How is the local live scene in your area?
Hi
In Reading, it's very hit and miss, with the word 'apathy' probably summing it up best.
Some people moan there is nothing going on when in fact there is probably about a dozen gigs each week. That's alot more and generally of a higher quality, than of anything happening in my home town of Maidenhead!
Some people also moan about the quality of bands. Now of course this is a question of individual taste and some bands are just shite. However loads of great bands have played in Reading over the past few months. Off the top of my head - Emmy the great, Jeffery Lewis, The Wave Pictures, Vessels, We have band, That fuckin tank, Casiokids and Fanfarlo to name but a few!
Later this month there is The Joy Formidable and already in Oct - Slow Club + The Chapman family. No doubt there is other good stuff to be announced later in the year.
Then people moan when promoters move on or give up and live venue's close!
Surely, it's not just Reading where the local scene doesn't seem to be really supported or embraced!?
Sorry this has turned more in to a rant, so I'll stop now.
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The local scene in my area used to be thriving 6 or so years ago
Club 85 in Hitchin would have an average of 100-150 at weekends, with bands such as Capdown, Sikth, UK Subs, Eden Maine, Zu/Joe Lally, Enter Shikari, DJ Scotch Egg making fairly regular appearances. Not long after this Welwyn played host to The Holloways, The Chalets, The Damned, Fratellis, The Wombats...more recently local gig attendance has plummeted and as a result promoters don't seem to feel confident in booking bigger bands. It's really sad but no one seems bothered about gigs anymore; youngsters would rather spend their time getting pissed in town which has caused most all ages gigs to fold. Things aren't looking too great but I can only hope it picks up sooner rather than later.
I'd go to Hitchin for gigs,
if it didn't take like 1.5 hours to get there from St Albans.
The problem with Hertfordshire, I think, is that it's kind of divided vertically by the rail lines.
Also it is a bit rubbish.
CillaCrack, can you recommend anything semi-regular happening in Herts that is good?
It's strange how the music scene in Herts is so divided
One on side youu have the St Albans/Watford/Luton scene then on the other side it's Hitchin/Stevenage/Welwyn, all because of train lines.
There's not a great deal going on in Herts- Rogue have done some pretty decent nights in Hitchin but are taking a break. I want to do more gigs but I'm worried about making fairly risky financial commitments. If anything good is happening I'll be sure to spam these boards.
Is the Pioneer still open?
The Pioneer is apparently starting to think about gigs again.
Someone's been trying to organise it but there were issues with funding and then finding enough volunteers and getting them CRB checked. I don't know much about it but it seems to be moving forward slowly.
I'd probably be prepared to risk a bit of money putting something on in St Albans if I knew there were interested people around, but it's hard to gauge. There were a lot of people at the Arena for Friendly Fires last week but I don't know how many were out-of-towners or just there for the big name.
Just be grateful that you didn't grow up over in the east of the county.
I worked in Hitchin for a year and used to go to quite a few nights out that way. Buntingford had nothing. Hertford went through a period of having some decent bands play at the Marquee, but that's closed now.
^what Cilla said.
Many, many moons ago Club 85 used to drag in so many bands from the UK underground scene, which has sadly gone now. Occasionally Club 85 and Esquires will have some gems, but it's been a bit thin on the ground recently. God, I used to go there every week as well. Capdown, Lightyear, Five Knuckle were like a rotating line up every week. <3
I live in cheshire
and 40 min from manchester and liverpool so when we play gigs its normally any of these. Manchester has more gigs than liverpool, but so far nights in liverpool have been better organised and with better bands.
Locally there are a couple of ok venues in ass crack places Box in Crewe, sugarmill in stoke both have decent bands playing now and again
I don't know what sort of thing you're into
But there are a couple of promoters worth trekking to stoke for. Both welikedanger and wrongpop put on plenty of decent stuff; I see from facebook today that wrongpop have booked Part Chimp and Kong in a couple of weeks. They tend to put stuff on in the white star as well, which is a great little pub
duely noted :)
doing my postgrad at keele
going up on 26th, fuck fuck for missing shield your eyes and then kong/part chimp :( will keep updated with the stuff those guys put on though, ta
I've got a year left at Keele,
don't expect anything even resembling a decent night out at Keele itself. They have 6 or 7 gigs a year, and It's all enter shikari and dirty pretty things sadly...
Stoke itself is unfairly maligned at times, but in reality is pretty decent. The lads who run wrongpop and WLD do put on a lot of decent stuff.
yeah my girlfriend is there
great course/love the campus etc... and i know keele itself isn't a place to go out in but the union is a laugh and it's close to stoke and obviously brum/manc.
Belfast/Derry/Northern Ireland in general
amazing live music scene :) thanks.
there is always something on or a good choice of things on. our local talents are unreal too..
\o/ Ireland
never trust a drunk
;)
thats why we think its amazing
we rarely have our noses out of a bottle of buckfast and everything sounds amazing when you drink buckfast! ;P
Normally its pretty terrible here
But we have had a few developments. The old pop 1 dayer that used to attract Gareth Gates and the Fast Food rockers style talent has been taken over and is now a 3 day rock event, headlined by Doves and the Editors, with a free night featuring the Undertones, who were surprisingly good! Not the greatest of names, but at least its building itself up.
Other than that, were shit. But check out this upcoming 1 day gig...
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/festivals/4197475
undertones \o/
my hometown boys!
they were actually ace
Unless it was the wine. Or compared to the last 10 minutes of Toploader (TOPLOADER!!??) that we accidentally sat through. Maybe it was the wine
one small jazz venue
bands get taunted and of mine got punched to the floor and called 'paki' though.
it's one of the only places open after midnight on a friday night so you get the passing trade of beered up lads.
depressing.
* a friend of mine
yeah plus Massive attack and Bloc party areboth playing in Reading in the next few months!
but seriously there is a lot of good stuff here. there's countless empty hardcore shows at the face bar, monotonix played a few weeks back, this town needs gund, tubelord and talons are playing next month. it's not bad at all.
I'm from Reading
and agree that apathy rules the town. I went to watch BLK JKS a few months back and I think there was about 10 people in the audience. Thing is, experiences like that put me off gigs in Reading, I felt awkward that they'd come all the way from SA to play to an empty hall. The Oakford usually gets pretty busy though and I always thought the sound at the Vessels gigs was excellent.
I still miss the fez club - saw modest mouse there about 5 years ago and it was one of my favourite gigs ever.
Is there a decent site to see the gig listings in Reading?
The only half decent on is Josaka
and the Berkshire live forum page.
there's Josaka
i often forget it exists, but it's really useful:
http://www.josaka.com/
yeah...
the problem with that BLK JKS gig was that there were several other things going on on the same night, so the crowd gets split. and people tend to go where their mates are instead of to watch a hotly tipped south africa band. thats what i did. i think the promoters here need work together more.
as mentioned before, the best place for gig listings is the josaka/berkshire live forum, i think most people who put gigs on mention them on there.
does blah blah exist anymore? i havent seen one for a few months.
Haven't seen Blah Blah for a while either
maybe it folded? We used to have it at work but it hasn't been in for at least three months now.
It was a shame that the Fez closed used to be quite a nice venue with a fair amount of acts. Things are picking up again though just needs a bit more encouragement to bring friends to thing to widen the circle of interest.
Praise must go to people like Monkeysuit, Wonderwheel and the other promoters who are actually trying to bring interesting bands to the area normally for very cheap prices.
Good point
I haven't seen that for awhile either
Just heard there's a new venue opening up in town
in the space where Jongleurs is above Risa. Is meant to be a 450 capacity venue and already has Buzzcocks booked to play in December, Chase and Status in October and Breed 77 in November.
This will hopefully mean that some larger touring bands start coming back to Reading.
http://www.seetickets.com/see/event.asp?n|artist=null&e|venaudit=SUB89&filler1=see&filler2=ven-srch&orderby=date
great news for Reading!
it's missed that mid-sized venue where good touring bands can play, fingers crossed this'll be it.
there've always been quite a few nights on in reading; oakford social club, club velocity, bohemian night, 21 south street, face bar - but none of them can really cater for larger touring bands who aren't quite big enough to fill the hexagon.
actually - i'd have thought 21 south street could handle those kinds of shows, yet it never seems to have done that - is it because it's council-funded and hosts a lot of other art performances that perhaps aren't as expensive as touring bands?
I think it's partly to do with
that the size of bands that used to play Fez (400+ capacity?) are too large to make it worth while playing in a 200 capacity room when the could muc more easily play in Oxford or London.
Some of the guys at South Street are really into their music though and try to help out with costs I think. I think the council subsidises any kind of arts performance. It's certainly cheaper to rent out the room for an arts performance than for a private event/party.
I'm interested to see
what impacted the new venue will have on things.
Hopefully, we will see more touring bands. It annoy's me that London and Oxford get all the bigger bands and Reading is generally overlooked.
simple fucking answer to all this
move to london and stay there.
it was fucking simple when i applied to uni. apply to a few places in london and a couple elsewhere, and go to the best place in london that would have me. this decision was made by using the nme / mm gig listings and seeing clearly that there are more gigs in london on any given night than anywhere else.
if you like or love music you will do this.
fuck
I AM LONDONER
I SHALL NO REST TILL EVERYONE SUBMITS TO LONDON DOMINANCE
i would move to london
if it wasn't squalid and overpriced and full of pretentious ignorant bumbling nme reading student bum gravians like you.
Reading forever.
not you.
im meant him up there.
i don't read the nme and i'm not a student. there is nothing wrong with being pretentious, bumbling is only bad cos it makes me sound like boris 'fascist' johnson and as for ignorant, the fact that everywhere else has less gigs and everywhere further north is colder (two damn good reasons to be in london) is fact.
well
each gig ticket, drink and tube journey ads £ onto the cost of a gig. not to mention that a smaller town's scene might have more of a niche, community feel - perhaps based around art schools and universities.
agree with both points... there is something to be said for the vibes you get out of london (i went to the hobgoblin in brighton recently and it was ace).
actually, saying that some scenes can be local in london and very friendly (what's cookin' for example put on awesome free country and blues nights in leytonstone at a fairly reasonable pub.
if you don't read the nme, then
how do you know what gigs are on?
I went to London once. it was pretty fuckin cold.
myspace. london paper. ticket agencies emails. timeout. mainly.
i've actually realised that, while i still love watching bands, doing so in London is often an unpleasant experience
you pay more for entry. you pay more for drinks. the venues are bigger. live music attracts more pricks who just talk/drink through the bands. the supports are often last minute buy ons / mates of the promoter. add in the fact that a lot of the venues here are fucking horrible and it makes for unpleasant experiences.
there's a lot of good in amongst that but... still.
again
i agree in some respects, but ultimately the trade off is pretty much every band comes to london, but when they do you may pay a bot more for a bigger venue. on the other hand there are almost certainly double or treble the free gigs in back rooms of pubs on any given night in london than there are total gigs in most cities on the same night.
people slag the old blue last (and it does have it's faults) but you can see a coupole of half decent bands for free there most weeks.
Bigger bands do tour London
but the local scene is struggling as much as anywhere, there are loads of good small venues that get up and coming/undiscovered bands with decent sound that should be packing out but aren't. This Is Chamber, No Fiction, AIM and GOO all put on great nights, book good bands and love interesting music. If your local scene is lacking, get out and support it.
Here in Phoenix
we have an alright scene. But for being one of the bigger cities in America, it lacks. We get skipped over pretty frequently. LA is only 4 hours away so if its a must-see show, the road trip is manageable.
I was excited when Tom Waits decided to come here on the last tour tho, got to see that, sold out in like 90 seconds and I got lucky.
Upcoming I will be going to Pelican, Dinosaur Jr, Brand New, Pinback, Yo La Tengo, (maybe) Sunny Dyy Real Estate, Bon Iver, Dr Dog and Why?
Damn, Im gonna be busy, and broke.
LA dissapointed me
particularly sunset strip, troubador had good band nights but LA scene was all 80s cock rot
Over in England a four hour roadtrip is considered ridiculous :/
except for a festival or something
Fair enough
And I would not think of it unless it was a must cant miss show. Like if Tom Waits wouldnt have been making a stop here, I woulda got the tickets in LA for sure, no second thoughts.
Scale is key.........
USA = Enormous
England = Tiny
Additionally, way too many people in England have a pathetic attitude to distance...oh, I'm not going to a gig in Southampton, it's almost 30 miles away, etc!
If Americans had the same attitude they'd still be huddling in Jamestown debating whether to push West.
re pathetic attitude to distance
to be fair, if public transport got its shit together and offered a decent service up to midnight/1am, i think a lot more people would travel. i'm in london and will happily go to brighton/oxford/cambridge etc for a gig, because i know i can get back home the same night. i know no one with a car. national express would make a killing if they sorted this out...
...well, point taken, but the comparison was England and the USA.
However poor public transport is here, it's virtually non existent in the US. Besides, you're in London so it's not a big problem really what with night buses et al.
I'm thinking of people in smaller towns and cities.
Yah, maybe
More or less I was just referring to the bigger shows.
I grew up just south of the bay area, and Santa Cruz was incredible for small to mid-size shows, the Catalyst was the joint. Also lived in Austin for 6 months, thats where its at, it lives up to its 'live music capital of the world' moniker.
^ Learn how to reply fool
Newcastle/Durham/Sunderland/Boro
punk/hardcore = very good - excellent local bands and plenty of great touring bands from Europe and America.
DiS-friendly indie = very good - especially in Newcastle.
Oasis-lite indie = good -well it's not my thing but there seems to be plenty around if it's your thing.
My only real gripe about the 'scene' around here NARC. magazine, which is essentially a print version of that clueless fresher girl at uni who's only into music because it's the cool thing to be into. It's usually poorly written, regularly, and infamously, printing live reviews by writers who didn't attend or didn't watch the bands. Plus I've been at plenty of shows where these guys try to muscle and blag their way into shows for free because they "support the scene". Cunts.
Kingston
Does it count as London, tis Greater, but probably not.
We have a great music scene and one of the reasons I haven't moved closer in (yet). Recently we've had Hot Chip, Art Brut, The Get Up Kids, Metronomy, Friendly Fires twice, Cut Copy, The Futureheads, Architecture In Helsinki, The Mae Shi etc etc.
Can be a bit pretentious at times due to the arts uni but on the whole its pretty great for a small town. And there are loads of good clubs nights and 20 mins on the train from London.
"hello"
"hi"
"how are you"
"not bad, ta. you?"
"yeah good thanks"
"drink?"
"yes please, rum n coke please"
"you want a double?"
"yeah if that's allright?"
"yeah sure. i'll get ya a double"
"cool. thanks. when's the first band on?"
"in about 5 minutes"
"what they called?"
"dunno"
"any good?"
"dunno"
"hows the mrs? she comin tonight?"
"shes allright, yeah. gone round her friends house. you still seeing that whatshername?"
"yeah. liz. it's all good."
"cool. she coming down"
"nah don't think so. not sure. maybe."
"i'm going to kill you."
"what?"
BANG
'Won't you shut the fuck up I'm just trying to watch the baaaaaand'
"sorry mate!"
"im gonna go and drink and smoke outside for the next two hours. dunno why i go to gigs anyway, i'd be much happier with a bench and a bag of beer"
Terrible. Just fucking terrible.
I currently live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.
For every person in this area who isn't in a jam band, there are about fifty jam bands. It's so fucking horrible. The music around here is the absolute antithesis of good. And so many bad punk bands! And not "bad" "punk bands." "Bad punk" bands. Bands that play the shittiest least imaginative never got over eighties hardcore attention seeking self glorifying artless bullshit. Fucking worthless trash. And like, zero good bands come to Michigan. It's such a bitch. I hate it. I hate it so much. I've gotta move.
However, there are a few exceptions. Shout out to:
Minus 9-Excellent noisy bass-drums two piece more on the side of Big Black than Lightning Bolt. Always super fun live.
The State-Punk band, but they know what they're doing, and they've got swagger.
Nomo-Funk and Afrobeat inspired ensemble, but with their own unique and wholly modern style. The only truly original band in the area.
Loooove Nomo.
Yep they're a great band
and a fine group of individuals altogether.
Nomo are pretty cool:)
I've got the first album,haven't heard the new one yet.
I saw a band called The Hard Lessons from Michigan at SxSW....
a couple of years back, they were good fun.
Yeah, they're pretty good too.
I also forgot to mention Saturday Looks Good To Me.
scene is a tude word these here parts
but I live in London. There are great bands and there are shit bands...they don't focus on a number of venues though...most bands here just play where they can
i don't think there's been a good show in lowestoft for around 20 years unfortunately.
apart from the once-monthly jazz club ofc.
Huntington Beach, CA is in Orange County
which has two clubs, The Galaxy (reopened) and The Detroit Bar. Infrequently they'll book decent bands. LA is a 45 minute drive, and, of course, everybody plays LA.
To dude who said LA is disappointing: I guess, but if you're looking for gigs on the Sunset Strip you're in the wrong neighborhood. You're right: all they've got is 80s cock rock at that Gazarri's, right? (Never been there.) Is the Viper Room still open? I dunno. And Hollywood Blvd has the Knitting Factory, but they mostly book shitty acts too. But all you gotta do is check out OhMyRockness and you'll see there's worthwhile bands to see practically every night of the week, if you're so inclined.
san diego has the casbar
id say thats the best place ive been on the west coast
yeah viper is still open, next time i go i'll check OhMyRockness
I'm currently in Rennes, France
having moved out here for a year from Leicester/York.
We have Exlovers/Peter, Bjorn & John next month, Efterklang and dälek in November, and that's about it really. I'm looking for the seedy French Electro underbelly, but have yet to locate it.
Miss Leicester's scene really badly now, we have Maybeshewill/Kyte/Minnarrs/etc. playing regularly, and the likes of Tubelord/Brontide/Johnny Foreigner/Blakfish/etc. hitting the town regularly, so miss that crop of bands. Guess i'm gonna have to man up and go to Paris for the stuff I really wanna see (like Pixies next month).
Bournemouth/Poole
Up until 3 and a bit years ago we had 'Mr Smith's' which was a lovely little venue that put on a lot of fun shows by the likes of Jetplane Landing. However, it got shut down after a yuppy coke hole/wannabe WAG magnet called 'Jimmy's' opened across the road and waged a campaign against them on the grounds that Chantelle and Destiny-Marie might be scared away by the 17 year old punk kids waiting outside the venue for the doors to open.
We also had 'The Consortium' which was a legendary skateboard shop turned streetwear boutique and bar/venue. They used to host those Club NME nights and put a lot of electro/hip hop on. Scratch Perverts and Fingathing seemed to play there eall the time along with the likes of Ugly Duckling, People Under The Stairs, Peanut Butter Wolf et al. They closed for a refit about 18 months ago and have yet to reopen so Christ knows what's happening there.
'The Gander' which was forever closing and reopening has now closed for good. It was a fun little venue where you could see anyone from Jonah Matranga to 4 or 5 Musicians via every terrible fashion metal band in the South. The rock bar downstairs, 'Metropol' has also gone with both joints being turned into some terrible chain pub.
'Sixty Million Postcards' is still going strong and always seems super busy witha good mix of gigs and club nights. They're part of the Lock Tavern/Amersham Arms/Oakford Social empire and pound for pound it's probably the best bar in Bournemouth.
I haven't been in 'iBar' for a while, but they're still booking bands. I saw Ladytron, Gay for Jonny Depp and HORSE The Band there last year.
'Sound Circus' seem to have given up any plans to put bands on, but it's still an amusing sticky carpetted rock club dive in the grand tradition.
The big change is that the 'Bournemouth Opera House' has become the 02 Academy Bournemouth which whilst horrifying to some promises to utterly transform the live scene here by bringing in a raft of medium sized acts. Morrissey, Bat for Lashes, Florence and the Machine, Dizzee Rascal, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Alabama 3 and Henry Rollins are all coming soon. It's not all good news though....Bowling for Soup are coming too.
Obviously, you can still go to the 'BIC' if you want to watch 50 Cent, Kasabian et al.
Token Poole section:
Some venue called 'Champion's' has opened...I think it may be in Westbourne though so it's really in Bournemouth. They're putting on a few shows, but it might be tribute band hell.
'Mr Kyp's' also no stranger to tribute band hell is still one of the best little venues around and could pull in a hell of a lot more bands if it wanted to. The Art Brut homecoming show at the start of the summer was amazing, all being well the'll book some more good stuff if they can resist the temptation to fill their calendar with Thin Lizzy impersonators.
....and, err...that's it.
Brighton..
Pretty bloody good I think, lots of very good bands, a few really good venues catering for many varieties of music across the city ranging in size quite nicely too.
There are also lots of very good promoters, markedly One Inch Badge (OIB) are very good as are Put It On (PIO) Promotions. Favourite Venues personally are The Freebutt and The Albert, I also have a real soft spot for the greenhouse effect but there are never any good bands there and the PA is shit (but every bottle of wine in the building is 5.99 and there is a covered smoking hut type thing)
Great local record stores that help promote and support local bands in Resident and Rounder Records and some really good rehearsal studios (though none in the Brunswick area , also a dearth of venues there which is odd I think)
But all in all great I think. We get most bands who tour regardless of size and the local bands are great too.
indeed.
yes I would say Brighton is the best. And if you want to go to London its only £3 from the station.
Edge World is a great music shop too, opposite Resident. And they promote loads of shows in town.
Cambridge is ok I guess
The Corn Exchange is the biggest venue, but it mainly hosts comedy or pantomimes, or Bowling for Soup pretty much annually.
The Junction is pretty good, Gallows there was one of the best gigs of my life.
The Portland Arms hosts a fair few smaller gigs, coming up soon are Algernon Cadwallader then Throats the next night.
Man On The Moon is a bit shit, and for local bands ~only.
Hair Police are playing at the Man on the Moon
that's pretty much the funniest thing ever
The well-known bands are good, the unknown bands are shite.
Leeds
Leeds is pretty much excellent. Only a small number of groups bypass it (whom i'd like to see anyway). In particular the new Nation of Shopkeepers presents some excellent nights.
I've heard great things about Leeds
and the venues and scene there. Brudnell Social Club. That's a popular venue there, isn't? Don't they have a music fest there?
Sorry I can't rememeber it's name
surrey
as far as I know pretty bad, havent really investigated it for awhile, a few years ago it used to be pretty good, all the local mathy indie rock bands seemed better than proper bands in that genre but then it all ground to a halt
The Shitty Limits, The GYC, Guildford next thursday i think.
I tried to go to the boiler rooms in guildford a couple of weeks back and the stupid idiot on the door didn't seem to know who was playing but was condfident that the band that i'd turned up to see weren't. I didn't bother going in.
West End Centre in Aldershot (actually over the borderin Hants) seems to have the odd thig on but not a patch on what it used to be like.
.
do they have someone in them called elis? I vaguely know him, shows at the gyc have been some of the funnest ive been to I didnt realise they were still happening (guess im out of touch), boileroom is a good venue, an old housemate of mine books the bands there, I really should be less lazy and check out more bands there. West end centre is a bit of a mission and havent seen anyone good there since adam gnade
boro pretty much doesnt have a scene
... thats all that can be said, really. Unless you like the bands on Big Scary Monsters and labels like that, and if you do like those bands its probably great.
Its all very cliquey, and if you fall outside of those cliques, its awful. Luckily Leeds and Newcastle arent that far away, so its not a total fail as far as middlesbrough is concerned.
MANCHESTER
Manchester has lots of exciting music at the moment
there is some good nights like Fiction Non Fiction,
Big Dig both at the Tiger Lounge
Wot God Forgot at the ruby lounge and retro bar
Metacognition at Big Hands every last Thursday of the month
Country Club at The Bay Horse
There is lots more too,
when the Students come back it is very good for live bands here
in the summer months it gets quite quiet,
Visit manchestermusic.co.uk for the latest info and updates and contact information about these nights..
also while im here i must plug the band www.myspace.com/victoriandaad
if any one wants to add more nights feel free as you may be..
sleepy
There is a really good little sessonal venue called The Shed near me that has loads of quality jazz from the likes of Polar Bear, peeps like that... I've seen Stuart Lee and Richard Herring there too as well as loads of other musical bits.
York is pretty hit and miss good stuff happens but not to often and even when they happen you might be the only person there its really unpradictable. The best places are The Basement Bar a really small place under a cinnima I've seen loads of good bands there. Just check the myspace for a flavour of whats on offer... http://www.myspace.com/basementcityscreen FIbbers is alright to its been a while since there was much good on though.
I go to Leeds when I can too thats pretty vibrant The Brudenell is in brilliant venue that gets loads of good people on, its a been a lil while since I've seen somethign I wana go to though... The West Indian Centre with Sub Dub / DMZ / Irattion Steppas is fucking amazing! Then you have the hipster holes like the faversham which can have good stuff on but usualy has a quite atmosphere and a really rubbish sound set up unless the dubstep peeps come in and bring their own speakers and stuff. Then Nation Of Shop Keepers thats like an expensive weather spoons for kids in skinny jeans, some good stuff being booked though. Oh yeah the Cockpit hasn't been good for ages now but I saw Youthmovies in the small room at the top a while ago and that was brilliant.
Brudenell Social
in Leeds is consistantly good, as I say Nation of Shopkeepers, having opened in July is hot right now. The number of venues around the City cover every taste, though as mentioned above, afew years ago the scene was hot hot hot, where as now it's only just hot.
^^
plus prices in Nation are not too unreasonable when compared to prices for the same drinks in London, Manchester or even Sheffield. For the cheapness of drink, Cockpit is good, with the bookings in the smaller room (Room 3, as mentioned by Jimi) having been excellent for a while now.
I've only been to nation of shop keepers once so far
wasn't keen on it really, it could settle in a bit more and be good though. They really need a better sound system if they are going to have people playing there other than electro kids. Plus everyone was outside instead of enjoying all the music inside it was kind of strange. I'll give it more of a chance at some point.
here in leamington spa
there's one venue and it has one indie gig a month. Mainly NME indie, last year it had razorlight, the holloways...it has pete doherty and the cribs coming up. It did have camera obscura last year which was the only good thing to happen in leam all year. Nearby we have Coventry which is a shithole but gets the odd good band every few months worth seeing.
Basically, everyday I regret the day I chose the "best" uni for my course rather than just stay in London/other city with a music scene.
at warwick then?
i studied there. in my first year they put a gig on every tuesday night, which would've been great but barely anyone turned up - saw biffy clyro play to around 30 people in the main union venue, that was one of the better crowds.
you used to get a lot of great bands playing at the jug and jester too which was once a good student haunt, but now it's gone a bit upmarket (new landlord) and doesn't really do gigs anymore.
so yeah, just the assembly - when it was being built i thought it might be a bit like the academy in oxford - one big room for razorlight bands and maybe a smaller room for local acts and mid-sized touring bands, but seems they've just gone for the one big room...
moo bar used to put on good gigs just off the top of the parade, but not sure if that's still really happening, saw this town needs guns, tired irie, post war years and many more, was quite sceney but it was probably the best place to see music before i left.
I come from Coventry and never understood why Warwick Uni students
choose to live in Leamington. I realise Coventry is rough,but Leamington is a dive as well. At least if you live in Cov you can get to Birmingham very easily and cheaply, where there is a lot more going on.
brum's pretty cheap from leamington too on student railcards
and it seems like a much nicer place to live, especially when you first go around it
neither place exactly has a lot going for it
besides, a LOT of Warwick students do live in Coventry/Earlsdon, I'd say amongst my friends it was about a 50/50 split.
any town could have a good "scene"
if people actually did stuff instead of just kickin about in drab chain pubs wingeing about it. thats why they call it DIY...... all you need to put gigs on is a bit of money, some kind of venue, and an email address. get great bands to come from other towns if yours hasn't got any... eventually hopefully some people will take notice and get a little inspired. perhaps. it's an idea at least.
It ain't always that easy, sadly
I had to stop putting on gigs (and I was putting on some awesome gigs) due to financial strains and poor attendance. It's a shame as there was a minority of people who would make an effort to come along to every gig. Oh well.
yeah the attendance is always the problem....
the bloody ingrates... unwilling to take a risk on anything even for a ticket that costs the same as a pint...
like we put on Honey Ride Me a Goat and 15 people turned up. We put on Jeffrey Lewis and it sold out. I can guarantee you, regardless of the various qualities of Mr Lewis, that those 15 people had a better time.
I help put on gigs with other people though.. so luckily the losses are shared.
too MUCH of a scene i suppose
guess it's lame to even consider the scene of brooklyn right now, but before i moved away, lots of things were happening (maybe) under the radar (sort of). new brooklyn venues open and close daily, but union hall and the bell house have made a big splash, hopefully they'll stick around. some new (not so sceney) groups to check out: power player, flying, new numbers
it's too bad brooklyn is like summer camp x 1000000000 (with beer . . and std's)
Bradford
In Bradford it was getting pretty good about 3 or 4 years ago but it's died off a bit now. There are promising signs, and some keen people, but we have still to get back to that level of 2006 before we can take it even further again.
In terms of attendance issues to gigs
I do wonder how much of an impact the current finanically situation has had on people attending local gigs. I mean if someone wants to go see live music but money is a little tight. Will they always choose seeing a big band in an Academy for example over a local nationally unknown band?
depends on the cost of the gig
i think paying more than £15 for an academy level gig is a bit of a rip yet some have been way more than that recently.
Pretty fucking unbeatable tbh.