Oxjam
Live: Volume 1 Out Now on Bandcamp – Support Oxfam and help tackle global poverty
After performing a set on the pulpit-like oxjam stage at
Tynemouth Market, Mark Tyers interviewed the man behind 2017's
abundance of Oxjam gigs – Stephen Ferrell [Pictured].
Mark Tyers (MT): How has Oxjam
Newcastle's year gone? You've put on a huge number of events!
Stephen 'Oxjam' Ferrell (SF): We've
put on 30 [Ed: actually 33] days worth of events this year, including
some multi-day events like this two day one at Tynemouth Market.
MT: That's got to be way more than
last year! What caused that?
SF: Last year we had 7 days worth of
events, the year before; 5 days. This is the 4th year
I've done it. Basically at the end of last year, the entire team I
had quit. I'd been doing it for 3 years, I was at the point where I
almost quit myself and I was like...I've got two choices: I can
either quit or if I stick about it's got to be bigger than ever so
that's the option I went with - you know, if we're going to make it
big, we're going to make it BIG!.
I started booking loads of events at
the start of this year at the time when I had absolutely no team but
I just booked events on the basis that the more it looked like we
were doing the more people would want to be involved and it kind of
worked – we've had a really big team this year.
MT: And you went back to Sunderland
this year...
SF: Back to Sunderland for the first
time since 2014. The reason being there were actually people
involved from Sunderland that year who really wanted to do stuff in
Sunderland. We used Independent that year and had Jar Family,
Cohesion, Good Friends... so good lineup. It did alright but it's
much harder for us to promote in Sunderland because I'm based in
Newcastle and I didn't know Sunderland at all really. But this year
because we're going so big, we're going everywhere, we're going down
the coast, this was a good time to do Sunderland again.
MT: It didn't go too badly at all
did it?
SF: I think Sunderland went really
well this year, we raised £300. I think what really helped was
having a Sunderland based band – Pussy Willow [Furry Venus], they
definetly brought a lot of the crowd. We had a really good lineup,
I'd definetly like to do Sunderland again this year.
There are stages, then there are STAGES - Oxjam at Tynemouth Market
MT: Could you talk a little bit
about Nova Radio and your involvement with them?
SF: They're an online community radio
station based in Newcastle. I started presenting [the local music,
then the Oxjam show] for them a few weeks before the festival last
year. I decided I wanted to comeback this year. It's about to
restart in a couple of weeks...Sunday morning 10am-12pm.
MT: What have you got lined up for
next year? Even more gigs? [laughs]
SF: Before we start booking stuff up
for next year we're going to have a few team meetings and find out
what the team wants to do, which is a really good position to be in
[compared to the start of this year]... I think we're going to be
cutting it down a bit next year, less events. One of the problems
this year with doing so many events [was that] it got to the point
where some of them, you can't put the promotion effort in [that you
would ideally want] because there's another event so close to it. It
starts really restricting what you can do promotion-wise, you can't
ask the team to make that big a commitment. [Also] to be honest
there's loads of great performers about but it does get to the point
eventually where there's only so many performers about and there's
only so many times you can ask them to perform!
One other thing to mention, we've got
the first Oxjam album coming out this week. We took 10 bands and 2
performers that played at our festival and got them in the Blast
studio to record the album.
Oxjam Live: Volume 1 Out Now on Bandcamp – all donations go towards Oxfam's vital global anti-poverty work
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