Tag: live music

In my last post, I waxed lyrical about Jamboree; a unique venue that started life in the Cable Street Studios complex in Limehouse and has recently announced its return to the Kings Cross area of London.

“Every now and then, you find a music venue that has a certain special aura and is simply unlike any other you’ve been to before. Sometimes it’s unique in its interior or location, sometimes it’s the warmth and generosity of the people running the place and other times it’s the programming of the events and the venue’s cultural or historical significance. Jamboree in Limehouse was one of those.”
‘The return of Jamboree’ (Set Your Own Scene, 22nd February 2021)

I want to now shine a spotlight on some of the other special venues that have particularly stood out to me over the years, either from playing gigs at them myself or watching as a punter. Here is a snapshot of ten that immediately spring to mind from Bari to Bedford, via LA and Pune, Maharashtra.

I’ve included links wherever possible to the venues in question – please do take a look and find out more about them! They need all the support they can get after this pandemic year.

*On stage at Clwb Ifor Bach with The Screenbeats. May 2007 (photo: Ed Salter).*

Clwb Ifor Bach – Cardiff

I had been reading about Cardiff’s legendary ‘Clwb’ (also affectionately known locally as ‘The Welsh Club’) for years prior to going to university in the city and it lived up to expectations as the beating heart of the city’s alternative music scene. For at least the first year of university, the highlight of my week was going to The Dudes Abide night on Fridays where the DJ was usually Gary Anderson who also ran the hallowed Cardiff indie-pop night Twisted by Design at the nearby Dempsey’s (now bizarrely Gareth Bale’s sports bar Elevens) on Saturdays and Cardiff’s famous rugby pub the City Arms on Thursdays. Through regularly going to these nights as an 18-year-old I discovered Belle & Sebastian’s back catalogue, became obsessed with The Supremes and tracks like ‘The Rat’ by The Walkmen, ‘Happy Together’ by The Turtles and ‘The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth’ by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah became as ubiquitous to my ears as commercial radio’s airplay of Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since U Been Gone’ around that same time.

The Welsh Club spanned three floors catering to pretty much every genre possible on various nights of the week. I spent on average six hours a week here between 2005 and 2008 and even met Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr there in 2008 after one of his first gigs as a new member of The Cribs at the nearby Student’s Union. I was a little tongue-tied to really say much to him other than ask for a photo but I had a better chat with Ryan Jarman from The Cribs a year earlier when we were both watching Everett True (the journalist who introduced Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love) and Manics biographer Simon Price DJ in the downstairs room. Ryan remembered an early regional newspaper interview I did with them at the Reading Fez Club back in 2004 and the main topic of conversation was how passé and just plain wrong the current Sex Pistols reunion was (The Cribs had recently supported them at Brixton Academy).

Now Clwb is the subject of some exciting new expansion plans involving the venue taking over the derelict building next door. Hopefully these plans will cement Womanby Street’s position as Cardiff’s cultural quarter (as well as the longstanding hub of the annual Sŵn Festival) for many decades to come.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Clwb Ifor Bach, Womanby Street, Cardiff. 2) The downstairs floor during Swn Festival 2012. 3.) Telegram getting ready to play a Jack Rocks show at Clwb for Swn Festival 2015.

Shisha Jazz Café – Pune, India

I stumbled upon the Shisha Jazz Café whilst staying in Pune, Maharashtra for a few days in November 2019. Part of the ABC Farms complex in the hip Koregaon Park district of the city that actually contains a couple of live music venues, the café was one of my favourite hangouts from my trip to India and provided some much-needed calm after a week of rushing around hectic Mumbai. Part-jazz café, part-jungle treehouse; there were several huge trees growing through its floor, rustic tapestries and kitsch lanterns hanging from the rafters and its wooden walls were adorned with pictures of the likes of Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans and Sun Ra. It is also home to the Pune International Jazz Festival. It’ll be one of the first places I head to when I visit Pune again.

The one-of-a-kind Shisha Jazz Cafe. Pune, India.

Band On The Wall – Manchester

A national institution as far as independent music venues go, Band On The Wall on Swan Street in Manchester’s Northern Quarter has been hosting live music since at least the 1930s. The venue got its name from the fact that the musicians originally played on a raised stage halfway up the pub’s wall! The venue has had a long association with jazz, blues, folk and punk and today prides itself on hosting an eclectic array of artists from a wide range of genres. I saw tabla player Saleel Tembe perform there in 2018 and before the concert he hosted an interactive workshop with the audience – that’s just the kind of place Band On The Wall is. Now a registered charity, the venue was awarded £3.2 million in 2007 by Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund to transform into a music venue for the 21^st century.

Saleel Tembe at Band on The Wall, August 2018 and a band quite literally playing on the wall at the venue circa 1946 (photo: The Band On The Wall archive).

Passing Clouds – Dalston, London

Forever immortalised on screen as the location for the filming of Super Hans’ notorious “juice cleanse stag do” scene in the cult British comedy series Peep Show, Passing Clouds was a community-run arts venue off the Kingsland Road in Dalston, East London.

Opened in 2006; the venue hosted musical nights, as well as community-led initiatives including the ‘Permaculture Picturehouse’, healing and self-development workshops and swing dancing and instrument lessons. Housed in the former printworks of the Hackney Gazette, two notable gigs at Passing Clouds for me were Sun Ra’s Arkestra led by the then 91-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen and the Brixton-based Effra Hall Jazz Band. There was a blizzard during the latter gig and a subsequent snow fight ensued afterwards, culminating with my friends and I being branded “bumbaclarts” by an angry Rastafarian gentleman who was accidentally hit by a stray snowball whilst enjoying a smoke outside.

Passing Clouds was sadly closed down and boarded up in 2016 and is now The Jago.

*Passing Clouds, just before its closure.*

Ex Caserma Liberata – Bari, Italy

In a way, Bari’s equivalent of London’s former Passing Clouds venue, Ex Caserma Liberata is a squatted space located in the city’s former Rossani Barracks. Whatever your political persuasion is regarding people squatting in derelict buildings, it’s difficult to argue that Ex Caserma Liberata isn’t a hive of creativity and home to a friendly and welcoming community. In non-Covid times; the space consists of a music venue that hosts both bands and DJs, a permaculture garden, impressive sculptures and street art, workshop spaces and even an indoor skate ramp. It hosts everything from punk festivals to dub nights to poetry readings and political meetings. The site is set to be transformed by the authorities into an urban park and public library in the not-too-distant future at a reputed cost of €450 million so the Barese need to make the most of this unique space whilst they still can.

Ex Caserma Liberata and one of Bari’s most interesting emerging bands Strebla performing there in 2019.

Hootananny – Brixton, London

In 2007, a huge Victorian pub on the corner of Effra Road and Brixton Water Lane which had previously been known as The George Canning and then The Hobgoblin became Hootananny. Now run by a Scottish family, ‘Hoots’ dedicated itself to live music, particularly (but definitely not limited to) the world music side of things. You never know quite what you’ll see when you go to Hootannany but on a Friday or Saturday night it’s guaranteed to be lively. Boasting a large hostel on the upper floors (what a great idea if you were a music-loving traveller) and a huge garden out the front, you can choose between whether you soak up the music indoors or sit and enjoy a cold beer and some excellent Caribbean food on the benches outside. I’ve had some of my best nights out in London here and it was also a packed place to watch the England football team’s unexpected run to the semi-finals World Cup 2018.

Hootannany, Effra Road, Brixton, London.

Sound Department – Taranto, Italy

I’ve written about seeing Berlin’s Ellen Allien at the Sound Department Club just outside Taranto before, but this is a truly unique place. Located about five miles outside of the city near to the Italian naval docks and hidden out-of-sight amongst olive groves and Mediterranean scrubland, the venue appears to be entirely made from shipping containers. There were two separate live rooms; one that was low-lit and a distinctly industrial affair and the other which was brighter and more house-flavoured. At about 3am, the club’s security staff winched up the metal sides of the venue to transform it into an open-air space and an hour later, the roof slid back to let in the early morning Pugliese sunlight.

Tbilisi DJ Newa’s Boiler Room set live from Sound Department, Taranto. December 2019.

The Satellite – Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA

Located in LA’s at-times, self-consciously hip Silver Lake neighbourhood, The Satellite made its name in the 1990s as the famed Spaceland venue. Its first ever gig in 1995 featured The Foo Fighters and Beck, it hosted early shows by The White Stripes and The Silversun Pickups and it was the venue choice for Arthur Lee & Love’s comeback show after Lee’s release from prison in 2001. It also starred in the Jim Carey film ‘Yes Man’ as the venue where Zooey Deschanel’s character’s band played their live shows. We saw The Bulls there who played a bemusing shoegaze cover of ‘Alright’ by Supergrass – I think we were in the minority in the audience by actually being familiar with the original version.

The Satellite was quite similar to many British venues of a similar size but everything was just nicer, albeit in a slightly sanitised, yet typically Los Angelan way. The toilets were clean and didn’t smell, the floor wasn’t sticky and awash with stale beer and there was even a pool table at the back of the room for in-between bands. Instead of a greasy burger van being stationed outside, there was of course, a converted silver Airstream caravan serving up delicious tacos. Once the epicentre of Silver Lake’s alternative music scene, there are now plans afoot to transform The Satellite into a restaurant.

The Angel – Bedford

From sunny LA to Bedford. My old band The Shake was offered a show at The Angel back in summer 2006. The venue on Bedford Broadway had hosted Oasis back in 1994 (it was still extremely proud of this) and was enjoying a new lease of life after a refurbishment and recently hosting Razorlight whilst they were still on their ascendency (and still credible). We had been due to support The Heights, a former Guardian New Band of the Week and Best Before Records signing. However, they had pulled out a couple of weeks before and we were moved up the bill to become the impromptu headliner.

Despite most of the audience originally buying their tickets to see The Heights, it was one of the best shows we ever did and we played to a packed and receptive room. Despite Bedford not exactly being a hotbed for rock and roll, the venue was clearly a labour of love and had a great soundsystem. We got paid, given free beer and even got a cheery hug from the promoter after the show! Sadly, The Angel shut down a few years later (it had stiff competition from the long-established Esquires venue around the corner in the town) and is now Doorstep Dolci, a café specialising in “American-Belgian Waffles, oven-baked cookie dough, artisan gelato and milkshakes.”

*The former location of The Angel music venue, Bedford.*

The Troubadour – Earl’s Court, London

The Troubadour on Old Brompton Road, West London is best-known in music circles as being the venue for Bob Dylan’s first ever UK gig in 1962. Opened in 1954 as a coffee house, it was one of the city’s prominent folk venues of the time hosting performances from Joni Mitchell, Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and Sandy Denny, as well as the more raucous Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Watts, Sammy Davis Jr (slightly more raucous) and Led Zeppelin – the latter would jam at the club after shows at the nearby Earls Court Arena. Today, it retains many of its original features and décor but has been expanded to include a restaurant / café, outdoor dining space, small art gallery as well as the 135-capacity downstairs venue. I played here in 2010 and contemporary artists to come through its doors in recent years include Florence Welch, Ellie Goulding, Adele, Jamie T and Ed Sheeran, with its small size making it ideal for showcases. The Troubadour was also the inspiration for the Los Angeles venue of the same name, with it even copying the distinctive typeface above the door. Time to put its London counterpart on the musical map again.

The Trobadour’s interior, virtually untouched since 1954 and Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor playing the club in 2013.

The return of Jamboree

22 February 2021

Clive Drew

Alternative City Guide London Music No Comments

Encouraging signs for live music’s rebirth

Every now and then, you find a music venue that has a certain special aura and is simply unlike any other you’ve been to before. Sometimes it’s unique in its interior or location, sometimes it’s the warmth and generosity of the people running the place and other times it’s the programming of the events and the venue’s cultural or historical significance.

Jamboree in Limehouse was one of those. It was the live music venue for the Cable Street Studios complex; an 88,000-square foot former sweet factory that was built by Batgers Confectionery in the 1860s. Despite the site being worth a small fortune to potential developers, its owner was a keen believer in the power of the arts and culture and by 2011 it had become a thriving artistic community consisting of over 200 individual artists’ studios, a mosque and a transgender nightclub, happily co-existing side-by-side and the Jamboree venue.

*The old Jamboree venue, Limehouse, London.*

Many of the artist studios also doubled up as residential dwellings; the workspace and the kitchenette area on the ground level and then a wooden mezzanine above housing the sleeping quarters. My old school friend Charlie spent a couple of years there and it was always fascinating to go and see him and meet the various characters who also called the studios home.

On one occasion Charlie organised for the Imam of Cable Street’s mosque to give a talk to the other residents about the customs of Islam and there would also be frequent ‘Open Studio’ days where the complex would open its doors to the public. The artists would welcome you into their studios to view their latest work and there were also many performance art spectacles. One performance that stands out in my mind was an artist dropping pieces of broken glass down a stone staircase on piece at a time. Remarkably, he had worked out that each piece had a different pitch and the result was surprisingly musical.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Cable Street Studios, Limehouse (photo: Ewan Munro). 2.) The old entrance to Jamboree (photo: Ewan Munro). 3.) My friends Roger and Hanna outside Jamboree, December 2013. 4.) Another view of the live room at Jamboree.

Charlie and I had become good mates around the age of 14 when we formed a four-piece guitar band called Felix Mandelson. We covered The Vines and Red Hot Chili Peppers and our own songs were a perfect blend of naivety and well-meaning pretention. “New Era” (written by moi and our rhythm guitarist Mike) paid homage to Che Guevara and contained the chorus line; “It’s the beginning of a new era for us // We’ve got to stop the pigs from exploiting what we’ve got”. On the other hand, one of Charlie’s songs “Enemies to the Peace” quoted verse from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Charlie has since gone on to be a successful actor on both stage and screen and the last time I caught up with him, he had been touring Europe in Dracula playing Jonathan Harker.

Anyway, the evening I discovered Jamboree, I had taken the DLR over to Limehouse after work (I was living and working in Islington at the time) to catch up with Charlie over a couple of beers and we had decided to check out what was going on across the courtyard. We lucked out that night as it turned out that Simo Lagnawi was performing – one of the main proponents of traditional Gnawa music in London. Simo, originally of Amazigh (Berber) origin had spent several years travelling around Morocco studying Gnawa music, as well as Ahwash chanting before relocating to London. He has since set up the London School of Gnawa in the city’s East End.

It was a captivating concert with Lagnawi being joined onstage by two other Moroccan musicians whilst accompanying himself on the guimbri, a three-stringed instrument made from stretched camel skin and goat gut. The music was strangely hypnotic with complex polyrhythms and syncopated, repeating riffs and chants. Everything was kept in time by one of the musicians frantically playing the qraqeb – iron castanet-like finger cymbals. There were only around 50 people present in Jamboree that evening but everyone was silent whilst the band was playing; fully absorbed in their music.

Simo Lagnawi performing at the V&A Museum, London in 2013 – around the time we also saw him play at Jamboree.

Jamboree was a unique venue too; a cross between a bohemian café and Tony Hornecker’s pop-up restaurant-cum-art installation The Pale Blue Door. The stage and the venue’s windows were surrounded by velvet drapes, comfortable sofas and arm chairs were dotted around the room and there was art from some of Cable Street’s artists adorning every wall. The venue took a chance on booking artists not usually looked at by more mainstream music venues too – Eastern European folk, calypso and zouk performances, Celtic roots music and gypsy jazz. Charlie mentioned that Jonathan Richman of The Modern Lovers fame had even performed a secret acoustic gig there too.

Unfortunately, in 2018 just shy of its tenth anniversary Jamboree was forced to close its doors after being served notice by Cable Street Studios’ new landlord Sudbury Properties. After a temporary stay on Three Colt Street, also in Limehouse, it shut its doors at the beginning of 2020, potentially for good.

I was overjoyed, however, to receive an email last week announcing that Jamboree would be returning in 2021 with a new home in Kings Cross, North London. Kings Cross – as recently as a decade ago, one of the last undeveloped parts of Central London and a quasi-red light district – is fast becoming the destination of choice for the creative industries. As well as behemoth companies such as Google, Facebook, communications group Havas, PRS for Music and Universal Music now calling the area home, there are some much more interesting developments happening just beneath the surface.

For example, the music start-up incubator community Tileyard is home to several emerging challengers in the music and tech space and the likes of Mark Ronson and Sir Antony Gormley even have studios there. The Spiritland audiophile bar opened a few years ago on Stable Street and boasts that its huge, bespoke soundsystem is “the best in London” (I’ve been there a few times and it is pretty special – as are the huge speakers inside each individual bathroom cubicle). The team behind Omeara in Flat Iron Square (led by Mumford & Sons musician Ben Lovett) opened the 600-capacity Lafayette venue in February 2020 and although its launch has been disrupted by the pandemic, it’s set to reopen later this year. Although one night there will set you back around £200, the newly-opened Standard Hotel just off Euston Road and owned by the same group behind LA’s notorious den of iniquity the Chateau Marmont, contains its very own venue and has promised regular music events and “cultural happenings”.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Tileyard, Kings Cross. 2.) Inside the newly-opened Lafayette. 3.) Inside The Standard hotel. 4.) The prized sound system at Spiritland, Stable Street.

These new venues join the already well-established bastions of live music in Kings Cross such as The Scala (where the iconic cover to Iggy & The Stooges’ Raw Power album was shot), the famous grassroots venue Water Rats, arts café Drink Shop Do and electronic music club The Egg. The Guardian and The Observer newspapers have, of course also been based on York Way, Kings Cross since 2008 too.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The Egg, York Way. 2.) The Water Rats, Grays Inn Road (photo: Adam Bruderer). 3.) The iconic sign outside The Scala (photo: Ian Muttoo). 4.) The front cover of Iggy & The Stooges’ ‘Raw Power’ (taken at The Scala) 5.) Drink Shop Do, Caledonian Road.

Whilst there’s no denying that 2020 has been the toughest year on record for the performing arts, there are also some encouraging signs outside of the Kings Cross bubble. The Music Venue Trust confirmed at the beginning of February that 13 venues on its ‘danger list’ had already been saved from imminent closure. Only last week, the creation of the first-ever trade body for the live music industry LIVE was announced to widespread support. Many venues such as Band on The Wall in Manchester and The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth have used this time to carry out essential repairs to their venues with The Wedge relaying the wooden floor in its main room.

*Repairs taking place at The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth. October 2020.*

Even closer to (my adopted) home in Bari in Puglia, there are some green shoots of recovery appearing too. The 1920s Art Deco venue Kursaal Santa Lucia on the city’s Lungomare (‘seafront’ to you and I) is set to reopen in spring this year after a lengthy refurbishment and shows are already starting to be tentatively booked again in venues such as Teatro Petruzzelli and Teatro Kismet.

The soon-to-be-reopened Kursaal Santa Lucia, Bari.

Hopefully the post-Covid age will see a Belle Époque-style resurgence for the live music sector and a surge in creative pursuits in general. Watch this space.

An ode to the London live music venues of yesteryear

14 February 2021

Clive Drew

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*

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*.

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 18^th 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 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*.

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 .

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

6 December 2020

Clive Drew

Music No Comments

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 9^th 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 – 18^th 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 – 22^nd 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’

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

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

Elena Matteuci – Diocesan Auditorium Vallisa, Bari – 8^th 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’

Strebla – Extreme Music Academy, Bari – 18^th 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

Ellen Allien – Sound Department, Taranto – 8^th 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 – 10^th 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 – 14^th 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 – 20^th 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’.

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

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

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

4 December 2020

Clive Drew

Music 2 Comments

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; 30^th 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.

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.

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