so myself and my band have just moved to london from australia to have better/easier access to touring europe. problem is all the bands here suck and their seems to be a completely non-existant scene (well if there is we can't find it).

any londoners (or non-londoners) know some dudes here doing some good interesting music?

obviously we are looking for non famous type bands.
diy shit and the like.

this town seems to be run by promoters and booking agents.

What's the name of your band?

If you've actually moved here as a band en masse, just to have better access to Europe for touring purposes, I would honestly recommend moving again. London is indeed a town run by promoters and booking agents, and it's also insanely expensive!! Move somewhere cheaper, where there are more DIY shows and a more DIY attitude.

PM me for DIY contacts for London shows.

Move to Nottingham, Brighton or Glasgow.

Two/three off the top of my head:

- Todd/Shit & Shine
- Part Chimp

Rimbaud III wrote:Part Chimp

Hell to the YES.

I would have definitely moved to Brighton if I was moving to the UK to play music.

I would never move to NYC to play music, and I am guessing London is much the same. When a city is that expensive, one has to dedicate WAY TOO MUCH of one's time to just meeting basic needs. This diverts one's attention far away from being creative.

Someone tell me about Nottingham. I've never been there.

dontfeartheringo wrote:I would have definitely moved to Brighton if I was moving to the UK to play music.

I would never move to NYC to play music, and I am guessing London is much the same. When a city is that expensive, one has to dedicate WAY TOO MUCH of one's time to just meeting basic needs. This diverts one's attention far away from being creative.

Someone tell me about Nottingham. I've never been there.

It's violent and the main music scene is run by a company in turn run by thugs and gangsters of the old school variety.
It's a dirty shithole filled with scumbags as well.

On the plus side, it has a thriving genuine underground music culture, it's cheap to live here if you don't mind being burgled and we have some beautiful parks and scenery within 30 mins drive.

PS decent Larndarn bands

Part Chimp, Todd, Shit & Shine, Infants, Spin Spin The Dogs, Poltergroom, Man Aubergine, Cleckhuddersfax, Chips For The Poor all spring to mind.

dontfeartheringo wrote:Someone tell me about Nottingham. I've never been there.

I could go on about Nottingham for as long as you could about Athens mate, but to save boring you I'll give you a pros/cons list:

Good things about Nottingham:

Cheap (compared to London)
Compact and manageable (compared to London)
Located almost exactly in the middle of England, allowing you to get to pretty much any major city in three hours
Loads of nice pubs, restaurants, markets, traditional/specialist food shops
Great cinema
A few venues that are free to hire and/or sympathetic to DIY shows
Plenty of DIY shows
Plenty of DIY bands
Thriving underground art scene
Some pretty/charming bits
Some beautiful countryside nearby

Bad things about Nottingham:

Massive binge drinking culture (as in, even worse than other UK cities) - the city centre is like a warzone on a saturday night
Violent (see above)
Big drug/gun crime problems (ranks very high on the national league tables)
Students everywhere
Mafia-esque cartel run half the venues in town

I'd say it's a good place to live if you are a band/involved in the arts in any way, as it's cheap, there's a decent DIY scene, it's easy to go to/put on shows, there's plenty of practice spaces, etc.

Worth a tourist visit? For a day or two, definitely. Not really for the sightseeing though, more just to soak up a few nice pubs/restaurants/parks/etc.

I went to Nottingham once to visit friends. While there I saw Chris from Lords and went to say "hi and thank you for the music, especially Reynolds" to him but was pretty drunk and he was talking to someone I kind of half knew so it was weirdly awkward. It was in the Rescue rooms I think, if that's the bit above Stealth.
There was a guy in bondage trousers, enthusiastically getting off with two girls at once and then persuading the girls to get off with each other, standing behind me at the bar so that when turned round after an excessively long time spent fetching a beer, I got quite a shock.
I mean, bondage trousers? In this day and age?
I also once bizzarely saw the drummer from Lords when we were camping at the same seaside campsite in Wales about this time last year.At least I swear I did.
I quite enjoyed Nottingham while I was there.