King's Lynn Festival Too fundraiser unveils CREA Norfolk CIC youth music project

On the evening of Saturday, April 16, a fundraising event for Festival Too was hosted by Kaset skatepark and music community in Lynn's Greenpark Avenue, writes Jon Seymour.

The show was put together in association with Twisted Melon and John Kramarchuk from the Play Up Music Project, officially unveiling CREA Norfolk CIC ("promoting creativity in West Norfolk").

The Play Up Music Project was originally started by John in 2019 with the aim of gathering teenage musicians together, providing them with space and equipment to meet up, jam, form bands, rehearse, make recordings and eventually perform gigs.

Along the way John helped them with stagecraft, song writing, effective rehearsal, playing technique, studio skills, music production, music theory, music business, promotion, bookings and anything else they want to earn.

Play Up was funded by the Norfolk Music Hub and received support and donations of equipment from the College of West Anglia.

In 2020 when meet-ups were not possible due to lockdown, John secured basic home recording equipment so that Play Up members could continue music activity at home.

This was supported by the West Norfolk LCEP (Local Cultural Education Partnerships), PEACH.

Participants were given recording tutorials via Zoom meetings and challenged to write and record songs.

One of the bands, Perdon’s Plan used this time to record a nine-track concept album, Broadcast.

Perdon’s Plan performed at every major Norfolk music festival in 2021 and held their album launch gig in April 2022.

They’ve been played on several local radio stations and are now operating as a professional band.

CREA Norfolk CIC was conceived towards the end of 2021 with the intention of providing creative activities to young people in West Norfolk.

CREA currently provides Play Up Music Project, Coding Club and Multi Sport Club.

This year they will launch Film Making, Photography, Games club and other activities and has received £10,000 from the National Lottery to get the project off the ground.

Headlining Saturday’s show were Dead Reynolds, with support from Foxhaunt, who had made the journey down from Leeds to play the show, as well as CREA members Jack & Hugh, and Perdon’s Plan.

For more information on CREA Norfolk you can go to their website and to check out Perdon’s Plan for yourself, you can find them here.