Acclaimed Steve Levine to kick off our Producer Series in true style.
Since learning his craft as an engineer working with The Clash, Steve Levine built his reputation sculpting the sound of the 80s and produced all of Culture Club's classic hits including 'Karma Chameleon' and the bands' first three albums.
Steve treaded the crowd to studio version of his famous work and shared his expertise, knowledge and pop stories for this special Q&A.
Hospital Records returned for another Dance Masterclass this time with Danny Byrd, John B and Emalkay.
Hosted by Radio One’s Mistajam, the artists presented their music-making techniques and took questions on how they go about creating their trademark sounds, beat programming, heavy basslines and everything else in-between.
Danny Byrd
Danny Byrd is one of the most exciting talents within D+B. Unashamedly full fat, Byrd beats are essential in any balanced musical diet with his current anthem “Sweet Harmony” his second tune in 12 months to make it onto the Radio One playlist.
John B
Classically trained at a young age, this British superproducer has gone on to become one of the most eclectic and unique individuals working within electronic music today. Consistently escaping categorisation, John’s genre-defying catalogue spans the worlds of Electro, Trance and Drum & Bass, and a few other spaces across the bpm spectrum.
Emalkay
Birmingham dubstep producer/DJ Emalkay is one of the most exciting talents to emerge on the scene having been made The Guardian’s single of the week, racking up serious radio play and remixing the likes of Faithless, Freeland and BBE.
Mistajam
AKA Peter Dalton is a mainstay of Radio One and 1xtra, and has earned his stripes as one of the most respected tastemakers in dance music. With a background on stage and screen as well as in Radio we’re confident he’ll be the best man to keep our three panelists in check.
"Every time just like the last
On her ship tied to the mast" Hugh Cornwell
"He remains a hugely popular and prolific performer who’s songwriting retains its fiery eloquence and whose gigs still crackle with electricity" Classic Rock
Rolling on with our Songwriting Masterclass Series, we were thrilled to welcome Hugh Cornwell to the British Music Experience on Thursday 25th February.
Hugh Cornwell is one of the UK's finest song-writing talents. The original guitarist, singer and main songwriter in The Stranglers enjoyed massive UK and European success with ten hit albums and twenty-one top forty singles, etching himself into the UK's musical psyche with 'Peaches', 'No More Heroes', 'Golden Brown', 'Always the Sun' and many others.
Cornwell has released eight solo albums, most recently Hooverdam, produced and mixed in Toerag Studios by Liam Watson, known for the Grammy winning White Stripes’ Elephant. Hooverdam is available as a high-quality free download in ten languages from his own website, bringing Cornwell's music free to the world's population.
"When it comes to vernacular British pop few do it better" Q
"I never thought that it would happen
With me and the girl from Clapham" Squeeze
The British Music Experience presented an exclusive Songwriting Masterclass and Workshop with double Ivor Novello Award winner Chris Difford on Saturday 30th January.
Firmly established as one of the UK's most respected and most loved singer–song writers, Chris Difford is a leading component of legendary British rock/pop band, Squeeze.
This is was a unique, collaborative event for aspiring songwriters as well as fans of Chris who hosted a Songwriting Workshop and provided a Q&A discussing his songwriting technique, his 30 year musical journey writing top 20 hits and performing new material with some of his most loved songs.
This is the first Dance Masterclass we've run and it was amazing to see so many of you turn out, we hope you had as enjoyable, educational and fun time as we did.
More importantly, a massive "THANK YOU" shout out to James Wiltshire for giving up his time and expertise and for providing nuggets of DJ gold with the tips, techniques and advice.
We've got some lovely pictures and a lovely 8 minute video edit from the Masterclass, enjoy!
Stadium fillers Bon Jovi performed a secret gig especially for a handful of their British fans last night, right here in the British Music Experience playing here to an audience made up entirely of winners of a competition held on their UK website.
The set of indoor fireworks included the classics 'Wanted Dead Or Alive', 'You Give Love A Bad Name' and an acoustic, strippped down version of 'Livin' On A Prayer' as well as songs from their new album The Circle released this week.
Bon Jovi are set to take up a London residency with a series of concerts here in The O2 arena, starting June next year.
In the meantime, here's some delightful pics to enjoy:
"Paparazzi seem intent to present their subjects in the worst possible light. In the days of Harry Hammond, photographers only wanted to show the best of you. I guess that's why it was always such a pleasure to have Harry Hammond." Cliff Richard
From 25th September to 27th November the British Music Experience will premiere a unique exhibition of photographs of Britain's biggest musical icons, from the V&A's collection.
Covering that golden era when Britain dominated rock and roll, one man, Harry Hammond, was Britain's leading showbiz photographer and for almost two decades he captured the definitive images of every leading British musician, as well as visiting Americans.
Here's a gallery of some of the images on display in the exhibitition:
Tuesday 27th October 2009 Howard Jones, one of the defining figures of mid-'80s synth-pop was our honored guest for a very special Songwriting Masterclass talking about his career, songwriting techniques and performing some of his songs.
During our Halfway to Paradise: The Birth of British Rock photographic exhibition, we hosted a very special evening with three of the nation’s leading music photographers.
Jill Furmanovsky, Mark Mawston and Philip Townsend presented their amazing images, techniques and photography tips, as well assome very funny and personal backstage stories on the journies to the forefront of British music photography.
On the 1st of October 2009 we hosted a unique day of talks, workshops and live demonstrations exploring the relationship between sound, light, space and experience. The event was developed and curated by SPACEPILOTS, a collaborative practice of architecture and art and gave participants the chance to meet experts in sound and lighting design.
Contributors included David Atkinson, who's lighting scheme plays an integral part in the design of the British Music Experience, artist and sound designer Thor McIntyre-Burnie, and Sharon Stammers from The Professional Lighting Designers Association.
After the fantastic response to the event, we commissioned SPACEPILOTS to work with 40 students from Chelsea College of Art to develop a series of case studies exploring ways that sound can engage students at Key Stage 3 and 4 with subjects across the curriculum.
The resulting series of proposals which includes interactive sound maps, tactile sound explorations and aural guides of The O2 and it's surrounding areas can be viewed here on the SPACEPILOTS web site.
Pre Hospitality at Matter we put on Hospitality Q+A+E at the British Music Experience to give fans, ravers and budding producers a chance to hear how Hopsital Record's finest: London Elektricity, High Contrast and Logistics make their tracks. Hosted by BBC Radio 1s Nerm we had 90mins of excellent hints, tips and questions from the audience and a certain little new dance move called 'The Drum & Bass Step'.
Graced by the presence of professional dance outfit Hypnotik to teach us the art and fun of Hip Hop dancing. These guys can move like you wouldn't believe
Thursday 6th August 2009 For just 3 days only, Andy Warhol's famous 1984 portrait of Michael Jackson arrived from the U.S. for exclusive display in the British Music Experience.
This famous work of art had never been on display in Europe before, but was on view at British Music Experience visitors on Thursday 6th, Friday 7th and Saturday 8th August. It then went straight under the hammer in New York.
Check out this great little video by ace young reporter Ruby Daniels checking out our Hip Hop Masterclass and interviewing DJ Rolling Sound like a pro:
To celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and , the British Music Experience and Mercury Records presented The Hand-Bell Ringers of Great Britain vs. The Orb.
The Hand Bell Ringers of Great Britain, Europe’s largest Hand Bell and Chime Orchestra, descended on the British Music Experience for this completely one off event. In addition to playing selections from their repertoire and extracts from Tubular Bells, they ran workshops so you could learn to chime in time with the pros.
AND...
Legendary ambient house pioneers The Orb performed a unique 'Orbular Bells' DJ set. Here's what you missed:
COMING SOON... Producers Masterclass Series:
John Leckie (Producer of The Stone Roses/Radiohead) Xenomania (Producers of Girls Aloud), Steve Lyon (Producer of Depeche Mode)
Dates TBC
Your Smarticket allows you to tag your favourite parts of the museum and your recordings and brings it all back home for you to keep...
HOSPITALITY
The British Music Experience is a stunning and flexible space that can be the perfect venue for a range of personal and professional occasions...
NEWS & EVENTS
Stay tuned for music news, random quotes, music geek facts and info on a plethora of exciting exclusive events...
LOG IN TO MYBME...
YOU ARE NOT LOGGED IN
ARTIST MEMORABILIA
Judas Priest
Metal gods Judas Priest formed in 1970 in Birmingham. Lead singer Rob Halford took to riding on stage on a Harley Davidson motorbike dressed in full leathers and sunglasses. This outfit was worn by Halford on tour at Tokyo’s Budokan arena in 2005.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Join the British Music Experience for a daily dose of quotes, news and a plethora of British music nerd facts.
.jpg)
"Paparazzi seem intent to present their subjects in the worst possible light. In the days of Harry Hammond, photographers only wanted to show the best of you. I guess that's why it was always such a pleasure to have Harry Hammond." Cliff Richard
