Durham – Northern Music Collective

NMC Guest: Rotate Records

Who are, or what is, Rotate Records? And what do you do?
Rotate Records is a Durham based dance music label looking to expose the city’s present, but unseen production talent. The label is one part of the multi-faceted organisation, Rotate: a collective of producers and DJs whose primary goal is to provide a platform for Durham based artists to promote their music and bring the local scene onto the map. We want to bring together the huge mix of tastes, skills and sounds from both the student and local communities and our debut project, the various artists compilation ‘66 Saddler Street’, aims to do just that.

What is the history of Rotate Records?
Rotate grew from a group of students who had a strong collective appreciation for underground dance music. We actually started from a house party that essentially moved house and turned into a full fledged weekly Wednesday night club event. That first year, pioneered by the ‘founding fathers’ Luke Thorne and Callum Traynor, saw this close community grow. The next year Isaac Green, Andy Knape, Dina Hudson and Brettan Garrett continued their legacy and brought in wider crowds, attracting those not so used to our kind of music, whilst at the same time still giving grassroot DJs the chance to play a live headline set. This year, despite the obvious lockdown restrictions we expanded our organisation. With such a strong following from the previous years, we had all the backing to start a podcast series and begin our new label Rotate Records. Fortunately, these were possible to do at a time when events were not.

What are your aims or mission statements?
Rotate’s primary focus has always been to provide a platform for Durham based dance musicians to showcase their music, whether that be DJs or producers, local or student. With our events, we aim to give fledgling DJs the opportunity to perform a headline set, often their debut. With Rotate Records, we aim to showcase the raw talent of dance music producers in Durham that have been under our noses the whole time.

How did Rotate become integrated in the music scene in the North East? And what is next for Rotate Records?
Rotate as a collective has comprised a number of students over the years who have had ties to Newcastle in the North East especially. Our residents at Rotate have been going to raves in Newcastle since before the brand was founded, notably events run by Rush, Ape-X and Ill Behaviour. It is through these events that we’ve been able to get in touch with DJs and producers and integrate ourselves with the music community in the North East. Everyone has been so accommodating and ready to go out on a limb to help out, which has really helped us to grow and develop.

We’ve got a lot of exciting plans for the next couple of months, after our debut compilation release on June 18th, we’ve got a couple of events lined up in Durham. We’re doing a takeover at the BST Durham Terrace Party alongside Harrison BDP and Hamdi on the 21st of June and have numerous other events in venues around Durham. After this premiere compilation we have a couple of singles lined up to release over the summer which we’re hoping coincides with the return of events and clubs over the coming months.

What advice would you offer to others looking to be more involved in music?
As cliche as it is, above all else strive to be ambitious and independent. For us, we’ve never been afraid to stray from the beaten path and as a result we’ve adapted to all the challenging conditions we’ve had to face over the last year. The majority of us had not done much before we got involved with Rotate, it was just a case of putting in the hours at any opportunity and loving every bit of it that got us where we are now.

Where can others find out more about your work and how can they get in touch?
We’ve got a website which we keep updated regularly with our mix series, live streams, podcasts, playlists, merch and events: http://www.rotatedurham.com

Check out our social media as well for all our latest events and news: linktr.ee/DURotate

You can also get in touch by email at info@rotatedurham.com

NMC Guest: Bekka (The Tyne Tribe)

How long have you been active in the north east music scene and what do you do?
Oooh. This is a hard question to answer as I’ve been in and out for years, ha! But if we’re focusing on what I do currently, then I would say since the start of 2021.

I had the idea of wanting to create a newsletter database for gig-listings for when the world is out of the pandemic. I got too excited and launched The Tyne Tribe on International Women’s Day. In it’s current form, it’s best described as a curated newsletter of some of my favourite musical discoveries from the North East who I call “The Tribe” (I spent four years in London so I’m basically re-educating myself) and it also features some small-scale reviews, shares other publications articles’ and songs I’m currently listening to.

As lockdown restrictions ease it will focus more towards listings, events and music news but for now I am enjoying sharing some of our regions best talent and being able to provide another platform to shout about how wicked everyone is.

How did you become involved in music and what have you done to get where you are today?
So I used to have a couple of online zines from around 2011-2015 that focused more on promoting acts from the UK and USA rather than necessarily regionally. I went to University in Sunderland though, so had some very ad-hoc single review pieces published in The Crack and on the Uni’s website as well.

But my zines helped me land an internship at Sony Music so I moved down south and worked on various releases including Blue, Judas Priest, Carrie Underwood and Live Lounge. After my year was up I moved to a digital agency where I spent three years creating social strategies and album campaigns for Ward Thomas, Calum Scott, Tom Walker, Years & Years, The xx, Ellie Goulding and loads more! It was a brilliant experience and I loved seeing the real industry side of things that seems to be hidden to us Northerners.

After four years down south I decided to come back up North and for a while I didn’t do too much. I was briefly involved with Sofar Sounds and also did some live music photography which is a big passion of mine, but only this year did I decide to properly get back into the scene because I miss it so much and it’s also grown bloody loads which is amazing.

What advice would you offer to others looking to be more involved in music?
Just go for it. Regardless of what area you want to get into whether its writing, photography, promotions, playing in a band – just give it a go. I spent years being scared to network because I thought people wouldn’t take me seriously so have the confidence to fight for whatever it is you want and as long as you work hard you’ll get there. Also be nice to people, the music industry is way smaller than you think and connections are everything.

What are your favourite things about the north east music scene? Are there any particular highlights from your experiences?
The people. Honestly, I know everyone says it but it’s so true. I haven’t got a lot of connections in the North because I was too scared to make any before I moved (so hiya if you’re reading this, let’s grab a beer) but since I have started The Tyne Tribe you can see how truly supportive everyone is of each other and it’s refreshing to see.

I think my personal highlights are just becoming more familiar with the local venues since coming home. I took them for granted before, but now they’re some of my favourite places to be.

Where can others find out more about your work and how can they get in touch?
If you’re interested in The Tyne Tribe we’re on Twitter @thetynetribe, or you can subscribe to the newsletter that goes out twice a month here (it’s free) https://www.getrevue.co/profile/thetynetribe.

If you wanna be pals with me and grab that beer, I’m at @bekkacollins on Twitter, but also still do freelance social strategy work and shoot gigs when I can www.bekkacollins.com