Words: Jonathan Morris
Leonard Cohen @ The Cube and Paradisco / Horse Meat Disco @ Strange Brew
Bristol’s variety is one of its most charming assets. Like all great cities that thrive on their art and nightlife scenes, Bristol can please almost everyone on any given night – no matter how much fun you’re having, something even more exciting could be right around the corner.
This led me to a question – just how many ways are there to explore Bristol’s music without attending traditional gigs? What is going on in the farthest reaches of Bristol’s music scene, where songwriting circles come together and underground club nights thrive, the friction of the city’s disparate scenes colliding. On a cold January night, I set out to explore how far you can push a musical hop by visiting two of the city’s most famed independent venues for two very different types of events.
Despite living in Bristol for close to a decade, I’ve somehow never been to The Cube. One of Bristol’s most inspiring, diverse and beloved cultural institutions, The Cube is part-independent microplex, part-art venue, one where Turbo Speed Dating and latest export in Norwegian cinema receive equal billing. Tonight the venue was playing host to a very special karaoke night, one that organisers Karaoke Koncepts encouraged attendees to come and “get sad, wry and poetic” at, one dedicated entirely to…Leonard Cohen?
While I’m not the biggest fan of Leonard Cohen’s back catalog, I’m familiar enough to know his barrel-aged songbook is more gravelly despair than karaoke classics. Those taking the mic to tackle “Hallelujah” typically channel Jeff Buckley over Cohen. While you might get away with a crooning rendition of “Suzanne” as your party piles into the room, delving into “Bird on a Wire” feels more suited to late arrival open mic fodder.
It quickly became apparent that this contrast and contradiction was the point however, with Cohen’s downbeat poetry on missed connections and mortality acting as a mask allowing performance and audience alike to shed trepidation and come together in song – even more so than the cut out face coverings decorating the bar.
Of course, the nature of a place-to-place is relentless, after a few renditions greeted with camp adulation from the crowd, it was time to move on. Our next stop? Just a short fifteen-minute pivot down the road into the city centre to staple indie space in the Bristol scene, Strange Brew. Tonight, the moody, industrial interiors of this crowdfunded venue played host to one of the city’s growing DJ and party collective Paradisco, with special guests Horse Meat Disco.
If one thing is true about a Bristol night out, it’s you’re never wanting for a DJ. Whether it’s in the corner of a Stokes Croft bar or laboured at a regrettable afters, the city’s dance scene is still a thriving and desirable one, with more and more events cropping up every day.
Throughout their run of Bristol events, Paradisco have established a light-hearted, easygoing reputation for their Disco Isn’t Dead club nights. built on a genuine passion for tunes you can pop around to in murky clubs and pubs alike.
As we prepared to leave I considered all the events going on that night, the sense that there’s always something else exciting going on nearby. The customary DJ in the corner of The Hillgrove as we pre-drank, the people spilling out of an RNB day party at Electric, the free show as part of Independent Venue Week just around the corner at The Lanes.
Moving from the seated, participatory experience of The Cube’s Cohen karaoke night to the kinetic, swaying energy of Paradisco could have resulted in a musical whiplash, but I was struck by the vulnerability that both relied upon. Whether it’s taking the stage to perform in front of a room of strangers, raising your voice to sing along as part of a crowd or letting your inhibitions go as you dance into the early hours, finding new music experiences across a city that has plenty to offer requires you to be vulnerable and give yourself up to pre-conceived ideas.
It was a reminder that Bristol’s best nights aren’t always found on huge posters around town funded by corporate partners, but stuck to lampposts and passed down by people you meet, thriving in the spaces where the lines between the performer and the audience get blurred.
// Words: Jonathan Morris // Photography: Courtesy of The Cube //