Hi Barney Jeavons. Where are you based?
I work from home, in a village near Godalming, Surrey. Hardly the rock’n’roll capital of the world. It is within easy striking distance of London and the South Coast so it works fine.
Where do you work? What do you do?
I set up Kick Arts UK when I left West End Centre. I get up to a whole range of things – I do one-to-one consultancies for musicians and other creatives. There I manage 4 music artists, I am a booking agent and I run venue consultancies. In addition to that, I also lecture in Music Business at UCA. Plus was South East Co-ordinator for Music Venue Trust for the first 6 months of the pandemic too, helping to save over 90 venues. I couldn’t do any of it without my friend and colleague Lorna. She deals with a lot of the financials and detail. In terms of the work I do, it seems to be fairly split between people with a rock background (eg Matro Rancho and Sick Joy) and people with a folk background (Chris Wood, Hannah James and Rowan Rheingans). There are a few unusual projects alongside like void_null and Platform 4. I think what grabs me is people who are trying to express what is inside them and who care about the art of it more than anything else. Does that make sense?
What are you listening to?
Right now I’ve been listening mostly to album mixes from artists I work with, to be honest. Other than that I am listening to some old and some new, like most of us I guess. Recently old stuff has included Motorhead, Radiohead’s OK Computer, Freddy King’s first album, Tracy Chapman, lots of The Beatles and a hefty chunk of Earthtone 9. In terms of the newer stuff, I’m enjoying Squid, Black Country New Road, Bob Holroyd, Martha Hill, Bossk, Chubby and the Gang, and a bit of Little Simz for good measure. But all my artists know more about music than I do!
How do you discover new music?
I wish I knew! It’s mostly osmosis I think. Friends tell me, I hear something on 6Music, via festival finds, shares from people I trust, and gig listings from grassroots venues. Sometimes, though, it’s just the Spotify algorithm I suspect! My friend James who runs 2000 Trees festival did a top 10 of recent heavy music and almost all were new to me and fantastic. I love it when that happens. I also love gigs, and I love stumbling across new bands I’ve never heard of. I’ve missed live music. My wife and kids also turn me on to a lot of stuff (my “kids” are all in their 20s now but they’ve done it for years!) A lot of it comes from the artists I work with too. I only work with people I think are great, so their taste often hits the spot for me.
What formats do you usually listen to? LP, CD, Cassette, Digital, Streaming Services? Why?
I am a glutton for Spotify with a side order of 6 Music. CDs are something I still listen to and really enjoy the full album experience. I also have a ton of cassettes I can’t bear to part with but never play. Though I recognise vinyl is best of all – my record player, sadly, has a pile of stuff on it most of the time. Spotify is just so easy, isn’t it? I know there are issues with streaming, but as a consumer, it has opened up a lot of things to us that we wouldn’t have tried before. I don’t listen to music if I am out walking though, I like the freedom of simply being outdoors and relaxing in nature.
“I know there are issues with streaming, but as a consumer it has opened up a lot of things to us that we wouldn’t have tried before.”
Where do you do most of your music listening?
I listen to music as I work and as I cook, and then in the evening when I get the chance as well. Recently I bought a Denon thing from Richer Sounds and that has been a game changer sonically, but you can quite often catch me just listening on my phone. I am an audiophile’s worst nightmare. It must be particularly hard for Chris Wood as sound is a huge thing for him!
How do you find and listen to pre-release music?
When I ran West End Centre in Aldershot I heard a fair bit I guess – from agents, labels etc. I was sent a lot when I managed Reuben too. Also a lot of pre-signed music! It was cool. Radio still reaches me – people like Cerys Matthews, Steve Lamacq, Tom Robinson and others at 6 still care about new music. When I send pre-release music I’ll generally send a private SoundCloud link, but I rarely browse there to find new stuff.
What are your frustrations with listening to music digitally? Any benefits?
I flit between things pretty fast as I work across lots of projects. Digital is mostly a boon for me but I guess my frustration with digital is that I sometimes leave things buried in my emails or poorly filed in dropbox and then have to rummage through and find them again! In general, though it’s great for me and the things I REALLY need are where I want them. Being able to listen anywhere is great, and Google, Spotify etc make things easy to find again once they’ve been released!
How do you keep track of everything you are listening to?
In general, I don’t worry too much about that. The ones that stick are the ones that stick. I got quite fatalistic about that in my 30 years as a promoter. There is just too much music to keep tabs on, especially now! That said, I have forgotten a few bands I absolutely loved, so…
Do you tip other people off to new music? How?
I tell friends when I see them or share on social media about it. A lot of the time lately though it is artists I manage or bands I know pretty well that I am talking about. My students at UCA in Farnham are incredible too, so I could talk about them all year without finding anyone else – I am spoilt for choice!
Anything you want to “promote”?
So much! Just the people we are working with are doing tons:
Sick Joy have been in the studio with the producer Space (Idles etc) and that is sounding incredible, Hannah James and Toby Kuhn’s album is phenomenal too and that is out this November, Matro Rancho’s debut ep is being mixed as we speak and sounds great – think early Fleetwood Mac, Free & Cream, Chris Wood is in the studio crafting his next masterpiece and in my opinion, it’s his best yet, Platform 4’s brilliant experimental version of Day of the Triffids is coming to theatres near you in 2022 after years in creation, Rowan Rheingans award-winning show “Dispatches on the Red Dress” is touring nationally, Bob Holroyd has breathtakingly meditative music coming out through Real World X, void_null are creating astounding electronica melded with AV, and we have just started working with Lucy Farrell as well, which is lovely as she has always been a favourite of mine. All in all, I am a lucky guy.
As well as the music I’d also like to give a shout-out to the organisations who work in music who’ve helped us all out over the last couple of years, especially MMF, FAC, MVT, AIM, FolkExpo, F4WT, Help Musicians and of course Arts Council England (incidentally the only place I got funding when the pandemic hit – so particular thanks to them!). I don’t think these folks get the thanks they deserve sometimes, so let’s promote them.
