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This is the home page for the News Section. Current news stories for 2009 will be added to this page.

Monday 21st December

Leicester band Formal Warning has been invited to play at a national festival in Belgium. The Five piece alternative/punk band have been invited to play at Nouvelle Vague 2010 in Genappe in February. The invitation is part of an English/Belgium twinning project. The event is also a competition for rock bands and has been running since 2004. The Braunstone based band are heading into the studio in January to record new material and have big plans for 2010. They will be playing at the Glastonbudget Festival in May and competing in Surface Unsigned, where they got into the top 10 in 2009.

You can see Formal Warning next when they team up with Neon Sarcastic early in the new year.

Monday 9th November.

The office for Arts in Leicestershire closed its doors for the last time, last week. The editor and reporters are now all working from home in their spare time. The business that hosted the office space for the magazine closed down, victim of the worsening recession. Unable to pay the rent for the office, LArts had to let it go.

Music promoters in bid to save Arts Centre

Leicester music promoters are trying to save the old Phoenix Arts Centre; they plan to turn it into a centre for young musicians, according to an article in The Leicester Mercury.

Thursday 8th October, The Charlotte

Legendary music venue The Charlotte re-opened tonight with a packed house line-up of top Leicester bands. The venue closed in January, when the owners Punch Taverns pulled the plug on it, later selling the property to a developer that has plans to convert the whole building into flats. A group of operators took it over, with plans to run it as a live music venue for the next six to nine months.

Inside, the same old Charlotte has had a lick of paint and some fresh new artwork on the walls, but is otherwise not greatly changed from the way it was earlier this year. The most significant change is that there is a new sound system, new mixing desk and speakers and new engineers to work it. Many music fans were upset when the venue was closed, lamenting the days when every top band in the UK played there, in the early stages of its career.

Nostalgia aside, does Leicester need another venue? There is no shortage of bands wanting to play here; the only shortage is that of fans willing to pay for tickets and drinks on a night out and that partly is why the venue closed in the first place: too many gigs with no audience.

Charlotte managers, we are told, have introduced a pay to play policy, requiring bands to pay a deposit for a place on the stage. So if they fail to sell enough tickets, bands might well have to cover the cost of their performance. What bedevils the local live music scene is gigs where band members play to each other. Too many bands and too many gigs for the available audience may be, but its the gig-goers who pay for the staffing and overhead costs of mounting live music events and if a band can't sell 10 tickets, should it really be playing public events? That's the issue the new managers in Oxford Street have had to address.

Tim Sturgess, Director of the Charlotte comments:

"Pay to play": It's not a phrase I would use for our system. We ask unsigned* bands to pay a deposit of 33 pounds, we then issue them with a min of 11 £3 tickets, when these tickest are returned on the night the deposit is refunded, any additional tickets sold we split 50-50. If 11 tickest are not sold they lose all or part of their deposit depending on the short fall. This money ensures we cover some of our costs on these types of nights, any money we do make gets re-invested back into The Charlotte to provide a better venue for these same bands. The Charlotte has around a 390 capacity and large over heads, if a band cant sell 11 tickets to their fans, friends mums, dads, brothers, grans,etc. then I am affaid The Charlotte is not the venue for them.

[* So would the same apply to signed bands?]

Read our review of the bands playing on the opening night.

Saturday 3rd October, The Shed

The Shed enjoyed a packed house tonight for the finals of the Winner Takes All Competition, organised by Silver Bullet Promotions. Six bands took to the stage to provide the crowd with an evening of first class live music.

Members of the audience balloted for first, second and third place choice of bands and the overall winner of the night was young Leicester band White Ashes. Weekend Schemers came second and Formal Warning came third.

The line up saw some of Leicester's most promising young bands take to the stage to give strong performances. The complete lineup in order of play was: Azidify, White Ashes, Weekend Schemers, Formal Warning, This Fallen Empire and The Big Bad I Said No.

Charlotte set to re-open on 8th October

Sources at Punch Taverns confirmed recently that the music venue in Oxford Street had been sold; they were unable to give us details of who the new owners are or what they plan to do with the building.

Unofficial sources tell us that the building, in which the Charlotte occupies the ground floor, has been purchased by a property developer, whose long term aim is to turn it into a block of flats. It is thought likely that the famous live music venue will operate for between six to none months before its fate is finally sealed.

Leicester Mercury names new Charlotte managers (8th September)

Saturday 12th September

Two winning places at the Regional Finals of Surface Unsigned were both won by bands from Leicester/shire. City band The Heroes and Shepshed band Slaine were selected by the panel of industry judges to go through to the national finals.

The Midlands Regional finals were held at Birmingham's Carling Academy on Saturday 12th September and 15 bands competed for three places to go through to the national event to be held at Indigo O2 in London (aka The Millenium Done.)

Northampton based indie band Invalid Confessions won the public vote and went through. The Heroes (Leicester) and Slaine (Shepshed) were selected by a panel of industry judges from the lineup of 15 hopefuls, playing that day on the Academy's main stage.

The young bands, one indie the other metal, will head down to the prestigious O2 Academy to fight for prizes in the national finals of this, the UK's biggest festival for unsigned bands.

Heats took place over five English and Welsh regions. Over 11,000 bands entered the competition this year.

Last year, the national finals was won by another Leicester band: The Chairmen (Hinckley.)

Leicester band Formal Warning are in the top ten of the competition for public voting.

Many Leicester/shire bands played at Surface Unsigned this year. See our coverage

Surface Unsigned

Leicester band plays out end of era stage

Market Bosworth band Dutch Courage earned the distinction of being the last band ever to play live on the main stage of Birmingham's Carling Academy. The venue closed down as the new O2 Academy opened in Horsfair (see below).

Tuesday 8th September

Academy Music Group’s new £5.5m venue, O2 Academy Birmingham will open on Thursday 10th September at 16-18 Horsefair, B1 1DB with a sell-out performance by Editors.

After nine years as the Carling Academy in Dale End, on Saturday 5th September Okkervil River was to have been the very final live event at the venue, before rock night Subculture closed proceedings and tore up the Dale End dance floor.

But Surface Unsigned booked the venue for its regional finals on 12th September and the last band of the night to play was Leicestershire's Dutch Couage. This brought the end of an era to this internationally renowned venue.

Over 5,000 gigs and club nights have taken place at the venue, attracting more than 3.5 million customers. Last year Leicester band The Chairman played on the venue's stage and won the national finals of the Surface Unsigned festival.

Dale End opened with Ocean Colour Scene on November 16th 2000 and have since played the venue almost every year! Foo Fighters were the first band to play a sell out gig on December 7th 2000. The Sex Pistols gig at the Academy, sold all 3000 gig tickets in less than 10 minutes, beating Nine Inch Nails in 2005. The strangest event was courtesy of Jackass’ Steve O, on his ‘Don’t Try This At Home’ tour where he stapled his scrotum to his inner thigh amongst many other reckless and stomach churning acts. Suffice to say, a medic was present on stage throughout the entire show!

Famous Midlanders to have played Dale End include Ocean Colour Scene, The Wonder Stuff, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Streets, King Adora, Robert Plant, The Twang, Editors, The Enemy and Black Sabbath.

The brand new O2 Academy Birmingham is at the site of the former Dome Nightclub, AMG has invested £5.5m into the new venue, featuring three rooms and has a total capacity of 3,859. However, only three steps of the actual Dome now exist.
The main auditorium holds over 3,000 people, that’s 2,410 in stalls, 491 seats on the balcony with room for 108 standing for an unrestricted view!

On Tuesday 2nd June Editors were the first band to headline O2 Academy Birmingham in their first non festival show of 2009.

The new O2 Academy Birmingham is at 16-18 Horsefair, Bristol Street, Birmingham.

Tuesday 11th August

Industry experts give thumbs up to LIVE music

At a music industry forum last night (11th August) a panel of industry experts agreed that live music is doing well in the UK. Sales of gig tickets have overtaken sales of recorded music and labels are moving to 360 degree deals in which album sales are packaged with live performances.

The panel drew attention to the use that bands and artists make of social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook but noted that many are now setting up their own web sites because they recognise that they do not have ownership of databases of fans being built up on these sites.

The Forum was held at the LCB Depot and organised by Creative Leicestershire.

Friday 26th June 2009

Leicester band The Heroes opened the BBC Introducing stage at the Glastonbury festival

See photos of the band playing at the world's most famous festival. The band's appearance was not announced until the week before the festival started, by which time all the tickets had been sold and fans of the Heroes were unable to get there to support them. They therefore played to a fresh crowd, although a few Leicester festival goers turned up to see them. We are told that they won the crowd over and got a lot of favourable comments from those who could get there to see them, including Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens.

The Heroes' set list was

1. Blue Rave
2. Only Living for Tonight
3. My Fault
4. Save Today
5. Wake up Radio
6. Flowers in Golden Times
7. Look at Me

Lots of good comments left on the BBC page, even from people who discovered them only on Radio 1. The band is attracting new fans all the time. Plays on their Myspace have increased dramatically. The bands' appearance at the festival was announced by Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe on Wednesday night.

Not heard of THE HEROES before? Check them out on the BBC web site

3rd March, 2009

Calling All Digital Music Makers in the East Midlands: CDR is back seeking digital music makers of all styles, acoustic, electronic, fusion, hip-hop, drum n bass, folktronica or the downright unclassifiable

Creative gurus burntprogress are bringing CDR back to the East Midlands, hitting Leicester, Nottingham and Derby with a series of music nights and creative seminars aimed at bringing a new community of digital music makers together to network and collaborate.

Leicester is the first city to play host with a free Creative Knowledge Seminar, Many Hats, One Head, taking place at De Montfort University, Leicester, on 18 March as part of FAME The Creative Industries Show the largest creative industry event in the East Midlands. Music makers just have to turn-up to take part.

The CDR Creative Knowledge Seminar from 6.30pm to 8.30pm will see pioneering music producer and dubstep bastion Loefah discuss and take questions on how he maintains and develops a music production career, whilst DJing and hosting club nights around the UK. Music producer Tony Nwachukwu, of Attica Blues fame and one part of the duo behind burntprogress will be chairing the discussion.

The CDR event then continues at Leicester's Sophbeck, from 9pm to 2am. Here, music makers and producers can hand in CDs to get their tracks played live and loud to an audience of like-minded music makers. Loefah will be playing a special set of his own works-in-progress with DJ sets from local Leicester-based producers Psychomantus (Donuts), Pure Phase, Jimi O and Biscuit Tin Soundsystem.

CDR in the East Midlands is based on burntprogresss hugely successful CDR night at Londons Plastic People twice nominated Best Club on Radio 1s Worldwide Awards. This is the second year that the project has run in the East Midlands and the next CDR night will take place at Muse in Nottingham on 2 April.

More events will follow in Leicester, Nottingham and Derby. For more information, check myspace.com/burntprogress.