Interest area: Music

Turning stories into songs

Free workshop focused on uncovering history and sharing stories through music and creative writing.

Biography: Daniel Astles is a musician, songwriter and performer who also specialises in community music workshops.

As a performing artist Astles has been described as ‘gorgeous, lilting indie’ by the NME. As well as having been supported by the PRS Foundation Momentum funding, and recently signing a Publishing Deal with Sentric Music and Starwood Management (Michael Kiwanuka and The Kooks) as well as being signed to London Label 7476 (Matt Maltese, Mathilda Mann). He has also performed with artists such as Bill Ryder Jonea and The Mysterines.

Workshop Details

The Session will last around 2 Hours with a small break in the middle. It will cover the things below.

– Open Discussion about Birkenhead’s Working Class history, see if anyone has any stories they have to add to ones already gathered.

– Discussion about songwriting – what is in a good song, what makes a song special. What is everyone’s favourite song?

– Songs about places – how do they effect how people view the places? How do they add to the story of the place? Eg Penny Lane, Empire State of Mind etc.

– Using cut out fragments of previous stories gathered as well as their own words, start individually writing poems and verses about Birkenhead’s working class history.

Dan will aim to combine bits of everyone’s stories and songs, whilst starting to write song and encouraging people to sing.

Crafting the song into something with a structure, verses and chorus etc. Getting everyone involved in this songwriting process.

BREAK

Finish song together, practice it a few times and aim to have a phone recording of it by the end.

Final discussion – if someone heard this song and hadn’t been to Birkenhead, what would they think of the place?

This a Convenience Gallery Project. It is part of Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories. The new grant scheme was launched by Historic England earlier this year to support community-led projects and further the nation’s collective understanding of the past.

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Building on the success of last year’s Friday night chilled Old School Dance & Ibiza theme, the dance stage will welcome a wave of talent from the 1990s up to today’s fast-rising local legends.

Saturday night’s dance stage will be headlined with a DJ Set from timeless electronic dance act N-Trance, fresh off their 30-year anniversary tour, who will bring the nostalgia back with hits including ‘Set You Free’ and ‘Turn Up the Power’.

Also, on Saturday night’s headliner lineup will be a DJ set from K-Klass, the group behind classic 90’s electronic hits such as ‘Rhythm is a Mystery’ and ‘Let Me Show You’ as well as the iconic remix of the Bobby Brown hit ‘2 Can Play That Game’.

Sunday night will play host to legendary Eric Martin from Technotronic, the founder member of the Belgian Eurodance group whose number one ‘Pump Up the Jam’ will transport the crowd back to the early 90s, with Friday night showcasing an unmissable ream of local and undiscovered DJs from the UK.

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Their much-anticipated full-length debut Thank God! It’s The Dream Machine is set for release this April.

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Feeling very much at home at the Capstone, Phil is himself an alumnus and former teacher in the Music Department at Hope. Tom is a lecturer in Music Performance and Matt a bass teacher in the Music department.