JP Mason, who organises major gigs and music festivals in Glasgow and Edinburgh for DF Concerts, tells us about his passion for live music.
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00:00 J.P. we're sitting here in King Tut's. Firstly for our audience and viewers can you just
00:07 give us a bit of background on your whole musical journey, where you came from and you've
00:11 been in here and been a regular face in here for a lot of years.
00:14 How long's the tape? Well I mean I first came in here to see a gig when I was 19. I came
00:23 to see a tribute band to the Doors, the LA Doors. That was my first foray through here.
00:31 I've still got the ticket, the old style King Tut's Wowahat ticket. And then I didn't come
00:37 back for a while after that and I saw Oasis at the Barrowland in 2001 and the band that
00:42 opened for them were called The Burn. So I then saw that they were playing a gig at King
00:46 Tut's and as I've learned over the years that that's the classic thing, you know, band supports
00:51 band at bigger venue, band announces gig at smaller venue and then looks to get some of
00:56 the audience to come and see them. And I was one of those folk and I came to see The Burn
01:01 here in 2001 and that was probably one of the first bands where I was going to see a
01:07 band that weren't really well known. They didn't have big hits or anything like that
01:11 but I just wanted to see them because they were associated with Oasis and kind of got
01:16 to know them a little bit as well and they put me on the guest list for a Paul Weller
01:20 gig that they supported him in Edinburgh and yeah, I kept in touch with them while they
01:25 were still touring and then they just disappeared. But after that I got a job in a bank and I
01:33 was working in a bank for most of my 20s but in that time I was desperate to sort of get
01:38 out and get a job in music somehow and that was the stumbling block was how do you get
01:47 in? It's not an easy thing to just waltz into a venue like this and be like, I'm your man.
01:53 But I did some stuff in my own spare time and on my own dime as well, putting gigs on,
02:02 writing reviews for magazines, doing a radio show, basically doing everything that I could
02:08 for free, not earning any money, I was just doing it alongside my job. I sometimes would
02:16 use my time at the bank on the sly to write reviews or to plan gigs or things like that.
02:25 And eventually I got a break and was asked to go and work in a music venue in Edinburgh
02:32 and that led to getting a full time job at that venue which then led to a relationship
02:41 with DF who run King Tut's and obviously run a lot of the biggest gigs in Scotland.
02:48 And got to know them through emails and then they started to trust us as a venue to put
02:53 on shows for them where it would be like, so they say they would do a Glasgow show,
02:58 they would do King Tut's and then they would say, right, to save a bit of money, do you
03:02 want to do this? It's kind of almost like an under hour umbrella but it's you that's
03:06 taking on the cost of the show. So for example, one that is very off the top of my head is
03:12 the 1975, they played at Sleazy's and they sold Sleazy's out and then DF put them on
03:18 here and they said, right, we're putting them on at King Tut's, do you want to do
03:21 the Edinburgh show? And I listened to Chocolate and straight away I was like, 100%, I knew
03:26 that it would do well. And we announced it and it sold 50 tickets straight away, which
03:32 was rare to see that at that level and then the next thing we put the poster out and by
03:36 the time we put the poster out it was 150 tickets and I was like, we don't need to
03:40 advertise this anymore, this is going to sell out without any real push and it did. And
03:46 you know, the relationship began between me and DF and I started to hear murmurings that
03:52 they wanted me to come and work for them and it was definitely a case of, that's the
03:57 only place I want to go and work. I would have walked from Edinburgh to Glasgow to come
04:02 and work for them and lo and behold, sort of late November 2013, so coming up for 10
04:08 years, I got a call and was asked if I wanted to come work at King Tut's and it was like,
04:15 wow, okay, this is a massive deal, suddenly I'm no longer the wee guy in the industry
04:22 in terms of an independent venue who doesn't really have much clout and you're fighting
04:28 the good fight when you're in an independent venue and I enjoyed that but when you come
04:32 into something like this where you're in the full belly of the beast, so to speak, where
04:39 the power that this venue has and it can attract bands that have played huge, huge crowds and
04:47 then come and do a little show here or bands want to come back here and play a show because
04:52 of the history of the venue and everything else, it's just got so much going for it.
04:57 So it was a no-brainer and I moved from Edinburgh, a place I'd lived for 12 years, to come and
05:02 live through here and suddenly I was living in Glasgow where I'd always wanted to live,
05:06 close to my football team, literally a five minute walk actually, the first place I stayed
05:12 was in Toll Cross Road, so it's not far from Celtic Park and then I've just sort of worked
05:19 here and also worked outside of here as well and done shows in other venues for DF and
05:24 I've worked festivals and such like Connect, Tea in the Park for the last four or five
05:31 years of Tea in the Park I worked on the Tea Break stage with all the upcoming bands and
05:38 then Connect the last couple of years has been amazing, working through there doing
05:43 shows for The National and Fred again, it's just been really special so that's how I ended
05:49 up here, that's a very short version of a very long story.
05:55 I know that recently was your 500th show in Edinburgh, for a lot of people whether you're
06:00 in sport, music, whatever, people always want to do their dream jobs and maybe sometimes
06:05 if you're not going to become a Jim Morrison or a Mick Jagger, the next best is just working
06:09 on the screen there, living it, breathing it every single day, in those 500 shows do
06:14 you still find that when you're up there staying the gigs on, you're still pinching yourself
06:18 a wee bit?
06:19 Oh aye, 100% yeah, especially when you get these two sides of it where it's either a
06:27 band that come back and do a show, like I've done shows recently with I guess Steve Mason
06:34 and the Beat-A-Band, absolutely love the Beat-A-Band, have loved the Beat-A-Band my entire life
06:38 and he was doing a short run of shows and he was doing an easy sell out for him as King
06:46 Tut's because it's just like, well everyone's going to want to come and see him in King
06:50 Tut's, he could easily sell more tickets, he's announced a St Luke's for January next
06:55 year, it's now February actually and working with him, there's no way I'm going to go and
07:02 sit in my office and do work when that show's on, I'll go down and if it means that I need
07:07 to stay later after the show to finish my work, the paperwork or whatever, then I'll
07:12 do that because you want to be there and witness those moments because they're rare moments
07:17 in time where you're in a room with someone who I love but then you're looking out and
07:24 there's 300 people out there who love him as much as I do and they're singing all the
07:28 songs and when he plays a Beat-A-Band song or something out of nowhere, you're like,
07:32 whoa. And like last week or two weeks ago, John Power from Cast played and I'd never
07:37 met John Power before, I'd loved Cast since I was a wee guy, I first saw them on the ITV
07:42 Chart Show when I was like 14 or something and then I'm meeting him at the back door
07:47 and bringing him in and none of that is normal to me, it's like, it might be to other people,
07:53 other people might not care but that to me was just such a big deal and he was also in
07:57 The Laz which if anybody knows who The Laz are, then you know that they're a hugely influential
08:03 band and he was a bass player in The Laz and he played three Laz songs on the set which
08:09 was just like, he sort of stood back from the mic and went, "From a long time ago, la"
08:15 and then he stood forward and he went into Son of a Gun and I was like outside the stage
08:19 and I actually lost it, I ran up to Bones who's one of our security guys and I just
08:23 grabbed Bones and I was just like, "Is this happening? No way!" and it was like guys
08:28 in front of the crowd, we could see how excited I was and they were as excited as I was and
08:33 it's just, it was great and then talking to him afterwards, he was really sound and
08:40 just very, very down to earth guy and so moments like that, you never can, you can't not appreciate
08:48 those moments if you genuinely love music and you've got an in with that person who
08:55 you can talk, I mean I've been in situations where I've seen famous people or I've been
09:00 in and around famous people who I don't really have anything to say to, like we were backstage
09:07 at a gig in LA in May and James from The Twilight Side tugged my shoulder and went, "Look"
09:14 and I kind of looked along and I went, "Oh aye, she's attractive, blonde girl" and he
09:19 went, "Aye, because it's Gwen Stefani" and I was like, "Oh right, aye" but I didn't have
09:23 anything to say to her, I'm not a No Doubt fan, I'm not really a Gwen Stefani fan so
09:28 I wouldn't go up and just be like, "Oh aye, you're Gwen Stefani" it's more like if you've
09:32 got an actual connection with someone then that means more I think if you've got a way
09:37 to say, "I've listened to your music for 20 years or 25 years or whatever" and you can
09:41 get, there's a way to land with someone better I think if you have that connection and ability
09:50 to speak to somebody on a level.