| Stick it up your diary |
[Oct. 26th, 2009|07:52 am] |
Here's a new thing:

As you might guess even without clicking that banner (and you'll certainly find out if you do) this is London Gigs, a new one-stop guide to live music in London.
You might wonder why we need a London gig guide, when we've already got the likes of Time Out, the NME, and various other event listing resources. But the trouble with these is that they're often a bit of a fart-about to use, and tend to be biased towards the big names and the big shows.
Let's see if I can prove my point by testing the two big ones...
The NME gig guide doesn't even have an intuitive link on the NME website these days - it now lurks behind the word 'Tickets' which takes you to a ticket-selling page for various big names. The actual gig guide is behind another link, as if it's not all that important (which, in today's celebs 'n' stars driven NME, it probably isn't).
When you eventually get there, you'll find a UK-wide guide with - again - a bias towards the big names. Last night I tried it out by putting 'London' into the search box to filter out a London only list - and the top few entries included upcoming shows by ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, and Mel C out of the Spice Girls. Not what you'd call cutting edge stuff, and probably not even appropriate for the NME gig guide (I imagine the NME's sales to the Bee Gees fanbase are pretty minimal). Being a kindly soul, I gave the NME the benefit of the doubt and searched for 'Lydia Lunch', who I know has a London gig in the works. The search came up blank. Well, so much for the NME.
Time Out is still a good bet for general London stuff, but of course Time Out isn't just a London publication any more. The first thing you do when you go to the Time Out website is choose your city - from a list that includes Berlin, Boston, Rome, Israel (which isn't actually a city, something Time Out seems a little confused about), Edinburgh, Vancouver, Moscow, Beijing, and Kuala Lumpur.
Still in test mode, I selected 'London'. Then I clicked on 'Music', and was faced with...er, a photo of Robbie Williams. The gig guide itself is behind yet another link. Once there, it seems pretty comprehensive, and certainly includes the kind of noiseniks I'm interested in. But it also lists the likes of Shakin' Stevens and Fleetwood Mac (75 quid at Wembley Arena? I don't think so!) So, too much hassle to get there, and still too much excess baggage - and, incidentally, no Lydia Lunch gig, either.
It seems there's a vacancy for a simple click-and-you're-there London gig guide that filters out the easy listening, but does include the interesting stuff, the noisy stuff, the weird stuff, the obscure stuff, the underground stuff - and Lydia Lunch. That's what London Gigs is all about. It's very new, but there's already lots listed - including several gigs I didn't know about, but hastily scribbled on my calendar as soon as I spotted them. Who knew The Legendary Pink Dots are playing soon? I didn't - but that one's on my personal list now.
A few gigs are flagged up as particularly interesting. You can see which gigs are recommended by zines such as The Organ, Suba Cultcha and, er, Nemesis To Go. Yes, you can have a good laugh at the kind of 'orrible rackets I think are worth your attention. But overall I think this site does the business. If you're a London gig-goer, I'd say it's a good idea to go here first.
If you're a band, a promoter, or a venue with upcoming events you'd like to see listed on the site, or even if you just happen to know about a gig or two that's looming up, by all means submit the details. As I said up there, this is a new thing and there will inevitably be a few gaps until everything gets into its stride. If you spot a gap, or if you have some extra info relating to the gigs already there, or if you see a correction that needs to be made, there's a handy email link for you to shove in the info. The more info that gets shoved in, the better the gig guide becomes...
Don't send stuff to me, because apart from contributing a few bits and pieces of info that I happen to know, and recommending one or two particularly interesting gigs (in my head, anyway), London Gigs is nuffin' to do with me. All the contacts are on the site itself.
Oh, and that Lydia Lunch gig? Saturday November 7 at the Lexington. The only reason it's not one of my recommendations is that the Organ recommended it first! |
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