LTB SHOWROOMS - LAST PARTY
Saturday 28th December 2024
Jackdaw with Crowbar, Attrition, RobinPlaysChords, Ancient Champion and way more...
LTB Showrooms, the independent arts and culture center in Coventry that opened its doors in an old furniture warehouse and opened its doors to so much otherwise invisible creative acticity in the city, has held its last hurrah. And what a hurrah it was—an epic night of sometimes slight, sometimes loud, but at all times uncompromised, music artists.
As their website loudly proclaims, LTB is a not4profit DIY Arts, Music & Community venue — a showcase for Coventry’s grassroots culture! That it has closed is such a loss to the city, a loss that will not go unnoticed. I can’t think of anything quite like it where I am in Birmingham, but then I can’t think of anyone quite like Alan Denyer in Birmingham either. Alan didn’t do it alone, he works closely with Toni and Craig. They are facilitators, the essential glue that sticks the art to the walls and brings to Coventry city centre the sounds of music, the workshops, the indie artisan marketplaces. All created by supreme talents looking for a way in and and way out.
I was fortunate to be asked by organiser Tim Ellis of Jackdaw with Crowbar to play at the final big music event. Before I go on to say what fun that was, I'll mention that I have known Tim since before the dawn of time, aside from that 30 year period up until last month when I didn't. Okay, well, what fun that was, what a wild night of music before a packed audience. Look, you know I don’t know anything about music, but I’ll try to explain what I heard and saw and how,great it was. The first act I chanced upon was, RobinPlaysChords. I am going to reiterate, I know nothing about music, but Robin is like a solo shoe gaze experience. That’s so cool. I loved his shirt and wondered where one would find one? I also wondered a lot how soon we might feature him in OL?
RobinPlaysChords
Such was the systematic sprezzatura of the event logistics, no sooner than RobinPlaysChords final chords faded, they were instantaneously supplanted by the first band in an area that, if we were in a mid-century NYC apartment, would be ordained the sunken living room. Is it okay to say they were rawkus? Without a doubt. They could’ve been the Caroline Bomb.
As the night went on, the eclectic nature of the artists morphed into the fabric of the building and in many ways wrote this chapter of possibility and of what has been. A band we have featured often, Attrition, who have been an independent marker on Coventry’s cultural scene for decades, an under-the-radar international institution, performed inimitably. As with every act, theirs is a distinctive style. 
Attrition
The Mudlark jug band was, well, a super tuneful experience. A weird one, however, in many ways. My American friend observed, what to make of their Nathan Abshire musings and Dexy’s dress up? Like reverse Dick Van Dyke’s, it was still a moment of delight.
Personally, I was thrilled to play too, and this was probably my fave Ancient Champion performance ever. Well, maybe alongside the one at the Asylum art gallery where we transported truck loads of equipment and still forgot the microphones!
Then there were endless lovely people I met all night.
Finally, finally, of course - Jackdaw with Crowbar. Tim Ellis from the band had put the whole event together, stage managing even as the evening went along and yet still had the energy for Jackdaw’s incredible performance, which monumentally married bass-driven EDM with a beautiful overlaid veneer of video game s/t sounds. And singer Adam. And art. And audio-visual thrills and spills.
Jackdaw with Crowbar
Last month, Alan Denyer told Outsideleft’s Alan Rider "I'll no doubt shed a tear when we close the doors here for the last time as there’ve been so many fabulous conversations, exhibitions to see, and performances to watch during the three and a half years we’ve been here. What’s perhaps most important to me though is the difference we’ve made to people & communities. I went to a gig (not LTB, somewhere else!) in the city last week and one of the performers said she moved away several years ago but then came back and feels that Cov is suddenly really alive and full of possibilities - with a positive grassroots vibe - and that that’s down to the venues (LTB/Common Ground*/Just Dropped In/ The Tin/The Old Windmill) providing new opportunities. "
N E X T
"What’s next? We’ve a possibility for a new home that I’ll hopefully be able to announce soon - it’ll still be the city centre within the ring road (as I still think that’s important - we want folks to see Cov town centre as an exciting place to visit). It won’t be as big as where we are now, but in many ways that’s a bonus as it’s, like, mega hard work keeping so much floor space fresh / interesting (and clean!)"
For now the LTB is gone—Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow. But Alan and his team’s ambitions for indie culture in their city will emerge anew. It’s important and I know it will happen.
Essential Info
Main image, Ancient Champion by Paul Wright Photography. (One of my fave AC images ever), Paul Wright Photogtraphy is on instagram here
RobinPlaysChords image, Ancient Champion
Attrition image by Tim Ellis (I think)
Jackdaw with Crowbar image by Sarah Croon
LTB Showrooms is here.
*Sadly, Common Grounds too has announced it is closing.
