Jake’s speech @ KiRklees Council’s ‘Musik’ launch event
Some of you maybe aware that Kirklees council aims to transform Huddersfield and surrounding areas into a hub for all things music, in time for their celebration of music dubbed ‘Year of Music 2023'. As a part of this plan, a new brand and website, named ‘Musik’ has been created to aid their project
On Thursday 7th of November, this brand was established with a launch event at Bassment Studios. During the evening, the venue was transformed into a 3D presentation that showcased videos and photographs from Huddersfield’s music scene. Several speakers took to the stage to introduce the Musik brand and to discuss what the project means to them, one of which was our very own founder, Jake Burdass. We were also asked to provide an insight into our Bassment Unplugged education scheme with a 5 minute DJ routine from our tutor, Shaun Dean.
Below is Jake’s speech from this event, along with the video:
Hello everyone and thank you for coming down to Bassment Studios
We are very pleased to be a part of this event and to share our facilities, services, and our journey through music to you all.
I was pretty nervous when writing this introduction. There is so much information to give is a short space of time, and I didn’t want to miss out anything vital, especially to so many influential people in this room.
To help me with the writing, I spent the evening scrolling through the Bassment instagram feed. At BASSment we have been so focused on pushing for the future, it’s been easy to forget all the great work we’ve done up until this point. So thank you for reminding me
So let's start from the beginning.
Bassment was founded back in 2013 by myself and former owner, Josh, whilst studying Music Technology at Kirklees college.
During this time, Huddersfield was without a professional run music event that catered for bass heavy dance music genres such as dubstep, garage, grime, d&b, baseline etc.
There was a very negative stereotype surrounding these sounds due to its musically aggressive nature and the high energy it brings.
This led to lack of support from major players within Huddersfield’s music industry and it was hard for promoters to gain the necessary event management skills. Many promoters who attempted to showcase our genres fell short, which in turn tarnished the genres more.
Also during this time, myself and Josh were both touring DJs, and had just returned from performing in Nimegann in Holland. We had witnessed first hand that the rumours surrounding our most loved genres were false. We also theorised that if a place as small as Nimegann can host a sell out music event supporting our favourite genres, why can’t we have something similar in Huddersfield.
In March 2013, we took matters into our own hands, we hosted BASSment #1, and the rest is history. Since the first Bassment, we’ve kept the exact same business model.
A dark room with minimal lighting so there is no distractions from the music.
A massive sound system that has been hand built to provide crystal clear clarity and a bass response that will shake every bone in your body.
A line-up filled with extremely talented artists, whether they be well known or not.
I’ve always wanted BASSment to be a unique experience and I’m proud to say we have achieved that.
When I first set out on this journey through music, it was to push my favourite genres onto anyone who would listen.
Now, we have the listeners, and we also have more creators. We have more artists, more support from external creative fields and more people who share our passion. That is why Bassment Studios exists.
It’s really amazing to see how far this has come. I never thought that I would be stood in my own music venue and recording studio, talking to you lot.
So what do we actually do here? And I think the question is, what don’t we do here?
Bassment Studios is a live music venue that showcases a wide diverse selection of sounds.
We’re a rehearsal space that offers an affordable place for bands and DJs to practise
We’re a professional recording studio that has been designed to reduce the learning curve when taking music to the next level.
We offer vinyl manufacture, with our in house cutting lathe operated by continuum dubplates
Earlier this year, we launched Bassment Unplugged, which is our education program for musicians and other creatives.
Bassment Unplugged offers one-to-one and group mentoring sessions that cover Music production, music business, self employed career advice, marketing, social media and many more. These sessions are delivered by industry professionals, Shaun Dean and Sarah Hutton with over 30 years of experience between them. We’re also busy creating our courses to upload online as part of a subscription based service.
Earlier in the day, Councillor Walker participated in a group mentoring session with Shaun Dean. I’m happy to announcing DJ Walker is now taking bookings for his UK tour.
Thank you for your time. I will be passing you onto Shaun Dean now, enjoy the rest of your evening!