In The Middle questions whether the lack of small clubs in Leeds is having a negative impact on the music scene. 

Recently I came back to Leeds for the first time since having graduated in July. I made my way to Wire for Pearson Sound’s Acetate, a night I’ve vowed to myself that I will keep returning to. This instalment featured him playing the whole night. Given my absence, as I came into the city I was hit with a rush of nostalgia: first seeing the Sky Plaza building from afar and going past the BBC Yorkshire building I made my way from the coach station to a usual site, where I was greeted by the lowly black and white sign of Wire poking out from amidst the series of shops. The night was fantastic as usual, wading through in the dark green smoke and eclectic set was very welcome, but something was slightly off: I’d been to Wire for my last three visits to Leeds. This is not because of a personal attachment but because it seems to be one of the few small spaces left in Leeds to have a dance. With The Garage and Beat Bar closing there are not many venues available, and the new ones which have come about haven’t developed much traction. However, there seem to be more people attending nights and the large spaces are pumping out more and more events filled to the brim with headliners. This is fantastic for some but I’m left a little worried. As we get DJs shifting to superstars there follows a trend of making things bigger and better. With festivals and clubs gloating that they have huge numbers of patrons with huge light shows and huge DJs, it is easy to get caught up and forget where this all came from. Most DJs and producers spend their time plodding away at home with what they had at their disposal. Maybe after a few hundred hours they build a good track and maybe it gets recognized. The saturated night-life of Leeds means that many bedroom DJs never get a chance to play out. This is great on the one hand, since those who do make it through tend to be incredibly talented individuals, but on the other hand there are many whose talents will never get a chance to be recognized.

There is more to this, however, than the people playing records. On the other side of the booth people miss experiencing the infancy of developing scenes and genres. I admit, most people probably don’t care; they just want to have good time at somewhere which is guaranteed to provide. But for Leeds itself it means that upcoming talent is at risk of being starved. Could the Hessle Audio boys put on a Rufage night now? It happened in my time with the growth of the likes of Brotherhood Sound System and they’ve been able to adapt with the shift in music over the past few years. So it is possible but it seems less likely than before. The flavour of these nights tend to be homogenizing and with all the available small clubs being filled on Fridays and the weekends only weekdays are able to be booked. This makes it even harder to get people involved and make the nights financially viable.

Not only are these small clubs cheaper to play in they have a totally different atmosphere to the larger ones. Being in a small area brings an element of intimacy which is lost when in a larger space. Here you can realise that it isn’t just you or your friends there but everybody else is in for the same experience. In the midst of the dance and darkness you may catch the same people time after time where it may develop to just nods of recognition or friendships. A large number of pioneers in the scene met at the same nights, talked, were able to forge their own sound and take the genre they helped grow up into other places. Small clubs are fertile grounds for something unique, where people tend to play what they truly enjoy. Without them Leeds might be at risk of losing its heritage of being a beacon of quality music in the North.

[Sarjan Paul]