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Sligo's music scene!!!

smurfrockstar

I've been in Sligo for about two years now and since I arrived the music scene especially live has gone from fairly bad to ****ing terrible. What's the deal?? McGarrigles were running live gigs there for a while and I got to see The Things, Delorentos and possibly a few more who's names escape me, but that seems to be gone down the swany!! The Left Bank, closed, so the only indie club that there was is gone (that I know of anyway) and another live venue disappeared. Now I do see a few bands around, Seamy O'Dowd etc. but in all honesty there's only so much of the Jazz Lads in The Strand that I can take. As for clubs, Christ, Envy, sorry I'm over the age of 12 so that's out, Toffs, not terrible but not exactly great either and Velvet, well for a start I hate Grease, I'm not a woman and I most certainly am not a member of a hen night, EVER, besides I could set my watch to the nano second just by listening to the playlist. Now apparently the Clarence is a different kettle of fish but also it's not meant to be the same as the old clarence which, to be honest mean s nothing to me cause I wasn't around for the old one and I haven't been to the new one.

So then my question is am I just not looking hard enough or am I missing something really obvious. I've asked around a fair bit and mostly what I get is shrugged shoulders and I don't knows. Why isn't there more young bands around Sligo and if there are why the hell aren't they playing any gigs. You might've guessed I like my music alternative or live and generally I'm not interested in the fiddlers, Velvet, chipper, taxi routine Saturday night (mainly cause I'd like to wake up the next morning and think, remember they played that tune last night I haven't heard in ages as opposed to 'did you notice the dj played the jackson five slightly later than usual last night). So anyway to wrap this up, HELP, JESUS CHRIST, HELP BEFORE I MASSACRE THE ENTIRE OF VELVET IF I HEAR JOHN TRAVOLTA START WARBLING AGAIN!!!!:eek:;)

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guinnessdrinker

It's true. Finding good live music in Sligo town at the weekends is very difficult. It's a pity. In Bundoran which is not that far away but a lot smaller than Sligo, they get great live bands almost every week. Why can't we get that in Sligo?

I'm sick of dj's playing the same songs week in, week out. Some of them are really annoying too. One time a few of us where in a pub and we asked the dj for a rockin rory gallagher song and he replied "I don't know who he is and even if I knew, I wouldn't play him"

I always thought if they EJ's relocated from the building that they are in, it would have made a really good live music venue in the centre of the town.

smurfrockstar

There's no end of harm that I'd do to that DJ, don't know who Rory Gallagher is. There definitely should be a law banning people like that from stepping behind a set of decks. EJ's would be a class music venue now that you say it.

Where's good for music in Fundoran???

guinnessdrinker

In Bundoran Bootleggers and the Chasin Bull have a lot of live music as well as the Astoria Warf on certain nights, even during the week.

il gatto

Busiest club in town is Velvet. That's all you need to know. 80% of people don't know or care about music. Therefore, the largest single group out on a Saturday night have crap taste in music. People running pubs and clubs think "80% of people like crap music, therefore we'll play crap music and get loads of people". The net result is most places looking for a piece of that crowd. Unfortunately the more you split that crowd, the smaller the pieces are. Hence town being a dead hole on Fridays. And having no good music or live music of any kind.
The ironic thing is, if someone catered for the crowd that McGarrigle's used to have 7-8 years ago, the Journeyman's crowd, the Garavogue crowd etc. they'd be full most nights, because even though it's a smaller crowd than the booty shaking kids in Toffs, gyrating to Timbaland's lastest opus, you'd have a captive audience.
And lets be fair to Envy here. They're the student club. They don't try and pass themselves off as anything fancier. Toffs is full of younger people now as well. It's living on it's reputation of having an older crowd. That's no longer true though. Velvet is all about the glitz and the hen nights. People go there to pose and dance badly. The Clarence is trying to be like a cool Velvet. They even trumped Velvet on ticket price (€12.50? Not a very round number). The problem is, the crowd they used to have liked the down at heel, we're all drunk and who cares vibe. The music's o.k. now, but the venue feels a bit trendy.
Because pub owners have given up on most nights of the week, very few people go out. On a Friday, you'll find almost no D.J.s (hurrah) and no bands. That means the clubs are quiet, because nobody goes to a club unless they've been in the pub for a few. And why go to a dead pub with sh1te music on a jukebox?

smurfrockstar

Cheers guinnessdrinker I'll start checking out a few of those places.

Il Gatto, fair deuce, that's the best reasoning I've heard for the music scene from anyone. I've lived in a few places at this stage and there's always been some outlet for live music and alternative tastes but I can't argue with simple economics if you want to pull in the crowds you play what most people will listen to, it's just good business and in fairness to all the clubs mentioned they cater for that brilliantly. It's just a shame to see that the alternative scene has taken a nose dive over the last few months.

Also it probably doesn't help that I was in a band for ages and was an indie DJ (yeah I know taken out back and shot) with my level of frustration. There's a hell of a lot of talented musicians out there that don't seem to have an outlet in town.

gucci

guinnessdrinker wrote: »

One time a few of us where in a pub and we asked the dj for a rockin rory gallagher song and he replied "I don't know who he is and even if I knew, I wouldn't play him"

You had enough reason to strangle him there and then in my opinion. Also +1 for the idea of turning EJs into a music venue! Havent been around sligo in a while. Does the trades club still do any crazy live music? Can be good sometimes!

brianthebard

There's a music scene in Sligo??? Em I agree with all points made so far, except that there are some good festivals in the summer, between the jazz and the sligo live, but that doesn't exactly keep you going for twelve months. Castlebar seems to be a hot new happening place since the Royal theatre opened/got their act together(whichever it was). I've always thought sligo could do with a place like that, and especially with that fantastic road to dublin we have now, you would think that it would be financially viable for some business person.

Sidenote: does anyone here play an instrument? I'd be nice to jam with people, my guitar playing hasn't progressed in ages.

smurfrockstar

Castlebar, another place I shall have to check out. Excellent keep 'em coming. Brianthebard, yep unfortunately I play guitar and bass!! Also your right about the festivals and that brings me to another point, live music definitely picks up through the summer but them dies off in the rest of the time which is a bit weird because you'd think that the return of the students to college and stuff would cause some kind of demand, I know when I was in college I spent an awful lot of time, well drunk but at gigs. Now it's possible I'm showing my age here and no one goes to gigs in college anymore or is it the laws of economics again that if people go to gigs they won't go to clubs???

gustavo

It's pretty dire alright , In Ballina where I work and live all week , there's a pub that has a band live every night , pity theres nothing like that in sligo .

il gatto

Most towns, even much smaller than Sligo semm to be able to sustain at least one live music pub. Any Thursday, Friday, Saturday or even Sunday, I imagine you'd find some sort of band playing in Donegal, Ballyshannon, Ballina, Castlebar, Carrick or somewhere like them. The only way Sligo will get such a place will be if someone who really loves music takes over a pub in town. I'm thinking small pub with good music and no pretensions. like mcGarrigles used to be, or the Weir. Good times:cool:
By the way, Futureheads are playing in the Clarence on Thursday, I think. I've also heard it's free in. Which blows my argument about no music in Sligo out of the water. It's a rare exception though, so enjoy it while it lasts.:)

guinnessdrinker

The Weir, I remember that name but I'm going mad trying to think where it was. Was it where O'Neills on the mall is now?

Gillie

Yeah. Was Suzies aswell!

smurfrockstar

The Futureheads are playing the Clarence on Thursday night. It's part of the heineken green sphere's set of free concerts. Been trying to get tickets but can't. Anyone interested in going though get onto greenspheres.com (or just google it) and beg on the forums for an invite. Was at a few of the old green energy gigs when they were called that and saw nightmares on wax and the scissor sisters, both great gigs. You get sent an e-mail and you print off the ticket and you're in, pretty cool and nice to see that some promoters some where are putting on such a gig up here. With any luck it might galvanize the local music scene a bit. Definitely be nice to see some local bands playing around the place.

lubie76

I completely agree about the crap music scene in Sligo and the Futureheads are definitely a welcome exception this Thursday.

A couple of pubs tried the live music thing and it didn’t work. I worked in one of the busier bars in town up to two years ago and they tried live music on a Monday night and it didn’t take off. Students were more interested in the student bars where they had Dj’s playing the usual chart drivel with the odd ‘Galway girl’ thrown in. Not much fun for a band playing to an empty pub when the student bar up the road is jam packed.

The place on Markievicz road beside Mollys (Bootleggers?) also had some great bands and it was dead even on a Thursday and Friday night. The problem is the only people who go out during the week are students and at the weekends the bars know they will be busy anyway so why bother pay a band to come in.

il gatto

In most university towns, you'll find the Arts students will populate live music venues to a larger degree than business or engineering. Seeing as Sligo has no Arts courses, there's less people who see themselves as serious music lovers. I know it sounds like a sweeping generalisation, but it's actually true. You wouldn't get too many philosophy students dancing to the Hills of Donegal. It's a snobbery thing with them. It's beneath them (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that). They tend towards more left of field music, which is where most young bands see themselves.
If a student bar in Sligo gets a band, it's one that bashes out chart music and musty "classics", in a wedged venue and cheap vodka. It's not an appealing place to be. The students don't seem to care about the music as long as they know it and it's loud. That's not true for all of them, but enough to dictate music policy around Sligo during the week.

JIZZLORD

il gatto wrote: »

You wouldn't get too many philosophy students dancing to the Hills of Donegal. It's a snobbery thing with them. It's beneath them (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that).

i wouldnt base everything on snobbery. lots of people just dont like cheese.
i was out one night in galway while my friends were busking and the amout of fellas asking for the sawdoctors and girls asking to play galway girl was obscene, if the lads knew this material they would have made a killing.

anyway. town seems to have gone to the dogs. i remember when the clarence was the kind of scuzzy place where most pleople wouldnt be seen dead, but their rock and metal nights pwned.
when they closed the crowd shifted to the garavogue, except the music was a bit more sophisticated.
with the left bank gone the arse has fallen out of the scene. even mc garrigles is a shadow of what it used to be. they could make a killing if they opened the upstairs etc.

SligoBrewer

Meh. Sligo's scene really does leave a lot to be desired.

Still though, I did enjoy seeing Delorentos in McGarrigle's and I do hope to see the Futureheads with a bit of luck.

il gatto

JIZZLORD wrote: »

i wouldnt base everything on snobbery. lots of people just dont like cheese.
i was out one night in galway while my friends were busking and the amout of fellas asking for the sawdoctors and girls asking to play galway girl was obscene, if the lads knew this material they would have made a killing.

anyway. town seems to have gone to the dogs. i remember when the clarence was the kind of scuzzy place where most pleople wouldnt be seen dead, but their rock and metal nights pwned.
when they closed the crowd shifted to the garavogue, except the music was a bit more sophisticated.
with the left bank gone the arse has fallen out of the scene. even mc garrigles is a shadow of what it used to be. they could make a killing if they opened the upstairs etc.

I did say it's not all of them, but if you go to Envy on a student night when they have a big D.J. like Tall Paul, Judge Jules or next Rag Week, sebastien Ingrosso, the front bar and the back bar fill with far more people than usual, while the dance floor is quieter than usual. It's because the other bars are banging out Barbi Girl, Goats Don't Shave and The Spice Girls. In general, the students don't give a toss about music. There's a large element of music lovers amongst the students in Sligo and there's a large element of Galway students who wouldn't know their New York Dolls from their Pussycat Dolls. But if there were that many Sligo students who don't like cheese, how come they couldn't sustain one pub playing that sort of music?

fozzle

This really sucks. It's not like the musicians aren't there, the bars just seem to have no interest in booking them. I've heard some great bands/musicians in Sligo since I moved here - in McGariggles and at the Ósta sessions that were in kast year. I find it hard to believe that in a town the size of Sligo that we couldn't support one decent live music night a week, surely there's more than a dozen people in this town with (dare I say it?) decent taste in music?

tuppence

What about Barrys in Grange. is that mainly a trad pub or whats the deal?
Do buses go from town anyway?

il gatto

Barry's tends towards blues and folk as well as trad. It's nice and all, but nothing beats a proper, full on rock band. There's only sporadic occurances in the town of such music. TBH there's not much trad or even one guy with a guitar around either.

gustavo

il gatto wrote: »

In most university towns, you'll find the Arts students will populate live music venues to a larger degree than business or engineering. Seeing as Sligo has no Arts courses, there's less people who see themselves as serious music lovers. I know it sounds like a sweeping generalisation, but it's actually true. You wouldn't get too many philosophy students dancing to the Hills of Donegal. It's a snobbery thing with them. It's beneath them (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that). They tend towards more left of field music, which is where most young bands see themselves.
If a student bar in Sligo gets a band, it's one that bashes out chart music and musty "classics", in a wedged venue and cheap vodka. It's not an appealing place to be. The students don't seem to care about the music as long as they know it and it's loud. That's not true for all of them, but enough to dictate music policy around Sligo during the week.

To be fair to them ,When I was a young first year I would frequent those wedged venues with cheap vodka and crap music

But I wasnt there for the music so it didnt bother me , so I think it would be unfair to say that people that frequent those places have no interest in music , its just that an alternative wasn't presented to them and /or it's the place where the crowd went so you just go there l

il gatto

That's what I mean though. There used to be live music in both the Left Bank/Garavogue and McGarrigles, but the students only wanted to be where the majority of their kind was i.e. the Leitrim, O'Neills or Shenanigans. If they had a real interest in music, they would seek it out. A passing interest, superceeded by drinking with mates and jumping around to House of Pain. I'm sure some really love their music, but they didn't show much signs of it when asking D.J.s to play Sweet Caroline (yet again).

SligoBrewer

il gatto wrote: »

I'm sure some really love their music, but they didn't show much signs of it when asking D.J.s to play Sweet Caroline (yet again).

Nothing wrong with some Neil Diamond:mad:

il gatto

Indeed there isn't. Remember "Devil Woman" with Jack Black:D Still, lepping around with a double vodka singing "Oh, Oh, Oh" is hardly condusive to a thriving live music scene in Sligo.

brianthebard

JIZZLORD wrote: »

i wouldnt base everything on snobbery. lots of people just dont like cheese.
i was out one night in galway while my friends were busking and the amout of fellas asking for the sawdoctors and girls asking to play galway girl was obscene, if the lads knew this material they would have made a killing.

anyway. town seems to have gone to the dogs. i remember when the clarence was the kind of scuzzy place where most pleople wouldnt be seen dead, but their rock and metal nights pwned.
when they closed the crowd shifted to the garavogue, except the music was a bit more sophisticated.
with the left bank gone the arse has fallen out of the scene. even mc garrigles is a shadow of what it used to be. they could make a killing if they opened the upstairs etc.

Yeah mcgarrigles was pretty good for gigs, went to see some metal act a few years ago. Only problem is its too small-I mean its "intimate" etc, but its far too small to sustain any sort of scene.

Rozbeef

The Futureheads tonight

guinnessdrinker

brianthebard wrote: »

Yeah mcgarrigles was pretty good for gigs, went to see some metal act a few years ago. Only problem is its too small-I mean its "intimate" etc, but its far too small to sustain any sort of scene.

Yeah Mcgarrigles, is a good pub but upstairs is too small for large gigs. I mean, if there is any more than 3 people in the band by the time their equipment, drumkit, speakers are set up there is not a lot of room left for a big crowd.

starbelgrade

The main problem with the music scene in Sligo is not the promoters or the lack of venues - it's the punters. And I should know, being both a band member and a punter!

We supported Delorentos in McGarrigles & there was only around 50 people there, despite being well advertised and despite it being the only gig in town that evening. Most people were happy enough to stand out in the smoking area & listen to the music from there rather than pay the €7 (or whatever it was) to get in. Susbesquent gig attendances were hit & miss... I only know this coz I know the promoter. I was too lazy to go to any of the gigs!

Different story when the likes of Sligo Live is on, or Heineken Green Energy. It seems there's not enough local interest to support local or visiting bands, so that's why there's no music scene in Sligo. If you can't afford to pay the band's expenses, it's not worth the effort.

il gatto

Sligo Live was a disapointment. Not because of the main gigs, but because I expected every pub(or alot of pubs) in town to have bands playing all weekend. Like a rock Fleadh.
There's not enough people willing to go see bands and there's not enough pub owners willing to pay them. With expensive drink prices and taxis, less people seem to go into town from the country and outlying towns as well.
Any pub of any size in Sligo are looking for the pre-Velvet/Toffs crowd. That means if you go to McHugh's, Fiddler's etc. you get to hear the sames songs you'll be subjected to later on in the clubs.
There are less local bands around in the last few years too. It's no surprise, seeing as no venue will have them and even finding rehearsal space is tricky, as there's so few community centers and gaining access can be difficult. That's part of the reason many bands don't make it out of school. Once you leave, there's no facilities. I don't know if St. Annes is still running, but they weren't too keen on anyone older than 22-23 using the place.