News from Alien She

It's a little difficult to describe what this article is about in a few words: it's not a review certainly.

However I was impressed by not just what Sarah (who promotes & DJs under the sobriquet of Alien She) told me but by her sense of positivity & who can resist that?

I'd picked up fragments of what she briefed me on, but not all the parts nor the sense of connectivity. I'd definitely say that whenever I can write about bigger picture issues as well as the talents on individual artists, it's a particular pleasure. Having experienced the highs & lows of the local music scene over the years including dark eras of stagnation, lack of imagination and cliques, I often ramble on at how great it currently is with so many people supporting each other and delighting in each other's music.

And Sarah's tale is one of these for sure: collaboration and what she characterises as a "chain event" and these must lie at the heart of the sustainability we yearn for & the lack of which has ended previous periods of healthy scenes.

So let's start at the beginning of the chain, when Sarah invited UFO Club (from Leeds)  to DJ at the Cov Sauce Hallowe'en event  after seeing them play at ALSO Fest at Compton Verney.

Link number two consisted of UFO reciprocating and asking Sarah & Tom Something to play in Leeds alongside Isis Moray.

At much the same time, Sarah sent Ben at UFO tracks by people he'd met at the Cov Sauce gig and he passed the Paradise of the Titans material by Alice Weston onto Jade (Isis Moray) who consequently will be putting out her next release on the Holy Crow label (which has also featured Alys Rain).  While Alice will be remixing one of Ben's songs from his new EP.

Actually the chain analogy is getting a bit strained now with things happening concurrently so maybe a web?

The next strands/links will be Sarah & Alice playing with Isis & Ben in Sheffield in July with hopefully another reciprocation in Coventry to follow.

And this is just a start of bilateral support. No wonder Sarah is so pleased as each small & achievable step has led to another, drawn in others & looks capable of growing steadily and sustainably.

I tend to celebrate what's going on in Coventry & Warwickshire because that's what I write about in this magazine and it's about as large a catchment as a single person can even begin to monitor at any reasonable sort of depth. I often get feedback from other areas: sometimes people are a bit envious of us because their region isn't as thriving, other times I hear of people working along parallel lines.

What must be the case however is that by forging mutually supportive local partnerships, it benefits everyone. Without doubt, the most frustrating thing for me (and the artists) is when they conquer their immediate area but cannot easily break out into the wider picture: I delight whenever I learn of people managing gigs elsewhere.

A few of these manage the feat by the traditional means: sheer weight of talent & getting the break of it being spotted by someone with influence. New networks and opportunities have definitely been generated by, for example, the BIMMs which increasing numbers of our musicians have studied out. Relocation helps too: it's great to see how many London gigs both Banoffee and HomeBread are playing since they established a base there.

Festivals probably represent the single most helpful driver for breaking out of one's home area and again, I enjoy seeing artists we cover being invited to a great variety of these.

So if you add in the idea of bilateral links with other areas such as Sarah is experiencing, a bit like the concept of town twinning, deep and long term relationships can offer fairly easily the chance to catch each other's talents live & then if you manage additional benefits such as the record label support, then what is the limit to what might be achieved with imagination & openness to fresh music? Clearly ego needs to be left at the door: the mindset which builds cliques has nothing to contribute to such a relationship. The equality of giving & taking required seems obvious for this to work.

This may be a good moment to pop in a mention of Strummer Room Records Presents who put on live original music at The Apothecary Tap in Banbury twice a month plus the annual ApTap Fest and who have regularly invited Coventry & Warwickshire artists to play: and we're talking ones of the class of  Concrete Fun House, Gutter Puppy, Project Overload, Duck Thieves, The Caroline Bomb and Shanghai Hostage in the last few months alone.

This is not yet the same directly reciprocating engine as described above but it does strengthen the bonds between the two scenes and since bands of the class of Dolly Mavies and Liam Vincent and the Odd Foxes have travelled in the opposite direction so to speak, is certainly representative of developing ties.

So I really look forward to others getting involved in the existing exchange programme but also in maybe taking the model & trying it with other areas: I think the possibilities are very exciting.

Regardless of all this (though really: please don't actually disregard it), the simple fact that it has so stimulated one of the most enthusiastic promoters of our local music to tell me that  "it's the best thing I've been involved within the last year and made me think this is what it's all about" should commend it to you by itself.

Incidentally, Alien She is playing at the Coventry Pride After Party on 27^th June at The Box at FarGo.