The hard work behind the promotion of emerging talent
HARD Working Class Heroes, a festival promoting the best of new Irish music, returns to Dublin next weekend with its 14th installment.
Having started out with 40 bands across two nights at Project Arts Centre in 2003, it now boasts over 100 bands, a convention (talks, speed sessions, workshops), and a free all-ages music trail across the three days.
No mean feat considering its funding has been almost halved in five years. Angela Dorgan, the Cork-born head (and only full-time employee) of First Music Contact (FMC), which organises the event , says the funding is now 49% of what it was at its height in 2010.
“To our credit — and I mean all of the people who dip in and out of projects and not just myself — we haven’t dropped one project. Probably we’ve grown in terms of capacity and numbers of people we’ve been able to engage. I get excited about what we could do even with just one more employee, and I think there’s huge capacity here for it, and opportunities, because we’re out around the world creating opportunities and developing and delivering reputation so it’s exciting.”
FMC is funded through the Arts Council, while the Music From Ireland initiative, its export body which showcases Irish talent at international conventions, is funded through Culture Ireland.
“We have a substantial amount of support from the Government for our artists. It is right because our philosophy is the artist comes first,” says Dorgan, adding that plans are in train for an Irish music office, which had been called for in a report commissioned by IMRO last year entitled The Socio-Economic Contribution of Music to the Irish Economy.
“We’d love to get to a stage where both government and industry would be our strategic partners and help us to deliver a more robust infrastructure,” says Dorgan. “What’s frustrating is we know the talent is there, we see it every single day, we’d just love to bring everyone together to make sure that talent gets all the attention it deserves, and also that the sector can grow and that we can grow our own music industry so we can sustain careers here and develop careers here and not have to export our careers all the time and our really great artists. That they could have a realistic expectation for living in music and stay at home at the same time.”
HWCH can be seen as the first step on that path for many bands. Alumni include Le Galaxie, Villagers, the Coronas, and Hozier, among myriad others. Dorgan, pointing to the likes of Iain Archer, finds the journey of bands, from early gigs to gaining acclaim to signing record deals and touring the world, one of the most satisfying aspects of her job.
“More recently, to watch a very scared Hare Squead have their first gig two years ago and then get a record deal after last year, it’s just lovely.
“We’re so familiar with all of these acts and we get to kind of see them grow up over one or two years, and that’s so satisfying. It just makes me so happy and proud of what we’re able to produce here, and also to remind ourselves that these bands are writing these songs — all we’re doing is literally building the stage. They do all the rest of the work, and it’s great to see all of their hard work for themselves pay off more than anything else.”
Dorgan also offers some tips on who to catch this weekend for the punters seeking bragging rights: “One that crept up on me and we ended up using it for our announcement video was Le Boom. They just came out of nowhere and I’m like, ‘this could be from anywhere’ — that’s not in a derogatory way, I just think they’re so good.
“There’s a phenomenal amount of excitement around how amazing we’re just about to get at hip hop and RnB, it’s very exciting, so that’s huge. Touts, these punk kids, are amazing. Brian Casey is stunning and I think he has beautiful vocals.”
Dorgan is also looking forward to the return of the Blizzards. “I’m very excited for them, to see what’ll happen out of that. Loah is also getting lots of great responses. Fang Club are going to be very interesting to see in the lovely, sweaty Hub.”
Amidst at the work, will she get to enjoy it herself? “I think enjoy might be a stretch. I don’t sleep at all over the weekend. There’s a lot of strings to be pulled.
“We’ve a brilliant team here — which I’m proud to say is mostly fantastic women — so this year, more than any other year, I’ll be able to leave the box office a little bit more, so I’m hoping to run around to venues and just soak it up. It’s a lovely vibe over the weekend and the city really does come alive.”
- Hard Working Class Heroes runs from Thursday to Saturday across Dublin. Weekend tickets are €45, day tickets are €20, while single-venue tickets are also available. hwch.net
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