Davy Sims's Podcast

Henry McDonald is a journalist and author. He is probably best known as the Ireland correspondent for the Guardian and the Observer. But there is much more to his thirty year (plus) career. As an author he has published books about paramilitaries and politicians, he has been a teacher of journalism, a broadcaster and within the last year has moved to work fulltime in the Guardian’s London headquarters. He’s a football fanatic – Everton is his team across the water. And, like the central character his second novel Two Souls, Robbie McManus , he supports Cliftonville here in Belfast.   Also, like Robbie, Henry grew up in the Markets in Belfast. He and I have been friends for those 30 years and one of the passions we share is punk rock – particularly if it’s from Belfast, but anywhere, really, it doesn’t matter. Henry still makes his way home very often and while here to launch the Two Souls novel we met in Cathedral Quarter and sat down in The Dark Horse for coffee and a catch up. I had just finished reading th

It was recorded in our kitchen. An odd place to record a podcast. But it’s Saturday morning and Sonja Sleator and Daniel Lynch live nearby, and, why not? A conversation over a kitchen table and coffee. I’ve known Sonja and Daniel for a couple of years, and I’ve followed the progress of her career over that time. Her new single Protection has just been released. While Sonja has more recently got a wider media profile I wanted to recap on the story so far. Also talk to Daniel about their collaboration and his new project. So, I filled the Moka pot with coffee and we talked … Protection is the latest in a series of singles Sleator is releasing through 2019 following the release of her third EP Violent Strawberry in April.  Stream: https://soundcloud.com/sonja-sleator-1/protection/s-2yLW7 Download: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8r9jgxa8ommro7e/AADV5PxHuAuqcoWXfr_ehdSda?dl=0 Watch: https://youtu.be/33pYWpnNGzA     Social Media:   www.sonjasleator.com    EPK: https://spark.adobe.com/page/dKtZ80Gr38nSN/   www.facebo

Virtual reality on the podcast this time. I talk to three people creating a VR and an immersive media industry here. Dee Harvey is a producer as is Phil Morrow who runs the production company RETìníZE and Nigel McAlpine who runs Storyfx and Digital Catapult in Belfast. This is the last episode in this series. I’ll take a break for a few weeks and plan the next series. Always looking for ideas and suggestions. Who should I be talking to? What should we be discussing? The themes: creativity, innovation, investment, media and technology. You can subscribe to The RSS feed here,  iTunes here,  TuneIn here and Spotify here The podcast music is Arizona Moon by Blue Dot Sessions and you can find that and thousands of more rights free music on the Free Music Archive – which is a fantastic resource for podcasters and video makers in search of excellent music.  If you are interested in learning about podcasting visit my other website PodcastingFor.com  

Music journalist Stuart Bailie’s new book Trouble Songs will be officially published in May, but it’s already starting to stir conversations and commentary. He takes on difficult stories from our history since the mid-1960s at the place where music meets social and political change and through interviews and analysis tries to understand and explain what happened. It will be in the shops around now, but you can also order it on the web at TroubleSongs.com The book launch will be at Oh Yeah on May 11. Stuart started at a musician in a punk band, but quickly replaced his bass with a type writer. A smart move as he went on to build a considerable reputation as a leading and influential music journalist We met in the Oh Yeah Centre which Stuart set up and ran for almost 10 years. Charlotte Dryden – who features in another episode of the podcast – took over from Stuart when he left. Oh Yeah is in a corner of probably the most creative parts of Belfast – Cathedral Quarter, on a cobbled street in an old warehouse

On this episode the story of the Oh Yeah music centre with Charlotte Dryden and Paul Kane. There's music from Hand Models, Reevah, Strange New Places and Cut in Blinks. In June, it will be 10 years since Charlotte Dryden started working in Belfast’s Oh Yeah music centre. She and the founder Stuart Bailie began on the same day, although Stu had been driving the project since early 2006 and doors opened to music in 2007. Charlotte’s now the Chief Executive of this remarkable organisation which manages a careful balance between celebrating the history of music from Northern Ireland and developing new music, young musicians and music business talent. Stuart has moved on and we’ll be hearing from him on the next episode. The Oh Yeah building in the cobbled streets of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter once a warehouse – is now an exhibition, performance space, a recording studio, offices from where people promoting music business work. And there’s a bar and cafe. As well as music events, Oh Yeah runs courses for talent d

In this edition, women who work in tech, three leaders who were involved with the Women Techmakers summit which was held in Belfast last weekend.  On Friday evening there were workshops and on Saturday the main event was in W5. Victoria McCallum was on the podcast to preview the event a few weeks ago, and she’s back to reflect on how it all went. Claire Burn and Danielle Topping were with Victoria when we sat down to talk about the summit and more generally women in technology here. They talk about a number of groups and organisations, here are the links: Women in Tech Belfast Lean In  Facebook Twitter Meetup (which lists all our events) Women TechMakers Belfast Facebook Twitter Website Women Who Code Twitter Website Meetup Women Tech Space  Twitter Women Tech Space events page (next event April 30th)-  Django Girls Belfast Twitter Django Girls Belfast event page (we're currently waiting on DG HQ updating it for June 16th event) -    Subscribe to the podcast here The RSS feed here,  iTunes here,  TuneIn

Innovations and new ventures in this episode of the podcast (with the really clever name). From TV to YouTube and celebrating collaboration with Digital DNA Belfast.   When Maxine Mawhinney left the BBC this time last year, she had plans and ideas about what she wanted to do. Yet her most recent project was not even on the horizon. A few weeks ago, she announced plans for a YouTube channel,  The Moment with Maxine Mawhinney. Maxine started out as a journalist 40 years ago in The County Down Spectator in Bangor. Since then she has worked as a reporter, a foreign correspondent, a news anchor – now a move to YouTube for The Moment. In June, Digital DNA returns to St. George’s Market in Belfast – it’s an exhibition, a conference, ……. The founder is Gareth Quinn. You can subscribe (yes, for free) to get all new episodes and to find those that are already posted. The RSS feed here,  iTunes here,  TuneIn here and Spotify here You can also hear a long interview with Maxine about journalism on my other podcast

How do you fund creativity? If you are planning to make a business from your passion, be it music or technology or animation or film making or anything from the creative industries, how do you find the financial support to follow that dream? And when you begin to earn money from that passion, how do you protect it, your business and your clients or customers? And what about tax and VAT and all the other legal obligations? Creativity and innovation needs support, funding and professional advice. From claiming the cost for guitar strings to global exports – Finance and Investment - the theme of this episode. I’m Davy Sims Vasiliki Carson from Sapphire Capital Partners and Martin Gilchrist from Gilchrist and Co  met me in the Loft shared workspace in Belfast to talk money. In the next episode I’ll be talking to former BBC News Channel journalist Maxine Mawhinney about her new YouTube show, The Moment. You can also hear a long interview with Maxine about journalism on my other podcast at podcastingfor.com The p

The keywords for this podcast are Creativity, Innovation, Tech, Media and Investment and the subject of this episode can be tagged with all those words. Matthew Scott is the CEO of Navada Group. The company’s mission, they say, “is to empower your digital audiences to ‘become the story’”. It’s a digital media company, But, that phrase isn’t quite the right description.   I’ve known Matt for more than 10 years - since the early days of his career and I wanted to get behind the straplines and marketing pitch and discover what Navada is, what Matt does and what the company plans for the future. Navada HQ is in Newcastle Upon Tyne, but it has a presence in Belfast, London, New York and about to open an office in Sweden. But the founder is from Bangor. He lives there now in preparation for a major development expected to be announced officially in June. Matthew Scott says that for the last three and a half years, Navada has been in R&D Mode and this year they will launch their single biggest investment --- be

  One of the many things I like about making podcasts is after years of producing formal radio programmes lots of the conventions can be abandoned. For decades I lived under the whip of the tyrannical Greenwich Time Signal. The most grievous sin of all was to crash the pips – so many interesting conversation was brought to a hasty conclusion well before time should have been called. A podcast episode can be as long or as short as it needs to be – this will be one of the longer ones.  This is the podcast that almost has a name I am tentatively going to call That Creative Business Podcast what do you think? Is that crap? Please subscribe and if you like contribute here (see below). Technology bringing real people together in real spaces in this episode. We have two interviews. Victoria McCallum is one of the organisers of Women Techmakers Belfast. The main summit will be held in W5 on Saturday 14 April and there will be workshops the evening before.  The second part is a conversation with Andrew Bolster – know

This is the third episode of the podcast in search of a name. In the first we talked music with singer song writer Sonja Sleator, Stuart Lunn of Chase the River and Ross Moffett who runs Popup. Last time, an insight into radio with John Rosborough and Peter McVerry of U105. Both episodes are available and you can get them here at davysims.com. In this, the third in this series we have an extended interview with artist Deepa Mann-Kler. I spoke to her in the co-working space at the Ormeau Baths, once municipal bathing house, then after being closed for many years it re-opened as a gallery and now a place where many new and some established tech-businesses share space, facilities and ideas. Deepa talks about her journey from being a teenage photographer, studying social policy at the LSE in London,  moving to Belfast to work as an equality officer in the city,  becoming an artist and now a creator of virtual reality and immersive experiences.   Deepa Mann-Kler’s web links are: W: www.discoverneon.com W: www.d

With an investment estimated to be over £1million from its new owner the Wireless Group, Belfast radio station U105 has moved from its home in UTV’s Havelock House to new offices and studios in a lough-side development in the city. A week after a nervous mid-day hand over from Frank Mitchell who presented the last programme in Havelock House to Carolyn Stewart in the new City Quays HQ, I sat down with station manager Peter McVerry and the first station manager John Rosborough – now a radio consultant. Looking out over Belfast Lough, the Titanic Building and the Samson and Goliath cranes we talked about not just U105 but radio more generally how it has grown to here it is now, the role it plays in serving its audiences and the threats and opportunities for the future. For more details on those radio listening figures, John Rosborough take a longer look on his blog at Nocturne Media.   This is the podcast that still doesn’t have a name. New episodes are available each Thursday. You can subscribe to the RSS

Ross Moffett runs a project called Pop Up supporting young musicians in Northern Ireland, among them Sonja Sleator and Stuart Lunn. I met them at a new co working space in Belfast LoftSpace. There are links to Stewart and Sonja’s music and profiles on my blog. In the next episodes we will be talking about radio, Immersive media, funding a start-up, women in technology, and fingers crossed for a report from South by South West from a group from Belfast who are attending this year My new podcast finds people who are involved creativity, technology, media, innovation, Investment. The two key words are creativity and innovation. Pop Up's Ross Moffett, Sonja Sleator and Chase the River's Stuart Lunn are the guests in this first podcast which doesn't have a name. There is more detail about the guests and links to their music here at my blog - davysims.com/podcast-2/