Leading light of lancaster's music scene and Co-Op, speaks freely about the past, present and future

"We look like we know what we're doing..."

We sent Patrick Garrigan to find out a bit of history about the Lancaster Music Co-Op, and whilst he was at it, bless him, he interviewed Ian Dicken.

pg: How did you get involved at the Co-Op?

id: Just by coming down and volunteering, really. I just painted things, did all of that, and then one day, after about a year of that, I got invited to dinner by Michael, that was their way of doing it in those days, over a cup of tea, some vegetarian stuff, tofu. Not that thre's anything wrong with that, of course. And they asked if I'd like to become a member of the Co-Op. At that point, there were a lot more members, all the bands who used it at that point were members, and a few other people as well, must have been about fifteen, twenty.

pg: has that sort of system died out, through a sort of natural selection, then?

id: In a way... about a year ago, it got to the point where it was cheaper to just have three members. It's wierd, with the Co-Op society, you'd think that the more members you had, the better, but it appears that the more membeers, the more you pay, basically. So we got it down from about six or seven people, some of whom weren't coming in anymore, to three and saved two hundred quid in a year. It has made it more sort of business-like, and also it's made a difference to us, we've put a lot in over the years and wanted something back.

pg: It strikes me that, certainly over the last seven years, a lot of the homogenous, locally-created ideas and schemes have dissappeared, or have "straightened out", or become more "business-like". Is that symptomatic of what's happening at the Co-Op?

id: When it things started happening, it was something I'd wanted for a long time. I was very happy when the building work began, and even things like the office have made a big difference. I had argued for that for a long time, that people coming in would respect the place more if it was there, and I think it is true, people do. And why not, you know, I think we do look like we know what we're doing. But I'm all for that, a bit of PR.

pg: As the way that people treat the Co-Op changes, does it change the kind of people who are using the Co-Op? Have you noticed any kind of change in that?

id: Well, there's more people coming in. The catchment area's definitely broadened - there's even bands now coming in once or twice a week from Kendal. But they might not be allowed to play anywhere in Kendal.....

pg: There's been a lot of bands splitting up recently, so has that had a noticeable effect on life here?

id: No, the last six months have been ridiculously busy. Some days have been absolutely mental, full-up all day. All sorts of different bands on..[proceeds to guide me through Co-Op database]... Although August is quiet, and the busy days sort of shift around, but the only really odd thing is that we put the prices up and suddenly it's gotten busier.

That was part of the early rationale, that we should keep the place affordable, but you've got to be realistic about it. If someone's coming in in the evening, they've probably got a job and can afford a little bit more, whereas if you're skint you can still probably afford to come in during the daytime when it's cheaper. So that's still there. Maybe that needs chopping up a little bit more - if we have £2.50 until seven, maybe it could go up to £3.50 from five, you know. Because we just don't know, maybe it's peaked for this year, and the custom's just going to fall off for the rest of the year, or whatever.

pg: Thinking about the Yorkshire House, there does seem to be a dearth of gigs at the moment. Do you think this is just a squib, or are people just not doing that kind of thing any more?

id: No, there are, they're just too young to be playing in a pub at the moment. Or wouldn't drink enough beer. So that does exclude quite a few bands. Strangely enough, we've had a call from somewhere in Leeds this afternoon, offering exchange gigs so that may lead to a few more. But I would say that there are as many bands as there were a year ago. But there's not that many that are much good.

pg: I always thought it was a shame that Lancaster had a lot of talented bands, but no Brian Epstein-Andrew Loog Oldham-svengali-types to manage them.

id: Yeah, plenty of inspiration but very little application. We did actually consider setting up a Co-Op label, just supporting the best of the bands,ten or fifteen or so, but we couldn't afford to run it, couldn't get funding. It's a problem really - you look at something like peoplesound, and there's thousands of bands out there, but it's knid of a nebulous thing, there's loads of stuff you've never heard of and none of the stuff you want. It would be good to have a similar kind of site with a much smaller selection, which is kind of what we had in mind for us. But all of that's a way off yet.

pg: Finally, then, what can we look forward to in the future at the Co-Op?

id: well, we are thinking about putting in an extra studio room so we can have separation on the drums, so that live recordings can be done much more effectively. Also, we might put in an extra rehearsal room. But we'd probably need a lot more money before any of that happens..............