WorldService Project: Articulate Arsonists

Clarkson picks up the thread: "I guess the thing is that what we realized, after failing in the first application, is what they wanted was an innovative idea with which to spend the prize money. It was that realization that gave Dave the idea. Because after [Dave] left York, Dave started getting very involved in the Vortex [renowned British jazz club in the East End]. I think the suggestion of SynKoke, the band we worked with, came through a connection with somebody at the Vortex. I imagined being at the Vortex, seeing all of this different kind of music going on and exciting bands—you know, bands as opposed to different collections of musicians—but seeing bands was what possibly sparked the idea. Because, as well as Match & Fuse linking up musicians, it's really linking up bands as opposed to different people playing with each other; it's very specific.

"I remember, actually, just after we won the award, Dave sent around a video of SynKoke playing—very intense, this kind of black metal, prog thing—it was a kind of realization that we have to coalesce into a defined band and inhabit the music more, because they were so intense onstage, but they also clearly had such a trust with each other and such an identity as a band. I think that had been building, and then winning that award and realizing what we needed to do to was match what they were doing and have a set of music that was cohesive as opposed to a collection of different things. I think that was happening at the same time as planning Match & Fuse."

"So with the award, we did the first Match & Fuse with SynKoke," Morecroft continues. "And because that was so great, about three months before we did the tour, we decided to try extending it. The relations between the two bands were so good, and the logistical thing, too; it just seemed like a thing that was going to work really well. So we basically looked for another four bands to extend it from September 2011 through to June 2012. That was with a German trio called Schulbus, an Irish quartet called ReDiViDer, an Italian quartet called Tribarco and a French quintet called Alfie Ryner. All of those bands were found either though word of mouth—so another person would suggest them, or Tim's cousin is the French's band's sound engineer— just little connections like that. But each time we'd obviously listen and be, like, 'Yeah, this is fucking great; let's do it.' Or like Schulbus and Tribarco, who were found through Internet research. Looking at certain clubs and venues to find the right kind of band that were suitable for us and send them an e-mail suggesting this concept, and they were, like, 'Yeah, great.'



"So we got through Christmas, and we said, 'This is better than we ever thought it would be, so let's try to extend it further.' We applied just before Christmas 2011 for another grant that would enable us to run a festival in June 2012 that would be a celebration of the end of the first phase, if you like, and do another three tours with another three bands taking us into ... well, we still have two of them still to do this year."

At a time when finding ways to tour are increasingly challenging, it's almost antithetical to reality that WordService Project and Match & Fuse have managed to do just the opposite of other artists and find consistent, regular work. While a little different, perhaps, they are not totally unlike artists like Pat Metheny, who spent 300 days a year on the road in his early days, traveling by van, picking up any gig possible and not necessarily worrying about the money—except that now things are so much more expensive. But the beauty of Match & Fuse's idea, once it actually began to roll out after germinating with Morecroft and WorldService Project, is that it it involved everyone, from every country.

"We book the UK part, and the whole point of it is that it is matched equally, so as soon as the bands land in another country, everything is already sorted," says Morecroft. "We book the UK tours, and we sort the accommodations, the expenses, the fees, the promotion, publicity, press, everything in the UK, and as soon as we get to the other country, we just play and eat really nice food."

Of course, not every band is as organized and driven as WorldService Project. "Yeah, that has been a problem a couple of times, in fact," Morecroft reveals. "We've had external help from Lee Paterson [of the British GoBetween publicity agency], who has been doing our press, basically, for the whole project. We've also had great support from the Vortex and Todd Wills, who used to manage it, who allowed us to have a sort of residency there. And we've brought up relations from other promoters around the UK like Paul Bream in Newcastle, a promoter in Nottingham, and we know that we can go back there, and the gig will work because the audience is right and the gig is right. So we've had a team of people, obviously.

"But it has been a problem for a couple of bands. One in particular, where it got to quite close to the project, and we began talking about the nitty gritties, and they turned around and said, 'Well, look, we don't have any funding. We don't have any funding, so we can't do this.'

"I think one of the things that the Arts Council in the UK always likes about it is that they're only ever funding half of it, because you're saying this other band will put up the rest," Morecroft continues. "But it hasn't been easy; we've had to be quite creative with certain figures, but it's the stuff everyone does for an application form, and you make certain sacrifices. The good thing was that the five of us in WorldService Project—well, at least until the festival—we were all very much investing in a project. We all saw it that would expand and grow into something much bigger, so we were very happy to do loads of stuff. We tried to cut down expenses and do that sort of thing. Also, we were learning the whole time; it was a massive learning curve. We were learning how to host a band and run a tour properly. So it wasn't like we were the maestros of running tours, and it was just fine; we made mistakes along the way, and we tried to learn from them and improve it each time that we did it—which did happen, I think."

Clarkson continues, "It's also worth saying that we did—in terms of making sacrifices, thinking of the budget, we were very creative with things. It's not like these bands are being put up in nice hotels all around the UK; they're sleeping on someone's sofa, so it's not necessarily very comfortable conditions. We were lucky, though, that all of the bands were really in it for the music and for the idea and the project. A lot of them were asking our age, which is another thing to mention. We've had instances where things have just not worked out. For example, one of the bands was an older generation of musicians, and they may not have been happy when it came to sleeping on someone's sofa and driving six hours after a gig. So it's all that kind of thing that, luckily, all of the groups so far have gone ahead with running this touring scheme; they've all been on the same page."

The first Match & Fuse Festival, in Gillett Square (where the Vortex can be found), was an ideal location, an enclosed square a short walk from a main street, in proximity to a tube station. "It was one night and one whole day," Morecroft recalls. "And it was really great; we got a really nice Arts Council grant for that festival. That was the second that we were successful in. It was very shoe string, but with enough blood, sweat, tears and effort; every musician that was there was really happy. I think every musician played a great set. I was walking around, and everything sounded amazing, and everyone was really happy. Again, it really comes down to that social thing that we're talking about. If you're being hosted somewhere, just having someone being gracious and looking out for you and doing everything they can to make sure you have a good time, it makes such a huge difference. They don't have to spend loads of money.

"I think the live audience was about 2,000 across two days, and we also had stuff inside the Vortex, so we sort of had a relay thing," Morecroft continues. "As soon as one set finished, the other one would start. We had a screen that would project on the side of the Vortex; that was actually Lee [Paterson]'s project. It's called VortexLive, and it's essentially a screen on the side of the Vortex to show gigs. So even if you stand outside, because obviously 1,000 people from Gillette Square can't go inside, you could still watch.

"Tim did some good hustling of advertising departments and playing them off against the journalists, because they felt like since you paid the money, they had to, too," Morecroft continues. "It was good; the BBC came, recorded and broadcasted three sets and still have another three that they're going to broadcast, hopefully sometime this year. John Fordham came from The Guardian and reviewed it; The Wire and Downbeat came."

"That was the thing," Clarkson interjects. "It wasn't the most glamorous hospitality, but by everybody being there, trying to make it the best thing it could be and looking after people ... I think it's the feeling that's great; it's about music and people being looked after."

"In terms of legwork that we had to do beforehand, it was something, as Dave said earlier, that we would not necessarily ever do again—or, at least, not in the next few months," says Ower. "It was very hard, and we did end up doing a lot of work in terms of promotion. No one had heard of Match & Fuse, obviously, so you had to go to very specific places for it to ring any bells. It was really a brand new thing, so to say you're putting on this festival: 'Well, what's it called?' 'Oh, it's called Match & Fuse.' 'Well what's it about?' 'Bands you've never heard of from all across Europe.'

"That's what we were sort of riding on—for it to be exciting and for people to cover and come down," Ower continues. "In terms of the budget we had for promotion, I mean it was nothing. It was a quarter of what we needed to get a half page in The Guardian for one day, so we did have to do a lot of work, and we put a lot of hours into postering and all that kind of thing, following up with papers, saying, 'Cover this.'"

"We all worked really hard on it, but we already had a couple of partners—friends from other Match & Fuse tours who were coming and helping out—and, obviously, the Vortex," Clarkson continues. "The Vortex was really into the idea. A lot of our friends and supporters came in and mucked in. The whole thing—there was just a lot of support and enthusiasm for it."

If The Vortex keeps coming up in conversation, it's because, while it may be something of a dingy hole in the wall in a slightly rough part of London, it's that club—and Oliver Weindling's Babel Label, located just around the corner—that have kept the jazz and improvised scene alive in London, providing both the breeding ground for new talent and a place where established legends like Evan Parker run mini festivals each year (in the case of Parker, his quaintly named Might I Suggest week, which this past year brought members of the ICP Orchestra to interact with local players and featured, quite possibly, the last live performance by Misha Mengelberg, who is in the advancing stages of Alzheimer's Disease).



"When I graduated from University, I started volunteering at the Vortex, because it's obviously a volunteer-run club, apart from two or three paid members of staff," Morecroft explains. "I started volunteering there to obviously hear great music but also to network, meet people and to develop ideas. That's what happened, really. It's been four years that I've been volunteering; I still do as a night manager, which is just running gigs on certain nights. All the people that I've met in those four years have just been incredibly useful, and they're the right people to meet, bounce ideas off of and discuss things. It's a very creative kind of place, a very creative hub. You have musicians coming with their new projects and international musicians; it's the best music club in London."

Still, with all the groundswell of support, with the help of venues like the Vortex and people like Lee Paterson, it's still a tough slog. While WorldService Project is behaving more like a rock band than a jazz band in its being the almost exclusive focus of its members, as opposed to having them spread out among many other projects to make a living, it's not easy—certainly not something a group of older musicians would be prepared to do. "Basically, we all teach part time, which is fine," says Morecroft. "Conor's still studying, but in terms of WordService Project on its own? I suppose a couple of us are close-ish to being able to just perform and make a very basic living. Maybe."

"I think with Match & Fuse and the WorldService Project, it certainly feels on an upward curve in terms of becoming more viable," Clarkson interjects. "If it continues where it goes, then it will. When some of these things started, we really had to invest in some things ourselves, like not breaking even on a small tour. Now that sort of thing isn't happening anymore. It's on the right path; we just hope it will continue and that it will be viable for us to do."

But at a time where "pay to play" has become a serious and severe norm, it still makes it very difficult for a group—even one as clearly committed as WorldService Project—to achieve reasonable, sustainable viability. "It's the sort of deal where people pay the amount on a ticket, and once you've had 20 people—once your band has had 20 people to say, 'I'm here to see World Service Project,' you get a pound per every ticket. It's theft; it's basically theft," says Clarkson.

With a room that holds 150 people, that means the band—five people— get to split a whopping £150. "That kind of gig is more practice than gig," Clarkson concludes.

But the good news is things are moving in the right direction. Beyond the recently wrapped-up Match & Fuse and the next one coming in London, the group will be heading to the United States for its first North American tour. The group is calling it "Music and Miles 2013," a double bill with Italy's Nohyabandatrio for the most part, followed by some dates with the Italian/UK collaboration Bulldog Drummond that will hit (so far) 33 venues in a grueling 41 days and involve traveling from Chicago to Washington, Lexington to Rochester, Indianapolis to Louisville and Brooklyn to Charlotte—across a total of 15 states.

It's ambitious, risky and puts absolutely everything out on the table. But for the members of WorldService Project, that's just business as usual, and with Fire in a Pet Shop already garnering positive press, things are clearly looking up for this young, forward-thinking and, in so many ways, intrepid British quintet. If the group continues to hone its own sound and approach and, with its Match & Fuse festivals and tours, collaborate with other like-minded musicians from across Europe (and, on the cusp of its first US tour, perhaps some American artists as well?), there's every chance that the name WorldService Project will begin to garner the same recognition in North America as it has in Europe. And if ever there was a group that deserves that recognition through time and effort, blood, sweat and tears, and sheer determinism, it's WorldService Project.

Selected Discography

World Service Project, Fire in a Pet Shop (Megasound, 2013)

World Service Project/Tribraco, Match & Fuse IV (Self produced, 2012)

World Service Project/ReDiViDer, Match & Fuse III (Self produced, 2012)

World Service Project/SynKoke, Match & Fuse (Self produced, 2011)

WorldService Project, Relentless (Brooke Records, 2010)

Photo Credits

Pages 1, 9, 11: Courtesy of WorldService Project

All Other Photos: John Kelman

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