Earlier this year Liverpool Acoustic ran a survey on the news and reviews service. Amongst the feedback, one of the suggestions for a new feature was an ‘opinion’ column and we’re delighted that Acoustic Solo (real name withheld to protect the guilty and innocent alike) has sent us this fitting piece as we approach the New Year. Thanks, AS!
Dear Reader,
Here’s a cautionary tale for these festive times…..
The first time I was paid to play a music gig it was in the upstairs room of licensed premises. That those premises are now known as the Ship & Mitre in Dale Street will prove, in the course of my narrative, to be hugely significant.
‘The Mitre’, as it was then known, was an idiosyncratic environment with a downstairs full of eccentric-looking patrons who were wont to stand up and dance to the Perry Como-playing juke-box at the proverbial drop of a hat – about as far removed from Rock ‘n Roll as could be. It was, however a breeding ground for the kind of songwriting folk, acoustic and blues players whose sons and daughters now grace the very same venue under the guise of ‘Nu-Folk’.
With these facts in mind I believe it is easy to understand my horror at the reaction I witnessed from a member of the licensee team at a celebrated Cain’s pub in Renshaw Street in late February this year to my question asking whether there were ever gigs featuring live music in the venue. My enquiry elicited a complete dismissal of the idea, including the immortal words (minus the expletives) “I’d sooner have musicians in here giving me money than taking it off me… See any musicians in here? That’s the way I like it!” before inviting me to leave, which I was most pleased to do, having never since returned.
I felt I was witnessing the demise of the special relationship between music and pub culture, which had served each other well over the years, and had created such an important cultural symbiosis ever since Big Bill Broonzy played the Temple and the Merseysippi Jazz Band and Jacqui and Bridie were resident in Wavertree’s Coffee House.
The degree of philistinism in evidence during our exchange astonished me. To a well-established songwriter and performer in the city of Liverpool, as well as a CAMRA supporter, music teacher and Musicians’ Union activist and Learning Advisor who enjoyed contributing to the Cajun music sessions at the self-same venue under the previous management, the irony was unavoidably depressing. The way a simple equation was made between live music and lost profit was a sign of the worst type of arse-pocket business nonsense I’d heard in many a year, and this in a bona fide real ale venue!
What’s crucial to remember is that without the upstairs rooms of pubs in the city, the city centre would have died musically for a generation barely five years after its finest hours. The early 1970s saw the first waves of mass unemployment, of Public Spending and power cuts, while the Merseybeat wave had all but ebbed away, the Cavern was about to shut and the Iron Door had slammed for the last time. All over Britain it was the pub venues that saved us and in turn the musicians, poets and performers who saved them as clubland closed.
From the Spinners’ Clubs at Gregson’s Well in Islington and the Triton in Paradise Street, O’Connor’s Tavern and Ye Cracke, Streets, the White House, the Masonic and Peter Kavanagh’s, there has been a long and illustrious tradition of unity between pub venues, their patrons, and musicians which has produced such luminaries as Elvis Costello, Connie Lush, The Icicle Works, John O’Connell and Charlie Landsborough. We take this tradition for granted at our peril.
I would like, using my saddening experience at Merseyside CAMRA’s “Pub of the Year” 2010, to appeal to all involved in the maintenance of real public houses to remember the contribution of music to the adding of product value which at its best transforms the consumption of well-kept real ales into an authentic and deep social, educational and cultural experience which is as much part of our cultural heritage as Shakespeare, maypoles, morris dancers and Merseybeat.
Let it be our resolution for the New Year to give real and live music and musicians a chance in 2011 and let’s see a re-birth of an attitude and culture which appreciates the value, not the price, of the musical symbiosis which has made Liverpool justly famous throughout the world, especially as the city council redoubles its efforts to have our city designated England’s first UNESCO City of Music.
Let’s be honest, in the austere times ahead, we are going to need each other once again.
Acoustic Solo
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