Who Are Cambridge’s Best Promoters? For Crushing Death and Grief, It Has to Be DIY

In a small and often uninspiring music scene, Crushing Death and Grief stand out as Cambridge’s only purveyors of regular, quality, accessible gigs. Programming a mix of big and small names, with typically indie-folk leanings, they provide the kind of low cost, casual event that is so important in sustaining a city's creative culture.

Ahead of their 20th anniversary, I sat down with Dan, one of Crushing Death and Grief’s organisers, to gain an understanding of Cambridge’s changing music scene - with one of the people best placed to discuss it. 

It took me a while to come across Crushing Death and Grief, and when I finally did, it was through a chance glance at a poster. They were exactly what I had been looking for in Cambridge, a reliable promoter to introduce me to good, new indie music. Yet, as we start off chatting about the impact of the ‘town and gown’ divide, Dan tells me that in his ‘18 years as a promoter, it is so rare to get Cambridge students at a gig’. 

Photo: Crushing Death and Grief

Why do you think that is? I ask:

‘Well, Cambridge as a whole is quite square (...). There has to be a nucleus of good student art and music, and if that exists it comes a lot more from ARU.’ 

“Dan tells me that in his ‘18 years as a promoter, it is so rare to get Cambridge students at a gig’”

I wonder if it’s because students are here for such a short time? Yet, as Dan explains, when he was at university in Manchester, ‘there were loads of good bands coming out of the uni, a major gig venue in Manchester is the Student Union itself. I guess at Cambridge it's so condensed and high pressure. From what I’ve seen, unless you're incredibly strong willed, or just having a bad time and don't want anything to do with it, it's hard to create your own music. The will is there more to see it than maybe produce.’

It’s a shame, that the precedent for original music in Cambridge doesn’t exist in the same way as other disciplines. As Dan points out, ‘something like footlights has gone on forever’, yet each new musical venture he has seen ‘dies out’. 

Photo: Crushing Death and Grief

 Not to say that there isn’t good music coming out of Cambridge. I wonder if Dan has any experience with recent exports like Ugly and Black Country, New Road. 

‘Yeah, they didn’t go to the uni, but I’ve known them (Ugly) and the guys from BCNR since they were kids. They would come to our gigs, and I put on the band Nervous Conditions before they became BCNR. From that band was Isaac, Charlie, Tyler and Lewis, and when Nervous Conditions fell apart, they kept going.’ 

This is why promoters like Crushing Death and Grief are so important, I say, to inspire and create the opportunity for these new bands to play. Without them, who knows if we would have bands like Black Country, New Road. As Dan says, ‘Someone has to give them their first gig. Sometimes we take a chance, if a band has played no gigs, and they have like one demo track on SoundCloud, it's intriguing. They could be good, they could be bad, let's give them a go.’  

Black Country, New Road / Paul Hudson

“Someone has to give them their first gig (…) They could be good, they could be bad, let's give them a go.”

The endurance of the local music scene is essential and yet as arts funding is pulled, it becomes harder to resist behemoths like London where business is more stable. Crushing Death and Grief is a passion project, not for profit:

‘Most of us who've been involved over the years come from this DIY scene, where the deal is that you're not gonna make any money. All the money is the money you make on the door, and that goes to the bands and the venues. What’s most important is, that everyone is getting something from it, is the audience. Our logic is, if we didn't put this gig on, would we go and see this band somewhere else? So we might as well put it on here.’

‘When we started there were a handful of people doing interesting small gigs, like Harvest Time, who did weird americana and freak folk. And then Bad Timing, who did noise and strange electronic stuff. And we all liked what everyone else was doing. We didn't do that many gigs 18 years ago, but now we do loads because there's no one else. Harvest Time stopped 15 years ago, Bad Timing sort of stopped 7 or 8 years ago, they do the occasional gig now and installations. Some things have sprung up but it's not feeding the same thing.’ 

I ask Dan why he thinks so many gig venues and promoters are dropping off:

‘We are able to put on gigs quite cheaply, but it's more and more expensive for bands to tour. Quite recently they’ve been having to ask for much larger sums, it's been a big jump. I think about who are the big indie people in London, Manchester etc., it's all alternative, but so popular. You know, they do stadium shows and also stuff at small venues. And that looks like a sustainable business. For a niche artist, 1000 people would go to London but not fill a 200 cap venue in Cambridge. Especially because we're so close to London, it wouldn't work here.’

‘There were a few pubs that used to do gigs that don't any more - The Haymakers and The Cornerhouse. One just changed owner and they wanted to make it fancier, it was strange place but at least it was there. Cornerhouse used to let us use the room for free as long as the regulars could have free entry, and I think the stuff we put on was quite confusing for some of them. But then they built a huge Premier Inn across the road, and they realised they could do better business by getting rid of us. The Six-Six, from the 60s to 2002, was a venue called The Boat Race, which was properly on something called the ‘Toilet Circle’. That was all provincial venues with 1-200 cap that were a bit grotty. Definitely one (the Tunbridge Wells forum) was a converted former public toilet. Every band trying to make it at a certain level would play the circuit. Then it closed down and they reopened it a couple years ago.’ 

By now we’ve had enough of discussing the trials and tribulations, and I ask about the artists Dan’s met that he admires, and whether it’s true that you should never meet your heroes:

‘It can be dangerous. Some artists have a real persona, very sarcastic or aloof, and you don't know how close that is to reality. I had the most fear about Dean Blunt, who was actually really lovely. He's in a band called Hype Williams, who we put on. He has this very aloof, distant and confrontational stage persona, but is so nice in real life. Most people are, and then on stage something switches.’ 

Dan and the other organisers have put on so many artists that I love, including Caroline, and Kiran Leoard, who’s playing at one of their upcoming 20th anniversary shows. 

‘He (Kiran Leonard) is phenomenal, my working theory is no Kiran Leonard, no Caroline, no BCNR, no Ugly. He crystallised this grandiose pop in the 2020s, and I think a lot of people were inspired by that. He's only about 28 now, but I think his first album came out when he was 16. We've had him on a bunch of times but I've had to stop calling him a child prodigy.’ 

They have brought so many incredible artists to Cambridge, a city half-populated by students, and yet so few students seem to know about their gigs. We wonder about how to advertise in the age of social media. 

‘It’s hard to advertise gigs the traditional way, in record shops, most people don't find out about things that way anymore. And there's a disconnect between people who buy records and go to gigs. There's no central place to find out about smaller things.’ 

So for any music lovers, I highly recommend Crushing Death and Grief. If you swing by a gig, you might not know the bands, but you know it’s going to be good. Without local promoters, cities like Cambridge would have no music scene at all, so take the opportunity to support their work if you can.