Friday, February 22, 2013

BMG Magazine and Radio BMG goes online!


BMG Magazine and Radio BMG goes online!

In March, after seventeen years of playing banjo for a living in Germany I finally said goodbye. When I first moved there in 1996 I had an abundant amount of work as a professional banjo player and I was working with the numerous jazz groups around Düsseldorf and Cologne. The first job I landed was three solid weeks, playing eight hours a day in the Cologne Exhibition Halls (Köln Messe) at a staggering rate of pay. It was an eight piece band and money seemed no object to the booker. I thought I had landed in banjo heaven! One of the world’s leading authorities on all things banjo, Günther Amend, was about a quarter of an hour away from where I lived and the group he organised, Düsseldorf Banjo Club, met every Tuesday. They were enthusiastic and welcomed me with open arms. There were three jazz pubs in Düsseldorf and once I had learned a little bit of Deutsche other bands called from out of town. The amount of sixty-fifth birthday parties I played at were a sign of things to come though. Fast forward seventeen years - party jobs with Dixieland music are rare. Those same people I played for in the late 1990’s are (to put things politely) advanced in age and, like the song, “Don’t get around much anymore”. All things change of course and we decided that it was time for us to change too - and head back to my native England.

When one door closes another opens - enter Clem Vickery and the Clifford Essex Music Company. Clem was an employee of the original Clifford Essex firm in the 1960’s. They had been in business since 1904, founded by Mr. Clifford Essex, a famous banjo player of the Victorian era but had ceased to trade in the early 1970’s. After a thirty year sleep over Clem re-started the company and the publication it produced, BMG Magazine (the oldest fretted musical instrument publication in the world) and both the company and magazine are going from strength to strength. The other specialist banjo publications in England were now sadly defunct- Julian Vincent’s “Banjo Broadsheet” and David Price’s “Banjo Times” are regretfully gone, so BMG Magazine now stands alone in our specialist musical corner. The magazine is published four times a year and is also offered by e-mail in digital pdf. file version, offering a full colour copy for a bargain price of ten British Pounds per year.

 I am flattered and proud to have been asked to work for the Clifford Essex team. The first thing I did was launch a dedicated website for BMG Magazine. The internet is vital to our survival and on www.bmgmagazine.net we offer a comprehensive platform for Banjo, Mandolin, Guitar and kindred fretted instrument fans.  Among the links on the website are back-copies to be purchased, a list of teachers, news, a chat-group forum, a picture gallery, videos, advertisements, artistes for hire and a link to the next project I had in mind - a dedicated internet radio station called Radio BMG. We also have a page on the world’s biggest social media site, Facebook. This is linked via the webpage and we plan to take advantage of all new technology to keep up to date and be in contact with both seasoned players and newcomers to the world of acoustic fretted instruments. Young and up-coming enthusiasts of acoustic stringed instruments say that a paper magazine is something that belongs to the past and that Facebook is now equally, if not more important than a website as it can be updated by our members all the time and information is instantly transported across the world. Like it or not, we move with the times.

Radio BMG is “work in progress” with music being added to the playlist all the time. It functions rather like a juke-box. Random selection of music files are picked for a playlist and broadcasts twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, so you can always be sure of finding BMG music whenever you fancy tuning in. If you wish to hear a particular piece of music or would like your recording played simply send me a CD to the main office Radio BMG, c/o Clifford Essex,  7 Rose Walk, Fakenham, NR 21 7QG (England). We are also offering advertising at affordable rates and also offer to produce your audio advertisement. The link to the radio station, which operates on the live365 platform, is via www.bmgmagazine.net . If you wish to email an MP3 file please drop me a line first. Be sure to take a listen to Radio BMG and help spread the word.

We are determined to cement a solid community of banjo, mandolin, guitar and ukulele players in the UK, Europe and around the world in a similar way that AllFrets has done in the USA.  I hope that next year we can announce our first Clifford Essex BMG Festival. Having experienced how our American friends produce their festivals I have some thoughts on how, where and when we can stage our meeting. I have met some really talented players on my trips to the USA who have seldom, if never, have had the opportunity to play a banjo event in England so maybe it would be nice to see some new musical talent coming over to the UK. We are keen to make ties to our American friends at AllFrets and Resonator Magazine and offer a nice holiday destination for American players and their families to meet with like minded people across the Atlantic.

There are a few other projects I have in mind that will come to fruition in due course but more of that later. In finishing up, please take time to have a look at our website, listen to Radio BMG and (hopefully) join our growing ranks at BMG Magazine!

Best wishes,

Sean Moyses.

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