Viva Lewes Issue #156 September 2019

ON THIS MONTH: FESTIVAL
Ripple effect
Steve ‘Snips’ Parsons
What is ‘The Ripple’? Last year I was asked
to help organise a huge-scale town-wide music
festival in Lewes. The idea was that it would
be like Artwave, but for musicians. I knew it
was hopelessly over-ambitious to try and get
something like that up and running in a matter
of months, and, indeed, it crashed. Out of its
ashes myself and another committee member
decided to run a mini-festival in the May Bank
Holiday, which we called ‘The Ripple’.
As in ‘ripple effect’? Indeed. The idea was,
to throw a stone in the water – metaphorically
speaking, of course – and see if anything
would happen.
What did happen? I’d opened up a
conversation with everyone who was involved
in music in Lewes – like Rocket FM, Union
Music Store, Starfish, the Con Club, the
Depot – and we put on a few shows. There was
a Rocket Rave Up, I did a semi-theatrical show
about Sam Cooke, there were bands in the Con
Club and the Royal Oak, there was a Starfish
gig, and we featured a fantastic all-female DJ
team, Femme Brûlée. It hit the mark much
more than I had expected: people turned out
in good numbers. All the performers got paid,
and we ended up making nearly £1,000 for local
charities.
So this will become a regular thing? The
Con Club immediately asked if we’d do it again
next year, and gave us a budget for publicity. A
number of new volunteers – it should be said
that all the organisers are unpaid volunteers
– have come forward. We are registering to
become a CIC, and we will put on another
Ripple mini-festival next May. It won’t be
bigger, necessarily, but it will be fatter.
And there will, I understand, be ‘pop-ups’
throughout the year… Every month or so,
yes. The first, in September, is in tribute to
Jim Morrison. Different performers, including
Peter Owen Jones, will read from Morrison’s
poetry collection The Lords and the New
Creatures, in Westgate Chapel. There will
also be music from Paul Harrison’s X-Piano,
and Sexkult. In October I’m going to perform
soul songs that influenced me, by the likes
of Martha & the Vandellas and Ruby & the
Romantics, in collaboration with the Paddock
Singers, at the Con Club.
I hear you’re involved with The Lamb…
That’s a separate thing entirely. But I’m
delighted that the new owners are turning The
Lamb back into a live music venue, with acts
on every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and that
I’m organising the music side of things. There
are going to be local bands and bands from
further afield: it’s going to be very eclectic.
Live music at The Lamb has been a big miss,
and it’s back.
You seem to know everyone in Lewes. How
do you network? I meet people – and have
meetings – at the Depot. And you’ll often find
me standing outside Waitrose. You bump into
everyone there. Interview by Alex Leith
lewesripple.uk
Photo by Thorston Eichhorst
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