DMC - taking Dumfries by Storm

The Born to be Wide Seminar Panel on Thursday night

It's been a hectic week or so at Stove - and it is with sadness that we wave goodbye to DMC for another year. It's been insightful, exciting, wild, engaging and fantastic. Having landed at a music conference with very little music background, there was an initial concern of being the cuckoo of the flock however, 
The Dumfries Music Conference kicked off last Wednesday, with a showing of LCD Soundsystem's Shut Up and Play the Hits, a beautifully shot, poignant film about the band's last ever gig in Madison Square Gardens. I decided to avoid googling the band beforehand, and went in with no knowledge of them or their music - and left with a new love. 

Barstow Bats rocked the Stove on Friday night

This buzz carried into Thursday - with a seminar programme, relocated back into the familiarness of the Stove. It kicked off with Born to be Wide's Getting Started in Music - which included a panel of industry experts who gave inspiring but honest insight into the contemporary music scene in Scotland. Grassroots music  Popcop blog was represented, as was Bar Bloc and the Wickerman, as well as Keren McKean of We Make Music Work - and covered everything from managers, getting live gigs, to pluggers, promoting and marketing your music. This was followed by Gary Aitkinson who spoke about the story of Document Records, and it's in-depth archive and back catalogue of musical gems. 

Hector Bizerk Live in Dumfries

Up to pace. Friday saw the Stove taken over by aspiring song writers who landed to join Music Plus in learning from Robert Shields of Finding Albert, who worked from a music composition base, and gave some inspiration into his early career within the music industry and Findlay Napier of Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers - a self proclaimed folkie who had all participants writing a song from scratch in less than 30 minutes... Say cheese, say please sounds set to become a chart topping success!

The beautiful Honeyblood opened the Stove's first live gig

Quick change over and the Stove transformed to Dumfries's newest intimate live music venue.  Chris from Bar Bloc mentioned during the seminar night that remote and unusual venues are often the most atmospheric, and we couldn't have imagined how great it would be when first Honeyblood, at the end of their UK tour and just about to head for the States rocked up and gave the Stove it's first live set. Followed up by the mind-blowing Hector Bizerk, Glasgow based hip hop group, who really blew Dumfries out of the water. Local lads Barstow Bats led the Stove into the night, and the whole place glowed.

Thanks to Zoe Bestel for going out and photographing the DMC programme in situ!

The DMC team didn't disappoint on day four, and another quick costume change for the Stove saw it re-invent itself as a retail outlet hosting Rebecca Vasmant's record fair, featuring DJ sets and sellers both local and down from the big city. Congratulations go out to the DMC team for a fantastic programme, thanks to everyone who was involved and thanks to everyone who came to our events - we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! To see more of the photographs taken at DMC head to our flickr site here 

Stove Members Gathering 29th October 2013

Brilliant to see about 40 intrepid Stove folk braving the dark winter evening to come to the Stove Members Gathering/Catch up/Planning  Thing Meeting last Tuesday night.
Old friends and new friends came and it was particularly good to see people who had helped with Back2Back and taken part in the Nithraid. The Stove is all about reaching out and working beyond the arts….in fact there was chat about whether what we are doing is really ‘art’ anyway- and does that matter.
One of the ideas that seemed to catch peoples interest and agreement was that the Stove should be about inspiring people to take charge of their own immediate environment. Too often people think that they are ‘not allowed’ to do things – we hope that our events have an ethos of ‘just do it’ about them and that others will be inspired to follow suit. We believe that people working form the grassroots with independent and locally relevant initiatives is the way that Dumfries with prosper in the future. (Sermon over!)

The evening kicked off with a Welcome led by Will – who invited Katie to talk about Back2Back – The Stove’s project for Guid Nychburris in June. Katie showed John Wallace’s lovely wee film of the event – which you can view here

Back2Back - 15th June 2013

Linda followed on with a slide show of images for the Nithraid and it was great that other people brought their own pictures to share too – even if the one of Will and Matt hugging in pink T Shirts might not see the light of day again anytime soon! More pictures from Nithraid - here

Nithraid 22nd September 3013

Nithraid really seems to have caught people’s imagination  - there was a really strong contingent of folk who had taken part and in the race and a collective determination to do it again next year. Mark Zygadlo is leading on this for The Stove and currently working very hard to raise the necessary money for next years event.

The Awesome Nithraid Scratch Band

Lots of people ask ‘how do I get involved with The Stove?’ – the Nithraid is a great example: The Curatorial Team raised some money to do a Stove project as part of the Environmental Art Festival…..we had a first think about what might be possible and relevant to both our larger programme and that of the Festival. We then put out an invite to Stove Members which said ‘Stove is going to do something for EAFS – it will be connected to the River Nith in some way….if you are interested to be part of this then come along on this day and we’ll all brainstorm ideas together’ . About 10 people came to that original meeting…the idea of Nithraid was born and Mark Zygadlo and Stan Bonnar became part of the project team that made the Nithraid happen. 

The Nithraid was a proper challenge!

Along the way other folk were pulled in by word-of-mouth and adverts etc eg Roy Kerr from Nith Navigation and all the folk who took part in the race. Then closer to the date we put out another call for people to be part of the crew for the day and we were thrilled that about 12 people came and were part of making the whole thing happen on the day (from being part of the scratch band, to catering, to stewarding, to releasing the banners into the water, to helping get the boats out of the water).

The Archivist (by Stove Members: Jo Hodges, Robbie Coleman and Dave Giblin) at Environmental Art Festival Scotland

Matt then showed some slides from the Environmental Art Festival Scotland – The Stove was part of the team (with Spring Fling and Wide-Open) that thought up and produced the festival. One of the great things about EAFS was the way it provided opportunities for so  many people in D+G to take part and the way different people worked together – just about everyone in the room had been part of EAFS in some way – great feeling!!
Photo from EAFS

Colin talked introduced Dumfries Music Conference with a video from last years event and a run down of this years programme that was starting the day after this Gathering.

Hector Bizerk onstage at DMC at The Stove 1st Nov 3013

Matt then rounded off the presentations with a quick run through of The Stoves 3 year programming plan.  In synopsis this breaks down into:
2014 – intensive focus on Dumfries with TheStove@TheStove (including residency opportunities for Stove members)
2015 – First part of year finishing TheStove@TheStove before focussing on the second Environmental Art Festival Scotland for September/October that year
2016 – Year of Architecture in Scotland….The Stove hopes to be a main partner in the festival in SouthWest Scotland and pick up themes form work in Dumfries and across the region through EAFS……imagining a sustainable future for D+G.

Another big push for The Stove recently has been in the way we are using different media in our work. Katie Anderson is now building on the great foundation made by Mike Nicholson on Social Media for The Stove. Our Facebook page has never been busier and Katie has become surgically attached to her IPad it seems.

Check out The Stove on Facebook
And on Twitter.

And if you're not yet a member and fancy being part of The Stove mission to change the world then send an email to info@thestove.org and Sheila will send you a membership form. Membership is free and gives you no obligations whatsoever....you'll just get emails and updates from The Stove and the offer of being involved in projects, commission opportunities and members rates on room hires etc.

DMC - The Line Up

The DMC2013 is fast approaching - and the lines are now open to book yourself into all of our FREE events. Come along and discover something new:

Wednesday 30th October
DMC2013 presents FILM: Shut Up and Play the Hits
(https://www.facebook.com/events/179099982276208/)
Please note you must be 15 or over to attend this event. Join the facebook event page above to let us know you are coming!

Thursday 31st October
DMC2013 presents Music Industry Experts/ Born to be Wide!
https://www.facebook.com/events/305609966243458/
To book tickets for this event please go to the eventbrite site here as spaces are limited.
Participating speakers include: 
Keren McKean (former Snow Patrol Manager), 
Jason Cranwell and Sarah McMullan (The Pop Cop) 
Derick Mackinnon (Born To Be Wide / The Scotsman), 
Chris Cusack (Booker, Bar Bloc, Glasgow) 

This informal session takes place from 20.00 - 21.00 and the session is preceded by a presentation from Gary Atkinson (owner of Document Records). Doors open at 18.30.

The evening will be rounded off with DJ sets from our industry experts, who will play us some of their favourite music.

Friday 1st November
DMC2013 Songwriting Workshops from Music Plus
https://www.facebook.com/events/673485076004080/
11am-12.30pm
Music Plus Songwriting Workshop led by Robert Shields from Finding Albert
3.30pm-5pmMusic Plus Songwriting Workshop led by Findlay Napier from Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers 
If you would like to attend these events please contact the Dumfries Music Conference direct with your name, postcode, contact number and which session(s)- to secure your place. 

DMC2013 presents Barstow Bats, Hector Bizerk and Honeyblood
https://www.facebook.com/events/206532246191845/
Spaces ARE limited for this event, and it's likely to book up so to get a hold of your free tickets please register on eventbrite here

Saturday 2nd November
DMC2013 Record Fair with Rebecca Vasmant
https://www.facebook.com/events/517770988315595/
DJ, producer and the brains behind Sub Club's Record Fair, Rebecca Vasmant is hosting a very special DMC event at The Stove, Dumfries. This is no ordinary record fair - we'll have DJs, listening stations and some the finest collection of vendors Dumfries ever will see.

All the events are being held at The Stove, Dumfries, apart from our film screening, which will be at Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre.
For more details about specific events - check out the facebook pages listed, or follow the Dumfries Music Conference on facebook and twitter

DMC - It's Back!

The Dumfries Music Conference is back this year - and excitement is building as some new events have been added to this years programme. Following on from last years successful event, DMC2013 will be kicking off with a free film screening - Shut Up and Play the Hits will be showing at the Robert Burns Film Theatre on the 30th of October - join the event page here.

Also announced this week, Dumfries band Barstow Bats will be headlining our first live music night on Friday 1st November at the Stove! Special guests are yet to be announced but if you haven't yet heard Barstow Bats - have a listen to Heartbreak Kicks:

DMC will also be holding The Record Fair at the Stove, with Rebecca Vasmant - All record collectors and music lovers are invited to join in our celebration of music with a great selection of record vendors. We'll be covering house, techno, jazz, latin, soul, northern soul, funk, disco, electronic and much more. Various guest DJs will be playing on the day and there will be several listening stations for you to sample the produce before you purchase.
If you are interesting in trading at this event we still have some spaces left at no cost - please email rebecca.vasmant@hotmail.co.uk

We have more events to announce - so be sure and stay tuned! In the meantime follow the DMC on twitter @DMC_Dumfries and on facebook /DumfriesMusicConference to keep up to date!

Dumfries Music Conference

The Stove Presents as part of Inbetween:Dumfries and in partnership with the Scottish Soulful Weekender (www.scottishsoulfulweekender.com) & MusicPlus (www.musicplus.org.uk) the inaugural Dumfries Music Conference - DMC.

DMC is a two-day gathering of musical minds. It will include workshops, talks, panel Q&As and entertainment.

DMC - is a platform for musical people to share their experiences, knowledge and enthusiasm for music. We've got a brilliant line-up!

DMC will take place on the day before the Scottish Soulful Weekender (Thursday 1st November) and on the morning of the Weekender's first day (Friday 2nd November).

And, rather brilliantly, it will all be FREE!

Please check DMC’s digital platforms each week for details of how to attend events ran by leading musicians, DJ’s and record producers.

DumfriesMusicConference@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/DumfriesMusicConference

www.twitter.com/DMC_Dumfries