Paul's London Diary
Artrocker Radio’s Gig Guide 17th - 24th January
Filed in Paul's London Diary by Paul Artrocker at 13.20pm on 17 January 11Monday 17th January
Terry Edwards @ The Paradise
Viv Albertine @ The Windmill
Tuesday 18th January
Jeffery Lewis & Peter Stampfel (Holy Model Rounders) @ The Windmill
Wednesday 19th January
Luke Haines @ The Hoxton Pony
Thursday 20th January
Pete & The Pirates @ The Lexington
Maria & The Mirrors @ The Others
Deathline @ The Alley Cat
Ultraphallus + Hey Colossus @ Dalston Victoria
Friday 21st January
Futureheads + Young Knives @ HMV Forum
Man-Flu @ Powers
Saturday 22nd January
ToeHammer @ The George Tavern
Godzilla Black @ The Unicorn Camden
Monday 24th January
Divorce @ Dalston VictoriaArtrocker Radio’s Gig Guide 10th - 17th November
Filed in Paul's London Diary by Paul Artrocker at 10.25am on 09 November 10> Wednesday 10th November
Sexual Objects @ 229
Wavves + Sexbeat @ The Garage
> Thursday 11th November
LIARS @ Heaven
Cowbell + Bridport Dagger + Novella @ Old Blue Last FREE
LCD Soundsystem @ The Coronet
> Friday 12th November
Foals @ Brixton Academy
The Spivs + The Sceptres + Hank Haint @ Hope & Anchor
Cheap Trick @ Shepherds Bush Empire
Swathes + Chapter 24 + Revolutionary Spirit + Miss Cosmos @ New Cross Inn
> Saturday 13th November
The March Violets + Black Moth @ Islington Academy
Men + Battant + Veronica Falls + Vile Vile Creatures and more @ Ladyfest @ The Garage
Terry Edwards @ The Montague Arms
> Sunday 14th November
Trash Kit + Wet Dog + Tender Trap + Viv Albertine + Peepholes + More @ LadyFest @ The Garage
> Monday 15th November 2010
Holy Fuck @ Electric Ballroom
> Tuesday 16th November
Veronica Falls + Dignan Porch @ White Heat at Mde Jo Jos
John & Jehn @ Old Blue Last
The Klaxons + Fiction @ The Forum
> Wednesday 17th November
Vessels + Humanfly + Xm3a + Stuart Warwick @ The Queen of Hoxton
Sex Beet @ The MacbethOpening this weekend .... ‘The Nest’ in Dalston
Filed in Paul's London Diary by Paul Artrocker at 10.04am on 15 October 10Claimed by some to be the most exciting and creative new area in London and by others as simply being 'Hoxton overspill' it can never be a bad thing that London has two new venues arriving on the scene in quick succession.
Perhaps more high profile is a complete overhaul of a venue much loved and often used by the most avant garde and underground of bands and promoters, Bardens Boudoir in Dalston.
The Nest is a new bar, club and live music venue opening in Dalston to the public on Friday 15th October 2010. Occupying the former site of Bardens Boudoir, behind The Nest are Fabric founder Steve Ball alongside Riz Shaikh, who already run many of London’s finest venues, including The Old Queens Head and Paradise By Way of Kensal Green.
The promoters, whose other venues are not primarily live music venues claim,
"The Nest will act as a figure head to a new breed of clubs that have the diversity and talent to embrace the new rather than hold on to the old, embracing Dalston’s fantastic creative scene, and supporting the best in live music, art and fashion, whilst also introducing worldwide new talent into an area which has fast become London’s hottest night spot.All of this will take place within a fantastic space, designed by Riz Shaikh, who has captured a dark and industrial feel using bare exposed concrete and neon lights. With bespoke lighting designed by award winning Alex Randell, The Nest will be full of intimate cubby holes and caged alcoves."
The Nest launches this weekend and it will be interesting to see ift he launch events reflect the balance of commitment at the venue between club acts and events and live music.
October 15th features DFA co founder Juan Maclean alongside Big in Japan resident Capita! and Jac the Disco.
October 16th lines up new comers Flight Facilities from Australia and remixers C90s and Kid Who
October 17th finally features some live music in the shape of Artrocker faves and soon to be Klaxons tour support, Fiction, alongside Phantom, Bones, EVRYONE.
These nights are free entry before 10pm on Friday and Saturday and 8pm on Sunday.
Meanwhile, just down the road another new venue opened in Dalston last weekend at The Victoria in Queensland Road. A pub with a "tragically un-used 150 capacity back room, decent stage and PA" kicked off with a 5 band lineup featuring Cowbell, Barringtone, Lot Lizards, Daddy LongLegs and the Loveburns.
With perhaps a more rough and ready approach, The Victoria shows its foward looking booking policy with a show on 22nd October featuring the very hip Youthless, Ghostcat and Rory Atwell.
It looks at least like there is a chance to 'take your pick' now in Dalston. With these new developments, the onus is now on you, dear reader, to get out there to some gigs !
Paul ArtrockerDIY, money, and me
Filed in Paul's London Diary by Paul Artrocker at 21.30pm on 08 July 10The cute little loft-flat that I have lived in, in North London, since about 1998 should have a blue plaque on the house wall outside. Its not that I am so ego-centric that I believe anything I have done merits any acknowledgement but more that someone I had the pleasure of working with has merit, and considering we are talking about music, perhaps the plaque should be 'vinyl' black. The wording I had in mind was
“Here lives Paul Cox of Too Pure Records in a flat enabled by the success of PJ Harvey in 1992”
It could go into greater detail but, lets face it, there's only a limited amount of space on those plaques.
And that's how I think of it, that without the success of the above mentioned release, I would not have my own place to live, so thanks Polly. I have also gathered that this seems to be how the whole music industry works; that one great success funds everything around it, including the other, less commercially successful artists and the industry structure that surround it (which in major label terms, is a massive and wasteful corporate structure mostly completed with spongers and blaggers and bureaucrats).
Just recently I needed to raise money using my mortgage on said flat, so I approached my Building Society who, ultimately, own the place themselves. Faced with my pitiful part time income, non-existent savings and invisible Artrocker income, the curt chap on the phone told me that I did not merit a loan of any description (let alone a black plaque!). It seems that a 'PJ Harvey moment' comes along infrequently.
Towards the end of the 1980's I had found myself working at an independent record distributor in North London, on the same industrial estate and a stone's throw from where the mighty Rough Trade distribution would receive its death rites. In that small upstairs room, a group of 'should-do-better' indie kids had been thrown together as a national telephone sales team working for the man who by some industry quirk had the sole rights to The Rocky Horror Picture Show (a pension scheme if ever there was one!). Simultaneously, the new, grass roots dance scene, soon to be christened 'Acid House' by the tabloids was sweeping the nation and was nailing fast the indie coffin lid. We were putting independent dance tracks into the charts, and even when those glamorous chart positions weren't achieved, records (yes that is vinyl), of the repetitive beat variety, were selling by the van load.
Before I'd joined this dynamic, drug addled commercialism, I had started a small club in North London, with the help of my fellow Portsmouth evacuees, with the aim of putting on some bands we liked and, in effect, to act as the replacement local meeting and drinking place we'd left behind on the South Coast. Preposterously named 'The Hot Sausage Machine', we set out to run a weekly night featuring our own two bands and the small handful of bands we had already played with in London. The success of the Club, and others of the time is not for this article but suffice to say that it did not go unnoticed by my fellow acid-house tele-sales team members, one of whom found the whole DIY set up, the quality of the bands, and (it can't be denied) the largish number of people showing up, an inspiration and reawakening of his indie fanaticism. Richard, a reformed new waver and semi-goth-head, soon proposed the idea of a record label with the aim of documenting this scene, as it happened, and choosing one band to release as the spearhead of what we understood to be the antithesis of the warehouse rave movement and Manchester 'indie-dancers'.
To start a label was not really the proposal, but to record and release something, as a document, and just to see if we could do it or how to do it, was closer to Richard's idea. The original motivation to start the club was just to have fun, to have a place to play, a place to meet, drink and also to get to see some bands we liked. It is strange yet exciting, how ideas can blossom if you act upon them. So it was not hard to accept Richard's proposal without either of us knowing how one goes about releasing something oneself, but how difficult could it be? The Desperate Bicycles DIY Mantra 'It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it' was not the one we were to follow though.
Because our 'scene' was based around The Sausage Machine Club in Hampstead, we decided there could be no better way of documenting it than recording some performances to release as a live album. To me, this would be our version of the 'Live at The Roxy' album or the 'Hope and Anchor Front Row Festival' double album, or even the Mods Mayday, all of which seemed to capture the musical moment and spirit of their times. But by either naivety or professionalism we weren't going to cut corners so decided to get a mobile recording studio to set up outside The White Horse on two separate Saturdays and record the whole sets of several bands which would be mixed in a studio later. We asked bands who had already played at the club and who were now taking their next steps towards indie notoriety, and we asked bands who were brand new and in need of their first exposure to a wider audience. We also said we'd give all the profits away to charity – that's right, I said 'profits' – we really must have been naïve. Not satisfied with that, we proposed to release a single by one of the most outlandishly tuneless bands of the time, Th' Faith Healers, and to our surprise, they accepted.
'Ideas, ideas ideas', it almost sounds like a Political slogan doesn't it ? In terms of DIY it really is the root of all actions because without your original idea, you have nothing to act upon. Less than two years after our audacious début recording ideas we had another conundrum. Silently, and without even consulting, two releases had become three releases, and four, and we were in danger of becoming … 'a label'. At this point we crossed paths with two new bands on 'the scene', Stereolab and PJ Harvey. Both played at the club and both enjoyed the success we had had with our previous releases and both were interested in releasing singles and albums with us. Thankfully we simply could not help ourselves in the face of such exciting ideas and we agreed to work with both bands without the slightest clue how it would be financially possible. It did prove possible and my flat bears testimony to that, but those means of achievement are another story. Returning to the time we recorded the live album at The White Horse Richard simply said that to add to our paltry savings we should take a walk one lunchtime down to our local bank in Stamford Hill. Jokes about Jewish acumen can be set aside here because we met with one Carol Thurlow, a friendly assistant bank manager whose rock'n'roll knowledge amounted to jokes about 'the new Beatles'. We met with her, (that means we sat across a table in the same room with a bank manager!) and told her what our ideas were and how we intended doing this and why we did and how much we thought it would cost...... and that we'd give away all the profits (perhaps we didn't tell her this bit!). And you know what ? Without any ticking of 'income boxes' or savings history (perhaps Richard having a mortgage played more of a part than I remember) Ms Thurlow booked her tiny moment in indie history by enabling us to book the studios, and I was pleased to see her name on the back of that first Too Pure Records release when I took a look half an hour ago, before writing this piece. Perhaps it was the excitement we conveyed about the idea we'd had that persuaded Carol to take a small punt into the rock'n'roll world, I'm just glad she did.
It shouldn't cost quite as much to get that black plaque up on the wall of the house should it ?
Paul ArtrockerPaul’s London Log: 03/02/10
Filed in Paul's London Diary by Paul Artrocker at 15.46pm on 04 February 10The launch of our new, and very appropriately, 'all singing, all dancing' Artrocker website has brought forward my new London Log entry (at last I have a name for it, temporarily at least) and as such, and as a tribute to my age and early years of sci-fi TV viewing I will call this 'Paul's London Log, Supplemental'.
Running a regular gig guide in our weekly Artrocker radio show I endeavour to pick out those events that should be of interest to the discerning (and outgoing) Artrocker with a diary to fill, and the desire to take part in what Tom and myself used to call the community rather than the scene. A couple of weeks back my own 'other commitments' meant I had to miss out on a couple of essential shows on consecutive nights, which both brought back to the live scene bands demanding our attention and support. It was with disdain and disappointment that I heard that So So Modern's gig in Brighton had only about half a dozen attendees..... so called 'London-by-the-Sea' hold your heads in shame. How short your memories are and and how poor your support of the scene is. We all know how hard it is to shift one's ass out the door during this miserable winter full of discontent and pointless TV but we all have to make a stand. My thinking is thus; a band comes all the way around the world to play in my town, I should put myself out just a little to acknowledge and support their action. Believe me, striking towns and venues and even countries off tour circuit destinations is more common than you realise so enjoy it while we have it
I didn't hear such horror stories about SSM's London show fortunately but would love to hear what their performance was like. At the very same venue, but the previous night, Blood Red Shoes returned to live action with a low key gig in advance of their 'official' return in March at The Garage. Previously a blindingly powerful live duo, I'd also love to hear from those of you who went.
Both gigs were at the infeasibly hip venue The Lexington. It's a popular and cool venue and with good reason, but against all odds. For a start, it isn't in the Shoreditch Triangle, a patch of London where seemingly innocuous buildings sporadically disappear and reappear as minimal and arty pseudo bohemian hang outs, which are (for the time being) happy, while the punters come, to put a band or two on at the end of the room. Like the Luminaire in 2008, The Lexington's reputation is made on quality drinking, a quality venue space and the best of lineups. Venues move in and out of favour as quickly as bands do at The NME and knowing on which spot the scene will land next is part of the fun of going gigging. The ugliness and endless duplication of an already saturated gig scene at the end of 2009 has delivered several new hang-outs, good ones too, and they are only the ones I know about! Moving North and East from Shoreditch there are new hip havens such as the uber cool pub The Stags Head and the tiny Hobby Horse, and then there's a venue so far east it must be hoping for some Olympic overspill, The Victoria. There, No-Wave superhero James Chance is even doing to be playing soon! I'm thinking of starting a venue league table.
Venues move in and out of favour but it is also possible for some to to always be mentioned with a grimace. When the bands are so obviously a sideshow to the Djs, or to the adjoining restaurant or even to simply the bar. I recently experienced gig punters being turned away from a Shoreditch venue for being 'all boys'. I recall it being a cheesy 80's club policy to get girls into venues to have such policies. At the same venue, the bar policy was also dubious, with the 'reasonably' priced draught beer conveniently never being available at busy times but jaw droppingly expensive cans and bottles always being readily available.
As an Artrocker gig envoy I am also trawling the larger, but less well known venues of London to find a cool and unusual gaff to stage an event for our forthcoming 100^th edition of the magazine. The number of excellent un-used Town Halls is astonishing but the number of over-priced warehouse spaces in East London less surprising, and perhaps my 'large venue of the week' will have to go to The Coronet at Elephant and Castle. It was there that it was revealed to me why such a cool and newly refurbished and well supremely 'kitted out' large venue was still going to struggle to 'happen' in London. Large 'entertainment groups' like Live Nation or The Mama group, even HMV, have decided that the way they can extract even more money from the live scene is to vertically integrate and promote bands, tours and events ONLY at the venues that they control. This limits which bands or tours independent venues are likely to be able promote in much the same way that independent films only receive very limited cinematic releases.
It is a veritable minefield being a conscientious 'indie kid' these days. First and foremost you have to 'get out there' and be supportive of the scene, but secondly, if you want to dig a little deeper, then there are always good, exciting alternatives lurking and happening in The London underground. I assume that, like me, that is why you are here.
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