Two Door Cinema Club
Not Squares
& Queer Giraffes

Thursday 20th November
The Limelight, Belfast - 9.30pm - £5
http://twostepclub.com

The website continues to grow as the main online conduit for information surrounding the club - which makes a welcome change from having to favor the Myspace page and all the aggravation that brings. The mailing list will be used for a relatively epic competition before the end of the year, so if you haven’t signed up already, I’d strongly recommend doing so.

This morning, we revitalized the search for the coworking space with a trip to Hill Street in the Cathedral Quarter where we viewed a 1200sqft open-plan office (with kitchenette, disabled access & a shower) - on the first floor above the Black Box. The property ticks all the boxes - it’s finished to an excellent standard and could happily fit around a dozen coworkers simultaneously - and most importantly of all is mere feet away from coffee, pizza and beer.

So, we want to work towards making an offer as soon as possible. Without negotiation on price - and with 10 coworkers renting full-time - its about £200pm - although obviously this price would fall when subsidized by hot-desking, virtual office services, room hire etc. As soon as we hit the 10 mark, we’ll be in a position to begin talking to the estate agent and actually open the coworking space. I’m going to be forwarding this blog entry to anyone that previously expressed interest in either full or part-time residence - but if you don’t hear from me and would like to know more, drop me an email or leave a comment.

1. Andy McMillan
2. Matt Johnston
3. Dave Rice
4. James Gallagher
5. Instil Software Employee
6. Instil Software Employee
7. Rich Dale
8. Black Box Employee * provisionally
9. Black Box Employee * provisionally

Taken at the Belfast Flickr Meetup yesterday - view the full set.

A regularly checked email address
Pretty simple, but often neglected. Register an address at Gmail and make sure it’s obviously positioned on your social network profiles and website. Either check it all the time or set it up to redirect to a personal account thats checked often - Gmail makes this pretty simple if you look through Settings. If you’re in it for the long hawl, consider spending a few quid on a domain name and set up an email account through that.

A press blurb
This should be absolutely mandatory for every new band - always have a short paragraph about yourselves immediately available online. Naturally new bands will have very little to say, but it’s something you should always be gradually building on - charting interesting events (EP or album releases, support slots, etc) amongst the typical influences and biographical information. Any decent promoter will be sending out press releases - and its always better to have something factual and detailed that you’ve prepared personally rather than an unimaginative promoter (hello) dream something up about you. And for the love of God, don’t try to be funny, mystical or conceited - it never works.

Some press shots
Spring a few quid and have some decent, hi-res photographs taken. Email a reputable local photographer - there are plenty that specialize in music photography (Phil O’Kane, Matthew Alexander Patton, Graham Smith, Gavin Millar) and book a shoot. You might have to write off the better part of a day but you’ll be typically be left with a dozen or so shots - which you should upload at hi-res and make blatantly available. Again, invaluable when it comes to press coverage.

Anything missing?

Edit: This turned into quite an interesting discussion on Fastfude.

Sarah made spooky tapenade for our halloween party - cute!

OpenCoffee
Thursday 20th November at 6pm in Common Grounds

I also decided a few weeks ago, given that I’m a freelancer without any higher authority arranging the obligatory Christmas dinner, that perhaps the OpenCoffee group might for an evening become my boozy, overzealous coworkers. £10 deposit is required for the three course “OpenTurkey” meal in McHughs (of which you can view the set menu online) - which will need to be with me asap. There are still a few places left - check the group for more information.

OpenTurkey
Friday 28th November at 8pm in McHughs

What I’ve found before with events of this nature is that many of the speakers either don’t understand the unique conditions of the Northern Irish music scene - or choose to gear their talks quite generically - which again often leads them to be unconsciously structured with their knowledge of how things work elsewhere. Hopefully, given that many of the speakers have worked within Northern Ireland before, some relevant topics and issues will be discussed and we might see some value in the wider expertise and experience of the speakers.

NIMIC have been happy to tout that “2008 has been a landmark year for the music industry”, but most of those improvements have been made at a grassroots level with little or no coordination or support - just a desire to see things improve. The same thing has been happening with the tech industry within Northern Ireland except it has seen coordination and support through events such as BarCamp and OpenCoffee.

So, due to popular demand, we’re going to experiment with applying those ideas to local music - and right after the conference event next Thursday (around 5pm), we’ve booked The House (map) for the first semi-organised local music meetup. Some nibbles will be provided thanks to NIMIC - and we’ll see what might be improved with a little communication and collaboration.

Proud Deering - Always Put On A Good Show

Proud Deering - Russia

You can download high-quality MP3 versions of these tracks from prouddeering.com, or stream them from Myspace or Last.fm. Next up - sending a lot of emails and burning a load of CDs to get it listened to, booking practise space and a gig and finishing the website off.

So, I’m committing a sort of experiment. I’m helping Proud Deering - a local “up-and-coming” indie band (that my brother just happens to drum for) work their way through the aforementioned steps to see where it takes them. Step one - recording a demo - was done over the weekend and the two tracks they did with Declan in Big Space Studios in Newry (ps. highly recommended!) should be with us by the end of the week. Does following the rules alone grant even a lukewarm reception to the scene or is it simply not so rigid and it’s down to some other factor? Will knowledge of how local music is structured help - and if it does, how do we provide a central resource that other new and upcoming bands can make use of? What do you think?

Design Week, from November 3rd to 8th is a week long celebration of Irish and international design. The main purpose of Design Week is to highlight the important contribution good design makes to the cultural and economic life of Ireland through fostering a reputation for creative excellence and innovation.

Belfast seems to have lucked out with the some of the best events (Art College FTW!) - including talks from Nicolas Roope - the Creative Director from Poke London, Bill Morrison - Director of Place and Peter Higgins - Creative Director of Land Design Studio. There are also two other vague, potential exhibition events taking place titled “Digital Futures” and “Place-Making” - I’m supposing more information will rear its head nearer the time.

Design Week runs from the 3rd - 8th November in The Lecture Theatre of University of Ulster on York Street.