It's Time To Stand Up And Protect The Nation's Small Venues
Something has to be put in place to secure the future of independent music...
Our small and medium sized venues are the vital level in the house of cards that is the UK's music industry - remove them, and the structure collapses.
This is not new news to us, and the news that Manchester would lose not one, but two key venues, is hardly unfamiliar either. On Thursday, *it was announced* that the city's Gorilla, that sits stylishly under Whitworth Street's arches, and the historic Deaf Institute on Grovesnor Street would both be no more.
They are two of few medium sizes venues left that accommodate local bands, touring bands and, crucially for the future of the industry, aren’t limited to 18+ shows. Citing the usual pressures, heightened by the current pandemic, the news shook gig-goers, bands, promoters and venue staff.
*The Welly in Hull* was announced to be losing its battle too, as the Music Venue Trust and crowdfunders battle against the elements to keep the fabric of the music industry alive.
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Perhaps Manchester sums up most vividly the reason these venues are so important. Take a walk from Oxford Road station to Gorilla, and you can't miss the The O2 Ritz that stands across the road. No Manchester band to have played there in recent years hasn't stayed to the left and passed through Gorilla too. These mere square yards summarise the relationship that venues have with each other as plainly as ever.
There is no artist, no matter the hype, that can move swiftly from playing in the back corner of a bar in front of people and pen their next date at a 2,000+ capacity Academy. More than ever, local scenes rely on these artists earning their stripes around their home city. Some can tot up towards 100 gigs in a year, and may find themselves by the end of it plotting a gamble to hit the next rung on the ladder - somewhere like The O2 Ritz still very much a target in the distance.
It takes no music industry expert to realise, therefore, that removing the rungs on the ladder leaves a gap that few, if any, can breach. The closure of Gorilla and Deaf Institute in Manchester leaves a void in the city's music scene that will be critical. Manchester, that global music city in the north west of England, will lose artists because of it.
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One promoter who has been involved with both venues is Ben Taylor: “Grassroots music venues are a must. It’s not rocket science to know that acts don’t just jump to 1000+ capacity venues. There’s the graft that goes on way before reaching that level.”
Taylor, now director of the city’s YANA Festival said: “Where would new bands go and play live? Where would you find your new favourite artist? Something has to be put in place to secure the future of independent music.”
When lobbying to save music venues, it is easy to feel like it is a heave from the bottom up against unequal forces. As music lovers, we perhaps too often argue on the basis of our love, with our hearts. We love our venues, and want to see them survive so that we can sing, dance and cavort in them with our friends, support the bands we can't get enough of, feel part of something. In truth, there is another less romantic reason that these spaces must stay alive.
When the champagne flows at the major label table at an awards ceremony, it is not because their artist has been placed by divine intervention at their door. A long time before the artist took receipt of their Mercury Prize, their BRIT, they were plugging in at a Gorilla, or a Deaf Institute, to turn heads at the very beginning of their journey. Those venues provided our artist with the foundation to build their project, to develop, to learn, to be seen. Remove those foundations from the timeline, and the result is not a three album contract with Virgin EMI, but a 'what could've been'.
As Taylor puts it: “The cash injection from the government has to reach our 50 capacity venues and up. Too much on the line here to just stand and watch the demise of music. The time to act is now.”
It is within the best interests of these labels, the oligarch's that head up our industry, that places like Gorilla and Deaf Institute survive. There are no lesser factors in what is such an entwined industry, just forces that rely on one another to exist.
The closure of our smaller venues sends shockwaves through the industry, and it is indeed about time those that benefit most tangibly to step forward.
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Words: *Lewis Ridley *
Photo Credit: *Abbie Jennings / CONTACT*
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