Are you in a band or a musical artist? Do you want to be a resident musician at Rooms to Live, within a recreated room inspired by Captain Beefheart’s seminal album, Trout Mask Replica?

Bury Sculpture Centre are staging a unique exhibition and innovative programme of events, including gigs and musicians’ residencies, starting on 11 November 2023, running until 17 February 2024.

Working together with The Met and the Recording Studio at The Met we are offering the opportunity for 5x 4-5 day residencies, inviting bands/musicians to inhabit the recreated recording lounge, to be inspired to create new music. There will be £80 per residency to cover expenses.

Trout House Replica will be kitted out with a basic backline, including guitars, bass guitars, amps, and a drum kit, but you are obviously welcome to bring your own instruments/gear.

In addition to the residencies, two bands/musicians will be selected to receive a full day’s rehearsal in The Met’s Loft space, as well as a recording studio package worth £500 each, including one day recording and one day mixing/mastering. Furthermore, one band/musician will be selected to headline The Met’s Emerging Showcase gig on 20 January 2024.

Interested?
Please apply via the Microsoft Forms link here: https://forms.office.com/e/P61dci7qey
Applications via video are also welcome. Please send these to sophie.cade@themet.org.uk

Deadline for applications: 22nd October

This opportunity is open to musicians based in Greater Manchester of all genres and distinctions, though we do particularly welcome applications from young and emerging artists, as well as those who are underrepresented and those based within or near the Bury area. In the spirit of Captain Beefheart and Trout Mask Replica, we are interested in experimentation and collaboration.

Background
Rooms to Live: Trout House Replica – So The Red Rose is two inter-related sculptural installations which will be used as a catalyst to reinterpret private interiors into social, public, and participatory spaces, and provide points of departure to explore relationships between music, key recordings, and related environments.

Consisting of reconstructions of a storm-damaged houseboat, cassette archive and historic rehearsal room, Trout House Replica will replicate the interior of the L.A. house, where in 1968/9, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band wrote and rehearsed the album Trout Mask Replica and So the Red Rose will feature a large, boat-like structure that reinvents Vanda Chan’s fictitious marooned houseboat Arcadia.

Combining fact and fiction, referencing 1960s counterculture and 80s environmentalism, the exhibition will investigate alliances between music and art as a vehicle for the imagination in a 14-week programme of performances, workshops, events, and residencies, involving involve over 100 artists and musicians.

About – so the red rose

Trout Mask Replica – Wikipedia

Captain Beefheart- Trout Mask Replica (1969) [Full Album HQ] – YouTube

Bury Art Museum

The Met | Live music and theatre in Bury, Greater Manchester

Recording Studio | The Met

The Met’s Emerging Showcase