Izzy Thomas

According to my history supervisor, blogging isn't dead, at least in the academic world. So this is my blog on music history research. More scholarly and specific posts incoming, but here's the first, rather self-indulgent one.

Why I became interested in the subject, featuring references to the South Wales valleys, Thatcher, and mysterious, hidden dressing rooms:
blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ithomas3/how...
#workingmensclubs #socialclubs #musichistory #conservativeclubs #britishlegion #musicinclubs

Music historian EMILY MACGREGOR pens a confessional memoir Emily MacGregor’s While The Music Lasts recounts her father’s relationship with music and her own journey to becoming a music historian.

Highly recommended, for anyone who's ever struggled with their relationship with music.
www.buzzmag.co.uk/while-music-...
Belatedly sharing this review in which I pretentiously cram multiple music references and, in a moment of late-night-writing madness, attempt to compare the writer to Beethoven.

Big thanks and congratulations to @izzygthomas.bsky.social and co for organising such a great event!

Great to have a paper by Martin on Max Boyce at Treorchy Rugby Club and performances of Welshness. Part of a whole morning of papers on topics close to my heart that had me absolutely buzzing. Definitely a couple of Welsh academics in the room swaying along to Hymns and Arias...!

Far too busy to take any photos, and barely time to take notes! Write-up on the mini-conference coming soon. If anyone has any photos to share, send them across.
All I got was this moment of audiophile bliss at a Norwich pub:

Unwinding from a busy week:
1. Presenting my documentary film at the Subcultures Network Conference in Norwich
2. More scouring the archives at Mildmay Radical Club in between dancing to Dolly Parton and serving chips to older members
3. Delivering a two day mini-conference on music in pubs&clubs!

Pete will give a talk on the cultural history of pubs and clubs through the interactive medium of a ‘beer and music pairing’ session.

Read more and register here: blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ithomas3/key...

@petebrownbeer.bsky.social
@royalmusical.bsky.social

✨Registration is now open for the RMA Study Day - Everyday Music Scenes: Pubs, Clubs and 'Stutes.✨

And we’re excited to announce that @petebrownbeer.bsky.social, author of Clubland: How the Working Men’s Club Shaped Britain, will be giving our keynote… with a twist!

@royalmusical.bsky.social

Doing fieldwork in Islington. It's nice. Still has libraries. No rubbish lining the roads. Funded by the taxes of the local hipster multimillionaires, they're managing to hold this corner of the country in some sort of pre-recession glory days of state infrastructure, in-between matcha latte shops.

Ah this has been high on my personal theology reading list for years (which I've barely tackled to be honest). Recently saw this photo of him being a pretty cool guy.

Please show your support of Cardiff University School of Music by sharing your experiences during your studies, shaping the narrative to champion the examples of excellence across the department.

Share your experiences here: forms.gle/R1V5u6gFpDj9...

Turn the universities into weapons technology hubs and be done with it. We'll need it when we're protecting our nation from people whose languages we no longer speak, whose religions we can't fathom, whose music we can no longer jam with, and whose history we've forgotten we're intertwined with.
/s

UNDER THE EYE OF THE BIG BIRD: innovative post-apocalyptic sci-fi In Hiromi Kawakami’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel, newly translated from Japanese, attempts at surviving allow for innovative worldbuilding.

"...in Under The Eye Of The Big Bird civilisational collapse is assumed, and extinction is hinted at. It’s the attempt at surviving and rebuilding, in whatever forms possible, that allows for Kawakami's innovative worldbuilding and reflections on ethics, political structures and human nature..."

There’s probably a tonne of pub rooms and venues that will be sat empty or quiet that people would book for a few hours if groups knew they could

Thinking about how many remote workers must want to meet with a large team and end up booking corporate spaces rather than independent businesses

20 years ago we were suing teenagers for millions of dollars because they were torrenting a single Metallica album and now billionaires are demanding the free right to every work in history, so that they can re-sell it.

The law only ever serves capital.

📢 Call for Papers: Everyday Music Scenes: Pubs, Clubs and ‘Stutes Submissions are now open for the RMA Study Day on the 14th (afternoon-evening) and 15th (full day) April 2025 at Newcastle University. 📄 This study day, supported by the Royal Musical Association, intends to stimulate discussion around the study of music in pubs, social clubs and similar spaces of everyday, communal music experiences, often with a working class history. 📅 Deadline for abstracts: 30th November 2024 Registration for participants, including those wishing to attend but not present, will be available at a later date. 🔗 Send abstract proposals or expressions of interest in attending to musicinclubs@gmail.com. 🗣️ PGTs, PGRs and post-docs as well as established researchers and those working professionally in the field are invited to take part. Possible disciplinary backgrounds might include popular music studies, musicology, cultural policy, heritage, sociology, anthropology, history or cultural management. 🙌 Participation is free. Limited travel bursaries available. For more information, visit https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ithomas3/category/rma-study-day/ Please share with anyone who might be interested! #CallForPapers #CFP #royalmusicalassociation #IASPM #everydaymusicscenes #musicinclubs #popularmusicstudies

3 days left to get submissions in for the RMA Study Day(s) at Newcastle University in Spring
EVERYDAY MUSIC SCENES: PUBS, CLUBS AND 'STUTES

Some great session themes are coming together from the papers submitted, but still time for a few more!
@royalmusical.bsky.social
@newcastleuni.bsky.social

You can follow this journey here: blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ithomas3/
...Or come join the discussion in person! www.rma.ac.uk/2024/09/23/r...

So I picked a handful of them - working men's clubs and institutes - and set out to discover how they became important places for live music, going all the way back to the mid-19th century. The origin story is fun, radical, even feminist?...🤩 but in a Victorian maintaining-social-order sort of way.🙄

Countless artists over decades and decades started off in covers bands, tribute acts, cabaret singers etc in spaces like these. In a sense, they're the grassroots of the grassroots. Could it be that the whole ecosystem of live music in Britain is at risk of collapse, from the very bottom up?

And yet these spaces are not represented by some of the amazing research projects and NGOs out there (like the incredible @musicvenuetrust.bsky.social). I'm talking about social clubs, workmen's halls, church halls, village halls, pubs (sort of), even miners' institutes. And we need them too.

A bit about me:
Once upon a time I turned to heritage studies to cope with the grief of watching grassroots music venues get murdered. I thought it might contain the solutions. With a jolt I realised there are 100(0?)s of other buildings across the country functioning as music venues, also dying.