Leith Tape Club
Last week I went to the Leith Tape Club for what was rather shamefully the first time. It’s a tiny monthly night run in the Isolounge – just upstairs from the Isobar on Bernard Street – and has had some extremely good lineups in the months its been running.
Despite intending to attend on several occasions it took the fact that a couple of my friends were playing to get me to finally get off my arse and get along, and I am very pleased I did. Apart from the fact that Leith, and the Shore in particular, is a brilliant place to go out the night itself really was lovely. The Isolounge is all full of comfy seats, so it doesn’t take many people before it starts to get quite full. This is a good thing, although it can result in a slightly oppressive need for absolute and total silence while the bands are playing. Even a whisper can seem rude, but then, who am I to really complain about that; miles better than a fuller bar, but an audience composed of disinterested slackjaws who insist on gabbing away during even the saddest songs.
Alan the compere, also known as Little Pebble, MCs the night with enough character to be entertaining, but enough humility not to grandstand. He basically leaves it up to the bands to garner the attention, and this kind of unpretentious friendliness pretty much permeates the entire evening – it was just a nice place to come for a beer and some tunes, simple as that. The whole business is recorded to tape, and you can buy one either on the door or from the website. Volume 1 has some very good bands indeed, so you won’t regret your purchase.
I remember a while ago I pointed out that Edinburgh’s more famous bands like Broken Records, Young Fathers, FOUND and so on make a huge contribution to the music scene here just by existing – that the work and financial commitment they put into constantly touring or their mere presence in the press spotlight brings attention, investment and belief to everyone else in the city trying to make music, whether they acknowledge it or not.
Shortly after that Rob St. John wrote a really nice piece for the Scotsman’s Under the Radar blog which, whether or not it was intended as a direct response, could easily have been so. He argued that the health of a city’s music scene is reflected not in its marquee bands, whose wider profile can often remove them somewhat from the grass roots goings on in their home town, but in the number and variety of smaller, more local DIY bands and promoters.
The two views aren’t in conflict of course – in fact I think both are true – but it’s seeing nights like this put together which remind me of Rob’s article. I urge you to come along if you get the chance – the lineup for the 1st October is brilliant and as good a place to start as any.
It was my first time too – even more ashamedly as it is the closest pub to my house! Thought it worked really well, apart from the heat! I will definately be at the October 1st show…
Not likely to be all that hot in Scotland in October
Hallo Matthew
Thanks for the kind words. The piece wasn’t directed as a response, as I don’t think I saw your original article (direct us, to it, ta?), but I agree it’s an interesting thing to talk about. I agree that the “(be) scene”…(terrible word)…is much healthier for having a strong DIY underground and a visible overground, and I think this is true regardless of your ambition as a band.
Alan is a total hero, and criminally unsung. The Tape Club is a great wee night, there’s been some fantastic lineups, and I really enjoyed being a foot away from the audience’s faces…Plaudits to him
Witty ripostes? No pressure there then
Not been to this yet either, but the 1st Oct show does look v. good. Rather excited to see Men Diamler is playing, and it will be my birthday, woo-hoo! Though why I would be celebrating being another year older I have no idea…
Rob – well I’ve been itching to mention that Under the Radar piece because I thought it was a really nice, thoughtful piece of writing.
Milo – it’s really worth going. I can promise you’ll enjoy it.
I agree Toad, that Rob’s article was a very good well written piece, however there is one small part that irks me slightly, and I feel it is the thing that is maybe stopping Edinburgh being the well known/respected scene (community any better) that it should be.
The idea that to be independent is to cut yourself off from anyone involved in the industry seems ridiculous (maybe a little harsh) but certainly counter productive. In my experience, our managers, booking agents, label and all assorted media folk have been the people who have kept us going in the darker moments through their love of music and what it is you represent. They may take a cut, but to be honest we would find it embarrasing if they didn’t with the amount of effort they put in, and certainly they have all been prepared to wave fees when neccessary in order to keep things going. They all work in big London based companies, but it doesn’t mean the same support network isn’t still there as in the small offices you have given as examples, it just means that they can reach a few more people with their contacts.
I guess my rambling point is that there is this fear that these big labels/booking agents/managers are all vampires prepared to suck the life out of the music industry, where as my experience has been totally positive. It bothers me that there is so much good music happening in Edinburgh, yet there is no desire to spread it out of Edinburgh. A scene/community in a city can be a great thing, but why not open it out/make it more inclusive. If fence is the blueprint, remember KC had two records out on a major label (Warner Bros I believe), and has a distribution deal with Domino (another major label if my conversation with Toad and Neil is to be believed!).
I guess all i’m saying is to not be so wary of the industry side of things, but then it’s early and i’ve probably missed the point anyway. Off to work!
No Jimbo old chap, the only point you’ve missed is that the comments about the DIY being important weren’t supposed to be at the expense of the importance of having bands and labels and promoters trying to reach a wider audience.
I think what I said originally was the more ambitious folk actually help the cottage industry folk out a great deal just by existing, even though the two approaches can often be rather at odds.
I think that Rob was saying that the reverse is also true – that the smaller scale DIY people actually help out the more ambitious people just by existing as well, in terms or nurturing a local audience, encouraging new bands, helping create a wider community and so on.
Nevertheless I take your point about the record industry often not being nearly as industry-like as people imagine, though.
“It bothers me that there is so much good music happening in Edinburgh, yet there is no desire to spread it out of Edinburgh. A scene/community in a city can be a great thing, but why not open it out/make it more inclusive.”
I take exception to this. Any of the Edinburgh bands that have had any desire spread their music further afield have done so with fantastic results (at considerable cost to themselves mostly).
Take Withered Hand as an example, the guy’s played every gig offered to him, every radio slot, every chance to have his music heard by a greater audience has been taken. This idea that you seem to have that most bands (simply because they have a naturally wary attitude towards the industry) are doing nothing to further themselves is just plain wrong and not a little ignorant.
Steady on Mr. Bear, there certainly are plenty of bands who simply don’t have the energy to do what you’re describing, despite being easily talented enough.
As both you and Jim know, it is a fucking exhausting job to try and push a band out to a national audience and a lot of people, quite rightly, may not want to let their music take over their lives to that extent.
So while Jim would be wrong to say that no-one is really pushing, I don’t think it’s wrong to imply that there are some talented bands who aren’t.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that building a national profile for a band, as well as being hard work, is actually just plain difficult. So slow progress is not evidence of a lack of desire, necessarily.
As Jim pointed out, there is little industry presence here, and industry brings contacts, which makes a huge difference. In the absence of this expertise, pretty much all the bands here are trying figure it out for themselves, which I can tell you from experience just isn’t that easy.
So there are plenty of people trying, it’s just not the kind of thing you can magically force to happen.
“So while Jim would be wrong to say that no-one is really pushing, I don’t think it’s wrong to imply that there are some talented bands who aren’t.”
I don’t see it that way. It’s not so simple as ‘having talent and not pushing it’. There are so many factors involved that it’s almost impossible to generalise things that way.
Well FOUND are a good example. They’re not pushing their musical careers anything like as hard as they could be largely, without wanting to put words in their mouth, because they have wider artistic careers in mind and hence different priorities to a straightforward rock and roll band.
There’s more to it for them than just being in a successful band, basically.
(Apologies to FOUND if I am totally misrepresenting their views, of course. I am guessing a bit here.)
i thought that nights like leith tape club were supposed to give the audience and the bands a break from all that side of it. where people can just enjoy listening and playing music for the pure sake of it . yes there are loads of amazing groundbreaking bands in edinburgh at the moment and each in their own way are trying to get better and reach more people but is that what its all about? is that the most important thing? am i just being naive?
I think that part of the debate became somewhat divorced from any discussion of the Leith Tape Club – I certainly don’t think any of the last few comments were directed at Alan in the slightest.
no of course i just mean that these nights just go to show that there is more to being in a band than trying to get signed to a big london label and being famous/rich/have everyone think you are the coolest person on the planet. not that that would be quite nice.
“A scene/community in a city can be a great thing, but why not open it out/make it more inclusive”
As Neil said, I guess you’re a wee bit wide of the mark with that one. As I said in the article, one of the things I like the most about what’s happening DIY-wise is that new folks are getting involved/playing/promoting all the time. It’s exciting, and it keeps things fresh.
I don’t necessarily think that a reluctance to immerse yourself in “the industry” reflects a lack of ambition, or desire to be heard. I think most (not all!) musicians would be lying if they wanted to make music that no-one else would hear It’s just a balancing act between having success (relative to what you want), progressing musically and having a good time, whilst at the same time not comprimising your music by having creative/money/future planning decisions overly dictated to you.
I guess another facet to Jim’s: “It bothers me that there is so much good music happening in Edinburgh, yet there is no desire to spread it out of Edinburgh” is part of a universal problem facing everyone – money woes. Unless you have a wealthy backer (and I know people are rejecting this for the fear of long-term debt), then the few hundred pounds upwards startup to send yourself off on tour/press records/whatever, is maybe more realistically spent elsewhere. But as Mr. Bear said, where folk have spread their music further afield (like Withered Hand, or eagleowl’s sold out London tour show) it’s been a success.
Well I think that Jim is a little frustrated that the constant praise of the small-scale DIY stuff in the city is often also an indirect criticism of anyone with ambition. Certainly if I’ve heard people being snide about Broken Records (probably the city’s most openly ambitious band), for example, that seems to have a lot to do with it, and I do have a lot of sympathy with him on that point.
Also, there are a lot of people (not just in music) who set very modest goals because of a fear of failure, and then try and justify those goals as some sort of more noble enterprise, when actually they are no more than an embodiment of their own lack of confidence.
Having said that, though, Jim has made a few sweeping statements which have got Mr. Bear’s goat and to a degree get mine as well: the idea that success and ambition are the same thing for all people is simply wrong, and to dismiss people who are going about things differently, or having different levels of success as being ‘unambitious’ is just not accurate.
I am very ambitious for Song, by Toad, for example, but that ambition is probably more embodied in what I want it to be and how I want to go about doing things than specific goals about fame, readership influence or reach. As you said, wider success might be a nice incidental, but it is absolutely not the focus of any of my daily activities. I genuinely do not want to challenge the NME or Q or Tops of the Pops or even Pitchfork or Drowned in Sound; that’s not what I’ve ever enjoyed as a reader/music fan myself, and consequently why would I ever measure myself against it now?
Basically, if it doesn’t happen for you then you need to be getting enough out of it for its own sake that a lack of wider success doesn’t ruin the love you have for your band/site/artwork/whatever it is you’re doing. Surely if you think it’s good, that’s enough – that’s precisely why you’re doing it the way you are in the first place: because it’s what you think is great. Anyone else agreeing with you is just a bonus.
I agree with pretty much all of Rob’s comment. Well put.
I know that signing to a major or larger independent label has never been a guarantee of a successful and long lasting career, but it seems that it’s now less so than ever.
The whole industry is in a state of flux, and there are no easy answers or ’safe bets’ – so i think people are just trying things out for themselves and finding their own route.
Again with FOUND – I read a funny interview them about the exposure and international media interest in the Cybraphon project. They had spent thousands of pounds getting to the prestigious SXSW festival in order to “make it” in America, but in the end all they had to do was build an emotional robot.
A reluctance to engage with the music industry in the traditional sense isn’t necessarily an indication of lack of ambition. I think Rob hit it on the head – it’s trying to balance success with progressing musically, and still getting enjoyment out of what you were doing, rather than turning it into a ‘job’.
It’s an extreme example, but I think too many bands tend to follow the ‘Snow Patrol’ career trajectory.
Would you not say that a large and influential indie label was nevertheless your best shot though, Bart? Maybe not EMI, who I assume would be a bit ‘fuck and chuck’, but someone like 4AD or Domino.
I think the alternatives are much more feasible these days, but that’s presumably still the best bet for a band.
Yes – probably.
But I think “best bet” sums it up.
Getting signed up by a big label is no longer the “be all and end all” for a band. There are other ways of getting yourself out there