My record shop has set up a Community Interest company to help the local music scene
Newcastle’s newest CIC has been announced in the West End.
Beyond Vinyl, which moved to the John Marley Centre near Denton in 2023 after leaving the city centre, has announced Beyond Music Community CIC is now officially registered as a Community Interest Company.
This is part of a wider scheme to support young people and artists across the city to be able to pursue music.
The new part of the business comes from the mind of owner David McGovern, who was born and raised in the same area of the city.
“Since we got here we’ve had big plans” he explains.
The community interest company (CIC) will help to power the brand’s music academy, as well as supporting new artists in the region with help to physically release their music.
Another aspect is Beyond Live, which allows young people to learn at professional level gig spaces with top equipment.
“They all link into each other” adds McGovern. “We want to make it accessible so it’s open to everybody. A lot of people thrive in a non educational environment so we’re going to be doing the music academy, lots of workshops like songwriting to live tech and working with young artists on a development deal scenario.
“It’s about getting people involved in music, it’s not just developing artists. It’s about people who wouldn’t usually be involved and getting them to try things.”
The shop’s new site in the West End is part of a wider structure which houses art studios, music lessons and more, something which it is hoped will also help the setup.
“We want to use as much of that as we can” explains the shop owner.
“Being in the city centre we still had the idea of this being community based, but being here has given us more tools. It’s given us everything we want. When we opened here this was the vision.
“Being from the West End, when I was growing up the opportunities weren’t there because we were in the wrong area, the wrong postcode.
“The arts wasn’t really a thing you could get into, or were encouraged into.
“Beng here is perfect.”
“I think the more areas who do that within the city, it will be beneficial to the wider scene [across the city].
Moving forward, fundraisers will help to get the CIC going, and plans are in place heading into the future.
“In a few years we want to have built to a point where we can help sign people to more development deals. It’s about trying to get as many artists from the North East and the West End out there.
“Things like this and getting people into the grassroots scene, that’s going to benefit the city.”