Venue Stories; Narratives, Memories, and Histories from Britain’s Independent Music Spaces; Mann; Edgar; Pleasance

Edited by

Fraser Mann [+–]

York St. John University

Fraser Mann is Senior Lecturer in Literature at York St. John University. He is a specialist in American writing with particular interests in conflict, testimony, and trauma. He has published research on a range of literary figures such as Ernest Hemingway, James Jones and Norman Mailer. He also works on music writing in the form of creative non-fiction and recently co-edited the Bloomsbury edited collection Music, Memory and Memoir. His creative writing can be found on the Twistin’ My Memory, Man blogspace. His teaching interests include American Studies, autobiography and twentieth- and twenty-first-century war writing.

Robert Edgar [+–]

York St. John University

Robert Edgar is Professor of Writing and Popular Culture in the York Centre for Writing based in the School of Humanities at York St John University, UK. He has published Screenwriting (Bloomsbury, 2009), Directing Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2009), The Language of Film (Bloomsbury, 2010 and 2015), The Music Documentary (Routledge, 2013), The Arena Concert (Bloomsbury, 2015), Music, Memory and Memoir (Bloomsbury, 2019), Adaptation for Scriptwriters (Bloomsbury, 2019), and Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition (2023). He is co-editing the Routledge Companion to Folk Horror (2023) and Horrifying Children: Hauntology and the Legacy of Children’s Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2024).

Helen Pleasance [+–]

York St. John University

Helen Pleasance is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at York St John University. She has written on the Moors murders, the spectral form of memoir and music memoirs. She is currently working on a hybrid family memoir about the women in her family and needlework.

Venue Stories is an anthology of creative non-fiction that remembers, celebrates and reinvigorates our complex and plural relationship with small and independent music spaces. Written by musicians, promoters, fans and academics who have a shared passion for small music venues and musical cultures in all their splendid variety, this anthology features memoir, essays, life writing, historiography and autoethnography. Each chapter is united by a focus on the personal, the sensory and half-remembered. These are stories that cross disciplinary lines and blur distinctions between creativity, reportage and critical analysis.

Venue Stories pays a visit to the toilet venues, back rooms and ad-hoc club nights that make up so much of our musical landscape. It spends time in small and local venues and asks what they mean in personal and cultural terms. Writers visit celebrated spots, long-forgotten spaces and emergent venues. Whatever the lineage, they are independent, original and wonderfully weird. The stories are memories of seismic gigs and life-altering raves. They are mosaic remembrances and recollections; funny, heart-breaking, rage induced and sometimes a combination of all of these things. This is a collection of stories by and for fans, band members, merch sellers, pint pullers, journalists with a freebie, roadies with a backache and sound techs with an earache.

Series: Music Industry Studies

Foreword

Foreword [+–] ix-xi

Emma Warren FREE

Journalist and Broadcaster

Emma Warren has been documenting culture for decades. She is the author of Mojo 2019 top ten book of the year ‘Make Some Space’ and two pamphlets ‘Document Your Culture’ and Irish Times book of the year ‘Steam Down’ on Rough Trade Books. Her journalism appeared in THE FACE, Guardian and Fader and she spent six years working on youth-run publication Live Magazine. She has a monthly show on Worldwide FM.

Venue Stories is an anthology of creative non-fiction that remembers, celebrates and reinvigorates our complex and plural relationship with small and independent music spaces. Written by musicians, promoters, fans and academics who have a shared passion for small music venues and musical cultures in all their splendid variety, this anthology features memoir, essays, life writing, historiography and autoethnography. Each chapter is united by a focus on the personal, the sensory and half-remembered. These are stories that cross disciplinary lines and blur distinctions between creativity, reportage and critical analysis. Venue Stories pays a visit to the toilet venues, back rooms and ad-hoc club nights that make up so much of our musical landscape. It spends time in small and local venues and asks what they mean in personal and cultural terms. Writers visit celebrated spots, long forgotten spaces and emergent venues. Whatever the lineage, they are independent, original and wonderfully weird. The stories are memories of seismic gigs and life-altering raves. They are mosaic remembrances and recollections; funny, heart-breaking, rage induced and sometimes a combination of all of these things. This is a collection of stories by and for fans, band members, merch sellers, pint pullers, journalists with a freebie, roadies with a backache and sound techs with an earache.

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 1-22

Fraser Mann,Robert Edgar,Helen Pleasance £17.50

York St. John University

Chapter 1

Peripheral Dancing: The Jazz Rooms, Brighton, 1984 [+–] 23-30

Helen Pleasance £17.50

York St. John University

It is 1985, definitely 1985. Or could it be 1984? A new club that has opened up in Brighton. The Jazz Rooms – down one of those narrow side streets off the front by the pier (the one with the chip shop on the corner, I think), then down some steps to a basement room (of course it’s a basement; it’s a jazz club). How often did the night run? Once a month on a Saturday night? How often did we go – four, five times? More? I can’t really remember now. The things I do remember are that it became a Big Thing – reviewed in The Face, impossibly cool people piling down from London to be seen on the dancefloor. One night I rubbed shoulders with Sadé. Another time, Jerry Dammers was there. But what – or rather who – I remember most vividly is the woman on the edge of the dancefloor every time we went. Small, slightly scruffy in low-key 1950s cotton blouses and skirts cinched in at the waist, and a chiffon scarf tied round her head in a huge bow, she always seemed to be alone. She usually had a bottle of lager in her hand and was not quite part of the crowd on the dancefloor. The way she moved, though, obsessed me. Her movements were spare, mostly her head and her hips; you couldn’t say she was a great dancer in the way that you might of someone spinning and making shapes to Northern Soul. But she absolutely possessed the music, or, maybe, it possessed her. This chapter explores how my encounter with her has stayed with me and shaped how I became a peripheral dancer – the venue as the space where a tune and a body take hold of each other and create someone who doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Chapter 2

Finding the Dirt: Nesh at Elektrowerkz [+–] 31-39

Fraser Mann £17.50

York St. John University

Telling stories about raving is all very well but what about when the raving itself is harder to come by? This is my conundrum as a long-time fan of raving who missed the mythical first wave. I spent my teenage years getting to grips with why music was being made on machines and failing to find places to watch this happen. A suburban upbringing, a strict Scottish Dad and a rural university experience didn’t help fill the gaps. So, it was London at the start of the new millennium where I could finally find the dirt and start making my own rave memories. The monthly Warp Records events held at the Elektrowerkz were loud, filthy and completely terrifying. They were strange, experimental and took two full days to recover from. This is my story of finding the mythical rave dirt and of trying to piece it together again twenty years later.

Chapter 3

Chatting to Jarvis [+–] 40-50

Robert Edgar £17.50

York St. John University

To a young person coming of age in a provincial town in the late 1980s there was a wild exoticism in the names of venues in the listings in the NME and the Melody Maker. They conjured a mythical world of countercultural revels. When a venue opened, or rather was repurposed in Doncaster – the Toby Jug – a community forms which is in part about connecting with music but is much more about space. The similarities in toilet venues across cities and across time makes these spaces where the rules are consistent and familiar. Memory of iconic bands and remarkable gigs gives way to detailed recollection of the space, the people and the pool tables. This chapter will, through a very loose journey, consider the formation of identity via the experience of too many late nights in the Toby Jug in Doncaster, the New Adelphi Club in Hull and the Crescent Community Venue in York. It will debate the advantages of being able to get close to some of your musical idols, and the dangers in forgetting when you have met others.

Chapter 4

Fascinating Rhythms [+–] 51-59

Beth Hughes £17.50

Writer

A recent graduate of York St John University’s MA in Creative Writing, Beth is preparing to unleash her first novel on the world. A self-confessed bibliophile with a passion for cooking, she lives in York with her husband, two sons and limitless imagination. An avid partaker of the dance, for Beth, the music never stops.

My eyes closed to enhance the beat. I feel my body responding to the music, guided by its rhythm. Surrounded by a sea of others, I raise my hands and move in time. Above, a mirror ball twinkles, catching the reflection of the disco lights. On the stage, the DJ stands. He bends over his decks. His head bobs to the music. Seamlessly, he transitions from Stone Roses’ Waterfall into Pixies’ Debaser. I am liberated, elated and dancing. I’m completely lost in the moment. It’s always been this way. Well, maybe not quite always. Everyone remembers their first encounter with a nightclub, right? Rewind (ahem!) a few years back. Germany, 1988. A school exchange trip. Mic–Mac nightclub, Bergen. This is my first taste of a night out. In stripy tops, tailored jackets and (dare I say) that old classic – double denim, we shuffle our stilettoed heels to the strains of Tiffany, Falco and S Express. We sip coca cola from glass tankards. Our attempts at sophistication are marred by awkward self-consciousness. Nevertheless, at some point, as the crowd on the dancefloor grows, I lose my inhibitions and forge a new bond. Me, a DJ and a beat. My love of dance is unleashed. It opens a door to a world of clubs that will prove poignant and life shaping. I can’t accurately recall the number of clubs I’ve visited in my life. However, the more significant ones remain imprinted on my mind. They are a vivacious kaleidoscope of places, people, DJs, fashion and music. This memoir revisits some of these and recalls their cultural relevance as well as the role they play in my and others’ lives.

Chapter 5

The Bull and Gate, Kentish Town, London 1987-1989 [+–] 60-68

Polly Hancock £17.50

Musician, Photojournalist and Promoter

Polly Hancock, guitar half of the Popinjays and co-promoter of The Pop Club at the Bull & Gate (approx 1991-1993).  1994-2000 live music promoter at the Mean Fiddler in Harlesden and from 2001 has worked in London as a photojournalist. More recently co-founder of the blogsite punkgirldiaries.com

Smaller independent venues are often referred to as ‘the toilet circuit’ – which is weird. I never came across a single one that boasted a good toilet. I suppose they could have just as easily been called the ‘dog asleep on the stage circuit’ or the ‘soundman is so short sighted he stashes an actual telescope under the sound-desk to see the bands circuit’, or even ‘the neighbouring taxi firm’s radio comes over the PA system circuit’. Playing gigs around the UK in the early 1990s was a game of venue roulette. Sometimes damp, always dark, and often staffed by those who might possibly consider themselves unemployable in any other circumstances. In a world before arts admin degrees or health and safety standards, we were all just making it up. And there was no “in-crowd” by the way. Independent venues were not just heaving with limitless audiences on their own. Unless the venue or promoter had put as much energy into attracting people over the threshold as might be expected of the bands then, quite often, there would be nobody there at all. In 1987 I walked into The Timebox at the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town, London. I stayed for 4 years. This chapter is about both playing there as a band member and then helping to run London’s Bull & Gate club nights. These were times that sat alongside and after the tenure of Jon ‘Fat’ Beast – one of the most polarizing promoters in Indie London.

Chapter 6

Weapons of Bass Destruction [+–] 69-77

Kevin Narrainen £17.50

Musician, Producer and Writer

Kevin Narrainen has been in and out of bands since the age of 15. Despite never taking that first guitar lesson, he has been in enough bands to have received a rock family tree as one of his wedding gifts. He has played multiple instruments (guitar, bass, and accordion to name a few) over numerous stages and three continents. He has also worked as a television producer, writer and editor for the last 20 years or so…It’s hard to keep track of these things.

The walk to the now defunct Red Eye on Copenhagen Street in North London wasn’t exactly glamorous. It was 20 minutes from the bus stop and wound through to a crappy venue hidden on a council estate. For the first time the Fender copy strapped to my back was completely my own property. I’d finally paid off my friend for the bass so I could join a toilet circuit band. Now, I felt the need to unleash my inner rock star Inside, the low lighting meant the 50 or so people in the audience were barely visible despite being within touching distance. Negotiating the set and avoiding tripping over the numerous cables was always tricky. Even harder was managing not to knock over other members of the band on the tiny stage. There’s so little space up there that you can hardly see the actual stage floor. I managed to complete the set without spilling the beer placed precariously next to a mass of plugs. How no-one got electrocuted, I’ll never know. As I walked off stage, I threw my bass across the stage. This was not very far. It crashed down with a bang followed by a gasp from the audience. For a few moments, I was that rock god. And so begins a journey of bass destruction across toilet venues. Some are no longer with us. These are tales of blood, sweat and tears. Only some of it my own.

Chapter 7

Girls with Guitars [+–] 78-87

Vim Renault,Lene Cortina £17.50

Punkgirldiaries

Punkgirldiaries is Lene Cortina and Vim Renault. Those are our punk names. Lene plays a red guitar with 4 pedals and Vim plays a 1970s Fender telecaster with no pedals. We write a blog together, publish colourful printed zines and make punk T-shirts. We’re still punk.

Punkgirldiaries

Punk inspires us as girls. ‘Keep Music Live’ was a big campaign by the Musicians Union in the 1970s. Growing up in a small town, however, there never seemed to be anything relevant to me and my mate. The only way to hear new music was through Radio 1 or on Top of the Pops. We were two girls growing up in separate places who didn’t know each other. But we both saw Eddie and the Hot Rods play the punky-pop ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’ on Top of the Pops on 11 th August 1977. It inspired us into action. We both became punks – not leather-jacketed, studded and pierced punks – but a more subtle thing. We took on the punk mindset and believed that we could learn to play the guitar, be in a band and play live gigs in our local venues. There were lots of role models. Siouxsie, The Slits, Poly Styrene, The Raincoats. They were all examples of women who started doing music because of punk, with little or no training in music.

Chapter 8

(Princess) Charlotte and her 1980s Offspring, O’Jays [+–] 88-97

Ruth Miller £17.50

Musician

Ruth Miller is a songwriter, guitarist/singer with Po! and record label owner – Rutland Records (1989-1999). She’s recently set up a new label unglamorous music working with older women’s garage bands. Based in Leicester in the UK, Ruth is also one of the punkgirldiaries.com duo, producing a blog and printed zines.

In the mid-eighties, I was a student in Leicester. I often went to gigs at the city’s main small touring venue, the Princess Charlotte pub. When I formed my band Po! in 1987, our debut gig was a self-promotion event at the Charlotte. I paid extra to get tickets printed just like the touring bands. I subsequently attended and played many gigs at the Princess Charlotte. We performed with the likes of The Au Pairs and Husker Du. Around this time, a young staff member, Andy Wright, was promoted to deputy manager and made quite an impact on the pub. He was in touch with music trends and he was able to book unknown bands like Pop Will Eat Itself early on. By the time the gig arrived, they’d be NME darlings and a Charlotte sell-out. The next part of the story is that in 1988-9 Leicester had an idyllic year with a new music scene and a brand new venue. Deputy manager Andy was doing so well at the Charlotte that the brewery offered him an opportunity to run his own music bar also in Leicester city centre. As a keen soul fan, Andy styled, marketed and intended O’Jays to be a ‘Soul Bar’. What happened instead was that the indie-pop kids took over. These were underage fans of Sarah Records, girly bands and low-fi fanzine culture. Instead of urban cool and vibey soul club, the place was full of 16-year old bowl-cuts from East Midlands villages. A group of mates would form a band and play an O’Jays gig that week. There seemed to be little in the way of fighting, sex or even drunkenness. It was simple indie-pop loveliness. Andy, who now lives in Spain, is interviewed for this chapter. ‘Feedback Phil’, the Princess Charlotte sound engineer for more than 15 years also chips in his version of the story.

Chapter 9

The Brewery Arts Centre [+–] 98-111

Peter Atkinson £17.50

University of Central Lancashire

Peter Atkinson is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at University of Central Lancashire, specializing in popular music and television. Peter has published on the role of broadcasting in the creation of the Beatles and Mersey Beat myth of the early 1960s and on the topic of Abbey Road Studio, tourism and Beatles Heritage. Most recently he has published a book chapter on the influence of the 1930s agit-prop theatre and radio documentary work of Ewan MacColl on the 1980s Manchester aesthetic of The Smiths and on the topic of ITV soap opera and representation of northern England.

The Brewery Arts Centre was created as a community arts centre in Kendal at the beginning of the 1970s. From early days, its Malt Room performance space encouraged participation for local musicians. It is where Dave Allen of Gang of Four started playing bass in Bob Dawbar’s Sunday lunchtime jam sessions. The Brewery grew as an Arts Council and local council supported music venue and in the 1980s featured top acts across a range of genres. It provided aspiration for local musicians who dreamt of performing in that space on that low stage. This paper notes the relationship between this arts centre’s official programme and the innovative ways that local musicians, and supporters, engaged to ensure that local bands performed there. These would range from featuring local acts at birthday parties, to collaborations with the arts centre to stage local acts – collaborations such as Futurama, where around eight local bands got the chance to perform in the hallowed venue. Consequently, Kendal had a whole range of bands in the 80s and 90s and of course, the Brewery provided the inspiration for British Sea Power.

Chapter 10

‘Nothing Comes Easy’: Small Venue Concerts with the Wedding Present [+–] 112-123

David Lewis Gedge,Jon Stewart £17.50

Musician

David Lewis Gedge is an English musician best known for his work in influential indie bands The Wedding Present (of which he is the singer, guitarist, principal songwriter, and only ever-present member) and Cinerama. The Wedding Present have had eighteen UK Top 40 singles and seven UK Top 40 albums. A champion of the DIY ethic David has recorded with a diverse range of collaborators, from Steve Albini to the BBC Big Band. Over the last thirty-five years he has played almost 2,000 concerts at venues large and small across the world.

Musician and BIMM Institute

Jon Stewart is guitarist for the platinum-selling Britpop band Sleeper and, since 2019, for The Wedding Present. He is also Course Leader of the Master’s in Popular Music Practice at BIMM Institute, Brighton. Previous research publications include work on Robert Johnson, Brian Eno, arena concerts, music memoirs, and YouTube. He is the author of Dylan, Lennon, Marx & God (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

David Gedge (The Wedding Present) and Jon Stewart (Sleeper) reflect on almost four decades playing small and medium-sized grassroots music venues. Between them, both have probably played every room of this type in the UK and a good portion of those in the EU, too. This chapter will compare their experiences gigging in such spaces from 1980s / 1990s to the 2020s. How have smaller venues changed over the decades and what elements remain the same? Which have survived and which are missed? What makes these gigs work so well for artists, and what challenges do they present? What is gained when you move on from the circuit, and what is lost? Unique insights from the small venue dressing room … if you’re lucky enough to be in a gig that has one.

Chapter 11

In Memory of The Standard: Hard Rock in East London [+–] 124-134

Anna Maria Barry £17.50

Historian and Writer

Dr Anna Maria Barry is a historian and writer. She completed her PhD at Oxford Brookes
University in 2017, writing her thesis on the figure of the male opera singer in nineteenth-
century culture. She has since published on a diverse range of topics including Billie Holiday’s autobiography and the gothic fiction written by Victorian opera star Sims Reeves. Her current research focuses on death masks in the nineteenth century and has been supported by funding from Princeton University. She is also curating an exhibition of late-Victorian musical portraits at the Royal College of Music in London. Anna often writes features for a range of popular magazines including BBC Music and Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine. She is a life-long fan of rock music.

In the early noughties, Ilford was not the best place for a teenage girl obsessed with classic rock. UK garage blasted through the school corridors and Burberry prints were more plentiful than band t-shirts. Luckily, I didn’t have to go too far to find my people. On Friday nights, I dragged my friends onto the 123 bus in search of loud guitars. Our destination? The Royal Standard in Blackhorse Road. In its heyday the venue hosted a diverse mix of artists, but by the time I found it the roster was mainly cover bands. Dirty DC, Being Jovi, Whole Lotta Led and Guns 2 Roses – this was where I could hear the music I loved. A whole new world opened up for me in that sticky, smoky venue. It was here that I developed my enduring passion for both live music and boys in bands (the former has served me better than the latter.) The closure of the Standard in 2011 felt like the end of an era to me. In reality though it was just another chapter in the ill-fated history of rock and metal venues in London. The legendary Intrepid Fox in Soho (now a Byron Burger), Ruskin Arms in East Ham (birthplace of Iron Maiden) and Big Red in Holloway are just a few of the rock and metal venues that have bitten the dust since I last wore fishnet tights. The wave of gentrification marches on and I’d struggle to know where to go for some Jack Daniels and a decent jukebox these days. In this chapter I’ll look back on the glory days of the Walthamstow Standard, speaking to locals and bands who launched (and ended) their careers at hard rock venues across East London that no longer exist. What happens to a community of music fans when the places that shape us are stripped away? And what does this mean for the music?

Chapter 12

The New Breed: 1990s Mod Revival Scene in Leeds [+–] 135-144

Abigail Gaines £17.50

Photography studio manager

Abigail Gaines is a Photography Studio Manager of an award-winning wedding photography business. Prior to this, she worked in school leadership and also taught history and sociology – setting up a sociology department mainly to be able to teach Youth Subcultures to 17- and 18-year-olds. Abigail lives in her 60s influenced home in York with her husband and two children. Music is always playing.

In the mid 1990s, a visit to famed indie night Brighton Beach at the cockpit in Leeds changed my life. The big room played music I knew and loved but the small back room was where I discovered a whole new scene. With each step into the room, the years slipped away. I was transported to a hip scene with hip sights and hip sounds. It mesmerized me. With each sound, different groups were attracted to the dancefloor. There were slight variations in the way they moved. The soul shuffle where the feet barely left the floor. The spins and hand claps. Each dancer lost in their own connection with the music. The DJ changed and the fast paced beats of garage sent more dancers whirling onto the floor. More furious now, they swayed from side to side, hair shaking. Like the most crazy swinging scene straight out of my favourite 60s B movies. These were the deep rhythms of 60s R&B, northern soul, garage, psychedelia, jazz and boogaloo. These aural delights became my passion. They were to soundtrack every moment and every memory of the next 20 years. Then there were the clothes. The attention to detail stood out even to a newcomer such as me. The male soul crowd wore sharp suits with narrow trousers and sported French crews. The girls had bobs and A-Line skirts. Simple but striking. The garage and psych crowd had longer hair and their clothes were a myriad of colours. Girls in short skirts and knee length boots and boys with basin haircuts and winklepicker shoes. I’d found my tribe. My home. As weeks went by, I watched, I learnt, I evolved.

Chapter 13

Sitting on the Bench in Leicester’s Charlotte [+–] 145-152

Ed Garland £17.50

Writer and Independent Scholar

Ed Garland is the author of Earwitness: A Search for Sonic Understanding in Stories, a book of essays, memoir, and literary criticism that won the New Welsh Writing Awards in 2018. He recently completed a research PhD at Aberystwyth University entitled Sonic Experience in Contemporary Fiction.

This mosaic-essay explores and revisits Leicester’s The Charlotte. Its temporal centre is a half-empty drum and bass night headlined by Doc Scott sometime in the first decade of the 2000s. Doc Scott’s aesthetic as a DJ emphasises a seamlessness between future-facing tracks. His personal significance for me stretches back to my childhood. He represents chronological and audible continuity. He is also one of the custodians of what DJ Storm calls the essential ‘drama’ of the Metalheadz sound and, when I saw him, he had, according to a recent interview, ‘both personally and musically […] lost’ himself. Through the lens of this night, which I attended alone, I explore The Charlotte’s varied history. This is a story in which I participated in a small way as the drummer for a local band and as the attendee of many gigs. One of the venue’s unique features was the bench built into the plywood walls that housed its front-of-house mixing desk. This amplified the bass tones when you rested your back against it. This bench is the physical centre of this writing. Around it the mosaic-essay’s short fragments coalesce.

Chapter 14

Kings Cross, Kentish Town and Kensington Gore via Gallowgate: In Search of the Goldilocks Zone [+–] 153-161

Julianne Regan £17.50

Musician and writer

Julianne Regan was formerly a lecturer in Commercial Music and Songwriting at Bath Spa University. She is a founding member of the band All About Eve and is currently involved in musical and audio-visual projects with The Dadaists and also with original All About eve guitarist and co-writer Tim Bricheno.

According to Simon Williams, of Fierce Panda Records, ‘The Bull and Gate [was] the absolute definition of the ‘toilet circuit’…’ ( coldplaychronology , 2008). No collection on the topic of beloved, sticky-floored venues would be complete without its inclusion. My discussion explores the scuzzy romance and heartfelt nostalgia associated with this and similar venues, and how they were more than venues; they were communities. My band, All About Eve, played there on 29 Apr 1986, 22 Sep 1986 and sometime between 17th & 24th October 1986. We played in plenty of other toilet venues in our formative years. These were places I also visited as a punter. They include The Pindar of Wakefield, (currently The Water Rats), where we played our debut gig, Sept 5th 1985, Hammersmith Clarendon (RIP), The Broadway basement bar and Clarendon Hotel Ballroom, Croydon Underground (RIP) and Finsbury Park Red Rose Labour Club. We even played a secret gig in The Marquee under the not particularly undercover name ‘Martha and the Harbours’. All About Eve was invited to play the Bull & Gate’s closing gig, which took place on May 3rd 2013. 27 years had passed since our debut appearance, and we were in a state of disrepair so had to decline. From 1982 to 1987, I lived a 10-minute walk away from the B&G, frequently attending gigs there. I’ll never entirely forgive myself for jumping up on stage with Balaam and the Angel, uninvited, to attempt to sing Paranoid with them, while only knowing the first line of the song. Cider and blackcurrant had a hand in it.

Chapter 15

Spiritual Auras: Jungle Venues in Birmingham and the West Midlands 1993-1997 [+–] 162-174

Penelope Wickson £17.50

Art Historian

Dr Penelope Wickson (DJ Tina Irie) is a qualified teacher and Art Historian. Her work has
appeared in the journals Nineteenth Century Gender Studies, Italian Studies and Textile
History and she has given papers at major conferences organised by the National Gallery, the Courtauld History of Dress Association and the Association for Art History. Her interest in the intersection of global cultures is mirrored by her love of music. Growing up in the north of England in the late 1980s sparked a deep interest in underground house, hardcore and techno whilst her passion for jungle and drum & bass spans almost 30 years. In 1994, whilst studying History of Art and Italian at the University of Birmingham, she founded its first ever newspaper column to explore the genre. Immersed in labels such as Reinforced, V Recordings and Creative Source, her heart resides in the heady nights of Swerve, Quest and Metalheadz that defined the 1990s. She presents regular radio shows on Imperial Voice Radio, Energy 1058 and Kane FM – playing upfront and contemporary jungle and drum & bass that captures the spirit of the original sounds.

Whilst Caspar Melville’s It’s a London Thing and Martin James’ State of Bass represent some of the first scholarly explorations of the history of jungle and drum and bass, the focus on the capital highlights the longstanding marginalisation of Birmingham and the West Midlands within the narrative. This study aims to redress the balance by paying close attention to the role of three significant venues during the four-year period in which jungle emerged from breakbeat hardcore and gradually expanded into drum and bass alongside myriad sub-genres of both. The Institute and The Que Club in Birmingham and Palomas in Wolverhampton were all home to club nights that attracted the most prominent DJs and MCs as well as crowds from all over the country. All built in historicist styles during the 19th century, the three venues demonstrated a flamboyance that embodied the industrial midlands – styles considered now to be gaudy and unfashionable. Drawing on the dichotomy of striated and smooth space proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, the relationship between the design of the buildings, the sounds and experiences they facilitated and the prejudice the jungle community received during the mid 1990s – especially with regards to other forms of dance music, is also considered. The study is based upon the first-hand memories and stories of those who experienced such an extraordinary period as well as my own experience as a Junglist and a student at the University of Birmingham where I founded the first ever Jungle/DnB column in the University’s newspaper. At first hand, I experienced the divide between the Junglists of the city and members of the university who considered themselves to be aficionados of drum and bass as opposed to Jungle by avoiding the venues, events and people that formed the bedrock of the genre in the West Midlands.

Chapter 16

The Wheat from the Chaff [+–] 175-184

Matt Colbeck £17.50

University of Sheffield

Dr Matt Colbeck researches representations of coma and brain injury in literature and media, working with survivors to curate narratives of lived experience. He is the bassist with CreepJoint, featured on Tom Robinson’s 6music show. His book, The Language and Imagery of Coma and Brain Injury, is published by Bloomsbury.

Throughout the 1990s, The Wheatsheaf, Stoke, was one of the leading indie music venues in the UK. In a few short years, music teacher, promoter and landlord, Ann Riddle, took the venue from a pub hosting live music to a multi-stage live entertainment venue hosting bands and artistes, seven nights a week. The Wheatsheaf nurtured local acts and staged up-and- coming national and international acts that were to become household names: from Shed Seven to Oasis; P J Harvey to Radiohead; Green Day to Kyuss. Second stage Wheatsheaf II, devoted to comedy acts, saw the likes of Peter Kay, Lee Evans and Lee Mack cut their teeth there. The Wheatsheaf was the thrumming hub of Stoke. It offered vital services to the wider community, and had links to Staffordshire University (with music students working with the in- house sound engineers) and the New Vic Theatre (the third stage, Wheatsheaf III, developed as a space for community theatre and works in progress). However, in 1998, The Wheatsheaf closed and was transformed (or perhaps de-formed) into a franchise pub after the building was bought by J D Wetherspoon. ‘The Wheat from the Chaff’ is a reflective memoir of the history of The Wheatsheaf and its importance in my own life as a teenager growing up in and around Stoke-on-Trent, as well as its importance for the community at large. Drawing together a kaleidoscope of memories of live events witnessed at the venue, I reflect upon the diversity of formative experiences small independent music venues can generate, whilst addressing the threat to which small venues have always been subject, a threat which looms ever larger in the Covid era.

Chapter 17

More than a Club: The Genius Loci of Eric’s [+–] 185-193

Penny Kiley £17.50

Music Journalist

Penny Kiley is a former music journalist who began her career as Melody Maker’s Liverpool
correspondent and token punk rocker in the late 1970s. She was pop columnist for the
Liverpool Echo for several years.

It’s 1977 and punk rock has just hit Liverpool. This is where I came in. The soon-to-be- legendary Eric’s club is home to the city’s misfits, rebels and posers. It’s a place of attitude, adventure and new possibilities, and it changes lives. Some people became musicians. Some of those became famous. I became a music journalist. Oh, and I married the DJ. Eric’s became known as a punk venue, but it always more than that. When it first opened in the autumn of ’76, it was too early: outside London, there weren’t enough punks around. Or punk records to play. And the owners intended it to be eclectic. There was a quote from them in the students’ union newspaper: “We want tasty new acts we can dig”. People still talked like that in 1976. There were three owners, but Roger Eagle is the one everyone remembers. His passion was for making everyone love the music he did, and that gave us all an education. It was about opening our minds. Possibilities. Toilet venues? Funny you should mention it, because if you ask people for their memories of Eric’s the first thing they’ll talk about is the toilets. They were truly memorable. The second thing they’ll talk about is the memorable bands they saw: the Clash, the Ramones, the Cramps. And the local bands, formed from the club’s members: Those Naughty Lumps, Malchix, the Ponderosa Glee Boys. Not to mention the ones that became famous. Those of us that didn’t become famous are still here (well, most of us), and we still talk to each other. There’s a Facebook group called Eric’s 77, and reunions; new and revived friendships. Some things are too important to forget.

Chapter 18

Coming of Age at the Warehouse, Liverpool, 1981 [+–] 194-199

Dawn Amber Harvey £17.50

Writer

Dawn Amber Harvey’s work has been published in a number of magazines and websites along with an academic journal. Their first book (Un)Natural Desires: Representations of Homosexuals in Post-War American Literature was published in 2019.

The Warehouse was a fairly short-lived music venue that ran in Liverpool city centre in the early 80s. The venue has been almost entirely erased from the history of Liverpool’s music scene, overshadowed by the legacies of Eric’s and The Cavern, which came before it. My chapter discusses the huge cultural significance the club had at the time. The 80s was a time when a number of sub-cultures existed side-by-side: the tail end of punk, goth, new romantic and rockabilly. All of these sub-cultures had their own musical style and being able to see their heroes and mentors play live was a huge part of the development of individual senses of identity. This writing is autobiographical in content. It is written from the point of view of an over- excited, clueless teenager making their way out into the world, soaking up new atmospheres and experiences on a voyage of self-discovery. I first visited the club when I was 16 and have so many great memories of the space and the bands that I saw there – Au Pairs, Delta 5, Theatre of Hate, The Higsons, Dead or Alive, The Birthday Party, Craig Charles to name but a few. This musical soundtrack formed the basis of life-long influences that have shaped both my taste and personal history. I discuss the importance of The Warehouse, and small venues in general, to the musical growth and development of performers, allowing them to develop their art to move on within their careers and later play sold out shows at huge stadium venues.

Chapter 19

The Rainbow Venues and Swingamajig: Closing the Doors on the Home of One of Birmingham’s Favourite Festivals [+–] 200-210

Chris Inglis £17.50

British and Irish Modern Music Institute, Bristol

Dr Chris Inglis is a musicologist based in Cardiff, whose research primarily explores the emergence and development of the electro swing genre. In 2019 he received his doctorate from the University of South Wales. He is currently employed by the British and Irish Modern Music Institute in Bristol.

Founded in 2004, Birmingham’s The Rainbow Venues was one of the most unique and iconic spaces for live music across the Midlands. Less of a venue in itself, and more of a sprawling arrangement of performance spaces which would cater to a whole manner of different events, The Rainbow Venues was made up of spaces such as The Warehouse – named and styled after the type of venue that typified early ’90s raves; The Black Box – a small, dingy room suited to more underground styles of EDM; The Roof Garden – a spacious open air balcony overlooking the rest of the site; and The Car Park stage – the biggest stage, an arena with a semi-permanent big top covering it. Situated in Digbeth, this venue brought thousands of music fans to revel in an otherwise unfrequented area of Birmingham. The Swingamajig festival also aimed to bring something different to Digbeth. The world’s first festival dedicated to the genre of electro swing, the first Swingamajig was held in 2013, just around the corner from The Rainbow Venues. For its first few years, the festival was held largely on closed-off streets, or other spaces around the Digbeth area, but in 2016 the festival officially moved to The Rainbow Venues. For an attendee who had been to every event, thisfelt like the perfect match. The two years that Swingamajig were held here were largely acknowledged to be fantastic. In November 2017, The Rainbow Venues lost its license following the death of an attendee who had overdosed on MDMA at a Halloween event. For Swingamajig, and for the various other events staged here throughout the year, this ruling was devastating. This chapter looks at the impact of the closure of The Rainbow Venues on Swingamajig, and the struggles the festival had to overcome to retain its reputation, continuation, and legacy.

Chapter 20

Sold-out, Locked out, Power out [+–] 211-217

Tom Hingley £17.50

Musician and Writer

Tom Hingley is a musician and writer. He is best known for being the lead singer with Oldham Indie band Inspiral Carpets during their iconic most successful period 1989 – 2011 where they were one of the Holy triumvirate of the ‘Madchester’ scene, smaller brother to the more critically and commercially acclaimed Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. Tom is now a solo artist performing over a hundred shows per annum, having parted ways with Inspirals in 2011. Writing is a new string to Tom’s bow. Published works include Carpet Burns (Route 2012) a soon to be published sequel Oxford Comma as well as a chapter in the Bloomsbury Academic collection, Music, Memory and Memoir.

So many good memories, so many venues gone, even before the disaster of COVID-19. Gone but not forgotten, including venues we didn’t even get to play. Cardiff Square Club on the way up in 1989. The promoter oversold the tiny show three times over, so we packed up and went home. He called us and left a message on the office’s answerphone: “200 disappointed people outside.…fucking wankers”. We used it as a coming-on tape at future shows. Birmingham Burberries – another sell-out in 1989. This time we sold twenty extra fans in – a fiver a head – through the dressing room fire exit. Strathclyde University May Ball, 1990 – three fire alarms, two stage walk-offs, one can of beer thrown at an audience member by a roadie (Noel Gallagher). The Kilburn National where the band were locked out for thirty minutes before the show by a malicious tour manager. Lucifer’s Sawmill in Dundee on the way down in 1994. The stage was so little that Clint had to play on his own smaller one on the other side of the toilet passageway, and the sound desk had belonged to the Bay City Rollers in the 70s. Leeds Polytechnic where the soundman laid the power cable down the front of the dance floor, and a prankster kept switching the plug off during the show. The Hardman House show in Liverpool sponsored by electricity company, MANWEB. Local band The Farm kept switching the electricity off mid-performance. The show in Sydney where the electricity failed during a performance of ‘This is How it Feels’ but we sang the remainder of the song acapella with the audience. A thousand sweaty nights, lads & girls, dancing, singing, laughing, screaming, spitting, fighting.

Chapter 21

Mothers Club in Erdington [+–] 218-225

Alan G. Smith £17.50

Writer

Alan Smith Initially trained as an Art teacher, subsequently working in education for 14 years in secondary and special schools in Essex and West Yorkshire before moving on to Higher Education advisory work with both the Open and Leeds Metropolitan University. He gained his doctorate in 2019 with a study looking at the darker stories of Thomas Hardy and creating a series of scripts intended for a TV mini-series. Originally from Birmingham and now in his late sixties he looks back at the progressive rock played in a club there in the late 60s and early 70s.

Mothers Club in Erdington, a working-class area of Brum, was only open for three years between 1968 and 71 yet made a huge impact on the progressive rock scene. John Peel, who gigged there regularly, once stated that people are ‘amazed to hear that for a few years the best club in Britain was in Erdington’. And on its closure the US ‘Billboard’ had labelled it the ‘best rock venue in the world’. I was seventeen years old when I first attended. At that stage life was troublesome; two years before, my father had died suddenly. As Coronation Street played on the telly, Dad’s face turned the colour of something forgotten in the fridge. I left school completely screwed up failing exams and running wild. School hadn’t been going well anyway, the Birmingham educational people were experimenting, the school labelled ‘Technical Grammar’ meaning that the curriculum was shaped by science and engineering type subjects. Little time for creativity, little time for me, just chemical elements, quantum mechanics and straight lines. The array of bands that came to the club was impressive. Pink Floyd visited four times recording some of their 1969 album Ummagumma there. The Who played three times. I saw Led Zeppelin and a number of Brummie bands, including Black Sabbath, Traffic and The Moody Blues. Mothers also offered the opportunity for local groups to play before the big names performed and at one such occasion a band stopped in the middle of their set and launched into the theme of the TV series Z Cars, thereby announcing the arrival of four plain clothed police. An incident that typified occurrences there. Mothers gave me hope. It was overcrowded, steaming hot and carried the aroma of Afghan hash and cider. The music and its audience were creative and there was not a straight line to be seen.

Chapter 22

Music Spaces and Music Memory [+–] 226-230

Anna Elias £17.50

Musician and Therapist

My musical background includes being in Leeds band Bodixa in the 90s and the folk collective Anna Elias & the Forlorn Hope from 2008 -2011. I gained a first class honours degree in Arts Education from the University of Leeds in 2006 and went on to explore performing arts in the community. This led to a career in music and drama therapy where I work alongside folk with learning disabilities and within elderly care settings.

The idea that music is what feelings sound like has a truth that penetrates much like sound itself does. Many people will share stories of moments in which a piece of music made them shiver or the hairs stand up on their skin. Many people will strongly associate a piece of music with a certain time, place or person and just as memories are reignited so are our senses. Music can reawaken the atmosphere, the scents or the scene it was once played in. Unlike anything else, it can have a life all of its own. From being a singer-songwriter in a band performing in pubs, theatres and festivals to becoming an arts and music therapist working within homes and day centres, I have seen the way music connects, creates and awakens memories. Whatever emotions we bring with us into a venue space there are many times we leave that same space in some ways changed by our experience. In my band Bodixa, with whom I spent a decade recording and touring throughout the 90s, the magic seemed to happen when there was that shared connection between us as performers and our audience. I remember our more intimate gigs in theatre venues like City Varieties in Leeds and singing out the lyrics, ‘It’s all a little better with you, all a little better’. A delicate song that spoke about the balance another person can bring into your life. As the lights dimmed and the music played, there was a tangible sense of connection with the audience, a moment of ‘togetherness’ within the silence the song created. Playing Glastonbury’s acoustic tent in 2004, as the rain bought in more festival goers and as we played songs they hadn’t heard before, we got to share some of our most intimate experiences through the medium of song. Our music resonated with the audience members and acted as a therapeutic outlet. But as I left those venues, theatres or festival spaces, my investment in the music was to keep giving voice to experience through music in the hope people would ‘step into’ these spaces relating to these universal themes explored in the songs. This contrasts with my experiences working within the care homes and day centres in which I’m very much stepping into ‘their world’ and ‘their space’ and ‘taking music’ to these places. I now invest in those clients a specific focus upon improving well-being, minimizing symptoms of dementia such as agitation and relieving psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression. One day centre in Nottinghamshire I worked in had a client who met me for the first time every week. This lady couldn’t tell you when lunch was but could recite entire Elvis songs. The bus driver told me that the music had helped decrease this lady’s agitation so much that he had no problems asking her to travel on the bus home now, she was showing less signs of psychological distress. Another story of music working as a therapy involves a woman who has been in care all her life. This is an example of music encouraging ‘associative learning’ ( whereby a person strongly associates a piece of music with a person or event), as she likes to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ and she not only sings this song in her home but deeply connects with it. The tears and the music bring about a healing and her agitation is replaced by peace. The care staff think this is a song that may have been sung to this lady as a young person. As a therapist (and this is where it differs to performing), my job is to draw upon a client’s story and to create space for them to connect with their own voice. Music is such a powerful tool for this and, like that connection between performer and audience, I see memories being reignited and peace replacing agitation. It is then that the magic of music continues to amaze me. As I step out of these homes and drive away I too feel profoundly changed by the power of music and the memories we’ve just made.

Chapter 23

Glitter, Rubber Ducks, and Dinghies: The Georgian Theatre and the Teesside Gigging Community in the Early 2010s [+–] 231-237

Amy McCarthy £17.50

Writer

Amy McCarthy is a PhD student at York St John University researching indie music memoirs. In 2018, she was the winner of the Wilko Johnson Writing Award. Her personal essays on the Teesside area have been published in the zines The Line Between Two Towns (2017) and Fan Club (2019).

It is an evening midweek in Stockton-on-Tees. Down a narrow alleyway leading off the high street is the Georgian Theatre, one of the few independent music venues in Teesside. An anonymous figure in a velvet jumpsuit and glittery motorbike helmet crowdsurfs on an inflatable dinghy onto the stage. This is Bob Log III: a one-man blues band. The next couple of hours are ceremonious and cult-like with members of the audience drinking from dog bowls and popping balloons to substitute the beat of a drum. This is the Church of Bob. A surreal and unforgettable experience that converts any newcomers walking through the door. Between 2013 and 2014 I volunteered at the Georgian Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees. I collected glasses, staffed the box office and occasionally wrote gig reviews for a North East website. The Georgian Theatre was one of the key haunts of my teenage years. It gave me the chance to see Teesside treasures and the rising stars of the alternative UK music scene. The local music community created a space to experiment and explore different musical horizons. This personal essay focuses on my time at the Georgian Theatre, the repeated visits of Bob Log III and his growing support in the Teesside music community. Teesside has seen significant cuts to arts funding in the last ten years. Covid-19 poses a threat to independent live music venues and many are facing the risk of closure. Losing independent venues would form a crater in North East and prevent local music fans from gaining easy access to live music as well as preventing the exposure to the wonderful and surreal artists that small venues support.

Chapter 24

The Rock Garden: Conversations with My Dad, a Punk-rock DJ [+–] 238-247

Tom Jackson £17.50

PhD Candidate, York St. John University

Tom Jackson is a PhD Student examining gender in Contemporary American Literature. He is an avid musician, having played the drums and the guitar for several years. He is originally from Middlesbrough but moved to York in 2011. He hails from a musical family, growing up around DJs and record-shop owners.

In the 1970s, the Middlesbrough punk scene converged on an inner-city 400-person capacity nightclub: The Rock Garden. It hosted the biggest names in punk, rock and metal, including Siouxie and the Banshees, The Clash and The Sex Pistols. The Rock Garden also played a pivotal role in hosting smaller and less established artists as they made their way through the hectic and cramped music scene of the late 70s. Throughout this period, my Dad manned the decks. An unassuming man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure punk and hard rock, he lined up and mixed hardcore punk, ska and Two-Tone LPs for a diverse and at times hostile crowd of punks, skins and rockers. In 1981, The Rock Garden closed its doors seemingly for good. This was until 2010, when an old friend convinced my Dad to take part in a one-off pop-up punk night called The Rock Garden Revisited. The event celebrated the music, atmosphere and culture of the late 1970s. My focus for this essay is on why ‘The Rock Garden Revisited’ has continued to ‘pop-up’ in various independent music venues around Middlesbrough for the past 10 years. I want to consider the cultural importance of the original ‘Rock Garden’ venue and contrast this against the role the contemporary reincarnated venue has within the current Middlesbrough music scene. Importantly, I aim to drill down into how the Rock Garden continues to engender a sense of community within those new and old to the punk music scene in Middlesbrough and consider why this revival is more than just nostalgia.

Chapter 25

…for a Girl 248-254

Tarryn Watkins £17.50

Musician

Tarryn Watkins is a Yorkshire based musician. She has played bass for an eclectic mix of Yorkshire’s finest underground bands for around twelve years. She features in the documentary “So, what band is your boyfriend in?”, and has written for a few zines and online music publications over the years.

Conclusion

Final Word [+–] 255

Mark Davyd FREE

Music Venue Trust

Mark Davyd is the founder and CEO of Music Venue Trust, the charity that represents over 270 small and medium-sized venues in the UK. He is the co-owner of Tunbridge Wells Forum, a venue he founded in a toilet over 20 years ago; CEO of Rhythmix, the music charity that works with young people in challenging circumstances; the owner of Outstanding Music, a 360-degree music company that specialises in alternative Latin music, and is the loudmouthed band manager to a stable of Spanish acts. Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a regular speaker at international conferences (SXSW, LAMC, Eurosonic).

There has recently been good news with many venues receiving funding to support them through the COVID crisis. However, at the time of writing there are 30 venues which are under threat and are in danger of closing. The work of the Music Venue Trust (founded in 2014) has been central in supporting small venues and in ensuring their survival. Beyond COVID, there is still work to be done to recognise the importance of small venues in the cultural and economic life of Britain. Mark Davyd, CEO of the MVT writes about their work and the importance of venues to people and communities.

Reviews

An always exciting and superbly written collection. For if ‘Venue Stories’ teaches us anything it’s that these small buildings go way beyond their modest surroundings. These cathedrals of sound in fact are the only religious altars worth flocking to.
Louder than War

Rich in content and histories, the many individual narratives in Venue Stories are woven together and offer a model for those working through creative non-fiction as a methodology for writing histories pertaining to music, place and experience. The hidden microhistories of individuals represent larger structures of culture and community and are afforded agency to speak; the very nature of this book is radically effective.
Dancecult

Music Industry Studies

Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Venue Stories

Narratives, Memories, and Histories from Britain’s Independent Music Spaces

Fraser Mann [+–]

York St. John University

Robert Edgar [+–]

York St. John University

Helen Pleasance [+–]

York St. John University

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