03/08/2026
This post originates across the pond but it’s relevant everywhere, and I endorse it utterly and totally.
Despite the great work of Music Venue Trust and others like them the corporate morass arena circuit is still swallowing far too much and the independent/DIY scene getting far too little.
And the argument that the ‘stadium bands of tomorrow start off in the small venues of today’ is, for me, just a small part of the story.
Many of us write and perform the kind of material which means we’ll never be part of the ‘mainstream’ and spend our whole performing lives in the DIY/ independent scene out of choice.
I’ve watched venues rise and fall, come and go, with the individual characters who are the catalysts for their existence and the ones who take that vision forward and sustain it , the different kinds of buildings which house them, the unique settings of their neighbourhoods. It’s a different world from ‘celebrity culture’, it’s my world, and I love it.
I could name so many, but there are too many. So this post is dedicated to the memory of Paul Jackson of The New Adelphi Club in Hull, the absolute embodiment of it all.
Support your local scene, folks!
