An introduction to Basingstoke: the first sight tourists see on arriving at my veritable wonderland.
The film KIDS closes with a monologue from the main character, Telly. “When you’re young”, he says, “not much matters. When you find something that you care about, that’s all you got." The film’s about AIDS and young Telly’s talking about his desire to deflower virgins, but the logic behind his sentiment can be applied more generally to adolescence. If you take the one thing teenagers care about away, there’s nothing else.
There are a lot of small towns in Britain, places like Swindon, Milton Keynes, Banbury, Derby, Cornwall, which are teeming with teenagers. Like Telly, some of those teens are content with exploring the wet dens and sticks of wonders. But for others, there's a desire for creative pursuits: the need to find some sort of culture beyond the statue in the town square. It usually starts with the discovery of music, which then turns into the desire to watch bands live. The problem is that most of these small towns exist relatively far from big cities, and definitely don't have iconic music venues. You’re generally left with something most people imagine resembles a scene from the Inbetweeners. A gaggle of kids with a clearasil deficiency watching a cover band called Dub Side of the Moon play in their local - and in some ways, that’s an honest portrait. But for the people who grew up in places without AEG backed music tours, I’m willing to bet those local scenes, no matter how threadbare, became the one thing that, if taken away, would leave them with nothing else. These towns are so devoid of culture that each opportunity to see something real is like finding a bottle of Fiji water in the desert, and these music scenes are integral thirst-quenchers within a small town adolescence.
I grew up in Basingstoke, called “Basingrad” or “Amazingstoke” by the emo kids who hung around the fountains, and, like most towns outside of London, the music on offer was scarce. The big bands played in the capital; the medium sized bands made it to Southampton; and the small ones were put on in Guildford. As its Uncylopedia page suggests, Blazingstoke is famed for being a “shit commuter town full of shit other cities didn’t want”, like a ring road, a multi-story carpark, a crappy leisure centre, at least four Greggs, and the dregs of South England’s music scene. Each weekend, local bands would take up residence in whatever community center or village hall was up for the offering. Unable to afford the travel to London, or even be allowed to skirt the labyrinth of train-lines late at night without a chaperone, we were left to make do with the limited local shows available. I imagine it’s the same for anyone who grew up in a town where its biggest achievements are the flower displays inside its roundabouts.
Basingstoke: The Movie - The Prequel. By Robert Thein
Each weekend would start the same. We would eat a Meatball Marinara at the Subway joint in the bus station; convince a stranger to buy us alcohol; and gleely carry our plastic-bagged loot to a gig at a secondary school’s sports hall or a small venue underneath the local theatre. Unlike London, where you would have to bypass security, the shows in Basingstoke were usually put on by parents or teenagers, and turning up blind drunk, wasted on Frosty Jacks with another two litres of Strongbow in your backpack was easy. This discovery transitioned our nights from just watching music, into full on life lessons. Yeah, we watched bands, but we also learned what happens when you down three litres of budget cider in ten seconds. Usually meatball-flecked disappointment stained into the floor of the last train service home.
When Basingstoke got boring, which happened with frequency, or we wanted to meet people from other towns, we would head to shows in Alton, Farnham, or Andover. I remember watching You Me at Six tear down the stage at a boozed up community centre in the woods; standing next to Bring Me The Horizon’s Olly Sykes while he went for a piss; and witnessing Kill The Arcade, an early iteration of the band that went on to become Brother, then Viva Brother, then Lovelife, play at some school. We were hearing music right on our doorstep and it became integral to our future. I first heard Adam Green’s “Bluebirds” and The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” for the first time in a small cafe next to Basingstoke’s train station. Small songs; tracks which pain me to listen to now. But they set me on a path of music discovery. I learnt what I liked; what I hated; and more importantly that there was music beyond the confines of The Beautiful South CDs my Mum used to play at dinner. And I think that’s the point of all local scenes really. Learning there’s more to music than Jacqui Abbott singing “Rotterdam”, Simply Red, M People, or whatever your parents had in their collection.
The lost youth of Basingstoke
It wasn’t clear then, but adventures to concrete havens inside and outside of our town fostered personal growth. It didn’t really matter that most local bands are terrible, because their existence helped render some valuable life lessons. Without the shows at local community centres behind Tesco superstores, we wouldn’t have learnt how to interact with strangers, that throwing up over your friend’s parent’s brand new car seats is a horrendous experience, and maybe wouldn’t have clumsily slid into third base, until years later. More than anything, though, local scenes create the opportunity to hang out with people you don’t see every morning at school, bleary-eyed and thumbing their way through a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird or waiting for you behind the bins to throw a satsuma in your face. Too young to get into clubs or be left home alone for an opportunistic house-party weekend, for the first time in most teenagers lives, local music scenes put people from different places and backgrounds drunkenly together in a room, united by the same passion. You quickly learn that it’s okay to put yourself on the line, scream about infidelities, and that there are people out there like you, with better music collections than yours, waiting to share.
By going to spots where you can hang out with new, interesting people, the world opens itself up. No longer constricted to the three bands known within your friendship group, you begin to know about other people’s interests, not just music, but the entire spectrum of the human experience, from their different backgrounds and class standing. Small scenes outside of cities and big towns are often looked down on, never thought about, and left ignored, rotting away. And - in terms of musical output - that should often be the case. The vast majority of bands never amount to anything. Their releases are terrible and suck harder than a hand placed next to a Dyson Airblade. But that’s not really the point of those scenes. The point is that they’re an unparalleled learning experience.
Bright White Light - local heroes
The important thing to remember is: these scenes are integral to teenager’s futures. Obviously they will always exist in London's menagerie of venues, underage nights, and parks. But in places outside of the capital, it's important these scenes continue to be fostered. We need more local venues to open their doors to local bands. We need more kids playing in bands, putting on nights, or DJing. Basically: we need a fuck load more opportunities for creative people to do interesting things. Alongside ice skating rinks, Harvester restaurants, and massive forests, they're one of the reasons that growing up outside of London doesn't have to suck. But like Telly says in Kids, if they're taken away, then you've "really got nothing".
You can find Ryan Bassil on Twitter: @RyanBassil
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