News: Glastonbury Festival launches the Emerging Talent Competition

The observant among you may have noticed this year's Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition logo appeared on the blog's sidebar a few weeks back, and yesterday Glastonbury Festival launched the competition.

The Emerging Talent Competition gives new acts based in the UK and Ireland the opportunity to compete for a slot on one of the main stages at the Festival and a £5,000 PRS for Music Foundation Talent Development prize in order to help fund further songwriting and performance development. Two runners-up will also be awarded a £2,500 PRS for Music Talent Development Prize.

Acts have one week to enter, from 9am on Monday 19 January until 5pm on Monday 26 January. The competition is open to all genres and entries can be submitted via the Glastonbury Festival website. Previous winners include Stornaway, The Subways and last year's winners, M+A.

Entries will go through an initial panel of 40 of UK music writers will compile a longlist of 120 acts, and once again I delighted to say that BlackPlastic.co.uk will be one of those writers judging initial entries. The longest is then shortlisted to 8 different acts by a judging panel that includes Michael and Emily Eavis, with the final winning act being decided at a live final at the Pilton Woking Men's Club in April.

News: Glastonbury announce the ETC longlist

This past week Glastonbury confirmed the blogger voted Emerging Talent Competition longlist. As I've mentioned before, the competition gives unsigned bands the opportunity to win a slot on one of the main stages at Glastonbury Festival and 40 bloggers go through the initial entries to arrive at the longlist - a list of 120 bands considered for the next stage.

Each blogger picks three bands to go through and so I thought I would just highlight the three bands I chose to put through. Competition this year was pretty tough - whilst the overall quality of entries was fairly consistent it felt more difficult whittling down the list to that final three. From the current list of 120 bands eight will be selected to compete at the live finals in April.

So my picks were as follows...

1. Benin City:

Currently unsigned following the release of their debut album last year, I was a big fan of Benin City already. They boast a massively distinctive London sound that captures the melting pot of influences that exist in our capital, a little rock and a little funk coming together to make something unique. I strongly recommend you check them out.

2. Brolin:

Produced by Brolin, Luke Abbott and David Pye. Purchase now via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/reykjavik-single/id603996873 'Cundo" EP available via Double Denim Records - order here: http://doubledenimrecords.bigcartel.com www.iambrolin.com

The whole indie-R&B scene has become on of the most fascinating and innovative scenes within music in the past few years in my opinion. I would never have expected to be so won over by the R&B genre but the exposed sensitivity of some of the musicians in that space combined with the incredible production efforts make it one of my favourite sounds right now. The UK is a little under-represented in this space but Brolin could help to redress the balance.

3. Aztec Doll

There's more than a hint of Warpaint about Aztec Doll but they bring their own style and approach to that sound. They have a seriously deep groove going on and I can imagine them sounding great at Glastonbury, come rain or sunshine.

Good luck to my three picks and congratulations to all the bands that have made it this far. You can check out the full longlist (minus a few bands who kept their entries private) on the ETC longlist Soundcloud playlist.

New: Glastonbury Festival announce the 2014 Emerging Talent Competition

Glastonbury Festival have once again announced their regular Emerging Talent Competition and I'm super excited to be able to announce to confirm that for the third festival in a row I will be one of the judges.

For those unfamiliar with the competition it gives new unsigned artists from the UK and Ireland the opportunity to compete for a slot on one of the Glastonbury Festival's big stages at the 2014 festival. Previous winners include Stornoway, Scouting For Girls, Treetop Flyers, the Golden Silver, Ellen and the Escapades, the Subways and last year Bridie Jackson and the Arbour (who played five sets at last year's festival!)

Bands wanting to enter have just one week to get their entry in, from Monday 20 to Monday 27 January via the official website for the festival. Entries are completely free (terms and conditions apply).

Entries are then whittled down to a long list of 120 by a panel of online music writers (myself included). From here the list is reduced to a shortlist of 8 artists but judges including Michael and Emily Eavis. Finally a live showcase scheduled for April will decide the winning act.

As I've highlighted in previous years, please note I can't discuss individual entries (and due to the volume of entries there is no way of telling which I will even be reviewing). Standard submissions are welcome as always but please note the volume of communication I receive goes up around the judging period, so responses can be delayed.

Some truths, or why I have to change the way this site works

For the past six months or so I've been wrestling with the fact that either I have to change, or this site does. 

BlackPlastic.co.uk started out as a hobby and an outlet for my views on music. Despite the modest size of the site in terms of visitors I find that over the past few years it has taken an ever larger amount of my time to manage. For those that don't know me personally this is just a side project - I have a separate full time job and run the site in what little spare time I have. And to be clear, BlackPlastic.co.uk makes almost no revenue, and is as such a loss leader (the annual hosting costs more than affiliate links have made in six years or so, not that I am complaining, or counting).

In other words, I only do this for the joy of finding, sharing and writing about music. Yet of late, I feel like it's killing what I like about music completely. I receive something like 30 emails a day from bands, labels and PR companies and to date have always tried to at least give the contents a listen. Some of what I receive is good, but quite a lot isn't... And the result is a massive burden in terms of time and a lot of what I listen to ends up dictated by external parties, which isn't fun for me and isn't necessarily great for readers.

Earlier this week I seriously considered just shutting the site down. I still plan on an extended leave of absence from mid-November, probably for a month or so to cleanse my pallet, but instead of shutting the site I'm going to try and change the way it works.

This will broadly mean two things:

1. The smaller change is that I want to most more short-form content, just sharing what I'm enjoying but not always critiquing or describing it. I've always been keen to be a blog that actually writes rather than just posting videos without any comment. That isn't going to change, but there just might be some more Soundcloud, YouTube and Spotify posts amongst the longer content. I've been dialling up this component for 12 months or so anyway but expect more short-form, and a bit less long-form. I hope this makes the blog easier to consume, more timely and more varied.
2. The bigger change - I'm no longer going to listen to everything (or even most) or what I get sent by email or through the site's contact form. I simply can't keep it up - it is slowly grinding me down and killing my passion for music. For a long time I've refused to respond to confirm non-coverage, those emails I receive, listen to and then decide not to feature (about 98%), just confirming when I do like something. But I'm now going a (big) step forward. I'm only clicking those links and listening to those samples when I fancy it.

Those two changes should enable me to better focus on the music I really care about and less on the music that just has PR muscle behind it. I hope it will make the site better for readers and less of a chore for me.

I'll try and communicate this change to anybody that regularly contacts me now, but I wanted to post it here publicly and give some insight into how things have worked in the past. If you currently send me music and this makes you want to stop, then I'm sorry and understand, but okay - do what you need to. If you were going to send me a message through the contact form just be aware that I will read it, but may well ignore requests to listen to links now... I never did before. I'm sorry that it has come to this, but something has to give.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to do so. Comments are welcome on this list or feel free to send me a message.

News: Glastonburgh Festival Emerging Talent Competition 2013

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Now that entries are closed Glastonbury Festival have confirmed this year's judges for the Emerging Talent Competition and I'm delighted to once again be on the panel of judges.

If you are unfamiliar with the competition it basically gives one unsigned band the opportunity to play the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury. They've had some pretty notable breakthrough acts in the past so it's a exciting competition to be a part of.

You can read up on my thoughts on the 2011 contest - obviously keep an eye on the Glastonbury website and these pages in the coming weeks for news on the long list and this year's winners.

I'll be judging with 39 other bloggers to create the long list - from here Glastonbury's own judges will whittle down to the overall winner. All entries are divided across the 40 bloggers (listed here) so if you entered there is no guarantee I will be assigned your entry. If you have entered please note that I can't respond to questions around the judging. Queries to the blog tend to go up around the judging period so I'd urge you to not contact the blog unless you have a legitimate reason. Usual submissions are of course welcome as always - I'll just be extra busy!