Today marks the first Blog here on the new Allstage Blog site.
Since my return to the London Music Scene in December 2008 after a 25 year absence, nothing has changed while at the same time - everything has changed.

As the years progressed from the Seventies and Eighties for the London Music Scene - the landscape for venues for bands to show their craft drastically altered. Gone were the hotbeds of live entertainment: Fryfogles/Brass Rail, The Wellington, Mingles, Firehall, The Barn, City Hall, Kiplings, The Abbey, The Electric Banana, Campbells, The Wick, The Embassy, The Queens, the original Ridout - there were others as well but it was these Marquee bars that held the life blood for bands to perform live - and one by one they closed.
Seventies Rock became Disco, Disco became Punk, Punk became Glam Rock, Glam Rock became Grunge, Grunge became Alternate, Alternate Hip Hop, Hip Hop became Metal, and then the cycle beginning with the Seventies started again. Some genres like Blues and Country survived regardless, and pockets of Jazz managed to keep their own yet never became mainstream in London.
But the one common denominator was that there was far too few bars for all the bands springing up from the influences of 4 decades. The bars that remained shunned away from the Monday - Saturday night hiring's, and the "weekend" gig of Thursday to Saturday became one nighter's for bands with the odd venue still retaining Friday & Saturday night bookings. Once again, bands/artists were finding themselves with a continually shrinking means to play.

For the first while I was focused on the formation of my band Bender, and I didn't know nor have time to know, many of those in the London Music Community. As time began to pass - and thru one venue, or a conversation struck up at a bar or standing outside having a smoke - I slowly started to meet individuals, see bands and the local scene started to have a familiar sense to it as networking became the way to meet and hear musicians. The advent of social media such as Face Book became a way for musicians to interact with each other, MySpace became a launch pad for bands/artists to get their product out in the open, and You Tube became the modern day "MTV" for bands that couldn't afford high calibre Video's - all you needed was a Video Cam and a place to shoot it and you were set.
As I began getting to know local musicians and the bands they played with or as solo artists, the one thing that became VERY apparent to me was the lack of people attending local bars to see live music. I was used to the Seventies and early Eighties when bands played a 9:00pm - 1:00am set. Bars were alive at 8:30 at night with patrons who had gone out for dinner and then gone to a bar to make a night of it. People would flow in and stay until close, then more circumstances came into play. Drinking and driving along with MADD started to change how people handles themselves after a night's drinking. It was good that people were being aware of not drinking and driving, but then the Government made a ridiculous contradiction to the statement they were trying to get across to patrons - they extended the closing time of bars to 2:00am. Now you could drink longer, get more intoxicated, and when closing time came and there was no LTC bus to take you home, and a cab wait outside a closed bar in the dead of winter for an hour or so, left you pondering why you didn't drive your car - there was once again a change in people's habits. Drink at home due to cost, go out to bar later to party, and leave the bar before the 2:00am close time to catch a cab before the bar rush. When the love-in with DJ's became popular since a bar had less reason to have a stage interjecting on floor space that could have tables that would generate revenue instead - not to mention a DJ had limited equipment and could setup and tear down in far less time than a band - the constrictions of live entertainment became even more evident. While DJ's were more convenient and cost effective, the demographic of the 35-50 year olds were not in tune with DJ driven music - they wanted live bands again. Those that were students or were 30 and under, were not the demographic that was supporting live music - of course there is always exceptions - but bands were playing to those that work and have families. And those people are the ones that are too exhausted to adapt to the new 2:00 closing time.
I've heard many a discussion and point of view about the new hours being better than the 9-1:00am hours for bands and artists - but when I make my rounds of local bars on week nights or weekends - there is one indisputable fact. People file out beginning around midnight - 12:30am, it's not debate, it's a fact. The band loses a large percentage of their audience, the bar loses a large percentage of their revenue while STILL paying staff for another 2-3 hours - and everyone suffers for it.

The talent has increased dramatically, the music spectrum has increased dramatically in terms of what it is a bar patron wants to hear, technology has made artists and bands visually and audibly more appealing to their audience, and the ability to get the message out to people to attend their shows has made promoting much easier and cost effective. Add in the ability of musicians to now record their projects and convert them to CD's to sell at shows along with cost effective merch such as T-shirts - and the entire concept has taken a huge leap forward.

What we all now need is the people to attend the shows, bar owners to make enough money to keep them stable in a rocky economy and succeed, and for more individuals to be drawn to opening a bar because it is a profitable business to be involved in.

The Market in Ottawa, out east in Halifax, Newfoundland and many other eastern coast city's - all have a thriving and diversified music community that is alive and well.
What is it about London that we don't want that here.

In the coming weeks there will be a host of subjects that I will be covering and there will be Artists/Bands that are subscribed to my new "Allstage" website that will have articles written about them in the aim of getting everyone out there and stirring up interest in the music community.
It's not an impossible task, and it's one that I intend to take to the wall to accomplish.

Talk to you soon and do yourself a favor, get out there and enjoy some great talent around town - you'll be glad you did.

Jim