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Anita Awbi heads to Glasgow to discover how the longstanding DIY scene has turned the city into a musical mecca.
‘No wonder we’re shite at football but great at music - it rains 200 days a year here,’ jokes Ben Martin, co-founder of glossy new house imprint High Sheen. He’s been knee-deep in the local electronic scene for 14 years as a DJ, booking agent and now independent label boss. But even he’s struggling to pinpoint the exact source of Glasgow’s musical ingenuity.
From the outside, it seems as though there’s something in the water that keeps the musical flair flowing. The city acts like a creative dam, pooling national talent within a hardy, local ecosystem.
‘It never ceases to amaze me how productive this sodden place can be,’ Ben continues. ‘It’s a real have-a-go city in so many ways but is small enough to keep itself in check. Music is there to be enjoyed in all its forms and Glasgow is a city that understands that attitude.’
Ask anyone in Britain what Glasgow’s indie scene means to them and you’ll get a different answer every time. From Edwyn Collins’ Orange Juice to the heroic post-rock of Mogwai or the all-conquering electronics of Hudson Mohawke, the journey from fey indie city to robust musical metropolis has been marked by a bewildering series of creative highpoints.
But this cultural powerhouse didn’t spring up by chance: there are no lucky coincidences in such a harsh, post-industrial landscape. Instead, Scotland’s largest city has worked hard to figure out its unique strengths and forge a durable music community.
These days it’s an infrastructure that supports healthy jazz, folk, indie, electronic and hip-hop scenes, all of which enjoy international acclaim. It has supplied an enduring indie label movement in Postcard Records, Chemikal Underground, Rock Action, Soma, Optimo and Geographic through to LuckyMe, Numbers and High Sheen. It has also delivered huge crossover commercial success in the form of Aztec Camera, Simple Minds, Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand.
From the outside, it seems as though there’s something in the water that keeps the musical flair flowing. The city acts like a creative dam, pooling national talent within a hardy, local ecosystem.
‘It never ceases to amaze me how productive this sodden place can be,’ Ben continues. ‘It’s a real have-a-go city in so many ways but is small enough to keep itself in check. Music is there to be enjoyed in all its forms and Glasgow is a city that understands that attitude.’
Ask anyone in Britain what Glasgow’s indie scene means to them and you’ll get a different answer every time. From Edwyn Collins’ Orange Juice to the heroic post-rock of Mogwai or the all-conquering electronics of Hudson Mohawke, the journey from fey indie city to robust musical metropolis has been marked by a bewildering series of creative highpoints.
But this cultural powerhouse didn’t spring up by chance: there are no lucky coincidences in such a harsh, post-industrial landscape. Instead, Scotland’s largest city has worked hard to figure out its unique strengths and forge a durable music community.
These days it’s an infrastructure that supports healthy jazz, folk, indie, electronic and hip-hop scenes, all of which enjoy international acclaim. It has supplied an enduring indie label movement in Postcard Records, Chemikal Underground, Rock Action, Soma, Optimo and Geographic through to LuckyMe, Numbers and High Sheen. It has also delivered huge crossover commercial success in the form of Aztec Camera, Simple Minds, Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand.
‘I think the most important thing Glasgow has given me as a writer is a muse,’ offers Darren ‘Loki’ McGarvey, a celebrated hip-hop artist from the city’s south side. ‘It’s got so much texture and there’s so much nuance in the character of the people. You could write about it forever because, as you mature, you see it from different perspectives. Whether you want to be poetic or political, there is loads of subject matter to wade through when you’re sitting staring out directly onto Glasgow.’
Over the last decade the controversial rapper has come to define the city’s hip-hop attitude through razor sharp public commentary and his work with the youth organisation Volition. It is precisely this degree of self-awareness and local commitment that lies at the heart of the city’s DIY movement, cutting through genres and guiding the way.
Art in focus
‘Scotland is really out in front in the way we perceive the arts, both in relation to our society and who we are as a nation,’ says Stewart Henderson, founder of Chemikal Underground and chairman of the Scottish Music Industry Association.
‘We’re the most artistically switched on we’ve ever been and Glasgow is both a big benefactor and a big contributor. I find it as exciting a time in this city as I can ever remember.’
When the bassist with now defunct indie group The Delgados first created Chemikal Underground with his bandmates in the mid-nineties, Glasgow was in the very early stages of what has since become an extraordinary transformation.
A new cultural focus, powered by government funding body Creative Scotland and supported by a coherent network of kindred spirits, has allowed the city to flourish.
‘We’ve moved from being a post-industrial city to become a cultural metropolis - we are now a really cosmopolitan arts-based city,’ explains Stewart.
Over the last decade the controversial rapper has come to define the city’s hip-hop attitude through razor sharp public commentary and his work with the youth organisation Volition. It is precisely this degree of self-awareness and local commitment that lies at the heart of the city’s DIY movement, cutting through genres and guiding the way.
Art in focus
‘Scotland is really out in front in the way we perceive the arts, both in relation to our society and who we are as a nation,’ says Stewart Henderson, founder of Chemikal Underground and chairman of the Scottish Music Industry Association.
‘We’re the most artistically switched on we’ve ever been and Glasgow is both a big benefactor and a big contributor. I find it as exciting a time in this city as I can ever remember.’
When the bassist with now defunct indie group The Delgados first created Chemikal Underground with his bandmates in the mid-nineties, Glasgow was in the very early stages of what has since become an extraordinary transformation.
A new cultural focus, powered by government funding body Creative Scotland and supported by a coherent network of kindred spirits, has allowed the city to flourish.
‘We’ve moved from being a post-industrial city to become a cultural metropolis - we are now a really cosmopolitan arts-based city,’ explains Stewart.
Award winning jazz musician and arranger Bill Wells tells a similar story. In the last few years the hero of Glasgow’s indie scene has released an award-winning album with Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, made records with Japan’s Maher Shalal Hash Baz and produced some of his finest work with German electronic pioneers Stefan Schneider, Barbara Morgenstern and trombonist Annie Whitehead.
He says: ‘There’s definitely a significant amount of support from Creative Scotland and the Scottish Arts Council. These days they are right behind the indie scene. It’s something that’s changed a lot since I first started doing music [in the nineties]. Back then it was very difficult to get funding for anything that wasn’t classical or opera or jazz.’
New blood
Following their addition to the BBC Sound of 2013 long list earlier this year, Glaswegian synth-pop trio CHVRCHES are officially one of the hottest new acts in the UK right now. Elsewhere, Ross Birchard, aka Hudson Mohawke, has continued his upward trajectory with cuts on Kanye West’s latest album Yeezus alongside his TNGHT sidekick Lunice.
Throw in producers such as Dam Mantle, Mia Dora, Turtle, Lovers Rights and Golden Teacher - who are all products of the Glasgow scene – and you’ve got yourself some the most exciting new releases of the last 12 months.
Elsewhere, indie veterans Mogwai, who have been ensconced in the city’s infamous East End for the best part of 20 years, have also been busy. Over the past year they’ve continued to push new talent to the fore through their Rock Action label, scored the music to the atmospheric French zombie series The Returned and set the internet alight with news of their forthcoming album Rave Tapes.
Their re-emergence provides a timely reminder of the vibrancy of the local scene and the ability for old and newcomers to co-exist.
‘Obviously there are many micro-scenes that form around labels like LuckyMe or Numbers, but it feels like everyone is just having fun doing their own thing’, says Iain Cook, one third of CHVRCHES and producer/arranger of Rock Action post-rock band Aerogramme.
‘Some of that positive energy bleeds into other aspects of the scene,’ he adds. ‘It’s a really vibrant city musically, and in many other creative ways, although I wouldn’t really feel comfortable with the idea of a particular scene. We’re just a load of people following our own paths and sometimes drinking in the same pubs.’
Ben from High Sheen agrees that the current musical crop operates as a fluid, scene-less entity: ‘JD Twitch [one half of techno juggernaut Optimo] once said he doesn’t think there’s a particular Glasgow sound but that there’s a Glasgow approach to making music… It’s such a great place for partying and in many ways it’s a beast that cannot be tamed. It just needed to be set free and that’s what has happened.’
Solid foundations
He says: ‘There’s definitely a significant amount of support from Creative Scotland and the Scottish Arts Council. These days they are right behind the indie scene. It’s something that’s changed a lot since I first started doing music [in the nineties]. Back then it was very difficult to get funding for anything that wasn’t classical or opera or jazz.’
New blood
Following their addition to the BBC Sound of 2013 long list earlier this year, Glaswegian synth-pop trio CHVRCHES are officially one of the hottest new acts in the UK right now. Elsewhere, Ross Birchard, aka Hudson Mohawke, has continued his upward trajectory with cuts on Kanye West’s latest album Yeezus alongside his TNGHT sidekick Lunice.
Throw in producers such as Dam Mantle, Mia Dora, Turtle, Lovers Rights and Golden Teacher - who are all products of the Glasgow scene – and you’ve got yourself some the most exciting new releases of the last 12 months.
Elsewhere, indie veterans Mogwai, who have been ensconced in the city’s infamous East End for the best part of 20 years, have also been busy. Over the past year they’ve continued to push new talent to the fore through their Rock Action label, scored the music to the atmospheric French zombie series The Returned and set the internet alight with news of their forthcoming album Rave Tapes.
Their re-emergence provides a timely reminder of the vibrancy of the local scene and the ability for old and newcomers to co-exist.
‘Obviously there are many micro-scenes that form around labels like LuckyMe or Numbers, but it feels like everyone is just having fun doing their own thing’, says Iain Cook, one third of CHVRCHES and producer/arranger of Rock Action post-rock band Aerogramme.
‘Some of that positive energy bleeds into other aspects of the scene,’ he adds. ‘It’s a really vibrant city musically, and in many other creative ways, although I wouldn’t really feel comfortable with the idea of a particular scene. We’re just a load of people following our own paths and sometimes drinking in the same pubs.’
Ben from High Sheen agrees that the current musical crop operates as a fluid, scene-less entity: ‘JD Twitch [one half of techno juggernaut Optimo] once said he doesn’t think there’s a particular Glasgow sound but that there’s a Glasgow approach to making music… It’s such a great place for partying and in many ways it’s a beast that cannot be tamed. It just needed to be set free and that’s what has happened.’
Solid foundations
So how did Glasgow become the musical mecca it is today? Mogwai main man Stuart Braithwaite provides some insight. Together with his cohorts, he’s been running the Rock Action label since 1996, releasing pivotal works from a bunch of impressive acts including Errors, Blanck Mass and Remember Remember.
‘It probably goes back way before our time,’ he says. ‘Back to Alan Horne’s Postcard Records and even Creation. Although it wasn’t run from Scotland, Creation was started by Glaswegians - Jesus and Mary Chain, Alan McGee, Primal Scream - all that stuff.
‘On the electronic side you’ve got Optimo, who started back in the nineties and still bring a lot of great musicians to Glasgow and put out a lot of great records,’ he adds.
So it seems the main force behind the city’s musical success lies in the tenacity of its lead characters, all of whom are deeply entrepreneurial.
‘The whole city is very DIY,’ confirms Stuart. ‘I guess the distance to London is so big that people just try to do their own thing rather than expect someone to do it for them.’
Live links
If you’re after clues to the health of a city’s music community, look no further than its live circuit of venues, pubs, clubs and art spaces. Naturally, Glasgow is ridiculously well endowed in this department.
From the legendary guitar haunts of King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Mono, Stereo and Nice n Sleazy to the folk strongholds of Waxy O’Connors, The Flying Buck and The Ben Nevis, Glasgow is awash with venues. A recent survey commissioned on behalf of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau found it to be the UK’s best place to discover new music, with King Tut’s, the Arches and Barrowland Ballroom cited as top places to see emerging acts.
Local promoters like Amanda Aitken, founder of the Lost and Found agency, work hard to keep the scene going. Since relocating from Aberdeen to Glasgow she’s helping to develop the south side of the city as a music destination, working closely with the Glad Café social enterprise to attract more bands to play outside of the city’s central zone.
She’s also involved in TYCI, a local feminist collective which produces a magazine, regular Subcity Radio show and monthly club night. She says: ‘It seems people in Glasgow - both musicians and punters - really care about the music scene. I remember going to see Sky Larkin earlier in the year and although it was a Sunday night people were going nuts! Katie from the band said afterwards, “There’s no such thing as a Sunday night in Glasgow,” and it’s absolutely true!’
Elsewhere, classically trained Alistair McCulloch, one of the country’s most sought-after fiddlers and a tutor at the Glasgow based Royal Conservatoire Scotland, is plugged into the traditional Scottish and folk music scenes.
He’s amazed at the city’s current vitality and enthuses about the many opportunities open to his students. ‘There are sessions every night of the week,’ he laughs. ‘It’s amazing. Professional players, amateurs and students will get together all across the city. The birth of Celtic Connections festival has really encouraged that, together with the whole Gaelic arts movement that’s kicked in.’
Glasgow international
So it’s not just the contemporary music world that’s benefiting from the blossoming independent infrastructure. The 2014 Commonwealth Games will ensure all eyes are on the city next summer and along with the sport, event programmers will deliver 48 cultural projects spanning the jazz, classical and contemporary genres. PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Biennial will also decamp on the city to join in the celebrations.
Meanwhile Alistair McCulloch is preparing to take his authentic Scots violin sound to New Zealand, North Carolina and China over the coming months, citing burgeoning demand for his skills all over the world.
But none of this activity surprises Stewart from Chemikal Underground: ‘With the referendum coming up next year, there’s almost an inevitability that culture and the arts will start to swing round front and centre - it always happens when you have any kind of debate about national identity.’
‘But I’m proud to say we’re ready - there’s a really vibrant diversity and life-affirming spectrum of music that is coming out of Glasgow, and Scotland generally, just now.’
‘It probably goes back way before our time,’ he says. ‘Back to Alan Horne’s Postcard Records and even Creation. Although it wasn’t run from Scotland, Creation was started by Glaswegians - Jesus and Mary Chain, Alan McGee, Primal Scream - all that stuff.
‘On the electronic side you’ve got Optimo, who started back in the nineties and still bring a lot of great musicians to Glasgow and put out a lot of great records,’ he adds.
So it seems the main force behind the city’s musical success lies in the tenacity of its lead characters, all of whom are deeply entrepreneurial.
‘The whole city is very DIY,’ confirms Stuart. ‘I guess the distance to London is so big that people just try to do their own thing rather than expect someone to do it for them.’
Live links
If you’re after clues to the health of a city’s music community, look no further than its live circuit of venues, pubs, clubs and art spaces. Naturally, Glasgow is ridiculously well endowed in this department.
From the legendary guitar haunts of King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Mono, Stereo and Nice n Sleazy to the folk strongholds of Waxy O’Connors, The Flying Buck and The Ben Nevis, Glasgow is awash with venues. A recent survey commissioned on behalf of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau found it to be the UK’s best place to discover new music, with King Tut’s, the Arches and Barrowland Ballroom cited as top places to see emerging acts.
The distance to London is so big that people just try to do their own thing rather than expect someone to do it for them.
Local promoters like Amanda Aitken, founder of the Lost and Found agency, work hard to keep the scene going. Since relocating from Aberdeen to Glasgow she’s helping to develop the south side of the city as a music destination, working closely with the Glad Café social enterprise to attract more bands to play outside of the city’s central zone.
She’s also involved in TYCI, a local feminist collective which produces a magazine, regular Subcity Radio show and monthly club night. She says: ‘It seems people in Glasgow - both musicians and punters - really care about the music scene. I remember going to see Sky Larkin earlier in the year and although it was a Sunday night people were going nuts! Katie from the band said afterwards, “There’s no such thing as a Sunday night in Glasgow,” and it’s absolutely true!’
Elsewhere, classically trained Alistair McCulloch, one of the country’s most sought-after fiddlers and a tutor at the Glasgow based Royal Conservatoire Scotland, is plugged into the traditional Scottish and folk music scenes.
He’s amazed at the city’s current vitality and enthuses about the many opportunities open to his students. ‘There are sessions every night of the week,’ he laughs. ‘It’s amazing. Professional players, amateurs and students will get together all across the city. The birth of Celtic Connections festival has really encouraged that, together with the whole Gaelic arts movement that’s kicked in.’
Glasgow international
So it’s not just the contemporary music world that’s benefiting from the blossoming independent infrastructure. The 2014 Commonwealth Games will ensure all eyes are on the city next summer and along with the sport, event programmers will deliver 48 cultural projects spanning the jazz, classical and contemporary genres. PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Biennial will also decamp on the city to join in the celebrations.
Meanwhile Alistair McCulloch is preparing to take his authentic Scots violin sound to New Zealand, North Carolina and China over the coming months, citing burgeoning demand for his skills all over the world.
But none of this activity surprises Stewart from Chemikal Underground: ‘With the referendum coming up next year, there’s almost an inevitability that culture and the arts will start to swing round front and centre - it always happens when you have any kind of debate about national identity.’
‘But I’m proud to say we’re ready - there’s a really vibrant diversity and life-affirming spectrum of music that is coming out of Glasgow, and Scotland generally, just now.’
