Community Music: The GIT Award 2017

“It’s really important, knowing your community,” muses Peter Guy, and well he might. It’s been ten years since he first set up Getintothis, a blog designed for the specific purpose of shining a light on music in Liverpool. It’s given a sense of narrative to an increasingly diverse community of bands and artists, with an ever-expanding team of writers and editors (“We must be getting on for about 500 who’ve contributed,” he suggests) – no mean feat in a relatively small city with a population of less than half a million.

Still, Liverpool has always made time for music (even in an era where it feels like the city has increasingly less space for it), so it should come as no surprise that the Scouse populace should respond so well to a site which understands and reflects the broad interests of such an audience. Indeed, contributions are as likely to come from participants in the music scene as writers, journalists or cultural commentators.

“It’s kind of like how, on a local football level, there’s not enough referees to go around and there’s always a struggle for pitches,” continues Guy, warming to his theme. “The erosion of community is massive in this country. The government is neglecting small communities. That sometimes has a knock-on effect for journalism where we’re covering a bigger, more nationally-focussed interest – sometimes regional things get lost.

“I think that’s why Getintothis plays such a crucial part. We cover anything that moves, musically; that we think is good.”

It’s precisely this loss of regional coverage – perhaps an inevitability in an age where the internet has widened the pop lens to the extent that only the biggest and brightest stars seem visible – that inspired Guy to take Getintothis to another level, with the launch of the GIT Award. Designed to recognise “the very best new music in Merseyside”, the award is open to all artists from the region, with all entrants going up against a panel of judges from the wider music industry and both local and national press. They’re then whittled down to a shortlist of 12, with the victorious act going on to collect a prize of £1,000 towards their future development, as well as recording time at Parr Street Studios: past winners have included Baltic Fleet, All We Are, Forest Swords and Bill Ryder-Jones.

With its Brit-lampooning name and local focus, you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s just a bit of fun; a self-congratulatory extension of the blog. Guy insists, however, that the thinking behind it was simply a reflection of the excitement surrounding the city when the award was first launched in 2011.

“Liverpool was absolutely incredible at the time,” he says. “You had a real organic ecosystem of promoters, writers and other creative people – a decent network for everyone to thrive in, and as a result of all those things coming together, artists were able to really flourish.

“I just felt that [Liverpool music] wasn’t getting heard enough; it needed something to really push it outside the city. Going back to 2002, 2003, this new breed of musicians [which coalesced around the emergence of The Coral and Deltasonic Records] were starting to pick up label interest, national press; starting to break through. I formed the award to capture that spirit… but also to give it an extra kick up the arse, really.”

That kick proved worthwhile, too, as the London-based music press began to take note.

“The first year that we did it, The Guardian’s New Band of the Day ran nine artists [from Merseyside] in a row,” Guy recalls, fondly. “We got a double page spread! This is a music press that hadn’t been covering Liverpool music since the days of The Coral and The Zutons; in the scheme of things that’s almost a decade later! The award was designed to get really good music from Liverpool onto a wider playground.”

In other words, it’s an enthusiastic celebration rather than an attempt to place artists in competition with one another, and happily the nominees have frequently responded in that exact spirit, sharing a stage and performing (often unexpectedly collaborating) at the annual award ceremony.

“When you see all 12 [nominees] on a piece of paper and think, ‘that’s this year’s selection from this city’, that’s more important than the winner,” Guy says. “The winning element and the prize money, that just adds extra intrigue – the cherry on top. That’s why it’s so good when they all come together and play; it’s always one big party.

“It’s hard to get all the different communities and sections of Liverpool under one roof. I think that’s one of the beauties of the award; it’s a great night for everyone to come together and go, ‘Bloody hell, we really are making some special music.’”

With just shy of 500 entries for the 2017 prize, it’s clear that there’s a strong appetite for this sort of regional spotlight – not least because it provides newer artists with a level platform to be judged against some of the city’s more high-flying talents. In previous years, the final list of 12 has included the likes of Clinic, Circa Waves and Dan Croll, all of whom have yet to take home the award itself. It does beg the question, though, of whether acts with an established profile really need the attention – should the judges’ considerations be weighted further towards the less widely-known talents?

“That’s a really important thing to answer,” says Guy. “It would be a dereliction, I think, of the judges to discount any artist or band who’s released great music during the last year and say, ‘they’ve been there and done it’. Anyone should be championed for doing something that they’ve done a good job at.”

True to form, this year’s shortlist features the aforementioned Coral, following the success of last year’s Distance Inbetween LP. They’re joined by Aystar, Louis Berry, God Colony, Immix Ensemble, Ohmns, Or:la, She Drew The Gun, Suedebrown, XamVolo, The Vryll Society and previous winner Baltic Fleet – all of whom seem as likely as each other to emerge victorious.

This year’s ceremony is due to be held at Constellations in the city’s Baltic Triangle district on Saturday 13 May. Additional prizes will be given, as usual: the One to Watch title will be bestowed upon a promising newcomer, while the Inspiration Award will recognise the year’s outstanding services to Liverpool’s music industry. With this representing the first decade of Getintothis, however, there are also plans for an all-day spectacular, ahead of the award ceremony itself later in the evening, including live performances from some of the best new acts on Merseyside: among others, Rongorongo, I See Rivers and Pixey will all appear as part of an event that Guy promises will be “something special.”

By the time you read this, the winner of the 2017 GIT Award may well have been announced already (and you can keep up to date with those revelations over at theskinny.co.uk/music). But do remember to take a good look at the rest of the names on the shortlist – if previous years are anything to go by, this won’t be the last we’ll hear from any of them. And of course, they’re all winners in the eyes of their hometown's tight-knit musical community.