Stow College

Successful Showcase of Acts at Oran Mor

Stow College record label Electric Honey added another string to its bow on Saturday night – hosting a successful showcase of its acts at Oran Mor as part of Glasgow’s West End Festival, whilst using the event to launch the album of one of its most promising up and coming music acts, White Heath.

The special early evening showcase at one of Glasgow’s best-known nightspots featured Stow College music label Electric Honey’s promising client list of up and coming music acts – including Woodenbox with a Fistful of Fivers, The French Wives and The Miniature Dinosaurs.

Having seen a cross-section of the work of each band, the audience were then entertained with a series of videos produced by Stow College’s Film and Television students focusing on the production of one of White Heath’s latest album, ‘No Thought for Tomorrow’.

As one of the College’s most prominent emerging music acts, White Heath were given the Oran Mor showcase and the West End Festival as a platform to launch the album, which is already attracting critical acclaim from experts in the industry.

The showcase at Oran Mor was a collective College effort, with students from a range of different courses, including Events Management and Music Business joining together to stage one of the highlights of the West End Festival thus far.

Ken McCluskey, lecturer of HND Music Business at Stow College, knows what it is like trying to make it in the music industry, having been frontman for popular 1980s pop act, The Bluebells, and praised the students for their efforts in making the event a huge success.

He said: “The students really put everything into this event. The West End Festival is an excellent celebration and something everyone at Stow College has been very proud to be part of this year. The students really thought of everything, with the videos and, of course, the live performances. One of the students even made Electric Honey cupcakes – which, as you can imagine, went down a treat!

“It was a particularly successful evening for White Heath. Being able to launch your album at a venue like Oran Mor, with an audience as deep as the one that came along on Saturday night is an excellent platform and hopefully will lead to bigger things to come in the near future.”

Matthew Donnelly, 19, from Glasgow is an HND Music Business student and was so keen to be involved in the event that he asked Ken if there was anything at all he could do to help.

Matthew said: “I did some work at the Southside Festival a few weeks ago and got a real flavour for what these events are all about and was keen to get involved in the West End Festival in any way that I could. So, I approached Ken and asked if there was any way I could get involved and, of course, he said yes and I took on the role of liaison between the venue and the acts, being the first point of contact for the bands.

“The performances went down really well with the crowd, Oran Mor was a great place for that kind of event – it was definitely the right venue. It was a lot busier than I had anticipated and a lot of tickets were sold, which is obviously good news for all the bands on show.”

The West End Festival, which takes place from June 3^rd to 26^th, is a celebration of all culture, with 600 events ranging from classical and choral music to folk, rock, jazz, theatre, dance, children’s authors and guided walks. In 2010, more than 165,000 people attended free and ticketed events across 16 days making it Glasgow’s most successful festival.