2 posts tagged “shepherds bush”
Hello,
Any of you who are familiar with London music venues, or having a good night out in West London will be familiar with the venue Ginglik.
Formally an underground gents toilet, the local government seems to have other plans for the site.
For all you Facebookers out there who are interested in saving this important venue there is this group you can join:
http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=532554330#/group.php?gid=35587928336
It gvies you email addresses to send messages of support and such, plus a couple of events to save the venue.
I wrote to the coucil folk stated in the group and put my best grown up voice on. Don't send some ranty message, just something stating why you think it's important for the venue to stay:
Hello council folk,
Apologies if these messages are becoming a pain, however I thought it would be important to highlight the importance of the Ginglik venue from both a music industry and local community perspective.
Working as a talent scout for a major label gets me to pretty much every venue in London. The Ginglik's accessibility to both emerging acts and promoters makes this an invaluable resource of new music to the local population and music industry. Also, it's placing means that many people from areas such as Ealing, Acton and Shepherds Bush have easy access to a solid grass-roots multicultural music venue. I do not no of one A&R person or artist who does not know the venue well. I also have many friends and colleagues who live in the surrounding area who are very concerned that the venue is under threat.
To remove this as a venue would further fence off live music to the areas of central, north and east London, remove yet another accessible venue for new and out of town acts and also remove a valuable asset that forms part of the area's cultural image. In the years I have lived in London I have seen local governments efforts to tidy up Shepherds Bush green and surrounding areas which have been noticed. However removing this important cultural centrepiece of Shepherds Bush Green would have a detrimental effect to both the area's image and micro economy.
kind regards
So be sure to join the group and let's see if we can save the venue! :-)
Hope all is well with you.
"Where's your blog? You'll be loosing readers!"
Is the message I got from mum on the phone last night. I've not been ignoring it, it's just been there, like an unpaid bill (which reminds me, must sort the gas out). Actually it's not like that as I enjoy writing posts, just been really amazingly busy this week.
On Friday I was in Brighton filming The Electric City as I want to do an 'Indieboy Special' or something. Thinking about it that sounds like a sandwich or a cocktail maybe. Anyhow, I've really got into this band and want to capture where they're at now before things really kick off for them as I'm certain they're going to get somewhere relatively soon. Speaking of which, I've just found out we've got a signing off the blogs. More details on that as things are finalised.
Saturday was another End Of Camden. Can of worms anyone? Christ, that was the worst night ever. Don't get me wrong, the bands were great. In fact it was the most consistent lineup I've ever had and I got it all to tape (see preview left). But everything that could have gone wrong did. My door person didn;t turn up and my last min replacement was an hour and a half late. The first hour and a half is where I make my money back. So one heavy loss that night. Plus I had an extra band turn up?!?!? Slight lack of communication there, but I also had one band drop out so it all worked, sort of. My regular engineer didn't turn up so I had to break a new guy in etc etc. So I'm a little greyer, but looking at the footage I really got some great stuff off the bands.
Sunday I got food poisoning.
Monday I got better (and lighter)
Tuesday was Jujitsu, luckily all traces of my illness were gone as I have to wear a white outfit and I couldn't face the disgrace of an embarrassing accident. In fact in ancient Japan you would probably be expected to commit Hara Kiri as a result. THere's a really good (or bad) video of a guy doing just that on youtube.
After Jujitsu on Tuesday I went to see The Hoosiers (see, I'm well busy). It was great. I hardly ever get to see signed talent as I'm always out and about in London's high spots trying to find the next big thing n such. They're very pop and they've also been voted 'Worst Band' by the NME which I think they should be very proud of. Very ELO in places which I like and the live show is great, had the audience standing and generally jumping around. Ran into my old boss from royalties and a couple of the chaps from finance which was great. I was drinking the pints quite quickly as a result though.
As a result of the shananigans at the venue, by the time I got to the aftershow (ooh get me) I was already half plastered. On arriving I realised I really should have gone home first. I tend to dress for comfort when I know I'm not going anywhere, everone looked uber trendy. I was wearing my 'I'm a bit ill' blue sweater and geography teacher-esque cords. Also, the girls with the trays of canopes worked out if they came by me they could pretty much clear their tray and bugger off to wherever they were hiding the rest of the time. I must have looked like a right tramp.
Anyway, several bottles of Sol later I was introducing myself to everyone, getting on my soapbox about this and that and had found a new best friend in the world, who's name I can't remember. When the 'you're talking crap' bell rang in the back of my head I made my exit into the harsh realities of Shepherds Bush bus stops. Wish I'd smuggled and canope picnic out with me. Took ages to get home.
Wednesday was another jujitsu class preparing me for this competition thing. Got thrown around by big Andy, got landed on a couple of times and really messed up my hair. Once I sucessfully got myself looking like Ed Norton, complete with bruises, I had to head to camden (for a change) to see Zut Alors at Barfly then say hello to Kojo at the Dublin Castle. YOU NEED TO GET TO KNOW THIS BAND. They are fantastic. Sooo good live. They got more gigs coming up and I really think you should get hold of some of their stuff somehow. There's also real character in the band too.
Last night was spent on Medival:Total War. Yep, I have proven myself as a complete geek. I actually found myself thinking "I'll just see if I can conquer eastern Europe then I'll head to bed" :-/ Hmm. Time to get a girlfriend or something I think.
Tonight I'll be heading to see a band my friend is managing. They're great, need a little development but are superb live. I will do a feature on them here. Will give you more info soon.
Tomorrow I'm doing Roman-Greco wrestling. Yes, it sounds very erm..... something. It conjures images of nearly naked musclemen groping and generally rolling around on the floor grunting. That's pretty much it but it's about sport rather than amusement. I've got to get better at submission grappling for competition and these chaps are experts. So that'll be fun.
Whoops, long post. WIll shut up now. For those of you interested in getting involved in the night I now have been given several dates in advance. So just pop me an email, private message, myspace message or whatever way you want to get in touch.
Hope all is well with you.
