The designer interior of the Red Bull Music Academy by Gemma Milly.
Since the Red Bull Music Academy rolled into town just over a month ago I have been pursued by their PR to blog about the whole shebang. Unfortunately timings could not have been worse and whilst I have been concentrating on London Fashion Week the great and good of the electronic music world have been gathering in force to take part in this most singular of events. It therefore seems strangely fitting that I should finally publish my edit of the Steve Reich lecture that I attended on Tuesday 16th February on the very same day that it finally finishes.
If you live in London you cannot have escaped the presence of the Red Bull Music Academy, mainly in the form of their lovingly produced daily newspaper, the Daily Note, which has been handed out at tube and train stations across London with the same zeal as the Evening Standard every single day since it started. I absolutely cannot begin to imagine how much it must have cost to assemble the staff to put together such a fast turnaround daily paper, let alone pay the folk that stand around in the street to hand it out.
Inside a recording studio in the Red Bull Music Academy. I’ve got that G-Plan coffee table in my living room. Cost a tenner at a car boot sale.
All interior photos courtesy of Red Bull.
The amount spent on producing the Daily Note must pale into insignificance when compared with how much money has been poured into the actual Red Bull Music Academy itself – which is a mammoth venture that rolls into a different country every year. This isn’t just a fancy name for a bunch of club nights that the general public can attend (though it is that too), but does exactly what it says on the tin and is an actual academy where actual students can learn from the maestros of electronic music. Sixty carefully selected students from across the world have been whisked into central London, where they’ve been given free accommodation and food for the duration of their stay. At the academy, which is located in the Red Bull headquarters a stone’s throw from the London Dungeon in Bermondsey, they are treated to an amazing roster of talks and tutorials laid on by eminent musicians, producers, DJs and composers, all apparently giving their time for free to further the education of this talented bunch. The emphasis is on electronic and urban music, and on genres which are not usually championed by the establishment, so most of the names featured in the bulging programme will not be familiar to anyone but the geekiest music bod within that particular musical subcategory.
The amount of effort, let alone the money, that has been put into this venture is literally staggering. In the designer-decorated headquarters the skeletal office staff have been shunted into the top floors and the bottom few have been converted into something that would not look out of place on a reality show – featuring trendy young things lounging on plush sofas next to speccy music impresarios, a sparkling free cafe, pristine recording suites and buzzing glass walled rooms full of earnest Red Bull Music Academy staff. It is hard to fathom why such a big brand would so entirely align themselves with such a niche sub genre of music, but then this has got to be the most epic “anti-marketing” campaign I’ve ever known. Because no matter how lovingly those Daily Notes are put together I can’t believe many are actually more than skim read by some knackered commuter, and the vast majority will no doubt have been tossed straight into the bin by the mass public who just doesn’t care about this event or the music it champions. Will the Red Bull Music Academy, the busy events schedule or the Daily Note increase sales of Red Bull? Who knows, but for those lucky enough to be taking part as academy students it is surely a life changing opportunity.
bRUNA creating live music with a laptop.
It has to be said that the vast catalogue of acts involved aren’t really my cup of tea – I veer somewhat more on the indie side of life – but I decided to go along to the Sonar Pt 1 taster at the Roundhouse on Friday 5th March, where I then struggled to find something suited to my decidedly more indie/dance tastes. Upstairs what I heard as boos for the headline act were actually calls for hip hop legend Doom. DOOM! Downstairs I discovered something much more to my liking in the form of Red Bull Academy graduate bRUNA, a former lawyer from Spain. Unfortunately he wasn’t exactly what the earnest hip-hop heads had came for and the small room soon emptied. When I stayed on with my male partner bRUNA’s concerned girlfriend came over to check whether we really were there because we liked bRUNA’s cute Euro electro (we did). Or I should say: she came over and checked in with Tim. How funny that sexism should rear it’s ugly head in such a setting. Such was my ire that I did say to her pointedly – actually it’s me you want to be talking to.
I have only recently been inducted into the wonders of Steve Reich, but the event that looked most up my street was a lecture by this influential composer. And so it was that I found myself in the lecture theatre of the Red Bull Music Academy on a very rainy Tuesday afternoon. Read on to find out what Steve Reich revealed to his students…
Tags:
Bermondsey, bRUNA, Daily Note, Doom, Electronic music, electronica, G-Plan, Hip-hop, Lecture, Red Bull Music Academy, Roundhouse, Sonar, spain, Steve Reich
