Okay, so in some respects, what began as a sorry tale has morphed into a beautiful thing.
The OUTSIDELEFT NIGHTS OUT, hosted by Nina and all at Why Not Coffee on Bearwood's high street, had exceptional musicians and DJs acts lined up to play, and a fun, fundraising bric-a-brac sale all scheduled, and events mooted all the way into the summer, the along with tons of community goodwill and support going on wanting the whole enterprise to succeed. Why Not? Fun times. Or so we thought. Like everyone else we were overtaken and then engulfed by events.
The planned NIGHTS OUT were pulled early. When Warren, Jason, Nina and I discussed cancelling the shows, no one hesitated.
Not a Night Out as it turned out
Then we started the OUTSIDELEFT NIGHTS IN... our daily Spotify playlist put together by... everyone we have ever asked... Yeah I am going to name everyone, because, everyone made it a great thing to be part of. About an hour of music each day, pushed online as a distraction, a band aid, and out into the world of social media. Turns out people love lists. We knew that already though. People love lists. Our most popular story of all time after all is a list of the 12 Hottest Female Guitarist Ever written by Alarcon 2007. And oh is it popular as he never ceases to remind me, by some 500,000 page views over the next story. Or something like that.
So thanks to all the playlisters, this has been great, aural equivalent of looking at the bookshelves behind those talking heads on tv, except way better. Thanks Jason Lewis, with playlist #1, DJ Damon Hayhurst and DJ Hothouse Malkin, and Alarcon for being there every week. Then, Jez Collins, an inspiration - there's more from him this week; poet, Pixievic, Baton Rouge's Museumgoer, poet Duncan Jones, Heather & Monroe Moon, Ceramic Patchwork's Zoe; Disco Christina & DJ Phil from the B67; Phantom Frequencies' Mick Monk, Swans biographer Nick Soulsby; screenwriter and Rufus Wainright biographer, Kirk Lake; Jeremy Gluck of the Barracudas, and Nonceptualism and still the only playlister (so far) to appear on Top of the Pops; Councillor Bob Piper; our favorite fiction writer, Meave Haughey; jazz great, Bryan Corbett, Croaky the Clown - Warren recruited him a coup!, OL contributor Toon Traveller, and Mark Mr. Magic Davies who has just been so great at the Nights Out, helping us to make them work out well. Thanks to you all!
And now for the next 50, there's tons of exciting playlists in already...
I can't tell you that there will be OUTSIDELEFT NIGHTS OUT like there were, again. I can tell you that there most likely won't be. We're working class people with shitty jobs and I don't think we can afford to entertain ourselves like that anymore. That doesn't mean we're not thinking and talking about music, arts, music, arts, music, community, place, social distancing and wondering how to make that work, together, wonderously well.
I will say that we're planning more music for our nascent Outsideleft Original Sound Recordings label. And with our remaining little bit of money, a plexiglas box has been commissioned! A lot like the one seen at the Met an age ago, in the time before paying became a thing there... Suggested Donations... Then the Met gave you a little badge, shaming I guess those without little badges.
Look badges, we have badges... We have no shame. And no shame if you don't have a badge yet, you'll get yours.
like old school met badges, but not...
There's always going to be something happening here...
Essential Info
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