Photos by Annette Geneva
This entry was written by , posted on May 20, 2011 at 6:25 pm, filed under Gallery. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
From a personal point of view, The Abercrombie Hotel’s closure was like losing a limb. For Britpop, a three-legged dog was still a dog, it just had to learn to walk in a different way.
And so Britpop limped ’round the corner to The Gladstone Hotel. Not as popular with a small minority, The Gladstone was (overall) better suited to Britpop; and for the first five months it was business as usual – great turnouts, stupid antics and a heap of fun. But then the damp started to seep through the walls – numbers began to dwindle, impetus wained.
By November it was all but done. People weren’t showing Britpop the love that they once did. It was becoming an age-ing, neglected dame. More pointedly, it was much harder to pull a crowd in 2010 than it was in 2007. Much harder. It now costs over a grand to put on each Britpop party – that’s quite a financial (and stressful) investment when you only have a very part-time job to fall back on.
As many of you know, ‘indie’ is point of difference for me: I think Arcade Fire, Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, Rakes, Art Brut etc etc blah blah. Although, in the face of the popularity of acts such Ou Est Le Swimming Pool and Phoenix, I have to concede that my interpretation of the “i” word might be somewhat old/archaic/historical. Whatever.
Nowadays, I reckon ‘indie’ club nights have a shelf life of three or four years before things head south. It ain’t just a Britpop thing. Just ask the guys that run Purple Sneakers. Two venues (and a re-brand) later and they’re still struggling to approximate the heady days of The Abercrombie Hotel. Again, three-legged dog.
In these fickle-punter times, one must adapt or die.
Teenage Kicks (World Bar) took to adapting. In early 2011, it morphed into a franchise of UK superclub Propaganda, where the once staunchly guitar-indie music policy has been injected with a substantial dose of ‘pop’ – it’s what the kids want and who am I to object. World Bar is a bigger machine, a business that must turn a profit.
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge than running a weekly event is a totally different game to promoting a monthly event – Purple Sneakers and Propaganda are mentioned here in spite of their frequency and because – like Britpop – they use(d) the ‘indie’ word for promotional leverage. I also concede that they are both infinitely more successful in drawing regular crowds than Britpop could EVER be.
Dizzee Rascal, Lily Allen, M.I.A – their tunes are dumb fun and they make for a good party (I know, I’ve played ‘em) but that indie-irony wears thin pretty quickly (for me at least). Is Calvin Harris really the future of ‘indie’ nights? With only a smattering of good guitar bands from the UK in the past few years (The Vaccines and err…?), it’s tough to think otherwise.
Adapt or die.
On New Year’s Eve, I chose the latter – it’s easier to have principles when your income doesn’t depend on (foregoing) them. This wasn’t me trying to mark myself as a crusader of some higher truth (for once) – nope, it was more basic than that: it was just me being an anal-retentive wanker. Art Brut and slap-dash for no cash OR Lily Allen and a few bucks. I saw it as a mutually exclusive choice.
Five months on – and no longer relying on its income for everyday living – Britpop’s success is more intertwined with my pride than my bank balance (hence the reason for Friday’s charity fundraiser). I simply wanted to prove that a) some kids still dig guitar-based indie music and b) Britpop-as-two-bit-club-night could still pull a crowd. My ego made me do it.
If you think this is a sign of a new beginning…well, I’m delighted that you see things that way…but it’s just your excitement running away with you. Friday’s super-awesome turnout made for a splendid party indeed BUT – and it’s a big but – as 2010 proved, people who say they love Britpop don’t always come to Britpop.
I’d rather live with the memories of Friday night – and a sizeable donation to those in need – than again chase the ever-decreasing circles of 2010 attendances. The Britpop take on indie – like me – is of heritage status (ha!). Similar to ashtrays and cassette tapes, the fanaticism that made Joy Division and The Arctic Monkeys popular in tiny clubs (that’s Britpop) is slowly disappearing from view. There just ain’t enough of that guitar-indie fever to sustain a monthly event or even a bi-monthly event.
And I’m fine with that – Britpop is a three-legged dog that has had its day.
But hey – never say never. If someone can find me a promoter and a new venue, I might be persuaded to spin Britpop one more time.
As Morrissey once wrote:
“This is the last song I will ever sing,
No – I’ve changed my mind again.
Goodnight…
…and THANK YOU”.
Darko.
This entry was written by , posted on May 16, 2011 at 3:49 pm, filed under The Abercombie Hotel, The Gladstone Hotel, WTF. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Thank you to all the wonderful people that made Britpop such a special night on Friday. You win. We win. Japan wins.
$1650 was donated to the Red Cross this very day.
Photos to follow later this week…
This entry was written by , posted on at 3:35 pm, filed under The Gladstone Hotel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
