On loud guitars, small venues, and why the city still needs a racket
Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Monday Was A Write-Off, So I Did What I Always Do And Went To See A Band
Dear diary, it has been one of those weeks where the city seems determined to grind you down, and so I did the only sensible thing, which was to go and stand in a small sweaty room and let three loud chords put me back together. I have been a London punk for long enough to know that the cure for almost anything is a band, a small venue, and a volume level that your ears will complain about tomorrow. The headlines were grim, the rent was grimmer, and I read something on the news that made me laugh so I would not cry. But Monday was a write-off, and so I went to see a band, and the band fixed it, the way bands always do.
The Small Venue Is The Real London
People talk about London as if it were the famous landmarks, the grand buildings, the postcard views. But the real London, the one I love, is the small venue, the back room of a pub with a stage barely big enough for a drum kit, the place where a band nobody has heard of plays their hearts out to forty people who came to see them. That is where the city actually lives, in those small loud rooms, where the music is too loud and the beer is too warm and the energy is real. The small venue is the real London, the place where the city’s actual cultural life happens, away from the postcards.
And these small venues are under threat, always under threat, from the rising rents and the developers and the general squeeze on the things that make a city alive. Every time one closes, the city loses a piece of itself, a place where bands could play and music could happen and the real cultural life of London could continue. I treasure the small venues precisely because they are endangered, because each one is a small act of defiance against the forces that would turn the whole city into expensive flats and chain coffee shops. The small venue is the real London, and it needs defending, loudly, with three chords.
Why The City Still Needs A Racket
There is a respectable view that London has become too expensive, too corporate, too smooth for the kind of raw, loud, defiant culture that punk represents. And there is something to it; the pressures are real, the squeeze is genuine, the city does sometimes feel as if it is being polished into blandness. But I refuse to accept that the racket is over. London still needs a racket, still needs the loud defiant music, still needs the small venues and the unknown bands and the energy that no amount of expensive flats can fully kill. The racket is the city’s pulse, its sign of life, its refusal to be smoothed into nothing.
The racket matters because it is the sound of the city refusing to give up, refusing to be tamed, refusing to become merely a collection of expensive properties. As long as there are small venues and loud bands and people who come to stand in sweaty rooms and let the music put them back together, London is still alive, still defiant, still itself. The racket is the proof that the city has not surrendered, that its raw cultural life continues despite the pressures, that there is still a London that is loud and real and defiant. That is why the city still needs a racket, and why I will keep going to see bands.
The Cure That Always Works
So here I am, ears ringing, Monday forgotten, put back together by three loud chords in a small sweaty room. The cure always works. Whatever the city throws at you, whatever the headlines say, whatever the rent demands, the band fixes it, the small venue heals it, the racket restores you. I have relied on this cure for years, and it has never failed me. The loud music, the small room, the energy of a band playing their hearts out, these put me back together every time, the three-chord cure for a bad week, the punk rock remedy for everything the city can throw at you.
And I will keep relying on it, keep going to the small venues, keep seeing the unknown bands, keep standing in the sweaty rooms and letting the racket restore me. It is the best cure I know, the most reliable remedy, the thing that always works when the city tries to grind you down. The three-chord cure, the punk rock remedy, the loud defiant music in the small real venues, this is how I survive London, how I keep going, how I put myself back together week after week. The cure always works, and I am grateful for it, ringing ears and all. If you want the straight version, Arts Council England has it, and the Greater London Authority fills in the rest. For now, Monday is forgotten, the band has done its work, and I am ready to face whatever the city throws at me next, armed with three chords and a refusal to be ground down.
More from the desk of Siobhan O’Donnell, and further wit at The Poke.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
