The Un-convention team pulled off another fantastic event last week with the debut of Un-Convention Factory. It brought together about 300 people to discuss and debate working as an independent musician in the post major label digital age and (more importantly) record, design and distribute an album in a day. The concept of the album was to record Iggy Pop’s The Idiot with 8 top bands, including Reverend Soundsystem, The Whip, I Am Kloot, New Education and The Virginmarys all contributing tracks and to the discussions. The performances were understandable a bit ropey considering the constraints the artists had to work to (30mins to get onstage, record and get off again!) but the energy and vibe of the day was great with no one pulling a diva strope and instead fully embracing the vision of the event.

The day really demonstrated what can be achieved with the tools available to musicians today, the recordings were captured with fairly affordable pieces of equipment and sound fine to distribute as demos or B-sides to fans. In the  top left hand corner of the photo you can spot the ‘design studio’ where all of the artwork for the release was designed by volunteers and professionals, in the bottom left corner just out of shot of the camera was where Soundcloud had setup a workshop to showcase the tools they can offer musicians to distribute their music online. There was also panel discussions and workshops run throughout the day, many of which were filmed and recorded and will be posted online within the next few weeks so check out the Un-Convention Blog for updates.

Un-Convention are currently running conferences around the world so check up on their website to see if they are running anything nearby where your based. The team running it have a great vision for the format and hopefully if they can attract the same funding and sponsorship that they did on this event (including Converse ) then hopefully it’ll be repeated again in the near future. Until then, here are the tracks recorded at the event…..

The Day Of The Idiot by Un-convention

Buzz is building for this years Un-Convention being held from the 4th-6th June in Salford, UK. The blurb goes…

A music conference aimed specifically at the grass roots of the industry, the goal of Un-convention is to bring together like minded individuals to discuss the future of Independent music.

From DIY labels, and self releasing bands, to promoters and agents, entrepreneurs and innovators, Un-convention is looking to the future of music, and how it will develop and flourish in the technological age.

It looks like simply something that you can not afford to miss if you are in any way associated with the UK independent music scene. Sessions for this year haven’t been posted yet but last year saw the future of the independent music industry being debated by representatives from the music retailers, labels, media, websites, venues and of course – bloggers! This year the event has formed it’s own board of directors to steer the conference and it reads like a who’s who of people you’d like to buy a pint for in return for a quick brain pick. If your an independent label, artist, releasing your own material or just fancy hearing some great music then get a ticket. We’ll hope to have Indielab there for the duration and hope to meet as many people as we can for a quick bite of cake and a brainstorm.