Tim Burgess launches new earphones to raise money for UK grassroots music venues

The custom earphones, created by Burgess and Flare Audio, will see £5 from every pair sold on Flare Audio's site donated to Music Venue Trust, who are fundraising to save grassroots music venues in the UK from closure amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Burgess started hosting Twitter listening parties when the first national lockdown happened in March 2020. The first listening party was for The Charlatans' Some Friendly album on 23 March, and by the end of December 2020, The Charlatans vocalist celebrated hosting over 600 Twitter listening parties in 2020.

Discussing the new product, Burgess said, "A while back I was sent some amazing earphones by the lovely people at Flare - they were big fans of the listening parties and we got talking. The talk turned into a plan and the plan became an amazing set of listening party earphones that Flare will now be making, and together we’ll be raising money for Music Venue Trust."

First up is a collab with @flareaudio - these ace @LlSTENlNG_PARTY earphones will be available to pre-order on Friday March 26th. Raising funds for the @musicvenuetrust.
More info here in @whathifi https://t.co/L6wavoVbcp

— Tim Burgess (@Tim_Burgess) March 15, 2021

Flare co-founder and COO Naomi Roberts added, "We love what Tim has been doing with the Listening Party and after some interesting talks we knew we could do something really great together. We wanted the Listening Party earphone, named TLP1, to be unique to Tim while still having the Flare tech and finish. The earphones themselves give incredible audio clarity and detail that provides high end sound quality without the price tag, and our unique distortion reducing tech helps you to listen better for longer."

Strategic Director for Music Venue Trust, Beverley Whitrick, thanked Burgess for his music venue support, and also confirmed his new appointment as a Music Venue Trust patron, "Tim has been acting as a champion for grassroots music venues across the UK for a long time now and has actively supported our #SaveOurVenues campaign. Formalising his status as a patron of MVT is a way for us to thank him for his considerable efforts and talk publicly about the projects Tim is working on to support venues. The first of which is the development of these great earphones with Flare Audio, with whom we have a longstanding relationship."