poptimists | The Trouble With Pop

Top radio show Freaky Trigger And The Lollards Of Pop is broadcasting a "Pop Special" tonight, entitled THE TROUBLE WITH POP. I'll be hosting, there will be contributions from

dubdobdee,

katstevens,

thebopkids and hopefully

koganbot, and we'll be talking about genre drift, horrible people making good records, referential pop songs, as well as hunting for the Swedish Lily Allen and the Iranian Rihanna. There may even be a quiz!

It's at 7PM, on Resonance 104.4 FM if you're in the South Bank area and at www.resonancefm.com if you're not - broadcast over the internet and then podcast afterwards on www.freakytrigger.co.uk.

And here's a special plea from Ed Baxter, head of Resonance FM. Make your own minds up as to whether it's a worthwhile one.

As you may be aware, Resonance FM was established by London Musicians' Collective. LMC's remit has been, for thirty years now, to support avant-garde music, that supposedly "difficult" stuff that gets lampooned as elitist noise in the popular press and on the "Today" programme. Tbe list of its achievements would take up many pages (a tiny fraction is at www.l-m-c.org.uk). Suffice to say, Resonance FM was entirely the creation of the LMC Board and emerged directly from its work. No other organisation would have realised such a project: no other organisation did.

LMC's grant from Arts Council England's Music Department has now been entirely cut. The radio station is not immediately threatened, as it is financed directly by the Visual Arts department (Music having never expressed interest in Resonance whatsoever). But to have one without the other is, as you can imagine, a little pointless to those of us who set up Resonance FM.

This year, ACE has managed to find £1.7million to underwrite the launch of a new music umbrella body, "The New Organisation." LMC was excluded from the discussions about this quango, the stated ambitions of which sound remarkably like what we have been realising on a daily basis for the last five years: the maintenance of a hub which encourages, nourishes and broadcasts the work of musicians of every stripe from our locale and beyond, etc etc (only couched in the language of marketing consultants and apparently to be manned by people devoid of originality or vision). Meantime, too, the sequel to LMC's best selling CD, Peter Cusack's "Your Favourite London Sounds" plays in ACE's lobby as a permanent audio exhibit!

I wonder if you would help me by writing a short email to the people at ACE Music, expressing your support for LMC? And ask for an acknowledgment of your email. If they receive five or six thousand emails, maybe they will be prepared to reconsider this crisis of their own making.

Please address your email to the following persons:

graham.knight@artscouncil.org.uk (Assistant Officer, Music, London)
helen.sprott@artscouncil.org.uk (Head of Music, London)
moira.sinclair@artscouncil.org.uk (Director, London)
peter.hewitt@artscouncil.org.uk (Chief Executive, National)

Please make the subject "From " rather than something generic that can be easily ignored. Bear in mind, these are public servants: they work for us and you can, I think, insist on a response. Don't be surprised to receive an Out of Office automatic reply initially: of course everyone responsible will be heading to the hills!

Please cc it to "plea@resonancefm.com" so we have a copy on file. All emails sent to this address will be treated in strict confidence.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

piratemoggy.livejournal.com

Hurrah, I will remember to tune in tonight! Have forgotten for the last two weeks because I am rubbish.

Will do the email thing in a bit when have rebrained self with some more tea.