Connect with us

Music

One in five UK nightclubs have closed in the last three years

Published

on

One in five UK nightclubs have shut in the last three years, new figures show.

The data shared by the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) through CGA shows that a “perfect storm” of issues has led to a dramatic drop in the number of clubs operating in the UK. There are now only 1,130 nightclubs remaining.

According to the findings, the midlands and the north have been hardest hit with some key independent businesses being lost. All these establishments play a significant role in supporting the wider The Night Time economy, which generates £112billion in revenue per annum (six per cent of the UK’s total).

NTIA said that “the culmination of pandemic debt, growing energy bills, workforce challenges, supply chain, increased insurance premiums, landlord pressures and product cost increases have created a perfect storm”.

Additionally, operating cost pressures coupled with consumers being less willing to spend their disposable income during the cost of living crisis are considered in light of the early stages of a recession, with slowing ticket sales and visitor frequency.

CGA figures nigthclubs UK
CREDIT: CGA

CEO of NTIA Michael Kill said in a statement: “Late night economy businesses were one of the quickest sectors to rebound during the financial crash many years ago, harbouring an abundance of resilience and entrepreneurial spirit.

“It’s without a doubt that these businesses, particularly nightclubs, have a huge part to play in the regeneration of high streets in towns and cities across the UK.”

“Beyond the generation of footfall through trade, domestic and international visitors to clubs support the local economy in secondary and tertiary purchases through accommodation, travel and retail.

He continued: “It is also key to recognise that these businesses play a key part in people’s decision making process from choosing a University or College to influencing investment choices for businesses relocating or expanding, to accommodate for a young workforce.”

“Not forgetting the important part they play in people’s, physical, mental and social well being.”

Stock photo of people in a nightclub
Stock photo of people in a nightclub. CREDIT: Wavebreak Media ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

He concluded: “The Government needs to recognise the economic, cultural, and community value of clubs and the wider night time economy. We must protect these businesses, using every means possible, and recognise their importance before it’s too late.”

Labour’s Shadow Levelling Up Secretary, Lisa Nandy, said that reopening formerly loved nightclub spaces in struggling towns and city centres could help to revive the high streets and boost the economy.

“Every single town has a lost nightclub they feel very strongly about – that was part of our history and our heritage,” she said.

The impact of the COVID pandemic on the country’s nightlife sector has caused many establishments to face financial issues. The government responded with some financial assistance packages, including a £1billion support package introduced in December 2021 after the emergence of the Omicron variant.

However, industry bodies and venues alike have called the support “woefully inadequate”.

In other news, Regina Baer, co-founder of Berlin nightclubs Tresor and Kraftwerk, has died.

The pioneering Baer was described in her friend and colleague Dimitri Hegemann’s tribute as having “decisive influence” on the creation of the cultural and performance space Kraftwerk, which is currently home to an exhibition series celebrating 31 years of Tresor.

Baer and Hegemann helped establish the club Tresor in 1991 after the fall of the Berlin wall. The venue was located between the two infamous walls in the heart of the reunited city. It soon became a launchpad for a youth culture movement inspired by techno.

Music

Tribes on new single ‘Hard Pill’ and their big return: “We felt that electricity again” Tribes on new single ‘Hard Pill’ and their big return: “We felt that electricity again”

Published

on

Tribes have returned with ‘Hard Pill’, their first release in 10 years and the first stop in a wider return from the band. Check it out below, along with our chat with frontman Johnny Lloyd and guitarist Dan White.

The London band – completed by bassist Jim Cratchley and drummer Miguel Demelo – announced their split in 2013, following the release of their second album ‘Wish To Scream’.

After that record was released, Tribes were dropped by their label Island Records, which, along with other pressures the band were experiencing, contributed to their dissolution. “Being dropped was a massive blow,” Lloyd told NME.

“[Being signed] was what we’d worked for since we were kids, and it just happened in a way that was so shocking. I didn’t have the language at the time to describe how unwell I felt from all the pressure of that and shouldering all the songwriting. Instead of saying, ‘Guys, I need a break’, I just shut down. It had taken everything we had from 2009 to get to that point and we were completely burned out.”

He added: “I don’t think there’s any blame to be placed, it’s just what happened,” White said. “If it didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have been able to make this new music.”

 

After nearly a decade apart, the four musicians found themselves in the same room together in 2019 when they went to see Cratchley perform with Dinosaur Pile-Up. “We felt that electricity of us being together again,” White explained. “A couple of weeks went by and Johnny text me saying, ‘The 10-year anniversary of ‘Baby’ is coming up, maybe we should do a little show’.”

Tribes announced a one-off reunion gig at London’s Lafayette for December 2020, which proved to be the catalyst for a fuller return. “The tickets went on sale and we thought the link had broken,” White said. “We called [the promoter] and they said, ‘No man, you sold it out in seven seconds’.”

“The next one sold out, and then the next one sold out,” Lloyd added, referring to warm-up gigs in Sheffield and Manchester. The London gig was upgraded to Kentish Town Forum due to demand and also sold out. “It was like, ‘Maybe we should be doing this’. It’d been so painful – the break-up – and so many years of this void. The spirit of the band, which has always been very happy, was back, and people were feeling the same, so it was exciting to jump back on it.”

With that thought in their minds, new material started flowing. ‘Hard Pill’, a swaggering juggernaut of a song that feels true to Tribes’ DNA while feeling fresh and new, was the first track to begin to take shape. “I’ve been producing bands since [the split] and I was in the studio and this riff came out with the first lyric – ‘You looked me in the eye’,” White recalled. “At that time, we weren’t planning to do a record – we were just going to do the show. But ‘Hard Pill’ came out and that led into everything else.”

“It’s the end and the beginning,” Lloyd said, calling it a “bridge” between Tribes’ past and their new chapter. “I like the line ‘Seven times around the sun and all I’ve got’s the shadow I’ve become’, because I think I felt like that – just endlessly [being asked] ‘Oh, what was the name of your band?’ It’s not a nice feeling, feeling like you’re not doing your best.”

For White, the new single represents the four friends’ potential and support for one another. “We’re doing this from a position of listening and understanding and just being there for each other,” he said. “Before, we were maybe a bit more isolated from each other.”

The song – and the other new music the band has in the pipeline – was recorded in a cottage next door to Lloyd’s home in Dorset, where White became resident during the pandemic. “It’s a spooky place and it’s so remote,” the frontman said of the area, which is in the middle of an “army range”. “It’s pitch black and there’s massive tanks firing artillery.”

“We’d be recording acoustic guitar and we’d have to wait for the warheads to end,” White added.

Tribes’ sessions in Dorset were self-produced by White, eliminating the pressure or stress of working with an outside figure who might not understand what the band wanted. “It feels like we can be ourselves [with White], and we can say, ‘I don’t think this is going to work’,” Lloyd explained.

“And you can try a million things at once – I don’t think we ever did that. On ‘Baby’, we’d rehearse it to hell and just go in and do it. So it’s been such a creative experience – we tried the songs so many different ways and spent hours getting the guitars right and talking about the lyrics. The whole thing felt extremely fluid and very true to ourselves with Dan at the helm.”

White added: “It was a bit like in scenes in Indiana Jones when they open the Ark of the Covenant and all the light comes out. A lot of the stuff fired in directions we haven’t been down before and I think the fact it was just us allowed us to pursue some different ideas.”

As well as sparking new creativity for the band, reuniting has felt like “getting your identity back”, according to Lloyd. “So much life has happened in between but still, at the core, it’s just us like it was in Scar Studios in Camden in 2008, playing at the most ridiculous volumes with no songs. It’s nice to laugh through all this stuff again instead of having this really heavy cloud hung over us.”

Following a handful of gigs since 2021 – and an intimate show at London’s Dublin Castle last night (March 22) – Tribes will return to the road next month for a headline show in Leeds and a series of support slots for DMA’S. Beyond that, more new music is on the horizon, with details to be announced soon.

Looking ahead, the band are happy just to be back together. “We’ve made something we’re really proud of, and wherever we go from here is a bonus for me,” White said. “But it would be great if Tribes was a sustainable thing that we could do forever. We’re doing it for very different reasons now – we’re doing it because we genuinely love it.”

“Yeah, we’re doing it to grow as opposed to any egotistical reasons,” Lloyd agreed. “Also, it’s nice to travel in a band – it’s not glamorous but you really do see the world in a different way when you’re playing shows. So I just want to see as much of the world through the band and make some good songs that might help people get perspective in their lives.”

Continue Reading

Music

Bully shares new single ‘Days Move Slow’ and announces album ‘Lucky For You’

Published

on

Bully has shared her new single ‘Days Move Slow’ and announced details of her fourth album ‘Lucky For You’.

The artist, also known as Alicia Bognanno, revealed that the track was written after the passing of her dog Mezzi.

“As someone who has spent the majority of my life feeling agonisingly misunderstood, there is no greater gift than experiencing true unconditional love and acceptance,” said Bully. “I waited my whole life for the bond and irreplaceable companionship I had with Mezzi. She was my best friend and my only constant through some of the most pivotal moments and phases of my life.

“I was a stranger to the level of love I now know exists because of Mezzi. Love you forever; I’m lucky for you.”

The gritty new single comes with a video directed by long time collaborator Alex Ross Perry.

“I can’t believe I finally got to make a Bully video,” said Perry. “Right away, it seemed striking to make a piece as stark and measured as possible, not to make a video that replicates the song’s sonic energy but to visualise the emotional weight and feelings of loss and grief depicted in the lyrics.”

Bognanno debuted the song last week while opening for The Breeders.

‘Lucky For You’ is set for release on June 2 via Sub Pop. Check out the artwork and tracklist below.

‘Lucky For You’ tracklist:

‘All I Do’
‘Days Move Slow’
‘A Wonderful Life’
‘Hard to Love’
‘Change Your Mind’
‘How Will I Know’
‘A Love Profound’
‘Lose You (ft. Soccer Mommy)’
‘Ms. America’
‘All This Noise’

The singer previously teamed up with Soccer Mommy on ‘Lose You’. On working with Sophie Allison (aka Soccer Mommy), Bognanno shared: “I love Sophie’s voice and have always admired everything she does so to me it was a no brainer. Watching her soar out of the Nashville scene and dominate indie music world wide has been a joy.”

Continue Reading

Music

Radiohead’s Philip Selway announces 2023 UK solo tour

Published

on

Philip Selway has announced a string of upcoming UK shows, following the release of his latest solo album.

The Radiohead drummer is currently gearing up to hit the road as part of an upcoming solo tour – which kicks off in May.

The six UK performances will follow a series of dates from across Europe, including the Café Del La Danse in Paris and the Columbia Theater in Berlin. From there, the UK leg of the tour will begin in Glasgow on May 15, and run through until May 21, where it ends in Manchester.

Live performances will also be held in Leeds, Birmingham and Bristol, as well as a slot at London’s Union Chapel on May 18. Tickets and a full list of tour dates can be found here.

The tour follows the release of Selway’s most recent studio album, ‘Strange Dance’, which was released last month. The release marks his third solo album, following on from 2014’s ‘Weatherhouse’.

Philip Selway. Credit: Tim Mosenfelder/WireImage

Speaking with NME in January, Selway explained that he considered working on the project to be a “life-affirming process”, and described the final product as one that maintained a level of “intimacy”.

“Coming into it, I knew the soundscape I wanted in it. I wanted it to be tall, broad and able to contain all of these different musical elements,” he said.

“Within that, I knew I wanted there to be an intimacy to it too,” he continued. “I got that from the way I delivered the vocals and the lyrical content. It’s almost like pillow talk and very conversational … I wanted to make a record that people could lose themselves in and find their own stories and safe spaces.”

Selway first announced the album and shared the lead single ‘Check For Signs Of Life’ back in October. From there, he released ‘Picking Up The Pieces’ the following month and, more recently, the title track ‘Strange Dance’.

Elsewhere in his interview with NME, he opened up about the future of Radiohead – adding that the members have already begun “talking about future plans”.

“We have got together and we’re talking about future plans, but in the immediate future we’ve all got other projects which we’d all like to see through properly,” he said. “There’s a collective desire to make music in some form or other amongst the five of us. We all really value that musical relationship, and that’s been there for 38 years. It remains really important to us.”

The conversation follows on from previous comments made by the drummer, which caused headlines after he confirmed that Radiohead were “going to get together” at the start of this year.

Radiohead have also teased a 20th anniversary issue of their sixth studio album, ‘Hail To The Thief’, which was released in 2003.

Continue Reading

Trending