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Take two people who love live music and put them together in a small, dark club in the middle of the day to talk.. Ian Rogers at The Orange Box in Yeovil is a man driven by a passion to see new music makes its way onto everyone's Ipod, and to bring live acts back into the front of local consciousness. To that end he returned from a stint in Northampton, where he was running The Soundhouse live venue, to his home town of Yeovil.
Then came the decision to buy a house, or build a live music venue to showcase local talent, draw national talent, and support the creativity that is the watchword of the South West of England. God alone knows where this man sleeps, maybe in the music studios he runs above the venue, maybe in the offices of one of the many local music projects he supports! But hundreds of band members and thousands of fans are grateful for his input to a local scene full of varied and exciting musical creations.
Krissy Elliott, as part of a series of articles on smaller venues outside of South East England, went and braved the darkness of the club during the day, looking for coffee and enlightenment about how the music industry has changed and what that signifies for a whole new generation who want to be heard.
You've got a regular column in the local newspaper, the Western Gazette, now. How relevant do you think it is to be seen in the local press as well as in specialized music publications?
Well, it's important that people get so hear my views... Well, not just my personal ones, but people need access to information about the industry and need to know what's happening. I chair the Somerset Music Club and a few other bits and pieces, what I have to say can be relevant to local people and audiences. I also work with the Bristol Music Foundation, so I think it's important that issues and policies regarding music provision ijn the South West are spoken about openly so that people are kept well informed about licensing, issues like that. Also, for bands it's quite difficult at the moment. A local band, Pineapple Thief, go out of town and have a huge following. They headlined two festivals, one in Norway, one in Canada, around 45,000 people at each, but when they play here they pull 75 or 80 people! And most of them are from outside of the town!
Why do you think that is?
There's no definitive answer to that. It throws up several questions really. I think it's possible the fact that Yeovil's not used to being provided for in terms of live music. When people here think of entertainment, they look at going to Chicago Rock or Wetherspoons now, for the pub experience, or they go to the theatre, either The Swan or The Octagon, here in town. They are simply not used to being provided for by a live music venue. It seems to be more of a city idea, and I think the perception is that they don't get those kind of things here in a county town! There's sometimes the assumption that because we do metal shows then we're a kids venue, and that's not the case.
Well, we're not kids, and we love going to places like this!
That's my point. We've had all sorts of bands for all sorts of audiences, from Jazz to Blues, some slightly more experimental stuff, Ska.... Such diversity. In a city I think a live music venue is perceived as exactly that - one night can be acoustic, the next can be Punk, maybe then a Metal night. The audiences go to the music, not to the venue as such.
 So you think it's a cultural lack, and all about perceptions and habits locally, rather than a lack of interest?
Absolutely. There are plenty of music enthusiasts in Yeovil who travel to gigs, they are just not used to looking in their home town for them.
Do you agree that over time the importance of smaller provincial venues has been sidelined in favour of larger places in cities like London, Manchester, Nottingham, and even Bristol?
Well, the bigger shows with large budgets that you hear of, with big advertising, people are happy to travel out of town to those. When I ran The Soundhouse in Northampton we saw bands like The Libertines, The Killers, The Strokes, all these kind of bands came through there on their first and second tours. It's this kind of venue where you discover the bigger bands of the future. But it is bizarre. General Fiasco played here a couple of weeks ago and about 40 people came. We put them in the van, waved them off, then find the next night there's a Channel 4 documentary about them - the industry are making lots of noise about them! The radar here, it's too easy for bands to go under it.
So what needs to be done provincially to promote the live experience and get people out to gigs?
It's a case of exposure really. I've run businesses in Yeovil before, and it's really a case of keeping at it until finally you become part of the local culture. People either finally get used to you or... you fold! [Laughs]. There's a core of people who are really supportive of this, because they get what we are doing. You know the opening title sequence to Never Mind The Buzzcocks [TV show]? You know when the records are falling out of the ceiling and the drumsticks are flying around? Well, in essence, that's what we're providing. That direct contact with the live environment that exists throughout the country but also throughout Europe and the world. We're a small room but we've had some enormous bands playing here, and the response to the space has been phenomenal. Because it's low, and intimate, they've loved it. It's a very intense space, with a really good sound, and the response has been incredible. And this is from bands like Franz Ferdinand who are used to playing arenas!
Are your PA and desk top notch then, or do people bring their own kit along?
[Laughs] It's not as expensive as I'd like, because I set this up with my business partner, out of our own pockets. I'm not a rich man, I did it out of passion so... we got the best we could, it's a DB system, with good compressors, more than adequate for the size of the room. We've got an Allen and Heath desk, good effects units, full foldback facility and EQ for the monitoring as well. So any club standard professional set up - this would compete with it. It's specced the same as the small room at the Soundhouse [feel free to research this!] and the same as The Metro in London, I believe.
It's a difficult room because of all the hard surfaces so there's the kind of [clicks fingers] natural reverb that you get. But when you've EQ-ed the room out and you've got a few people in, the sound is excellent.
[Agreed, as I just went to see a gig there and the sound was top quality, even though it was a fairly quiet night].
A lot of engineers from well known bands such as The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Marilyn Manson, Keene, amongst others, have been through here when working with smaller bands and they just love the room. They've all been suggesting extra bits of kit they themselves use that can be added to improve the sound even more, so it's been really positive input. We've only had one complaint, from a band who played the Academy in Bristol 2 days before, through a £200,000 sound system, so I guess I can understand that a bit!
So what are the biggest changes have you seen in the music industry over recent years?
 MySpace, and the advent of being able to buy music online. Or steal it! Also, young bands can put up their stuff on MySpace, get 2000 hits and think they are fantastic. I get a lot of bands that have no gig experience contacting me for gigs. That's why I run the Open Mic nite, and every now and again we do a locals night, so we can pull these bands in and see what they are like. See if they are worth people paying money to come and see. We want to give them that chance. That's the whole point of what we do. We want to add value to the live act - you don't just end up with a band banging away in the corner, you get the full package.
So what you are saying is that although MySpace provides a great forum to get music out there, more weeding out has to be done at your level to discover which bands are in reality good enough to be out there playing live?
Yes. In the past, people used to have to provide a tape. That meant effort. You used to have to record the tape, make artwork, a lot of effort and time was involved. CD made it easier because you could do stuff in your bedroom, bung it on CD, do artwork, which was great. Now I just get tons of emails saying to check out their MySpace site. I get at least 60 a day! Well, I haven't got time to check them all; they have to do more to get me interested. They have to make the effort to promote themselves and their gigs properly, just posting it on MySpace isn't enough.
 It's the face to face contact people need to make, they need to be out there, enthusing about their band, pulling people in. It's too easy to be faceless, and also audiences have dropped off because they can audition bands on MySpace. If I put a line-up on a poster, then they can go and check them out before they come along. If they don't like what they hear on MySpace then they won't come out. In the past, people would come out, pay their ticket price, then later decide if they liked a band based on the live performance. A band might not be brilliant on MySpace but great live, and people are missing out on that, as well as having a good time with their mates. That social element of the discovery has moved slightly, you can do everything from your living room now!
So what can we do, over the coming years, to stop this being a problem and keep audiences in live venues like this up in numbers?
Well, things move in cycles, don't they? The music industry has been through several big revolutions in its time, from wax cylinders, to vinyl records, to CD's, to DAT recorders. The internet is just another thing the industry has to learn to cope with. Because music is so easy to download and it's faceless, what your live ticket provides is what you used to get when you bought a gatefold album: pictures, contact with the band, fan clubs, the way you feel a part of it.
Are you saying there's a lack of passion in the way music is given to the audience now?
Well, it is quite removed... but what I think live music does is provide that adrenalin charge. The live and online environments need to catch up with each other, and that will take time. In the end, there's only so long anyone can spend sat alone in their bedroom, tapping at a computer, before the urge to get out comes along, to meet a girl, get together with friends, go crazy... The live environment still provides the best forum to do that and get at some great music too!
Many thanks to Ian for a great chat which went on for somewhat longer than you see here. As the man said, make your demo, take the time, and go to www.orangeboxlive.co.uk to find out about contact and, of course, a great programme of live gigs!
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