We built this city (Bath) on rock and roll....

As regular readers of this blog will know, I am, to put it mildly, something of a fan of modern music.

For much of my tender 46 years I’ve loved listening to music and attending live concerts and in many ways my love of rock music (in most of its shades) has been one of the most consistent, grounding facts of my life.

And that is why I was particularly thrilled this week to see the formation of a new group – Bath Music Plus – whose intention is to try to put the city on the rock map once again by bringing a number of high-profile concerts to The Forum and beyond.

The first announcement – that Queen guitarist Brian May is to appear at the venue and also that the much-loved Bootleg Beatles are to play an open air free concert on the day of the Royal Wedding – are an intriguing first course for what we hope will be a sumptuous banquet of music that will put Bath back in the minds of those who promote major rock and pop events.

As the organisers have said, this is the city that has already hosted bands such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who and Led Zeppelin and so why shouldn’t we once again start thinking big in terms of which acts we can bring to the city in the future?

That is not to say however that since those early ’70s halcyon days at The Pavilion that we haven’t had some great shows in the city, and if you doubt that then can I suggest you head to the website of our precious Moles to see who they have put on in recent years.

Massive indie rock groups such as Radiohead, The Cure, The Smiths, The Killers, James and Snow Patrol have all successfully trod the boards at Moles and probably the biggest commercial band of the ’90s, Oasis, also did one of their formative gigs there (receiving the princely sum of £150 for doing so I am led to believe).

And, for those who saw The Brits on Tuesday and wondered who this band were called Mumford & Sons who won the best album of the year award, well, you could have caught them at Moles not too long ago when they were first developing their now famous set.

With The Pavilion still putting on interesting concerts and Komedia also being able to stage decent size rock/jazz bands, all that we’ve really been missing locally is that slightly bigger venue for those who are probably beyond the audience base that Moles can handle but are not yet up to O2 status. And The Forum is a perfect venue to bridge this gap.

It is a lovely central venue where you can watch music in comfortable surroundings and is close enough to the bus and train links to ensure it can attract those from outside the city as well as music-hungry locals.

Therefore I really wish Bath Music Plus every success in attracting the sort of acts who can remind the wider rock and pop scene that Bath is a place that can cope with everything from Mozart to Motorhead.Bath is a great city of music. This is an opportunity to show the world it is open to all possible genres.

Rock on Bath.

Time to get the old band back together again?

One of the many things that I love about Bath is that it really is a city that respects and reveres music. Whether your tastes are for the Mozart Festival or for Moles, there is something in this city for everyone. It truly is a community paved with melodies.

But it is not just the opportunity to get out and hear lots of different styles of music that makes Bath come alive – for this is a city that positively encourages people to make music all of their own. So, if you are in any length of queue with locals in Bath, the chances are at least one of them is in a choir, gospel group, rock band, jazz outfit et al.

Yes, this is a city of music.

It is for that reason that I am particularly thrilled this week to launch our Song for Bath competition to try to encourage people to write a tune that will encapsulate the city as it is now.

Inspired by the very enthusiastic brains behind the project, Paddy Doyle, it didn’t take long for us to see this as a wonderful opportunity to turn the creativity that is so evident in the Bath musical community into a fun competition. So, whether your tastes are for light orchestra or, err, the Electric Light Orchestra, we hope you’ll think about creating a tune which could lead to some great prizes as well as the chance to perform in a grand final.

It seemed apt to me that we should be running this competition right now because I am personally thinking about doing that classical middle- aged thing – yes, I’m thinking of “getting the old band together” again.

As I grew up in the punk era where the ethos was “don’t go and watch bands, form them and do it yourself”, nearly all my friends and I found ourselves starting bands – and having a fantastic time doing so.

Some of those bands didn’t last very long – I once fronted a group called the Vatican City Dance Band which went no further than coming up with a spectacularly good name – but my longest-serving band was called The Classified Ads (somewhat apt considering I’m now in newspapers!) who were together for the best part of my secondary days.

It was a thrilling time – we only played to youth clubs and relatively small venues in our home town area but, if I say so myself, I think we penned one or two pretty good tunes along the way. Now, some 25 years since we split (millions of teenage girls were NOT heartbroken) there seems to be a yearning among us to do something again.

Inevitably, the five of us have gone down very different paths but we’ve sort of discovered each other again and now have set ourselves the goal of doing a one-off something in the year 2011.

Of course, there are many reasons why this could be an utter disaster – but whatever those fears, even the thought of getting back together again and seeing four of the most important people in my life is enough to get us somewhere.

So, if a jaded old punky “singer” from the ’80s is thinking about bashing out a tune again, there is no excuse for all of you out there not to enter our Bath song competition.And, to make it easy, I promise The Classified Ads won’t enter.

Or The Vatican City Dance Band.

Ex-Strangler Hugh Cornwell previews his Bath show

This is a piece I have done for the Bath Chronicle about Hugh Cornwell, the former lead singer of The Stranglers, and his appearance on November 18 at the city venue Moles. If you see this and can get to Bath next week there is a contest at the bottom of this to win tickets!!

Former Stranglers front man makes Moles debut

Hugh Cornwell, the locally-based former lead singer of The Stranglers, returns to Bath on Wednesday for a surprise second major show in the city this year.

The Box singer/songwriter, who played an extremely well-received concert at Komedia in March, will be making his first ever appearance at Moles as part of a warm-up for an important national tour, on Wednesday.

But, although it will be Hugh’s debut live show at Bath’s most famous venue, he is certainly no stranger to its underground delights.

“I’ve never played Moles before”, said Hugh. “I used to go there a lot in the past and thinking about it, I must have spent an awful lot of drinking money there.

“It was always a good place for seeing bands and I can remember seeing The Manic Street Preachers there before they broke. I also have some vague memory of The Stranglers doing some filming in Moles but I can’t remember what it was so perhaps that’s just one of those memories that doesn’t actually exist.”

The reason for Hugh’s quick return to Bath is for him to prepare for several high-profile national concerts which will sees him playing a set devoted to the classic 1977 Stranglers album Rattus Norvegicus and the other half to his solo album, Hoover Dam.

It’s the first time that Hugh will ever have done this ‘whole album concept’ and he says it just seemed a logical thing to do at this stage of his long and varied career.

“We have been touring extensively with Hoover Dam and it is an album the band and I really enjoy playing. The idea to do the whole of that record as well as the whole of Rattus came together when I realised how many of the songs from that first Stranglers album I already played and so it seemed like an interesting thing to run them all altogether and then do the same with the latest record. It will all make for a nice little show I think”

This means that fans of both Hugh’s past and current music should have a real treat. He will kick off with the whole of his latest album – which has been a huge success critically and has earned him an enormous amount of attention after being given away free to download – and after a break he will return to the stage and blast out all the songs of his first ever album with The Stranglers including such hits as Peaches and Grip as well as acknowledged Stranglers classics like Hanging Around and Down In The Sewer.

“There are only a couple of songs on Rattus that I haven’t done on my own before so I thought doing them would be fun. I don’t normally sing songs that other people in the band used to sing but it’s been good to revisit them and give them a new twist,” he said.

Before this mini-tour Hugh had been very active in America.

In Europe The Stranglers always had a big following and success, but in the United States it was something of a different story which is why Hugh is so determined to make his mark there this time around.

“Being a success in America is a real building process and you have to put the work in and leave a calling card everywhere you go. It’s something that we just never really did with The Stranglers. It takes time to make your mark over there and with The Stranglers we were never that bothered about doing that. We also left it far too long between each visit and I’m determined not to do that again. I’ve learned from my mistakes,” he said.

The fact that Hugh’s album can de downloaded free all around the world (visit http://www.hooverdamdownload.com/) will greatly help that process.

“A lot of people we played to seemed to know the Hoover Dam songs pretty well because of the whole free download situation. It meant that we could play just about anywhere and be sure of an audience because people could check out our album for free in the days running up to a show and then come along if they liked it.

“In the past it was only the bigger towns where we used to get an audience because our material wasn’t universally available – now you can play to as many people in a smaller town as in a bigger one. The internet knows no boundaries ands we have benefited from that.”

Before returning back to the States, Hugh is keenly-anticipating his concerts in the UK and it seems his work ethic and desire to play live has never been stronger. His reasons for that are quite clear: “I’m healthier now than I’ve ever been which certainly helps,” he said. “I also think as you get older you realise there’s only a short time left to be able to do what you do and you just want to be more active. If you sit around that time just goes. I don’t want to waste any time at all – and I think that’s part of the drive.”

As for Wednesday’s Bath show, Hugh says he’s really looking forward to returning to Moles.

“This concert has all fitted in perfectly and I’m really looking forward to it. Bath is just such a nice place and it has always been good to me,” he said.

Wednesday’s show starts at 7.30pm and any remaining tickets, costing £20, are available now from Moles and their usual outlets.

• The Bath Chronicle has two tickets to give away for the gig. If you would like to win the pair then send an email to kath@moles.co.uk with the answer to the question: in what year did Hugh and his fellow Stranglers release Rattus Norvegicus? The concert promoters will contact the winners direct.