Brighten the Corners
The Ipswich CIC building community through live music
Can you tell us about how and why Brighten The Corners started?
Brighten The Corners is an amalgamation of about 18 years of hard work. In 2009 I started a recording studio called Punch Studios after being made redundant and realising I wanted to do more stuff within the alternative education sector. There I started putting on Rock Schools, getting young people performing and writing songs and that always sort of stuck with me.
In 2014 I set up my first not-for-profit organisation called Out Loud Music, CIC, that was primarily based around young people with disabilities using iPads to make music, gain confidence and increase social skills and have bigger opportunities. That course is still running to this day.
Then in 2015 I expanded Punch Studios to three rehearsal rooms. There were lots of bands but music venues were closing and it seemed that the live scene was disappearing. I decided what Ipswich needs is a scene-building live music venue. So a 70 capacity venue is what we ended up building called The Smokehouse. I was able to raise £60,000 between the Biffer Award and match funding from counselors and that’s how we started to build a community focused live music space from scratch. In the first few years we had DJ Format come and play which was amazing for that type of space. We had Warmduscher, This is the Kit, WH Lung, Girl Ray - all these bands that would normally play between 200 to a thousand capacity venues bought into our community and DIY ethics.
We rebranded to Brighten The Corners and then were approached by the Council to transform a medieval church in the center of town into a live music and community space. We partnered with Sound City Liverpool and put on a one-day festival in Ipswich which sold out. We took over five or six venues across the town and that was the moment where we realised we could really do something. There is an audience.
Can you tell us about your regular programmes? Who are they aimed at and what kind of impact do they have on young people?
One of the most important parts of what we do is our education and skills training. One of them is called Tune Up, which is a 10 week course of industry events for young people aged 16 to 25, and at the end they produce a concert at one of our venues or they put on a stage at one of our festivals. They learn sound engineering, lighting, marketing, video - all those things that come in and around the music event industry. We've seen people go on to university or get full-time jobs outside of the region, work festivals or stay with us and train up.
We also have a course called New Gen which is more of a performance-based course similar to the rock schools I used to put on. Then finally iRock which is our SEND course for music production I mentioned earlier.
So that's our sort of three main pathways for young people to get involved and then that leads to the volunteering and then the volunteering leads to the employment opportunities and signposting to other places.
It's a mixture of social engagement, mostly on social media but also physical flyers, as well as working with schools and colleges. In November we did a big school event where we had 200 young people visit the baths for a careers day and live music event. For some of those young people it was the first time they’d walked through a door of a venue. Some of them might be finding school a bit tough but show an aptitude for music, and going there allows them to see themselves in those spaces.
It actually coincided with a visit from Ed Sheeran and he did a surprise set at the end. It was a beautiful moment when he walked on stage and the room just fell to pieces with excitement. It was incredible to see, and for me, seeing their reaction is the most special thing about it. There’s a young person called Daryl who was so inspired by that event that not only is he volunteering with us now, but he’s joined one of our courses and is also now volunteering at other community organisations.
Which moments do you feel most proud of over the years?
We had a punk promoter called Uncomfortable Beach Party put on a gig. Up until then, I hadn't seen any gigs sell out at The Smokehouse, but they put on a punk bill and it was incredible to see at full capacity, with people moshing and turning the room upside down. I stood next to the sound engineer, totally blown away. This is the joy and community spirit that music brings. It’s really unique and undervalued.
The second proud moment is related to the festivals and how they’ve progressed. We’re seeing the audience develop from 60% locals to 66% people coming from outside of the region. People from Newcastle, Cornwall and London are coming to us which is amazing and shows what strong programming Marcus is doing.
Then finally the Ed Sheeran moment as well. Just to see the effect that he could have on these young people and the experience they had from it.
I think the big thing for this year is finding financial stability, finding core funding and partners to really be a part of the journey with us. We have very very little resources to run on but the perception of when you go on the website or you come to the gigs is that we're a lot bigger than we actually are. So the big thing for me is to work on sustainability, get more core funding because we know we can't deliver what we want to the best of our abilities with more staff and more resources.
Two years ago I applied for a grant to renovate the baths and now that is coming to fruition. We will be improving all the flooring infrastructure downstairs for the live music venue and putting in a new green room. However, the big money is going into the first floor, which we're turning into a creative digital skills lab, which sounds like a load of gobbledygook, but it's a floor that will have a recording studio, podcasting booth, video editing suite and an XR suite. So it's a huge project. And we want to bring back our festival that we didn't run this year for next year. So yeah, this 2027, it's going to be crazy. It's going to be a very, very busy year.
I went to Brixton O2 Academy to watch the Super Furry Animals with my oldest friend that I've known for over 40 years. That was really nice, to see live music of a band I love and not being there for work. There's an artist called Duo that I really like and you can only really find them on YouTube. I went to The Great Escape and saw a band called Shaking Hand. And then yeah, just still into the stuff I've always been into from Bob Dylan through to LCD Sound System, Dela Soul, a lot of 80s and early 90s rap and hip-hop. I love it all.
https://www.brightenthecorners.co.uk/
@brightenthecornersips