Coventry's 'booming' music scene: ghosts in the malfunctioning machine

This booming music scene is coming like a ghost music scene ...

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade (well OK, maybe I do), but among all the tributes being paid to that much-loved Coventry rude boy Terry Hall this week I noticed Coventry City of Culture referring to Coventry's "booming music scene". Really? Which scene would this be then? Would it be the dull tribute band-dominated fare dished out by the horribly-named HMV Empire Coventry? Presumably not. Would it be the occasional stuff happening at the somewhat decrepit hulking former cinema/ballroom/bingo hall, the Kasbah, coming attraction Martin Kemp DJing (11 February)? Er, no. Would it be - surely it must be - stuff going down at the the two highly-rated universities that the city's always bragging about: Coventry University and the University of Warwick? Er, again no. Not that I can see anyway. Ironic - and incredibly dull-sounding - "POP!" club nights ("POPtastic cheesy tunes from yesteryear"), or one or two other classical offerings: yes, if these sound to you like they amount to a booming music scene, then ... check 'em out. OK, more seriously there's the long-running venue The Tin (tomorrow's show YNES/Duke Keats), which certainly tries, but even here it's usually thin pickings. Having been an on-off patron of this place ever since it tried to bring a bit of life to the city's Canal Basin backwater area nearly 20 years ago, I reckon it's still miles short of what a city like Coventry needs. True, I've seen decent stuff here - good gigs by David Thomas Broughton, My Therapist Says Hot Damn, George Thomas, the Wave Pictures, Prinzhorn Dance School, Tom Brosseau, Irshad Ali Qawwali Party, Stanley Brinks/Freschard, Frank Fairfield, Joni Void, Resurrection Men, the Ethical Debating Society and Jeffrey Lewis - but this has been spread out over almost two decades. Bundle all those together and put them on in one month - that would be a sign of a booming music scene. 

Ghosts in the machine: Terry Hall and the Specials 

Maybe I'm being unfair? Coventry's a medium-sized city, not exactly a metropolis. It's not going to be bursting at the seams with live music every night. But still, if CCOC's going to make big claims a nay-sayer like me is going to, er, say nay. To be clear, I'm definitely not anti-Coventry. I'm from there, used to live there until my mid-20s, and I'm still a regular visitor. And - y'know - I like music, especially live stuff from new/exciting artists. So I'm genuinely not decrying Coventry just for the hell of it. I'd like it to be better. For one thing it would be convenient - I could check out more music during my visits to the godforsaken place (joke). More positively, Just Dropped In records puts on a few shows per year and these are worth checking out. And an old friend of mine (plus some highly dedicated volunteers) are valiantly running a temporary not-for-profit arts venue-cum-communty hub above a pub which - welcome to Coventry - is soon to be closed then bulldozed because the council would rather have more bland city centre shops (sorry, opportunities to have in-real-life "experiences", ie coffee + clothes + debit card) with some new housing-thrown-in-as-an-add-on-to-the-all-important shops. Ker-ching. Yep, Coventry doing what it's good at: trashing what makes it unique. So, no man, this ain't no music boom town. The last-mentioned LTB is currently the only grassroots venue that will programme anything close to cutting-edge stuff and this is an endeavour that's basically operating on sufferance and running on empty.

The past is always a false friend and undoubtedly Coventry's musical golden age never really existed. But then again, in the 80s the poly's students' union did at least put on regular medium-interesting stuff at its two-venues-in-one building The Lanch, where you could see the Go-Betweens, the Three Johns or backs-turned-to-the-spitting-audience-era The Jesus And Mary Chain. Warwick University would have decent stuff like the Cramps, the Shop Assistants or the up-and-coming Housemartins, and Coventry's out-of-town General Wolfe pub would reliably put on a lot of John Peel-backed post-punk stuff (Xmal Deutschland, the Farmer's Boys, the Higsons etc). In the late-seventies/early-eighties there was some kind of scene in Coventry (see Mark Osborne's photos for example), and a few years later this would include self-arranged events by local scenesters the Furious Apples, happy to bash out their leering take on sixties beat/Psychedelic Furs drone in small rooms above pubs accompanied only by swirling scarves, dry ice and patchouli oil. Then, at the turn of the 90s, the still-fondly-remembered rave nights at the Eclipse. Halcyon days, indeed. Anyway, with all this present-day negativity I think I'm in danger of not being offered that new job as promotions officer at Coventry City of Culture (typical, I'm always missing out). But no, I would genuinely like to see more interesting music being performed in Coventry, both by local artists and exciting new bands from around the country (and other countries). There's a ton of great stuff being made and played these days and hardly any of it ever shows up in Terry Hall's home city. This boom town/ghost town can surely do better than reheated tribute bands or the occasional thing at a worthy-but-often-uninspiring canal-side venue. Anyway, less of my dull talking-the-city-down-again thoughts. Instead, just for old time's sake, let's hear it one more time maestro ...