Musings on a Summer Tuesday
Well, I’ve been procrastinating over this article for about two weeks now and seeing as I eventually ran out of excuses at precisely 15:32 this afternoon (GMT)…
So, must make mention of the Look, Stranger! gig that took place last Friday at 93Ft East. Before I continue, I realise that some of you won’t have a clue what Look, Stranger! sound like so here’s a link – myspace.com/lookstranger
That said, they put on their own night at the esteemed Brick Lane venue and it was rammed. Heaving, in fact and it was the sort of night you rarely see these days. Five independent bands playing to a packed room with most people enjoying what they found.
Not wanting to draw any comparisons here (heaven forbid) but there wasn’t any door tax on this gig. This meant that people were free to wander in and discover what was behind the doors and also (and crucially, if we want to break this down to simple economics) had more money in their pockets to stick behind the bar which made the venue happy and caused them to run out of beer by the end of the night.
The main reason that the Look, Stranger! gig was such a success was that it was FREE. Unless you’re a major fan of the band in question, would you pay the equivalent price of two drinks to see a whole bunch of bands you’ve never heard of? True, people do.. but there’s always the risk that you’ve shelled out five, six or eight quid to be disappointed and anyway, most people I speak to these days are pretty skint and can’t afford to do this on a whim.
Let me put this another way. You want to buy a new car. Would you trot along to the dealers, a big bag of cash in hand, dump it on the front desk, point at a car and go ‘I want that one!’, only to jump straight in it and watch the wheels fall off? No, course you wouldn’t. That’s a silly idea. You’d do some research, take it for a test drive, that sort of thing. So why on EARTH would you wander to the back of a pub which has a perfectly good bar in the front to go and cough up you hard-earned clam shells to see something you’ve never even been aware of before?
Doesn’t look so sensible now, eh?
‘Ah!’ You say, ‘That’s the beauty of a music scene! Discovering new talent!’ Well, yes but not when you’re left out of pocket at the end of it.
What I want to know is whatever happened to residencies? You know, proper residencies where a good band played at the same venue again and again until the word spread and people came to the venue. Also, interesting to note no-body seems to mind shelling out a couple of quid to go into a venue…
It comes down to value for money at the end of the day. If a venue isn’t the greatest place on Earth but the bands are free, then people will assign their own personal value to the place as (sorry if this sounds a bit mushy) they attach a memory to it as they heard That Song there for the first time. Moving back to the Look, Stranger! gig at 93Ft East, the band were somewhat fortunate as the venue has a great name so people will want to go there – especially on a Friday night because they run Free Fridays… have a guess what night the Look, Stranger! gig was on…
The most unfortunate thing with the London music scene currently is that supply has completely outstripped demand and with bands everywhere, there is no real need to go and pay a fortune to see live music. What is desperately needed is a proper scene without so many transitive characters. A bit of stability might be nice. People might start assigning a value to it then.
Either that, or ban bands.
Your call.
(Note from Editor: our first birthday party will be on a Friday. In Camden. And it will be FREE! Deets to come!)
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