we have a point

i interrupt my dear diary to allow myself to rant for a little while about cardiff council and the closure of the point. the point is a music venue in an old church and has hosted all kinds of things over the years. for big manly rock gigs we have the millennium stadium, for big orchestrated shows we have the millennium stadium, for cult bands who are quite big we have the point, for bands on the up we have clwb and for smaller bands we have a few different venues such as the resdesigned buffalo, dempseys etc. the point just slots in there: 500 capacity, decent stage, good sound, pretty windows, high ceilings, a balcony... its just a great venue, its a bit special and its always a treat to go down and see a gig there. recently they have branched out in other things such as the little christmas / bounceathon events and hosted discos such as boogiez and hells bent. last year it was threatened with closure as two (TWO) residents from the recently built flats complained about noise levels. what are they doing moving next to an established venue if they are worried about noise levels? etc. we've all marvelled at the stupidity of these people for a year and i don't really need to get into that argument. the council did nothing to help the point fight these complaints (helpful might have been not granting flats in that area in the first place) but agreed that if they soundproofed it further then they would not shut it down. they did not give money to help this. so the owners of the point forked out a big chunk of money and closed it down for months to facilitate this change. in the meantime banks collapsed and people's social lives were scaled back. i noticed that there did not seem to be a lot of good gigs on at the point but that started last year when forecast temporarily stopped and didn't pay it much more attention than that. mark e smith was meant to play on wednesday but broke his hip. i don't know whether this pull out was the last straw but on friday me and will were due to celebrate getting together a year ago at hells bent (we were attracted to each other like magnets on the first ever hells bent and have been inseperable ever since so it was due to be a special night) but then a message came out that hells bent was cancelled. i assumed that it was due to a wiring problem or something banal but then went to the link and there was a statement in stark black and white from the receivers declaring it bankrupt.

my housemate jon came back and reminded me that our friends were due to have their wedding there in 6 weeks. we both sat there and got angier and angrier. that was friday afternoon and i've been growing angrier each hour. on friday night we saw a friend who informed us about the application for flats near clwb and a hostel opposite (signalling the same process happening all over again) and brains brewery putting the squeeze on their pubs to allow a brains entertainment officer to take over rather than the hard working promoters who grow bands and create cardiff's music scene. cardiff's music scene has always been one of my favourite things about the city. for somewhere relatively small there is so much happening here and this alone has kept me in the city. the arts in cardiff is famously undersupported, the senedd favouring applications from sporting institutions and big business. we have few galleries and not enough affordable studio spaces for artists to work and build and create. the one area we have always succeeded in against the odds is the music scene. we have musicians coming here from all over the country to start bands and we have some excellent music coming out of cardiff. it says a lot when most of my favourite bands are not from some far off city in america but here, in the city i live in. it makes cardiff an exciting city every day of the week and draws other people here. we have enough cutbacks all over the country with the olympics drawing funding away, any help the council can be with funding or just allowing these places to exist will help. st davids 2 will be finished soon enough and our city centre will be full of high street chains and i am not against this in principal, we all can surely recognise that cardiff wants to attract this sort of business, but it needs to support local businesses such as spillers and smaller venues and promoters so we can grow our culture and not just import it and make the city a blander, unidentifiable place.

despite my interest in politics and involvement in chapter i am relatively ignorant with what i exactly have to do to get this issue aired in government but i am endeavouring this week to find people sympathetic to the issue of our cultural life in cardiff and how we can stop cardiff from turning into just another provincial town. i have been irritable and pissed off ever since i found out about the point, an emotion i am unwilling to repress and just hope that someone does something. i want to do something, i don't want to just look to someone else because there might be no-one else who tries. anyway, i'm going to see if i can do anything, even if it turns out to be a fruitless task at least i would have tried.