No venues?
What? Okay, don't make me laugh.

Firstly that Chilli Peppers story is news to me and I was at that gig. The A story is bollocks and has been admitted as much. They just didn't want to play.

There's Taylor Johns House which is tiny but lovely. I saw Imelda May there in February. The Kasbah (formerly the Colosseum) has had acts such as The Cribs, The Young Knives, Calvin Harris, Gary Numan, Super Furry Animals. And we've got the Ricoh which is where people go to watch our team get a drubbing yeah but this year alone we've had The Specials play there as well as Oasis and Take That. We're getting good acts to Coventry again and I'm glad.

Yes I'm Coventry born and bred and so I am going to defend my hometown, but I can slag it off too. The accent is just generic midlands (mine's a bit of a mess due to Irish parents and having moved away to uni).

I wish I could argue about the crime but only just this week a bloke was punched in a bar in Earlsdon (a 'respectable' part of town where I live). Smashed his head off the bar and now the police are looking at a murder case.

It's not as pretty as it could be, but we know all that. It's well known that we got built up again in the worst eras for design (1950s and 1960s). We got bombed and they built us all up wrong.

I love my home town. I was waiting for it to get bashed to fuck this week and you haven't disappointed me. Thank you.
( Blue Star was working part time at the 5 and Dime, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 15:35, 1 reply)

Venues
Coventry has had plenty of place to go to see live music :

The Sir Colin Campbell, Dog & Trumpet, Jailhouse/Greyhound and the not-quite-legendary-but-still-very-well-known-and-not-just-locally General Wolfe pubs have all had blinding gigs on in the recent past (though I can't say if any of them are doing live music right now, times change quickly in the licensed trade) and what about the Godiva festival?

There's always live music on somewhere if you actually look for it, and then support it by turning up rather than belly-aching on the net.

Coventry isn't exactly beautiful but then it is no worse than many other towns/cities in the country. In many ways it was a pioneering place - it was a shithouse way before the rest of Britain thanks to post-war planners, but now it's an also-ran.
It isn't even the home of mindless thuggery that it used to be either, other places have caught up there too. If anything Cov is way better than in the past, thanks to the Skydome sucking the life out of the "real" pubs and places like Fatty Arbuckle's closing (and being knocked down). You are more likely to die of boredom there now than from a good kicking.

Anyway, how can anyone criticise a city that used to have a 40' fibreglass Zulu outside the zoo? (I WANTED that Zulu in my front garden, and have tried to track it down but I've concluded it isn't lying folorn in a scrap yard any more, waiting to be resurrected. Shame.)

Still, you can always go a few miles out of Cov to Bedworth for a trip back in time. Make sure you wear your Argos bling as camoflage.
(Rsoles, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 16:47, closed)

Jailhouse is gone now.
It's been knocked for Severn Trent offices.

And how the heck could I forget the Godiva Festival. It's in the running for one of the festivals of the year.
( Blue Star was working part time at the 5 and Dime, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 16:59, closed)

I thought the reason bands didn't play anymore
was because of there being too much fightin' on de dancefloor.

Sorry.
( Noo_Noo Is now 'BeerElf Jnr', I guess :), Fri 30 Oct 2009, 13:06, closed)

I'm definitely going to have to object
to any mention of the Dog and Trumpet that makes it sound like a respectable venue. 2 of the 3 times I played there the cunts acting as bouncers assaulted at least one of the band members (and the music wasn't that bad...), but more than anything just being near the place makes me want to give up on life. Shit. Hole...
(James?, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 22:20, closed)

Venues
Dog and Trumpet: Have you ever left Coventry:? Been to any other town, on Earth? The D&T is an absolute hole, full of girls who have managed to accumulate an impressive range of STDs despite barely being old enough to grow pubic hair. Only tribute bands play there, possibly because of the GREAT BIG FUCK OFF PILLAR RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE.

General Wolfe: A pub with a stage. Absolute poohole. Any town in Britain has 3 or 4 places like this, but with far less chance of being stabbed.

Jailhouse: Potentially a good venue, but ruined by being run by the biggest gang of absolute shitbins I have ever had the misfortune to (attempt to) work with. No wonder it's gone under, the management there couldn't run a lukewarm bath.
(Axeman Jim, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 1:48, closed)

I didn't say
the venues themselves were great, but some of the best gigs I've ever been to/worked on/played have been in the shittiest venues. Certainly more than when I've been reamed for every last spare penny at the NEC or similar.

The Jailhouse should have been knocked down for one reason - Fake Court Black Box loaded with fuck-knows-what drivers. The world's shittiest excuse for PA (apart from Peavey, of course, and there were probably bits of that shite knocking about there too).

And FWIW, I'm not from Coventry, I'm from somewhere FAR FAR worse, somewhere that makes Cov look like paradise.......!
(Rsoles, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 13:09, closed)

I was (and still am) STD free in my D&T days
although I will freely admit it's a terrible place to go now I'm over the age of 18.

The Jailhouse reverted back to The Greyhound before Severn Trent acquired it for their new offices. Admittedly though when it was The Jailhouse, it had some decent bands. As you say, just a shame about the cunts who ran the place.
( Blue Star was working part time at the 5 and Dime, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 16:20, closed)