Thread by @jon_mcgregor

I want to tell you a little bit about my friend Matt Marks, pictured here surrounded by the music that made his life. This is a small thread, with a content warning for cancer, loss, sadness, and clowns.

Matt spent his life making music, and collaborating. He played in bands, in theatres, in rehearsal studios. He played a lot of different instruments. Here he is on the piano, playing with Manieres des Bohemiens:

And on the accordion, with Balkan Express:

He was a musician of the back room, the upstairs room, the jam session, the open mic. He was hugely talented, but his real talent was for listening to other people play and finding a way to play together.

Not sure if this link will work, but it's a video of one of the last gigs he played, an open mic session in a community centre. He's just sitting with his accordion, listening, waiting to find his way in: facebook.com/berryworld/vid…

He didn't just play in bands though. He spent his life working with different theatre groups, collaborating and contributing, often helping non-musicians to find their music.

He definitely would have raised an eyebrow at my use of 'non-musician' there. Sorry, Matt.

He did a lot of work with community theatre groups and participatory theatre groups. People have talked of his ability to listen to people who were not used to being listened to, helping them to find their voices.

Amongst others, he worked with @HubbubTheatre, @parabbola, @maisonfoo, @CityArtsNotts, @ZooIndigo, and very many more I will be missing out here. He never had much money, but he was never ever short of work.

Here he is with his famous Wheeze organ, a contraption he worked on over a number of years.

(I was just about to explain how the Wheeze organ works, but I don't think anyone could do that. Just look at the picture and try to work it out for yourself.)

And here he is at a clowning workshop. I did warn you about the clowns.

Anyway. Matt had been ill, off and on, for quite a few years. Possibly more on than people knew. He was in hospital over Christmas, and then he seemed okay again. He was still working all this time, still making music, still collaborating, still travelling.

A few weeks ago he was in Dublin, on a research trip with @ZooIndigo. Here he is (if this link works), with his accordion, sitting on the dock of the bay: facebook.com/ZooIndigotheat…

A week after that trip, he went into hospital for an operation relating to his cancer treatment. There were complications relating to his heart, and he died on May 15th. He was in his fifties. He has left a real silence in the musical and artistic community of Nottingham.

That community is gathering today to remember him. There will be people there who knew him a lot better than I did, and I'm looking forward to hearing their stories, and their music.

The last time I heard him playing was when we hired his band to play at a party in our house. Yes, we had an entire band in our front room. It was awesome. This picture is not great.

This picture is better. This is what people do when they hear Matt's music: they put on sparkly silver dresses and dance the hell out of the evening.

Anyway. Matt did a lot of work with @CityArtsNotts, a participatory arts organisation which you won't be surprised to hear is underfunded. All the amazing arts and community groups he worked with are constantly struggling for funding. You know this.

We've lived with this for years. 'Austerity' as an economic policy has resulted in hunger, poverty, homelessness, exclusion, and a whole heap of other disasters. But it has also tried to wreck those things that give meaning to people's lives.

The people involved in the arts, in community development, in non-governmental social work of all kinds - people like Matt Marks - keep doing it because they want to and because they love it. We're not "all in this together". Some people are a lot more in it than others.

I'm going to remember Matt today for his music, for his sense of fun, for his love of people, and for his belief in people. I'm also going to look for the people who are still doing the work he was so invested in, and find ways to support them better.

Matt's friends and family have set up this memorial fund with @CityArtsNotts, and I know they'd appreciate it a lot if you chipped a little in. It is payday, after all.
city-arts.org.uk/aURPB

That's it. I'll leave you with Matt singing one of his favourite songs, Tea for Two. Thanks for reading this far. Look after your loved ones, and everyone else.
soundcloud.com/user-423104608…