Venues Archives - Blackpool Social Club

03 May

Blackpool’s Galleon Bar Threatened With Closure

David Simper0 CommentsLocal News, Music & Gigscoronavirus, Covid-19, Cultural Recovery fund, live music, Music, Music Venues, Venues

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] A town centre bar that has established itself as a community asset in supporting local musicians and charities is at risk following the Arts Council England's (ACE) refusal of its application to the Cultural Recovery Fund. Reliant on live music performance and its late licence, the venue has struggled under recurrent lockdowns since March 2020 and the 10pm curfew that was imposed. Now it is reaching the end of its resources.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Musician and owner Stephen Pierre has officially complained to the Arts Council after he was told the Galleon didn’t meet the cultural significance criteria of the funding bid. Cultural…

No communal chanting: Dirty Blondes in Lockdown

Claire Griffiths0 CommentsFood and DrinkBlackpool, Venues

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Following on from my visit to Bootleg Social, I went to meet Jake Truman at the fairly new Dirty Blondes. Sandwiched between Church and Birley Street, Dirty Blondes had gone down a storm on opening with its SNES' and Mega drives adorned booths, amazing pizza and walls pasted with old skateboard mags. I'd photographed Sophie Aspin here, Blackpool's female Grime artist back in January for Big Issue North and wanted to see what their plans might be for opening their doors again to the public. I spoke to Jake Truman one of the partners in the business.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="29413" img_size="medium"…

Bootleg Social’s Stephen Skelly on emerging from lockdown

Claire Griffiths0 CommentsMusic & GigsBlackpool, Music, Venues

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] I grew out of the rave era, thousands of kids finding a way to have a shared experience, bending the rules and flaunting law and order. Throughout lockdown I've thought a lot about how Blackpool would come out of these times, particularly our underground music scene, and how restrictions have impacted small music venues, the people that run them and how we find that shared experience again. In a series of articles I spoke to Stephen Skelly of Bootleg Social, Jake from Dirty Blondes and Ian from The Waterloo Music Venue to try and find out. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="29333"…