Davy Sims's Podcast

Henry McDonald is a journalist and author. He is probably best known as the Ireland correspondent for the Guardian and the Observer. But there is much more to his thirty year (plus) career. As an author he has published books about paramilitaries and politicians, he has been a teacher of journalism, a broadcaster and within the last year has moved to work fulltime in the Guardian’s London headquarters. He’s a football fanatic – Everton is his team across the water. And, like the central...

It was recorded in our kitchen. An odd place to record a podcast. But it’s Saturday morning and Sonja Sleator and Daniel Lynch live nearby, and, why not? A conversation over a kitchen table and coffee. I’ve known Sonja and Daniel for a couple of years, and I’ve followed the progress of her career over that time. Her new single Protection has just been released. While Sonja has more recently got a wider media profile I wanted to recap on the story so far. Also talk to Daniel about their...

Virtual reality on the podcast this time. I talk to three people creating a VR and an immersive media industry here. Dee Harvey is a producer as is Phil Morrow who runs the production company RETìníZE and Nigel McAlpine who runs Storyfx and Digital Catapult in Belfast. This is the last episode in this series. I’ll take a break for a few weeks and plan the next series. Always looking for ideas and suggestions. Who should I be talking to? What should we be discussing? The themes: creativity,...

Music journalist Stuart Bailie’s new book Trouble Songs will be officially published in May, but it’s already starting to stir conversations and commentary. He takes on difficult stories from our history since the mid-1960s at the place where music meets social and political change and through interviews and analysis tries to understand and explain what happened. It will be in the shops around now, but you can also order it on the web at TroubleSongs.com The book launch will be at Oh Yeah...

On this episode the story of the Oh Yeah music centre with Charlotte Dryden and Paul Kane. There's music from Hand Models, Reevah, Strange New Places and Cut in Blinks. In June, it will be 10 years since Charlotte Dryden started working in Belfast’s Oh Yeah music centre. She and the founder Stuart Bailie began on the same day, although Stu had been driving the project since early 2006 and doors opened to music in 2007. Charlotte’s now the Chief Executive of this remarkable organisation...

In this edition, women who work in tech, three leaders who were involved with the Women Techmakers summit which was held in Belfast last weekend. On Friday evening there were workshops and on Saturday the main event was in W5. Victoria McCallum was on the podcast to preview the event a few weeks ago, and she’s back to reflect on how it all went. Claire Burn and Danielle Topping were with Victoria when we sat down to talk about the summit and more generally women in technology here. They...

Innovations and new ventures in this episode of the podcast (with the really clever name). From TV to YouTube and celebrating collaboration with Digital DNA Belfast. When Maxine Mawhinney left the BBC this time last year, she had plans and ideas about what she wanted to do. Yet her most recent project was not even on the horizon. A few weeks ago, she announced plans for a YouTube channel, The Moment with Maxine Mawhinney. Maxine started out as a journalist 40 years ago in The County...

How do you fund creativity? If you are planning to make a business from your passion, be it music or technology or animation or film making or anything from the creative industries, how do you find the financial support to follow that dream? And when you begin to earn money from that passion, how do you protect it, your business and your clients or customers? And what about tax and VAT and all the other legal obligations? Creativity and innovation needs support, funding and professional...

The keywords for this podcast are Creativity, Innovation, Tech, Media and Investment and the subject of this episode can be tagged with all those words. Matthew Scott is the CEO of Navada Group. The company’s mission, they say, “is to empower your digital audiences to ‘become the story’”. It’s a digital media company, But, that phrase isn’t quite the right description. I’ve known Matt for more than 10 years - since the early days of his career and I wanted to get behind the straplines...

One of the many things I like about making podcasts is after years of producing formal radio programmes lots of the conventions can be abandoned. For decades I lived under the whip of the tyrannical Greenwich Time Signal. The most grievous sin of all was to crash the pips – so many interesting conversation was brought to a hasty conclusion well before time should have been called. A podcast episode can be as long or as short as it needs to be – this will be one of the longer ones. This...

This is the third episode of the podcast in search of a name. In the first we talked music with singer song writer Sonja Sleator, Stuart Lunn of Chase the River and Ross Moffett who runs Popup. Last time, an insight into radio with John Rosborough and Peter McVerry of U105. Both episodes are available and you can get them here at davysims.com. In this, the third in this series we have an extended interview with artist Deepa Mann-Kler. I spoke to her in the co-working space at the Ormeau...

With an investment estimated to be over £1million from its new owner the Wireless Group, Belfast radio station U105 has moved from its home in UTV’s Havelock House to new offices and studios in a lough-side development in the city. A week after a nervous mid-day hand over from Frank Mitchell who presented the last programme in Havelock House to Carolyn Stewart in the new City Quays HQ, I sat down with station manager Peter McVerry and the first station manager John Rosborough – now a radio...

Ross Moffett runs a project called Pop Up supporting young musicians in Northern Ireland, among them Sonja Sleator and Stuart Lunn. I met them at a new co working space in Belfast LoftSpace. There are links to Stewart and Sonja’s music and profiles on my blog. In the next episodes we will be talking about radio, Immersive media, funding a start-up, women in technology, and fingers crossed for a report from South by South West from a group from Belfast who are attending this year My new...