MUSIC

Over the last 30 years, its huge, broad and burgeoning music scenes have grown into an – oh yes – international phenomenon. And Venue’s been there every step of the way. Music Editor Julian Owen listens in.

1982. Venue begins. The Pop Group, Bristol’s first major foray into a post-punk landscape, split a year ago. The Dug Out, one of a handful of live venues not inhabited by light entertainment singers, is open on Park Row, gestating a group called The Wild Bunch whose members and associates would put Bristol on the global musical landscape like no act before or since. Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead.

In their wake, densely loping dub beats permeated musical culture and beyond, from ad land to the Tory party conference. If you thought William Hague’s baseball cap was ill conceived, it was as nothing compared to his striding onto the platform in 2000 to the murky paranoia of Massive’s ‘Man Next Door’. The oft-overlooked Nellee Hooper was arguably the most influential of them all. As our Jazz/World Editor Tony Benjamin recently posited, what is his production on Sinéad O'Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ if not the first announcement to the world at large of – forgive us the terminology – the Bristol Sound? Or perhaps it arrived a year earlier, 1989, with his work on Soul II Soul’s genuinely game-changing ‘Club Classics Vol. One’.

Bristol and Bath sent out a shower of other stars, some burning brighter and lasting longer than others: Strangelove, Beth Rowley, Claytown Troupe, Propellerheads, Gravenhurst, The Brilliant Corners, Mooz, The Seers, Hairy Parents, The Moonflowers, Movietone, Tears For Fears, Ivory Springer, The Heads, Goldfrapp, The Blue Aeroplanes, Gary Clail, The Third Eye Foundation, Rita Lynch, Onslaught, more.

Many will have set out looking for The Deal with a major label. Sensible acts today will realise that the world has moved on. In the biggest industry shake-up since bands found independence from the monolithic network of all-powerful managers and promoters in the early 60s, bands advertising and selling their wares via the internet has left the old labels in a state of panicked flux. In Bristol/Bath, collectives like Choke, niche promoters like Purr, have helped forge a DIY future. In part consequence, the live scene has grown exponentially. As our listings pages attest, hundreds upon hundreds of acts are based in this area alone, playing out in an ever-growing number of venues.

So far, so familiar. But what of the worlds of jazz, classical and roots music? In our near-30 years, we’ve always done our best to add breadth to depth in our local coverage, and Classical Editor, Paul Riley, was there from issue number one. Back when “St George’s was still more or less a church, full of old organs,” he recalls. “One of the big developments has been watching how a group of dedicated amateurs somehow found the funds to transform it and develop a programme, and watch it go from being just classical to, equally, world music, jazz, and everything.

“I think there was more sense of adventure then. In a funny way, classical musicians have become far less narrow-minded, but – maybe contentiously – others have become more narrow-minded about classical music.” Nevertheless, says Paul, steps are being taken to reverse the trend. “The development of ‘outreach’, at its best, has been a really inspired way of engaging with young people and potential new audiences. From opera companies to symphony orchestras they're all at it, venues too. It’s all about discovering music through ‘doing’. Sometimes it’s box-ticking crap, but when it’s done well – the WNO’s community operas, for example – it’s brilliant. In many ways I'm more optimistic about the classical scene now than 30 years ago. I just wish that the music itself was the beginning, the middle, and the end of it, and that the peripheral fluff wasn't so omnipresent.”

Steve Henwood, veteran co-organiser of the Bath Fringe Festival, promoter at The Bell, and – as Hieronymus S – long-time contributor to these pages, notes a step-change in musical taste. In twin cities renowned for genre-melding music, it’s a key point. “You’re no longer into just one thing. You might be really strongly into one style, but then really strongly into something quite different: disgustingly heavy music, folk music and arcane corners of Georgian world music. That’s a contemporary phenomenon – when I were a lad you were into punk or metal or whatever. I can distinctly remember thinking ‘Which uniform am I going to wear?’”

Throughout Venue’s lifetime, Moles has been the cornerstone of the Bath scene. Others haven’t been so lucky, notes Steve. “The obvious thing that’s changed are the lost places where a group of mates could say ‘let’s put a gig on’: the Walcot Palais, Longacre Hall, Walcot Village Hall, the White Hart. There are still places, but fewer of them.” Any grounds for optimism? “I do like what they’re doing at Green Park Tavern, a nice space for noisy guitar music: hire a room and see what happens.” Welcoming the relatively recent arrival of Komedia, and the potential of its larger capacity, Steve foresees that “maybe in a year or so there’ll be local promoters emboldened by working at Green Park looking to take on bigger gigs.”

And so to jazz. “In the 80s,” says Tony Benjamin, “there was still quite an active free jazz scene, with people like Will Mentor and Jerry Underwood, Andy Sheppard was obviously cutting his teeth.” The King’s Head on Blackboy Hill was a major player and, from 1992, “Keith Tippett’s Rare Music Club at the Malaap Club [since Jesters, now Tesco]. Free improvised music, a piece of modern classical, and then old school world music.”

He also notes The Cube, from whence came multi-Banana garnering promoters Qu Junktions, “almost a deliberate agenda of no agenda – it brought a whole new language into the jazz scene, a huge overlap between conceptual electronic music, noise, assemblage music. That’s been delicious.” Hubs have also been built around the Old Duke, Oppo, the Corrie Tap, the Bebop Club and, more recently, No1 Harbourside and the Canteen.

Perhaps the greatest shadow, though, was cast by Bedminster’s Albert Inn. “Remarkable,” recalls Tony. “A small stage in front of a corridor of a room that wasn’t even that long. Ian Storror built up the most rigorous connections in the UK and beyond. Disproportionately successful, a national landmark on the jazz scene.” When problems with the tenancy agreement forced its (temporary) closure, “that in turn freed Ian to do Jazz@FutureInns, in a way what he always aspired to.” All told, a scene constantly refreshed because the “Bristol jazz scene is a very collaborative one – no one jazz musician will stay in one band. They might have half a dozen projects, teach, do studio work – all of them will be in each other’s books, and as a result people devise new bands.”

In world music, says Tony, “demographics play a part. The Pierian Centre, for instance, picking up a role with refugee Zimbabweans, led to Cecilia Ndhlovu getting Bulawayo and other bands together because it produced a community to play for, as well as us getting a chance to hear it. WOMAD had its office here in the early days, practically shared an office with Venue in Jamaica St, put on things like Bhundu Boys at the Thekla.” They were followed by “promoters like Cactus Jazz getting into Latin and African music,” forever transforming the “working man’s club entertainment” staged at Fiddlers when a run of gigs scheduled at the Fleece were shifted due to a fire.

Tony Slinger has been Venue’s Roots Editor almost since the start. A promoter and performer himself, he recalls that “when I started in 1981, nobody was booking the big folk names”. Apart from him. At Yesterday’s Folk Club on King St (now Privé), “we put on Richard Thompson, Martin Carthy, Maddy Prior, Loudon Wainwright III, Michelle Shocked when touring ‘Campfire Tapes’. Now, virtually every venue in the city features big rootsy names.” Since then, he notes, “small folk clubs have been replaced by sessions and singers nights. The other big change is the number of youngsters. I think partly they’re escaping dance music, partly it’s because they were taken to folk festivals as very small kids. Seth Lakeman has just turned 30 – you didn’t appear ’til you were 30 in the old days. Today you get 16-year-old girls playing blues lead guitar – it’s a tremendously healthy scene.”

Copyright Julian Owen 2011; Wild Bunch pic copyright Beezer, http://www.beezerphotos.com/

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