ANGUISH SANDWICH On The Science Of A Local Music Scene

Anguish Sandwich discuss the science and the reason behind Northampton's music scene and other scene related talking points.
Look out for a full interview in future, this is a cheeky snippet morsel.

Do you think it’s important for bands to get involved with their local music scene?

Cath : I think it is but I think I had these naive pre-conceptions about everyone being all communal and lovely and accepting but I think that people are in their groups. And yeah, people have their friendship groups and they stick to those and there is not so much a community. It’s a shame, because it would be nice but…

Chris : Yeah. I wish there was a scene, but I’m not kidding myself.

Is ‘scene’ the wrong word to use?

John : I’m fine with the word ‘scene’.

Chris : I don’t mind the word. I don’t feel like, I don’t feel…like there are loads of bands around that we feel comfortable playing with.

There are not a lot of bands doing the same thing…

Chris : It’s not even about doing the same thing, it’s about being on the same wave length. Like, there are plenty of bands who are good at what they are doing, ambitious and really driven and they try really hard…but I feel like it’s not the same focus as what like, we are putting in…because…

John : I feel like that it does depend on the situation you find yourselves in. Like, I don’t know. I cut off there…at a good point.

Chris :  Here’s the thing, right, I have been putting on gigs in Northampton for…8 years now-ish. 8 or 9 years almost. And at no point have I really felt like what I’ve done, has really been a part of something bigger and gone and sprouted more stuff. Because for me, that’s a part of the music scene. It evolves and it keeps…it regenerates itself. Whereas, Northampton kind of, it comes and goes in waves. Like a few years ago, people were going to gigs and people were, there were loads of bars across town with gigs going on constantly but it wasn’t…it was the same bands over and over. Erm, but now, I feel like there are more bands than there are gigs. Erm, all the bands are so disparate and there is no real connection. We played a gig on Friday, and I met at least three or four people from three or four different bands that I’d never seen, never played with, I’d never heard. And I think that’s a bit sad. That’s as much a criticism of myself as it is of the rest of the music scene. But to there…what’s the opposite of credit? Like, on their part, they hadn’t seen or heard us before. You know, nobody is really supporting each other.

Cath : Well no people are supporting each other but they are supporting specific groups and everyone is in their own little groups. They will go to their own group’s things but they won’t go to other group’ things. Which, you know, maybe that’s fair enough. Because everyone doesn’t have to like everything else but it’s just yeah, I don’t know.

Chris : Sure, but like I guess the point is there should be more people in those groups and there is not. Because if there is more people, there is more chance of the groups to cross over. Like, more chances of those collisions between them  but there is more chance for those groups to sort of change within themselves. Like, say we are a band, somebody else is a band, well if it’s just two bands in that group, we’re not going to cross over at all because we are doing our own thing. But you get a dozen bands, then the members of those bands go ‘oh, well we could do something else as well with these other people’.  I don’t know.

John : Maybe it’s important not to…

Chris : This is rambling, so…

John : …to be too defeatist about it, so I think a couple of my favourite gigs have been in Northampton. And with, not many…like a handful of people there.

Chris : Yeah, but is that, is that bands coming in to Northampton? Because it’s not really the same as there being a music scene.

Photography By Jack Parker