Category: Music

An ode to the London live music venues of yesteryear

Alternative City Guide London Music No Comments

The story of The Middle Earth; London’s radical first underground club 

Pre-Covid (will we refer to this time as ‘P.C.’ in years to come?), I lived for going to gigs and I’ve always found live music venues and their history fascinating.  My sister Rachel helped kick-start this obsession as a teenager when she bought me the book ‘Rock and Roll London’ by Max Wooldridge – containing a foreword by the provocative Sex Pistols and New York Dolls impresario Malcolm McLaren. 

I spent two weeks staying with her in Bermondsey, South London in 2002 and again in 2004 whilst doing work experience at NME magazine, then based in King’s Reach Tower, Waterloo.  At NME, the workies would be allowed to leave the office at 4.30pm but my sister wouldn’t finish work in Covent Garden until nearer 6pm so I’d use this hour and a half to wander around Central London with the ‘Rock and Roll London’ book in hand tracking down the city’s various musical landmarks.  

  • ‘Rock and Roll London’ by Max Wooldridge
  • King’s Reach Tower, the former home of NME. Now refurbished and known as ‘South Bank Tower’

From the Sex Pistols’ notorious squat at 6 Denmark Street to Syd Barrett’s former pad on Earlham Street to the site of Trident Studios (where Bowie recorded ‘Ziggy Stardust’, amongst countless others) on St Anne’s Court in Soho, making a pilgrimage to these hallowed haunts was a fun way to pass the time and it helped me to become familiar with the more obscure streets of Soho, Fitzrovia, Mayfair and Covent Garden.  Ironically, these areas would be where I would spend much of my PR career ten years later. 

I secretly hoped that some of the musical magic of the city would rub off on me and I began spending increasing amounts of time on Denmark Street (London’s Tin Pan Alley) after finishing work at NME, trying out various guitars that I had no intention (or financial means, being only 15 at the time) of buying.  The assistants in shops like Andy’s Guitars, Macari’s and Wunjo, many of them aspiring musicians themselves, didn’t seem to mind though and were very accommodating; courteously getting down the vintage Fender Jaguar or rare Gibson Melody Maker that I’d asked to test out from the display wall.  One evening after work, I spotted Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland out shopping for guitars on Denmark Street.  Although personally not a huge fan, in 2002 they had just released their 10 x platinum album ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ and were fast on their way to becoming the stadium band we all know today so I figured out that I was in the right place.

  • Denmark Street today looking towards St Giles High Street and the Google offices.
  • One of the many guitar emporiums on the street.

I was also fascinated by former punk clubs The Roxy on Neal Street, The Vortex on Wardour Street and Louise’s on Poland Street, as well as the early folk and skiffle venues Les Cousins on Greek Street and the 2i’s Coffee Bar on Old Compton Street.  On Wardour Street, I tracked down both the influential jazz, R&B and calypso club The Flamingo and the radical, unofficial HQ of the New Romantic movement The WAG Club, as well as the three incarnations of the world-famous Marquee Club on Oxford Street, Wardour Street and finally Charing Cross Road. 

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Dave Vanian of The Damned onstage at The Roxy (photo: Derek Ridgers). 2.) The queue outside The Roxy on Neal Street. 3.) Siouxsie & The Banshees at The Vortex (photo: Ray Stevenson) 4.) The Sex Pistols outside their Denmark Street squat 5.) A flyer for The Vortex featuring The Buzzcocks, The Fall and John Cooper Clarke 6.) Malcom McLaren, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, Marco Pirroni and pals get the drinks in at Louise’s, Poland Street.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Kids in mod attire outside The Flamingo on Wardour Street 2.) The entrance to The WAG Club 3.) Bill Kent at the 2i’s Coffee Bar, Old Compton Street 4.) The Marquee on Wardour Street, Soho in 1975 5.) and 6.) Donovan and a young Paul Simon perform at Les Cousins on Greek Street (photo: Ian Anderson).

Then there was The Middle Earth at 43 King Street in Covent Garden – London’s first ‘underground’ venue and prior to that, England’s first-ever boxing club, before closing its doors in 1936.  Housed in the large basement of the palatial 18th century Baroque mansion Russell House, the oldest remaining building in Covent Garden Piazza (built in 1717 for Admiral Russell, the First Earl of Orford), The Middle Earth for a short period in the mid-late 1960s was the most exciting hippie club in London. The direct successor to the UFO Club (“U-Fo”, to those in the know) on Tottenham Court Road, the club’s Saturday night house DJ was future Radio 1 broadcaster John Peel and it hosted shows by illuminati such as Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Electric Prunes, Ike & Tina Turner, Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex, Soft Machine, Tim Buckley, The Who, The Byrds (featuring Gram Parsons), Jefferson Airplane, Fairport Convention, Zoot Money and Captain Beefheart.  

A selection of line-up posters for The Middle Earth including The Doors at its later home of The Roundhouse in Camden Town.

During the day, the cellar that played host to The Middle Earth doubled up as a storage space used by the nearby fruit and vegetable market.  By evening, the stench of rotting fruit and veg, combined with the fumes from the club’s numerous incense burners was said to be somewhat intoxicating.  Bizarrely, the venue’s ‘bar’ sold mainly apples, rather than alcoholic drinks.  The club was famous for its floor-to-ceiling film projections, liquid slides and light shows, and hosted poetry and plays, as well as live music.  One notable production was by The Tribe of the Psychedelic Mushroom who performed a play based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead.  Far out, man. 

John Peel introducing Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex (a nascent version of T. Rex) onstage at The Middle Earth.  ‘Sarah Crazy Child’.  November 1967.

As with the UFO, The Middle Earth’s lifespan was a brief one.  Its doors usually opened at around 10pm with revellers finally emerging into the Covent Garden daylight around 8am and the police were highly suspicious of these bleary-eyed hippies who had been spending all night down in Russell House’s basement.  The psychedelic club was finally closed down in 1968 after a police drugs raid, during which a curious device known as ‘The Trip Machine’ was dismantled and then confiscated.  The team behind The Middle Earth went on to host events in a former Victorian railway turning shed, The Roundhouse in Camden Town.  Acts to perform at these events would include The Doors, playing their only non-festival UK shows and the first gig by Led Zeppelin in 1968.  

When I first visited 43 King Street in 2002, the building was still empty and in a semi-derelict state, but it has now been restored to its former glory and the upper ground floor has been taken over by the flagship store of high-end Brazilian shoe brand Melissa.  Its four-bedroom penthouse flat occupying the top two floors was recently listed for £7.75 million.  

  • Russell House, 43 King Street, Covent Garden. Home to ‘The Middle Earth until 1968.
  • The former entrance to The Middle Earth.

The Roxy on Neal Street, once the stamping ground of The Clash, Siouxsie & The Banshees and renegade film-makers Don Letts and Julien Temple is now the flagship London branch of Speedo swimwear.  The Vortex at 203 Wardour Street is part of the Simmons Bar chain.  Louise’s is the site of bougie private members club and cocktail bar Milk & Honey.  The location of The Flamingo and in later years, The WAG Club is now home to Irish pub chain O’Neill’s (although its upstairs function room is called ‘The Flamingo Room’ in a nod to the building’s history).  Only the 2i’s Coffee Bar has stayed vaguely connected to its musical roots.  In 2021, it is the retro-themed Poppie’s Fish & Chips restaurant (I spent some time freelancing in an office opposite) but as you head down to its basement-level dining room, a bright neon sign declares; ‘The 2i’s Coffee Bar; Home to the Stars’.  

  • Poppies’ Fish & Chip Shop on the site of the former 2i’s Coffee Bar on Old Compton Street.
  • 90 Wardour Street, the location of the Marquee Club’s soho incarnation (now a high-end restaurant and luxury loft apartments).

However, cities are constantly changing and evolving and different areas and movements will pick up the mantle when it comes to clubs, the arts and creative industries.  As Kierkegaard once noted;

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”  

Soren Kierkegaard

We can take great inspiration from places like The Middle Earth and The WAG Club and the counterculture scenes they spawned but can only learn and build from them as we look towards future generations.

In my next post, I’ll be looking at why despite the huge economic hardship caused by the pandemic, it’s not all doom and gloom for London’s live music circuit.  

The WAG Club on Wardour Street became one of London’s coolest nightspots in the 1980s and was a fixture of the city’s alternative nightlife until finally closing its doors in 2001. The club was the brainchild of Chris Sullivan, a dandily-dressed Welshman and soul music obsessive and a genuine community formed around the club. In 2008 and 2009 my old band The Screenbeats played a couple of shows at Chris’ stylish new Cardiff venue Tabu. The most memorable gig was a Primal Scream aftershow party; we didn’t go onstage until 1am and playing to an audience including Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Innes, Barrie Cadogan and bizarrely Kermit from Black Grape was surreal to say the least.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The WAG Club community celebrating its 10th anniversary 2.) The WAG’s patrons included David Bowie, Naomi Campbell, Boy George, KRS-One and Neneh Cherry (pictured) 3.) and 4.) Photos of some of The WAG’s regulars 5.) – 7.) The club’s distinctive interior .

Why sometimes you should talk to strangers (and how I discovered Phyllis Hyman)

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In years gone by I have had something of a reputation amongst friends for having a low-pass filter when it came to talking to complete strangers and giving them the time of day.  

There was the bar crawl whilst on holiday in Lisbon that started off as four of us and gradually expanded to a lively motley crew containing Germans, Finns, Norwegians, a Tunisian and um, a group of guys and girls from Stoke, as we incorporated new people into our group with every establishment we visited.  There was the 50-something woman I got chatting to in a casino in Cardiff after a Tom Jones concert and who then somehow found my phone number the day next and called, eager to introduce me to her friends and her daughter.  At Glastonbury 2010 (one of the warmest festivals on record), we made friends with the people camping next to us in the Dairy Ground campsite and many years later I would end up becoming one of their neighbours in Brixton and we would subsequently form a folk duo.  In 2012, we would go on to perform three songs at a humanist baby blessing ceremony at the West London home of Countryfile presenter Julia Bradbury but that’s another story.  

My beloved Sharon Jones t- shirt; the same one that triggered the chance late night Brixton Road conversation that led me to discovering Phyllis Hyman’s music.

Then there was the time that I was supervising a group of teenage Kazakh, Polish, Spanish and Turkish students on a day trip to London, whilst working for the summer at a language school in Southampton.  The students were visiting the UK for a few months in order to improve their English skills and we had taken the train to London, visiting sites such as the V&A Museum and London Eye.  We had taken a breather and stopped for a spot of lunch by the wooden replica of Sir Francis Drake’s galleon, The Golden Hind on South Bank, just along from the Tate Modern.  

The kids all seemed happy enough and were tucking into their Pret sandwiches so I popped on the earphones of my iPod and had a few minutes to myself, ahead of a hectic afternoon of herding 25 students around Central London.  A homeless person emerged from around the corner clutching a can of Diamond White cider and asked what I was listening to.  I told him (it was August 2007 so it would most likely have been The Rakes’ second album or The Clash-sampling ‘Paper Planes’ by M.I.A.) and he then asked if it would also be possible for him to listen too?  I didn’t see the harm in it at the time so handed him one of the white iPod earphones which he placed into the recesses of his ear and we sat side-by-side for a minute or so, digesting the sounds of Mick Jones’ guitar before we exchanged a handshake and he went on his way.  The man didn’t seem in the greatest health so I thought it was the least I could do if it brightened up his day a bit.

  • Working with The Lewis School of English, Southampton. Summer 2007.
  • Fun and games in Lisbon, July 2011.

Fast forward to July 2018 and it’s the day before my friends Emily and Matt’s wedding.  I had been out for the evening in Oval, Stockwell and then for a nightcap at the Three Eight Four cocktail bar on Coldharbour Lane, Brixton (a bar so achingly hip it has metal shopping baskets filled with light bulbs fastened to the walls for low-lit ambience).  I had decided to call it a night around 2am and said goodbye to a friend at Brixton tube station.

As I walked back up along the main road to my flat on Brixton Hill, an ever-so-slightly merry man stopped me;

“Yes mate!  Wicked t-shirt!”

I was wearing my prized ‘Make America Dance Again’ t-shirt in honour of the late, great soul singer Sharon Jones (now sadly fading and yellowing around the edges – a little like its owner). 

“I have a question for you”, continued my new acquaintance.

“Oh yeah?”; I replied cautiously.  Even though I have never felt unsafe at night in Brixton, it’s sensible to keep your wits about you at 2 o’clock in the morning. 

“Who do you think is the greatest female soul singer of all-time?” 

“Hmm…”  I thought about it for a moment and replied; “Aretha Franklin”. 

“Ahh, Areeethaa!  I hadn’t thought of her!”.  The topic had clearly been weighing on his mind for some time. 

Whilst the man seemed to agree with me; he also urged me to listen to another female soul singer he loved:

“Phyllis Hyman!  She had an amazing voice!” 

He even spelled out her name for me and enthusiastically encouraged me to check out some of her music.  I had never heard her name before but was now suitably intrigued. 

The conversation ended with a warm handshake and the Phyllis Hyman acolyte shouting “You’re a starboy!” (a term of endearment in Jamaican patois) as we headed off in opposite directions along Brixton Road.

I made it home and although I had a Saturday of wedding festivities ahead of me the following day, I quickly searched for ‘Phyllis Hyman’ and listened to a few of her songs.  Much to my pleasure, the man had been right and Phyllis Hyman did have an amazing voice.  I recognised her 1979 disco track ‘You Know How To Love Me’ but she also had a number of deeper, soulful ballads including ‘Old Friend’ and ‘Living All Alone’. 

Phyllis Hyman 

Over the next few weeks I began reading about Phyllis and finding out more about her background and her music.  She had been raised in Philadelphia and was part of the early Philly Soul scene before moving to New York in the mid-70s where she initially sang with jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and The Fatback Band (known for their brilliant 1983 hit ‘I Found Lovin’), before releasing her debut album Phyllis Hyman in 1977 on Buddah Records – a label whose heritage she shared with the likes of Chic, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Curtis Mayfield and Bill Withers.

Hyman was well-known for her vivacious and at times, confrontational personality – she had been known to single out audience members if they were talking or on the phone during her performances.  As well as her recording career, she also performed in various Broadway musicals (including over 700 performances in the Duke Ellington tribute Sophisticated Ladies) and starred in several films.  She even recorded the signature track for the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, although the song was eventually shelved due to an authorship dispute.

After Buddah was acquired by Arista Records in the late 1970s, Hyman endured a tempestuous working relationship with Arista founder and notorious music industry mogul Clive Davis.  Phyllis felt that Davis did not understand her as an artist and was trying to strip her of her identity and market her incorrectly.  It was during this period that Hyman’s issues with substance abuse and food addiction became more serious and she was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  

In the mid-80s, Phyllis found a new lease of life after finally breaking free from her contract with Arista and began releasing music on Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s hallowed Philadelphia International label.  She also enjoyed a fruitful musical partnership with Gamble & Huff songwriters and producers Thom Bell and Linda Creed; most notably on Creed’s song ‘Old Friend’.  This was the final song that Creed would write before her death from breast cancer in 1986 at the age of 37.  Hyman, someone who felt the highs and lows of life very deeply, loved the song but found it extremely difficult to sing live and would frequently break down in tears onstage whilst performing it. 

Phyllis Hyman talking about ‘Old Friend’ in 1987

In 1991, Phyllis Hyman released her eighth studio album; In The Prime of My Life on Philadelphia International.  The album was her most successful yet and included the hit single ‘Don’t Wanna Change The World’ which reached the Billboard Top 100 and the top spot in the R&B chart.  The album spawned three further singles but it was sadly the last to be released during Phyllis’ lifetime.

Phyllis’ dependency on alcohol, cocaine and food continued into the mid-‘90s and she was hit hard by the deaths of both her grandmother and mother in 1993.  The people closest to her have spoken about how her moods became even more erratic and on 30th June 1995, after one previous failed suicide bid, she overdosed on a mixture of pentobarbital, secobarbital and vodka and was found unconscious in her West 56th Street apartment.  She died later that same day at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York – a week before her 46th birthday.  Her manager Glenda Gracia spoke of having a “sinking feeling” during this time and her sister Ann claimed in the TV One ‘Unsung’ documentary that she was “shocked, but not surprised”.  

Phyllis had been due to perform at the Apollo Theater in Harlem that very evening as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the US R&B vocal group The Whispers.  The members of The Whispers were distraught and felt the show should be cancelled out of respect.  However, it was Phyllis’ backing band who insisted that the show should continue as it would have been what she would have wanted.  The show went ahead as planned and became an emotional celebration of both The Whispers and Hyman’s music. 

So, here’s to the kindness of strangers and the music of Phyllis Hyman.  Phyllis may have lived a somewhat tragic life but she had an immense talent that spanned the worlds of music, theatre, film and fashion.  Just think; if I had ignored that bloke on Brixton Road in the early hours of 28th July 2018 and walked straight past him up the hill, I would have never discovered her music.

Phyllis Hyman; some starting points

‘You Know How To Love Me’ (1979)

A disco-era classic and Hyman’s most-instantly recognisable song.  Although Phyllis was “never a huge seller”, this has now had nearly 4 million streams on Spotify alone and has been covered in later years by Robin S and Lisa Stansfield.  The original featured backing vocals from one Gwen Guthrie who would go on to have a Top 5 hit single in the UK with ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On but the Rent’ in 1986.

‘Don’t Wanna Change The World’ (1991)

A comeback single of sorts, ‘Don’t Wanna Change The World’ was Phyllis’ biggest-selling single.  A prime slice of smooth, early 1990s R&B, this spent a week at Number One in the US R&B chart in 1991.

‘Old Friend’ (1986)

Written by the late Linda Creed and produced by Thom Bell, this was one of Phyllis’ favourite songs, despite finding it a very emotional number to sing.  The recording was one of her first for her new record label, Gamble & Huff’s Philadelphia International.

‘Living All Alone’ (1986)

Taken from the album of the same name, ‘Living All Alone’ is a deeply-affecting ballad and became one of Hyman’s best-known songs.  Although not written by Hyman herself, the lyrics rang true for some elements of her own life.  

‘Suddenly’ (with The Whispers – 1984)

Taken from The Whispers’ 1984 album So Good.  This is the only recording of Hyman and The Whispers together – the group she was set to perform at the Apollo Theater with on the evening of her death. 

David Bowie; Our Brixton Boy

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Five years ago today it was 10th January 2016.  It was a Monday and I woke up groggily at 6.50am to get ready for work.  The first sign that this was to be no ordinary Monday was upon checking Twitter.  I spotted that my friend Faye (also, the former singer in my old band) had tweeted a link to the David Bowie song ‘Kooks’.  After subsequently checking BBC News and switching on the radio, it became quickly apparent that Bowie had passed away – just two days after his 69th birthday and also, the date of the secretive release of his Blackstar album.

The Ritzy Cinema, Windrush Square, Brixton. 10th January 2016.

Now, far more erudite and esteemed music writers than myself have enthusiastically eulogised about Bowie, his work and his enduring influence.  I am not about to do the same.  Indeed, as we commemorate the fifth anniversary of his death, there are countless documentaries and radio specials airing and social media is already buzzing with all things Bowie.  However, put simply, Bowie was and still is a cultural icon.  A musical and stylistic chameleon who seemingly had numerous careers and personas rolled into just the one life.  He was a shapeshifter with his sound initially embracing ‘60s beat-pop and glam rock, then leaning towards minimal post-punk, art rock, soulful Americana and disco, whilst in the later stages of his career, exploring the more obscure genres he loved such as drum and bass, industrial metal and experimental jazz.

However, rather than writing about Bowie’s music, I’d rather recall that highly unusual and symbolic day in January 2016.  At the time, I happened to be living at 176 Stockwell Road, a stone’s throw away from Brixton Academy and the Brixton Bowls skatepark.  More notably, it was around the corner from 40 Stansfield Road where Bowie had been born on 8th January 1947.  I had already seen several TV crews turning into the road from my kitchen window that morning and when I walked past on my way to work at 8.15am there was already a pile of flowers outside the house, as well as several reporters and grieving fans.  

Reporters and fans beginning to gather outside 40 Stansfield Road on 10th January 2016. 8.15am.

Bowie had lived at the house for the first six years of his life and attended Stockwell Primary School (coincidentally, also my nearest polling station on voting day).  Although the family moved to Bickley in Bromley when Bowie was six years old, he had apparently always had a soft spot for Brixton and even made a covert return visit to 40 Stansfield Road during the final years of his life.  I would have had quite the shock if I had bumped into him on an afternoon jog. 

I was working for a music PR agency based near St. James’s Park – one whose biggest client was arguably the only living musical artist whose profile and reputation could rival Bowie’s.  I had only been listening to David’s Nile Rodgers-produced Let’s Dance album at my desk the Friday before his death and I was now catching drift of a huge street party being hastily arranged in Brixton for that very evening.

A night out on a Monday evening is never ideal but this felt like something we simply had to be a part of.  A few WhatsApps later and I had arranged to meet my friends Mark, Vicki (the current singer in my group) and Scott that evening for the Bowie Party.  

By 7pm Brixton was absolutely teeming.  It’s always a lively part of South London but Bowie’s fans were out in force in their thousands.  The 2013 mural of Bowie during his Aladdin Insane period on the wall of the Morley’s department store by the Australian artist James Cochran had become a great shrine with pile upon pile of flowers, candles and letters.  The Ritzy cinema had changed its listings board to read ‘David Bowie; Our Brixton Boy RIP’ and Windrush Square in front of it was packed with fans of all ages, shapes and sizes.  We grabbed drinks from the off-licence next to McDonald’s on Brixton Road and joined the assembled throng with ‘Suffragette City’ blaring from a makeshift soundsystem placed in the middle of the square.  

The ‘Bowie mural’, Brixton Road. The mural now has protected status and a plastic cover.

The atmosphere in Windrush Square that evening could only be described as carnival-like.  There was a sense of disbelief that Bowie was dead so soon after the release of Blackstar and with no media reports circulating about his illness.  However, despite Bowie not being that old when he died, this was a pure celebration of his life.  His music continued to pump out of the outdoor speakers and the crowd steadily grew with some estimates putting the number of attendees to 10,000.  Press photographers scurried around, frantically capturing images for the next day’s papers. 

The surreal scenes in Brixton on the evening of 10th January 2016.

With the crowd continuing to swell, we decamped to the Prince of Wales pub on Coldharbour Lane where the DJ was spinning, you-guessed-it, Bowie songs all evening.  The party atmosphere continued long into the night with strangers mingling and sharing their favourite Bowie memories; as one reveller put it; “it’s what he would have wanted.”

After deciding to call it a night, we headed home via Bowie’s former house at 40 Stansfield Road, SW9.  Despite it being past 1am, the place was still a hive of activity, although the mood was more sombre than in Windrush Square.  Several dedicated fans had lit candles, taped handwritten notes to the house’s wall and were holding an all-night vigil in honour of their idol.  We stopped for a few minutes to talk to them and I was struck by how calm and dignified they seemed.  They simply felt it was their duty to be here on this sad, yet historic day.

40 Stansfield Road, Brixton in the early hours of 11th January 2016.

I said goodbye to my friends and finally got back to my flat around 1.30am.  I put on my favourite Bowie album Low and finished the evening lying on my back between the two speakers with my eyes closed listening to the glacial, icy synths of ‘Warszawa’ and ‘Art Decade’, processing the events of the day.

Here’s to us all being a bit more like Bowie in 2021. 

The Psychedelic Singing Cowboy; the Enduring Legacy of Arthur Lee & Love

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The name of this blog is inspired by the final track, ‘You Set The Scene’ on Arthur Lee & Love’s revered Forever Changes album.  I thought it was only right to pen a few words about one of the most underrated groups of the past 50 years and a legacy that still continues today. 

Imagine a world without the radical, otherworldly Stratocaster histrionics of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and The Doors’ mysterious beat poetry-set-to-music or Sly Stone’s dandified funk?  Or to bring things more up-to-date, none of the genre-defying musical chameleonry of OutKast and Anderson .Paak, or one of Mac Miller’s most recognisable songs?  Without the influence of Arthur Lee and his band Love, this might be the world we find ourselves living in today.

Love, for a short period in the mid-1960s were top dog in LA.  Not only were they the coolest band in Southern California (The Beach Boys were still pre-Pet Sounds at this point and considered a little passé, whilst The Byrds were less edgy) but they were also ground-breaking in the fact that they were America’s first racially-mixed psychedelic rock group.  

The early line-up of Love. Left-to-right; Johnny Echols, Arthur Lee, Bryan MacLean, Kenny Forsi, Michael Stuart.

The group’s leader and singer Arthur Lee was born in Memphis in 1945 and moved to Los Angeles as a child, following his parents’ divorce.  Ironically, lead guitarist Johnny Echols’ (and Love’s only surviving original member) childhood followed a similar pattern with his parents also leaving Memphis for LA in the ‘50s, and the pair’s grandparents even being friends back in Tennessee.  Lee and Echols attended the same school, The Susan Miller Dorsey High School in the Crenshaw district of the city and the nascent seeds of the group Love were sown.  

By early 1965, the first incarnation of Love (Lee and Echols adding former Byrds acolyte Bryan MacLean to the line-up, as well as bassist Kenny Forsi and drummer Don Conka – later replaced by Alban ‘Snoopy’ Pfisterer) were a regular on the West Hollywood circuit, playing hippie haunts such as Bido Lito’s, The Brave New World and The Whisky a Go Go.  Jac Holzman, the founder of Elektra Records visited LA around this time, keen to find a new act after missing out on signing The Lovin’ Spoonful (best-known for their ‘66 hit ‘Summer in the City’).  After Holzman caught the band live at Bido Lito’s, Love soon landed a long-term recording contract with Elektra.  Ever-astute, belying his tender age, Lee insisted on retaining the rights to his songs, rather than handing them over to the label – providing him with a valuable additional income stream for the rest of his life.

Originally a talented basketball player, Lee was a marvellous mass of contradictions.  He was known as a street-smart hustler and for not shying away from confrontation, but he also was blessed with an angelic voice, wrote deep, poetic and existential lyrics (“He should be the Poet Laureate for this country”, suggested his bandmate Echols) and had an affectionate love of animals (he was known to own several dogs at any one time).  His signature look in the mid-60s was tasselled leather jackets, silk scarves and hippy beads – teamed with triangular shades and cowboy boots. He enthusiastically bent Holzman and Elektra’s ear about taking a chance on signing one of their contemporaries from the underground LA scene, a then-unknown group called The Doors, essentially kick-starting their career.

In the years prior to Love taking off, Arthur tried his hand at being a songwriter and wrote the simple yet soulful pop tune’ ‘My Diary’ for an emerging singer from Louisiana, Rosa Lee Brooks.  He enlisted the help of a young guitarist for the recording session; a certain Jimi Hendrix.  ‘My Diary’ is one of the first-ever recordings to feature Hendrix, if not the very first.  Whilst the two were on friendly terms and Hendrix would play guitar on the 1970 Love track, ‘The Everlasting First’, Lee would criticise Hendrix for stealing his style and Jimi would even record and release ‘Hey Joe’ as a single, just one year after Love recorded their own version of the song for their debut album. 

The original line-up of Love released three landmark albums between 1965 and 1968; each one sonically very different.  1966’s eponymous debut Love was propelled by the success of the lead single, the band’s cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s ‘My Little Red Book’.  The original, recorded by Manfred Mann for the film ‘What’s New Pussycat?’ was given a complete makeover and transformed into an urgent-sounding two-minute garage rock stomp – and one that does not sound of place on radio today.  The rest of the album followed a similarly garagey vein with standout tracks such as ‘My Flash On You’, as well as more tender moments like ‘A Message to Pretty’ and the haunting ‘Signed DC’, an ode to former drummer Don Conka’s debilitating heroin problem that saw him depart the group. 

1966’s Da Capo was an altogether more optimistic affair, with the line-up now expanded to include flautist, saxophonist and percussionist Tjay Cantrelli and new drummer Michael Stuart, with ‘Snoopy’ Pfisterer moving to organ and harpsichord duties.  On one hand, the group explored breezier Latino sounds on ‘Que Vida!’ and ‘Orange Skies’ but there was also the pioneering and abrasive ‘7 and 7 Is’ – widely cited as one of the first proto-punk songs and ending in a cacophony of sound – mimicking a nuclear explosion. 

It was around this period that the band also started living communally in a Spanish Colonial Revival-style villa in the Los Feliz district of LA dubbed ‘The Castle’.  The once-grand mansion (allegedly lived in by Errol Flynn in the 1930s) was in a considerable state of disrepair by 1966 and became one of the key hangouts for the Californian counterculture scene.  Janis Joplin, Hendrix and members of The Mamas and The Papas, Jefferson Airplane and The Doors were all regular visitors to The Castle and although the band only lived there for just over a year it became synonymous with their identity.  “Night after night, day after day, it was just one big party, with no maid!”, reminisced Lee many years later.

I made my long-suffering friend Anna track down ‘The Castle’ with me in August 2015. Los Feliz, Los Angeles.

As the 1960s progressed, the mood in LA and America gradually shifted from one of positivity and optimism to gloom and foreboding.  The drugs of choice were no longer weed and acid but heroin and crack cocaine.  This change in atmosphere coincided with a number of significant events including the ongoing war in Vietnam (Lee and Echols had both faked mental illness in order to avoid conscription), which resulted in the deaths of almost 60,000 Americans and eventually on home soil in 1969, the killings committed by Charles Manson’s warped cult in Los Angeles and the murder of the black teenager Meredith Hunter at The Rolling Stones’ Altamont Free Concert.  For many, these events marked the end of the hippie era and the Flower Power movement.

Love’s iconic third album Forever Changes was in many ways the perfect record to accompany these ominous and uneasy times.  Although Arthur Lee was just 21 at the time of writing, several of his friends had succumbed to their vices and he became convinced that he would be next to die prematurely.  More of a punk than a hippie at heart, he retreated to a hilltop house in Laurel Canyon and began writing Forever Changes as his swansong to the world, with his lyrics addressing the precarious state of affairs in his country at that time and his own mortality, despite his young age.  In ‘A House Is Not A Motel’, he references the Vietnamese conflict by recalling the story a returning war veteran told him about how the “blood mixed with mud” to turn the soil “grey”.  In the eerie ‘The Red Telephone’, he unnervingly sings about “sitting on a hillside, watching all the people die / I’ll feel much better on the other side” and appears to predict his own future incarceration; “they’re locking them up today and throwing away the key / I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?”.

  • The album waiting to be spun by the DJ at ‘How does it feel to be loved?’, Central London, 2011.

It isn’t all darkness on Forever Changes though.  Musically, the record is a joy; layered acoustic guitars complemented by subtle electric overdubs, lush orchestral strings, mariachi horns and flamenco flourishes.  On ‘Between Clark and Hilldale’, Lee namechecks the exact Sunset Strip location of the hallowed Whisky a Go Go club and ‘Alone Again Or’, written and sung by guitarist Bryan MacLean is a genuine ray of light and a bona fide classic. 

‘Between Clark and Hilldale’. The Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles, September 2015.

Sadly, the release of Forever Changes in 1967 coincided with the group’s descent into heavy drug abuse.  In fact, on two of the album’s tracks ‘andmoreagain’ and ‘The Daily Planet’, LA’s supreme collective of session players The Wrecking Crew were called in as the members of Love were not deemed “with it enough” to take part in the recording session.  Arthur Lee became increasingly withdrawn and eccentric and the album was never properly toured, despite positive reviews from critics.  The success of bands like The Doors soon far outgrew their old peers and the original line-up of Love disbanded with most of its members spiralling into drug addiction.

Arthur kept Love going by recruiting a new band and 1969’s Four Sail actually has some great moments, namely ‘August’, ‘The Singing Cowboy’, ‘Good Times’ and ‘I’m With You’, however during the later years of the 1970s and 1980s his output became more sporadic and he fell into obscurity, becoming something of an enigmatic recluse.  

In 1996 Lee was imprisoned for 12 years at Pleasant Valley State Prison under California’s notoriously harsh three strikes rule following an incident outside his LA apartment and the alleged negligent discharge of a handgun (he already had previous convictions for arson, drug and driving offences and assault).  Lee refused all visitors and interviews during his time in prison and instead found God.  “He visited me and said ‘Love on Earth must be’”, claimed Lee in an interview for the 2006 documentary film Love Story.  He served half of his sentence and emerged with a renewed calling to share his music with the world.

Prior to his conviction, Arthur had been introduced to the neo-psychedelic LA band Baby Lemonade (former Love bandmates Bryan MacLean and Kenny Forsi had both died during his time in prison) and he began playing live with them in 1993.  The band were huge fans of Love’s music, as well as gifted musicians in their own right.  Upon Arthur’s release from jail in 2001, plans were quickly made for a Love reunion with Baby Lemonade as his backing band. The new-look Love’s comeback show was at Spaceland (now called The Satellite) in Silver Lake, Los Angeles in April 2002 and over the next few years Arthur made amends for his reluctance to tour in the ‘60s by gigging incessantly.  Two arguable highlights of the reunion tour were dates at London’s Royal Festival Hall and at Glastonbury 2003.

I was lucky enough to see the reformed Arthur Lee & Love twice in 2004 and 2005 – both at the same venue, The Brook in Southampton, UK (in ’05 he was also joined by Johnny Echols).  On the first occasion my friend Charlie and I met Arthur.  He was both warm and intimidating in equal measure; agreeing to sign the printed setlist I had commandeered from the stage after the gig but dismissing my sycophantic teenage claims that he was a “legend.”  He also demanded that I spelled my name to him, yet still wrote it as ‘Clyde’.  To this day and despite the typo, that signed setlist sits in a frame and is still one of my prized (and irreplaceable) possessions.

Arthur died in August 2006 after a leukemia diagnosis and exactly a month to the day after another pioneer of the psychedelic era, Syd Barrett.  Tributes flooded in from across the music world and in death, Arthur Lee achieved the widespread success that originally evaded him in the 1960s.  Indeed; more than 40 years after it was originally recorded, the late Pittsburgh rapper Mac Miller recorded a cover of Lee’s ‘Everybody’s Gotta Live’ – a track that was included on his posthumous album Circles, introducing his music to an entirely new generation. 

Baby Lemonade still tour with Johnny Echols and their show at Islington Assembly Hall in July 2019 was one of the best gigs I’ve been to in a long time. They even played obscure ‘B’ sides such as the weird, yet equally brilliant ‘Laughing Stock’.

Baby Lemonade and Johnny Echols. Islington Assembly Hall, July 2019.

I will leave you with a clip of Love’s performance on The Other Stage at Glastonbury 2003 in the coveted ‘sunset’ slot, as early evening merges into night. Whilst I have been extremely fortunate to see Arthur and his band play live and to have been a regular at Worthy Farm over the past decade, this is still the one show I wish I was there for.

“For anyone who thinks that life is just a game, do you like the part you’re playing?“

Tarantella and Techno; a Year of Live Music in Lockdown Italy

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In my last post, I talked about the crisis that many venues across the world are currently facing as a result of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.


Italy was the first European country to be stricken by the virus and a strictly-enforced lockdown was introduced on 9th March that lasted for over three months (a government form was required to leave home and even outdoor exercise was banned at one stage).  Either side of this and the current restrictions we find ourselves experiencing, I have been extremely lucky to still see my fair share of live music in Italia. 

Gigs have been a very different proposition since the pandemic but hats off to the many venues, promoters and artists who have been trying their best to creatively stage fresh and interesting shows, in far from ideal circumstances. 

Below is a rundown of some of the weird and wonderful gigs I’ve experienced over this past year, plus links to how you can find out more about the artists and venues in question. 

Edda – Officina Degli Esordi, Bari – 18th January

My first gig after moving to Bari. Formerly the frontman of Milan’s Ritmo Tribale, Edda is the reformed bad boy of Italian post-punk.  Having overcome a serious drug addiction, Edda now makes emotive electro-tinged power pop, typified by ‘E Se’ and ‘Signora’.  From what I could gather in-between songs, he likes to tell a good story too. 

Listen to: Edda – ‘E Se’

Dardust – TPO, Bologna – 22nd February

Let’s start with the positives.  TPO is a fantastic venue in the North West of Bologna – a converted industrial building that’s now a cracking multi-purpose arts space.  Props to the venue for having reusable beer cups too. Now imagine an Italian Calvin Harris with a pencil moustache and you’re halfway there with our friend Dardust.  An Italian producer from the Marche region, he’s clearly a talented chap and the crowd lapped up his live show.  However, at one stage he had a visual of marching demonic-looking bagpipers on the big screen behind him for an entire song.  Genuinely terrifying. 

Find out more: TPO (Teatro Polivalente Occupato), Bologna

Listen to: Dardust – ‘The Wolf’

  • TPO, Bologna
  • Dardust, TPO, Bologna.

Sunday night jazz jam – Binario69, Bologna – 23rd February 

Bologna was one of the favourite cities I visited in 2020.  I planned to stay for four days and ended up spending seven.  I loved its mixture of history, left-wing politics and vibrant student counterculture.  Binario69 is technically a members-only club for those in the know (I had to sign up and pay a small €10 joining fee – you receive a membership card in return).  Tucked away on a small street behind Bologna Centrale station, it’s a laid-back space where patrons sipped cocktails, played board games and listened to Sunday night afro-jazz performed by local musicians.  Prior to the Covid lockdown, Binario69 hosted live music most nights of the week and is now running a crowdfunding campaign in order to stay open.

Find out more: Binario69 crowdfunding campaign

Binario69, Bologna.

Francesco Manfredi Quintet – Palazzo Pesce, Mola di Bari –  20th June

The first gig post-lockdown #1 and held in the sumptuous former family home Palazzo Pesce in Mola di Bari.  After the stringent safety measures upon entry, the concert took place in the sunken garden outside the house with clarinettist Francesco Manfredi and his group paying homage to the songbook of New Orleans’ Sidney Bechet or to quote Manfredi; “the first clarinet player of hot jazz.”  The concert I attended was timed perfectly to coincide with the sunset that evening too.  Blissful.

Listen to: Francesco Manfredi and friends – ‘Si tu vois ma mère’

  • Francesco Manfredi and his band.
  • The sumptuous interior at Palazzo Pesce.
  • A rare post-gig selfie con la mascherina.
  • The Francesco Manfredi Quintet at Palazzo Pesce, Mola di Bari

Elena Matteuci – Diocesan Auditorium Vallisa, Bari – 8th July 

Classical piano virtuoso Elena Matteuci and young violinist Sebastian Zegame paid homage to ‘La Tarantella’, an ancient form of Italian folk music that originated from the Taranto region of Puglia. The bite of the local Tarantula spider was said to make its victims hysterical – a condition known as Tarantism. It was thought that the victims’ only hope was to be revived through the power of music and dance – hence the creation of La Tarantella. There was also a fitting tribute to Ennio Morricone who passed away two days before the concert and an interpretation of ‘Cinema Paradiso’ as the encore. 

Listen to: Elena Matteuci – ‘Scherzo n.2 op. 14, Clara Wieck-Schumann’

  • Elena Matteuci
  • Elena Matteuci and Sebastian Zegame at the Diocesan Auditorium Vallisa, Bari.

Strebla – Extreme Music Academy, Bari – 18th July

Bari’s Extreme Music Academy didn’t have the easiest of starts to life as a new live music venue, opening its doors halfway through the relentlessly tough year which is 2020.  The venue is on the outskirts of the city on the edge of an industrial area by day and red light district by night.  Don’t let its location fool you though as this new venue is a gem – especially if you are partial to metal and punk.  It boasts a large 200-odd capacity live room with a decent soundsystem, an outside courtyard where people hang out between bands and a bar with cocktails named after various metal and rock icons.  “Uno Lemmy e uno Soulfly, per favore”.  I went to the opening night and Bari’s Strebla were the highlight – unusual post-punk / math-rock with staccato time signatures. 

Listen to: Strebla’s Instagram page

Find out more: Extreme Music Academy’s mission statement

  • Extreme Music Academy’s opening night.
  • The cocktail menu…
  • Apnea at The Extreme Music Academy.
  • Strebla at The Extreme Music Academy.

Ellen Allien – Sound Department, Taranto – 8th August 

Taranto was another city that I unexpectedly took a liking to during the summer – two days soon became one week.  I was surprised to see that Berlin techno legend Ellen Allien was DJing at the Sound Department venue on the Saturday night of my stay.  Sound Department is located out of town near to the naval docks and is built predominantly from old shipping containers.  At 4am in the morning and without warning, the security staff suddenly winched the metal sides of the venue up towards the sky and then removed the roof to convert the club into an open-air arena as the sun came up.  A very cool concept.

Listen to: Ellen Allien – ‘True Romantics’

Ellen Allien, Sound Department, Taranto (camera phones were taped over by security but I snuck this one photo whilst I was waiting for my cab home).

Game of Sax – Parco Archeologico di Taranto – 10th August

La Notte di San Lorenzo is a night in August that’s famous in Italy supposedly as a chance to see shooting stars clearly in the night sky.  Taranto’s Parco Archeologico, a modest green space, famous for its ancient Greek remains hosted a midnight concert from local musicians Game of Sax to celebrate the occasion.  The locals loved their rendition of Domenico Modugno’s classic ‘Nel Biu Dipinto Di Blu’ and sang along to every word.  About as different to watching Ellen Allien two nights before as it gets. 

Find out more: Parco Archeologico Delle Mura Greche

The Comet Is Coming – Locus Festival, Locorotondo – 14th August 

Locus Festival is arguably Puglia’s most established major music festival.  Since its inception in 2005 it has welcomed a wealth of musical greats including the late Gil Scott-Heron, Lauryn Hill, David Byrne and Sly & Robbie. The 2020 event should have been headlined by Little Simz, Paul Weller and The Pixies but Covid unfortunately put paid to that.  However, a smaller, ‘limited edition’ version of the festival was still held in the grounds of Masseria Ferragnano, a fortified farmhouse on the edge of Locorotondo.  Social distancing, temperature checks and directional queueing systems were in operation in full force but it actually worked quite well and still felt like a ‘proper’ festival.  The only difference being that the audience had to remain seated on plastic chairs for the duration of the performance.

I’ve seen The Comet is Coming and the various other projects of their bandleader Shabaka Hutchings a number of times in the UK so had an idea of what to expect.  The boys even learned some rudimentary Italian for the occasion though!  

Listen to: The Comet Is Coming – ‘Summon The Fire’

Find out more: Locus Festival 2021 (excitingly, Devendra Banhart is the first name confirmed for 2021’s festival)

  • The Comet is Coming, Locus Festival, Locorotondo.

Domenico Tagliente – Chiesa di San Domenico, Mola di Bari – 20th August

One of the more unusual live performances I have experienced, Domenico Tagliente took over the huge organ at the Chiesa di San Domenico in Mola di Bari and re-interpreted Giorgio Moroder’s score of Fritz Lang’s ground-breaking 1927 silent film ‘Metropolis’ whilst the movie was projected onto a big screen inside the church.  Eerily atmospheric.

Find out more: Domenico Tagliente’s Instagram page

  • Domenico Tagliente interpreting Giorgio Moroder’s score of Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’.
  • The projection of ‘Metropolis’ in Mola di Bari.

Fake Jam – SMIAF Extreme Sports Festival, San Marino – 4th September

I only stopped off in San Marino City for one night as I drove back to Bari from the UK (a stunningly beautiful place but if truth be told, a tourist haven) but I lucked out with the fact that Fake Jam were headlining the outdoor music stage of the SMIAF Extreme Sports Festival that very night.   Hailing from Bologna, they brought a lot of support with them and specialised in a brand of Parliament and Earth, Wind & Fire-inspired jazz funk.  Excellent and unexpected.

Listen to: Fake Jam’s YouTube channel

  • Fake Jam, San Marino City.
  • Fake Jam, San Marino City.

B. Fleischmann – Teatro Kismet, Bari – 17th October

B. Fleischmann is originally from Vienna but him and his band are now based in Berlin.  They make marvellously quirky, offbeat pop music with typically Berlin-esque techno inflections.  The show was part of the annual Time Zones Festival, a longstanding annual event in Bari and surrounding areas since 1986 that showcases alternative and non-commercial music – the festival’s motto is “on the paths of possible music”.  This was my first visit to the impressive and modern Teatro Kismet too but sadly the last show before the strict Covid measures were reintroduced in Puglia and all live music ordered to stop. 

Listen to: B. Fleischmann – ‘You’re The Spring’

Find out more: Time Zones Festival

  • B. Fleischmann and his band. Teatro Kismet, Bari.
  • B. Fleischmann

As you can see it’s a somewhat eclectic bunch of highlights but I feel fortunate to have seen such a breadth of artists in what has been a very testing year for live music.  Another mention also goes to the two squat spaces Casa Occupata Via Garibaldi in Taranto and Ex Caserma Liberata in Bari; I went to a bizarre gig at the former where the performer was playing pots and pans with a drumstick, as well as a synth running through his laptop (it was actually pretty cool).  The latter is a cultural hub in Bari and seems to also be home of the city’s small but passionate dub and reggae scene.  I went to a dub party here in February and a lot of the faces there also came to the brilliantly-named Bari Hill Carnival soundsystem in September.  

It’s very interesting that so much of alternative culture in Southern Italy is associated with the squat scene (“una casa occupata”) – something that is a dying breed in London compared to its 1970s peak and famously its associations with the punk, new romantic and acid house movements.  What do Joe Strummer, Bob Geldof, Boy George, the Sex Pistols, Annie Lennox and Depeche Mode all have in common?  They all lived in squats early on in their careers. 

With promising news about the development of Coronavirus vaccines circulating, hopefully live music will be back in earnest in 2021. 

The Year of the Live Music Vacuum

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For the past 20 years, live music has been a massive part of my life.  The date of my first-ever gig will be forever etched in my memory; 30th March 2001 and my favourite Welsh political provocateurs Manic Street Preachers at Brixton Academy, South London.  Many years later and I would be able to watch roadies loading bands’ equipment in and out of the very same venue from my flat’s kitchen window on the opposite side of Stockwell Road.  I have also now gone on to see the Manics some 22 times…  

Ever since that day in 2001, I’ve been hooked, whether it’s seeing an emerging artist play a dingy pub in Camden, a DJ at a warehouse party in Hackney Wick, an established band road-testing new material in a mid-sized 1930s art deco theatre or a huge act playing a headline festival or shiny arena show, with the lavish production to match.  Pre-Covid in London I would average a gig a week and tracking down the best places for music is often one of the first things I do when I arrive in a new city.

The Manics on another occasion, this time at Wembley Arena. May 2018.

From a personal perspective, I have played over 300 gigs as a musician, firstly as a member of The Immediate The Shake The Screenbeats and in more recent years as part of a low-key folk duo, inventively named Clive & Vicki.  Most of the venues we’ve played have been part of the well-trodden and affectionately-named ‘toilet circuit’; small capacity and mostly independently-owned venues that aren’t necessarily glamorous but are an essential part of the music ecosystem.  It’s become a clichéd saying but without these places there would be no future Glastonbury or Coachella headliners.  For a couple of years, I worked managing music partnerships for the Tennessee whiskey brand Jack Daniel’s and in particular running an initiative designed to champion these independent small venues.  To represent and deal with such treasured haunts as The Joiners in Southampton, The George Tavern in East London, The Zanzibar in Liverpool and Glasgow’s King Tut’s was a real honour.  It remains an unrealised ambition of mine, to one day open a small venue dedicated to emerging artists.

The Screenbeats, The Dublin Castle, Camden. August 2007.
Supporting Milburn at The Charlotte, Leicester. July 2006.
The Colony Club, Newbury. December 2003.
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff. May 2007.
Clive & Vicki expanded to become 'OCDC'. The Heavenly Social, W1. March 2018.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The Screenbeats, The Dublin Castle, Camden. August 2007. 2.) Supporting Milburn at The Charlotte, Leicester. July 2006. 3.) Clive & Vicki expanded to become ‘OCDC’ at the Heavenly Social, W1. March 2018. 4.) Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff. May 2007. 5.) The Colony Club, Newbury. December 2003.

2020 has clearly been devastating for the live music industry worldwide.  Not only have countless venues been forced to close their doors with their outgoings far outweighing their income but the impact of the pandemic has affected staff across the board from promoters and tour managers to security, lighting and sound technicians to bar staff and cloakroom attendants. In the UK, the team at the Music Venue Trust charity does a fantastic job of supporting these venues and you can find out what you can do to contribute during this difficult time at their Save Our Venues page.  There’s a great range of merch available to buy from venues across the country and the proceeds go directly to them. 

  • The George Tavern, Commercial Road, East London.
  • The Zanzibar Club, Liverpool. (credit: The Zanzibar)
  • The Joiners, Southampton. (credit: Gary Reggae)

In Italy, like most of Europe, live shows were immediately halted in early March as the Coronavirus crisis started to quickly worsen.  However, unlike the UK, live music slowly started making a gradual reappearance in the early summer.  The first post-lockdown gig I went to was at the Palazzo Pesce in Mola di Bari in June.  Entry times for the audience were staggered, capacity reduced by half, temperature checks mandatory on the door and every audience member had to provide their contact details upon arrival.  It was definitely a strange experience but joyous to actually see musicians performing live again in person.  

I’ve been very lucky to still manage to see a reasonable number of gigs over the past year in Italy – both before and after the initial lockdown.  Aside from one or two better-known names, most of the acts have been either emerging or just pretty obscure. In my next post will be a rundown of my musical highlights, plus links to how you can find out more about the artists and venues in question if you haven’t heard of them before.  

Expect the eclectic.

In the meantime, you can support musicians and those working in the live music industry during the pandemic crisis by contributing or referring friends or colleagues to the organisations below.

Music Venue Trust

Save Our Venues

Help Musicians

The Musicians’ Union

All written copy and materials are the intellectual property of Clive Drew. 2024 ©

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