In 1977, the spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 left earth to explore Jupiter, Saturn and Saturns’ largest moon, Titan. They then left our solar system and are now 22.5 billion kilometers from the planet we call home and hurtling through interstellar space at a speed of 38,000 miles per hour. Amazingly, they are still in communication with NASA, still able to receive routine commands and to transmit data back to earth. And rather beautifully, they each carry a golden record and a stylus with which to play it. Should any lifeform encounter one of the voyagers and are advanced enough to work out how to play this record, they will be listening to a cosmic playlist/mix tape containing an array of sounds, music and greetings carefully put together by Karl Sagan (astrophysicist, science communicator, poet) and his team at NASA.

 

Now, by all accounts they put a hell of a lot of thought into what music went onto this record..... But could they really not find space for a Beatles track? The voice of Nina Simone?? The guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix??? The Stone Roses???? Oh yeah..... It was 1977. Well, exactly! A lot has happened in music since then and in Space Jams, Jamie McDonald will explore what his golden record could look like, deciding in each show what music he would send up into the cosmos to represent humanity, or just for any lucky little aliens who should happen upon it. Then again, he might just play you some music that he loves. It’ll be from across the board, across the years and across the universe.

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As well as being a music fan from a young age, Jamie has been playing in bands for most of his life. His band South was the first band to be signed by iconic label ‘Mo Wax’ and went on to record four well received records with Independent labels. South toured the US, Europe and Japan with bands as diverse as Elbow, The Strokes, Primal Scream and Cornelius. Along the way they appeared at festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, Cochella and Fuji Rock. Jamie has played guitar and toured with musical acts like Finley Quaye and Nickel Eye (Nickolai Fraiture from The Strokes solo project). During his time with South, Jamie created music for film and TV such as ‘The OC’ and ‘The Vampire Diaries’, as well as the original score for film ‘Sexy Beast’. This will all add to a wide ranging, intriguing and satisfying selection of music in Space Jams.