Make Noise: The women making city music scene more inclusive
The Crow’s Nest, a music column by Russ Litten
Make Noise describe themselves as “a Hull girls’ collective; improving safety at venues, and improving representation for people of marginalized genders in the local music scene”.
I spoke to Rosie Collins about the collective’s aims and origins.
Why did you start Make Noise?
“Myself and some other women I knew were having a really bad time of it in local venues. The venues weren’t laid out great at the time. Toilets situated beside stages meant fighting your way through a thick crowd just to go to the bathroom, and a strong 50 per cent chance of being groped by some sweaty guy.
Other venues required you to put your drink on the side with tonnes of other drinks if you popped for a cig, increasing your chances of being spiked. Hired agency bouncers would victim-blame you if you brought any of this up to them, or tried to report somebody dangerous.
“I once tried to tell a bouncer there was somebody outside sexually harassing and upsetting a girl about 30 years younger than him, and the bouncer said ‘Oh he’s fine, I know him’!
Philadelphia McAndrew, Yasmin Watson, and Rosie Collins DJing
“The atmosphere was just terrible, no room was made for women in mosh pits, and everyone I knew had pretty much resigned themselves to being second-rate audience members.
“At the time of starting Make Noise, I had only ever seen one woman-fronted band in Hull that was actually made up of members from Hull. I must have seen at least a hundred-odd male-fronted Hull bands by then when I was still just 19.
“So that was the state of the scene in 2017, and I think following the City of Culture and how mobilising and grand everything felt in Hull then, we were spurred on to start meeting with like-minded women.”
How did it come together?
“It started in 2017 when me and former member Megan Thundercliffe got really drunk and p****d off in Brain Jar and decided we were going to try and make a weekly group just to vent about the state of things.
“I had been volunteering with The Warren at the time working on 53 Degrees North alongside Ysabelle Wombwell and Jazz Harbord, and they were super-interested too. So the four of us started meeting in The Warren’s Women’s Room, and every week it felt like somebody new was coming in.
“The conversation automatically steered towards planning an event, because that's what everyone was always doing at the time, so we started working on our Open Meeting, for women and non-binary people only.
“This was the first event of its kind in Hull, and we did receive a backlash for excluding men at the time, but we really wanted everybody to feel comfortable sharing their experiences in the local scene. We just wanted to gauge interest.
“The Open Meeting took place on the 21st of February, 2018. It was incredibly successful, and the women there were all echoing the exact same sentiments and experiences, corroborating the stories we'd been telling in an enclosed room for so long.
“We were terrified that it was only going to be us feeling this way, having these experiences. Worried that the other women of Hull would turn around like ‘where the hell have you been going to gigs?’ It was really validating to know we were all on the same page - so we got to work!”
Is there a central ethos behind Make Noise? Any kind of political manifesto or social aim?
“We have tried to write a manifesto in the past, but our aims are so basic that it always feels redundant. We want venues to be actively working to eradicate sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism in their space. We want people to respect each other's experiences, personal space, and their right to a good night out. This feels like it should be a given!”
Give me an example of the type of thing you do.
“Workshops are a core facet of what Make Noise do. Since 2018 we have held workshops on songwriting, sound engineering, zine-making, using guitar pedals, and DJing.
“We also love to put on events with femme-centric acts, usually from out of town, to showcase how bloody phenomenal they are and inspire other women in Hull to get started.
“We've put on events and workshops at Polar Bear, The Adelphi, Fruit (RIP), Humber Street Gallery, Union Mash-up, Brain Jar, The Warren, empty units in shopping centres - anywhere we can get our hands on!
“A lot of women find in school that they are automatically pushed towards instruments such as the flute and violin, while men in their class are encouraged to try drumming lessons, guitar lessons, bass lessons.
“These men then grow up hanging out together and making a lot of noise, mostly rubbish at first, and growing together through their teens, forming bands and sharing knowledge together.
Mia from FINNO playing at a Make Noise event
“Then you get an influx of 18-20-something men all able to play within a band setting linking up with each other and forming 50-odd bands in the city every single year. Which is absolutely ace. We just wish it went the same way for women.
“What you generally get is a lot of female singer-songwriters who would love to be part of a band but don't know any girls they could play with. It's daunting to go into a practice room with men who have been unashamedly sharing music with one another since they were children, when you've never been part of that before.
“So, girls make music in their bedrooms, and a lot of the time, it stays there forever. We really want to provide this safe space for women to get together and just be s**t at something before they're good at it, connect with each other, without people standing around watching who have been doing it for eight years longer.
“At the very least we want the events to inspire women to create these spaces for themselves. The aim for Make Noise is for there to be no need like an organization like Make Noise to exist anymore.
“More realistically, and on a smaller scale, we would love to do workshops with high-school age girls before this mentality of fear and shame around music is instilled in them. That's something we've always wanted to do.”
Who provides the funding?
“Nobody! All the money we have is from payments from events we’ve provided a service for, or merchandise we've sold, haphazardly dropped into a Monzo pot.
“Occasionally, The Warren will write us into a funding bid so we can receive equipment like DJ decks and a laptop to continue providing workshops, but usually we're just slumming it like everyone else.”
Who are your influences and inspiration?
“Great people in the Hull scene! We are so grateful to have been around people such as Ysabelle Wombwell, Lisa Harrison, Mez Green and Stewart Baxter at The Warren. Jacko, Rosie Hall and Paul Sarel at The Adelphi were a massive personal inspiration for myself.
“On a less-local scale we are inspired by organisations like Girls That Gig, Attitude is Everything, Good Night Out Campaign. Historically the Riot Grrrl movement will always be the blue-print for groups like Make Noise when first getting involved with feminism and music.”
Jen Hingley at a pedal workshop
What is life in Hull like for your generation of female artists?
“Things are definitely different now. The venues have mostly had a change of priorities following the rise in spiking incidents in 2021, which is a grim reason for them to finally be taking this seriously, but it's an improvement we are glad to see nonetheless.
“Women are standing up now and saying ‘If you're not going to do everything within reason to help me get home safe, why the hell would I come drink and spend money at your place?’.
“The idea of a venue not taking a case of sexual harassment or assault seriously now would at the very least cause outrage locally, whereas it would be another Tuesday night just four years ago. So things are improving in the safety area, but sadly the representation on stage is still lacking massively.”
Tallsaint playing at a Make Noise event at Sesh
What’s coming up next for Make Noise?
“After Covid absolutely decimated all of our plans, we are finally doing our long-awaited DJ workshops! They are beginning at the end of February, and we had so many applicants this time around that we had to plan two courses of workshops.
“We are also DJing The Welly Club for International Women's Day on Saturday 12th of March! We've always wanted to work with Welly so this is a massive deal for us.”
Make Noise are: Rosie Collins, Katie Hayes, Jazz Harbord, Philadelphia McAndrew, Yaz Watson, Alice Clayton, Tyla Maltas, Lucy Tessier and Jenni Harrison.