Log on, check in, hang out

Forget frustrations over stages without ramps. Sunil Peck finds a venue where anyone who cares to listen can hear musicians performing

Musicians and artists who find gigging hard because of inaccessible venues can now take their work to a virtual venue for disabled performers.

Disabled Musicians Direct has been set up on SoundCloud, an online community for musicians and poets.

“I’ve been a musician for many years” says Keith Armstrong, who set the forum up. He remembers the 1960s when disabled performers had to be lifted on and off stage by crane.

“Front-of-house access has got better, but things haven’t improved much backstage. So Disabled Musicians Direct is for people who have a talent but don’t have the means to share their work.”

Keith used to make a living performing music but had to pack it in because he was finding it increasingly difficult to get on stage to perform.

Disabled Musicians Direct currently has 40 members, five of whom had uploaded material.

The uploading process is straightforward, Keith says.

“There are some brilliant songs from Frankie Armstrong, a folk singer, and Elaine Kolb, a disability rights singer in the USA.”

Performers can upload up to two hours’ worth of material and can choose whether or not it’s made available for download.

I decided not to upload the rendition of Sinatra’s New York, New York that I sing in the bath, but I had no problems browsing, playing and downloading an eclectic mix of poetry, folk, rock and ambient music.

The site lets you post comments on what you’ve heard and you can share tracks with others too.

My favourites were a well-produced bossa nova track called Jazz Feliz, and what sounded like a gang of disabled people shouting “we want access”.

One small criticism is that you can’t hear 30-second snippets and have to listen to each track from the start.

The sound quality of the recordings I heard varied from excellent to average, but I quite liked the inclusive aspect of the site.

Keith says that anyone inspired to try their hand at creating music after listening to what others have done should try it, and then maybe make what they’ve done available on the site.

“I’d encourage disabled people to learn to play music and to consider that the important thing, if you don’t have a teacher, is that it’s about playing. It’s like being a kid when you play with toys. You’ve got to mess around and make music fun.”

Disabled Musicians Direct is the only online site I know of where you can listen to lots of disabled performers in one place. And you’re not excluded from the club if you’re artistically talentless either.

• soundcloud.com/groups/disabled-musicians