Disappear here: Coventry's new 2-Tone plaque is another sign of the city's musical demise
If tribute bands are the zombie-like reanimation of now-defunct acts (or acts which have been transported to that other zone of musical death where they play to tens of thousands of people in arenas), then what are the plaques that "commemorate" the past existence of a band or a music scene? Yeah man, that's right - these are the tombstones, the memorial inscriptions, the civic RIPs. That's pretty much what this apparition in Coventry is, the result of the city council's latest beyond-awful attempt to combine (as it likes to say) the best of the old with the best of the new.
It's all in the past: Coventry's golden days remembered in shiny black
A photograph-repelling shiny disc which pays tribute to a long-gone recording studio by er, marking the former location of a non-existent pub, it's the black-eyed marker of a double absence. Disappear here, disappear there. Meanwhile the particular music scene that's supposedly being remembered and honoured by this sad little memorial departed the city nearly 40 years ago (probably by boarding the 9:40 Euston train from platform one of Coventry station immediately below the plaque). Design-wise, the plaque, in all its bland insect-black ugliness (no offence insects), is more reminscent of a shopping centre sign ("Foot Locker, Gym Box, JD Sports: Floor 3 / TK Maxx, H&M, Nike: Floor 4") than something supposely celebrating a vibrant music scene famous for its strong visual identity. It's an object lesson in corporate half-heartedness. The fact the plaque actually looks almost right on its host wall, part of the flashy-garish addition to Coventry's understated modernist train station, also tells you plenty about the current state of things in a city where the authorities are increasingly rushing to "regenerate" the place at all costs, including by destroying some of its best features. Why does the council do this stuff? Why wheel out one of its officials to give a little speech in the company of Neville Staple 42 years after the Specials broke up? Who wants this? Is the "2-Tone Trail" (which comprises a handful of other 2-Tone plaques in the city) a serious attempt to kick off a mini tourist boom of Japanese ska fans who'll fly to the UK just to check out these plaque and their "historic" locations? Is it Coventry's very own bid to fashion Cavern Club-style nostalgia tourism? (Er, no). Or is it just cheap music memorialisation in lieu of anything more meaningful in a city with a thoroughly underwheming music scene which is also in the throes of a cultural meldtown after its city of culture trust went into administration owing the council a million pounds? (Er, yes). So the little round 2-Tone Trail tombstones mark the very sad demise of a once great music scene. 2-Tone should have been allowed to die with dignity, not kept artifically alive (undead) with these tawdry memorials. Memorialising something as energetic, fluid and finally as ephemeral as music is nearly always a bad idea, but this is just about the worst form of an already objectionable practice. Compared to these signposts of musical stagnation, the big Dammers-curated exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum a couple of years ago was almost benign (I even grudgingly half-liked it), but that was a fairly ambitious undertaking and - crucially - the city wasn't going to be stuck with it for years. In general, museums and exhibitions are anathema to music - dead anti-matter pretending to capture the liveliness and excitement of sound, of dancing and the whole drug-and-noise rush of good musical experiences. And plaques are the worst of the worst, the most sterile, uninteresting form of music memorialisation.
A few years ago, I blogged about another terrible Coventry Council idea - the renaming of a major arterial road the Jimmy Hill Way (aka the road to nowhere). Contrasting the genuinely important legacy of 2-Tone and ska with the far less significant legacy of a football manager and TV pundit who defended racist remarks among footballers as all part of the "fun" and everyday "language of the football field", I half-jokingly said the council needed to avoid swinging too far the other way with a Specials-based renaming project for some of Coventry's roads. Instead, with the city increasingly gripped by empty musical nostalgia, I reckon this is now almost a dead cert. As they used to say back in the day, I dread - dread - to think what the future will bring ...
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