Sticking It On in Oban

21 Feb 2011 in Argyll & the Islands, Music, Showcase

THE CLUE, for those who know, is in the name. Mùth (pronounced Moo, with a further hint in the logo) is a collective of young, enterprising art and music enthusiasts in Oban who quite simply wanted to make a difference in their home town.

According to Rhona MacDougall, one of the four team members, in north Argyll that is more or less how the Gaelic word translates – to change or diversify. From their first (and only off-shore) event on the Isle of Kerrera in 2005, Mùth have been doing just that in the “Gateway to the Isles”, a town known more for seafood and scenery than indie bands and world cinema, notwithstanding Morvern Caller.

The Social Services at the Studio Theatre

The Social Services at the Studio Theatre

Growing up in Oban, Rhona and her contemporaries felt frustrated that they were routinely travelling to the islands of Easdale or Mull to hear bands or see quality drama productions despite living in a town of over 8,000 people.

That is not as strange as it might seem. Over the years many rural arts centres and community venues have overtaken the more urban concentrations in their arts programming, leaving a necessity for invention in what have been considered the less “fragile” areas.

Mùth was created of that simple desire to see things happen, driven by a few like-minded individuals who, despite taking no profit from their enterprise, mean business.

The absolute beginnings of all good things are difficult to pin down. For Mùth it’s likely to be in Café Na Lusan, a vegetarian café and independent record shop now sadly closed, but a confluence of music and conversation that represented an alternative scene for Oban in the first few years of the millennium.

It was and still is a scene not immediately visible at street level, but as Rhona recalls: “When we worked in the café it was a real hub and people would come in and say, oh yeah I love that record, and you think… yes, people do know about this, they are into it.”

To set the wheels in motion, Mùth co-founders Al Kingsbury and Andy Crabb looked to a concept they had seen work successfully in Brighton, whereby a number of guest DJs bring their own music to perform short sets over the course of a night.

Thus Stick It On was born, an event model that has so far provided the team with its most effective type of fund raising. It’s hard work – they hire in a PA, decorate the venue and do their own publicity – but the ticket revenue from Stick It On nights has allowed Mùth to re-invest in higher profile but more costly concert events.

The Mùth cow logo

Mùth logo

Following the auspicious opening on Kerrera the team turned its attention to Oban. “We keep things quite small and we choose carefully what we’re doing,” explains Rhona. “We started in the Sailing Club, a little hut down at Dungallan, but we quickly outgrew it, particularly the bar which is tiny and got drunk dry every time we had an event. We then moved up to the Rugby Club which is where we’ve been fairly consistently.”

Mùth has also entered into a working relationship with the Studio Theatre, part of the recently refurbished Corran Halls, for concert events and band nights. November 2010 saw their first concert sell-out with Chris Stout and Catriona MacKay, promoting their White Nights album.

“It was wonderful” enthuses Rhona, “and the feedback’s been great. They also did an interview on Oban FM, and they came for a drink with us and had a tune after the show. It was brilliant.”

It’s not always easy to co-ordinate the availability of dates between the Studio Theatre and touring acts, but it’s a promising development for Mùth, and for the town. A similarly successful Mùth promotion in the venue was Mull Theatre’s Opium Eater in 2010, the first time the theatre company had been to Oban in several years.

The current team consists of four, all volunteers, each bringing their own particular skill and passion. Al Kingsbury and film maker Andy Crabb are original members. Rhona and her sister Mara came on board slightly later; Mara has now emigrated and Craig MacLellan now completes the core team, and Mùth also has a web developer, Patrick Harvey. There are also many committed long term helpers, and all events are held in Oban – Mùth have no desire to extend operations elsewhere.

Facebook is becoming an increasingly important promotional tool, together with mail-outs to older regulars who are not socially networked on the web (although more and more of them are becoming so). Mùth has what Rhona describes as an “intense poster assault” that they do every so often.

Twitter isn’t a major thing for them yet but may be in the future: Rhona finds it is used more by other organisations than audiences. In practice, both actual and virtual words of mouth are vital, especially in a town the size of Oban.

Ben Talbot-Dunn of Open Swimmer at the Studio Theatre

Ben Talbot-Dunn of Open Swimmer at the Studio Theatre

The Mùth Tumbler blog, the group’s main web presence (see link below), is relatively new but already full of fascinating content. As well as information about Mùth events, the team uses the site to talk about books, music and film – a useful, informed source of opinion and the kind of user content we don’t have enough of at a regional level.

The music blog features underground and indie artists such as Darwin Deez, The Swiss and James Blake, fairly under the radar tastes by any measure. “This is Al in particular” explains Rhona, “he ran the record shop, ran a radio show (on Oban FM) and he DJs in Glasgow twice a month, though more in the café-bar style than clubs. When I was growing up and when I was student there were two shows on Oban FM along the John Peel lines, I think they had a real influence.”

Despite that, it’s difficult to say whether there is a committed indie scene in Oban today. “There are certain things you can sell to a wider audience, certain things you can’t,” she continues. “You need to be clever about choosing.”

Northings readers will perhaps identify with some of the imagery in the music reviews; Al describes New York’s Ariel Pink as “sounding like some AM transmission picked up in Benbecula”. You don’t need to have been to Benbecula to get the drift. It’s a particularly coastal way of looking at things, and like so much of what Mùth does, all about passion for the art.

Book reviews are Rhona’s speciality, and as with the music and film blogs, reflect a range of tastes from the mainstream to the independent. “We have a pact” she says. “If something’s good we’ll do it. If it’s mainstream and good that’s fine, if it’s cool but not very good, then it isn’t!”

Another major development in the history of Mùth has been a film club, run in association with the Highland Theatre cinema prior to its closure last year, as an alternative to the predominantly blockbuster titles in the regular cinema programme. Al had been involved with a film club at the GFT run though Monorail and liaised with the then Oban cinema owner, himself a big film fan, to run a club programme twice a month in the venue.

Audience numbers were good and screenings included a range of titles from The Big Lebowski to the 2010 BAFTA Award winning Fish Tank. “We tried to put a Mùth stamp on it,” says Rhona. “Apart from the programme, we used to do a bit of home baking or give people a glass of wine, or maybe a cocktail. You have to go that extra mile, that’s what makes people want to come to your events.”

The former Highland Theatre is currently the subject of a community ownership proposal as Oban Phoenix Cinema, and so while the Mùth film club is in abeyance for the moment, the local demand for independent and world cinema has already been established. A good basis for the future, we think.

On the subject of the future, while last year was the busiest yet for Mùth, 2011 is all about continued fund raising and trying out some new ideas. For example, applying the Stick It On methodology to different kinds of live music in Oban, and working with other venues in the town in a bid to develop new audiences.

The group also wants to include more Gaelic language in the promotion of events where possible. Local collaboration, with venues and other events organisers, is a recurring theme and appears crucial to the mission.  From the outset Mùth was a social enterprise without perhaps aiming to be; re-investing ticket income in further events simply being the logical thing to do.

So far it has worked, and this is very good news indeed for a town that needs a year-round arts and cultural scene to compliment its reputation as a seasonal tourist destination.  We hope to be hearing much more from the inspired and inspirational quartet in 2011 and will checking in with them again soon.

John Saich, 2011

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