1. “I was involved in
gang life, so
I’d probably be in
jail – or wouldn’t
even be alive.”
N-Dubz came from abbreviating that
district’s postcode. Gangs, drugs and
criminality characterised his youth.
He points out that the district has the
highest Mental Illness Needs Index
score in London.
“If it wasn’t for music, I wouldn’t
be here today,” he says candidly. “It
saved me. I’ll be real, man – I was
involved in a lot of gang life, so I’d
probably be in jail – or wouldn’t
even be alive.”
At 14, he was homeless. “Me and
my mum weren’t getting on so I left
the house. And I shared a hostel with
a pal of mine for about a year. It was
literally one room and I used to sleep
on the floor. He was in the hostel
already but I had nowhere else to go,
so I was like: ‘I’m coming
to stay with you.’”
During it all, he
diligently honed his
craft. N-Dubz (who
went on hiatus in 2011)
formed when Bryon
Contostavlos, formerly
a guitarist in Mungo
Jerry, sought to keep
his teenage son
Dappy, niece Tulisa
and their friend Fazer
on the straight and
narrow and inspire
them.
“Music was always my
ambition. When I was seven
my mum asked me what
I wanted to be when I
grow up and I remember
replying ‘I’m going to
be Michael Jackson’. I
didn’t really go to school
– my attendance record
for one year was 25 per
cent, but for that other
75 per cent of the time
STRING THEORY
A violin maker in Liverpool has a musical
vision he hopes will reap rewards for
hundreds of years.
Michael Phoenix, a former computer
progammer, launched the Scousavarius
project to encourage ordinary people
to help make the four parts of a string
quartet: two violins, a cello and a viola.
The instruments would be hired out
to performers all over the world and
the money used for musical education
projects in the city.
“They would be assets of the city,” says
Phoenix, who has a studio at Bluecoat
Arts Centre. “But unlike the Liver Building
they can travel all over the world for
concerts and bring in money so we’re
not always asking for handouts from the
government for arts projects.”
Phoenix accepts he is looking at a long-
term project. “It’s not a race; this might
take five or ten years.
“A hand-made violin will take 250
hours of work to complete and the
varnishing is another 250 hours over nine
months. That’s drying time, rubbing and
re-applying – perhaps 36 coats in all. And
I make the varnish myself.
“I source my wood from as close to
where Stradivarius got his from — spruce
from the Tyrol in Austria for the front and
maple for the back from Bosnia. There’s a
woodsman I use from Munich who goes
through the woods tapping the trees
with the blunt edge of his axe. He cuts
them down in October and gets them out
quickly before insects attack the wood.
“He has a stock of wood and he sends
me pictures after doing tests on the
density for the speed of sound of the
wood.”
Phoenix, 56, gave up a successful
career as a freelance computer
programmer in 2000 to turn his lifelong
passion of repairing guitars and violins
into a full-time vocation. He spent seven
years studying with the Newark School
of Violin Making and was awarded the
Beares diploma in instrument making.
“I’ve got a method of 52 stages based
on the Stradivarius method, but you
have to bear in mind that it will be other
people making the instruments and I’ll
be guiding them. We’ll have three sets: a
demo set, a practice set and the final set.
There will be plenty of jobs for different
people. It’s just a question of picking the
right people for the right job; for instance,
no one can feel a bump on a piece of
wood like a blind person.
“The beauty is they will have a
minimum life of 400 years and they
might last a thousand years. I’ve already
bought the wood myself for £5,000
because I thought, you can’t wait for the
recession to end – we’ve just got to get
this started.
“I’ve already written to the two bishops
and the prisons and there has been
support from lots of people, especially
Radio Merseyside. We’ve just set up the
Liverpool Quarter Trust as a charity and
we’ll be asking for donations later this
year.
“This is all about an asset for the city
to bring in money for musical education.
There are plenty of kids who can’t afford
a decent instrument or have given up
because their parents can’t afford it. Music
doesn’t play a major part in the national
curriculum but the fact is, if you learn an
instrument to grade 8 you are more likely
to get work than if you get a degree in
French.”
Liverpool’s own master luthier –
someone who makes or repairs string
instruments – is also on a mission to bring
classical music to a wider audience.
“We’ve been putting on concerts at
the Bluecoat, promoted through Radio
Merseyside, and we don’t get the
usual classical music fan you get at the
Philharmonic, so we are sort of breaking
away from that slightly privileged
background.
“The Liverpool String Quartet told me
they don’t mind when people clap at the
wrong time, between movements. They
say: ‘We love to be clapped.’”
DAVID BOOTH
Michael Phoenix wants to make
instruments to fund musical education
in Liverpool
12 THE BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH · 2-8 SEPT 2013
BITN 994_10,11,12,13 (fazer).indd 12 30/08/2013 10:52