Charlatans’ frontman Tim Burgess knows how to keep busy during COVID lockdowns. Firstly, he launched ‘Tim’s Listening Party’ on Twitter, to keep people entertained while growing a community of music lovers. Now, he is helping grassroots UK venues by selling earphones.
In fact, the idea came from the creative way he connected people during the endless lockdowns: through the hashtag #TimsTwitterListeningParty, he invited fans to listen to a specific album or track. Then, anyone could tweet about their personal and cultural significance of the song or album in question. After noticing its success, he teamed up with the tech firm Flare Audio to build his very own ‘Listening Party’ branded earphone set, and they are selling at £39.99 each, with £5 going to the Music Venue Trust.
It all took shape when the performer was asked to be one of the patrons of the organisation, born to support music venues in a period where live music has paused globally. Music Venue Trust’s strategic patron Beverley Whitrick said ‘Formalising his status as a patron of MVT is a way for us to thank him for his considerable efforts and talk publicly about the projects Tim is working on to support venues’.
‘It’s an honour to be asked to work with the good people at The Music Venue Trust, it’s going to be a hugely important year for live music and the future of independent venues,’ Burgess told NME. ‘The listening parties have been quite a phenomenon and we had already been talking to Flare Audio about making some special edition earphones. It would be brilliant that we can put all the things together and help with raising some much-needed funds. I’ve been road-testing the first set of earphones for a while – they’re amazing.’
Earphones are available here from Thursday 26th of March, with shipping starting on the 5th of April. Fifty random orders will come with a signed card from the artist himself, whereas another hundred will include little extras such as ‘Listening Party’ badges or Flare Audio accessories.
First up is a collab with @flareaudio – these ace @LlSTENlNG_PARTY earphones will be available to pre-order on Friday March 26th. Raising funds for the @musicvenuetrust.
More info here in @whathifi https://t.co/L6wavoVbcp— Tim Burgess (@Tim_Burgess) March 15, 2021
