Venues, Let's Talk About Dying Music Pubs

[Happy Jack]

I've spent the vast majority of the last 40 years living in and around Chiswick.

Back in the 70s the main music pub for miles (and, conveniently, my local) was the John Bull opposite Gunnersbury Station. Loads of soon-to-be-big-name bands, already-quite-big-name bands, and never-gonna-be-big-name bands played there, weekend in, weekend out. The pub was permanently packed and a serious cash cow for the operators.

The backlash in the Eighties against perceived links between "John Bull" and the National Front did for the name, the anti-drink-drive campaigns in the Nineties did for the crowds, and by the Noughties the renamed "Gunnersbury" pub still had full music facilities but only put on music half a dozen times a year.

Not to worry though. The music scene shifted to the other end of the High Road. In the 70s the George IV was the place you went on a Saturday night if you were looking for a knock-down, drag-'em-out punch-up. By the 90s it was where you went if you were looking for the local cattle market.

So when the Gunnersbury died as a music pub the George IV was nicely placed to take up the slack and for the next 10 years it did exactly that.

Meanwhile the Gunnersbury got ... ahem ... redeveloped. Quite a lot of money changed hands somewhere along the way, and what was once a big coaching-type pub with a large yard became a large ground-floor pub with a bunch of new-build houses immediately behind and a bunch of expensive flats on top of it and a bunch of serious noise-related issues attached to it. No more bands, then.

But that's OK because we still had the George IV. Until they did a refurb during the summer of 2014. Apparently they spent a small fortune turning it into ... erm ... well ... much the same as it was before, only now with the acoustics totally wrecked.

Walk in off the street and if there are three women talking to each other at the bar you'll need earplugs. I've never heard such an appallingly lively, cacophonous room in my life. No more bands, then.

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And that's just Chiswick.

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In the last 10 years alone, I'd say that well over half the reliable music pubs within five miles of me have gone, and not been replaced. Acton, Brentford, Chiswick, somewhere beginning with 'D', they've all seen long-standing music pubs either give up having bands or give up being pubs.

I mean, I admire a good Pine Furniture Warehouse Sale as much as the next man, but frankly I'd have preferred it to remain a music pub.

[FinnDave]

Was that the John Bull on Chiswick High Street? I used to play there in the early 80s.

[Lw.]

The yummie mummies of Chiswick don't want live music & cheap pints; they want over priced coffee and a large space to natter on with their pals about what little Beatrix & Hugo got up to at the weekend.

It's a shame but the financial pressure put on landlords by a lot of the pubco's in this country means that they need to pursue the most dollar they can rather than trying to support music nights that generally don't pull in that much cash.

[Drax]

Partly city rents as well, which put a greater pressure on going after the lowest common denominator (hence banks turning into pubs turning into coffee shops, etc).

Push further out into the sticks, and there's often more going on per pub. Less other stuff going on so people turn out for it.

[JTUK]

Round here, 25 years ago, the pub venue scene had music from Wed to Sun... and a few jazzers that we crashed on a monday
so you could play 6 days out of 7.
Two vllage pubs..maybe less than a mile apart, shared wed and sundays and were rammed by the decent bands..and you turned up on spec
and toggled between the two depending on whihc band was on it that night.
Local town had 1 venue which everyone remembers as the best pub venue around...but they had no other competition those days.
Even now, people talk about the place thru these slightly rosey specs.
Some pubs had £500-600 per week back then from the brewery as a sort of band fee subsidary..which allowed some pubs to put
music on wed night plus fri and sat and sun lunchtime.

Now... fri and sat are band nights... thurs is audition/open night in the desired pub venues and two local towns have full music rostas
Fri to sunday.

What is interesting is what bands fit what gigs as there aren't enough good bands around to fill the slots so you might get some bands
only play their local town....?? which is sooo odd, IMO.
In my town, the population is around 130k..??? and the guesstimate is that the town has around 100 bands..however you quantify 'bands' in that context..??

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1414509386' post='2590012']
Was that the John Bull on Chiswick High Street? I used to play there in the early 80s.
[/quote]

Close ... Chiswick High Road. Sad to say, the early 80's was just after I moved up to Acton High Street and the John Bull was too far to walk. Looks like I missed you.

[FinnDave]

That's the one. I lived in Acton at the time as well, on Horn Lane.

[Happy Jack]

We probably propped up the bar together at the King's Head then, prior to visiting the ludicrous multi-shop DIY store known as Poores!

I also used to treat myself to lunch at Angela's Restaurant (sadly long gone).

[FinnDave]

Getting way off topic, but I was a regular evening eater at Angela's. The Red Lion & Pineapple was my drinking hole during the years I lived in Acton.

[attachment=174893:1-2014-10-28 16.17.00.jpg]

Edited October 28, 2014 by FinnDave

[Big_Stu]

Oop north in the early 80s we had the Lodestar Roadhouse, which looked a hell of a lot like the place in that Swayze film. Serious rough hole, the bouncers kept table legs under the reception desk for the inevitable trouble. It's a small housing estate now.
Not far away was the New Inns, nearest town Rishton. A great venue, held about 200 & was 2 miles from the nearest town, so never had complaints about levels. In the era of NWOBHM they had a Sunday "matinee" show, followed by the full on one at night for originals metal bands. Blackpool was less than an hour away so we'd go there for eats and kicks in-between times. Covers bands were on a Friday night and a disco on the Saturday . It fell victim to a major fire in the 90s and is now an Indian restaurant.

[Hobbayne]

I think The Globe in Brentford is still going.

[Happy Jack]

It is, but it's changed its style of music fairly radically and the clientele has not exactly changed for the better.

[taunton-hobbit]

So, back in the day....Klooks Kleek (Railway Hotel, W. Hampstead) - Refectory (Golders Green) - Railway Hotel (Wealdstone)- Taggs Island (London/Surrey) - Cellar Club (Kingston - ok, it wasn't a pub, but a bloody good music venue) - Star & Garter (Windsor - the original Ricky Tik) - music was harder to find then, we valued it more; outside of Caroline/Radio London and the local juke box (anyone remember the one in the metal cage at the Ace cafe?), music was hard(ish) to find. Times change, and we move on - Ah so we say.....

Edited October 28, 2014 by taunton-hobbit

[peteb]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1414511143' post='2590046']
That's the one. I lived in Acton at the time as well, on Horn Lane.
[/quote]
I was living on Churchfield Road at that time. I remember that we used to watch bands at a pub on Shepherds Bush Green and another down Fulham Palace Road...!

[stingrayPete1977]

The smoking ban was the final straw imo coupled to a lack of current guitar based bands at the same time, my band at the time went from busy pubs once a month at least with a function gig here and there to all function gigs with the odd empty pub. At the same time we went from learning a song a week to a song a month because there was nothing in the charts that 'needed to be learnt' as there had been for years before like kaiser cheifs, killers, pigeon detectives,kings of leon, etc etc. Most of my pub band gigs now are just the same as the typical function band stuff covering loads of genres which is ok and a reason to buy a new bass! Certainly though the smoking ban started the rot imo.

I also think social media has made us all less sociable, when I was 18 you had to go to the in pub to meet friends and you knew which pubs they would be in so there was no need for texting etc.

Edited October 28, 2014 by stingrayPete1977

[blue]

It's difficult for me to say much. I'm deep in the trenches of the local bar band scene here in Milwaukee and for the most part that verticle has died a bit too. It's a struggle and bands have to work hard to stay booked.

Now, we do have [b]The Pabst Theater, The Riverside, and Turner Hall,[/b] but they book the big acts and I think they do fine. For example I caught your Jeff Beck at Turner and your Robin Trower at The Pabst.

Now the places like The Scene and The Palms, these were the ultra cool / hip places where you would have seen Hendrix or Cream any of the heavier bands of the late 60s and 70s. These places fell by the wayside years ago everywhere. You guys had [b]The Marquee[/b] and many others, right?

Oh I forgot about [b]Shank Hall[/b] ( it's not a Hall it's a club/bar ) and is the closest thing we have that resemble of what the old "underground" clubs would have been like. You can see really cool touring acts in a small club. The Artists are accessible and you can usually chat with them after their show.

Tha'ts me with my friend [b]Al Anderson[/b] of The Wailer's back stage at Shank Hall.


Blue

Edited October 29, 2014 by blue

[JTUK]

In my county...we could travel beyond but have never felt the need unless for much more money.. there are more pubs doing music
than there ever was, IMO... but the landscape has changed, as have the rules etc etc.
Bands have to bring people in.. that is a given so new starts are tougher. The LL of a pub wants you to bring 30 people and he doesn't think this is unreasonable as he will have also 30 or so regulars. He may want you to do an 'audition' night where there is no money promised so it is a tester all round. If the band does well... and the crowd is more important than the band standard at this stage... he may well give you a date but you need to pull that attendence trick again. He may also pay you on the 'audition' night if you do well, of course, but this tends to be a nice surprise to the in experienced bands that try this route.

Every pub will do a beer festival... but that is once a year or so..and you need decent gardens... but the dreaded chairty festival is alive and well here.

Do I think I could earn £200 a week round here trawling the bars ( 4x£50 )... yes..quite easily but that would be hard slog, or rather a thankless task IMO. Certainly if you have to do that week in, week out... but we have local fanzine and blogs literally full of venues and gigs. Whether you want to play the vast majority of them is another thing.
The money you can earn hasn't changed in almost 20 years so whilst the numbers bars and venues doing music are up... the money has been static.
The standard of bands has generally risen...but not by much. Also, the rise of middle-aged guys getting up and doing it at last, means they can ram 50 friends in a pub..and the LandLord LOVEs this... but generally these types of bands are not very good.

That is our local county scene, pretty much, IME.

Edited October 29, 2014 by JTUK

[JamesBass]

While there are plenty of pubs that do jam nights and have live music, 9/10 times it's always the same! There will ALWAYS be a cover of Mustang Sally, Knocking on Heavens Door, and Superstition, which are all fairly decent songs, but when you go to a different pub and see a different band do yet another bad cover of them, they become songs that you absolutely hate! I know I do, and I have to play them in my band! In fact if I had complete control I'd change over 95% of our set list as there are too few songs that have groove, which is what people want, as its something they can dance to! Playing straight rock covers is great fun for the band but times have changed now and rock isn't something a mixed age and taste crowd can and will get in to!

While there is a somewhat healthy music scene in South Hampshire, you do have to work and fight tooth and nail to get even a low paying gig as there are far too many average bands who get gigs purely because they've gigged there before!

[BigRedX]

This problem with venues is something that is concerning covers bands in the south?

Because as a member of an originals band that plays mainly in the midlands and north getting decent paying gigs has never been easier!

It's certainly a far healthier situation compared with the one I found when I first moved to Nottingham in 1980. Back then there were only a handful of venues, at any one time, open to bands playing their own material. All the gigs were weekday slots and some (The Ad-Lib Club in particular) were club hours only. It's never been particularly easy getting people out to see your band on a week night, and even less so when you might not be actually on stage until after 1.00 in the morning.

None of the venues had their own in-house PA system, so either your had to have your own (almost no-one did) or hire one of the two local rigs, all of which cost money. Some venues paid about £30 or you could take money on the door in which case 50p entrance was the accepted rate. All of which meant that after deducting the PA hire, printing of posters and the cost of actually getting to the gig you were lucky to break even.

And it was pretty much like this all the way up to the end of the 90s.

Since I've been gigging with The Terrortones I'm pleased to say that the situation is so much better than what I had been used to. We gig on average at least once every week - all paying gigs that cover our expenses, pay for the following week's rehearsal and still have money over to go towards our next recording or promotional activity. At times we've had to work hard to get some gigs but at least half of the ones we have at the moment, the venues have come to us.

While in Nottingham there are now lots of venues open to "originals" bands. Most gigs are at weekends when it is far easier to coax people out in the evening to come and see you. Every venue appears to have it's own PA system and engineer (I can't remember the last time we had to hire in a PA). So from my PoV the local music scene has never been healthier.

[JTUK]

Jam nights are run by an established local muso who has enough credibility to pull in a few mates and make a decent noise.
They will generally get paid if they establish quite a decent scene.
He will run the band changes so mixing things up so you get a mixture of guys knowing stuff and others who have
summoned enough courage to do a 12 bar. This is ok... but pretty boring for bass and drums. Keys open the song choices up
but you still need a leader and singer of songs.
So...basically a lot of 12 bars and since they are gtr led... even if the gtr is more than pretty decent, it has it limits.

Last one I went to on a monday night had a very healthy turnout for the time of week and month.

[chris_b]

My covers band works at least 2 nights a week covering an area from Ramsgate to Reading and Luton to Brighton.

We usually play each venue about 2 or 3 times a year and realistically we are not going to bring an audience to many gigs in such a large area.

What we can do (should be able to do) is attract the pubs music punters with a good evening. They can dance, sing, request numbers or just listen, but here's the problem. Most music pubs don't think it's their job to put on a consistently high level of band so that punters actually want to go to the venue week in week out. Not many will remember us after 4 months, but they will remember the crap band that was dull and too loud who were on last week. It costs a lot to go out for an evening and punters don't want to go home feeling they've wasted their money.

The landlords who expect the band to bring the audience and all they have to do is sell the beer are just plain lazy.

[JTUK]

But... to bring a band down from too far out of town is going to cost them £350... as people put travel on a gig more than 30 mins away
so what makes that band worth it to the Landlord..?? He may be able to up his prices, but most people don't like to pay too much over
the top for what they already regard as an expensive pint. So, he goes with what he knows. A good expensive band can bum out almost
as easily as a cheap poor band on the wrong night... and who can judge when those nights crop up.
One of the best regarded local pubs has a ceiling of what he will pay..or says he will pay...and whilst he is a music lover, IMO, he probably doesn't
make money on every music night so one pays off the other..and if that balance is too far wrong, too many times, he stops music nights.

Admittedly, music nights are seen as saviours of the pub trade round here sometimes, but it is harder work that just putting on bands.
Paying a band £350 needs the band to be able to either draw...or if the pub has good passing trade/regulars, keep them there...but bands
don't generally like toi hand back their fee if the night doesn't work..

I do take the point that a venue should have a band rosta that is creditable ..and you should look at the standard of bands that play there,
but the simple equation is can they afford bands for the numbers that turn up consistantly? Punters might not have the same standards as Muso's
or even look or be concerned at the same things
The best bands are not always the best draws, sadly.

One thing I have always thought tho... when alcohol is so cheap from supermarkets... why be surprised if people wont go out and pay a premium for live music. ?

[TimR]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1414581010' post='2590860']
...
One thing I have always thought tho... when alcohol is so cheap from supermarkets... why be surprised if people wont go out and pay a premium for live music. ?
[/quote]

Pretty much this. And why should pubcos bother running pubs with all the inherent risks when they make a substantial percentage of their money from Supermarkets.

[blue]

Scenes must be different over here. The clip is of one of our local guitar heroes. He opened for your Robin Trower when he was in town a few weeks ago.

But I don't think Greg will do bar gigs anymore and i don't blame him. People weren't willing to come out. They will come out for the bands covering Katy Perry though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3dfVPWZOCE

Blue

[JTUK]

Sounds a great player...but you can't blame kids for not having the required taste..or any taste, come to that
and that is the problem with any audience...there is no accounting for what they like and why they like it.
The problem is getting them out in any numbers to be viable....
One of the most popular bands around here are also one of the least capable but they are a live show and
people will go and see them..so much so that they sold out a 450 hall in 29 hrs at £10:00 a ticket.
Now...which ever way you skin that.... that is pretty good going for a pub standard band..
and I'd say maybe not a great pub standard band at that. But...they have something that people will buy..!!!

No justice, maybe... but there you go..!!