26 July 2007

44 days to go

A quick update: Cat, Jill (my mum) and I have been hard at work in myspace primarily. It is really an amazing experience finding so many inspiring and adventurous artists. All the positive and encouraging responses certainly keep us going as we jump the time consuming hurdles of myspace security checks and periods of painfully slow load times.
Jill has been exploring, Western Australia & French speaking Africa, I have been in South America and Cat has been traversing the Near and Far East. I think it is safe to say that my mum is more of a fan of folk music than hip hop, but we are both excited about some of the urban artists in the Ivory Coast - a thriving scene it seems. Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay have given us some fantastic musicians of all sorts - powerful songwriting and melody making.
Having written last time that artists from the Middle East were hard to find I tapped a rich seam in Egypt and Palestine - such strength and positivity.
We still don't have a Russian translation of the invitation text and it is very hard to make intelligible contact with Russians, Ukrainians, Siberians, Belorussians et al with out it. However we are making new headway in finding a translator and hopefully will be able to concentrate on the region before long.
This morning I have had the chance to stop and consolidate all the registered performers details and there are over 50 and at least 20 more in the myspace pipeline. A great international spread and it goes without saying I suppose but an amazing diversity of style.
Working with myspace mail does have it's issues - it is not searchable or indeed possible to order and it deletes after two weeks, so it is a jungle once the flow of correspondence is going - and it really is. We are trying to encourage those who want to take part to divert to the gmail account and/or register online. Apologies to anyone who is currently buried under a few days mail who we haven't got back to yet. We will!

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