"You're just chokin' on your Coca-Cola/Chokin' on your dreams" - The Almighty
"Whoops, here come the assholes, they can smell the money..." - Iggy Pop
I don't normally blog about music stuff on this page but something has been bugging me of late. And believe you me, this goes way beyond music - something dark and insidious is slithering towards your favourite venue, your favourite neighbourhood pub/bar, your favourite independent fashion boutique. And it smells horribly like kulturkampf.
A few days ago, the legendary live musc and burlesque venue Madame Jo Jo's in Soho was mysteriously shut down by Westminster Council (full story here). Basically, last month there was a punch up outside involving some bouncers and a rowdy customer which turned rather nasty and the council saw this as an excuse to revoke the club's license. Never mind that the place was hardly a trouble hot spot and you could probably count the number of "incidents" there over the last decade on one hand, bang, one hint of trouble and a popular venue has gone.
I would like to say that it's an isolated incident but sadly in the five years I've been living in London it's become an all too common story. During my first year in the capital (2010), I went to exactly one hundred gigs (yes, sad as it may seem, I did actually keep a count). Many of those were at the Gaff, a great little venue in Holloway just outside the Nag's Head shopping centre. Friendly venue, great bands, cheap beer and a great atmosphere, it was everything you'd want your local live music place to be. Sadly, a few months into 2011 it was no more - the greedy scumbags at Costa coffee bought it out to turn into one of their soulless overpriced caffeine outlets (full story here) which ironically enough has now itself closed due to lack of trade.
But that was only the first of several cannonballs to hit the London live music scene. The intervening years have seen Nambucca, the Water Rats, 93 Feet East, the Bull & Gate, the Islington, the Archway Tavern and the Luminaire among others close due to falling profits. The Intrepid Fox, a staple of the drinking scene for Soho rockers (admittedly one I was never a big fan of but still, it's the principle of the thing) was forced out of its home by the new Crossrail station at Tottenham Court Road and has had to relocate five miles out of the city centre to Archway (ironically, on the same spot where the Tav used to be).
Those same Crossrail developers are now threatening to redevelop Denmark Street, home of the 12 Bar, the Alleycat, several of the best guitar shops in the capital and so much of London's musical history and turn it into another soulless yuppified area, no doubt with a Costa, a WH Smiths and several chainstores (full story here) while the Buffalo Bar, one of the best independent venues in Islington, is facing closure after the pub above it was sold off to a chain who want to redevelop the basement part of the venue (full story here). Even the legendary 100 Club narrowly avoided closure last year but is still very much hanging on by its fingernails.
There are campaigns afoot to save Denmark Street, the Buffalo and Madame Jo Jo's but given that London is cursed with having politics' answer to Mr Toad, Boris Johnson as its mayor, a man who has made no secret of his closeness with those in the financial sector, it seems that it's more likely he'll listen to the property tycoons who fund his election campaigns than some long-haired rocker plebs. Witness how in recent years places like Soho and Shoreditch have gone from being genuinely edgy and alternative places into bland yuppie paradises with all the cool independent shops and character sucked out to be replaced by hipster-staffed over priced organic restaurants and places for bankers to spend their ill-gotten gains. This is Boris' London, where money talks and common sense walks.
I don't normally blog about music stuff on this page but something has been bugging me of late. And believe you me, this goes way beyond music - something dark and insidious is slithering towards your favourite venue, your favourite neighbourhood pub/bar, your favourite independent fashion boutique. And it smells horribly like kulturkampf.
A few days ago, the legendary live musc and burlesque venue Madame Jo Jo's in Soho was mysteriously shut down by Westminster Council (full story here). Basically, last month there was a punch up outside involving some bouncers and a rowdy customer which turned rather nasty and the council saw this as an excuse to revoke the club's license. Never mind that the place was hardly a trouble hot spot and you could probably count the number of "incidents" there over the last decade on one hand, bang, one hint of trouble and a popular venue has gone.
I would like to say that it's an isolated incident but sadly in the five years I've been living in London it's become an all too common story. During my first year in the capital (2010), I went to exactly one hundred gigs (yes, sad as it may seem, I did actually keep a count). Many of those were at the Gaff, a great little venue in Holloway just outside the Nag's Head shopping centre. Friendly venue, great bands, cheap beer and a great atmosphere, it was everything you'd want your local live music place to be. Sadly, a few months into 2011 it was no more - the greedy scumbags at Costa coffee bought it out to turn into one of their soulless overpriced caffeine outlets (full story here) which ironically enough has now itself closed due to lack of trade.
But that was only the first of several cannonballs to hit the London live music scene. The intervening years have seen Nambucca, the Water Rats, 93 Feet East, the Bull & Gate, the Islington, the Archway Tavern and the Luminaire among others close due to falling profits. The Intrepid Fox, a staple of the drinking scene for Soho rockers (admittedly one I was never a big fan of but still, it's the principle of the thing) was forced out of its home by the new Crossrail station at Tottenham Court Road and has had to relocate five miles out of the city centre to Archway (ironically, on the same spot where the Tav used to be).
Those same Crossrail developers are now threatening to redevelop Denmark Street, home of the 12 Bar, the Alleycat, several of the best guitar shops in the capital and so much of London's musical history and turn it into another soulless yuppified area, no doubt with a Costa, a WH Smiths and several chainstores (full story here) while the Buffalo Bar, one of the best independent venues in Islington, is facing closure after the pub above it was sold off to a chain who want to redevelop the basement part of the venue (full story here). Even the legendary 100 Club narrowly avoided closure last year but is still very much hanging on by its fingernails.
There are campaigns afoot to save Denmark Street, the Buffalo and Madame Jo Jo's but given that London is cursed with having politics' answer to Mr Toad, Boris Johnson as its mayor, a man who has made no secret of his closeness with those in the financial sector, it seems that it's more likely he'll listen to the property tycoons who fund his election campaigns than some long-haired rocker plebs. Witness how in recent years places like Soho and Shoreditch have gone from being genuinely edgy and alternative places into bland yuppie paradises with all the cool independent shops and character sucked out to be replaced by hipster-staffed over priced organic restaurants and places for bankers to spend their ill-gotten gains. This is Boris' London, where money talks and common sense walks.
And so yet more of London's culture is sold off to become soulless real estate, just like how the price of housing in the capital has been forced up by greedy landlords meaning the only people who can afford to live in the nice areas anymore are greedy CEO's, slimy merchant banker spivs and Russian oil tycoons purchasing a second home to leave empty there. Meanwhile normal Londoners are forced further out of the city by the year and into residential areas where creating any kind of culture becomes nigh-on impossible thanks to the NIMBY brigade who are already there.
And it's not just London either - read this story about the proposed closure of the Star and Garter in Manchester, sound familiar? Meanwhile my old home city of Leeds has seen one venue after another go to the wall in the last decade - the Duchess (turned into an overpriced fashion boutique), the Well (now offices) and most recently the Cockpit. Bradford, the other city I spent much of my youth drinking in, has seen both of its long-established rock clubs, Rio's and the Gasworks, shut due to the live scene dying off. Across the pond, New York has seen the Lower East Side, once the home of thieves, vagabonds and musical geniuses "cleaned up" and gentrified with places such as CBGB's forced to close while on the west coast, the once infamous Sunset Strip in Los Angeles has become a watered down yuppified shell of its former self thanks to the property developers moving in.
Why is all this so important to me you may ask. Well, it's because live music has very much been my life for the last twenty years. From my first gig going to see Carter USM at an all ages gig in Bradford in 1992 through playing my first ever gig with my teenage years band at some pub in Leeds that we were only just old enough to have drinks bought for us in a couple of years later through lord only knows how many memories of gigs both as a musician and a punter. These are the memories that last a lifetime, that keep you going when life has turned to shit, that help put a smile back on your face when you're feeling down. And the smaller ones are often the best - seeing a great band in a pub or a small rock bar with a bunch of your mates and a few like minded souls is just one of those experiences that's hard to beat. And it saddens me to think that all too soon it may be an experience that very few kids out there will even get to have, let alone enjoy.
And it's not just London either - read this story about the proposed closure of the Star and Garter in Manchester, sound familiar? Meanwhile my old home city of Leeds has seen one venue after another go to the wall in the last decade - the Duchess (turned into an overpriced fashion boutique), the Well (now offices) and most recently the Cockpit. Bradford, the other city I spent much of my youth drinking in, has seen both of its long-established rock clubs, Rio's and the Gasworks, shut due to the live scene dying off. Across the pond, New York has seen the Lower East Side, once the home of thieves, vagabonds and musical geniuses "cleaned up" and gentrified with places such as CBGB's forced to close while on the west coast, the once infamous Sunset Strip in Los Angeles has become a watered down yuppified shell of its former self thanks to the property developers moving in.
Why is all this so important to me you may ask. Well, it's because live music has very much been my life for the last twenty years. From my first gig going to see Carter USM at an all ages gig in Bradford in 1992 through playing my first ever gig with my teenage years band at some pub in Leeds that we were only just old enough to have drinks bought for us in a couple of years later through lord only knows how many memories of gigs both as a musician and a punter. These are the memories that last a lifetime, that keep you going when life has turned to shit, that help put a smile back on your face when you're feeling down. And the smaller ones are often the best - seeing a great band in a pub or a small rock bar with a bunch of your mates and a few like minded souls is just one of those experiences that's hard to beat. And it saddens me to think that all too soon it may be an experience that very few kids out there will even get to have, let alone enjoy.
Think I'm being over-dramatic? I'm not. A recent study by BBC Radio showed that 85% of the demos they receive nowadays are from solo artists (either acoustic or electronic). If we take that as indicative of the music scene as a whole, it means that bands now account for less than a fifth of new music coming through. That's why smaller music venues are collapsing. And the reason that so few new bands are forming is that the scenes in the big cities are being destroyed by the kulturkampf that Boris and David Cameron and lord knows how many other council leaders with their elbows in the trough, be it a red, blue or yellow rosette on their lapel, are imposing. People are (understandably) coming to the conclusion that getting out there, actually getting a gig organised and putting things together is just too much hassle and it's far easier to just make your own music in your bedroom with a Pro-Tools programme and a drum machine.
And that really fucking depresses me. It's like some Orwellian future has happened while none of us were looking. "Oh, sorry, you want to have a music venue? Well trust us, we'd love to give you one but that property's been bought out by Mr Kalashnikov who's got the big empty mansion three doors up and he wants to turn it into some luxury flats full of people who'll only issue noise complaints if we put one there - plus those people need an M&S sandwich shop, a Giraffe restaurant and a stupidly overpriced baby clothes outlet you know." Soon the only places we'll be able to see music will be at big corpo-dromes sponsored by mobile phone companies who charge you £4.50 for a pint of watered down tasteless lager and get their bouncers to thump you if you try to mosh or crowd-surf or generally have fun and will oversell every show so that it becomes downright uncomfortable to watch. Meanwhile the kids coming through will have no idea what a small intimate gig is and will be raised on a diet of soulless diva warbling, crap dance music, money-grabbing hip-hop CEO's and anaemic Ed Sheeran style acoustic guitarists and simply won't know any better. It'll be like 1975 all over again. Except this time, there won't be any punk movement to come along and save us because that loophole has long since been sanitised and closed. Just a Gucci loafer stamping down on the face of independent music forever.
Welcome to the future. You are free to do as we tell you to. Live music is dead. It was good while it lasted. Last one out switch the lights off...
