martywillson-piper by THE CHURCH Creating the IN DEEP MUSIC ARCHIVE Porto - Phase 2

Hello to everyone that has been following the progress of the In Deep Music Archive since ‘Phase One’ and extraction from Penzance (haha, sounds military). That was quite an operation after more than 15 years there but as the landlord had bequeathed the building to another organisation it was time for us to leave. In the wake of this imminent move, Olivia and I relocated to Portugal where we have planned to establish The Archive in more suitable surroundings. Porto is Portugal's second city and is a vibrant place always packed full of tourists whatever the season and seems a more appropriate place to have this cultural collection rather than tucked away in the far corner of south-west England, despite its magical beauty. Porto has a magical beauty of its own and we are happy to report that we can now begin ‘Phase Two’ as we have secured premises right in the centre of the city. This new location is situated at Rua de Coelho Neto 17 between Rua de Fernandes Tomás and the Largo de Padrão square. It has big windows at the front and approximately 200 square metres of space (about 2100 square feet). It’s three times larger than In Deep Penzance and consequently needs work to make it ready. It used to be a lab and has some strange features that need sorting out, some additions, some subtractions. It has partitioned rooms with sinks that need to be removed and a lot of pipes funnelling water to all corners. Despite all this, it has no hot water boiler and the sinks in the bathroom and kitchen have no taps. The walls are all beige and need rendering in places and most desperately need some colour. We need to add more safe power outlets and we have had a consultation from (as it happens) a builder from Australia (Brad) who has a Portuguese wife, Filipe, a plumber and Marco, an electrician. We need to get the kitchen plumbed in, electrified and operational, the bathroom sorted, electrics safe, some attention to floors and security. We have already installed new security gates at the front, fixed the security gates at the back and have some motion-sensitive cameras in there that we can view remotely from here in Dallas. Saturday, 28th September, 2024 we will be performing live on our YouTube Channel as part of an In Deep Music Archive fundraiser. As we enter into the autumn, we will mostly be here in Porto working in The Archive, and over the coming months, we will be endeavouring to make it into a place for preserving recorded musical history. The music, the cover art, the fashions, how the records typified the era they were released in, the productions, the post-digital world and the pre-synthesiser recording, and all genres from smokey jazz to the virtuosos and composers in classical music, and of course rock, pop, soul and all the branches that have sprouted over the eras from the blues to contemporary music, are considered here at In Deep. People will be able to visit, drink tea, check out the library, and we would hope to have small performances, album launches and album-listening nights as we get everything sorted and filed away. We are using this quiet period in regard to touring and our upcoming project releases to concentrate on The Archive’s future, but it’s one thing having it and another thing keeping it, so we will appreciate donations for the performance so that The Archive can continue on its quest.