Rock Solid Music with Barlanark-Greyfriars Parish Church

Jack Tully, Taking Part and Outreach Producer at Platform, shares his insight into a recent project with Blackfriars - Greyfriars Parish Church and their youth group Rock Solid:

"We began working with Barlanark - Greyfriars Parish Church and their youth group Rock Solid earlier this March as they had decided they wanted to create their own music event".

"Over the course of 8 weeks, Platform met the group at Greyfriars every Friday evening, working together in the lead up to the event - a Rock Solid Music Night - which took place on Friday May 15^th. 

"In the initial stages of planning we were joined by Andrew and Martin, two of Platform's Taking Part tutors, who introduced the group to drumming and electric guitar. Tutor Ryan then followed continuing the guitar theme, adding some more expertise to support the group. Throughout these initial sessions conversations started around what a music night might look like and food, lighting, line-ups, and what else the group wanted to creatively explore was all discussed.

"DJ Joey-Name joined us during the Easter Holidays and led an introduction to DJing, where we mixed tunes and talked about the type of music to be played on the 15th. After a break for Easter, we returned, this time turning our attention to creating posters to advertise the event - the group worked with visual artist Alice Dansey-Wright and spent an evening designing fonts, illustrations and backgrounds for printing their posters onto.

"From their designs, Alice created a poster that was used to promote the event, but also as the event's merchandise design, which was according to the group was 'a must have'.

"Alice and the group’s design was a perfect starting point for screen printing studio Print Clan to use in screen-printing workshops they delivered with the group. With their paper backdrop designs already created the group got off to a quick start, producing several posters, all brilliantly unique. This was then followed with their own merchandise making sessions. Each young person designed a T-shirt before printing the poster on top, again, each T-shirt personal to each Rock Solid member. 

"As the event approached, we shifted our focus to visuals and were joined by video jockey Domme Ewan, who led an exciting, almost futuristic session in which the group mixed video clips with bold illustrations, shapes and colours. Meanwhile, at the far side of the church hall, Domme set up a piece of technology older than any of the Rock Solid members: an analogue TV and mixer allowing the group the freedom to distort images of ourselves from the webcam!

"Before we knew it, it was the event itself, which saw all the elements explored in workshop form, come together. Both Rock Solid groups joined together, we had live DJ sessions, led by DJ Joey-Name and Lewis Lowe, live VJ'ing from Domme Ewan, music sets from one of Rock Solid’s very own Carson, and local band, The Provans. 

"Print Clan returned and had a ‘make-your-own-merch’ stall, and Donna, one of the amazing Rock Solid Leaders, set-up a bedazzling stand for all things bright and shiny. 

"And in the blink of an eye, the event was over, the lights came up and our collaboration with Rock Solid has come to an end (for now…!). 

This project has been a total joy for us to collaborate on, the young people involved brought creativity, joy, and most importantly a desire to try things out and get stuck in. Thanks to them, Donna and Daniel for all they do, and the Glasgow Life team who support Rock Solid every single week. "