Word cloud emerges from early coding of jazz archive interview data

The coding of interview data has begun! 

'Notes towards a typology of the DIY institution' - now available on OnlineFirst

'Notes towards a typology of the DIY institution: Identifying do-it-yourself places of popular music preservation', the article I co-wrote with Alison Huber (RMIT University), has now been published on Sage OnlineFirst. 

Introducing the 'Music Archive Network'

If you are interested in the archiving of popular music then consider signing up to the newly formed Music Archive Network. This network has been set up by Sound and Music, the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool and the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research at Birmingham City University.

Collaborations – the popular music heritage database

I’m currently working with activist archivist Jez Collins (Birmingham City University and founder of the Birmingham Music Archive) on the creation of a database that logs popular music archives and museums from around the world.

Capturing a moment in time: a visit to the South Australian Jazz Archive

Earlier this week I made a visit to the South Australian Jazz Archive in Adelaide, South Australia. This archive is a little younger than the Victorian Jazz Archive (the largest of Australia's DIY jazz archives), having been founded in 2003/4. Run entirely by volunteers, the archive seeks to preserve, collect, catalogue and display material that pertains to ‘the origin and development of the various styles of jazz, swing, and “hot” dance music in South Australia to the present day’, including material relating to ‘relevant performances and recordings by South Australian musicians in South Australia and elsewhere in the world’. The archive’s catchphrase is “Saving and celebrating our jazz heritage”.

The ‘archipelago’ that is the Lippmann & Rau Music Archive, Eisenach (Germany)

I had no idea what to expect on my visit to Eisenach, a town of 40,000 people in the former East Germany. Eisenach is home to the Lippmann & Rau Music Archive, formerly the Internationales Jazzarchiv. When I arrived I had not yet had confirmation of my visit to the archive and this gave me some time to find out about the town. What I discovered in my visits to Eisenach's museums and to Wartburg Castle was that Eisenach is a really interesting place with strong theological connections (Martin Luther) and historical links to a number of important classical musicians (Wagner, Telemann and Bach).

Archiving international jazz in Uster, Switzerland.

Another successful archive visit; this time to SwissJazzOrama located in Uster, a short train journey from central Zurich, Switzerland.

Visit to Klaus Kuhnke Archiv

Another whirlwind trip to Europe has begun. First stop, the Klaus Kuhnke Archiv fur Populare Musik in Bremen, Germany.

Crowdfunding the DIY Institution: a pathway to financial sustainability?

What role might crowdfunding have in the financial sustainability of DIY archives and museums?

On 'Unauthorising popular music heritage', a forthcoming IJHS article by Les Roberts and Sara Cohen

There is a really exciting special ‘music heritage’ issue of the International Journal of Heritage Studies coming out soon(ish). A number of articles from the special issue are already available online. Of particular interest to this project is an article by Les Roberts  and Sara Cohen called ‘Unauthorising popular music heritage: outline of a critical framework’ .