Live Music in ED....

[kbabes]

What's the general consensus re live music in the ED area? Do we want some or is everyone indifferent? I can only think of the House of Tippler that is trying out a regular 'live music' night... In my view the area is crying out for some!

[Otta]

I'd love a proper venue that had proper noisy bands of many genres on. But it aint gonna happen.

The Half Moon Herne Hill, and The Hob, Forest Hill are both decent.

[Jeremy]

There's very little audience out there for original live music. However, Brixton is close and has a couple of good venues. As Otta says, you can occasionally see stuff in Herne Hill or Forest Hill.

Saying that, if you like Folk, then The Goose put on quite a few gigs locally.

[kbabes]

The Goose? Is that a pub? What happens upstairs at the EDT currently?

[Jeremy]

Sorry, The Goose is a local folk music collective.

http://www.thegooseisout.com/

I think upstairs at the EDT is just used for private hire.

[kbabes]

ok thanks Jeremy.. & shame about upstairs at the EDT, would make perfect music venue/club

[BJL]

The Great Exhibition has live music.

[Otta]

Only live music I've heard there was decidedly jazz, and that doesn't count.

[KidKruger]

they've got a lady playing ukelele there on Thursday with a dude playing beatbox in the background.

[Jeremy]

KK... I wouldn't use the 'L' word round these parts if I were you.

The Great Exhibition doesn't really meet my idea of live music either. The problem is that if you're going to have live music in the main area of a pub, it needs to be something fairly middle-of-the-road so as not to put people off.

[KidKruger]

Gulp..

Well she sure looked a lady when I came across her by accident a few weeks ago in that bar, having popped-in for a quiet one.

What they DO seem to do at GE is have DJs and live music that's usually intended to NOT extinguish communication betwen patrons. I'm not used to that but it's a nice change.

[Sue]

Jeremy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Sorry, The Goose is a local folk music

> collective.

> http://www.thegooseisout.com/

>

xxxxxxx

Blimey, I never knew we were a collective :))

Nygel (FlapJackDavey) and I run it, with a fantastic bunch of people who help on the night.

You just missed a brilliant night on Saturday (moved from The Ivy House) with Wizz Jones headlining. The place was packed. And that was sadly the last Goose gig Upstairs At The Mag.

From January we are moving our Mag nights to the room upstairs at The Old Nun's Head.

I imagine the reason there isn't more live music Upstairs At The EDT is because they want a guarantee of a certain minimum number of people each night, and if you fall short they charge an arm and a leg for room hire.

So one night with fewer people there, and you could be bankrupt.

[kbabes]

Hi Sue, shame they would rather just have it (Upstairs at the EDT)empty then attempt to get a decent music night going.. when will the Nun's Head be kicking off?

I presume no Banjo's involved within the Goose is Out?

& yep, agree with Otta - Jazz doesn't count.. or Ukele's or dancing ducks :)

[KidKruger]

NOTHING wrong with banjos ACTUALLY.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford

Hobart Smith

Doc Watson

Gaither Carlton

Roscoe Holcomb

Don Stover

Ola Belle Reid

Frank Proffitt

Dock Boggs

Wade Ward

[Sue]

kbabes Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi Sue, shame they would rather just have it

> (Upstairs at the EDT)empty then attempt to get a

> decent music night going.. when will the Nun's

> Head be kicking off?

>

> I presume no Banjo's involved within the Goose is

> Out?

>

xxxxxxx

Yeh totally agree re the EDT. You'd think a load of punters buying drinks would be better than an empty space.

But on the other hand, the Goose started out at the EDT, and after six rammed gigs with another gig coming up which had sold out months in advance, discovered that we were being kicked out so that they could start a "private members' club" upstairs.

Long story short, the private members' club was a dismal failure, as anyone could have predicted, but we'd be a bit wary of starting a regular night there again anyway in case they turned the space back into a restaurant again.

Nun's Head kicking off with Thomas McCarthy, on 11 January. Bit of an acquired taste if you're not a folk fan as he sings unaccompanied songs from an Irish Traveller tradition.

Banjo - well, banjo players are the drummers of the folk world, innit.

But we had the amazing Robin Gillan singing into his banjo at the Aquarius Festival in the summer.

And Jason Steel last Saturday brought his banjo across London to play just one song in a thirty minute set, started tuning it and a string broke. He had to sing the song unaccompanied (it was brilliant). Banjo karma, eh.

[Mick Mac]

The Clanceys + banjo = paradise is a folk band.

[ontheedge]

Traditional Irish music wise a banjo is considered more of a traditional instrument than a bodhrain

[Sue]

There's banjo and then there's banjo ......

ETA: Just to be clear, when I said banjo players were the drummers of the folk world, I meant as the butt of jokes, not as in they're crap. In case anybody misunderstood :)

[Wilhelm]

'None taken' Sue. I can confirm that amongst drummers it's actually lead guitarists that get the rip however. Apologies to Otta.

[kbabes]

I knew the Banjo quip would get some attention.... :)

Shall we start on drummers now? (just leave bass players out of it.. )

[Sue]

No, let's go back to live music in ED, I get enough hassle on this forum as it is without starting on drummers :)) :)) :))

Not strictly in East Dulwich now, but Andy Hankdog runs the Easycome Acoustic Club on Wednesday nights.

It's moved about a bit, but it's currently at the back room of The White Horse, which is the pub set back off the road on the left as you're walking from Peckham Rye common into Rye Lane.

As its name suggests, it's (usually) acoustic, but there's a wide variety of music on there usually, and when I've been, the standard has generally been quite high. I realise that leaves me open to your going on a night when it's all crap, but hey ho.

[kbabes]

yep agreed.... & thanks Sue - I'm off to check out the Hob in Forest Hill this evening, The Talking Strawberries I believe.

I don't suppose there is a local online gig guide or fb page that is kept up to date?? Anyone know?

[Sue]

Well the What's On section in this forum usually has news of gigs happening round here, and there are similar forums (although much less used) for SE5, SE23 and Crystal Palace, and probably other ones as well. I can't remember them all as Nygel does the Goose postings on them, but there was a thread on here listing them all not long ago, you could try doing a search.

To the best of my knowledge there is no "local online gig guide" as such, as how would you define "local"?

There is an online Time Out gig guide, as I'm sure you know, but of course it would depend on whether individual promoters use it for local gigs round here.

Quite often we send in listings to Time Out, The Guardian etc and then they don't appear, at least in the printed version, even for our big concert nights.

Basically any guide is more or less completely dependent on whether individual promoters send their listings to it. I only know the folk listings places, which may be of no use to you, but if it is, online the main places are Folk London (also has a paper version which we sell at our gigs), Folk and Roots, fRoots, and also Simply What's On, which will email you a list of what's on in your area once a week.

You could try googling "live music" and the postcodes you'd consider "local"?

I was thinking about this last night, and it does seem to me that one of the main reasons there is not more live music round here is probably lack of venues. We have had huge difficulty finding places locally for actual gigs (rather than our Singaround) which a) Have separate rooms b) the room is a suitable size for our expected number of punters c) don't charge for the room (actually we've only come across two potential local venues which would have charged us, as most places are only too happy to make their money on the bar) and d) have the required nights free - we don't put on gigs during the week, only two Fridays a month plus the occasional Saturday. For larger numbers (we often get over 200 people coming to our "concerts") it's even more difficult.

You wouldn't believe the time we've spent looking for suitable venues. Although we think The Old Nun's Head is a great pub, we are really sorry to have to leave SE22 where we've been for four years (and even more sorry that we've now got a long walk there and back !!!)

Another issue, of course, is that some promoters are less tenacious than us and just give up. People don't realise the amount of work involved in putting on and publicising a gig. I think some people think we just turn up on the night and take their money :)) It's practically a full-time job, with very little financial reward unless you're putting on very big names in a massive capacity venue. When we first started doing it, we both had actual full-time jobs as well, and I don't know how we did it, really.

Plus - the demographic round here seems to be weighted towards people with young children, and they are probably the least likely to come out at night to a gig. Promoters are not going to want to spend time and money putting on live music if the punters don't come to it.

[Jeremy]

To play devil's advocate for a minute, why do we need local live music? What's wrong with travelling to Brixton, Camden, or Shoreditch to go and see a band?

[Sue]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> To play devil's advocate for a minute, why do we

> need local live music? What's wrong with

> travelling to Brixton, Camden, or Shoreditch to go

> and see a band?

xxxxxxx

Nothing, and we do that ourselves.

But it's much nicer to be able to walk to it and not have to brave the crowds in Camden, and the night buses :)