Our first outside adventure for the year comes when we visit the Quarter Block Party in Cork on Saturday February 7.
Running from Friday February 6 to Sunday February 8, the Quarter Block Party is a new arts festival shining a light on one of Cork’s oldest quarters and taking over South and North Main Streets for a range of music, theatre, art, discussions and positivity. The aim is to bring crowds to the founding streets of the city during an off-peak time of year and transform the area with creative hubs of artistic activity for everyone in the community to enjoy.
For Banter at Quarter Block Party, we’ve two talks lined up. Inside the Miracle of Sound is an interview with Gavin Dunne, the Cork musician behind the online music project of the same name. What started out as fan-songs for movies and videogames has become a micro-industry where his songs and compositions, all produced in his home studio and covering a vast range of genres, have pulled in over 50 million views across the internet as well as the interest of such industry giants as Ubisoft, Bioware, EA, Epic and Bethesda. His work has been used to promote major titles such as Mass Effect 3, Assassin’s Creed 4 and Watch Dogs and his song “Cries Of A Dead World” is on the soundtrack to Wasteland 2.
We’ll talk to him about getting his start in the business, the power of word of mouth for a musician and composer, the use of social media to create a buzz and what happens when the gaming industry’s big boys come calling.
The second talk is about Alternative Economies and if it’s possible to make a living from doing something you love. For many, the dream is to give up the day job and do something you truly love, but how feasible is it to do this, especially if you have a music, arts or cultural project you want to work on? You may think that there are grants and loans and bursaries which will see you over the line, but the reality is a lot different.
Some folks who’ve found a way to make alternative economics make sense for them – namely James Byrne (Any Other City, Villagers), Eat My Noise Productions, Aoife Potter-Cogan (Cork Community Art Link) and Siobhan Kane (Young Hearts Run Free) – give us their thoughts on going it alone.
It takes place at the Vision Centre at St Peter’s (South Main Street) where doors open at 2.30pm and the talking kicks off at 3pm. Admission is free to Quarter Block Party weekend or day ticket holders and you can get those tickets here.