Moving out of London

From taking the shortest way to catford mews avoiding the lights to FREE RANGE EGGS!

£1.50 for 6 if you’re passing.

Honesty box.

So two weeks ago was the sixth anniversary of our arrival in Oz... That sounds like a long time ago tho' it doesn't feel that long ago...

Two years ago I may have said it's all been a terrible mistake but now I definitely feel we made the right choice. If everything that's happened while we've been here happened in London it would've fucked us up royally, as it is things have turned out pretty great... Bought a beautiful little house, interesting and rewarding job, great lifestyle and weather, etc...

Covid put the kybosh on seeing the few friends I have last year but now we're out the other side I'm not sure I'm that bothered about rectifying that situation TBH... I'm enjoying being a homebody...

I really miss my family and I really miss my mates back in London (and the rest of the world, so many friends have scattered around the globe in the last six years), that's the toughest part to deal with... You'll never get that easy, local thing with your mates back, that's the real heartbreaker...

But you just move on and you get on with it, that's life... It'll all be over soon enough...

Great stuff. Happy that things are good. Of course your mad living in Oz where nature can kill at every step. Next step a ute and dog 👍🐶

Aw, man, I saw the most amazing murdered out double cab Hi-Lux Ute today, totally took my breath away... The dog is coming... Soon!!

Miss ya too mate x
Glad it’s working out for you tho

I dunno man, it’s five and half years since we left and although I still miss loads of people and things, finding a core group of mates here was an absolute game changer.

Been ironing out a few things with our flat sale so everything has been dragged out since I last sent you a message BUT things seem to be moving along now, we've had an offer accepted on a house near The Elephant last week that's chain free, so all being well we might be down by end of June.

Calling the What Exists Outside London hive mind.....

One of the reasons we moved to London back in the day was for the music scene. But we are old and Mr B, the musician of the partnership, is finding the London band demographic has little interest in a 52 year old bass player even if he does look, as one review famously pointed out, like a white Snoop Dogg.

In Newcastle, where we are from, it's possible to form bands and keep gigging pretty much forever as long as you don't mind that most of the time you'll be playing tiny venues where the audience is the band's significant others and 3 random smackheads from Blythe, which Mr B is totally fine with. But I'm not sure I can face the North East again. We've also ruled out Totnes, Bristol and Brighton, for reasons, but we are wanting a town not a city because if you are going to live in a UK city we already live in the best one.

(To be honest I don't really want to leave London at all, but Mr B does so I'm entertaining the possibility.)

Are there any small/med towns outside of London with a decent live music scene that should be on our radar? He's not looking for an audience of adoring fans, just the possibility of finding a bunch of aging goths and former indie kids to play with and a few bars to play in.

Couple of mates who live in stroud love it one opened a record shop there. They are not musicians but DJ regularly pre covid. And from what I can tell from them there is a good vibe and core of good punters

Are there any small/med towns outside of London with a decent live music scene that should be on our radar?

Tunbridge Wells is home to the Forum. Good music scene in that area, lots of links to the Forum. Been closed for most of the pandemic but they've found ways to improvise, both in impromptu venues and online.

You don't have to live in TW to be a part of that scene, if that matters.

Friend moved to Hastings recently, said there was lots of musicians living there.

'Arty' friends have moved to Hastings and Ramsgate recently. Whitstable and Margate have probably had their fill of those from Londres

I moved to Hastings about 5 yrs ago for the same arty-farty reasons. Excellent live music scene but yeah, also a lot of depravity which is somehow more noticeable than when I lived in Shoreditch. @brokenbetty feel free to hit me up if you want a chat about it.

Did you really? I love Hastings... I regret not buying a flat there in the very late 90s, found a beautiful little ground floor Victorian conversion in St Leonard's for only £20k... It was gonna be a weekend getaway, sadly never happened.

Got a few friends living there now

Really? I grew up there and moved back 4 years ago.

Lots of musicians, mostly a bit older - likewise with artists.

My mate Bill, who used to drum in The Shovell, has lived there for decades, he loves it...

I'd echo Hastings and Stroud, both have great music scenes with all sorts happening and low barriers to entry. In the best way.

This is really helpful, thank you. I'd somewhat dismissed Hastings as one of the places with aspirations of being "the next Brighton", because I'm not a huge fan of Brighton. Have I got that wrong? (Wrong about Hastings I mean. I'm confident in my lack of love for Brighton).

Don’t think I’ve met him but we have many mutual friends! Sadly I’m not doing any live music down here now but I hope to once lockdown is finally over…

He's the best drummer I've ever played with, Keith Moon in a fistfight with Dennis 'Machine Gun' Thompson, you should hook up! I think he was playing with Larry Love up until covid struck...

@Elguapo

Ha! I was thinking about him when I typed that... They're about equal, very different drummers tho'!

I've just been down in St Leonards cat-sitting, I almost accidentally walked into an alt.country band on my fourth day there. With a guy from Nashville.

Tragically @TS those 20k flats are but ghosts in our braincells, if I'd known then etc etc...

I'm growing tired of London/life....