The 13th annual Scottish Music Awards – The Tartan Clefs, saw exciting performances from up and coming artists as well as some old favourites as the great and good of the Scottish music industry descended upon Glasgow in support of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy in Scotland.
Lalita Augustine was there to greet/ambush some of the guests as they made their way down the red carpet and for the reactions when the awards started to get dished out…
The Scottish Music Awards, held at Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket, is an important date in the Scottish event calendar. Dubbed the “Scottish Brits” by some, it’s a celebration for charity, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy in Scotland.
They receive no statutory funding, which means this event is the largest and most prominent fundraiser of the year for the charity.
The unique combination of music and therapy that they offer in schools, hospitals, day centres and care homes, is a release and a sense of fun for vulnerable adults and children through the power of music.
The concept is all about taking our creative side and combining it with alternative modes of therapy, proving that music has strong healing qualities.
Music promoter and head of DF Concerts, Geoff Ellis, was present to support the King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut Best Live Band Award. “It’s always a great privilege to come down here,” said Geoff.
“It’s great to see the results of what the therapists do, they work very hard and produce fantastic results, it’s great to support them.”
Speaking about the award, which was later won by Glasgow Indie favourites, Frightened Rabbit, he said: “The recipient really deserves the live award.
“For King Tut’s, we’re recognised as a launch pad for new artists, be it Beck, Kings of Leon, Coldplay, Muse, Radiohead, Snow Patrol, Biffy Clyro, Travis, they’ve all come through King Tuts and as far as Scotland goes, it’s a venue that most bands start off in, we’re very pleased with that and want to support the live award as much as possible.”
On their way in, I managed to grab guitarist and keyboardist for Frightened Rabbit, Gordon Skene, who was a tad nervous about attending the ceremony: “We’re a little bit nervous about getting all smartened up,” he said.
“We’re playing two songs – they’re new ones, Scottish wind and the Loneliness of the Screen.
“This is a good cause and it’s good to have a night for awards like this in Glasgow.”
Bestselling crime author, Ian Rankin, was there promoting items up for auction, including the chance to be written into his next novel as a character, which was bought by two bidders later that night at £2800 each. He had also brought with him a signed copy of Life by Keith Richards, which went for £1000.
Ian felt a little out of his comfort zone. “I’m in a monkey suit and I’m surrounded by music people. “I’m not a music person, I just listen to the stuff.”
“It’s quite exciting to see so many folk that I recognise from record covers, the Rezillos, who, 30 years ago I was following, are here tonight and it’s the first time I’ve seen them.”
Speaking of the new wave punk band from Edinburgh, in walked Eugene Reynolds and Fay Fife from The Rezillos. After more line-up changes than you can shake a stick at, I asked them how they felt with the current incarnation.
“It feels absolutely great to be back together,” said Eugene. “We’ve been playing for a long time together and we love it.
“It’s like one of those crazy marriages where you stick together or you break up. We always look forward to performing anytime, it’s just in the blood.”
As the awards started to come in thick and fast throughout the night, I managed to grab a chat with most of the winners and one thing that struck me about the whole thing, is how humbled most of them felt.
“To be recognised by such an incredible charity is such as big achievement for me,” said Emeli Sande, who had just won Capital FM’s Breakthrough Artist Award. “It’s really flattering and I’m really honoured by this.
“I studied medicine in Glasgow for four years before I had the opportunity to go for music.
“I was very interested in psychiatry and was looking into music therapy, so this is very close to home in what I wanted to research and it is really interesting the work Nordoff-Robbins do.
“It’s really valuable and overlooked, people can look at alternative therapies as not as important as some.”
Glasgow band, Song of Return, won the Creative Scotland Big Apple Award.
The award, given in partnership with Creative Scotland and Nordoff-Robbins, created the opportunity for a new and emerging band to play at the awards and also in New York City with the American-Scottish Foundation during Scotland Week 2012.
A live final performance at the Garage’s G2 venue swung it for the band, wowing the judges, which included singer songwriter, Roddy Hart.
“I feel like I’m already looking forward to putting my feet up and sitting on a plane to New York,” said frontman Craig Grant.
“This feels like a thank you to everyone’s faith for the last two years and here is possibly two or three days in New York. This allows me to give back to the people who have put into this project.”
Camilla Hillman, Development Director at the American-Scottish Foundation added: “Scotland has a great variety in music but this band are just a little bit above everyone else, they took it on the night.”
I also managed to grab a wee chat with Grant Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit, who won the King Tut’s award.
He told me the band were currently writing their next album, so no performances or tours were in the pipeline as of yet.
“We feel amazing,” he said.
“Especially seeing as its best live act as we feel the live aspect is very important, it’s the live show when you’re starting out that really wins the fans so it was important to win this one.
“It’s our first award so we were all nervous and there was a long wait to get up and do our performance, it’s been a great night and it’s for a great cause.”
Hot new Scottish band Kassidy walked away with the Silverburn Most Stylish New Artist Award.
The fact that someone is giving you something in recognition, it’s nice,” said the band’s Lewis Andrew.
“It feels fantastic, there was no rehearsal for tonight’s performance, we thought we would wing it and it worked! There’s a tightness there, a family element that you can’t get rid of.
“It’s an honour to be here and part of the charity.”
The poignant moment of the night came towards the end, when legendary Scottish rock band Big Country won the Ticketmaster UK Pride of Scotland Award, the first award ever in the band’s 30 year history.
“I just feel really proud and it’s a bit emotional,” said guitarist Bruce Watson, part of the original line-up of the band which the late Stuart Adamson founded in 1982.
“We haven’t played for a few months and this has been put together last minute and as usual, you wait around all day to perform, then it’s over and done with in a flash. Once we got going we wanted to play the other 14 songs!”
After a turbulent history, the band had initially played a sold out “Final Fling” concert at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom in 2000, and following a brief reformation in 2007, cropped up again this year and has been reminding audiences how good they were with appearances at some of the summer’s festivals, including T in the Park and The Isle of Wight Festival.
Now the remainder of the band are back together and are hoping to celebrate their 30th anniversary, write another album, play more festivals and go on tour.
Tony Butler, the band’s bass player, said: “To be performing together again is fantastic and something I never thought we would be doing.
“I thought after we lost Stuart we wouldn’t do this again because it wouldn’t feel right. But the feelings good and it’s been a while now.
“We’ve got some good people with us, and we’ve got Bruce’s son playing the guitar, so the whole thing feels good and I’m happy to be back doing it again.”
“Anything like this for Nordoff-Robbins must be supported and we’ve never been awarded anything before, so it’s different, it’s a kind of weird feeling but it’s cool.”
Winners of the Ten Awards in Order of Ceremony Are:
1) ‘Nordoff-Robbins Special Recognition Award supported by Glasgow City Council’
Karen Mathieson, head teacher at Howford Primary School, Crookston, Glasgow
2) ‘Creative Scotland Big Apple Award’
Song of Return
3) ‘Guitar Guitar Musical Instrument Award’
Jim Dunlop, Dunlop Manufacturing Inc
4) ‘Silverburn Most Stylish New Artist Award’
Kassidy
5) ‘goNORTH Emerging Business Award’
CK Events
6) ‘Sir Reo Stakis Foundation Legend Award’
The Rezillos
7) ‘Sunday Mail Industry Award’
Richard Park, Executive Director of Global Radio
8) ‘King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut Best Live Band Award’
Frightened Rabbit
9) ‘Capital FM Breakthrough Artist Award’
Emeli Sandé
10) ‘Ticketmaster UK Pride of Scotland Award’
Big Country
The overall total raised was just over £100,000.00 on the night, largely through auction prizes which included a Keith Richards book which went for £1000, the chance to appear as a character in a new Ian Rankin novel (£2,800), a guitar signed by Slash (£2,400), and the prototype of the Lobey Dosser statue (the original of which can be seen across from the Halt Bar in Glasgow) which brought in £5,000.
More details on the charity and its work including the event can be found at www.nordoffrobbinsscotland.org.uk.
More on the event at www.tartanclef.org.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
- Scottish Music Awards – the Tartan Clefs - 30 November 2013
- Rachel Sermanni - 10 May 2012
- Frightened Rabbit, Rezillos, Big Country all winners - 29 November 2011