Tenement Trail is a grand assembly of musical talent – 60 bands in 9 venues – for one 12 hour long session of music and good times. The bill includes newly reformed indie band Milburn who’ll headline alongside Crash Club, Be Charlotte, Tijuana Bibles, The Van T’s, Domiciles, Barrie-James O’Neil, The Bar Dogs, GANGS and more.
The brainchild of the team behind Scotland’s largest pioneering music platform Tenement TV, their fourth multi-venue music festival will bring a lot of fun to the centre of Glasgow on Saturday 8th October. Get involved.
Glasgowist took the opportunity to put some questions to Tenement TV founder Chae Houston.
Tell me about how Tenement TV came about?
Tenement TV has been around for five years but I’ve been working on it for six years, it took around a year to get the first session out. I was in a band before that and we played on Balcony TV. We started to have the idea then and I was also a fan of the All Saint Basement Sessions and Le Blogetheque, a Paris one. We wanted to do something like that. We thought the window in our flat in Highburgh Road. It had a nice shape, a bay window with stained glass. It took a while to get on the go, we figured out the set up and got some sound engineers involved. Then we brought in a couple of Glasgow bands and that was the first day.
And what do you think the Glasgow music scene is like right now?
It’s amazing right now and there’s still a way to go. There’s been a number of bands getting major record deals in the last year, which I don’t think was the case maybe five or six years ago. I think our scene is vibrant and I think our bands are starting to grow out of the scene.
It’s not just the bands that are performing around town that we’ve noticed, it’s bands recording tracks in homemade studios and putting it out there digitally, reaching out to networks in other countries. That kind of fits with Tenement TV which gives them a platform to reach fans everywhere.
Aye, definitely, well we’ve got over 5 million YouTube views at the moment and only around a million of those views are from the UK. There’s a million views from the US and then hundreds of thousands from places like France, Germany, even Brazil and places like that. So that’s the good thing about Tenement TV as well, we were always going to be about Scottish bands but we’ve got bands from other countries and the Scottish bands are seen all over the world as well.
It’s probably something that Glasgow people take for granted you know, basically this city gets some of the best and biggest bands in the world lining up to play here, especially at The Hydro. It’s not like that everywhere. Have you been able to take advantage of that?
The Hydro has made a major difference to the city. Some bands didn’t like to play the SECC. The Hydro competes with the big arenas in New York and London. The venues that we do sessions with the most though are the likes of the ABCs, St. Luke’s, Oran Mor or O2 Academy. We don’t really do sessions with the big Hydro bands, we get them when they are a bit smaller and then they go on to play The Hydro. We’re all about good, new music and bands that are on their way up.
To capitalise on all the good bands that are here in Glasgow, you’ve put together Tenement Trail. What can folk expect if they buy a ticket?
It’s going to be bigger and better than ever before, this is our fourth year. We started off with four venues and 20 bands, now we are nine venues and 60 bands and we’re using the big stage at ABC One. People can just expect to see a bunch of new bands. Loads of Glasgow bands and some touring bands as well. It’s non-stop 12 hours of music and a great atmosphere. It’s a big party. We’ve added a 1300 capacity space at ABC One and places like The Priory which has become a really cool new spot.
How does the line-up come together, is it a two-way street with you approaching bands and them getting in touch and wanting to play?
Yeah that’s what I do and I bounce ideas around with Jamie, who does our video, and Nadine, who does our editorial. I book all the bands and we look for a top ten big hitters and then a bunch of new bands who are getting the buzz. Then we’ll put a competition out to give an opportunity for a band to take the last slot. We had over 200 applicants for that. There is so much interest from bands. It’s a good stepping-stone.
For those who know their way around the Glasgow scene this is obviously a great event but for those that aren’t as familiar with some of the names there’s this great sense of discovery, you can wander around and you might find your next favourite band.
Discover is a great word for it. A lot of our features on Tenement TV are about the idea of discover your next favourite band. We have discover playlists as well that gives you an insight into what the bands on the Tenement Trail like to listen to and where they are getting their interests from.
How do people get tickets?
Go to the Tenement Trail website or search for Tenement Trail on Ticket Web, if you want to collect them then tickets are available at Ticket Scotland or at ABC. Hillhead Bookclub in the West End are also selling tickets.
TENEMENT TRAIL 2016 SATURDAY 8TH OCTOBER
MILBURN CRASH CLUB BE CHARLOTTE TIJUANA BIBLES PRONTO MAMA SINDERINS DECLAN WELSH THE VAN T’S TEENCANTEEN THE PAPER KITES THE SPOOK SCHOOL PHORIA SHOGUN LOUIE AND THE LOCHBACKS LUCIA FONTAINE NIEVES MEDICINE MEN BARRIE-JAMES O’NEILL DOMICILES THE NINTH WAVE OTHER HUMANS MIRACLE GLASS COMPANY THE BAR DOGS GANGS A NEW INTERNATIONAL MARK MCGOWAN BREAKFAST MUFF ALLIGATOR THE VEGAN LEATHER NORTH ATLAS FIVE COUSINS SWEAT SHVLLOWS HQFU BLESS. LEWIS CAPALDI AMERICAN CLAY BLUEBIRDS THE BELLYBUTTONS INDIGO VELVET OCEANS THE CALM FIASCO VIDA TRIBAL HIGH ST MARTIINS AVA LOVE SWEET WHITE LIONAL SCHOLESY EMME WOODS NOVEMBER LIGHTS SWEATY PALMS VELVETBOMB MOONLIGHT ZOO CAROUSEL
TENEMENT TV’S MULTI VENUE MUSIC FESTIVAL
1 DAY | 9 VENUES | 50+ BANDS | 1 TICKET | £20+BF