According to my history supervisor, blogging isn't dead, at least in the academic world. So this is my blog on music history research. More scholarly and specific posts incoming, but here's the first, rather self-indulgent one.

Big thanks and congratulations to @izzygthomas.bsky.social and co for organising such a great event!

Far too busy to take any photos, and barely time to take notes! Write-up on the mini-conference coming soon. If anyone has any photos to share, send them across.
All I got was this moment of audiophile bliss at a Norwich pub:

Pete will give a talk on the cultural history of pubs and clubs through the interactive medium of a ‘beer and music pairing’ session.

Read more and register here: blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ithomas3/key...

@petebrownbeer.bsky.social
@royalmusical.bsky.social

Ah this has been high on my personal theology reading list for years (which I've barely tackled to be honest). Recently saw this photo of him being a pretty cool guy.

There’s probably a tonne of pub rooms and venues that will be sat empty or quiet that people would book for a few hours if groups knew they could

Thinking about how many remote workers must want to meet with a large team and end up booking corporate spaces rather than independent businesses

You can follow this journey here: blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ithomas3/
...Or come join the discussion in person! www.rma.ac.uk/2024/09/23/r...

So I picked a handful of them - working men's clubs and institutes - and set out to discover how they became important places for live music, going all the way back to the mid-19th century. The origin story is fun, radical, even feminist?...🤩 but in a Victorian maintaining-social-order sort of way.🙄

Countless artists over decades and decades started off in covers bands, tribute acts, cabaret singers etc in spaces like these. In a sense, they're the grassroots of the grassroots. Could it be that the whole ecosystem of live music in Britain is at risk of collapse, from the very bottom up?

And yet these spaces are not represented by some of the amazing research projects and NGOs out there (like the incredible @musicvenuetrust.bsky.social). I'm talking about social clubs, workmen's halls, church halls, village halls, pubs (sort of), even miners' institutes. And we need them too.