[Dixielandjazz] Music in Pubs

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

My dear friend Ken seems to have missed the problem that was dramatised when a Glasgow pub whose name I forget -- due,  I hasten to add, to my not drinking and not having been there for years -- tried a long time ago to establish itself as a folk music venue. The Scotia bar almost across the road had already re-established itself as a music venue, and its management had something to do with a stop being put to the other place's musical ambitions -- pending application for permission from the then city licensing authorities. 

Nowadays a third pub at the same road junction has a long record of musical performances, beginning from long after the law temporarily silenced the one whose name I can't remember. All three of these pubs occupied ground floor premises in tallish residential buildings, but prior to the onset of music-centred hostilities the upper floors had been removed. And so indeed had the warrens in which their erstwhile clientele lived -- further downmarket they could not have gone -- hence the idea of music as an attraction to outsiders to keep these places open, although the Scotia had a long history of music ...
I suppose the problem the unnamed pub had was to do with introducing music where it hadn't featured previously -- and the profit margins had been kept low as a matter of competition, so nobody could have been paid if there had been any room for musicians. But the law was changed a very long time ago now. Not to mention the prices! 


Back in those days and coming back from an excursion I do recall dropping into a pub in a small village, as near home as we could get before ten o'clock and all the pubs shut. The sign forbidding singing was a marvel to behold. 
Quite why would anybody want to sing here? I asked myself, and we drank up and left 


cheers!

Robert R. Calder 


From: "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>

The proposed changes apply to England, not the UK (there is a very unsubtle distinction which is general missed by all but the Scots, Welsh and Ulster folk). The previous legislation restricting the number of performers and requiring specific entertainment licences never did apply in Scotland, where we have a more enlightened approach to music in pubs etc. We also have the distinct benefit that our legal system is independent of the UK parliament in London. Noise nuisance issues in Scotland are covered under everyday Civil Law provisions. I'm not sure how Wales and Northern Ireland are affected, but both, like Scotland, have their own Parliaments and Governments responsible for matters devolved from the UK parliament, although both are subject to English Law, so they may have been stuck with that crazy English regulation. One rule that does apply to pub gigs anywhere in the UK and Northern Ireland is that the money will be crap!
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>Cheers,
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>Ken Mathieson    
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