The History Of The Birth Of INDY
The original idea started in my brain in 2015 (When this URL was first registered) while I was helping a friend, Adam, in his shop, South City Music, in Altrincham and being a guitar shop it made sense at the time as I had access to a workbench and a perfect customer base as we did have customers who didn’t have loads of money and as I had already been involved in Community Work since 2011 it seemed a normal progression and natural to help people.
Sadly the shop closed before it could take a life of its own and was forgotten about as Real Life™ got in the way, it was only later on in 2017 when I started being a Volunteer at the Broomwood Community Center that it started living again, I was already doing some bits from home and then got involved at the Center where I eventually ran 2 Music Groups, maintained the Guitars for the Studio and for the free Guitar Lesson Sessions that Phil ran on a Tuesday morning, organised the Community Studio and advised on buying equipment when they got funding.
The Broomwood Sessions were an Improvisation Group ran on a Tuesday afternoon, orginally started by Patrick Green in 2017, a local Musician, from 1pm to 4pm, sadly when he moved to Yorkshire, I took over duties and the below Soundcloud page where some of the results of what we did there but it was more than just the Music, it was a social club and what fun we had, but unfortunately ended in 2018.
Then there was the Wednesday evening Group I started with support from Malcom Bishop, our resident drummer at the time, orginally called ‘Connect‘:
A local independant intermittent music project to connect people to each other who may not have played with others before, learn how to use different equipment, encourage creativity, through improvisation, social interaction, building confidence and knowledge about the music industry and supporting participation.
Connect Logo
Here’s what happened at Connect:
Broomwood Community Centre ‘Connect’
The original name started here, a once a week, evening music session that was created originally for people to start to play together, regardless of ability or experience, also provide access to instruments and provide an escape.
Open to all, our ages ranged from 16 to 72, the session also, through participation, gave the opportunity on how to set up sound equipment, play in a band, encouraged songwriting, socialize, the more experienced group members also passed on and added their own knowledge.
In the 12 months or so that the group ran, it went from 2 members to 10 and finally playing 2 Songs, one original and one cover song at the *Seed Studios Annual Showcase at The Lowry Theatre.
The first time playing live for a lot of the group, we had a guest Bass Player and improvised on the original song, it was a proud moment for all involved.
Afterwards the group stopped at the Broomwood Center through internal political reasons and no fault of our own so the Group moved on to a friends private studio in Altrincham and whilst the facilities where very much appreciated it wasn’t fully suitable for our needs, so we stopped briefly to re-locate, then the Gov stopped anyone having fun.
Truth be known, where I live there is no real community pride or feeling so for nearly 2 years I struggled to find somewhere to carry on ‘Connect’ but it was either too expensive or once you mentioned ‘Music’ no one was interested and as previously we’d achieved all we had with not one penny from anyone, I had no money so it slowly fell into a painful, for me, coma.
So rather than do nothing, INDY was reborn for 2024, it was always still going on in the background and was the heart for all the other stuff going on, doing what I could and when whilst all this was going on, so here we are, trying again, let’s see what happens this time and hopefully the future is brighter than last time.
INDY stands for ‘It’s Not Dead Yet’ and isn’t just about Guitars and is about saving things from landfill as much as anything else regardless of what it might be, in these days of a disposable society.
Thanks for reading and come back soon.
Regards.
REF: The old WordPress placeholder for INDY ~ The Broomwood Sessions ~ Sonic Mistress (Personal)
