Sunday, January 11, 2015

Forests and Venues

I have been thinking about the razing of small venues across London and eventually, I came to the conclusion that a similar process is happening to that of the huge hurricane that flattened forests across the south of England in 1986.
Supposedly a disaster, we were shown TV images of collapsed trees, snapped in half and jumbled up in a pile of misery: an apocalyptic vision if ever there was one.
Then, about ten years later, scientists declared that nature had done a wondrous weeding-out exercise. The trees that had collapsed were often the weaker ones, old or diseased, and by thrashing them the high winds had done the woods a favour.
New growth appeared and with no canopy of taller, older trees blocking out the sky, access to light for the saplings was easy, as was access to rotted compost from the fallen forest that provided nutrients for their early growth-spurt.
I wonder if something similar will happen now that the 12 Bar is closing down, along with so many other little venues.
London is in a constant state of development and renewal; there will always be corners that nobody looks at apart from artists and musicians who need somewhere cheap to work. The ingenuity that arty farties introduce into what they produce will get to work on where it's produced.
What will happen next?

1 comment:

crisis@xmas attendee said...

CRISIS@XMAS (Barons Ct) Any musicians could have played there over the Xmas period. There was a full PA system available. (and an audience)