pound an hour. We have two rooms at the Oh Yeah music centre in the cathedral quarter of Belfast, where people can rehearse for free. And we have a rehearsal room down at our HQ under the Westway, where bands can rehearse for free as well.
So far this year, we’ve given bursaries to 46 bands to go and record.
Organisations like yours are becoming increasingly important, in light of recent cuts to arts funding…
Especially for the people we support – we don’t get any funding from the Arts Council or others because we don’t fit in with all that bureaucracy.
Do you have any tips for upcoming songwriters who are disadvantaged or who are unable to access the funding they might need?
I suppose they should just try to concentrate on making great music – that’s where it all starts. Make the best that you can. It can be quite easy now to make a good record without lots of money. We endorse a DIY approach, so build your fan base, get on top of your social media, get out on the road, play as much as you can, but ultimately, focus on making the best record that you can. It’s also about speaking to people, that’s how you can get access.
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On Thursday 23rd June Huw Stephens on BBC 6 Music gave Strummerville’s Glastonbury campfire sessions “sounds like a lot of fun …” and our Songs for the Summer 2011 summer compilation a shout and played Bastille.. we’ve just returned from Glastonbury and so this post is a little late but you have 2 days left to listen to the podcast.. listen here →
Strummerville returns to its natural home, Glastonbury, for this year’s campfire sessions. Located in their usual spot by the Joe Strummer memory stone in the Unfair Ground, Strummerville will be burning their campfire all weekend long. Every night – Thursday until Sunday – the charity will present some great new talent and will be joined by established ‘secret’ bands for some very special intimate campfire sessions…
No bands will be announced, but with artists including Frank Turner, The Mystery Jets, The Drums, Lissie, I Blame Coco and Mariachi El Bronx performing around the campfire last year, you can get an idea of the people who want to come and tip their cap at the Joe Strummer memory stone and sing songs around the fire… continue reading →
Joe Strummer’s backstage campfire tradition has transcended into a charitable music train marking its territory on Glastonbury go-ers this summer. Strummer’s memorial will be ablaze with emerging and established talent gracing Unfair Ground at the Strummerville campfire sessions this summer, in collaboration with everyones favourite festival cider, Brothers will be hijacking the campfire at Glasto 23rd-26th June handing out the ‘Songs For The Summer’ free compilation album from the bands keeping Strummers memory alight.
Brothers will be donating 1p of sales on cider from every can and bottle. So theres no reason not to crack open a frosty one… continue →
Strummerville has teamed up with Brothers Cider to release ‘Songs For The Summer’, a one-off free compilation – your festival soundtrack – of exceptional new music from some of the bands that Strummerville is supporting.
The download album is available from the Songs for the Summer page and will be given away free at the Strummerville campfire at Glastonbury Festival. On June 23rd, Strummerville returns to its natural home, Glastonbury, for this year’s campfire sessions – continue reading →
The Joe Strummer New Music Foundation, Strummerville, has teamed up with Brothers Cider to release ‘Songs For The Summer’, a one-off free compilation – your festival soundtrack – of exceptional new music from some of the bands that Strummerville is supporting.
On June 23rd, Strummerville returns to its natural home, Glastonbury, for this year’s campfire sessions. Located in their usual spot by the Joe Strummer memory stone in the Unfair Ground, Strummerville will be burning their campfire all weekend long. Every night the charity will be presenting some new talent and will be joined by some more established bands for some very special intimate campfire sessions – continue reading →
