Coventry Music Museum curator Pete Chambers BEM writes for the Observer.
LOCAL artist Ruby Nixon is helping local venues through these Covid times by a collaboration with 12 of the city’s independent venues, centred on celebrating live music in the city.
As a music photographer herself, Ruby has experienced the hardships faced by the music industry through Covid-19 and hopes to pave the way for a positive future for her local venues.
With this project, Ruby is raising funds for local Coventry music venues by selling a limited edition 2021 Calendar consisting of her own photography of the venues, with 80 per cent of profits going to the venues featured.
Aside from raising money for the venues, Ruby is using the time during lockdown to bring the local creative community together and hopes that the post-Covid future will see everyone supporting one another.
The calendar is £15 plus £1.99 postage and packing for buyers in the United Kingdom.
Visit rubynixonphotography.bigcartel.com to pre-order, which runs from now until December 8.
2-Tone, Before, During and After- Lee Morris
LOOK out for a new book about the Coventry-based Ska phenomenon entitled ‘2-Tone, Before, During and After’ by Lee Morris.
This is a no stone unturned look at bands like The Specials, Madness, The Selecter and some of the less well-known stablemates such as The Friday Club.
I asked Lee his reason for writing it and he said: “My reasons for writing the book were simple, I am a big fan of 2-Tone especially
The Specials, The Selecter, Madness and The Beat.
“I’ve always found it easy to find out information about the well-known bands, a number of books have been written on them.
“But I’ve never been able to find much out on any of the lesser known bands, especially those that were on the label after 1981, such as The Higsons, The Friday Club, The Apollinaires and Swinging Cats.
“A lot of 2-Tone fans are completely unaware of those bands and I wanted to change that.
“I feel that everyone who appeared on the label is important as they are part of the story.”
The book was published by Media House Books on November 7 and is available at amazon.co.uk – priced at £9.99.
Dresden Pilot
ALL hail 20-year-old Roze Navab from Coundon for her inspiring involvement in Coventry’s Twin Cities Project.
She has the finger on the pulse along with the team and the project can now boast its own song.
Roze said this project was a perfect opportunity to utilise the international relations Coventry had built over the years to promote all our local talents.
We have teamed up with our twin city of Dresden, Germany, on a music project.
Three young talented artists have spent the last few months digitally collaborating on a song called the Dresden Pilot which celebrates the twinning.
The three artists involved are 29-year-old Feisty, a Coventry based rapper, 21 year-old Makeup – a Coventry University Alumni and singer and 19-year-old songwriter Lea Baender, along with a Dresden-based artist looking to incorporate music into her work.
They said: “Now, it is time to honour the ‘Global Promotion’ of our mission.
“We are asking as many of our twin stations to spare a few minutes and play this live.
“This is an opportunity for us to build a new and exciting Global Village which you can be part of – 27 cities across the world working with one another in synergy.”
