UK music industry executive David Stopps calls for a pan museum, citing the instrument’s “unique history”
Liverpool in the north of England is home of legend¬ary band The Beatles and the city makes millions of pounds from tourism driven by the band’s legacy.
Thousands of visitors flock to landmarks like the Cavern Club where the band cut its teeth in the 1950s, Pier Head where there are life-sized statues of the Fab Four. It’s a similar situation in New Orleans where tourists go for the vibrant jazz scene in the French Quarter and on Bourbon Street.
Tourism driven by popular music, is what defines these cities as “music cities” and a British music indus-try executive believes that Port-of- Spain has the potential to be a music city if it draws on its strong music heritage.
Making this observation was Da¬vid Stopps, managing director of English company FML Internation¬al Artist Management who recently visited T&T to speak at a conference hosted by the T&T Music Company Ltd (MusicTT) and coordinated by the World Intellectual Property Or¬ganization (WIPO) in collaboration with the Intellectual Property Office of T&T (IPO).
The music industry veteran is par¬ticularly intrigued by the steelband and said this country isn’t doing enough to capitalise on its unique history.
“I’d like to see a museum for pan mu¬sic, I mean it’s an obvi¬ous thing,” he told the T&T Guardian in an inter¬view at the Youthful Ve¬gan on Long Circular Road.
“It wouldn’t necessarily have to be run by gov¬ernment, it could be a commercial thing. If a few entre-preneurs got together and charged an admission price and that could be profitable.”
Stopps, the author of the book How To Make a Living From the Music Industry (also the theme of the MusicTT conference), is working in Jamaica to help them to strength¬en Kingston’s music development thrust.
He said: “All you see when you come into Kingston airport is a Nis¬san advertisement,” he said with a laugh.
“They have Bob Marley. When you get into that airport, the first thing you should see is a video screen with Bob Marley singing.
“You don’t have Bob Marley, but you have a tremendous heritage and you’re not making the most of your own situation,” he said. “I think so much more can be made of it. The steelband is unique to Trinidad.”
During one of his sessions at the Music TT conference held at the Cascadia Hotel, he spoke about how other cities are making music a central ele¬ment of their tour¬ism offer.
He talked about how other cities use public spaces like parks, t ransport hubs and even the airports as places where people could go to hear lo¬cal music.
In the vein of a steelband museum, he pointed to land¬marks that are vis¬ited by millions of tourists every year, like the Bob Marley Museum in Jamaica and the Imagine mo¬saic in Central Park that is dedi¬cated to slain Beatle John Lennon, “there’s often a line of 50 people or more waiting to take a photo at the mosaic.”
Stopps also told the story of his initiative to create a musical land¬mark in his home town of Aylesbury, Buckinghamsire.
He plans to install a statue of Da¬vid Bowie, the music legend who died in January 2016. Stopps was a promoter who hosted Bowie’s con¬certs at the Friar’s Club in Aylesbury. Bowie also launched two albums in the town in the 1970s.
Using the fundraising website Kickstarter, Stopps raised more than £100,000 for the project in just over a month.
The sculptor Andrew Sinclair is creating the statue which will be installed later this year.
During the interview with the T&T Guardian, Stopps said there should be similar landmarks to our musical history that can attract visitors.
“It would be to brand Port-of- Spain or Trinidad and Tobago as a home for music and to promote the Carnival. Trinidad needs to play to its strengths.”
However, progress won’t come unless there is greater unity among the players in the local music indus¬try. Stopps said for this to happen, there must be a body like a musicians union.
“There is a lack of infrastructure here which is not unusual. It’s not peculiar to Trinidad. It applies to other countries. Particularly be¬cause there’s no musicians’ union here.
“If musicians are going get to¬gether and change things, they need to have some kind of trade body. Most countries do have a un¬ion or some form of collective that can pressure government or at least represent musicians perspective to government in order make change.”
While in Trinidad, Stopps heard complaints from many in the indus¬try, especially from performers who feel nobody is seeking their interests.
“I heard a lot of com¬plaints that nobody is doing anything for the music industry,” Stopps said.
“What I tried to do is turn that around to say alright, let’s focus on how to improve it. If you keep looking back¬ward that’s not getting you anywhere.
“Let’s focus on what we can do to take it forward, like having a musicians union for example.”
The manager of acts like ‘80s stars like Howard Jones and punk band Marillion said there was nothing to stop a performer from Trinidad from making it on the global scene.
In his book, How to Make a Living From the Music Industry, Stopps details the way artistes, managers and others should approach the industry.
In his interview with the T&T Guardian, he stressed the importance of artistes having a team of people who under¬stand how the industry works and especially having people who understands how the internet works.
“It’s a matter of get¬ting your head around how the technology works, learning how to use those tools, learn¬ing how to use a fan base and keeping your fans happy via social media—Facebook, In¬stagram, Twitter for example. It can be done but you have to work hard at it.
“For a start, you have to have really good mu¬sic, don’t forget that! If your music is not great, then that’s it,” Stopps said.
“But given the tech¬nology available, if a performer really has the ambition, there’s no reason someone from Trinidad can’t succeed.”
“It’s important to do things like start pod¬casts. Keep your fans excited, drop music regularly,” he said.
“The key is a fan base. If you can develop a da¬tabase of 1,000 fans and you keep them happy, they will stay with you. Be ambitious, sideline negativity and believes in the power of your music. Always commu¬nicate with the fans and do say thank you.” (Re¬porting by Franka Philip)
LINK TO DOWNLOAD: How to Make a Living from Music by David Stopps (for free): http://www.wipo.int/ edocs/pubdocs/en/copyright/939/wipo_pub_939.pdf