"The Grassroots Musician's Guide to Coventry" by Lily Smith
Feature
From time to time I express the feeling that our local music scene has never been so exciting & strong in terms of diversity & originality of talent, especially with so many very exciting young musicians emerging all the time.
I think the reasons for this are complex & now is not the place to air my theories in detail. However, with something this strong, I always worry "can it last?". after all, high spots in local music have been followed by long troughs & even stagnation.
So all the more respect to Lily Smith (whom you will know through her own music as part of Reign The Girl Band whom we've reviewed, featured on a compilation & who played at a recent HMLP fundraiser gig for The Tin) for her new book "The Grassroots Musician's Guide to Coventry" which was launched at the LTB Showrooms yesterday.
Lily collects together all the threads which make the current grassroots scene work so well & presents them in a really accessible style in a beautifully designed book, complete with illustrations by local artists & photographers.
I'm sure carefully structured projects like the "Live On Stage" one run by The Tin & Coventry Music offer this sort of input to members, but here at last we have it all in one place for everyone who needs it.
Signposts to various organisations are presented clearly and to offer qualitative endorsement and details of how actual artist careers can be built with support, there is testimony from the likes of Septic & the Tanks, The Caroline Bomb, Duck Thieves and Nyotaa (many of whom were present at the event & Nyotaa was one of those who performed a short celebratory set).
It was rewarding too to see ‘Hot Music Live' cited as a potential aid to grassroots artists.
You can definitely simply take the suggestions in the book & transform your talent from the context of wherever you are working with it, be in bedroom or rehearsal space to one where potentially every local music lover can hear what you can do: it's that well articulated & structured.
Because it's all here, the capacity for sustaining what's currently working so well is enhanced: which addresses directly my main worry. Structures & organisations will grow, change or even disappear (a lot do rest on the shoulders of individuals or small teams) and historically that's what's happened: whole ecosystems of music have flourished & then faded, leaving a new generation to have to start from scratch, wasting much energy & time. Now with "The Grassroots Musician's Guide to Coventry", this danger is much reduced (I'm hoping it can be revised as necessary over the years).
There is an online version at https://grassrootsmgtcov.gumroad.com/l/ghtson and in terms of hard copies, please email Lily at lilybook247@gmail.com
Lily will also be casting her net over other local scenes (this book is very Coventry specific in its links, though absolutely not in its general guidance), so if you'd like to contribute to books on say Leamington/Warwick, Stratford or Rugby etc, please do let her know.
