Cormcolash
Well-Known Member
The gigs discussion thread and also various other talks with people and various things I've been reading has got me thinking a bit more recently about what the future holds for the punk scene in Ireland.
I was wondering what other people think lies ahead over the next few years and further? How healthy do you think the punk scene currently is in Ireland, do you think it will improve or decline? Is the current scene sustainable at the moment.
Older people, how do you think it stands now compared to the past?
I can't really write all my thoughts down in one go, I suffer from the problem of everything occuring to me all at once and then forgetting some of the things I was thinking about because there is too much there, but I'll try and write some stuff coherently at least.
However, my opinion at the moment is more or less that the scene in Ireland is in pretty good shape and there is almost a regular kind of tour circuit established for bands to come over and play in Ireland. This is good for getting tours organised both for Irish bands and bands from overseas.
In saying that, I am a bit concerned by the current lack of places to play outside the main cities. There don't seem to me to be as many scenes in the middle of nowhere as there used to be, maybe this is just my imagination but I think a lot of these scenes have basically ended up moving into cities like Dublin, Belfast and Galway. I don't know if this is a good thing for the future, although I think it does strengthen the scenes in the cities.
I would really like to see Ireland begin to establish more of a reputation as a good place to go and tour for bands from all over the world. Right now I don't think we get enough bands willing to come here when they are playing European tours. This is down to many factors of course which cannot all be affected, but I think we definitely miss out on some bands we shouldn't be missing for whatever reasons. On the other hand, there can be overkill with touring bands, especially around Summer time, and I have always thought that maybe we could co-ordinate better with each other in Ireland when organising tours to try and keep clashes to a minimum. I think this is getting to be a major problem in countries like England where they are almost spoilt for choice with touring bands.
So I'd like to see some more bands coming our way, but not too many. Essentially I think if we had more places outside of the cities to play, then we could support more touring bands here. This brings to me the question of how to get more people maybe who live outside the cities, are into punk, but don't know much about what is going on in Ireland overall, into putting gigs on in their own area? (That whole paragraph is badly worded by the way)
Another thing which I would like to see is more Irish bands touring outside of Ireland. It seems to me that right now there are not that many Irish bands working on establishing themselves outside Ireland in the DIY sense. Fuck what I am trying to say here is hard to put into words too. Put it like this, every year we see tours coming through Ireland by bands from Germany, England, Scandinavia, the US, etc., countries with pretty well-established scenes. This is not a bad thing, but how often do we see Irish bands going to play in these countries? There are some bands doing it but not very many in comparison I think, it would be nice to see this ratio addressed a bit more.
In fact that whole question sort of brings up the issue of how viable it is to play in DIY bands in Ireland and have the opportunity and time to go and tour elsewhere, which is a very messy issue with countless different factors involved. Also Gary Sloan I think recently had a thread asking about how many Irish bands had stuff released this year, and in my opinion this is one of the factors in that as well.
As for stuff like venues to use and the continuing use of current venues when there are problems at some gigs, is this an issue that will effect us on an on-going basis or will it get better at some point?
Overall I would like to see a more solid co-operation between the different scenes around Ireland, I think at the moment there is a bit too much of separation between scenes in the different cities I would like to see people from all the different scenes working a bit closer together to try and make things better overall, if that makes sense.
Fuck it that will do me for the moment, sorry if that's a bit rambling but like I say everything just comes into my head at the same time and I have difficulty sorting it all out sometimes! I'm off to work, please try and post your opinions in this thread thanks.
I was wondering what other people think lies ahead over the next few years and further? How healthy do you think the punk scene currently is in Ireland, do you think it will improve or decline? Is the current scene sustainable at the moment.
Older people, how do you think it stands now compared to the past?
I can't really write all my thoughts down in one go, I suffer from the problem of everything occuring to me all at once and then forgetting some of the things I was thinking about because there is too much there, but I'll try and write some stuff coherently at least.
However, my opinion at the moment is more or less that the scene in Ireland is in pretty good shape and there is almost a regular kind of tour circuit established for bands to come over and play in Ireland. This is good for getting tours organised both for Irish bands and bands from overseas.
In saying that, I am a bit concerned by the current lack of places to play outside the main cities. There don't seem to me to be as many scenes in the middle of nowhere as there used to be, maybe this is just my imagination but I think a lot of these scenes have basically ended up moving into cities like Dublin, Belfast and Galway. I don't know if this is a good thing for the future, although I think it does strengthen the scenes in the cities.
I would really like to see Ireland begin to establish more of a reputation as a good place to go and tour for bands from all over the world. Right now I don't think we get enough bands willing to come here when they are playing European tours. This is down to many factors of course which cannot all be affected, but I think we definitely miss out on some bands we shouldn't be missing for whatever reasons. On the other hand, there can be overkill with touring bands, especially around Summer time, and I have always thought that maybe we could co-ordinate better with each other in Ireland when organising tours to try and keep clashes to a minimum. I think this is getting to be a major problem in countries like England where they are almost spoilt for choice with touring bands.
So I'd like to see some more bands coming our way, but not too many. Essentially I think if we had more places outside of the cities to play, then we could support more touring bands here. This brings to me the question of how to get more people maybe who live outside the cities, are into punk, but don't know much about what is going on in Ireland overall, into putting gigs on in their own area? (That whole paragraph is badly worded by the way)
Another thing which I would like to see is more Irish bands touring outside of Ireland. It seems to me that right now there are not that many Irish bands working on establishing themselves outside Ireland in the DIY sense. Fuck what I am trying to say here is hard to put into words too. Put it like this, every year we see tours coming through Ireland by bands from Germany, England, Scandinavia, the US, etc., countries with pretty well-established scenes. This is not a bad thing, but how often do we see Irish bands going to play in these countries? There are some bands doing it but not very many in comparison I think, it would be nice to see this ratio addressed a bit more.
In fact that whole question sort of brings up the issue of how viable it is to play in DIY bands in Ireland and have the opportunity and time to go and tour elsewhere, which is a very messy issue with countless different factors involved. Also Gary Sloan I think recently had a thread asking about how many Irish bands had stuff released this year, and in my opinion this is one of the factors in that as well.
As for stuff like venues to use and the continuing use of current venues when there are problems at some gigs, is this an issue that will effect us on an on-going basis or will it get better at some point?
Overall I would like to see a more solid co-operation between the different scenes around Ireland, I think at the moment there is a bit too much of separation between scenes in the different cities I would like to see people from all the different scenes working a bit closer together to try and make things better overall, if that makes sense.
Fuck it that will do me for the moment, sorry if that's a bit rambling but like I say everything just comes into my head at the same time and I have difficulty sorting it all out sometimes! I'm off to work, please try and post your opinions in this thread thanks.
