They bang the drums: How Edinburgh will cope with the loss of Cabaret Voltaire and the Bongo Club

Published on Thursday 9 February 2012 00:00

The news that Edinburgh is to lose two more of its best music venues is a blow, says David Pollock, but the capital has weathered this storm before and its strong art community will bounce back

‘Edinburgh’s a dreadful place to go and see live music, because the crowds are too quiet and there are hardly any good venues; Edinburgh’s nightlife consists entirely of formulaic George Street bars and clubs designed to appeal to footballers, poseurs and financial services admin staff with no knowledge of or liking for music; Edinburgh has no spirit and no soul, and its music scene is the definition of a cultural backwater.”

All of these scathing opinions and more might sound compelling when loudly proclaimed by your average gig-going Glaswegian scenester, although a token trip along the length of the M8 during Edinburgh Festival time isn’t really a qualification to pass judgement on a city whose scene exists in far more rebellious circumstances than those of its well-supported near neighbour.

In the coming months, however, Edinburgh’s vibrant yet well-camouflaged underground musical network will once more be forced to fight to stay alive. Where Glasgow has lately had no problem generating new venues in order to stage gigs of all sizes – a £125m investment will, as of next spring, let the Scottish Hydro Arena do essentially the same job as the SECC, albeit in more purpose-built circumstances – Edinburgh continues to have to battle to keep the venues it has.

Within the past fortnight it’s been revealed that two of the city’s best-loved gig and club spaces are under threat in their current form, with Blair Street’s Cabaret Voltaire set for a rebranding and refurbishment after being sold to the Glasgow-based G1 Group, and Holyrood Road’s Bongo Club given notice to quit the premises by their landlords, Edinburgh University.

This news comes hot on the heels of the closure of alternative spaces the Roxy Art House, the Store and the Forest Café following the bankruptcy of their landlord, Edinburgh University Settlement, and these are merely the latest in a long line of blows to fall on Edinburgh in the past decade.

Admittedly, in the case of whatever will take Cabaret Voltaire’s place, at least G1 is an entertainments company, which will ensure the atmospheric series of vaults under South Bridge continues to be part of the city’s nightlife. However, online reaction to the company’s stated aim – to “play a very hands-off role given the success and importance of venue director Sarah David’s legacy” – has been sceptical.

The company has made a welcome promise to “address significant structural issues, including severe water ingress” during a month-long refurbishment as of 20 February, but concerns have been voiced among regulars about whether the new venue will retain the same identity or continue to promote live music, given the mainstream nature of G1’s many other sites in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The Bongo Club, at least, has previous when it comes to survival, having been forced to leave their former premises above the New Street bus garage in 2005, a spot which has been an empty brownfield development site ever since. I wouldn’t bet against them having the wit or resources to keep going, but they must feel that no-one is on their side bar their regular patrons. Bearing in mind that the closure of the Bongo would also affect parent company Out of the Blue’s arts and community centre hub – the Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street – an impassioned statement on its current parlous state by writer, broadcaster and long-time friend of the Bongo Mark Thomas rings true.

“The Bongo Club is a rare and wonderful thing, a club that encourages the best of its local artistic community,” he says. “It has an ethos of experimentation and discovery and accessibility that is unique. It is part of the artistic DNA of Edinburgh and to lose it would be an act of cultural self-harming.”

The Bongo Club’s past example, however, demonstrates exactly what the city’s music fraternity has going for it. Rather than a well-funded infrastructure based on the prime determinant of commercial success, Edinburgh hosts a variety of smaller scenes based on a sense of community, and an individual venue will often have followers who identify with it.

The Cowgate’s tiny Sneaky Pete’s, for example, is one of the finest venues in the country, a small, black-walled sweatbox whose club and gig programming is consistently exciting and on-the-ball. Lothian Road’s HMV Picture House is a modest-sized commercial venue whose striking converted former cinema interior is distinctly Edinburgh. The Liquid Room is a fairly commercial club but a commendable gig venue, while Henry’s is a scruffy basement bar with a penchant for frighteningly esoteric music. The recently-opened Third Door is a small alternative space of the kind the city is crying out for more of, while Calton Road’s Studio 24 has bravely defied past attempts to close it down.

There’s a resilience to the city’s music scene, and it will no doubt soldier on in much the same way it recovered from the 2002 Cowgate fire which wiped out La Belle Angele and the closure of the much-loved Venue by developers not long after, the club crowd moving on to the now-departed Ego and Cabaret Voltaire. More recently the Forest Cafe, a respected alternative Fringe venue, was briefly taken over and reopened by affiliates of the Occupy movement late last year, and while Leith might well prove to be a rougher, readier location for independent gig venues than Edinburgh, it is one less obsessed with commerce and conformity. It already has cheaper rents and has many young art galleries, and artists and musicians do tend to move in packs.

It’s ironic that the state of Edinburgh’s music scene should come back onto the agenda even as the bands who play here are doing well, with indie-house outfit Discopolis and the Afrobeat-tinged Bwani Junction both earning recognition as ones to watch in 2012 from the NME.

Those who wish to follow in their footsteps will no doubt find Edinburgh remains a city where bands can play and be heard – it would just be nice if there weren’t so many obstacles placed in the way of those who facilitate this, and who ensure that Edinburgh’s cultural life is something to be proud of for the 11 months of the year that the Festival isn’t running.

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