NWB - Community Blog

cant say i am surprised at any of this and i certainly wouldnt be surpirsed if any of this got implemented. it seems at the mo that we just seem to be pandering to what those pesky europeans want.
all of this is completely bollocks, if somebody is inclined to drink large amounts or drink fast they'll do it anywhere and theres nothing that the government can do about it.
once again not only does the pub business come under another threat but once again bands are made to feel like scapegoats!

Such rubbish promoted by the government is one of the reasons I have zero interest in politics in this country. You could see some halfwit civil servant dreaming of his name in lights when this story broke.

Here in Manchester there have been many pathetic attempts by the council to combat such problems. Once such invention is the noise limiter.

There is a venue called the Blue Cat Cafe in Heaton Moor in Stockport that has one. If you are playing full on rock forget about it the moment the noise gets above 1dB then the sound is cut out causing much frustration for the band and audience resulting in a venue with the volume of set of walkman speakers.

I have seen the noise limiter present in bars such as the Cornerhouse and also trendier bars in the Northern Quarter.

Going off topic slightly the Northern Quarter has seen a recent spate of trendy young professionals moving there into highly overpriced flats. One of the mainstays of Manchester's music scene The Night And Day cafe nearly got shutdown because of some stupid f*ckwit complaining about the noise. I mean if you are moving NEXT DOOR or ABOVE a live music venue surely you would realise THERE WILL BE LOUD NOISE EMINATING FROM SAID VENUE?

Good post anyway...!

Binge Drinking!! If only they did it in the pubs, the LL's would be raking it in. We all know folk get half cut on cheapo booze from the supermarkets, then go out to a pub and nurse 2 pints all night.

The so called Nanny State needs to do sommat about the SM's cheapo box deals before addressing the public houses.

Cant smoke in a pub, cant drink in a pub, cant enjoy yourself in a pub.....the Fun Police are at bay.......

Int good ole days, we used to get some cans from the offi, stick em in the fridge, go t pub. Have few beers whilst watching band an have fun. Oub closed at 11.30. Back to the house for a party - inviting as many as we could for fun & games (not twister!) - then get a visit for the rossers at 2am asking us to turn down the music. We's usually invite them in for a brew!!

Nowadays, it's all turned about - home booze up 1st, to the pub, couple a pints, blah blah blah.

We've all noticed as bands we don't start til later coz there's no bugger out til gone 10pm - that and bloody X-Factor - thank your God Daniel's out - shoobey doobey dooooooo ahhh

DYEHOUSE I get your comment about people coming out till later. We've noticed that during our first set the pubs are virtually empty. The second set is usually so much better...well it is for us anyway.

Talking of pubs and clubs is in my or do they F*CKING REEK now the smoking ban is in full effect? J*sus...it's ridiculous. Whilst I am a non smoker, this may sound slightly stupid but the smoke in such places really added to the atmos...and more importantly masked the smell! I find this at gigs especially.

I am in the process of marketing and patenting my ATMOSPHERE CREATOR SMOKE MACHINE where you can recreate the atmosphere of old but without the health hazards. You heard it here first...if I can't make my first million from BLACK PILATE it will be the smoke machine.

i hear what your saying about the lack of smoke ruining atmosphere, and the smell can be awful at times. all of our band are non smokers but i think id welcome an end to the ban!

I think the above is only true in clubs. I do find that when I go to a club, i.e. somewhere in town with excruciatingly loud music being played by the D.J. then my tendency is to drink in far more copious amounts. Mainly because now the conversation's been drowned out by noise there's bugger else to do!

Trying to blame this on bands is ludicrous, as most pubs bands could never compete with the sound levels in clubs anyway. Furthermore, live music is keeping some pubs and bars going, take that away and you'll bring an already failing industry to it's knees.

If they want somewhere to point the finger, here's food for thought. I went to a student union in Nottingham two weeks back and it was £1 for a double vodka and red bull, and 80p for VK. Horrific drinks, I know, but are people really going to worry about anything else when alcohol is THAT cheap!

It's a load of nonsense as in my experience the chavs that cause trouble when they're tanked up are the ones who leg it from a venue the minute a band strikes their first chord, usually squealling "orr no, that's proper loud"! The noise limiter power switches should be banned as they're probably doing untold damage to our equipment.

At the end of the day someone, somewhere in our Government hates the concept of the pub and they seem to be doing their level best to destroy pub culture. Target the supermarkets and the offies, they're where the problem drinkers are getting their booze. Make shop booze the price of pub booze and pub booze the price of shop booze and you'd stop 99.9% of teenage and problem drinking instantly.

I love those noise limiters , my pipes come in around 120db and the number of times ive played in venues and seen the orange light whizzing around, strangly my pipes have never gone off when the light comes on

local pub in our town has a machine that uses a traffic light system on the wall...green ok orange not so ok red your hanged....it turns out that i tried to get a gig... so the landlord said ok as long as we are not too loud that evening a dj was on so we tested the system.. bearing in mind above the pub are some very expensive plush apartments....so i ask the dj to turn up green light ok.... turn up some more orange light ok.. and reasonably loud it was lokking good...turn up some more and test the red i say... very loud no red...louder still no red..great i said we can play here no probs.....then the barstaff came over "they are all ringing down and complaning upstairs " odd we thought ...then we relised the red bulb had gone.... lol very loud needless to say no gig.

Skiffle band anyone ?

THe real point isn't how loud is it IN the venue. It's how much can you hear OUTSIDE the venue. The Queens in Chorley (when it was run by a really COOL couple) had the traffic light system and good soundproofing. They were able to bypass the traffic light bullshit and (get this!) NOT get complaints from the neighbours with excellent soundproofing. We used to put 2.5k in there and use a LOT of it's capacity.
Of course, you have to balance out the sound accepted by the venue to keep going AND factor in the ego of the band. If you refuse to play below a certain volume, that's ego. Anyone remember Rubian?