MELAMATIK REVIEW 2010
The second year of MelaMatik arts and music festival has seen an amazing array of events happening across West Yorkshire covering all conceviable genres, including the Official Mela afterparties, rock, blues, jazz, Bollywood beats, world music, reggae, old-skool ravers delights, mini-folk and acoustic fests, and theatrical delights, featuring a capacity sell-out performance by Sufi storyteller and musician Sain Zahoor. This concert at the Richmond Atrium at Bradford University left the audience overwhelmed with mystical enlightement, offset by the band's dazzling multicoloured outfits and hypnotic mantras of the dhol drums.
Kate Rusby wowed the crowd with meaningful songs the audience could relate to, touching the lives of ordinary, everyday people, intersperced with spiteley chat, maintaining a solidly approachable demeanour of one of the folk music scene's most able voices. Having recently got married to her guitarist Damien O'Kane, the honeymooning South Yorkshire star produced an evening of heartfelt compositions that once heard, remain permanently within your head. Kate's impecable resonance made an evening to remember.
The Cinema Organ Society hosted Blackpool Tower organist Phil Kelsall, who amazed Victoria Hall, Saltaire with a vast array of music including classical and jazz pieces and songs from the shows, as well as traditional seaside, delivering sunshine to a rainy day.
"Mela" means "party", and that's what we have been encouraging people to do in June, go out and enjoy the enormous range of extra-special concerts, gigs, club nights and participatory events that make up our astonishingly diverse programme of cultural delights. A universal celebration of musicality, MelaMatik encorporates all sounds across the spectrum, from world music, thrash metal, trippy glowstick raves to classical music concerts.
MelaMatik is unique in seeking to represent entire cross-section of cultural and artistic tastes ahead of our own personal whims. Without exception, virtually all large-scale popular festivals operate exclusively, programming soundscapes to please sponsors, bureaucrats and the music industry, ahead of the wishes of ordinary music fans like you or me. In revolutionary fashion, without bias or favouritism, MelaMatik allows ordinary people to programme their own events in the festival, regardless of genre, target audience and geographical location. Our democratic, non-cliquish anti-hierarchical bottom-up structure guarantees we are, and always will remain "the people's festival", hosting events for the people, by the people.
Our opening event was a showcase of the cream of rock and punk bands from Voltage Studios staged at the Zuu Bar on Sunbridge Road. Northern England has an incredible history of grass-roots music making a statement of intent to the world, evident in the perfrormances of AFS (pictured), Ironrat, JustDefy and Spike Island, who kick-started the festival into a frenzy of passionate hot-rocking creativity.
Rock, punk, industrial and indie nites were plentiful in MelaMatik 2010 with live bands and DJs aplenty. Other events at the Zuu bar/Zuu2 /exchange included the goth night Bad Moon Rising, the CP band showcase, old skool Trash nite Madhouse, and much, much more. while at the Gassienda in Keighley, there was punk and folk legend Jackie Leven (pictured).
Punk outfit Angels Of Chaos were live at the Exchange, the Savages performed Rockabilly, and the Smiling Assassins rocked red hot at the Barge in Brighouse, the Cross Keys in Skipton went with popular local bands Voodoo Katz, and Tender Hooligans, while the Delius hosted Northern Vinyl, a nite of mod and indie tunes, and the Mind The Music mini-fest, raising money for the Bradford Association of Fostering and Adoption.
Charity and non-profit events are the lifeblood of our universal multicultural party season. Raising for Trek China (the Yorkshire Cancer Centre) Transpennine Harps held a concert at the Ian Clough Hall in Baildon and the Blues & Twos blues night featuring Blues Positive and TheBigFatKillUK. And there was the all-night film event, the Musicalathon at the Bradford Playhouse sponsored by Approach PR, for the Candlelighters charity.
MelaMatik wasn't just happening in venues throughout Bradford City Centre. A large number of events took place in Keighley, Ilkley, Halifax, Skipton, Otley, Hebden Bridge, with events also going on in Leeds and Cleckheaton, we have brought the party spirit to people's doorsteps, encouraging people to leave behind the football to witness a tidal-wave of energetic musical happenings including MelaMatik Busk Zones which proved popular with shoppers and visitors alike, Ricky Dey (20) from the band Alt Track (pictured on location), wowing the crowds with meaningful acoustic compositions.
Seasoned fiddle player with Hank Muldoon and the Hangovers, multi-instrumentalist and teacher Ali Scott showed how it was done with the fiddle, in the arches outside Forster Square Station. Brightening up the city centre with sweet, sweet music, MelaMatik brought much-needed relief to people's lives, as Bradford recreated the verve and passion of the old community-based Bradford Festival.
Forget the football and vuzelas! MelaMatik's melodies cross the entire spectrum of sound, including the most heavenly of early orchestral instruments, the traditional harp.
From Egypt in 4000BC to Bradford in 2020, harps have travelled the world, making an incredible journey across continents, transforming human consciousness, percolating uplifting melodies fused with mystical stories of love and enlightenment into mind, body and soul.
The MelaMatik harp recital and workshop at the Bradford Playhouse early Saturday evening on the 12th of June introduced awestruck theatregoers arriving to watch the musical Mack & Mabel to the wonders of this historical stringed instrument, with its esoteric delivery.
Accomplished harpist and tutor Tamsin Dearnley demonstrated how to play two types of harp in common us, the larger orchestral harp and the more diminutive Celtic harp. Some harps have pedals, others come in different shapes and sizes, but the basic method of playing this wonderful instrument is the same, whatever the music, be it folk, jazz or classical arrangements.
Public participation is a crucial element of our groundbreaking multicultural, multi-genre festival. Besides the open Busk Zones and the harp session, we held Irish music tuition sessions for all ages, and extra-special guitar workshops, and two of our folk events were singers nights which allow people to join in, so MelaMatik is actively encouraging the grass roots of the music scene to nurture the buds, shoots and flowers of tomorrow, an essential aspect of artistic enpowerment neglected by most conventional festivals.
Other participatory events held at the Bradford Playhouse as part of MelaMatik, designed to encourage creative expression and the exploration of creative talents, include photography event hUUjUU and the Reading Room.
Since its redevelopment, this popular Yorkshire venue has become the hub of the local arts and music scene, hosting all manner of distinctive gigs, sessions and club nites, including the cream of DJing talent, and has showcased everything it has to offer as part of this year's exciting community-led festival.
Blending notable local performers with renowned international performers, on Monday the 15th of June, the Playhouse hosted the New Incredible String Band featuring Mike Heron of the original Incredible String Band, his daughter Georgia Seddon, and Mike Hastings (of the Trembling Bells) and Solveig Askvik. On the same bill was virtuosic Finnish Jouhikko player Pekko Kappi and from Bradford, rising folkstars the Family Elan.
Folk is an integral part of MelaMatik's universal cultural outreach, offering first-rate enjoyable entertainment (as personified by Kate Rusby's excellent headlining performance at St George's Hall), and nurturing the musical movers of shakers of tomorrow. What is often overlooked, is the essential role of grass-roots folk music in providing a welcome social scene for hundreds of part-time performers in the local circuits who meet up regularly to participate in singalongs, jam nites and open acoustic sessions, without whom, the energetics of the live performance scene would be lost.
Tapping into a rich vein of cultural history, MelaMatik 2010 included a singers night at the Topic Folk Club (established in 1956 and believed to be the oldest regular folk club in the world), Wharfe Unplugged at the Ilkley Moor Vaults, the distinctive Otley Folk Club, the Hole Note Acoustic Club in Hebden Bridge, and the Croppers Folk Club in Cleckheaton (named after Yorkshire's first anarchists - the Luddites.
There was an extra-special night of songs by Bob at the Bar T'At at Ilkley, and a mini-folk fest par excellence at Stanbury, the Wuthering Heights All-Dayer, where a lively crowd of ardent music lovers and musicians waxed acoustically lyrical about life including the ever-present Tony Levy and artist / singer Gloria Jeffries.
Compere Martyn Johnson paid a big tribute to everybody involved: "A huge thank you to all the performers who appeared at Melamatik Wuthering Heights yesterday. It was a brilliant afternoon of live music with some really stunning performances. Thanks too to the fantastic audience who really appreciated all the acts - lots of applause, woops and hollers!"
Jazz and Blues was ably represented by many events happening all across the region, including a underground northern soul special at the East Bowling Unity club, Bradford, jazz nites at the City Vaults, Bradford, the Keighley Blues Club where Culliun Blue and Gerry Cooper performed, and the Sam Crockatt Quartet in Hebden Bridge.
The raw passion and vibrant energy of the Yorkshire reggae and dub scene has played a pivotal role in developing the local world music scene. From the early days of ska, through rocksteady, roots, through to dub, via pirate radio and all-nighters, the primary importance of DJs and MCs throughout the reggae scene paved the way for musical progression from conscious riddims to today's all-encompassing dance music scene from house, hip hop through to dubstep.
MelaMatik 2010 included a healthy portion of distinctive dub bizniz... From Pete (Inspirational Sound) at MelaMatik hUUjUU, lovers rock with DJ T, the Greentrees Soundsystem and Nyah Shanti at the Devonshire Arms, Thornton Road, Bradford, through to seriously reggaematical events at the Mill Lane and Newby Square community pubs, the vibes are hot and the atmosphere chilled.
There's plenty of variety if you get out there and find it.
Other world music events included the World Jazz Nite, Caribbean barbeque and International Day at the Lister Hotel, the award-winning Jaleo Flamenco at the Square Chapel Theatre in Halifax which also held a djembe drumming workshop courtesy of Rhythmbridge, and a red-hot salsa with Los Camarados and Salsa Como Loco at the Bradford Playhouse.
There was also Off Beat!, a brand-new global melting pot at the Black Swan pub on Thornton Road, blending soka with reggae, African and Latin tunes, Balkan beats with the Mental Elf Collective and Orkestra Del Sol at the Trades Club, Hebden Bridge (which also hosted a memorable old skool acid house event MADM plus the HX7 Jazz Club), and the African-influenced Stephane Kerecki world jazz trio at the Dean Clough Jazz Club in Halifax.
World music used to be massive over a decade ago when the likes of Transglobal Underground used to visit Bradford Festival, and Bradford Mela was part of a much-wider framework of events reaching out to all communities, rock, bhangra and African musicians performing on the same stage in Centenary Square in a community-led festival, but the spirit of mutual understanding was lost when meddling politicians privatised Bradford Festival, destroyed the spirit of grass-roots involvement, criminally consigning the world-famous event to the dustbin.
The MelaMatik Team share the same grand vision of everybody partying together, transcending uplifting vibes of peace and love through music and art, but since our humble beginnings as the Bradford Mela Fringe, we have relinquished all ties with Bradford District Council, giving us the freedom to spread our mission of democratic creativity throughout the whole of Northern England.
The MelaMatik Team share the same grand vision of everybody partying together, transcending uplifting vibes of peace and love through music and art, but since our humble beginnings as the Bradford Mela Fringe, we have broken free from the restrictive shackles of conformity, relinquished all ties with Bradford Council, giving us the freedom to spread our mission of democratic creativity throughout the whole of Northern England, reaching out to record numbers of people.
This year, MelaMatik touched-down in Airedale, Wharfedale, Calderdale, Leeds and surrounding districts. Next year, with the involvement of a record number of promoters, venues and volunteers, multi-genre, multicultural "people parties" will take place in Sheffield, Hull, Manchester and York.
MelaMatik isn't merely a festival, carnival, way of life or state of mind.
It's a phenomenon.
In the words of McFadden and Whitehead, there "Aint No Stoppin' Us Now............
Peace and Love,
The MelaMatik Team
