Tag: Fatal Charm

Leeds Venues 20 to 22

I am this week returning to and completing the story of my visit to the Live at Leeds festival in 2021. This is a multi-venue wristband event with venues dotted all around the city and we walked and walked that day, covering around 27k steps.

The next site we visited was Leeds HiFi situated on Century Road. The precursor to this venue was the Underground nightclub as when that club closed its doors for the final time in 2000, the three original promoters moved lock stock and barrel into the new basement venue. They transferred all existing staff and retained all the original club nights in the new building.   

Leeds HiFi. Image Credit Ents24.

They hold a suite of DJ and live gig nights and reside mainly in the funk and soul and roots domain. Amongst others Nightmares on Wax, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and 6 music’s Giles Peterson have appeared there. They have also held comedy nights with Alan Carr and Reginald D Hunter having graced the stage, and weddings have also taken place there.

It is a small venue that has a nice vibe about it combining a nightclub feel with a traditional downstairs gig room, and this is reflected in its previous local awards for ‘Best Nightclub’ and ‘Best Live Music Venue’. The band on stage at the time of our visit were a local act called Van Houten and they provided a pleasing slab of slightly wonky dream pop, their sound reminiscent of Swim Deep and Fatal Charm. They released their self-titled debut album in 2019 and have just penned a decent new single titled ‘Coming of Age’.

We then sallied over to Leeds Headrow House which has a long previous history as a former textile mill and latterly an Inland Revenue site and is located in one of the oldest parts of the city. It now encompasses four floors housing an award winning restaurant called the Ox Club, a large beer hall, two roof terraces and a 150 capacity gig room.

Leeds Headrow House. Image Credit inyourpocket.com

There is also reputedly a large and probably spooky Civil Defence bunker located underneath the site. On stage that day was a rhythm and blues artist called Mysie from London who has had support slots with Corrine Bailey Rae.

Situated nearby on Cookridge Street is the Leeds Nation of Shopkeepers. Its current moniker provides a clear clue to its previous heritage as during the 1950’s it was known as Harris Grocers. It then morphed into the Corner Shop and the Courtyard Bar until rebadging under its current name in 2009. It has a locally renowned outdoor courtyard area known as ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ and the establishment went through a major refurbishment in 2017.

‘Garden of Earthly Delights’. Image Credit tripadvisor.co.uk

They have a regular pub quiz night every Monday and have an all-day ‘foodie’ reputation. They have DJ nights and also live music in the multi-functional 850 capacity arts space. In those early days the likes of Willy Mason, James Blake, Death Grips, Darker My Love (who I sadly never saw) and Two Door Cinema Club played there.

Upon entering I thought it was a tidy eclectic setting, but extremely busy. On stage I could just witness a portion of the set from a London emo band called Sad Boys Club, who last year released their debut album ‘Lullabies From The Lighting Tree’.     

Nottingham Venues 35 and 36

There are so many tales in the fabric of the music industry relating to the trajectory of bands. Random events such as timing, changes in personnel and dumb luck can all contribute to how successful or not a band can be. I am sure we can all name bands who fall into the ‘how the hell did they become so big’ or the alternate ‘what might have been’ category.

As I have undertaken many visits to Nottingham over the years, I began to become familiar with many of my brother’s friends. One such pair was Paul Arnall and Sarah Simmonds. Paul was the instigator in the forming of the band Fatal Charm in 1978 and was the lead guitarist and vocalist before Sarah joined as lead vocalist to allow Paul to concentrate more fully on song writing duties. Their music is tricky to quantify but they could arguably be viewed in the post-punk dream pop category.

See the source image
Fatal Charm. Image Credit electricityclub.co.uk

They began to garner attention and as a result were enlisted for numerous Radio 1 sessions with Bob Harris, Janice Long and Annie Nightingale amongst others. They also appeared on the legendary Channel 4 Tube programme in 1983 and were a support act to Ultravox and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

However, the volatile nature of the music business at that point in time resulted in numerous record contract breakdowns and a poorly promoted debut album in 1985. They were eventually signed to RCA and as result morphed into a newly named band State of Grace who existed from 1991 to 1998 and had a more ambient sound.

The net result of the combined events above meant that the band never broke through into the mainstream. They subsequently reformed as Fatal Charm in 2012 and commencing playing some local gigs again.   

Their venue of choice was the Trent Navigation pub, home to the Navigation brewery. The hostelry has lived up to its name over the years looking after the navvies who used to work in the canals. It is now run by the Great Northern Inns group and is a homely establishment located on Wilford Street and any pub that has a specific pie night is good enough for me!

See the source image
Trent Navigation Inn. Image Credit Nottingham Post.

I saw them there twice in quick succession in June and September 2012. You could tell they retained a touch of class with Sarah’s plaintive vocals and Paul’s accomplished guitar work and they attracted a decent crowd each time. They rather oddly passed around a collection for their appearance fee, something which I have never witnessed before. There was talk at one point of arranging a gig in Preston at the Continental but that never came to fruition.

As you may have gleaned by now, I am always hunting down new venues and a place called Doghouse Studios caught my eye. They are located on Alfred St North not too far from the Arboretum. They are a recording studio, but they also house a fully equipped stage for video and photographic shoots and have two record labels. They also occasionally had live gigs.

On 16/11/13 we went to see a band called the Others who were a guerrilla rock band led by the intimidating figure of Dominic Masters. They played many so-called ‘guerilla gigs’ at quirky locations such as the Hammersmith & City Line tube, on the dodgems at Leeds Festival and on the Abbey Lane crossing in London town. They were signed by Alan McGee’s Poptones Label in 2004. They had a loyal fanbase coined ‘the 853 Kamikaze Stage Diving Division’.

It was an interesting venue with a distinct space for the bands and they proceeded to produce a noisy rambunctious set.