That was 2007 That Was
Well it's that time of year to look back on what 2007 brought and on our hopes for 2008. I won't delve into specific artists as a glance at our 2007 awards will tell you the names of many of the individuals who impressed us. We also reached out to a number of the people that had a major impact on us during 2007 and asked them for their thoughts.(If you want to contribute, drop us a couple of hundred words on your thoughts about 2007. If you can get it to us by January 14th, we'll do our best to include it.
2007 started and finished with technical failures, these things happen and we continue on. The important thing is what happened in between. A combination of you telling your friends about us, links to and from other sites and in combination with our page on Myspace has seen our monthly readership expand to approximately fifteen thousand different readers of which eleven to twelve thousand are now considered regulars. For this thank you all very very much. The more readers we get, the wider the artists we support get exposure. As many of the artists we feature are ignored by much of the mainstream press, this is great news for all involved. On behalf of those artists a second heartfelt thank you.
We added music to our Cambridge Folk Festival Website and you responded by making it our most successful ever. Not only was it our most read, but also the biggest in terms of articles and photographs. A big thanks to the Fatea onsite team and the organizers and staff for giving us the access to bring you coverage of the best folk festival in the calendar.
2007 was a year of contradiction, there was so much good music about. Falling costs have made it so much easier to record an album. Increasing flexibility means there are so many channels available for music to be heard on, radio, tv, digital radio, YouTube, MySpace, internet radio etc. The biggest problem isn't making the music, it's getting it heard.
Similarly in the live arena, there seem to be so many more opportunities to play somewhere, less that seem to want to pay. With recorded music becoming so disposable, the importance of live increases. As even rare tracks become instantly available, only live can provide the genuinely different experience. Technology now allows for you to buy a copy of the gig you've just attended as you leave. Gigging still provides the main shop window for artists struggling to get airplay.
That major artists are now signing multi-million pound deals for their live rights, shows just how much the face of music is changing. If the trend at the top gets more people back into going to gigs, so much the better. If local venues and folk club can broaden their appeal and get more people in at the grass root, so much the better. In the US the house gig, where a group of friends pay to bring artists to their house, normally singer songwriters or duos, for a performance, started gaining traction. It's not really established it's self outside of the US, which may be down to house size. Be interesting to see if 2008 sees that changing.
One trend that does seem to have taken off is flexible band projects. In 2007 we noticed two distinct streams.
Solo artists and duos adding additional musicians to their touring unit, playing some venues as a band, some as a solo artist, depending on the practicality of where they were playing. The other is established musicians coming together to form groups as an additional outlet for their songs and creative juices. Still having solo careers or careers in other bands, but ensuring maximum road and recording time with multiple projects.
2007 was a good year for Fatea. I'd like to think we did our bit to help make 2007 a success for the artists that we featured in our pages. We hope to continue to publicize acoustic based music even more successfully in 2008 and wish all the best to the artists out there in recording studios, writing songs in bedrooms, out on the road, basically anyone anywhere helping keep the music fresh.
All that remains is for me to introduce the artists and others that have contributed to this end of year review and their thoughts on the year.
The brief was simple, your thoughts on 2007, highs, lows etc. It was down to the individuals to interpret in their own way. It was supposed to be in approximately 200 words, but there you go. Click on the individual for their thoughts. If you want to join in, why not mail us your thoughts?
Eddie Barcan - Cambridge Folk Festival
Jackie Oates - Fiddler, singer, rising star
Tinderbox - From the burgeoning Poole/Bournemouth Scene
Anna Esslemont - Fiddler/singer with Uiscedwr
Marsha Swanson - Glasswerk New Music Awards Folk Artist and Album of the Year
Mark Coyle - Woven Wheat Whispers supremo
Robb Johnson - Singer/songwriter political all round good guy
Allan Wilkinson - Fatea's man in the venues
Helen Andrews - One half of Portsmouth News Folk Act Of The Year, Amalthea
Andy Whittle - Singer/Songwriter and rising star of Folkwit records