Lifted (music collective)
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Lifted is a music collective formed as part of a college project in 1996 by a group of young artists and musicians from the West Midlands, UK. The Group have organised several free festivals including Sounds in the park and other parties. DJ's have gone on to perform at Glastonbury festival, and get themselves signed to a few record labels. (Finger Lickin / Co Lab / Urban Takeover)
Lifted has played Oldskool / Drum & Bass / Techno / Breakbeat / Funk / Soul / Hip Hop and embraced many other styles of music along the way.
History
Pins Pint & Platter
The lifted parties began back in 1996 when daze was studying media & psychology at Stourbridge College. Towards the end of term the student were given the freedom to chose their on media based project and daze decided to try and put on some kind of music event. Using the college resources he made some posters & flyers to hand out around the town. The first party was held at the Pins pint & platter (now the rock 2000) and consisted of some local punk bands & soon 2 be ‘DJ’s’ with our friend Helen working the door & collecting money in an old roses tin! To put on this event daze sold his wristwatch to hire the PA and put money towards the room & had to find someone with some decks, knowing the goat was into his drum&bass and collected vinyl he paid him a visit and he agreed to loan him the decks & play some tunes on the night. The Sounds In The Summer (as it was called) attracted a few hundred people to the first gig but most went outside when the bands began to play (It was a bit loud) he never made the money back on the watch but it set up what would become Stourbridge’s biggest DJ & artist collaboration the town has ever seen.
The Rock Station
After seeing what could be achieved with a little haggling & footwork Daze, Emile & band member (Leon) sought out a smaller venue to begin putting parties on. Unfortunately in Stourbridge there was nowhere that would let them have an evening until the asked at the Rock Station, where they were given every Wednesday night by elki (now owner of the Rock2000). So started Indigo Promotions and their Respect night, with jungle & hip hop playing we gathered quite a crowd, the station fast became the only place in Stourbridge with DJ’s and artist meeting up to party. These parties went on for about 6 months until we began getting visited by out of town wanna be bad boys & the local Idiots from Wollaston. With this shift in attitude the nights began to gain a reputation 4 trouble & attitude so it was decided to try and split up the music a little bit & not play as much drum & bass. The ploy worked the idiots wouldn’t hang around and listen to techno (provided by our new friends Ste & Turner) & other stuff so we had found a musical filter to keep the idiots at bay, well at least for a while. With the growing crowds and need for quality we began lending a small PA to run alongside the venues (who can remember the speakers falling off the walls and smashing a table in half!) thanks to our friend parse’s dad for lending us his Orange speaker & 2 small ones on the side.
We had some great parties at the Rock Station, Including several New Years Eve parties and a few all day specials. The Line ups in those days consisted of Daze (happy hardcore) The Goat (D&B) Carter (D&B) Duke (hip hop) Geffi (hip hop) Ste & turner (techno) Leon (weird stuff) Will Jones (house) Daryl (D&B) Mace (techno) With resident MC Greedy, & who can forget the talent of Mad Mark Brown (the guy rocked) & also joined on occasion by the lyrical talents of MC Lonky Big Spilff.
The Mitre – Lower High St
We began to need a bigger venue and went out to find somewhere that would have us, which is when we met John & Babb’s at the Mitre in lower High St. Johns upstairs venue had been the centre of the towns Band phenomenon at in the 80’s & early 90’s seeing the likes of the Wonder stuff, Neds atomic dustbin & the like playing some of there first gigs there. But I digress, We changed the nights name to lifted when we moved to the new venue & really began to get into the parties, you could see us on a sat or sun morning wrecked and pushing a shopping trolley full of PA to or from the gigs. A note on the PA: it was big & very heavy, it was always a mission to get the thing to the venue in the first place the tied dyed half & margarine container high drivers was created by Leon & the big subs hand made by Pink Jim.
TO BE CONTINUED
Money Raised by several lifted parties has been used in the past to fund respite holidays for the terminally ill & to buy furnishings and equipment for young people in need.
Lifted has worked for several years with several community groups using music and art to engage local people
including
- The Source (Musicians drop in centre) - The What Centre (Young Peoples Advice & Support) - Dudley HIV and AIDS support group - Top Church Training - Pleasure Sound Systems - The Warehouse (drugs advice & counseling) - Stourbridge News - Dudley Community & Lifelong Learning Dept - Redditch Council - Wolverhampton University - The West Midlands Fire Service - St Johns Ambulance - The West Midlands Police Service
Please feel free to help with my spellings & english - I'm a musician not a typesetter - as for not satisfying the notability guideline for Music feel free to contact any of the above!
some refs
http://www.colabrecordings.co.uk/djs_remixers.html
http://archive.halesowennews.co.uk/2001/6/21/48842.html
