"Sorry, the UK club scene is dying, because it's consisently failed to keep its door pricing policy in line with inflation over the past two decades. (With a few wonderful exceptions)*."


I've spent the last 5 years of my life flogging the motorways playing clubs full time.

I've given it everything. Everything I've got. Gave up a well-paid job. Invested savings, effort, friendships, time, love, talent and all the skill I can squeeze from my throat, brain and my fingers (and, according to the reviews, I'm not half bad).

But. It has made me nearly bankrupt, and I can only go on one more year. Then there has to be some kind of break-through, or I'll have to stop. Or my wife will leave me.

Why? Because clubs can only afford to pay £100-150 for what averages out (when you take sales, admin, rehearsal, travel, CD prodution, website maintenance, depreciation on instruments and kit, AND performance into account) as an 18 hour day - and I can't play every day because there are no longer enough clubs even if I wanted to be a single man (which is what would happen if I did).

I did 67 clubs last year, and my accountant tells me I didn't even break even.

If audiences are not lying, then the thrill they get at my gigs is, for some, one of the high points of their year. But they only expect to pay, on average, £4 for the experience.

Yes. The clubs are dying - becuase the people who run them, and the people who visit them, are getting old. And they no longer notice how fast the world is turning, and what needs to be done to keep up.

Somwhere back there in the 80s or 90s they failed to see that they needed drastic action to involve younger people. And now it's too late.


* ageed!