Business News The Griffin Report


Chris Rogers is on a mission. He has created Pivotal, a company dedicated to raising the profile of the music industry in Birmingham and the Midlands. Jon Griffin, Chamberlink’s award-winning columnist and rock ‘n roll devotee, talked to Chris about his ambitions to make the industry less London-centric.


Lynne, The Moody Blues, Spencer Davis, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin. UB40, and others... Liverpool may have given birth


T


to the Beatles, London spawned the Stones - with Oasis flying the flag more recently for Manchester - but Birmingham's contribution to the enduring art form that is rock and roll - in all its various genres - is far from insignificant. While the mid to late-50s, 60s


and 70s will always be dear to the hearts of a certain generation of rock and rollers who lived through those heady decades, a vibrant new music movement is gaining momentum in Birmingham, which aims to inspire and promote a whole new bedrock of talent right here in the Midlands. The man behind the moves to


put Birmingham firmly back on the musical map is 30-year-old Chris Rogers, a talented musician himself and one of the guiding lights behind Pivotal, Birmingham's first music industry conference held last month in the Jewellery Quarter. Featuring panellists from a range


of companies including Sentric Music, Songwall, AWAL, WARM and Rotor Videos, the event covered a range of issues critical to the music industry in the Internet age, including the vexed topic of streaming and its licensing, mastering, PR, technological advances and others. Meanwhile the evening


showcased a variety of musical genres at venues in the Jewellery Quarter highlighting the robust health of the Midlands music scene. Chris, who runs Fat Penguin Management, a Leamington-based artist management and music consultancy, explained the rationale behind Pivotal to Chamberlink - and his ambitions to ensure that the conference acts as a vital catalyst to raising the profile of the music industry in Birmingham and the wider Midlands region. “Pivotal came out of a bi-monthly


networking night which regularly got between 80 and 120 people attending, including people flying in from across Europe. That has been running for two years and it came


he names still trip merrily off the tongue after all these years - Roy Wood, Jeff


“The live scene is one of the


strengths of Birmingham but there are still opportunities to grow. There is a healthy and varied scene but you need the infrastructure and that is what Pivotal is trying to create. “If you look at the talent, you


want people - labels, publishers and the like - to spend some time here and be based here, having offices where they are not missing out on things, and for the industry not to be so Londoncentric. “I do not think it is rational for


people to want to move their headquarters but it is about creating an office base. The heritage is already there in Birmingham but the infrastructure to support it is missing - artists do not just play guitar and sing, music is also a business at the same time.” While there have been alarming


stories in recent years of promising artists being paid peanuts for their work in the internet age thanks to unscrupulous downloading, Chris is ambivalent about the future of music in the digital era. “Streaming is certainly an issue


Chris Rogers: Encouraging the music industry to take more notice of Birmingham


‘The heritage is already there in Birmingham but the infrastructure to support it is missing - artists do not just play guitar and sing, music is also a business at the same time’


out of wanting to create a community in the music industry in Birmingham and to see it grow. It is really about encouraging the industry to take more notice of Birmingham and a lot of it is to do with the infrastructure. “There are a lot of people doing


lots of different things in Birmingham but often people do not realise what is going on. The main problem is the infrastructure - it is not the same as London, which is the music industry capital of the country. That is kind of missing in the Midlands and we want to change that. We would like to see


the record industry come here to see the talent on offer, but people do need a support network.”


C


hris, an accomplished violinist who describes his own tastes as eclectic,


ranging from Ray Charles to Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, says live music venues and streaming are both critical to the next generation of Birmingham artists. “For certain genres, it is a


burgeoning scene - there are real opportunities out there and one of the biggest successes is urban music, grime, rap, hip-hop.


and there are considerable pros and cons. It can be hard, but the flip side of it is that getting the music out there is easier than it has ever been - the question is how do you maximize the opportunity? It is a really competitive market.” Chris is also conscious that in


many respects Birmingham continues to lag behind the likes of Liverpool, Manchester and even Brighton in the music world of the 21st Century. “Manchester and Liverpool have


always had a creative music scene - we are a little behind in getting things together.” To ensure Birmingham's music


industry fulfils its potential and its up and coming artists are given the opportunity to show the world exactly how good they are, Chris hopes Pivotal will prove a catalyst to a higher profile future. “We chose the name Pivotal


because we feel it is pivotal for the region. Next year's plan is to be more city-wide. I say that cautiously. We have a five-year plan with the conference and festival three days long. It is not about my ego, I really want the industry to thrive.”


October 2018 CHAMBERLINK 19


Photo by Jessica Brookes


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