Marc Reck

On the music side, i saw my first two soundtracks, one for a new vibes dance on film piece and a festival and events dvd. I’ve also got to grips with production and arranging side of things, and feel a lot more comfortable with guitar, vocal, djembe and scratching, writing an array of styles in the search for my own sound.

On the events front, Project X Presents delivered 2 awesome events, starting the year with a small X-lab, and in september, after going through around 30 venues, transforming a working mens club into a digitial distopian vision of the future.

Mr Elephant Presents delivered a range of community based events, ranging from afamily day with workshops, live music, and kids activities, through to blowing up the hare and hounds for mr elephant’s 1st birthday bash with mask making, kazoo’s, live & djed music, and the midnight parade. We were also asked to host rooms at events such as the longest day festival, whilst collaborating on live events such as the consider it done debut showcase. The heffalump collective also came together to Celebrate Birmingham’s Underground with poodle parades, stalls, 12 piece percussion jams with beatboxers and scratch djs, interactive performance art and amazing dj and vjs sets. Following that 2008 also saw the launch of a little mr elephant night called Party Rockin Mammals, and even an award from the night times as runner up for best small promotions. All the events have packed out each venue, generated great reviews and postive feedback, and in the majority of cases created highest bar takes for venues and paid opportunities and/or substantial exposure for participating artists.

As none of the above are (unfortunately) ways to generate sustainable income, also on the cards was a music educator course via access to music, in order to teach custom made courses in music and djing. I also completed an events management course, in the hope to qualify me for the big festival events, attended a seminar or two, and gained invaluable experience with shadowing various workshop sessions in order to take my music, and djing technologies into cross artform workshops for educational and community settings.

The big community based idea which began as Workshop of the World on Mr Elephant site has become Share to Create, which was made a reality after receiving great interest from people who can build it, various partner orgs who can deliver the outreach and services. 9 months in the making and support from some amazing people in brum has seen the idea grow into something really special, and we are currently applying for 4ip funding. Watch this space.

And then of course there was all the rest of life. The good times with friends, the inspiring gigs, the creative sessions which inspire each time we do them.

Here’s to 2009. May it bring all that you wish for.