Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure

Subject: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: evansakes
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 06:44 AM

Closure as a music venue that is....scheduled to stop hosting live music at the end of January 2010 after almost half a century.

Surely a venue with so much musical heritage can't be allowed to fall by the wayside?

http://www.halfmoon.co.uk/information/closure.html

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: evansakes
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 06:45 AM

http://www.halfmoon.co.uk/information/closure.html

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: GUEST,Mad Spaniel
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 06:54 AM

This is a real shame, classic venue for every type of music.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: Will Fly
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 07:04 AM

A great shame if this happens. I have very pleasant memories of popping over to Putney to see Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band in the back room. It was a lovely venue - let's hope this doesn't happen.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 07:11 AM

So SO sorry to hear this - I would vote with my feet if I could, but I'm now based in Ireland. Some of the best live music I ever heard in my life was played there. My London memories are full of going out for a curry or a Chinese and then over to the Moon to hear Clannad or Stockton's Wing or whoever was on the bill that week.

We are certainly rooting for them -

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: matt milton
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 07:14 AM

I think it would be a real shame too. But, and it pains me to say it, it doesn't really have an events programme that's going to save it.

It's significant that the one 'sold out' they currently have is Bob Brozman, an internationally known and respected guitarist and adventurous musician, liked by the world music crowd and the blues crowd and Late Junction listeners.

Then they have a load of tribute bands and quite a few acts who frankly are not going to lure 500 people to south west London on a week night, irrespective of how good they are as musicians.

It'd be a shame from a venues-in-London point of view if it closes. But it really isn't putting on very exciting or ambitious music. I can't see it surviving.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: Will Fly
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 07:28 AM

It's interesting to see that one of my other haunts in London in the late 60s/early 70s - the Bull's Head in Barnes - is going strong. This must be one of the very few venues in the UK where music (principally but not totally jazz) has been played every night of the week for 50 years - and continues still. The charged vary but are around £10 a gig. At a time when jazz in other places is disappearing and live music in general is taking a bit of a kicking, this is hugely encouraging.

Sorry for the thread drift but the contrast between the Half Moon's music future and that of the Bulls' Head is striking.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: evansakes
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 07:31 AM

It was the first music venue I went to when I came to London thirty years ago....we used to go down to see the Melody Maker pub band of the year, Crannog, at their Saturday night residency, 'Juice on the Loose', 'Red Beans and Rice' and Hank Wangford. In those days it was without question THE place to go for live music in a pub. I also saw Richard and Linda Thompson there several times...

Take a look at the list of artists who have graced the tiny stage down the years....including the likes of The Who, The Stones, U2 etc

http://www.halfmoon.co.uk/history/wallsoffame.htm

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: melodeonboy
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 07:39 AM

Great shame. Apart from all the other delights, I must have seen The Hank Wangford Band there at least a dozen times. I saw the Whoopee Band there too.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 09:23 AM

I was about to start a post on this as I received an e-mail about it as well. Too few venues for small scale live music (as opposed to large stadia)exist at the moment.

RtS

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 10:19 AM

Gosh I used to go there in the days when the residents were Gerry Loughran, Royd Rivers, Lisa Turner, and Cliff Angier.
Seen and heard many people there, the one that moved me most was Jo Ann Kelly, and the funniest ever was Danny Thompson, chasing his double-bass around the stage; as first it slipped, then the spike started to slide back up into the instrument. Obviously he hadn't tightened the screw enough, but if the screw wasn't tight enough, he certainly was ;)
Remember having many a good night, and dram, with my old friend Alex Campbell.
Fred Woods talked about my recording an album for him, when he heard me there. Then when he heard me later, it wasn't mentioned. I guess one of us was pissed on that first night ;)
Johnny Silvo kissed me full on the lips there, and I will say no more about that, other than to deny I enjoyed it.
Ah yes, that nostalgia's not what it was !

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: GUEST,John from "Elsie`s Band"
Date: 25 Nov 09 - 10:47 AM

Not to forget Diz Disley with Derek Searjent.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 09:33 AM

......and Fairport's Cropredy warm up gigs during the 1980s, especially the one when June Tabor didn't quite hack it with the Sandy Denny spot!!I remember countless Hank Wangford gigs, one in particular after Andy Roberts had left and Steve Donnelly was on guitar, who turned up in the Melanie Harrold Band for a while in early 1985. Ah, and the Tex Maniax, I must dig out my tapes of those gigs.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: theleveller
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 11:00 AM

I have vague recollections of going there along with Kevin Coyne and Nick Cudworth from Siren in the late 60s/early 70s, but it could have been somewhere else in Putney. It's vague because we would have been drinking all evening in The Bricklayer's Arms (the only pub I know where you could buy beer in quart glasses).

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: evansakes
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 11:20 AM

Leveller, the other decent music pub in Putney used to be the Star and Garter (long gone that one). Isaac Guillory used to play there quite often.

For a while you could also get beer by the quart in another pub that used to do music, 'Crocker's Folly' (formerly the Crown Hotel) near Little Venice. It was 10p cheaper if you bought that way but after a while they stopped doing it (everyone was apparently nicking the glasses)

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: theleveller
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 04:27 PM

Yeah, that was it - The Star and Garter, not the Half Moon. And there was a great curry house on the corner near Putney Bridge - we went there on my 21st after the Bricklayer's had kicked us out.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: theleveller
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 04:30 PM

Ah, just remembered who I used to see in the Half Moon - John 'Biffo' Binden, when he wasn't in the Ranleigh Yacht Club - it's all coming back to me.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 04:41 PM

Was the Bricklayers the one with the weird assortment of stuff hanging from the ceiling?

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 05:48 AM

"Was the Bricklayers the one with the weird assortment of stuff hanging from the ceiling? "

Yes it was.Very dusty and nicotine stained with those darts you made from the silver paper and chewed up tissuse from fag packets stuck all over the ceiling.

"'Crocker's Folly' (formerly the Crown Hotel) near Little Venice"

That's really weird because I know that pub as well. I once shot a TV commercial for the Leicester Building Society in there with James Bolam and the gorgeous Maddie Smith (who I found lived in Kew quite close to me and who I subsequently went out with for a while....but that's one for the memoirs).

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 10:08 AM

What a pity. I misspent most of my Friday and Monday nights down at the Moon during the 70s right up till the mid-90s. Some wonderful, magical nights. Planxty in 1973. Alexis Korner with Sandy Denny the same year. Sammy Mitchell, Long John Baldry, Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell, Fairport, Steeleye, Martin Carthy, Steve Marriott, The JSD Band, 5 Hand Reel, June Tabor and Martin Simpson, John Renbourn and Isaac Guillory, Paul Geremiah, Tymon Dogg, Christie Hennessey, John Martyn, Loudon Wainwright, Paul Brady, Flaco Jimenez, The Balham Alligators, Noel Murphy, Christy Moore, Four Men and a Dog, the Bhundu Boys - I could and probably would go on all day given half the chance.

All rather a long time ago now, though. Maybe that's the problem. People who go to see any of these artist nowadays seem to expect a comfy seat in an arts centre and a place to park the Prius. No-one wants to stand around with a pint of Young's Special and a B&H for a couple of hours before getting the last bus home anymore.

I suppose the era really ended when Jonah and Mick headed off for the big snug in the sky.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: Girl Friday
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 10:13 AM

"I have very pleasant memories of popping over to Putney to see Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band in the back room. It was a lovely venue" Will Fly, and I too when I lived in Southfields.Must have been the first folk club that I visited. I also remember them playing in a marquee in King George's Park, which was across the road from me.

Subject: RE: Putney's 'Half Moon' facing closure
From: Gedpipes
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 10:25 AM

Kokomo any one remember them

Guy Clarke