BBC Introducing highlights: George Ezra, Monki and Fund Raising

It’s barely a couple of weeks old but 2014 is shaping up nicely for all at BBC Introducing HQ and we thought it was a good chance to blog about some things you may have missed.

For instance, we are a week into of a month of gigs in collaboration with Club NME at London’s KOKO. It was kicked off by Catfish and the Bottlemen and followed by Babystrange last Friday before rolling on with Amber Run, Saint Raymond and Ruen Brothers throughout January. All bands and artists have been brought to our attention by our local BBC Introducing shows and moving onto big things in 2014. Listen out for Saint Raymond’s session on Zane Lowe this Wednesday too.

Last Monday it was revealed that George Ezra (above) finished fifth in the BBC’s Sound Of 2014 poll. Big news for the extremely likeable chap, who has been championed by BBC Introducing in the West since the start of 2012 and packed out our tent at Glastonbury last summer.

Another band who featured in the Sound Of... longlist are Royal Blood, recommended to us (and you) by BBC Introducing in the South. We filmed a session with the duo at Maida Vale in December and that’ll be hitting the internet within the next month or so as part of Huw Stephens’ Wednesday night show.

Maida Vale was also buzzing last December when the BBC Introducing in the West team took four female-fronted artists to the legendary London studios. Mela from Bristol, Hot Feet from Gloucestershire, Jane Taylor from Somerset and Naomi Coombes from Wiltshire all had a number of tracks recorded by our expert engineers and there’s a handy YouTube playlist showing the results here. 

On Tuesday, we published this advice post on raising funds for your music projects by author Remi Harris. It features advice on getting grants from organisations such as Arts Council England and Creative Scotland and tips for Crowd Funding on platforms such as Pledge Music and Kickstarter. It’s had a great response so far and please share your thoughts on it via the blog,Twitter and Facebook.

Another interesting funding opportunity we’ve been made aware of recently is Joining the Dots, a support programme for entrepreneurial artists, promoters, producers and others working in independent music. The scheme is taking applications for ‘seed-corn’ funding of up to £10,000 until January 31st and is on the hunt for those involved with independent music in England with ‘game-changing’ ideas around live music. Find out more on their website. You may also want to look at the Explore International website which provides details of international music showcasing with information on funding, visas and upcoming conventions in the UK and abroad.

The next month will be pretty huge for the Introducing Uploader too. We will soon have 250,000 tracks in the system with over 110,000 artists registered. These massive numbers mean we are always looking to increase the opportunities we provide and we recently hooked up Radio 1 DJ Monki (above) and her production team with access to the Uploader and local shows are now able to forward tracks to this show for their consideration.