Local Initiative - More than 1,000 pubs, bars and restaurants across the UK will host music events as part of a new nationwide festival backed by The 1975's Matty Healy, who has warned about the talent pipeline drying up. "Local venues aren't just where bands cut their teeth, they're the foundation of any real culture," the frontman said in a statement. "Without them, you don't get The Smiths, Amy Winehouse, or The 1975. You get silence."
The Seed Sounds Weekender will take place in September in small "seed" venues like those where many big names start out. But like much of the UK's nightlife scene, they are facing "unprecedented economic challenges", organisers said. They gave examples of seed venues including the Grapes pub in Sheffield, where the Arctic Monkeys made their debut; Rayner's Hotel in Harrow, north-west London, where Amy Winehouse played her first show; the Buffalo Bar in Cardiff, which hosted an early Adele gig; and The Castle Hotel in Manchester, where The 1975 appeared.
Kit Muir-Rogers, co-founder of live music platform GigPig, which is organising the festival, said it would be "a moment to unite and celebrate what we think is the most exciting and probably the most vital step on an artist's journey", adding, "The stark reality is that it's a challenging time out there for the hospitality sector, and it's a challenging time as an artist out there.”
Licensing Laws - Pubs and music venues could benefit from fewer noise complaints under proposed changes to planning and licensing rules. Under the reforms, developers seeking to build new properties near existing venues would be told to soundproof buildings, while permissions would be fast-tracked for new businesses and al fresco dining in dedicated areas. Labour said the changes would bring "vibrancy" to struggling towns, but the Conservatives said tax policy was responsible for "crippling the hospitality industry".
Job Cuts - Redundancies are being carried out within the National Theatre’s commercial arm, as the venue reveals it has moved to “refine” its business model for delivering productions outside of its South Bank home. It comes as the NT confirms that National Theatre Productions executive producer Kash Bennett, current Society of London Theatre president, will leave the company in September this year. However, the NT stressed that her departure was not connected with the restructuring of NTP.
National Theatre Productions is the commercial arm of the National Theatre, created to oversee touring productions and West End transfers of NT shows. It has most recently had a core team of 24, but it is not clear how many positions have been impacted by the department’s restructuring, with the NT stating a "number of factors" were "at play regarding the roles affected, including people leaving the organisation for a variety of reasons".
In The Saleroom - A guitar given away by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page more than 50 years ago could sell for £50,000 when it is put up for auction by a Surrey family in September. The 1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 electric guitar, which was the prize in a competition run by New Musical Express magazine, was held by Page like a cricket bat while posing in cricket whites on its cover. The guitar, owned by the family of Phil O'Donoghue, from Chessington, is being sold with a photo of Page giving the guitar away to the winner of the competition, Charles Reid.
West End News - MJ the Musical has announced it is to close in the West End in February following a final extension. The show’s final performance at the Prince Edward Theatre will be 28 February 2026 - a little more than two years after it first made its UK premiere at the venue in 2024. But the jukebox musical is lined up for a UK tour in 2027, as well as its first ever tour of Asia, set to launch in October next year. Venues and dates for both tours are still to be announced. The newly announced tours follow performances of MJ the Musical across Australia, as well as in Hamburg, Germany.
Farewell - American musician and satirist Tom Lehrer has died at the age of 97. He was renowned for his darkly comic ballads, including Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, which detailed the birds' apparent appetite for "peanuts coated with cyanide". In 1953 he released Songs by Tom Lehrer, a record that was sold through the post. It became a word-of-mouth success and sold an estimated half a million copies. The BBC banned most of Songs from the airwaves the following year.
In 2020, Lehrer placed his song writing copyrights in the public domain, allowing anyone to perform, record or interpret his work for free. He also relinquished all rights to his recordings. In a statement on his website at the time, he wrote: "In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs. So help yourselves, and don't send me any money." RIP.
(Jim Evans)