Done tongue in cheek, but still serious a Hentucky Appeal.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Buyagan / Madeira Film & Music Club. The idea of this club is pretty simple.

Go around your house or a friend/family member and look around for any old musical instruments and electronic equipment. We’ll take it off your hands and then will send to Sagada, Philippines where they will help go to a local house. This local house run by “Manang Sarah” has a downstairs area for locals to hang out like a bar/community centre. Currently they have some musical instruments knocking about, but we want to give them more musical equipment, recording equipment and film equipment so local kids and adults can go there to jam, learn to play, record, film, gig and whatever else.

The final aim is to help cultivate the local area, promoting local live music. By giving them ability to record and film themselves and upload onto Youtube, sell CDs to any tourists who are in the area visiting the Sumaguing Cave, gigging in local bars or whatever else.

The idea of calling it a club, is not to make it exclusive, but to give everyone involved a sense of this is where we can go to use this certain equipment, to have somewhere to practice or to have as a music/film reference library and teaching area. It’s all about having that collective feel whilst having a specific identity, with everyone and anyone chipping in, helping out to taking care of the instruments, using them properly and whatever else you can think of. Think Byker Grove but Filipino.

DONATIONS AND WHERE YOU CAN HELP

DONATIONS AND WHERE YOU CAN HELP
The idea is not to chuck loads of flash equipment at someone and then to walk away from it. So the first step is to ask around to find any old equipment against a specific list that you or your friends may have knocking around that could be useful. Then we’ll package it up and to send to the Sagada.

The second step will be to get people to help teach how to play the basics of the instrument, of how to record a song, of how to edit a video. It’s about resourcefulness on both parts. Though this part will be harder to facilitate, we’ll have to take it one step at a time. So focusing on creating basic online video tutorials will be the interim step, before actually going out there to help give some hands on training.

EQUIPMENT DONATIONS
As we receive the item of equipment, we will strike it off the list. Please email donate@hentucky.co.uk if you wish to donate your equipment, stating what it is and where you’re located. We are based in Central London.

• 1-2 x Laptops.
At least something that’s around 5 years old. You may not use it anymore, and may need a little bit of TLC. Need to be able to run basic recording equipment, and basic editing. We’re not talking Final Cut Pro and Ableton 8, just something really basic and hands on.
• 1 x USB soundcard
Something that has a “line in” and “line out” port to record the output of a mixer, that I’m donating.
• 1 x Acoustic Guitar
Electro-acoustic would be very useful as well
• 1 x Electric Bass
• Any wind/reed instruments, clarinet, flutes (including reeds), recorders
• Any brass instruments (trumpets, trombones)
• 1 x digital camera with memory card
• 1 x digital video camera with tapes/memory card
• Couple of Dynamic Microphones (plus a couple of XLR leads)
• 1 x condenser microphone (plus XLR lead)
• Handful of spare acoustic, electric and electric bass strings
• Handful of ¼ jack leads
• Handful of auxiliary leads
• Any distortion pedals knocking about
• Sheet music and keyboard stands

LEARNING MATERIAL DONATIONS
As we receive the item of equipment, we will strike it off the list. Please email donate@hentucky.co.uk if you wish to donate your equipment, stating what it is and where you’re located. We are based in Central London.

• Helping with delivering video tutorials on any of the instruments you donate
If you don’t have the facility to record a tutorial, then I will try to organise a time where we can record a tutorial. We will publish these online and also on accompanying DVDs.
• Old sheet music
• Old music books
• Old music theory books and music production book
• Any old film books, magazines to help stimulate creativity

CASH DONATIONS
If you don’t have any old equipment knocking about, but still wish to donate to this then please make a payment via Paypal to: donate (AT) hentucky.co.uk

All monies donate will be used in buying any equipment we fall short on (via eBay/Gumtree), or the shipping fee to sending. A full list of items bought will be disclosed so you can see where your money has gone.

You can also leave a written, picture, video message with anything you donate, if you so wish.

BACKGROUND

After going back to visit the Philippines, the country where my mother is from, after 18 years since my last visit, I spent the majority of my stay in Sagada. Sagada is the nearest largest town to the village Bagnen, where my mum grew up, and this is where a good percentage of my family live. There is always a connection back to the Philippines as my mum’s culture did have a big influence on me whilst growing up. Going back was important to me as I spent a long time travelling around other countries that I felt I was neglecting the Philippines (I will come to Goa/India shortly). When I went back, it was a little overwhelming but was a great experience. Coming back, rather than being depressed that I was back, I was more inspired to continue with what I was doing. I guess I knew that I would always be back as this place is a part of me, as much as London/England is a part of me as well.

Having spent the majority of my life being surrounded by music, learning to play music and recently working on films, I thought this is the best opportunity I have that I could try and contribute using what I know best. I love music and film, and there is a strong bubbling scene in the area that needs to be coaxed out. So this is my small way of helping out.

The name comes from my mum’s maiden name Buyagan, my dad’s family name Madeira and chucking in a pretty obvious descriptor of what the club is about.