It is a standing joke in the house that when I first moved to Merseyside, I asked my wife if there was any theatre that I could attend in the city of Liverpool. My reason for asking was I wanted to get back to a point in life where the arts were important to me. It had been too long since I had set foot into a theatre setting and be able to watch with interest a play, good, exceptional or even indifferent, it mattered not, I just wanted to see art performed. Of course my wife fell about on the floor laughing at the idiocy of a man deprived of both the local knowledge of the city he had moved to, but also feeling great sympathy, albeit through muffled laughter, that someone had been destitute of art for so long.
For many different reasons coming to Liverpool was to be an eye opener in life and yet it was the thought of the past that was perhaps uppermost in my mind as the memories of listening to my mum playing The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy Fury and Cilla Black filled her record collection and my grandfather’s fondness for the Merseybeat Poets, the great Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and of course Roger McGough filled my thoughts of what I might find in the creative soul of the country. I didn’t ask my wife about music and venues for the simple fact innocently, perhaps with a hint of naivety, I presumed how could there not be music venues in a city that gave The Beatles to the world.
Yes there are some outstanding venues, The Philharmonic Hall; arguably one of the finest of its kind many will have had the privilege to sit down and take in, not just one of the foremost orchestras but contemporary music from the likes of Roger Hodgson, Ian Anderson, Caro Emerald, Steve Hackett, Kate Rusby and The Waterboys, is a delight to always sit in and let the acoustics do their marvellous job. The Echo Arena, finally a venue to do justice to the immensity of the past that is highly regarded around the world for Liverpool’s contribution to music and which has hosted legends such as Roger Waters, The Stranglers, Blondie, the War of the Worlds stage show and Crosby, Stills and Nash. It would seem on the surface that Liverpool is both admired for its ability to host large music events without incident and with the thought of what it brings into the city’s economy.
Yes the surface looks great, it is inviting and who wouldn’t want to see the best groups in the world play in their home city and not to have to travel to the likes of Manchester just to have a top night out. The surface is wonderful; it is however underneath that the danger lurks.
It was once calculated that there were around 350 bands or music artists in the musical heyday of Liverpool’s iconic past, all vying to be recognised, all fighting for a small population that was still feeling the effects, the dreadful hangover of World War Two. The Cavern became famous, music was, like football, synonymous with the city and that high regard has not just enthused the generations that followed, the likes of Ian McNabb, Ian Prowse, The Lightning Seeds, the great Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the superb Space, The La’s and Cast but also the new 21st Century artists and groups, arguably as many, if not more than the 1960s golden period that still is venerated by many, especially those that commercially that past association helps. Artists such as The Mono L.Ps, Jo Bywater, the influx of Norwegian artists that have come out of L.I.P.A. that have become firm crowd favourites, Bolshy, Dominic Dunn, Barry Briercliffe, Jimmy and the Revolvers, Steve Thompson and the Incidents, Alun Parry, All We Are, Sundowners and Me and Deboe, have all made music in the 21st Century a pleasure and an honour to see.
What all these 21st Century bands and artists have in common is that abundance of smaller venues. The kind of venue where you learn about the experience of actually listening to music and not being drowned out by the sound of 10,000 people all singing the chorus and allowing the artist a brief respite in their set. The amount of smaller venues in Liverpool is astronomical and yet, with the creeping insincerity afforded to those whose sole objective in life is the pursuit of money, the closure of some venues is a frightening prospect to consider.
As someone from out of town, the matter of opinion I hold probably holds no weight, why would it, I grew up in Birmingham, the vast majority of my formative years spent in a small Oxfordshire town and spending time living in the south of England, what does it matter to someone who isn’t even from Merseyside. Growing up in Bicester, appreciating music is to be savoured. It is a town, soon to be enlarged and perhaps destroying the uniqueness of the place, that has never had a discernible scene, in fact the greatest claim to fame is being the town in which Marillion made their debut, a huge claim indeed but still not much else. Growing up in Bicester in the 1980s was to be deprived of music, unless you were willing as a young teenager to disappear down to London for the night and take in a gig and hope that your parents didn’t find out, spend ages sweating cobs on the back of a motorbike as it weaved its way to the Milton Keynes Bowl or have grandparents who actively encouraged you to see music and who you knew would never rat you out to your parents. To suggest Bicester was devoid of art is an understatement and it is perhaps the only argument I can make about the worrying, creeping destruction of Liverpool’s outstanding smaller venues.
Nothing lasts forever, empires fall and tastes change, however to remove a swathe of venues in which local bands, local people, can enjoy a night out without spending the best part of a month’s wages is almost criminal. It is depriving the artist of being able to the world of growth, it is depriving the local music fan of seeing their thoughts of the world, of the subjects that surround the local area, amplified but without hearing someone scream down their ear and paying over the odds for a drink to toast the artist’s endeavour with.
The argument being that it is only the Kazimier that has announced its slow death, that it is to close on January 1st, but Mello Mello closed its doors, Pacific Road in Birkenhead went the way of the dodo, The Lomax closed, albeit for alleged different reasons, the Bombed Out Church of St. Luke’s was threatened; what next, perhaps the Academy, Leaf, Bumper, The Jacaranda or Studio 2. Yes there are other venues opening but this should never be a moment in which to celebrate, no death of a venue should be compared to one being opened.
Liverpool in 2008 was rightly acknowledged as Capital of Culture, it really should never be in doubt, yet the modern day counter culture is seemingly oblivious to that fact and the city, instead of being a place where independent spirit is encouraged is now becoming a place where flats and more flats are being built, the slow death of self expression is arguably at hand.
Ian D. Hall