Most music industry professionals have summer calendars that include working or attending a music festival every other week of the season. Most get a break between festival dates. Most bands schedule days off on tour.
Gareth Stewart will be one of a team of people who will definitely not be taking a break once Celtronic Festival finishes on Sunday night in Derry. As Monday arrives, Stewart will switch hats for Derry Music City's opening night – with Villagers that evening kicking off a further seven nights of music events across the city. That's two festivals over 12 days, and Stewart is aware of the potential consequences on the team's physical and mental stamina.
“There’ll be a few tears shed at Villagers for those that have done the five nights of Celtronic, but it’s not a bad way to come around on a Monday night,” says Stewart.
"I didn't meet a Protestant until I went to a rave"
Stewart is used to long periods of hard work. Derry's electronic music festival Celtronic, which he co-founded, is now 16 years old and the festival is still operated on a "non-profit" basis that was inspired by the rave music scene and how it broke down barriers in a city divided by class and religion circa 1991.
“There was no discrimination on doors, and people from housing estates could go and posh people could go,” he says of those times. “It was the first time we had this cross-community, cross-generational, anti-authority thing, although there was a full-on conflict going on at the time with sectarian tit-for-tat madness.
“Running alongside that, there was a crazy dance scene with the kids getting together, and they were further ahead than the politicians. It was the best thing ever – going out to meet boys and girls from different backgrounds. I didn’t meet a Protestant until I went to a rave when I was 18, because you grow up separately and educated separately. The rave smashed that to pieces. That was what drew me in.”
Time spent at university in Paris also had an inspirational effect on Stewart.
“I was going to the Rex club seeing Laurent Garnier, staying out all night at parties in industrial estates. I wanted to bring that to Derry.”
Encouraged by the inclusiveness of dance music, Stewart sought to establish a regular event in his hometown. Andrew Weatherall was one of the first guests he brought to the city – 2001 was Celtronic’s first year and rather than going large, Stewart looked back to those inspirational raves.
“When we started, there was the Oxegens and stuff, high ticket prices, massive numbers, punters treated like shit, bad soundsystems, bad set-ups. What we did was set up a festival that wasn’t about money, it was about doing amazing music with small sound systems, so that you had the reverse experience of what was popular at the time.”
Celtronic receives funding from the Northern Irish Government through the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, and the festival was encouraged by the recent Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure Carál Ní Chuilín, who saw the value in dance music to the community.
“She was grassroots and saw that electronic music was a worthwhile artform, not to be disregarded.”
All-night licensing
So Stewart brought international guest DJs into Derry's small rooms and venues for Celtronic and placed local talent alongside them, encouraging Derry's musicians and DJs to seek out more opportunities and to start their own nights. Unique to the early Celtronics was the all-night licensing, the festival received.
“We had Laurent Garnier playing sets for eight hours, no bother,” remembers Stewart. “Some of the bars were giving out we were serving all night but the bars shut at 1am and then it was minerals served until 7am. The political pressure applied and scare stories put out made it not worth the hassle. In 16 years, we never had a negative experience, but that became too dominant of a thing to deal with. We’re further away from an all-night license then ever.”
This year’s Celtronic will feature sets from internationally renowned dance acts KiNK, Âme, Rival Consoles, The Black Madonna, Rødhad, Gerd Janson, Barnt, Ewan Pearson, along with Irish talent such as Ryan Vail, The Cyclist, Phil Kieran and New Jackson.
An electronic studio for Derry musicians
The establishment of Celtronic Studios, an electronic music-focused studio, funded by the Northern Irish government, allows upcoming DJs and artists access to state-of-the-art equipment. During Celtronic, visiting international artists will collaborate with locals – Move D is scheduled to participate, while Belfast producer Phil Kieran will work with five local female producers.
“It’s about giving kids access to gear and meet like-minded people. We probably won’t feel the result of it for five to 10 years, but it’s there now and over a 100 grand worth of top-notch gear can only help local people.”
Music City 2016
That thread of encouragement follows through to Music City where an all-Irish line-up leads the charge with Villagers, Derry's own SOAK and Ports, The Strypes, Ex-Magician, Girls Names, Bitch Falcon, Saint Sister and Overhead, The Albatross playing the streets, squares, churches and venues of the city. Again, it was inspired by Stewart's time in France and started as part of Derry's programme for UK City Of Culture in 2013.
“The Fête de la Musique in Paris blew my mind,” he says. “The fact that you could take over streets and have all these different forms of music side by side - I thought I’d love to do something like that in Derry. The first week in the job [for City of Culture], they gave me £300,000 to do it. It was a dream festival, on the streets and squares of your hometown. When the City Of Culture ended, we went, ‘fuck this, we’re claiming that fence as ours’. So we took it on.”
Music City mirrors Celtronic’s use of interesting spaces such as churches as venues, deliberately eschewing the bars of the city that don’t support live music throughout the year.
“Music can happen anywhere, we don’t depend on the licensed trade to do gigs on anymore. We only put gigs on in bars that are supporting live music throughout the year. It’s more expensive to do it in unique spaces, but we’d rather do that and open minds about what’s possible around gigs than give previous bar owners a free gig to increase their bar sales.
“We don’t go the beer sponsorship route or anything like that. They’re not interested in music – it’s too much time and effort to bring then on board, you end up jumping to their tune other than the music, which is where it has to be.”
