Poster by Jazz Harbord

Facebook event link

Come celebrate our achievements over the past year at a funky fresh lil' birthday party at Union Mash Up!

Make Noise x

With 2019 officially underway, now seems like an excellent time to reflect on just how crazy the last year has been for us here at Make Noise! When we’ve not been hosting open meetings and workshops, we’ve been curating line-ups, attending conferences and doing so much more, in order to make our local music scene a safer place for everyone. These events all take a great deal of planning and collaboration, and we’re all volunteers who do this in our free time, so it’s a really special feeling looking back at the last 12 months and seeing the progress we’ve made together. Make Noise has only existed for just over a year now, but I couldn’t be prouder of all the important work we’ve done, so here’s a little recap to fill everyone in, just in case you missed anything!

We kicked the year off in February with our open meeting, where we invited women and non-binary people from Hull to make their voices heard, and to tell us what they wanted to see from us as we attempt to make positive changes for the future. I honestly feel like this was the perfect way to start a dialogue with local people, and we were lucky enough to have an amazing panel of successful women who talked openly and honestly about their experiences in the music industry, as well as some amazing information from Girls That Gig on how bands and artists can use social media marketing strategies to their advantage. Attendees completed surveys to inform us of their experiences in the local music scene, including their thoughts on specific venues, which was really helpful to us in identifying safe spaces in Hull, and venues that need to improve their attitude towards keeping women safe.

Photo by Zoey Dang

Next, came our zine workshop- hosted by our very own Jazz Harbord and Rosie Collins. It was amazing to see so many of you there, and the resulting zine I Came Here to Throw Shapes Not Punches was even more amazing than we could’ve anticipated! It really showed us how many of you feel the same as we do about the issues women and non-binary people face, even when going on a simple night out with friends. You can still pick a copy up at Type Slowly, if you’ve not had the chance yet! We were also lucky enough to host some amazing DJ workshops, with the help of Scott (EndOfLevelBaddie). These led to Make Noise opening up the Residents Association tent at last year’s Humber Street Sesh, which was an absolutely insane experience!

In June, we were offered the amazing chance to curate the line-up for The Sesh. It was so tough for us to choose just three acts out of all the talented bands and musicians we felt deserved to play. Our chosen acts, Finno, Ambiere and POLO absolutely smashed it- showing everyone how important it is that we give women and non-binary artists the platform they deserve. A really amazing moment for me was when I was watching Finno, and looked around at me and realised the entire first three rows of people stood at the front were women. It was a triumph for diversity and promoting safe spaces at gigs, and a real stand-out memory for me when I look back on my year with Make Noise.

Our next achievement was in August, when we teamed up with Freedom Fest to create a Make Noise window display for their Rise event. It took a lot of hard work behind the scenes to put this together, but the end result was absolutely inspiring. The parade itself was an incredibly breathtaking experience, and seeing MAKE NOISE spelled out across the windows of the Warren, in front of a crowd of hundreds, was such a special moment for us. I think seeing this product of our hard work displayed so proudly for everyone to see really showed us that people are ready to listen to us and make a change. We are still super grateful that we were asked to be involved!

Another exciting opportunity presented to us last year was working alongside a new conference, Off The Record. Make Noise were asked to join a whole bunch of curators to assist in selecting a line-up of acts to perform at the accompanying gig. We recommended Babe Punch and Peaness, and Jazz and Yas had an incredible time attending the conference and seeing the bands we chose play live. It’s so important that women are consulted when putting together diverse line-ups, and the success of this gig really highlighted why everyone should be listening to women more.

Throughout November we hosted a whole range of workshops for you guys- in addition to our digital DJ workshops starting again, we worked with Humber Street Gallery to offer some new skill development opportunities. Jazz and Rosie ran a workshop on gig poster design and Jen from False Advertising was kind enough to host one on guitar pedals! These were super well-attended, and the feedback we got from attendees was fantastic! We’re hoping to continue providing these opportunities in 2019, so keep your eyes peeled.

We also hosted a takeover at Humber Street Gallery in December, with musical performances from Alice Clayton and Rei Gyaamie, and spoken word from Jodie Langford. This was another lovely showcase of local, non-male talent, and we really enjoyed organising this for everyone! The evening culminated with Make Noise DJ sets- we love an opportunity to showcase our new DJ skills!

Finally, December came round and proved to be one of the busiest months yet. For starters, we announced our artist development opportunity, working alongside the brilliant Warren Records! This programme will provide an amazing chance for local women and non-binary musicians to develop their skills professionally with assistance from people who really know their stuff, and could result in single releases, free recording sessions, press releases & photos, launch gigs, and so much more! We’ve been listening to all the fabulous submissions we received, and we’re super excited to announce our winner soon! Keep an eye on our socials to find out our choice.

In addition to this development programme, we were also asked to DJ at LIFE’s Pop Party 3! This was a sold-out gig with an incredible line-up, so it was absolutely crazy to see some of our Make Noise gals on stage between sets playing songs. We absolutely loved this night! It’s really great to see bands using their platform in the right way.

And with that, our first full year as Make Noise was over! The events I’ve written about here are just highlights- we’re always hard at work on something behind the scenes. We’re really, really looking forward to making some announcements soon as to what the coming year holds for us. You can expect us to deliver even more this year than the last, and we’ll keep you guys updated every step of the way. We’ve already put some really exciting things in place for the upcoming months, which we think you’ll love. The support we’ve received from so many people and organisations over the last 12 months has been absolutely mindblowing. We’re so grateful for every kind word, opportunity or social media engagement, they keep us going when it could be so easy to feel down about the current situation women and non-binary people are faced with in the music industry. There’s so much more to be done, and we certainly can’t manage it all on our own, so it means a lot to see others doing their bit too. In 2019, we’d love to see this continue, until everyone feels safe at gigs, and every musician has equal opportunities.

If you need any more info on Make Noise, what we do, or what we have planned, please check our socials or shoot us a little message. Alternatively, if you’re interested in working with us professionally, or have any opportunities you think we’ll be interested in, please email makenoisehull@gmail.com.

Thanks again for all the support- we’re looking forward to seeing you all very soon.

We're making a zine about the experiences Hull/East Riding womxn and non-binary people have with gigs and music following our zine workshops at Type Slowly in the past month. This is a really loose format - we're looking for anything from a bad experience you might have had at a gig, to a photo of your friend stage diving. From a story about the maddest DJ set you ever saw, to a drawing of your favourite bass pedal. We had one submission at our workshop that was just a drawing of some cool lips!

What we want

• Art/Collages/Prints/Doodles (your work will be changed into black and white)
• Poetry (no longer than roughly one page)
• Prose (same length rules as above!)
• Photography (again, will end up in B&W not full colour!)

How to submit

To submit a digital copy of your work please send it to makenoisehull@gmail.com, with the subject line ZINE SUBMISSION.

• File size must be no larger than 10MB
• Send as either JPG or PNG
• If you want to submit writing just paste it into the email rather than attaching a document
• If you want to be anonymous that is fine but if you'd like credit please tell us your name! All the credit will go in one place rather than next to the work.

To submit a physical copy of your work please visit The Warren Youth Project in Hull City Center, located next to Queen's Gardens throughout the week and hand it to a member of staff and mention that it is for Make Noise. Open: Monday 1 - 5:30, Tuesday to Thursday 10 - 5:30, Friday 10 - 4:30. Write your name on it for credit.

The deadline is June 2nd 2018. We cannot guarantee that all work will end up in the zine as we can't gauge how many submissions we will receive yet. All artists work used will be credited when provided with names. Full size artworks/writings may be shortened or parts may be selected to fit more peoples work in at once. We are so, so excited to see what you all create and pull this zine together!