BARROWFULL / INTO THE MUSIC

 Sue and sound recordist Josh confer before our latest session at the Lock In in Barrow.  We got our usual warm welcome at the studio, the kettle was located in the debris from Lock In's (marvellous) Coastal Roads Festival, and the serious fun of recording began. The written and recorded work from the MIND In Furness women's group has been composed into a script, with additional bits from Kate Davis and me, and the result is a slice across time and place, reflecting shifts in the nature of  preparations for nights out, and the role of music in our social and private  worlds.  Sue writes about the buzz  she can find in a near-empty venue in the hours before a gig, and about the peace she finds in contemplative, enveloping sound.  In Nicola's account of a day out at the Radio One Road Show we hear the fizzing adrenaline of teenage fandom. In Louise's pieces, read by Nicole who we know from her work with Theatre Factory, we hear a contemporary anxiety worm its way onto the

Back at the Lock In for the first of 2 sessions to record the MIND In Furness women's group, and the work they've been doing with me and writer Kate Davies. The group have been writing individually and collectively about personal and public encounters with music, and their work is linked by short pieces from Kate and  bits of conversation from the sessions.   Nicola, seen here at the Mic with Robbie from the Lock In In, has done most of the work today, reading poems about the rituals and strategies leading up to the Night Out, and a short story recounting a visit to the Radio One Road show.   Nicola worked in Virgin Records and Kenneth Gardner in Barrow and we have a marvellous account of her working day behind the counter and amongst the sales reps.     The work from each of our writers is funny and touching, but goes beyond the anecdotal and into the thinking behind those personal rituals and strategies, into what makes them necessary.  This is the last of our Into The Music