Music Conference and Festival
Steve Strange was a Welsh pop singer, club owner and promoter. He became famous as the leader of the new wave synthpop group Visage, best known for their single “Fade to Grey”, and was one of the most influential figures behind the New Romantic movement of the early 1980s.
Steve was the catalyst behind the transformation of a London venue, the Music Machine, into the Camden Palace now Koko, and London’s trailblazing New Romantic Blitz club.
Simon Price is a music journalist, critic, DJ and promoter with over 30 years of experience including 9 as a writer and section editor at Melody Maker. Simon has freelanced for publications like Q, TheQuietus, The Guardian, The Observer, Mojo, Uncut, Dazed & Confused, Louder than War, Crack and Metal Hammer to name a few. Simon’s debut book Everything (A book about Manic Street Preachers) became the fastest-selling rock biography in British history.
Simon also guest-presents BBC Introducing: The South and promotes club nights in London and Brighton.
BA (Hons) Popular Music Journalism graduate Nick Pollard produced podcasts of SMILEfest 2013 including one with Simon Price. Listen here: https://npollard.wordpress.com/tag/simon-price/
Producers (The Trevor Horn Band) are an English supergroup formed in 2006 as The Producers, consisting of record producers Trevor Horn (bass and vocals) and Steve Lipson (guitar), and musicians Lol Crème (guitar and vocals) and Ash Soan (drums). The band briefly adopted the name US before changing to Producers. Latterly, they have switched to the name The Trevor Horn Band.
Trevor Horn is a record producer, musician and singer. His influence on 1980s popular music was such that he has been called ‘The Man Who Invented the Eighties’. Trevor has been awarded with three Brit Awards for Best British Producer in 1983, 1985 and 1992. In the ‘80s he was Rolling Stone’s producer. He has also been awarded at Q Awards and Music Week’s awards in 1991 and 2004, respectively.
Steve Lipson is an English record producer/engineer, guitarist and songwriter. As a record producer he has worked with many international artists including Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Animals, Cher, Grace Jones, Annie Lennox, Pet Shop Boys, Will Young, Kelly Clarkson, Jeff Beck, Hans Zimmer, Johnny Marr and Pharrell Williams. On many of the records Lipson produced, he has also engineered, played guitar, and done much of the programming, often writing.
Lol Crème is an English musician and music video director, best known for his work in 10cc. He sings and plays guitar, bass and keyboards.
Ash Soan is a drummer. He has done varied session work, including touring with Tom McRae, Lisa Stansfield, Rick Wakeman, and recording with Cee Lo Green, Adele, Clare Maguire, Will Young, Brian McFadden, Delta Goodrem, Pete Lawrie, the Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow single “Shame”, Enrique Iglesias, Ronan Keating, Marianne Faithfull, Natasha Bedingfield, James Morrison (Songs for You, Truths for Me and the single, “Broken Strings”), Will Young (Let It Go), Alesha Dixon, Boyzone, David Cook and Jordin Sparks.