EnjoyEngland — the official website for tourism — this week launched a
campaign called England Rocks. It is a checklist of venues and hangouts that
have shaped the country’s pop history.
The shrines of English rock’n’roll vary from boozers such as Camden’s smoky
Brit-pop fount the Good Mixer to a dangerous curve in the road at Barnes,
where Marc Bolan met his maker.
After years of having cherished venues such as the Cavern in Liverpool and
Manchester’s Haçienda make way for ventilation shafts and loft-style living,
maybe this could be the point at which the country starts to appreciate its
chief contribution to late 20th-century culture.
Meanwhile, as the heritage tours get under way, live music has never been more
popular. In the age of the download — where the press of a button replaces
the thrill of buying, touching and playing a record — people are
reconnecting with gigs as something they can feel. The web is also
contributing to the boom: social networking sites such as MySpace and music
websites such as drownedinsound.com provide instant promotional networks for
gigging bands, and they also champion independent music, an often homespun,
quicksilver scene that thrives on the buzz and audience generated by live
events. It’s no small irony, then, that London is experiencing a serious
erosion of its rock music venues.
While the Festival Hall and the Barbican have been subject to
multimillion-pound overhauls for the artier end of the market, the Astoria
on Charing Cross Road and the Hammersmith Palais are both destined to be
bulldozed. The former is unfortunately in the way of the Cross-rail travel
network, which at least should aid most Londoners; the latter is set to
become another office block.
Worse yet, after a ruling from the Competition Commission, the futures of the
Forum in Kentish Town and Hammersmith Odeon are uncertain. Paul Latham, of
the theatre owners Live Nation, says: “Our venues have never been busier,
hence our desire to acquire more.”
The commission thinks that Live Nation owns quite enough already, and told The
Times that it was “likely that ticket prices would go up” and that “the
quality of venues could decline” because of the lack of competition. This
problem has arisen because Live Nation is set to buy a 53 per cent interest
in its rival Academy Music Group. Live Nation owns or runs the Hammersmith
Apollo, the Forum and the Astoria, while Academy Music Group owns the
Shepherds Bush Empire and the Brixton Academy.
The commission is concerned that five venues with a capacity of between 1,000
and 5,000 each will be owned by one company and, to let the merger go
through, has ruled that Live Nation must
sell two of them.
In the event of a deal it is up to the merging companies to find the
purchasers. The sale, however, will need to be approved by the commission.
“There would be no point in us letting the Brixton Academy be turned into a
Starbucks,” says a reassuring spokesman for the commission, Rory Taylor.
“That would defeat the purpose of the commission. We are here to ensure that
a viable competitor is found within the industry to ensure that they remain
as live venues.”
As comforting as that sounds, with the fate of the Hammersmith Palais sealed
and that of the Astoria in the balance, the Live Nation/CC stand-off is a
reminder that the survival of venues depends on the uneasy alliance of
unsympathetic local councils, enormo-live promoters and property developers.
“Venues are more valuable to developers than as going concerns. As a
business decision, you can't argue with that,” says Mike Smith, the managing
director of Columbia Records. “But being of a romantic disposition, I think
these places are irreplaceable. If you go to the Forum or the Astoria and
think of the bands that played there, you know the soul of the music has
seeped into the walls.”
When Camden’s Electric Ballroom was threatened by the wrecking ball, the Mayor
of London, Ken Livingstone, stepped in and secured its future. “We need
thriving live music venues if London is to stay a leading centre of culture,
the arts and entertainment,” Livingstone says. “If the number and range of
classical music venues were threatened, the Establishment would rightly be
up in arms. But London’s contribution to innovation in modern music is as
important.”
Tom Baker is an independent gig promoter whose Eat Your Own Ears company has
benefited from the live boom. This June he’ll put on the fourth annual
Homefires event — in the vanguard of the UK folk revival — at the Humanist
Society headquarters, Conway Hall, in Holborn. “If I had my way, I’d always
put on bands in unusual spaces,” he says. “Homefires doesn’t make any money,
but it’s built up a name, and it’s such an unusual venue.”
Baker thinks it isn’t all bad news for London, pointing to Koko, an old Camden
Town music hall that had been mouldering as the Camden Palace for years
until it was refurbished in 2003. “Koko has done an incredible job,” he
says. “That place had a bad reputation. Now it has the NME
club, the more leftfield stuff, as well as gigs by Bryan Ferry and loads of
secret shows — Madonna . . . ridiculous people!” He thinks that the ideal
venue would be “a place that holds 2,000 but can be broken up to hold 400 in
a smaller space. A bit like the Roundhouse”.
Mike Smith agrees. “A lot of new venues are soulless, but the Roundhouse is a
great example of what can be done. It feels European, like a modern venue.”
The former railway turntable shed in Chalk Farm is certainly well appointed;
the former Millennium Dome will similarly be able to host large and small
events once it reopens as the O Dome in June with a Justin Timberlake show.
New venues, though, are by no means failsafe. Take the state-of-the-art Ocean
in Hackney, which closed almost as soon as it opened. “It was totally
mismanaged,” says Baker. “Probably council-related — when somewhere is
subsidised people rest on their laurels. It’s a shame because it had
incredible potential.”
Besides, with a new venue you can’t mix credibility into the mortar, and for
Baker the Astoria has been “a credible central venue. It’s a stamp for a
band to say: ‘Yes, we played there.’ I saw Franz Ferdinand there early on,
and Arctic Monkeys. I put on the Test Icicles’ last ever gig there — 2,000
kids just going crazy.”
Hammersmith and Fulham Council may have signed the Palais’ death warrant but,
according to Livingstone, the passions roused by the decision could yet lead
to the other venues being saved.
“Not every venue can stay open for ever,” he admits, “but we have to retain
the availability of music venues if we are to see our live music flourish.
This means cultural considerations are going to have to be given more
attention. I’ve asked my planning advisers to bring forward proposals to
address this.”
Londoners hold their breath. “Live music is booming, but recent heritage is
too easily walked over,” shrugs Smith. “But I’m positive. Future venues
don’t have to be containers with a stage at one end. The Roundhouse proves
you can do it well.”
Should we do more to protect live music venues?
