Cornish Underground’s 12th Birthday
Happy 12th Birthday to Cornish Underground, weathering quite a storm over this last year and a half with the pandemic and lockdowns. I know these times have been hard for many, but in actual fact I’ve done quite well during the lockdowns and even managed to upskill and gain momentum in recording, mixing and music production.
I usually start these blogs with a rundown of gigs, recordings and artists works from the last year, but in the most part, my work has been generated by the Old Bakery Studios and Old Bakery TV (OBTV). The Old Bakery has been a rock through these hard times and has supported those freelancers who’ve been involved in the venue throughout lockdown. With help from the Arts Council England, the music magazine style TV show OBTV was created, involving professionals such as lighting, sound, camera crew, producers, bands and editors. We struck up pace with 2 day shoots at a time, with 3 bands a day and 10 shoots in total. Because we kept members to a minimum, we were able to socially distance bands and crew in the venue at any one time. Also meaning that from the 2 day’s shoots, I then had some 2 weeks or so of post-production following, which I could safely do from my home studio. The shows premiered on Facebook and YouTube every 3 weeks approximately, with 11 shows in total. This gave me meaningful employment from Nov ‘20 – June ‘21 which was much appreciated.
As well as producing this great work and sharing some pretty special times with the crew and bands alike, the extra benefit to me generated by OBTV was an amazing platform to show my sound and music production work on. Where normally work would go throughout the network of bands or the gigs specifically involved in a project, OBTV was purposefully in the public domain and the further the reach, the better. With often 4K views gained from each episode, my work soon made it into the eyes and ears of a larger and more receptive audience. The whole shows went out individually, but the separate song videos are being released bit by bit, with even more exposure. Considering there are some 85 tracks produced for OBTV alone this winter and footage being recycled for the Old Bakery’s event promo, It’s like the gift that keeps giving, I couldn’t have paid for better marketing!
On a technical note, I’m really loving mixing with the new Universal Audio platform that I’ve upgraded to in my home studio, with the centerpiece of the UA Apollo 8p. The sounds of classic analogue studio gear and access to high end studio equipment plug-in emulations ‘in the box’, has massively improved the quality of work I can release from my studio. Now I can learn my favourite ‘go-to’ settings and when in bigger and well equipped studios, I’ll know exactly what gear to go for and what buttons to press! Alongside this hardware and software upgrade, my microphone collection has improved massively, with the Neumann U87ai, 2 x KM184’s, a Shure SM7b and Soundelux iFet7. The monitoring system in my studio is now provided by the Genelec 1031a’s and Adam A7X’s.
If anyone remembers what gigs are, it seems they’re coming back into fashion, with quite a splash! After a couple of small gigs, one involving Radio 1 playlist artist Holly Humberstone, my gig schedule has firmly returned. First up was world / klezmer legends the Turbans at the Cornish Bank, a reduced capacity festival in Somerset and now back to the sweaty and bouncing shows at the Old Bakery. I have bookings for almost 2 gigs per weekend from now until May at the Old Bakery and with the gigs we’ve done already, I feel firmly back in the driving seat. There’s a whole host of really good artists booked to play, I’d advise you check their web page or FB to see what’s coming up. Live music is back!
Earlier this year, I was able to kickstart an old project and possibly combine it with a new one. The studio project ‘Fools Rock’ featuring myself and Neil McMahon, has been making headway and work has gone into our first full album, containing several guest artists hand picked from the cream of Cornish folk music. In our usual style, we’ve tracked and arranged nearly half of the music for the album and will be plugging away at it over the next few months. There is a possible cross-cultural collaboration on the cards using this project and some Cuban friends, involving a music video and documentary style footage celebrating the Cornish and Cuban connection through tin mining.
My first festival booking has come in for 2022, with hope for many more. I do hope our festival owners have managed to weather this storm too and that we can look forward to a full line up of festivals for 2022. Audiences do seem to be supporting live music with abundance and why ever not, I believe it’s a fundamental need for us to gather together to celebrate our existence in the collective experience of a festival or gig. Looking forward to seeing you all out there!
Just a quick thanks to Cath King, Julian Able and Arts Council England for their support and encouragement for OBTV and for you, the music lovers who are a constant provider of entertainment at our gigs! We’ll keep it coming if you keep rocking!
Brendan McGreal (Cornish Underground)
31st Oct 2021
