Banquet Records

Banquet Records’ New Slang club night announces a sponsorship deal with etnies

Banquet Records’ New Slang club night is happy to announce a sponsorship deal with skate brand etnies to run through the latter half of 2011.

Now in its 5th year, New Slang has regularly been bringing the biggest bands to Kingston on a Thursday night. The likes of Vampire Weekend, The Cribs, Bombay Bicycle Club, Foals and The Wombats have all graced the stage as well as many smaller, rising bands.  With a very real focus on live music and with DJs playing indie / alt till the early hours the night is now known throughout the UK. Through the highs and not as highs, the love of doing it has not dropped since day one.

The night came to the attention of etnies who wanted to form an association with New Slang and Banquet were only too happy to be involved.  New Slangers are already no strangers to skateboarding as New Slang teams up with Slam City Skates for a yearly game of s.k.a.t.e. in a nightclub named “New Slam” - this year’s event is on July 28th

With resident DJs Sean and Jon both skateboarders, the sponsorship sits well with the mindset of those that run the night. New Slang and etnies will be teaming up throughout the year for giveaways and promotional offers. 

“What started out as us plugging a mic into the DJ booth and having our friend Frank Turner play some songs for us, has turned into a regular night out for the Kingston music community.  As a skateboarder for most of my life, and a music fan for more of it, I’m flattered that etnies want to endorse our club night” - Jon Tolley, Banquet Records 

 ”Music needs nights like New Slang and stores like Banquet Records, a good crew doing it for the love and genuine passion for independent music. We’re proud to be supporting them - like minds doing a good thing. A mutual love of skating helps cement the partnership too, and with the new etnies store now open in Kingston, it just made sense to support the scene”.- Tom Henshaw, etnies

Im so stoked on this. 

We do enough shows all the time.  We’ve had some crazy good gigs, some unbelievable shows from some brilliant bands.  When you think about Vampire Weekend at New Slang, New Found Glory at the cocks, Movielife at The Peel, these shows have all been such great moments.

But few have excited me as much as this gig!

Face To Face (via Mark Beggars / The Loft and the like) were the band that got me hooked on punk rock.  And as such completely changed my life. The only band i’ve ever flown to America to see !  The band who at the time saying they wouldnt fly anywhere to play shows - 6 months later they played The Astoria… ha.

Even tho they’ve been away for a little while they’ve consistently been brilliant over the last 20 years, and this is the first time they’ve come to Kingston.  It merges with the Flatliners gig we already had for that date, making an unbelievable line up.

This is a big deal for me, for Dave, for Jane, for Tall Dave, for Guildford Dave, and for so many people who were and still are involved in the Kingston punk rock world.  so stoked on it.

If this show sells out quick, there may well be another show for them in Kingston, with a different twist.  Tickets on sale on Tuesday.

http://www.banquetrecords.com/ftf2308

I really think Rocksound is the best of the music press big players

Here’s a piece about #rsd11 on their blog

Its with great disappointment that we’ve decided to pull the under 18s night at The Hippodrome, planned for Tuesday 19th

Its not something we do lightly.  Banquet has always been about providing services, gigs and clubs for the Kingston music community. Whilst it is our business and livelihood, not all decisions are made from a purely financial perspective.  This is one such example.  The impression we were getting was that few were excited about it.  Sure, we didn’t have a long time between announcing the gig and the proposed date, but there were a number of reasons.  A few big name artists were “going to confirm tomorrow” and that never really happened.  The council no longer have money to help promote a service for under age kids, and I didn’t feel comfortable sending people to flyer t schools and the like.  We found it harder to reach the target customers via social networks than we’d thought it’d be. 

The number of people that were positive to the event was greatly appreciated.  But if we had as many as 200 people in that club it would have felt flat, wouldn’t have been a great night out like we’d planned, and we’d have lost loads of money

I and Banquet are of course super-committed to the organisation and promotion of gigs for under 18s (as well as all the over 18s stuff we do too).  Only tomorrow we have an under 18s King Blues show ahead of their New Slang gig that night.  Later this week we’ll announce a matinee 14+ show at The Fighting Cocks, and we do as many instores and chances for younger music fans to meet and watch great bands. 

But the under 18s DANCE / New Slang night just wasn’t going to work.

Maybe the last promoter of the U18s night (despite not paying all his bills, including some money to us), was better than we gave him credit for.  Maybe we just don’t know how to reach the under 18s clubbers without support from the council. 

I don’t know what the plans are for it in the future.  I know we can be involved if we want to be, and The Hippodrome have been great about all this

What do you think?
We’d love to know

Mail me jt@banquetrecords.com and if it turns out we can sort out something better for the summer holidays then we’ll give it our best shot!

Thanks
Jt / banquet / new slang / DANCE