Apr 12: Bands and football shirts

A posting from a while back on Facebook explored the connection with sport and music, with a share of some outputs from a Twitter account called @_Bands_FC 

It was shared on a Facebook page called Periodic table of Synthpop.

The post led to lots of replies with some examples of actual shirts.

e.g. this one...

What are your favourites?

A future post explores the walk-out music of football teams...

Apr 11: Rock music

A cartoon from John Atkinson.

Apr 11: Keith's Bench

On the local news a few weeks ago there was news of a story about a bench.

The bench was placed in the churchyard where Keith Flint of The Prodigy was buried.

When a musician who many people adored dies, there is often a need for a place of pilgrimage.

Consider the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France. Jim Morrison of The Doors is buried there, along with other musicians, plus authors such as Georges Perec.

The Prodigy's most famous track is called 'Firestarter' and here it is.

They are one of my brother's favourite bands.

The bench is scorched black.

Band manager John Fairs and Prodigy founder Liam Howlett worked on the design and family members signed it off, the company said.

Apr 11: Ramblin' Man

How about a song that mentions loads of place names?

Lemon Jelly's album 'Lost Horizons' is beautifully designed.

A long list of place names is mentioned in the song... narrated by the distinctive voice of John Standing.

And the band?

Lemon Jelly are a British electronic music duo from London that formed in 1998 and went on hiatus starting in 2008. Since its inception, the band members have always been Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen. Lemon Jelly has been nominated for awards like the Mercury Music Prize and BRIT Awards. The bright colourful artwork featured in the albums and music videos, and the Lemon Jelly typeface, became part of the "brand". (Wikipedia)

And here's the track itself and the first few place names that get a mention.

Paris
Tibet
Sydney
Naxos
Rangu
Rotterdam
Runcton
The Cayman Islands
Malawi
Mauritius
Haight-ashbury
Patagonia

The album covers are also fantastical landscapes by themselves.

Feel free to map the places mentioned... someone probably has already....

Apr 10: GeoNight - come and join me at 7pm tonight

Tonight is the latest edition of an annual international event called GeoNight.

Hundreds of sessions will take place today all over the world.

There are only 2 events in the UK. One is being hosted at the Royal Geographical Society and mine will be broadcast live from my bedroom...

It's a version of the session that Matt Podbury and I did at the GA Conference on Wednesday the 8th of April - exploring the development of my World of Music blog for this year and ideas for the curriculum.

Please come along, and if you can't, please at least fill in the Google Form that goes with the blog.

Link and details are here.

Apr 10: Eberhard Weber

Eberhard Weber is a German bassist. He has sadly retired from playing following a heart attack which happened in April 2007.

He played with a great many of my favourite musicians.

The first time I saw him I was completely blown away by his style and sound. This was a concert with the Jan Garbarek Group performing 'Molde Canticle' from 'I took up the Runes' at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.

More on that to come in a few days' time...

Portrait by Gert Chesi - Shared under CC license

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberhard_Weber#/media/File:Eberhard_Weber_-_Portrait_by_Gert_Chesi.jpg

I then saw him around a half dozen other times with the Jan Garbarek Group, including a concert at the St. Andrews Hall in Norwich, where I had front row seats.

One night in Norwich I also went to see him play a solo concert at the Norwich Arts Centre. He said quite a bit between the music that he played expressing thanks and surprise that people would come out to watch him "playing with himself".

This was a reference to the echo and delay unit that he used to layer up sounds and create some wonderful effects and tunes.

He started out working with other musicians, and recorded several solo albums too.

He also played with the Colours Quartet and recorded several albums, which had Lyle Mays as one of the players too.

Here's an early performance.

A tribute concert was held in Stuttgart in 2015.

It was released as an ECM album called 'Hommage a Eberhard Weber' - I have a copy of that album.

Musicians playing were: Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Scott Colley, Danny Gottlieb, SWR Big Band, Helge Sunde.

Weber's latest albums, Résumé (2012) and Encore (2015) comprise solos from his performances worldwide with The Jan Garbarek Group, overdubbed with keyboards/treatments by Weber, saxophone by Garbarek, and flügelhorn by Ack Van Rooyen.

This included a long piece which was written by Pat Metheny.

This was recorded with musicians in front of a screen which showed some of his solo work.

One of the final pieces of music that the late Lyle Mays (who will be remembered in due course in a post on the blog) recorded is called 'Eberhard' and is a tribute to him.

Seek out some of his work with Jan Garbarek.

Finally, it's also worth saying that he also worked with Kate Bush.

A REDDIT post tells the story by sharing images of books.

He talks about the experience in an interview:

She called me once when I was in Hamburg. I couldn’t even believe it was her. The hotel had a message from Kate Bush and I called her back. She told me she loved ECM music in general and my music in particular. She wanted me to participate in one of her albums. She sent me a tape of the two tracks she wanted me to play on and asked me to think about countermelodies. So I did that and flew to London where she lived. I thought it would be like the jazz people I work with and that within two hours, the first tune is done and within another hour, the second tune is done. 

No. It’s very different, which I learned in this, my first appearance in the pop world.
They checked every note—everything, everything, everything. The first tune took six to eight hours. The second one the same. It explained to me why these pop people take so long to produce their albums. They never decide right away what to do. So when I came up with some ideas they said “yes, yes, let’s record it to 48 tracks.” Then I’d have another idea and again, it would be “yes, yes, yes, let’s do it this way.” I recorded dozens of ideas and in the end, only one was accepted. These people have the attitude that it’s only later when they mix that they decide. This is very unusual compared to the older ECM productions in the '70s when I started. 

Making a record only took three days: two days of recording and one day of mixing. 

Only later on when it became more complicated with synths and such did it take longer. 

But pop people take six months or even longer to make a record."

Here's one of the tracks he played on:

Apr 10: North Dakota Slate Roof

This is the stand-out track for me on the new album by Bruce Hornsby, along with the title track itself. It's an eclectic work and continues Bruce's tradition of musical invention. If you get the chance to see him take it... he comes to the UK rarely...

Here's Bruce explaining the meaning behind the song... with references to Paul Brady (who I saw at the Leadmill in Sheffield) and the books of Richard Ford.

 

Apr 9: GA Conference 2026

So today was the day when Matt Podbury and I were on the programme for the Geographical Association's Annual Conference.

Here's our deck. Download to avoid the ads.

GA Conference 2026 Session - Parkinson and Podbury by Alan Parkinson

Thanks to those who came along. You were a lovely audience!

More to come in a future post, but I wanted to get the presentation up here for those who were asking....

Apr 9: Guest Blogger Brendan Conway #4: *Spotimapify*: A proof of concept for Geo Mapper with ‘London A to Z’

The fourth guest post from Brendan Conway - scheduled to post during the GA Conference.

Brendan Conway will be at the GA Conference sharing something he's been working on for some time.
He is co-presenting with Alistair Hamill.

The indie dance band St Etienne, formed in 1990, have regularly signalled a strong geographical affinity with albums steeped in sense of place such as ‘Finisterre’ (2002) and ‘Home Counties’ (2017) which included tracks inspired by local knowledge of places in the rural-urban fringe of London such as ‘Whyteleafe’, ‘Breakneck Hill’ and ‘Angel of Woodhatch’. 

Their album cover for ‘Words and Music’ (2012) is an incredible piece of map art based on Croydon town centre, redesigned by Manchester art collective Dorothy to change all of the road names to songs. Bob Stanley of the band explained the psychogeographical concept.

‘The general theme of the album is marking a route in your life through music—the idea is that you can follow roads on the map and end up with a playlist of different journeys. There are 312 song titles on the map—it's our hometown.’ 

Can you spot all 312?!



In a similar cartographic vein, in 2023 Bob Stanley, created a compilation album called ‘London A to Z’ for Ace Records.

The selection features places in London, recorded in the 1960s and 1970s. Such compilations can sometimes be disappointing, but not this one. Many of the artists are very well-known although their tracks are usually more obscure. There are many forgotten gems, providing interesting windows back in time. Nick Drake departs from his typical melancholy to deliver the upbeat ‘Mayfair’ (1968) and Norma Tanega celebrates ‘Clapham Junction’(1971) with her characteristic guitar licks. The prolific 1960s hit maker Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) sings about ‘Portobello Road’ which is close to where he grew up in London’s West End. 

‘Hampstead Way’ sung by Linda Lewis sounds well ahead of its time. She famously had a five-octave vocal range and had cameo roles in 1960s classic movies ‘A Taste Of Honey’ and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.

Several songs have intriguing back stories to explore. For example, ‘London Social Degree’ (1968), covered here by long-time associate of David Bowie, Dana Gillespie. It was written by British singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and musical director Billy Nicholls. Its naive inverted snobbery vibe and anti-intellectual lyrics sound a bit annoying now (a bit like Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ a decade later), but it's an interesting period piece, originally recorded by Billy Nicholls himself in 1968 on his classic baroque pop album ‘Would You Believe’.

Perhaps the greatest rediscovery on the compilation is ‘Euston Station’(1967), written and sung by the less-well-known and much underrated Barbara Ruskin, which should have been a big hit but failed to chart.


As Bob Stanley suggests in his ‘sleeve notes’, the original A to Z of London ‘invited you to create your own personal map of London’. 

Now we can do a similar thing for his compilation using geographical information systems (GIS), so I used Geo Mapper 2D to geo-reference and visualise the locations of all the tracks, demonstrating the capacity of Geo Mapper to ‘Spotimapify’ such data. 

Clicking on each location shows a relevant image (usually the record sleeve) and an opportunity to hear an extract from the track by linking through to the Ace Records web page about the compilation.



Explore the map here and take a listen to the tracks: London A to Z (GIS map)

The GIS map are bookmark tabs which zoom in to different parts of London as follows:

NW London

Edgware Station - Edward Bear

Hampstead Way - Linda Lewis

Parliament Hill - Magna Carta

Primrose Hill - John & Beverley Martyn

Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres - Al Stewart

SW London

Kew Gardens - Ralph McTell

Richmond - Shelagh McDonald

W London

Notting Hill Gate - Quintessence

Portobello Road - Cat Stevens

Central London

City Road - Dave Evans

Euston Station - Barbara Ruskin

Goodbye Post Office Tower Goodbye - Cressida

Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square - Jethro Tull

London Bridge - Cilla Black

London Social Degree - Dana Gillespie

Mayfair - Nick Drake

Soho - Bert Jansch & John Renbourn

Sunny Goodge Street - Marianne Faithfull

E London

Beckton Dumps - Humble Pie

Cutty Sark - The John Barry Seven & Orchestra

Marcel's - Herman's Hermits

NE London

Friday Hill - Bulldog Breed


Near The Thames

Clapham Junction - Norma Tanega

Vauxhall To Lambeth Bridge - Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity


References

Fitz Maurice, L. (2012) Listen: New Saint Etienne: "Answer Song”. Pitchfork.

London A To Z - Various Artists (Saint Etienne)

Brendan Conway is a geography teacher with over thirty years’ experience and led his current school to the GA Centre of Excellence. He has authored a range of learning materials for Oak National Academy, Tutor2U, Collins, BBC Bitesize and has expertise in GIS. Brendan is very interested in the links between geography and music and has written far too many story maps on this theme.

Apr 9: Good Bunny

I've been preparing a lengthy post for my LivingGeography blog and to share at the GA Conference. 

It's now ready and I'm posting it today to coincide with my session at the GA Conference 2026.

It's taken me a while to get this post finished. It would have been better nearer the actual event, but better to be accurate and useful than rush something out.

It's also going to be part of my session at the GA Conference which I'm co-presenting with Matt Podbury.

It's also a cross-posting from my World of Music blog. This is taking shape nicely and is well into its second month, with hundreds of blog posts in draft ready to go, and some very nice guest blog posts already edited and ready to share.

The Superbowl half-time show is one of the highest profile cultural events in the USA (although three times as many people globally will watch a top-level Premier League football match than the Super Bowl itself).

This year, the musical act chosen was Bad Bunny.

Bad Bunny's Wikipedia entry describes him as follows:

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Latin American Spanish: born March 10, 1994), known professionally as Bad Bunny, is a Puerto Rican rapper, singer, record producer, and occasional professional wrestler.

Dubbed the "King of Latin Trap", he is widely credited with helping Spanish-language rap reach mainstream global popularity and is considered one of the greatest Latino rappers of all time.

He has won numerous awards, and also appeared in a range of films. He was the first Spanish speaking artist to win Album of the Year - at the 2026 Grammy's.

Bad Bunny has been named Spotify's most-streamed artist globally four times (2020, 2021, 2022, and 2025), making him the first and only artist to achieve this distinction.

Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,is a self-governing Caribbean archipelago and island organized as an unincorporated territory of the United States under the designation of commonwealth.

Puerto Ricans have been US Citizens since 1917.

Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen, a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, which is popularly said to mean 'Land of the Valiant Lord'. 

The terms boricua, borinqueño, and borincano are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage

Puerto Rico was colonised by the Spanish before the Americans claimed it.

In 2017, Puerto Rico suffered back-to-back large hurricanes: the Category 5 Hurricane Irma and the Category 4 Hurricane Maria.The storms caused an extreme amount of damage to the island, causing the following effects: all power was knocked out, 95% cell service, 43% of waste water treatment plants, 40 thousand land slides, 97% of roads blocked, 28% of health facilities damaged, leading to over 90% of the population applying for assistance after the storms.

(Seek out Gemma Sou's 'After Maria' project)

This has also become the subject of a Bad Bunny protest song - El Apagón ('The Power Outage') about continuing power problems.

“His very presence on the stage is a statement,” said Petra Rivera-Rideau, co-author of the book P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance. 

“The fact is that we’re currently in a moment where Spanish is seen as a mark of being foreign, of not belonging, where people are getting profiled for being Spanish speakers – that ups the ante and importance. It can’t really be overstated.”

Source

There was lots of coverage of the politics of the selection ahead of the show.

The show didn't go down well with a certain old man...

Apologies for sharing the following image:

This De Adder cartoon went out in Canada, with thanks to Peggy March for sharing it.

MAGA weren't pleased, and created their own rival show.

A piece in the Financial Times suggested a link with future US foreign policy. This link may not be permanent. Rana Foroohar suggested that the show:

"..provided a decent political roadmap for what a post-Maga America should aspire to embrace: pro-growth humanism inside and outside our own borders..."

There's a great image as well to reinforce the global spread of the musician.

The Guardian review here provides a summary of his Half time show and points out the cultural references back to Puerto Rico.

These include the reference to Boricua joy.

Scenes described in the Guardian piece linked to above include:

1. A young man carrying a Puerto Rican flag before a sea of sugarcane opened with a benediction for all of us: “Qué rico es ser latino. Hoy se bebe,” (“How sweet it is to be Latino. Today we drink”)

Sugar cane is an important crop and is linked with colonialism and slavery in locations where it has been cultivated.

2. References to Puerto Rican community life.

• los viejos playing dominos,
• street vendors selling coco frío, piraguas and tacos (sold by Los Angeles’s actual Villa’s Tacos),
• boxers Xander Zayas and Emiliano Vargas in the fight,
• a man proposing to his girlfriend just as the femme-forward Yo Perreo Sola starts. “Las mujeres en el mundo entero,” he says, “perreando sin miedo”. (“The women in the whole world, perreando without fear.”)
• Behind him, at la casita he built in the image of a house on the island, is a yearbook of stars, including Karol G, Pedro Pascal, Cardi B, Jessica Alba, Young Miko and Alix Earle.

Bad Bunny carried the Puerto Rican flag of independence, the original flag of the territory that was outlawed until 1952 and is distinguished by its sky blue triangle. While performing a salsa version of her 2024 Bruno Mars duet Die With a Smile, Lady Gaga wore a dress in the same shade.

Finally, if you haven't seen it yet, the show can be seen here:

And a set list here

1. "Tití Me Preguntó" (Bad Bunny)
2. "Yo Perreo Sola" (Bad Bunny)
3. "Safaera" (Bad Bunny)
4. "VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR" (Bad Bunny)
5. "EoO" (Bad Bunny)
6. "Mónaco" (Bad Bunny)
7. "Die with a Smile" (Lady Gaga)
8. "BAILE INoLVIDABLE" (Bad Bunny)
9. "NUEVAYoL" (Bad Bunny)
10. "LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii" (Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin)
11. "El Apagón" (Bad Bunny)
12. "CAFé CON RON" (Bad Bunny)
13. "DtMF" (Bad Bunny)

Some more responses to the show from musicians.

Apr 8: Craven Faults

If you drive through the Yorkshire Dales National Park, on roads near Malham and other well known locations, you will pass over one or more of the Craven Fault System: where different rock types meet, and where the landscape changes. In some places, the contrast this produces is dramatic, and I remember driving that way numerous times when I used to do more hill walking and climbing, including completing the classic 'Three Peaks' walk.

Craven Faults is also the name of a British electronic artist and producer known for combining analogue synthesizers, electronics and field recordings to create music that draws from ambient music, Krautrock and electronica. The name is taken from the Craven Fault System in the Pennines and much of his music draws inspiration from the landscapes of Yorkshire, where he resides.

I like the description of the artist that is on their Spotify profile.

Half-remembered journeys across post-industrial Yorkshire. On first impression it appears to be a journey through a uniform landscape, past familiar mills, peaks and dales. Until you start to notice the details. The devil’s in the details. It occupies your peripheral vision. It leaves you questioning how you arrived where you did. How did we get here? It almost certainly started in Dusseldorf or Köln. Or possibly The San Francisco Tape Music Centre. It’s not important. The journey to Yorkshire is somewhat hazy. Hansa by the Wall, 1977. Stockholm’s Museum Of Modern Art, 1968. Maida Vale, 1963. Rugby, 1986. It enters Yorkshire via Kingston-upon-Hull. Although, even that isn’t set in stone. It’s not important. It’s important to ask the question every now and then. The answers less so. Banks of vintage equipment. A master craftsman at work in a nest of patch cables within an old textile mill.

The tracks often have a geological aspect to them, or are tied to particular locations within the area.

An article on the musician:

https://www.electronicsound.co.uk/features/long-reads/craven-faults-faulty-towers/

Here's a video of the track Far Closes.

And a description:

The journey on Sidings isn’t made with people in mind. It begins in an isolated community which built up around one of the great engineering projects of its age - 14 tunnels and 22 viaducts to open up the north - and finishes at an enclosed field on a moor in 1858. It takes in studios from Los Angeles to Rochdale from 1952 to 1980, while drawing inspiration from the progress in manmade infrastructure and the transport of goods.

Apr 7: Countdown - into space

The Space Shuttle was a phase of space exploration that is no longer... the current Artemis II mission has been very much in the news with a journey on the "other side".

There were several tragic accidents during its time as the main launch vehicle for NASA.

Members of Canadian rock band Rush were invited to a shuttle launch - the first of the Shuttle Columbia in 1981.

The experience became the final track on their 1982 album 'Signals'.

I had the programme from the Signals tour, and remember reading about this memory from Neil Peart - who always wrote the notes to the tour programmes.

We met our liaison man, who conducted us safely into the "V.I.P." zone (Red Sector A) in the pre-dawn hours. We were due to play that night in Dallas, so we couldn't wait much longer. Finally they announced that the launch would be scrubbed for that day. Well, we ran for the car, and our daring driver sped off, around the traffic jams, down the median of the highway, and got us to the airport barely in time.

The next night we had a show in San Antonio, after which we drove off immediately, clambered into a hired jet, and flew straight back to Florida. This time the launch took place on schedule, and it was SOMETHING!!

I remember thinking to myself as we flew back to Fort Worth after a couple days without sleep: "We've got to write a song about this!" It was an incredible thing to witness, truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I can only hope that the song comes even close to capturing the excitement and awe that we felt that morning.

— Neil Peart in the Signals tour book.

The song incorporates audio from voice communications between astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen and ground control, specifically Ascent CAPCOM Daniel C. Brandenstein and with commentary from Hugh Harris, Kennedy Space Center Public Affairs Officer.

Here they are playing the track live in Montreal, Canada in 1981.

Via Wikipedia.

The song was used as a wakeup song for astronauts during STS-109, which was the last successful flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. It was used again for astronaut Mike Fincke during STS-134, flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour on its final mission before retirement. Fincke described how his friends Greg Shurtz and NASA employee Ken Fisher chose the song because the band was inspired to write it after viewing the launch of STS-1. Fincke went on to say the song was played as a tribute to the Space Shuttle program, which has inspired people around the world.

Source: https://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19830228circus.htm

Here's the detail from the Signals tour book from the programme of that tour - I had a copy of this.

And here's the Public Service Broadcasting track: "The Other Side" which is the story of the Apollo mission which was the first to do what Artemis II did a day or so ago - and after which astronaut Bill Anders made the classic Earthrise photo that was so important to the environmental movement as it showed the fragility of the Earth... we now have an updated version of that image.

Apr 6: Songs about 'issues' #1: Phil Collins on homelessness

Phil Collins has written several songs which touch on the issue of homelessness.

The first one was from the Genesis album 'Abacab' which was released in 1981 - not their finest hour.

It is called "Man on the Corner". I saw this performed live several times as part of the Genesis live set.

 

 The second was from his album "...But Seriously".

'Another Day in Paradise' has the most obvious lyrics related to the issue...

On writing the song:

“I remember when we played Washington… Washington was almost at a standstill and these people were trying to sleep on the grills where all the hot air was coming up, and you could see that it was in the shadow of Capitol Hill. I thought it was an extraordinary contradiction.”

Apr 6: Film Soundtracks #4: Amelie

In my top five films is a film by the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

It's the delightful film 'Amélie' or Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. It was made by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who had previously made several other films which I also loved. It evokes a particular area of Paris particularly well, around Montmartre - I visited a few of the locations when on a recent visit to Paris, including the 2 Windmills restaurant where scenes were shot.

I saw the film for the first time at the Showroom cinema in Sheffield: an arts cinema where I saw many films at the time.

Amelie's soundtrack was composed by the musician Yann Tiersen. I saw Yann play live at the Barbican last year and also attended a Q&A session before the concert started.

I was due to head down to the Royal Festival Hall in June for a special screening of the film accompanied by an orchestra.

However, it was cancelled in March - probably due to a rights issue. Hopefully it will eventually happen.

There are some classic accordion-led pieces on the soundtrack album.

Check out this Behance film poster.

There is also an excellent review here.

What are your favourite film soundtracks?

Not too late to answer that, and other questions on the link here.

Apr 5: Desert Island Discs

Imagine being marooned on a desert island...

You can only have one book, one luxury item and eight pieces of music.

What would you take with you and why? What would you have to listen to?

That's the premise of Desert Island Discs.

In all the years of the programme (and over 2500 episodes) not many geographers have featured.

Back in 1963, the GA President for 1950: L Dudley Stamp was featured.

Please contribute to the blog by suggesting your own Desert Island Discs. 

I'll share mine and some of yours in a future post.

This is the 200th post on the blog.

Apr 5: National Recording Registry

The USA has a National Recording Registry.

This registry has a collection of recordings which are felt to be culturally significant

The full list is here.

This is worth looking at to see what musical acts have been chosen... it's a very eclectic mix...

Apr 4: Guest blogger John Medd #1: Lost Venues

If you have been following the development of the blog - thank you - you will have seen that I've been welcoming guest posts from people sharing their own musical memories. Carl Lee has already provided me with a wide range of posts and more are scheduled in for the months ahead. Several other people have also promised me a post.

This is the first guest post by John Medd, who has kindly sent me some thoughts on some of the music venues we have lost over the years (and continue to lose on a monthly basis).

Imagine a time when there were no arena gigs. Imagine a time when the only way to buy a ticket for a gig was to go to the box office. And imagine a time when town halls, ‘the college circuit’ and Top Rank ballrooms accounted for almost half the country’s music venues. Welcome to the 70s (& 80s).

When a band went on tour 50 years ago they jumped in the van, got the road atlas out and set off in the direction of the nearest transport caff. Or, more latterly, a Little Chef. They would then traverse Blighty’s highways and byways – maybe picking up the odd hitchhiker on the way – and, in no particular order, hope and pray the van wouldn’t break down, that there’d be more than one man and a dog turn up to see them and, at the end of the night, the promoter would pay them. Actually, in respect of those last three bullet points I don’t think an awful lot has changed between then and now.

But all of the above was contingent on the band finding both a venue that wanted to put them on in the first place and also had a budget to pay them. 

One group of venues that provided bookings were the Student Unions in Universities and Polytechnics around the country.

However, that’s another story for another day.

Today’s blog post is all about the venues that were once the backbone of any tour but have since withered on the vine: venues that got repurposed, reimagined or, most likely, razed to the ground. 

As my point of reference, I dug out one of my old scrapbooks (remember them?) and found some bygone tour dates for an up and coming band called Girl. 

They were managed by Don Arden (infamous father of Sharon Osbourne) and signed to the Jet record label. 

In 1980 the glam five piece had put out a couple of singles and just released their debut album 'Sheer Greed'. 

They’d already supported some big hitters and in April/May were embarking on their first serious UK jaunt as headliners. (Within two years they’d split up; their guitarist Phil Collen jumped ship to Def Leppard - where he remains to this day. Phil Lewis their flamboyant singer – who at the time was dating Britt Eckland – is now the frontman with LA Guns.) 

But let’s go back and see where they went in that Spring of 1980. and what has happened to those venues since.

The Marquee Club, Soho – for a London band the Marquee would have made a great homecoming/end of tour gig, but Girl decided to kick things off there. The club, which had moved from Oxford Street in 1964 to the location most people remember on Wardour Street, shut its doors for the last time in 1988 after it was deemed unsafe (they blamed a quarter of a century of noise vibration!). It’s now prime West London real estate in the guise of Soho Lofts and a poncy restaurant. I knew the club well and still miss it dearly.

Then off to Wales and the Troubadour Club in Port Talbot - a basement dive under the Aberafan Shopping Centre. In 2024 after being frozen in time for more than 30 years, they fumigated it and opened it again very briefly for a photographic exhibition featuring many images of the club taken in its heyday.

Malvern Winter Gardens – shut in 1990

St. Albans City Hall – now the Alban Arena.

Leeds Fforde Grene – A pub gig! Alas, it closed in 2004 and is now an ethnic supermarket.

Middlesborough's Rock Garden – in a four-year window it was an intimate little rock club home to punks and rockers alike. It closed later the same year.

Retford Porterhouse – I was there! Home of AC/DC’s first UK gig in 1976 – the owners shut up shop in 1980 and went on to open Rock City in Nottingham – a club I still frequent.

Cheltenham Town Hall – still open.

Blackpool Norbreck Castle Hotel – still open.

Sheffield Top Rank – now the O2 Academy albeit it’s been closed for the last couple of years due to the RAAC concrete scare.

The Boat Club, Nottingham – still open. Led Zeppelin played there. My son’s band Trippin’ Over Wah played there!

Bristol Locarno – from 1961-1998 it was a hotbed for live music. People still talk about Bowie’s gig there in ’72 with The Spiders. Owned by Mecca it was demolished in the late 90s with the O2 now sitting on part of the old site.

Cardiff Top Rank - from 1963-1982 it played host to everyone from The Beatles to U2. Demolished in 2005.

High Wycombe Town Hall – still open.

Newcastle Mayfair – a 1500 capacity ballroom built in 1961. All the great and good played here (The Who, Pink Floyd, The Clash). It was demolished in 1999.

Bradford University – still open.

Exeter Routes – now a Pentecostal Church.

Gravesend Woodville Hall – still open.

Manchester Polytechnic – the campus at Cavendish House was closed in 1982.

Glasgow College of Technology – now Glasgow Caledonian University – no longer a live music venue.

Aberdeen University – the Gallowgate campus was demolished in 2002.

Dundee University – no longer a live music venue.

St Andrew’s University – still open.

Cleethorpes Winter Gardens – a venue whose name alone conjures up a period in time that’s long gone. Roxy Music, Free, the Sex Pistols; they all trod the boards there. It was also a renowned Northern Soul meet up. But the wrecking ball came a callin’ in 2007.

Wakefield Unity Hall – still open.

Abertillery Metropol Theatre - still open.

Folkstone Leas Cliff Hall - still open.

Rickmansworth Civic Hall – still open.

Dunstable Queensway – demolished in 2000.

West Runton Pavilion - a legendary coastal venue. I know Alan wants to say a few words about this place but I feel honoured to have been there before it was razed to the ground in 1986. 

So, of the 30 venues that Girl played on that tour, only 12 remain. 

60% of the venues have gone.

Forever. 

And with the odd exception (I’m thinking of The Marquee), you won’t even find a blue plaque where these proud clubs once stood. 

As someone who is passionate about live music and psychogeography this is a double blow. The erosion of culture and architecture is something we should all be worried about, not just musicians. With pubs too closing at an alarming rate, the number of venues available to up-and-coming bands is forever dwindling. 

The message couldn’t be clearer – support live music!

John Medd

John Medd is a blogger and photographer with an unhealthy obsession with the 1970s. When not writing about The Sweet over at Are We There Yet? he can be found taking photographs of puddles.

Thanks very much to John. 

I shall indeed be saying something about West Runton Club and am going to pay a visit to the site in a few week's time as there's an event I'm speaking at in the neighbourhood.... then I'll finish my piece on the venue.

Apr 4: Ticket Stub #5: Roy Harper

Before the days when you have your ticket as a QR code or bar code on your phone - even animated for particular gigs.

I'm going to share some of my old ticket stubs which I took some pictures of.

This concert was one of many that I saw Roy Harper perform - sometimes alone and sometimes with his son Nick. I saw him all over the country from the east coast to the west.

Roy is remembered of course on two classic albums. 

First there's Led Zeppelin's 'Hats off to Roy (Harper) from Led Zeppelin III. He also sang backing vocals on 'Have a Cigar' by Pink Floyd.

And also on David Gilmour's self-titled first solo album from 1978, he recorded a version of Roy's song 'Short and Sweet'. Roy recently did a farewell tour, and still sounds good. There are some classic tracks that he has recorded over the years. One of them is 'Commune', which always reminds me of a friend Caroline.

And of course he has to finish with 'Same old Rock' - which featured Jimmy Page on guitar.