Shake off the flu, ease up on dry Jan­u­ary and get out to a gig this week – all in order to sup­port Inde­pen­dent Venue Week, which takes place between Mon­day 23 – Sun­day 29 January. 

148 venues around the UK are tak­ing part in IVW this year. The project, which is staged nation­al­ly but retains a strong local focus, will see venues from across the whole coun­try host­ing spe­cial shows. Good to see 51 new venues this year. These include The John Peel Cen­tre in Stow­mar­ket, Halifax’s Grayston Uni­ty which has a capac­i­ty of just 18, The Bun­ga­low in Pais­ley and London’s icon­ic Roundhouse. 

Tim Burgess, front­man of The Char­la­tans, solo artist and author is this year’s ambas­sador. He says: “Inde­pen­dent venues are where every band starts and where music fans get to see emerg­ing tal­ent. With­out them bands would not get a chance for their all-impor­tant first home­town gigs and sub­se­quent tours. These venues and bands need our sup­port and the best way you can do that is by hav­ing a night out. Lots of venues are clos­ing – we def­i­nite­ly need to stick togeth­er and stop this happening.”

There are Inde­pen­dent Venue Week shows tak­ing place across the UK under Burgess’ Tim Peaks ban­ner.

 

The venue I’m focus­ing on is in Fins­bury Park: the WORLD’S END pub, hand­i­ly just by the tube sta­tion. Lor­raine Solomons of Play New and Suc­cess Express has host­ed many fan­tas­tic gigs here, and is pas­sion­ate about keep­ing all the small venues going. On Thurs­day 26th there’s Pen­ny Lane Music on the line­up plus James Riley Emma Stevens Louis Dun­ford and  Edmund Jef­fery. There are three more nights of music to fol­low. Gigs are free, but there’s a sug­gest­ed £2 vol­un­tary dona­tion to the The Joe Strum­mer Foun­da­tion .

Worlds End pub poster

Oth­er Inde­pen­dent Music Week shows include spe­cial gigs from Simi­an Mobile Dis­co, Martha Wain­wright, BBC Sound of 2017 longlist artists Cab­bage and Declan McKen­na as well as Goat Girl.

The Trades Club, Heb­den Bridge (pic­tured top), is sold out of Richard Haw­ley tick­ets (though you can WIN tick­ets, check out their Face­book page) but there are still tick­ets for Cass McCoombs.

More gigs, artists and part­ners will be announced over the com­ing days and weeks through IVW social media chan­nels so keep a look out!

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