Arts blog: The Scottish Music Show is ready to rock Lanark

Half trade show, half music festival, The Scottish Music Show is shaping up to be the biggest party to rock the New Lanark World Heritage Site, pictured below, since the great reforming mill owner Robert Owen opened the first infant school in Britain there in 1817. Big-name acts booked to perform include Horse and the Peatbog Faeries, while companies offering their wares for sale include the mighty Marshall Amps (surprisingly community-spirited for a big company, says Duncan) and bespoke guitar builders Bailey Guitars, suppliers of high-quality handmade axes to a certain Preston Reed. There will also be a series of workshops and masterclasses and two open stages where members of the public will be encouraged to get up and become part of the show.

Duncan is quite up-front about the fact that his event is designed in part to help out the struggling music retail business, but he says the aim is also “to create a place where young kids can see live music, because they very rarely get the chance”.

“We are also running mentoring programmes to give youngsters the equipment and know-how to put on their own shows throughout the year,” he adds.

The Scottish Music Show will take place at various venues around the New Lanark World Heritage Site on 27 and 28 April, and it is run on an not-for-profit basis. Duncan, who plays with the band Green Goblin and is also the inventor of the handy Capo Keyring, has invested a certain amount of his own money in the project – not to mention a good deal of his own time – but he says it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of his sponsors: Remax Estate Agents, Renewable Resources Limited and Cloburn Quarry.

“Since working in the [music] industry I was disheartened to find that the whole industry in Scotland is in a dire situation,” he says. “I wanted to try and address some of these problem areas.

“We want people to flock to the town, and maybe create a blueprint that other people can use.”

As mentioned above, The Scottish Music Show is just the first phase of Duncan’s four-part plan to help out Scotland’s music biz. Phase Two is a something he calls the Great Scottish Gig, which he hopes to hold in August 2015.

He plans to create six stages in wilderness locations throughout Scotland – one in the Borders, one near Edinburgh, one near Glasgow, one near Perth and two in the Highlands. From a gate at the start of a trail, participants will walk five miles until they reach a specially constructed stage – a place where, as Duncan puts it, “musicians can get together and write music inspired by the scenery that surrounds them or just have large sessions”. There will also be a more conventional music festival at Balnakiel Bay in Sutherland as a sort of grand finale to the project. Poets and photographers will be encouraged to record all these events, and a commemorative book will be produced later in the year, containing a selection of the best work.

Duncan believes the key to providing long-term stability for the music industry lies in stimulating participation at a local level, so PhaseThree of his plan (financed by Phase Two) will involve helping local music groups to engage with the history of their area by making an album’s worth of songs based on local stories.

“It’s about communities working together to create a town album, which can be sold throughout the town to generate money for these organisations,” he explains.

Phase Four will be an “equal opportunities” music festival, venue tbc, with everyone from big name artists to unsigned acts and community music groups sharing the same stage over four consecutive days.

Overambitious? Perhaps. But as the actress Phyllis Diller once said: “Aim high, and you won’t shoot your foot off.”

• www.thescottishmusicshow.com