Student Radio Conference

Earlier this week was the Student Radio Conference in Leicester - I went last year in Bradford and it was awesome, so had high hopes for this one!
Needless to say, it didn't disappoint! It's basically a conglomeration of hundreds of students from various student radio stations up and down the country, all getting together to complain about a lack of food in the lunch bags, drink excessively and learn more about the craft we so love.

As it happens, I learnt an awful lot for the two days that I was there. More than I have done in two days for a long time! I've got page after page of notes, and after being prodded to realise that radio shows do not exist as time-slots on air, they should continue to live on social media after the show. As such, I've had a bit of a social media breakdown these last few days, and added Vine, Pinterest and Instagram to the already long list of Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Spotify, YouTube, Vimeo and more. Too many to keep track of, but I'm hoping I can keep them all music related. That is after all, what I am most interested in!!

So a very interesting, eye-opening conference. Not to mention, very funny. It was nice to bump into people I'd met for the first time in Bradford, and indeed meet new faces. I met one person who had a near-on replica of village life back home. The same formula of: "Village. Village has a pub which is the centre-piece of the community, there is also a school. This village is part of a bigger network of villages, which all have schools and pubs. There is one secondary school in a slightly bigger village, and all the smaller ones have buses to get there each day. Each pub has a summer beer festival, there is a town nearby".
I said to my Dad that this discovery of similar lifestyles to ours is brilliant - it justs stokes the fire in my mind for a big documentary about the music communities in these places, which are on the periphery of the major locations like London and Manchester, and now Birmingham, my word we're getting so much great music from Birmingham at the moment.

On the Tuesday night, funnily enough, I did go and stay overnight in Birmingham. It's only a short jaunt from Leicester, and I needed to do some work on my Q Radio show which is based there. I hot-footed it over on the train, had a bit of food and set to work. It's a lovely chilled atmosphere in a radio station by night. The stress and distractions of a 300mph workday is a foreign thing, I had a little chatter then set to work. It's absolutely awesome to be working on a new music show. May as well be called a 'this show couldn't be more up Louis' street if it tried, show'. Whether I'm doing it right or not is unbeknownst to me, all I know is that I am thoroughly enjoying regaling stories of music in my life and trying to bring it alive, to be more than just a new track by a new artist. Music is never that 2D is it? - there is always a back-story, an initial impetus to create that song. I'm enjoying relating my own, personal, genuine reactions to the music and hoping that resonates a bit stronger than a bit of verbal bumpf about what label the band are signed to. You can Google that yourself!

Stayed in the Travellodge over night! - Felt like Alan Partridge. Arrived at 11pm to the shock of the night-shifters, "you want a room, now?!" - yes please.
Immediately ordered a beer and a cheese panini, retreated to my room to have a brew and natter with my better half, then hit the hay. Wasn't in bed for long, I was rudely awoken (not by the dustman, #parklife) by my Mariamba alarm-tone and hastily obliged to get up and slap another day on the bottom. Turned out to be such an early start that I didn't properly feel awake until I made it to Leicester McD's for a coffee. Another day of very intriguing lectures ensued...

It's nice to come off the back of a conference and not feel overwhelmed, drowned and pessimistic because of all the radical things presented that we should be doing, instead it's nice to come away and have a wealth of ideas and drive not just because of the presentations themselves but because of the opportunity to meet people and share tales of their lives that ignite a creative spark.

Rare you get that!.....currently though, all I'm thinking about is Birmingham's music scene and how much I'd like a cheese panini.