Sound City is officially (well sort of) one of the UKs best music festivals and industry events. The Guardian and Billboard have both awarded it five stars and Virtual Festivals have given it an unbeatable 10/10.
Even now, just a few days after it ended the feedback has been coming in and its overwhelmingly positive. But all this does is reflect the comments made by almost everyone I spoke to during the festival.
I was able to check out Brighton’s Great Escape the week before and while that is undeniably a good event (and while I will own up to being biased) I think an honest comparison is that Sound City is already bigger and better than its slightly older competitor from down South.
For those of you who don’t know Sound City is held in Liverpool over four days and is now in its third year. It is made up of an industry conference and hundreds of gigs in venues across the city centre. The beauty of Liverpool is that everything is compact and you can easily make your way from hotel to venue and on to any other venue you choose really easily.
Highlights for me?
Well with my work hat on it was great to see so many companies from the region at the ‘Doing The Business Session’ taking advantage of the opportunity to meet and potentially do business (as the name implies) with key business execs from some of the world’s leading music co’s. Early signs are that some definite deals are likely to emerge from this event.
For those at a slightly earlier stage of business development was the excellent Create Sound City sessions at the Hard Days Night Hotel where young music entrepreneurs could benefit from the wisdom of senior industry figures. I checked out a few of these panels and those run by Chris Cooke (from CMU) in particular were brilliantly run, useful, and very funny sessions. I chatted to a few of the target audience and they were all thrilled by the opportunity to have dialogue with such industry bigwigs in such a relaxed environment.
The Sound City conference proper was held in the glamorous surroundings of the newly opened Hilton. Highlights for me included listening to the stories from the legend that is Seymour Stein (who actually signed one of my bands a long time ago), and also the practical and blunt advice of local stalwarts such as John Robb (journo and musician), Alan Wills ( Deltasonic MD), and Rob Swerdlow (one of the UKs top managers). It just goes to show conferences don’t have to be dull!
Friday afternoon was really sunny but the Vision + Media sponsored Perfect Pitch event was taking place so I stayed in doors. Five Liverpool based companies pitched their music concepts to an industry panel. Being honest , the pitching skills of some left a bit to be desired but the concepts were generally really good and early signs are that a few of them may be picked up for further development by some major industry players.
What else was there? Oh yes, there were the gigs. Sound City offers a great platform for bands from the region to play well marketed gigs in great venues to good audiences made up of music fans and music industry figures.
It was great to wander around town going from venue to venue, bumping into fellow festival goers (identifiable by the wristbands), studying programmes, and sharing notes on who was worth seeing and who wasn’t.
Again the highlights were many and varied. Meeting Africa Bambaata and then catching his DJ set was a rare treat for an old timer like me! Spiky young Liverpool band The Temps did such a good job of supporting The Fall that even grumpy old Mark E Smith warmed to them. The Fall were… well they were The Fall. Brilliant, annoying, dull, and then brilliant again, all in the space of a couple of songs. Upstairs at the same time as The Fall the Manchester new guard of Delphic and Everything Everything attracted a big crowd and kept everyone happy. Bicycle Thieves, Sound of Guns, Luke Fenlon, Wave Machines, and Red Suns were the best of a fine Liverpool crop.
One band to look out for is Manchester based Folks. Unfortunately, they had the misfortune to play at Hannah’s bar when the Champions League final was on. A real shame as they are a band to watch and you will hear more from them.
Other things I enjoyed were a great set from Holy Fuck, Sound Movement, Rox playing a storming set at the Zanzi, Blood Red Shoes at the same venue at a time when it was so hot I thought I would melt, and a couple of young Scottish bands, The Mickey 9’s (my festival highlight) and Hip Parade.
If you didn’t make it this year then you need to make sure you are there next time.