A Night in the Life of a Nightlife Enthusiast
Considering the size of its population, Falmouth has an increasingly intimidating and impressive dance music scene. However all is not what it seems: the world of dance music has been turned completely on its head.
The hierarchy of dance music throughout the UK goes roughly as follows – House music, in all its many guises (Deep House, Tech house, etcetera), first. All other types of dance music, second.
Yet the dance music scene, as with many other forms of culture in Falmouth, is completely reversed. The underground is mainstream and the mainstream, underground.
The main venue for this new scene in Falmouth is the Rugby Club. Last year the Rugby Club opened its doors no more than four nights a month on average. This year, however, that has soared to 10 times a month.
It is impossible to walk past the rugby club on a Friday night without hearing the sort of sounds usually confined to nightmares or migraines, and if you manage to avoid the sight of someone throwing up on their shoes then it really is your lucky day.
Helena Lewis, a University College Falmouth student, said of the rugby club: “I hate how drunk you have to feel to enjoy yourself in there. It’s horrible, it feels like the sort of place you’d go for an alcoholics anonymous meeting.”
On this issue Helena seems to stand with the minority, as each night the Rugby Club is filled to the brim with eager, loving crowds, each reveling in the fact that they, once the underdog, are now part of the mainstream culture.
House music nights are going bust, no longer bringing in enough revenue to cover even the most slight of bar tabs. More and more people are ebbing away from the bright lights of the Watermans, away from the consistent pounding rhythm of house music towards the Tim Burton end of the music scene.
It is difficult to explain the difference in these types of music to people who are not familiar with the ins and outs of dance music. A fair comparison would be to refer to house as a dentist’s drill, and jungle as a chainsaw. Not necessarily a bad thing, as although chainsaws aren’t massively popular, neither is the dentist’s drill.
Dental hygiene aside, there are other aspect of music within Falmouth floundering from the lack of attention. Just this month saw the third installment of Financial Kollapse Records night at the Cutty Sark. An extra special night as this was the launch night of their new EP, a promising release on the Hip Hop scene.
Yet Financial Kollapse records also seem to be feeling the strain of the recession, with only 20 people turning up to revel in this new piece of original music. So it seems they may be staring, poetically, at financial collapse.
Maybe there is some rhyme and reason as to why the music scene in Falmouth town is slowly dwindling, and to why the rugby club is the last bastion of the crowd-searching drunkard, and if there were one, it would be in the shape of Remedies.
Remedies was Falmouths main attraction in terms of nightlife. It was an essential part of the culture to at one point or another have its name stamped on the back of your hand like a branded piece of cattle.
Although in previous years it played host to some reputable names, and could be considered to some extent a good venue, in recent years its role had changed. From provider of entertainment, to something alike to a light in a kebab shop: attracting the irritations towards it, then leaving them sometime later drooling on the floor, no harm to anyone.
When Remedies closed, however, it was like someone had poisoned the watering hole. All the dregs of society left the prison-like walls of Remedies, and flooded into the surrounding area, essentially turning previously good venues such as QBar and the Watermans into UFC fighting cages.
An explanation, maybe, but a remedy it is not. With more and more people flooding out of town the ratio of poison to water is rising, and unless something is done soon, we might all be forced to take refuge in the rugby club, inducing migraines and throwing up on our own shoes.
