29th October 2014
Rocktober past
If you are new to the idea of Rocktober in Leicester, here is some background
Rocktober 2010
October 2010 has been chosen as a month in which to make a big shout nationally about our local arts and music scene. We explain the background to this campaign
Why choose October?
October 2010 is going to be a very busy month for local live music. We have just seen the opening of the Leicester O2 Academy, the Auditorium venue gets underway this month and we will also see the first show at the new lock42 venue. There is going to a massive festival of live music organised by Oxjam, called Oxtober, and several large and significant bands are booked to play here during the month ahead. A lot of new students will have just arrived in the city and county. So it seems liked a good idea to do all this activity this month.
Are you just going to promote rock bands?
No. We will also be raising the profile of singers, jazz bands, bands playing other genres of music, solo artists in other genres and even orchestras, writers, painters, dance groups and comedians. We want this to be a celebration of all that the arts in Leicester/shire is about.
Is Artsin going to all this by itself?
We certainly hope not. We will be urging anyone else that has a voice at national level to join with us and to do what they can to put out a shout for our local artists and musicians. We don’t see this campaign as being owned by us; we want to lead by example and hope that others will follow.
Will it all stop on 1st November?
Not at all. Publicising bands, artists and Leicester’s live music scene and other art genres is something that should go on all year round. We want to give this work a boost and so for a whole month we will focus on pumping out messages about what a great place Leicester is and what great music, bands and artists we have here.
What will Artsin be doing, specially?
One idea we have is that each day from 1st October, we will shout about one particular band. We have short listed 30 bands and will do one a day. I know there are 31 days in October, but the first band will be Kasabian! We know they don’t need us to shout about them because they are already a world famous band. But, it would be good to get some recognition for the fact that this massively big band started life in Leicester.
So who will you be shouting at?
The UK Music industry will figure highly in what we plan to do, including record labels, producers, the music media, radio DJs, people who book bands to play at venues around the country, music managers – in fact we hope to spread the word as widely as possible, so that by the end of the month, almost everyone in the music industry will have heard about Leicester and what a great place it is for music and the arts.
Here are some of the things we did for Rocktober 2010:
October
1 – We Tweeted: #October 1: we celebrate #Leicester as the birthplace of our greatest band: Kasabian. A world class band born locally.
2 – We Tweeted: #October 2: a popular and successful band #Leicesterband @autohype.
3 – We Tweeted: #October 3: One of our featured bands @LILNIGHTTERRORS
4. – We Tweeted: #October 3: @Ashdowne. One of our bands of the month
#October 6 – SuperEvolver is a band headed for the big time.
#October 5 @AxisMundiOnline – Amix Mundi – stunning metal and a stage-tearing act – one great band from #Leicester
and so on for 31 days.
[Published in Arts in Leicestershire magazine in 2010]
Rocktober 2011
October 2011 has been chosen as a month in which to make a big shout nationally about our local bands and music scene. We explain the background to this campaign
Why choose October?
Last year we ran a campaign called Rocktober. It’s aim was to promote Leicester’s rock bands and music scene. October is a month when the autumn and winter tour schedules really get going; it’s a month when many national level festivals are on the look out for the hottest new rising bands. It’s the month when all the new students have come to the city and when the out-of-towners have returned for their second and third years.
What does Rocktober do?
Each day during the month, Artsin puts out shouts for a band. October has 31 days, so we plug 31 local bands.
We do this through our magazine, through our Twitter account and through various social media outlets that we have.
This pushes 31 of our outstanding local bands and it also spotlights Leicester as a place that is BIG on rock music generally.
So how do you choose 31 bands out of over 200?
This is the most difficult part of the process. Some of 169 bands we leave out will not be happy that they failed to get into the list. Some will not be bothered. Others might think we have failed to acknowledge them, because we have not placed them on the list.
So, let’s share the criteria:
If we included a band in last year’s campaign we might leave them off this years campaign.
We prefer original bands (those that write their own music, as opposed to tribute or covers bands)
We look for bands that have a strong career path, as demonstrated through their gigography over the past year and to their discography, the amount of recorded work they have released.
We prefer to include bands that have a solid track record in the music business, as opposed to very young bands that have just started out.
We might include new bands, where there is a pedigree that makes them exceptional, for example, having musicians drawn from well established bands.
We prefer bands that write really good music, that stands out. We wish to have a list that is representative of Leicester’s genres.
Selecting which bands to include and which to leave out will therefore be difficult. We use our own judgments, as people who go to live gigs on a regular basis, throughout the year.
We have chosen not to invite the public to vote for the 31 bands. Such competitions frequently result in bands getting through that can muster the biggest number of votes, irrespective of the overall worth of their musical and artistic offering.
Our choice of bands is therefore moderated by the music staff of the magazine and by the suggestions offered by others in the local music industry, who see bands on a regular basis, such as venue owners, promoters and other music journalists.
At the end of the day bands shouldn’t take this too seriously. We spend 12 months of the year publishing news, reviews and other material about a wide cross section of our local bands.
Just because a band is or is not in the Rocktober list does not mean too much. After all, it’s not the Brit Awards!
[Published in Arts in Leicestershire magazine in 2011]
Rocktober 2012
Rocktober is a world-wide celebration of rock music. In Leicester there have been previous Rocktober events, designed to proclaim to the world how good the bands are in Leicester and Leicestershire. In 2012 we should be doing it again: shouting about the excellence of our rock bands.
We found this definition on Urban Dictionary:
An informal celebration of rock music taking place every year in the month of October. It may apply to any genre of rock and roll, however it is most often connected to the ‘classic rock’ genre. A typical Rocktober fan may be described as a beer-drinking, mullet ed and/or older rock aficionado. Urban Dictionary.
What Rocktober is about
October 2012 is a month when we can shout loudly about the bands and artists of Leicester. Ok, we need to do that for twelve months but this is a good time of year to engage in a collective effort to say that Leicester is a good for music.
Things YOU can do for Rocktober
If you have friends on Facebook who are outside of Leicester, message them to say how good Leicester is for live music. Posts shouts on your wall for Leicester bands that you have liked.
Use your Twitter account to say how good Leicester bands are. Every FRIDAY tweet #ff followed by the name of a local band you like. If you know their Twitter account name type @ (if you are following them it should come up below the input box and you can add it into the tweet.)
For example
#ff we like @casinoempire #rocktober
Watch out for our Tweets from @artsin and re-tweet them your followers.
Is it just about rock music?
No. We think it should also cover hip-hop, jazz, R ‘nB and other types of music that are good in Leicester.
Should it just be about bands?
No. In this city we have some fantastic singers, rappers, acoustic soloists and groups which deserve to be celebrated alongside bands.
[Published in Arts in Leicestershire magazine in 2012]
See also:
