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Artist Interviews

Artist Interview: Polyvinyl

Hello. In your own words, how would you describe your sound and style?
Our sound and style is primarily inspired by post punk/new wave music, with a smattering of other styles that we all find compelling. We often take influence from loads of different sounds and genres when writing, so we end up being a mish-mash, but we quite like that.


You’ve just released your debut single “It’s Raining Somewhere Else”. What is the story behind the song and its title? What themes and ideas influence your music and writing?
“It’s Raining Somewhere Else” is, in short, a very pretty break-up song. The song is really about those stages one goes through during a separation, but with a focus on the acceptance of the situation and moving on. The title is a reference to never really knowing what’s going on with another person and while the other person may be doing just fine it may not be the same for the other. When we write a song, we always try to tell a story perhaps about subjects that we don’t often hear about. That being said, our songs are often about isolation in one way or another. Maybe it says more about us than we think haha.

We’ve caught your live set a few times and understand that you have more gigs lined up. What have been career highlights for you so far? And what other live plans do you have?
We recently played Little Buildings in Newcastle which, so far, has been our most rewarding gig. Such a fantastic crowd and energy within that very small room; it was an absolute joy. We’ve just played NE Volume Music bar in Stockton supporting Elephant Red, and our next gig is on 22nd October at the Globe in Newcastle supporting Holiday in Tokyo.  After that, we’re hoping to put something on ourselves in winter, maybe early next year? We’ll see.


Do you have any plans for the year ahead that you would like to share with us? Also, what would you like to achieve in the upcoming year?
In the coming year we plan to release two more singles. One we just finished recording and the other to come out around Christmas with a music video. In the New Year we plan to follow those with an EP, more single releases and hopefully bigger and better gigs. Our biggest aims would be to reach a much wider audience and hopefully play as many festivals as we can. Maybe management too if we’re lucky?


What advice do you have specifically for other north east artists? And what advice do you have for artists in general?
As up and coming artists ourselves it’s difficult to feel we’re in a position to give advice to anyone. However an important thing to do is PLAN. Plan your sound, take time, care and plenty of thought when it comes to songwriting and production. Plan your marketing strategy and how much time you want to devote to what you think is the most important goal. Those goals may be anything from gigs, recording, scheduling releases or making friends with promoters. Passion is great but being smart is everything. But above all we would say PRACTICE, we can’t stress this enough. Learn your craft and be the best you can. Be disciplined and love what you do and you’ll get somewhere (We hope).


Lastly, what artists are on your radar that you would recommend others listen to & see live?
We always have to recommend our good friends MXYM, and Keiran Bowe. Quality artists. Swine Tax is a band that really stood out to us when we caught their live set, very impressive stuff. Pink Poison as well, they keep popping up in the music scene as of recent and are definitely worth seeing!

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Industry Interviews

NMC Guest: Bekka (The Tyne Tribe)

How long have you been active in the north east music scene and what do you do?
Oooh. This is a hard question to answer as I’ve been in and out for years, ha! But if we’re focusing on what I do currently, then I would say since the start of 2021.

I had the idea of wanting to create a newsletter database for gig-listings for when the world is out of the pandemic. I got too excited and launched The Tyne Tribe on International Women’s Day. In it’s current form, it’s best described as a curated newsletter of some of my favourite musical discoveries from the North East who I call “The Tribe” (I spent four years in London so I’m basically re-educating myself) and it also features some small-scale reviews, shares other publications articles’ and songs I’m currently listening to.

As lockdown restrictions ease it will focus more towards listings, events and music news but for now I am enjoying sharing some of our regions best talent and being able to provide another platform to shout about how wicked everyone is.

How did you become involved in music and what have you done to get where you are today?
So I used to have a couple of online zines from around 2011-2015 that focused more on promoting acts from the UK and USA rather than necessarily regionally. I went to University in Sunderland though, so had some very ad-hoc single review pieces published in The Crack and on the Uni’s website as well.

But my zines helped me land an internship at Sony Music so I moved down south and worked on various releases including Blue, Judas Priest, Carrie Underwood and Live Lounge. After my year was up I moved to a digital agency where I spent three years creating social strategies and album campaigns for Ward Thomas, Calum Scott, Tom Walker, Years & Years, The xx, Ellie Goulding and loads more! It was a brilliant experience and I loved seeing the real industry side of things that seems to be hidden to us Northerners.

After four years down south I decided to come back up North and for a while I didn’t do too much. I was briefly involved with Sofar Sounds and also did some live music photography which is a big passion of mine, but only this year did I decide to properly get back into the scene because I miss it so much and it’s also grown bloody loads which is amazing.

What advice would you offer to others looking to be more involved in music?
Just go for it. Regardless of what area you want to get into whether its writing, photography, promotions, playing in a band –  just give it a go. I spent years being scared to network because I thought people wouldn’t take me seriously so have the confidence to fight for whatever it is you want and as long as you work hard you’ll get there. Also be nice to people, the music industry is way smaller than you think and connections are everything.

What are your favourite things about the north east music scene? Are there any particular highlights from your experiences?
The people. Honestly, I know everyone says it but it’s so true. I haven’t got a lot of connections in the North because I was too scared to make any before I moved (so hiya if you’re reading this, let’s grab a beer) but since I have started The Tyne Tribe you can see how truly supportive everyone is of each other and it’s refreshing to see.

I think my personal highlights are just becoming more familiar with the local venues since coming home. I took them for granted before, but now they’re some of my favourite places to be.

Where can others find out more about your work and how can they get in touch?
If you’re interested in The Tyne Tribe we’re on Twitter @thetynetribe, or you can subscribe to the newsletter that goes out twice a month here (it’s free) https://www.getrevue.co/profile/thetynetribe.

If you wanna be pals with me and grab that beer, I’m at @bekkacollins on Twitter, but also still do freelance social strategy work and shoot gigs when I can www.bekkacollins.com 

Categories
Industry Interviews

NMC Guest: Rebecca (The Alternative Fix)

How long have you been active in the north east music scene and what do you do?
I’ve been involved for about five years when I started presenting local radio at University on Spark Sunderland and worked doing a few shows across the schedule including producing the local music show. But it’s only been about the past year I’ve really got knee deep in the local scene with getting my new music blog up and running and taking up lots of local opportunities with that!

How did you become involved in music and what have you done to get where you are today?
I’ve always had a love of music from a young age and always knew growing up that I wanted a career in the thing I love. I did my degree at uni in Broadcast Media and through that got really involved with local radio and our amazing local scene (that has only got better and better over the years too). I fell in love with finding new music and getting to talk about it for hours each week and knew it was what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to start a website for years but kept putting it off because I’d never gave written journalism a go but during lockdown in March I just went for it and launched my music blog and never looked back since!

What advice would you offer to others looking to be more involved in music?
Honestly just grab any opportunity you can take because I wish I had sooner. Over the past year especially, I’ve learnt there’s so many amazing, talented and kind people on our scene, so just reach out to places like local radio stations, blogs etc and try and get as much experience as possible! The key to the music industry is trying to get as much experience as possible and at the beginning most of that is unpaid but it really is worth it with the skills, contacts and friends you make along the way. It’s always handy as well to try build up as many skills as you can across the industry because it really does come in useful, for example I’ve tried to teach myself graphic design this year for my blog posts and there’s plenty of apps you can get these days that are very user friendly and free too! As cliché as it may sound, don’t put off your goals and ambitions and just go for it because our North-East music scene is full of lovely, supportive people whether it be other journalists, artists, promoters… you name it!

What are your favourite things about the north east music scene? Are there any particular highlights from your experiences?
One of my favourite things like I just mentioned is how lovely 99% of the people I’ve came across on the scene are! I love how supportive fellow artists and music journo’s are of each other. I suffer from really bad mental health and although we’ve been in a pandemic for the past year I’ve met some of the most amazing and talented people this year all through music and doing my blog, we have a lovely little network so get stuck in! Another thing I love is what huge names we have on our scene at the moment, it is definitely the strongest I’ve seen the scene since getting involved five years ago and not to be biased but I think locally, we have the strongest and most diverse music scene in the country. So many artists on the North-East scene are destined for some BIG things!

Where can others find out more about your work and how can they get in touch?
My music blog I run is for new indie, alternative and rock music and is named The Alternative Fix. I started this up during lockdown so only been doing it around 7 months but it’s going really well! I now get artists getting in touch not just locally or nationally but globally from the likes of America and Australia, it’s insane! The support and comments I’ve received have been so lovely and positive, it’s crazy how well it’s gone already and feel really proud I run and produce 100% of the content all by myself!
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