Heat and (slime)light
Jul. 2nd, 2002 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrphThis is a rant. Mostly about goth, London and the poor deluded bands who visit from abroad. Those of you who don't do the goth thing may want to skip it.
It's perfectly understandable that every band visiting England wants to play London. It's the big city, after all.
But, if you're a goth band wanting to play London, there really aren't that many choices at the moment.
The promoters, for example, seem to be in a state of flux. The post-Nemesis Flag monopoly is fading, but the new status quo hasn't settled.
There's Regeneration Promotions (if it ever resurfaces after Dark Jubilee), and there's Exile (if Dave decides to run more gigs after the first one...). There's Andromeda - if it actually gets something underway (so far, it's just a name, and hasn't actually organised any events), and there's Flag ('nuff said).
Or there's Slimelight. Faced with that tangled mess of promoters, Slimelight seems like a tempting option. It's the big London club, after all, and it has a certain level of international fame. And it does frequently host bands. So, why not play Slimelight...?
Since you asked...
The first thing to point out is that they really aren't good at advertising bands. On many occasions, I've wandered in to see a band playing and nobody's been expecting them (or quite sure who they are). I've never seen a flyer for a Slimelight gig (not even in Slimelight), and online publicity tends to be patchy at best.
[So if you're in a band and playing Slimelight, you might want to do all your own PR beforehand. Oh, and mention your name a lot while onstage ;) ]
The second problem is, to some extent, an extension of the first. Most people don't go to Slimelight for bands (especially if they're not expecting bands), they go for Slimelight.
Specifically, this applies to the cyber crowd, who mostly seem to spend their nights waving glowsticks and dancing to the wall-to-wall electronica/EBM/techno in the upper room.
Guess where the stage is. That's right.
When there's a band on, it's in the upper room, and so the bleep stops for the duration of the set. So, as well as anyone who actually wants to see the band, the audience tends to include a few dozen cybergoths who'd just like you to shut up and go away so that they can have their dancefloor back, please.
Naturally, this is likely to be a little less of an issue for a cyber-ish band, but for anyone else, it doesn't really help the atmosphere.
You get the idea. It's not quite the venue of last resort, but Slimelight gigs tend to be deceptively low profile. They don't get an awful lot of review coverage or online post-gig discusssion, either. Far better, surely, to go for a support slot at the Underworld, with an audience who actually want to see you?
[In the last couple of days, I've heard people suggest that Bella Morte and Cinema Strange should both play Slimelight if/when they come to England, as it's the "best bet" for London. As you might guess from the above rantings, I disagree]
It's perfectly understandable that every band visiting England wants to play London. It's the big city, after all.
But, if you're a goth band wanting to play London, there really aren't that many choices at the moment.
The promoters, for example, seem to be in a state of flux. The post-Nemesis Flag monopoly is fading, but the new status quo hasn't settled.
There's Regeneration Promotions (if it ever resurfaces after Dark Jubilee), and there's Exile (if Dave decides to run more gigs after the first one...). There's Andromeda - if it actually gets something underway (so far, it's just a name, and hasn't actually organised any events), and there's Flag ('nuff said).
Or there's Slimelight. Faced with that tangled mess of promoters, Slimelight seems like a tempting option. It's the big London club, after all, and it has a certain level of international fame. And it does frequently host bands. So, why not play Slimelight...?
Since you asked...
The first thing to point out is that they really aren't good at advertising bands. On many occasions, I've wandered in to see a band playing and nobody's been expecting them (or quite sure who they are). I've never seen a flyer for a Slimelight gig (not even in Slimelight), and online publicity tends to be patchy at best.
[So if you're in a band and playing Slimelight, you might want to do all your own PR beforehand. Oh, and mention your name a lot while onstage ;) ]
The second problem is, to some extent, an extension of the first. Most people don't go to Slimelight for bands (especially if they're not expecting bands), they go for Slimelight.
Specifically, this applies to the cyber crowd, who mostly seem to spend their nights waving glowsticks and dancing to the wall-to-wall electronica/EBM/techno in the upper room.
Guess where the stage is. That's right.
When there's a band on, it's in the upper room, and so the bleep stops for the duration of the set. So, as well as anyone who actually wants to see the band, the audience tends to include a few dozen cybergoths who'd just like you to shut up and go away so that they can have their dancefloor back, please.
Naturally, this is likely to be a little less of an issue for a cyber-ish band, but for anyone else, it doesn't really help the atmosphere.
You get the idea. It's not quite the venue of last resort, but Slimelight gigs tend to be deceptively low profile. They don't get an awful lot of review coverage or online post-gig discusssion, either. Far better, surely, to go for a support slot at the Underworld, with an audience who actually want to see you?
[In the last couple of days, I've heard people suggest that Bella Morte and Cinema Strange should both play Slimelight if/when they come to England, as it's the "best bet" for London. As you might guess from the above rantings, I disagree]
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no subject
The last "band" I saw at Slimelight was Voltaire (he was excellent) but I heard about it online rather than via any flyers. And the cybers were a tad "disgruntled".
I think the bands like Bella Morte and Cinema Strange should approach Whitby Jo for a spot at a WGW for the best way of having a UK audience. But, as you said, they will need to be willing to take a low spot on the billing (not headline) and work hard to gain a fanbase.
This is what both Sunshine Blind and Switchblade Symphony did when they came here. Of course, they also had Uncle Nemesis' Whitby Warm-up gigs to help tham too.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-02 03:59 pm (UTC)Most recently, The Last Days of Jesus did this and did it well. It's also worth remembering that things like Malediction exist, and that some of the Yorkshire club nights host bands and have big turn-outs (Dissolution's in a 1000 capacity venue, iirc). Glasgow's Bedlam is quite respectable, too.