Queen Zee and the Sasstones (photo: Lucy McLachlan)
As Wirral New Music Collective launches this weekend with a free gig, Getintothis’ Cath Bore has the details.
Wirral Music Collective launches with a free gig you won’t want to miss on August 12.
Wirral New Music Collective, an initiative involving musicians, studios, labels, promoters, designers, festival organisers, arts organisations, publishers, managers and others active around music making on Wirral, launches proper this weekend.
The Collective, which aims to promote and support artists in the peninsula as well as build a grassroots support network, have Queen Zee & The Sasstones – newly chosen by BBC Introducing to play Reading and Leeds Festival – plus Jo Mary who have a new single out this week, and Getintothis Deep Cuts alumni Bill Nickson performing a free show at Gallaghers in Birkenhead on Saturday night.
‘It’s awesome to bring Sasstones home to Wirral,’ Zee told us. ‘Birkenhead has nothing like us, so for one night only fly your freak flag!’
The show’s organiser Matt Hogarth, added: “Wirral has a rich musical history of producing some of the most interesting, innovative and exciting acts in the country and this can often be forgotten. We as the Wirral New Music Collective hope to maintain and expand this history, allowing the peninsula to be the most fertile musical breeding ground it can be and offering support for artists on their doorstep.
“This first gig, hopefully of many, shows off some of the best guitar music from across both the Wirral and genres. Queen Zee are the perfect headliner having become one of the area’s most promising talents, with a relentless ambition which can only inspire artists following in their footsteps, with the same going for both supports. They’re all bands which stand for hard work and that’s what counts. Where better to kick it all off than Birkenhead in the best pub around. Boss bevvies and bands all round!”
Though Wirral has that wealth of talent, quality gigs on home turf are as rare as rocking horse droppings, meaning Wirral artists and music lovers must cross the water to Liverpool to play and support both new and established bands from the area.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but options are always nice, and following on from the success of last weekend’s Skeleton Coast festival in Hoylake – with people coming from Liverpool and beyond to enjoy a host of both local and national artists including Cabbage, Jane Weaver and The Sundowners – Wirral New Music Collective might well be on to something here.
More details of the Collective’s future plans are announced soon.
- Queen Zee and The Sasstones, Jo Mary and Bill Nickson: Gallaghers Pub and Barbers, Birkenhead (behind Hamilton Square station) August 12
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