How would you improve the Liverpool music scene? What do you think we need to boost it? Reader’s Views (P2)

How would you improve the Liverpool music scene? What do you think we need to boost it? (Click ‘Read More’ to see what people said)

  • Pete Murphy: Fans. Convincing people to get out the chair and come see some music. Whether thats by ensuring quality control over the quick buck that some venues seem to be going for. I’d love to see the Cavern back in the hands of some respectable/ethical promoters too. The amount of passing traffic that used to see quality unsigned bands for free on a Saturday afternoon back in the day was a major plus for the place. Nowadays its bands charged £200 for the ‘opportunity’ to play 20 mins with 6-7 other bands.
  • Insanity Hurts: More venues willing to pay for acts, promoters organising nights were the budget includes booking fees, local press giving more exposure/interviews/ features, this can help artists reach an audience who then may be tempoted to catch them at their next gig. People not getting stopped from advertising/promoting events, I say this as we were moved from echo arena BGT auditions from speaking to acts who had auditioned, on there way out as not to interfere with the smooth running of the event.come and poach our cities talent, convince them they are benefiting and then emotionally drag them through shits kreek. All whilst telling a local music studio not to do the same thing. Fuck the echo arena, how many unsigned bands/artists have played there? And if your the events manager who moved us. I LOVE YOU as no one fuckin else does mr people skills! So the answer to your question is I DON’T KNOW ha
  • Russell Holden: The Echo would be great for a weekend unsigned festival….as many band as pos, cheap entry, people to review and interview bands, a cd of the event…would that cost too much?
  • Joseph Smith: Make everything louder.
  • David Gardener: Making music free, everyone going the lomax, an amazing venue, getting rid of such genres as indy, emo, scene, pop, music.
  • Chris Parkes: there needs to be a new Bandwagon type night, I missed it years ago but to have The Bandits, Zutons, Coral, Hokum Clones, Great Northwestern Hoboes & The Crescent coming through at the time gets people going to gigs more, starting more bands, making better, £5+ to get into an average gig is a bit steep when some haven’t got a job! bring back the impromptu/guerilla gigs!
  • Insanity Hurts: I know let’s do a free gig about bands not getting paid- the echo won’t review it, the echo arena won’t host it, and we will all be campin by the museum.
  • Russell Holden: There’s also too much attention focused on pop, all this x factor and britains got talent garbage is all you get on the main Liverpool radio stations, even an hour a week for unsigned acts would be a great start
  • Michael O’Farrell: Hey now, guerilla gigs. There’s a thought. Could be worth getting a mailing list together and sending out last-day invitations to free gigs. Put a sense of urgency and fun back into the scene. In summer we could even put on free outdoor gigs if we could get together some bands who were willing to bend the law a bit.
  • Chris Parkes: With the Guerilla gigs, target parties, could even run a competition to have a few bands play in your back room/garden, have a laugh, build a scene and then there’s parks in the summer on the acoustics, bar crawls, sorted! way to build a list like.
  • Joe Forrest: I like the guerilla gigs/partys idea. Thing is most people don’t bother going to see new bands because they don’t know them, so get in their faces and turn up where they don’t expect it! Then link it to a decent venue! A lot of people talking about the Lomax, and for good reason, we played there last night and it’s a superb venue! If Frank can control the quality of the bands and the nights so that people go just beacuse it’s the Lomax and they know it’s going to be a great night then that’s what you want. A weekly event (pref weekend) like the Bandwagon at Zanzibar where people can go EVERY week, whether they know whos on or not. The Kazimer and (even Mello) have got that sort of reputation, you might not know what is on but just turn up to check it out. Kazimer is quite big tho but Lomax is perfect size to create a great hot, sweaty, crazy atmos in it. Decent venues working with decent promoters and working WITH bands to put on amazing nights to build reputation by word of mouth. Easy to say like but enough people seem to be talking about it!!!
  • Chrisie Hughes: Better promotion & retail opportunities, the amount of times I have been to Probe recently a local independant record store ask for EP’s or discs & I get no joy frustrating. Surprise gigs, or free live shows such as Hub once was, promos for newer bands. Open mike nights chance for bands to come from outside area too. Cross blending of music types & venues. I like the live music in pubs & galleries a good deal! Cheaper gigs or more than 1 support act. Established acts ie Cast & Pledge music bring newer acts forward is brilliant. Use of Spotify, I tunes, Facebook & Twitter too bring acts around the country together too!
  • Alexander Thomas Melia: People actually going gigs.
  • Rufus Hok: Hey friends, ive just set up a group called ‘Singin for our supper’-very relevant to whats being said and to sort.please get involved.
  • Chris Parkes: Frank at the Lomax seems happy enough to get a scene going, Kazimier is a great venue as well, there’d need to be a good variety of folk, maybe a guest each week alongside the younger upcoming acts, even from different cities travelling up. Probe didn’t anwer an email I sent 2 weeks ago, been after the 12” of The Sand Band (fellow scousers) been searching for the record for the year! Think this could be something with potential if a ‘team’ of right folk got involved. The Epstein Theatre has been ‘saved’ so to speak, perhaps a night there? I’ll ask Gary Bandit from The Bandits how they did it back in the day!
  • Ryan Cullen: We ran through quite a couple of the ideas suggested above a little while back, the ideas of guerilla parties and merchandising, better promotion and tonnes of competitions.
    As a result, we now have a good budget to invest in music events, a couple of very exciting partners and sponsorships already confirmed and more in the works. 
    It’s all about the passion and customer care, advertising and having a good enough strategy - promoting should be down to the promoter, the key is in the name, not the bands!

    I struggle to understand why some people get angry with bands because they don’t ‘bring enough people’ or ‘sell enough tickets’ - their job is to turn up and play, enjoy themselves, please their fans.

    People WILL turn up, and buy tickets, if the right promotional strategy is in place and you think through everything from pre-event to post-event, ensuring people go home with something to talk about and continue the interaction and brand contact after they leave those doors.
  • Ryan Cullen: We can get, or already have, access to some unusual places to host some amazing free events, it’s just the logistics and equipment situation that holds us back from time to time - give us a backline, basic task force and some promotional opportunities and we can throw on some really amazing entertainment in some of the most prominent and unusual locations in Merseyside! 
    Obviously, a lot of things come with legalities and licensing situations which can hinder progression.

    Relationships and transparency help with a lot of that pen pushing business! :)
  • Chris Parkes: it’s a great idea, and promoters need acts as well, and when the acts get bigger, possibly signed, they’ll remember who was there at the start! especially with Deltasonic being owned 50% by Sony, so the potential is there. Some people aren’t in it for the money, I’d be happy on a stage jamming to a crappy pop song if it gets people buzzing and having a laugh. 

    Get a group together and keep it together and it’ll work in time, there’s loads of interesting places to stick a gig on, Bombed Out Church etc. With Twitter and Facebook it’d be easy to grab a list, organize and get it done
  • Chris Parkes: it’d be interesting to make this a totally unique event, bring in all kinds of madness! could even possibly have stalls etc, food, drink available? brings some business to people? think it’s there for the taking just needs the means

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Posted 5 months ago
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Tagged: Liverpool Music Scene, economy, music, save the scene, liverpool music, liverpool bands, mangone music, mangone blog, reader's views, .
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