EMMA Pollock headlines a showcase of the best of Scottish contemporary music at this year’s boutique music and arts festival MugStock.
Following a very successful first year in 2015 in the idyllic setting of Mugdock Country Park, the organisers have recruited the cream of Scottish indie and hip hop talent for their 2016 programme.
The festival, which this year runs from July 29 – 31, boasts headline slots from Pollock, recently nominated for Scottish Album of the Year for her solo album In Search of Harperfield, Edinburgh hip-hop troubadours Stanley Odd, indie-folk darling Siobhan Wilson, DJ duo Silicon Soul and Coatbridge indie boys PaleFire.
They’re joined in a diverse, crowd-pleasing line-up by top local acts Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5, The Girobabies, and The Fast Camels as well as The Herald’s Best Unsigned Act 2015 winners Supa & Da Kryptonites,and Urvanovic, shortlisted for The Herald’s Top Scottish Albums in 2015.
Revellers can enjoy everything from indie and folk to pop, reggae, dub, soul and blues in the closest festival of its kind to Glasgow. Electronica fans should make their way to The Glade, a brand new stage in an idyllic setting.
ANY OTHER HIGHLIGHTS?
IT’S not all about the music, either. Subtitled A Festival of Music and Merriment, MugStock’s five stages cover theatre and discussion events as well as music. Walkabout performers pop up in the woods, there is a trail of art works, a treasure hunt through the nooks and crannies of the park, speciality teas and late night jam sessions in the exotic Tchai Ovna tent and three licensed bars on site selling Williams Brothers beer, real ale, Thistly Cross ciders and Glengoyne gourmet whisky. Hunger can be sated at a variety of international street food stalls.
Only eight miles outside Glasgow, MugStock is designed as an intimate, family-friendly celebration of the natural landscape and festival-goers have the chance to enjoy other parts of the park, including the 14th century Mugdock Castle, gothic mansion Craigend Castle, lochs, ponds, and a Victorian walled garden. As part of MugStock’s commitment to improving and maintaining the surrounding area, the festival recently raised funds to improve the walled garden, installing a drainage system to help create a more welcoming and sustainable families’ area.
HOW DID IT START?
THE festival is all the more remarkable for being run by a team of volunteers on a not-for-profit basis.
Despite the lack of professional input they managed to secure Dodgy as the headline act at last year’s event and this year’s line-up encompasses some of the best acts happening in Scotland right now.
Part of the festival’s remit is to increase awareness of Mugdock, which is one of the top natural attractions in Scotland even though it is so close to the centre of the country’s biggest city.
The idea for the event was sparked by a walk in the park around five years ago. I remember saying that if there was ever a festival here it would have to be called MugStock,” said festival organiser Alan Govan. “The idea stuck in my mind. Then last year we just decided to do it.”
While growing up in the Borders, Govan had organised gigs for bands he played in and liked the buzz of seeing people enjoy something he had worked hard to stage.
A few years later he was working for a youth charity and had to organise a one day music festival as part of his job, then in 2012 he helped bring over Venezuela’s top symphony orchestra for a Sistema Scotland concert in Stirling’s Raploch housing estate which was filmed by the BBC and watched by a crowd of 7,500 people.
That gave him valuable experience even though it was not quite in the same league as a three-day festival in a country park. However, the detailed plan he submitted to the park authorities was impressive enough for them to back him and the result was MugStock 2015.
WHY GO?
GOVAN says this year’s event will be even better with more innovation and more input from the local community. Around 1300 people attended in 2015 and 2000 are expected this year but while it may evolve in the future the number will not grow much more in case the festival loses its friendly feel.
“One of the things people said last year was they liked the friendliness of it and they also said they enjoyed bands they were not familiar with. That for me was really gratifying as a lot of work went into putting the progamme together and festivals are all about exploring music that you might not normally listen to.
“This year we have a fantastic cross section of what is good about Scottish music right now so if there is anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to go to a festival then this is the perfect way to dip a toe in the water. It is really friendly really relaxed, really close, really reasonably priced as it is all non-profit and the music is amazing.”
While the experience of staging MugStock feeds back into Govan’s day job with a youth theatre charity his main motivation, like the rest of the volunteer team, is simply for the love of it.
“Most of us started out just to see if we could do it and now we have got a fantastic team of like-minded people putting in every spare minute of their free time just for the thrill of working together to create something that is bigger than ourselves,” said Govan.
For more information go to www.mugstock.org
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