On Sunday I attended the inaugural Scottish New Music Awards at the Classic Grand, Glasgow. I had been nominated for an award and was also presenting a few with Dave Arcari. I had a great time on the night, meeting lots of cool people and getting pished.
Of course, as you might expect, the night had a few teething problems – quite a few, actually. The event kicked off on time, but bafflingly started to get ahead of itself almost immediately, to the extent that things were running a full eighty minutes ahead of schedule before the half-way point. For people turning up to see a particular act or for nominees arriving in time to check out their categories (or indeed for at least one presenter, Michelle McManus, who turned up on time to find the winners had already been announced) this must have been something of a dampener.
Backstage, things were cheerfully shambolic, which I’m all for. Dave and I were the first presenters on and literally had to run upstairs on recognizing some press reviews of ourselves being read out in our introductions, via the green room live feed (the ‘green room’ was the downstairs Classic Grand 2 venue). We left our pints at the side of the stage and strode purposefully towards entirely the wrong set of mics before SNMA main-man Bruce Hotchkies waved us towards the podium. Then the first envelope arrived and the worst of the teething problems raised its head for the first, though not sadly the last time of the night. Of the five categories Dave and I presented, only one winner turned up to accept the award. Okay, another was due to arrive later but of the remaining three, nobody bothered. One of the awards I announced was Music Retailer – the winner was Fopp, and they couldn’t be bothered sending someone along?!? I spent a large part of my life working in record shops (including, come to think of it, Fopp – admittedly before they became HMV-lite), and can’t imagine not turning that sort of thing into a staff piss-up.
Sadly, after Dave and I nearly smashed the remaining, uncollected, glass awards in slapstick fashion while leaving the stage, the list of non-appearances carried on. Clearly this was one of the contributing factors to the timetable being thrown away, as there were so few acceptance speeches, although I can’t imagine they were expecting anybody to go the full Richard Attenborough. There were a few theories as to the poor attendance of nominees. Obviously some genuinely couldn’t make it along, and the fucked-up scheduling was an issue for others but there had apparently been some industry politics involved. I don’t know the ins-and-outs of these things – as an independent/underground/grass-roots artist, I expect and hope I never will – but basically there are other organizations out there who felt that the SNMAs were stepping on their toes, so to speak. A bit of the old school tie territorial pissing. It all seems rather unfair; although I’m not exactly your awards-ceremony type, I’d have thought that anything aimed at promoting the various music scenes in Scotland would be a generally good thing, no?
However, another reason for at least some of the non-attendance may well have been down to what seems to me to have been a misjudgement in the early promotion of the awards. When SNMA sent out their initial contact emails, they were asking for a £5 entry fee from labels and artists to put their artists or themselves forward for nomination. I realise now that this was simply an attempt at fund-raising for the event, which I’ve since heard is standard practice for larger-scale awards. Unfortunately this likely left the wrong impression with many. Certainly, I thought these emails and the follow-up reminders were a scam. I deleted the lot. After all, it’s not uncommon to receive a few dodgy industry emails during the year usually pushing a paid-for ‘reviewing service’, fee-based digital distribution or whatever, all of which I ignore in light of their sounding supremely cunty. Then again, even if I was partial to a bit of corporate cuntiness, I’m always skint, so sod that. Eventually I got another email saying that there was no longer a charge to throw your hat in the ring but by then the damage had been done and I binned that too.
When a month or two later I was informed that I’d been nominated, I was genuinely surprised – and quite chuffed, obviously (although I’m at best ambivalent about the concept of awards in general, I suspect that if I ever won one, I’d spend some time afterwards resisting the urge to have the phrase “I’ve won an award and you can fuck off” tattooed on my face). However, if I hadn’t been nominated and later asked to present – which prompted me to take a bit more care about looking into the awards – I would probably have ignored the event entirely, largely based on my misinterpretation of those early emails. I suspect that this is just what happened with some of the ‘no-shows’.
Also off-putting for some at the initial nomination stage, I’m sure, was the eyebrow-raising inclusion of a ‘Covers/Function Band’ category in a ‘New Music’ awards, compounded on the night by the large ‘TV talent show’ element to the event (thanks to Google, I can tell you the MC was a semi-finalist on Britain’s Got Talent, one performer won the X-Factor and another won Pop Stars – also, another of the performers chose to play that Biffy Clyro song that that bloke off of that thing covered that xmas). Now, I’m not having a go at the individual acts here – everybody’s trying to get by and they’re clearly capable folks in their own respective fields. Nonetheless, for a new venture trying to differentiate itself from the black-tie world of the likes of the Tartan Clefs, throwing a Lady Ga Ga impersonator and a gaggle of Simon Cowell acolytes into the mix doesn’t seem an obvious route to credibility.
Unfortunately, this will all likely be used as ammunition by the critics of the SNMA. Indeed, it already has – I read a particularly poisonous blog (reeking of sour grapes) on the subject this morning.
Personally, like I said, I had a great time. So did the people I talked with on the night, with most of the organizational hiccups being taken in good humour and the atmosphere in the crowd remaining good for the whole event. It’s worth remembering that this was the first time it had been staged. It was perhaps over-ambitious – and yet this was an event with national sponsorship held in a full-to-capacity Classic Grand, broadcast live on the radio and internet, presented by Actual People Off The Telly, attended by some honest-to-goodness Scottish music-biz legends. A hell of an achievement in and of itself.
One of the most laudable aspects of these awards is that they are, at least in part, about levelling the playing field for the grass-roots music industries in Scotland. It’s all very well being able to record and release your music in a world apart from major labels and the likes, but getting that music noticed can be a right bastard – we need all the help we can get! For that reason at the very least, I hope that this year’s event has been both a success and a learning experience for the organizers – and that there’s plenty more to come.
Oh, and no, I didn’t win!
