I’ve been at the Arts Council for about seven years and have been really keen on shifting the way the Arts Council approaches ‘contemporary popular’ as they clumsily called music. They used to have a ‘the cream will rise to the top so don’t get involved’ sort of attitude and that was redundant after about 1990! That’s all changed now thank Christ.
THERE’S NEVER BEEN MORE SUPPORT FOR BANDS THAN THERE IS RIGHT NOW
A lot more bands and artists are now sussing that they need to treat themselves as a microbusiness and can’t just leave it to the record labels and managers to take care of everything any more. Artists are twigging that some managers are great and some aren’t and it makes sense to know a little bit about what’s going on. When I talk about funding with bands I always tell them to read the form they’re filling in because at some point your management aren’t going to be there to do it for you.
Some might argue that the record industry might be completely fucked for money, but there have never been more opportunities for support for bands than there is right now.
INDIE50 