By Zara Nixon
I went down to the iconic Jacaranda on the 24th April, to interview and find out more about the Fresh Finds events, ran by local promoter Good Times Live (@goodtimeslive_ on IG).
Good Times Live is a promotion company based across the Northwest, putting on both bigger shows such as The Suki’s headline at District in Liverpool and Stereophonics at the Dome, to more grassroots initiatives like ‘Fresh Finds’.
I sat down with 2 bands, Dollop and Gateway, along with James Jump with Good Times Live, to chat about the event, inspirations, the music scene and much more!
James Jump
Q: Tell me about Fresh Finds
I came on board with Good Times Live in the last few months and I’ve set up an artist initiative.
Fresh Finds is just a chance for us to showcase off new talent in the Liverpool, Merseyside, North West area, get them on some smaller shows, see how they perform, see what they’re like, try and build them up in the industry, whether we try and get out a radio play, get people to come down and interview them, get a videographer down, and show them how gigs are meant to be properly ran in Liverpool.
It’s a chance for us to showcase off all these amazing acts and see what we can actually do with these acts and bring them on to bigger horizons.
Q: What’s the structure of the night?
We’re not defined by genre, all 30-minute sets with set times decided by random, all the acts are equal. It’s a chance for each artist to show off what they can do and promote the artists through photography, videography and media shoutouts.
Q: It’s such an important job as promoter for grassroots scenes, how is it running the events?
I was an independent promoter for years, I recently joined Good Times Live to give me a chance to promote and platform smaller acts from grassroots venues to bigger venues.
We work with the likes of Olympia, the Guild, Arts Club in the Baltic, Jacaranda Baltic, and likes of smaller like venues like Jacaranda and the Kazimer Stockroom. It’s the chance to bring these artists up.
I’m a bit annoyed at some promoters in Liverpool who tend to scam artists, no promotion for the events and badly run events.
Q: What do you think of the Liverpool music scene?
I personally love it. I think there are so many amazing acts out there, whether its indie, psychedelic, reggae, spoken word. I can name millions of artists in the scene who I absolutely love and help make the scene a better place.
It’s different to every industry I’ve been in. At the moment, I’m working quite a bit up in Manchester, the Manchester music scene has a completely different vibe from what Liverpool is. Liverpool is very tight knit, which is it has its benefits, and it has its cons, but that any, I’m happy to be a part of it and I’m happy to help people and I’m happy it helps me. I want to ensure no one’s getting scammed, that’s the one thing I want to try and push.
Q: What’s next for you/ fresh finds?
For fresh finds, we’ve got eight scheduled shows coming up in the Jacaranda. We’re going to be branching up into Manchester and Wigan, with Fresh Finds we want to cover a lot of the Northwest and showcase every act we can. I am one of the promoters over at Good Times, it’s a fun job and Craig personally runs it, he’s an absolute mastermind. He understands art and it’s great to see a mini revival of platforming small artists in places like the Jacaranda, for example people like Graham and Veso who run the Jacaranda really help us out in the running of the events.
Our Instagram is @goodtimeslive_.
There is an apply to play scheme in our bio, but send us a message, we try to listen to everything everyone sends over, from all over the UK! We’re here to help the scene and work for everyone, promoters are meant to be your friends!
Dollop
Q: Introduce yourselves – what’s your sound, your vibe?
We’re dollop, our sound is kind of pop sensibilities with weird structures and key changes and things.
I like to write a song by having a good few hooks and then smashing them together so the song will go through tangents to get to a catchy melody or riff. We’ve got influences from different places; our guitarist Greg is into Math Rock type stuff, our bassist Joe is into Slow Core and our drummer Ruel is into Funk, I’m into 90s grunge and Britpop and stuff, it’s all an amalgamation of different stuff.
Q: What are your biggest inspirations?
More recently I think a band called Life Without Buildings from the late 90s, who have a spoken word lyricist and an awesome guitarist who uses a lot of tunings and he’s magic. Although its spoken word and we don’t usually do that, the overall feeling we aspire to.
Bits of Sonic Youth stuff, people like that, Pavement and the janky off beat off centre angular stuff that they do, through Greg as well, rhythmic stabs and silences and crescendo to accentuate the music.
Elliot Smith is also a big inspiration, his command of melody and how he commands a chord progression, we would want to steal his talent!
Q: Give me a fun fact about the band
Our guitarist Greg is really into neuroscience (the study of the brain!)
Q: Who are you wearing today?
It’s all charity shop gear, I think! The shirt I’m wearing is from a charity shop in Lytham and Annes, which is where my Nan lives. My corduroys are from Whitby, and my shoes are from my friend Ronan.
Q: How do you think being in Liverpool influences your music?
When I first moved here, it was a conscious absorption of the musical heritage of the city, obviously the Beatles (who doesn’t like the Beatles!). I love the La’s and Echo and the Bunnymen, but aside from that I think the people and the everyday and the narratives that go on, it’s a place where there’s always a story to tell. I like to write about everyday things, there’s a lot of inspiration for that in Liverpool, everyone’s got a lot of interesting stories to tell, it’s good for inspiration!
Q: What’s coming next for you guys?
We had our first single out a couple months ago called A Dog Indoors.
We’ve been back in the studio recently in Motor Museum with our good friend Joe, we’ve recorded two tracks and they’re currently getting mixed and we’re gonna get them out in the next few months. More gigs, more music, more exciting things – keep your eyes peeled!
Q: Where can we find you?
You can find us on Instagram and Spotify, @dolloptheband.
Gateway
Q: Introduce Yourselves – what’s your sound, your vibe?
I’m Joe from Gateway, I’m the drummer. Our sound is like if Linkin Park, Bring me the Horizon and Busted had a love child. We’ve got Andy on Vocals, Jay on guitar, Josh on bass and me [Joe] on drums.
Q: If you could use 3 words to describe yourselves, what would they be?
Loud – We play metal music, with the occasional pop punk on the side.
Understanding – I feel like a lot of people feel the same way as we do in the way that we’re not sure if anything’s going to be okay for us in the future. Our music can be very understanding for someone to listen to.
A Gateway – from all the different bands, Linkin Park, Bring Me the Horizon and other bands, we connect all the dots between these bands in our sound.
Q: What are your biggest inspirations?
My Chemical Romance, Sleep Token, Tommy Lee (hes more on the metal side of things but I take a lot of inspiration from him)
Q: Give me a fun fact about the band
We released a single over a year ago, and I said that if we get 100 streams within a week that I would eat someone in the band’s hair!
Q: How do you think being in Liverpool affects your sound?
People say that there’s not a massive metal scene in Liverpool, I know tens of people who are involved in heavier scenes in the city, for example Sour Flake are massive now.
I think to say that Liverpool doesn’t have a metal scene is to say the sky isn’t blue!
I just think it hasn’t ‘broken out’ yet, but within the next couple years I think it will become Liverpool’s next big thing.
Q: What’s coming next for you?
It’s not announced yet but we’re going on tour in August, we’ve got 3 dates, Liverpool (we’ll be in the Kazimer Stockroom), Lincoln and London.
Q: Where can we find you?
You can find everything on Gateway’s Instagram, @wearegatewayband
Fresh Finds is a breath of fresh air for the grassroots scene in Liverpool, an artist initiative focused on platforming smaller artists and giving them the attention that they deserve.
Go to the bands Instagrams to see more from them and what’s coming next, and check out the next Fresh Finds event on the 21st May featuring Home Media, Arthur Layne and Iguanas on the Floor!
By Zara Nixon
Leave a Reply