BIG M’s MIGHTY PROBE

Anyone familiar with the nightlife in St. Albans, will be aware if you like bands churning out the same, uninspired dull cover versions, there is a very popular music scene in the City. However, if you like original music performed by independent, original bands where do you go? There are, by my reckoning only two venues now that promote original music. If you want to see something different you’ve really gotta go out of town. For example (Shout out here to Kev Saunders’ Kevolution in Hertford)

However, that was then and this is now! And the fight back for original bands playing in St. Albans starts here! (OK so it starts on August 26th)

The Perfect Pop Co-Op have teamed up with The Mad Squirrel Tap, a St.Albans pub who, on the August Bank Holiday weekend are putting on ‘Mad Fest’ - a weekend featuring good Beer, great Pizza and Music including on Saturday 26th ‘St Albans Indie-Pendents Day’ where five original bands and artists will be bringing you an eclectic mix of original styles and songs.

We at the Perfect Pop Co-Op were delighted when The Mad Squirrel Tap asked us to curate the Saturday of the festival and in preparation in for our huge team up, I chatted with James - the manager of the pub about the gig and his plans for live music at his establishment in the future.

BigM!: Hello James, pleasure to meet you, let’s kick off… tell me what you are trying to do here, you wanna put on live music?

James, Mad Squirrel Tap: Yeah, so we have live music already, every Friday from 8 ’till 10, but more local bands, local solos, duos who only really play covers. So we thought it would be sort of interesting to link up with yourselves and do something thats not really happening enough in St. Albans at the moment, and bring something different, which obviously your concept of St. Albans ‘Indie-Pendents Day’ in music is a really, really good idea.

So, if we can do that over a Bank Holiday, and maybe start something that could be exciting moving forward… Yeah it should be good!

BigM!: Yeah, we’ve discussed before it’s very difficult for original bands to get gigs in St. Albans…

JMST: Massively…. Yeah…

BigM!: … so it’s really good you guys are gonna give original bands an opportunity to show what they can do and it sort of puts your pub on the map and hopefully, if it builds, it puts St. Albans back on the map, you know as a cultural centre you know?

JMST: Yeah, massively and obviously the live music scene has never really gone away, but it has kinda disappeared from certain areas. I mean it’s still massive in London, it’s still massive in Manchester, Leeds, all the bigger places, but it’s the local towns where it’s kinda died away from what it used to be, especially when I was younger, where every week you used to go out and see your Mate’s bands and stuff like that, where as now it’s just not as available as it used to be. So hopefully we work towards bringing a little bit of that back.

BigM!: What sort of stuff were you into? Or what are you into ? You like more Hardcore stuff?

JMST: So…. I kind of… erm …I went to University and studied Audio Recording Production and my mates have always been in various bands, various different genres…

BigM!: O.K…

JMST: …I’m one of those classic people who says ‘I’m into everything’, but I more into a little bit of everything, so I’ve listened to Hardcore Punk, I’ve listened to… I’m massively into Blues… Delta Blues…Old Skool Hip-Hop…

BigM!: So, if I had to nail you down, and make you say what your favourite band or artist is, who would it be?

JMST: I’d have to say, just because of growing up with them, the band I listened to the most was The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

BigM!: O.K.

JMST: But thats growing up… My Dad showing me them and going through everything like that.

BigM!: Yeah, I sometimes think your first band is a bit like your first Girlfriend…

JMST: Yes!

BigM!: … in the sense you never forget them…

JMST: Massively!

BigM!: I mean I used to LOVE, when I was growing up Queen. I don’t really like them now, what they stand for now, but I still look back very fondly on those… the first gig I ever went to was Queen at Knebworth…

JMST: Yeah yeah, it’s memories isn’t it?

BigM!: … which really stands out in the memory.

Big M!: So, I’m kinda optimistic person, I’m sure St. Albans ‘Indie-Pendents Day’ will go really, really well, so working on that basis, whats the future? Do you wanna get something regular going?

I think it’s about time we started to build a scene in St. Albans again.

JMST: Well, thats, yeah… thats… if anything is successful, we obviously need to do it again… ‘cos everyone wants… success from both our parts… so yeah, if we can make this the start of something, then great, yeah, perfect! Let’s move on! I’m all about having every kinda event we can possibly do here and I think this is a very good, really exciting that I hope really goes well and I’m very enthusiastic about.

BigM!: I think… our record label… our philosophy is just get up off of your arse and do it!

JMST: Yeah.

BigM!: You can sit around hoping for things to change, but really you have to make things happen yourself.

JMST: Of course.

BigM!: But in saying that, you can’t always do things on your own. It takes a coming togehter of like minded people to get something going, so I think it’s really cool, that you’re open minded… and you know, receptive to doing something different and hopefully we can move on and build from this.

JMST: Yeah… yeah I think thats a very fair comment and I think definitely it’s… I completely agree, you do have to go out and get things, you have to work hard and things are not just handed to you on a plate, and I’m sure this won’t get handed to us on a plate and we’ll have to work hard and promote hard and market it properly to make it a successful event as possible.

But, I’m sure together we can do that and yeahI’m REALLY looking forward to it!

BigM!: Brilliant! Thank you for your time James. See you August 26th!

JMST: A pleasure. Thank you.