In my academic life, I spent a week in Liverpool last summer at the meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. This was my second; the previous one was in Mexico City. The conference is lots of people who approach the eccentric and the mundane in the music world from all sorts of points of view--perfect for someone like me who finds something to like in almost all musical expression.
In the meantime, Liverpool was hoppin. The city itself has had its ups and downs, the Beatles notwithstanding. It was the port from whence the Titanic sailed. When it and another couple of major vessels went to the bottom, a large portion of the adult male population of Liverpool went with them. Those hard times are not forgotten, but the city is thriving. A large chunk of it is pedestrian now, and like many European cities, the public transportation is good. (A lot of it could be a model for Pittsburgh, my home town). Wandering through exhibits and the neighborhood where the Cavern sits, it's pretty obvious that Liverpool has been turning out musicians by the truckload, both before and since the Merseybeat. There is a small industry in Beatles memorabilia and tribute bands, one of which I saw at the Cavern on a Saturday night. I knew it was a tribute band, and the site of the room wasn't quite original, and that everyone in the room were Beatles tourists from around the world, but it still gave me the chills.
The main gathering point for us was a pub called Hannah's: three stories with gourmet cooking and marginal beer--exactly the reverse of the fabulous beer and marginal cooking of the Seventies. Two or three musical acts at all times; the number of venues in town was pretty stunning. Of course there were a lot of DJ dance bars too--Liverpudlians have always partied hard, and there is now an Island-wide trend among a certain age group to drink until you fall down. I also heard about the proliferation of music festivals in UK and on the continent--exponential numbers with local festival cultures renewed from year to year. I was staying with my friend Dennis Howard from Kingston (more later) so got caught up on reggae happening in Jamaica at the same time.
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