Meet our Official Partners: Dawsons Music
Blog by Louise Dodgson under Artist Managers, Creative & Branding, Finance, Law & Music Business, Live, Media, Music Publishing, Music Training & Careers, Record Labels, Recording & Production, Selling & Distributing Your Music
Last week we introduced you to the first of our official partners, and this week we're back to tell you about another of the companies we've teamed up with: Dawsons Music.
We’re sure most music makers are familiar with Dawsons, who originally set up shop in 1898! They are the longest serving music retailers in the UK and have 12 branches located throughout the country so there’s not much they don’t know about instruments, audio equipment and the latest gear.
We’re sure most music makers are familiar with Dawsons, who originally set up shop in 1898! They are the longest serving music retailers in the UK and have 12 branches located throughout the country so there’s not much they don’t know about instruments, audio equipment and the latest gear.
As part and parcel of our new-found partnership, we will be offering exclusive deals, discounts and promotions on Dawsons goodies to Unsigned Guide members. Plus, to get you in the festive mood we will be running the 12 Days of Christmas, 12 days of wonderful prizes and giveaways provided by Dawsons, ourselves and many of our other great friends in the music business. Keep your eyes peeled for that one tomorrow! The Unsigned Guide will also be regularly contributing blogs and other useful content to the Dawson’s website. All great new developments that we’re very excited about!
But for now, there’s nobody who can tell you more about the wonders of Dawsons Music than the Dawson’s webmonkey, sorry orang-utan!
Hi Monkey! Can you start by giving us a brief history of Dawsons…
Well, as you’ve already mentioned we've had stores since 1898 and been trading online since 1998! The company was founded by a piano tuner called John Dawson and the company remained in the Dawson family until the mid-seventies when it was bought by the Briggs family, who still own it today.
What’s the best thing about being the Dawson’s webmonkey?
It's all the social stuff like Facebook and Twitter. I love the customer interaction, I love it when we get a good debate going and I love finding out what people are up to musically. I retweet about people's gigs or new releases and occasionally share things like that on Facebook. I've also got quite a reputation for randomly giving free stuff away too; it's all part of the fun.
What instrument do you play, monkey?
Working with so many good musicians is pretty humbling and I've come to realise that I play quite a lot of different instruments very badly. Luckily, I have lots of very talented people around me to call on for the best advice. Being an orang-utan I've got quite long fingers so the one instrument I'm semi-competent on is the piano. I love mucking about with music technology too.
So what can Dawsons Music offer the modern musician?
In terms of instruments and equipment we do pretty much everything from balalaika strings (that's true, I've seen a packet in a stockroom once!) to DJ gear, but we don't just sell stuff, we want to help people make more music. We care about what people do with the things they buy from us after they've left the shop. For example, we often help musicians to promote their music using our social media channels and we regularly run educational events in our stores to help people develop their skills or learn new things.
What’s the most popular item you sell?
The variety of what we sell is so wide that apart from plectrums it is hard to pinpoint a single item, and the popularity of different instruments changes all the time too. It's safe to say that as a generalisation, guitars are the most popular at the moment.
And finally, what’s the last gig you went to, monkey?
Very recently I followed Daughters Of Davis and Exit Ten around Europe for a couple of weeks like some kind of simian stalker. That was fun but all the travelling got a bit much (especially as they were two different tours). I wanted to see Philippa Hanna when she came to the MEN Arena recently but I couldn't make it. I think the next one will be Stevie Williams at Bloom Live in Altrincham this weekend.
Tags
dawsons music, the unsigned guide, musical instruments, music shop, music store, instrument store
