Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Brown

OOTB Presents…………..

Hi everybody. This will be my last Out of the Bedroom mailout. I’m stepping down from the OOTB committee and all rota positions following a reevaluation of my own priorities and commitments.

But we’ll get to that in a minute. This week’s featured act is none other than Scott Renton. Scott was one of the best ever OOTB hosts in his day and he is an excellent and engaging performer, though it is VERY rare to see him out there performing these days. That’s why OOTB 479 (Tomorrow, Saturday 23 June) is a one-off event, not to be missed.

Speaking of one-off events, wait forever and two come along at once! This Thursday there’s a Hailey Beavis gig at the Voodoo Rooms at the SAME TIME as a Matt Norris gig at The Third Door! Hailey Beavis is £4 to get in, and it’s a 7:30pm start, and Matt Norris is £5 to get in and it’s an 8pm start. Both shows have some excellent support acts on as well, and BOTH look really worthwhile.

Before we go any further, I have two messages for you, from our chairman, Daniel Davis:

As you may be aware the Montague Bar came under new management just over a week ago. The changeover required us to remove all of our equipment from the premises. Having been told that the pub would be open as usual on Saturday we set a plan in place to get everything up and running and asked you to come along. Regrettably, things did not go to plan.

I came to the Montague at 5pm to help move the equipment back in and to meet the new manager, however I found it to be closed. The pub did open for business shortly after 7pm, by which point we could not fetch the gear and get back in time to start the night.

By the point the pub opened I had stood in the rain for far too long and apologised to rather too many people. My thanks to Calum who came along to help me, also getting soaked in the process, and to Nyk and Malcolm who were prepared to come, but whom I told to stay put until I had news.

Obviously the circumstances were beyond our control, and we were unable to put on the kind of high-quality night we would like to run under the OOTB banner. As a result the committee decided, with regret, to cancel Out of the Bedroom.

I feel especially sorry for those who travelled further to come along and were disappointed. Thanks to those who decided to stay around and make something of the night with an informal gathering playing acoustically to each other. Several people even commented to me that they enjoyed the intimate atmosphere.

Obviously we will try again this week to stage Out of the Bedroom and have been assured that the pub will be open and ready for us. So please come along and join in, and please bear with us if there are a few hitches in the rather large undertaking of getting all the gear back and set up in time. Better still, lend a hand.

My apologies once again

Daniel Davis
OOTB Chair

A Brief Request…

Once upon a time a little music group sprung up. It met weekly in a basement where Edinburgh musicians shared their songs with each other. Gradually the people came, it grew, and it flourished, because it was the best god-damned music night in the world. There are other music nights in town, some of them better than others, some only allowing the very best performers, but OOTB has always stayed true to its founding purpose of giving performers their first step on the ladder, being a great place for networking and getting feedback on your songwriting and performing, and giving a hand up to the little guy.

Most music nights are run by one person who gets paid for his effort. By contrast OOTB is run by committee and no committee member gets paid; we are all volunteers. We grant that this is not always the most efficient arrangement, but it does keep us in touch with our ethos, and ensures that the organisation is always run for you.

When I first came to OOTB there were always a few newcomers, then there were the regulars, most of whom help out at the night by being on rotas for doing sound, compering, or writing a review, and there were always people there to set up and put away the equipment. Beyond that there was the committee who helped organise the night. Each year the new committee members came from those who were already helping out.

A few years down the line and we now find that there are very few outside the committee actually on the rotas, and precious little help. We have stopped writing reviews due to a lack of volunteer reviewers, and are approaching a time when we will no longer be able to continue running the night on a weekly basis.

The AGM is overdue having been postponed to help smooth over the changeover of management at the Montague. Most of the committee have been serving far too long, have too many other commitments, and several only stayed on the committee this last time because there was no one else willing to step in to help.

So this is your final call. All you people who come to OOTB and who enjoy all the extended musical family of events and services that it provides; I’m talking to you. If you want OOTB to survive, and if you want it to go on to a successful future, get involved. If we have a healthy number of people on the rotas the commitment is small and fun. However if we remain as we are right now then the night will stop within the next couple of months.

Thanks

Daniel Davis
OOTB Chair

The current committee is as follows:

Daniel Davis: Chair (retiring)
Calum Carlyle: Web (retired)
Nyk Stoddart: Secretary (probably retiring)
Steve Osborne: Treasurer (maybe aye maybe nae)
Malcolm McLean: Equipment (may retire)
Tom Watton: Events (retired)

Hi, it’s Calum here again. Well, it’s a shame this is my last OOTB email, wouldn’t it be nice if there were somewhere else you could read my musical updates and gig listings every week… well WAIT! THERE IS! Starting next week, i will be blogging on a weekly basis about the excellent music that comes my way, from Edinburgh and beyond. It’ll have updates on a few choice events each week, but more than that I plan to have free downloads available almost every week as well, USUALLY exclusive ones that you wouldn’t get elsewhere. And you can find this blog here:

www.edinburghunlimited.blogspot.co.uk

AT THE MOMENT, it’s just got a hello message, but starting NEXT WEEK, i’ll be blogging about the interesting, exciting, and often quite obscure, music that comes my way. The Edinburgh Unlimited blog will run in partnership with the Edinburgh Unlimited monthly gigs, of course. The plan is that the next Edinburgh Unlimited will be the final one at The Third Door, and we’ll be relaunching ourselves after the Festival at a new venue, so stay tuned to the Edinburgh Unlimited blog for more news of that when it happens. You can also follow Edinburgh Unlimited‘s tweets to keep up with what’s happening.

I still plan to retain close ties with Out of the Bedroom, which is still the best open mic in Edinburgh, in my opinion, but yes, after four years on the committee, it’s time to move on, and this means OOTB still needs volunteers, so if you have got something out of OOTB over the years, please consider putting something back in. You can contact OOTB through the facebook page, or by emailing reviews@outofthebedroom.co.uk.

So that’s pretty much it from me. Obviously if you want OOTB to continue, you know what you need to do to continue to support it. I’m not going to give you a “three line whip” or anything, but if you value good music, i know you won’t consider it a chore to come out and support OOTB on a regular basis, and get involved with Edinburgh’s music scene a bit more. The more the merrier. Anyway, it’s been good, hope you’ll all subscribe to the Ed Unlimited blog, and i’ll see you all out there in Musicland!

Calum Carlyle
Out of the Bedroom