The Maccabees (band)
The Maccabees were an English indie rock band, formed in 2004 in London. They released four albums: Colour It In in 2007, followed by Wall of Arms in 2009, Given to the Wild, released on 9 January 2012 and their last album Marks to Prove It released on 31 July 2015; the band announced that they decided to disband in August 2016, with farewell gigs in 2017. The band came up with the name by picking out a random word. Despite adopting a name with perceived religious connotations, lead singer Orlando Weeks has more affirmed, in an interview on Steve Lamacq's BBC 6 Music show, that none of the band is religious, their debut single, "X-Ray", was released on Promise records on 28 November 2005, received some evening play on London radio station Xfm London. They received little significant exposure, until six months when they released their second single, "Latchmere", the subject of, the wave machine at the Latchmere Leisure Centre in Battersea, South London, on Fierce Panda Records in April 2006; this was championed by Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq and received airtime on MTV2.
The video, directed by Hugh Frost and Samuel Bebbington proved an internet hit after it was posted on YouTube. They had their first taste of festivals by playing on the Carling stage of the Leeds/Reading festival in 2006; the band were signed to major label Fiction Records, released their debut album Colour It In in May 2007. Because an early copy of the album appeared on the New York Times website, Colour It In became available to download from iTunes on 16 December, before its physical release on 14 May, in an effort to combat the leak; the single "First Love" was their first to chart in the UK top 40, was followed by "About Your Dress", which peaked at No. 33. Their album received positive reviews, charted at No. 24. They toured the United States with fellow indie group Bloc Party. A full UK tour followed from October 2007, culminating in a sell-out show at the Roundhouse venue in London. On the run-up to the release of their second album, the band played two new songs to Steve Lamacq on his "In New Music We Trust" show on Radio 1 in May 2008, "No Kind Words" and "Young Lions".
The band played a string of small venues in the UK to test out new songs, in March and April 2008. The Maccabees performed at Offset Festival in London as well the Underage Festival in August 2008. On Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show in February 2009, Felix confirmed the name of the follow-up album to be Wall of Arms, an announcement that coincided with the release of the free downloadable track, "No Kind Words". On 16 March, Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq played the band's first single from Wall of Arms entitled Love You Better, the video to, posted on ClashMusic.com on 27 March. Wall of Arms was released on 4 May 2009, it entered the UK albums chart at No. 13 and received positive reviews with the NME giving the album 8/10. At the end of the year, Artrocker made the album joint No.1 Album of 2009 along with Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz!. In July 2009, second single; the Maccabees invited the Dodworth Colliery Band of Barnsley to record a rousing brass version of the single for the B-side. The Guardian interviewed Felix during the recording session.
The accompanying video for "Can You Give It" was filmed at the infamous Coopers Hill annual cheese rolling race in Gloucestershire. Other performances in 2009 include Reading and Leeds Festivals on Friday 28th and Saturday 29 August and Little Noise Sessions on 16 November. On 3 October 2009, the five-piece band played a gig at Brixton Academy to finish off their Wall of Arms tour; the band pulled in a huge crowd for their homecoming show at the O2, as well as a brass section for many of their songs as they performed their entire 2009 album and a host of tracks from their 2007 debut Colour It In. During the set Felix White declared the Academy as'the best venue in the world'; the Guardian ran. In November 2009, The Maccabees collaborated with rapper Roots Manuva on a heady re-working of Wall of Arms album track and live favourite "No Kind Words"; the track, newly titled "Empty Vessels", features new lyrics and vocals from fellow south Londoner Roots. It was debuted on Zane Lowe's evening show on Radio One on 11 November.
The single release of "Empty Vessels" was made available on iTunes from 24 November 2009 on Fiction Records. The Maccabees were named as headlines for the Shockwaves NME Awards Tour 2010 with Bombay Bicycle Club, The Big Pink and The Drums in February 2010; the Maccabees debuted new song "Child" in Brighton in August 2010, as well as playing the Main Stage at the Reading & Leeds festival 2010, debuting new song titled "Forever I've Known", displaying what seems to be a darker, deeper sound for the band. They played new songs "Child", "Feel to Follow", "Pelican", "Ayla", "Went Away", "Forever I've Known" and "Grew Up at Midnight" at The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth on 8 August 2011. On 4 October 2011, the band announced via their blog that their third album, Given to the Wild, would be released on 9 January 2012; the first single from the album was "Pelican", it was first played on 15 November 2011 on BBC Radio 1 by Zane Lowe. It was released on 9 January 2012 to favourable reviews, it holds a score of 72 on Metacritic.
At the 58th Ivor Novello awards, held at Grosvenor hotel in London on Thursday 16 May 2013, "Pelican" won Best Contemporary Song. The album was at No. 1 on the midweek chart update, at the end of the week it debuted No. 4 on the UK Album Chart, the highest Maccabees release to date there. On 12 September 2012 the album was nominated for the 2012 Mercury Prize. On 24 October 2012 the album was certified gold in the UK. In 2015 their song "Grew Up At Midn
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won more than any other newspaper; the Times is ranked 17th in the world by circulation and 2nd in the U. S; the paper is owned by The New York Times Company, publicly traded and is controlled by the Sulzberger family through a dual-class share structure. It has been owned by the family since 1896. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher, his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. the company's chairman, are the fourth and fifth generation of the family to helm the paper. Nicknamed "The Gray Lady", the Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record"; the paper's motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print", appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. Since the mid-1970s, The New York Times has expanded its layout and organization, adding special weekly sections on various topics supplementing the regular news, editorials and features.
Since 2008, the Times has been organized into the following sections: News, Editorials/Opinions-Columns/Op-Ed, New York, Sports of The Times, Science, Home and other features. On Sunday, the Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T: The New York Times Style Magazine; the Times stayed with the broadsheet full-page set-up and an eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six, was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography on the front page. The New York Times was founded as the New-York Daily Times on September 18, 1851. Founded by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond and former banker George Jones, the Times was published by Raymond, Jones & Company. Early investors in the company included Edwin B. Morgan, Christopher Morgan, Edward B. Wesley. Sold for a penny, the inaugural edition attempted to address various speculations on its purpose and positions that preceded its release: We shall be Conservative, in all cases where we think Conservatism essential to the public good.
We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or wrong. In 1852, the newspaper started a western division, The Times of California, which arrived whenever a mail boat from New York docked in California. However, the effort failed. On September 14, 1857, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times. On April 21, 1861, The New York Times began publishing a Sunday edition to offer daily coverage of the Civil War. One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials in the Times alone; the main office of The New York Times was attacked during the New York City Draft Riots. The riots, sparked by the beginning of drafting for the Union Army, began on July 13, 1863. On "Newspaper Row", across from City Hall, Henry Raymond stopped the rioters with Gatling guns, early machine guns, one of which he manned himself; the mob diverted, instead attacking the headquarters of abolitionist publisher Horace Greeley's New York Tribune until being forced to flee by the Brooklyn City Police, who had crossed the East River to help the Manhattan authorities.
In 1869, Henry Raymond died, George Jones took over as publisher. The newspaper's influence grew in 1870 and 1871, when it published a series of exposés on William Tweed, leader of the city's Democratic Party—popularly known as "Tammany Hall" —that led to the end of the Tweed Ring's domination of New York's City Hall. Tweed had offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story. In the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned from supporting Republican Party candidates in its editorials to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign. While this move cost The New York Times a portion of its readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper regained most of its lost ground within a few years. After George Jones died in 1891, Charles Ransom Miller and other New York Times editors raised $1 million dollars to buy the Times, printing it under the New York Times Publishing Company.
However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, by 1896, the newspaper had a circulation of less than 9,000, was losing $1,000 a day. That year, Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the Chattanooga Times, gained a controlling interest in the company for $75,000. Shortly after assuming control of the paper, Ochs coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print"; the slogan has appeared in the paper since September 1896, has been printed in a box in the upper left hand corner of the front page since early 1897. The slogan was a jab at competing papers, such as Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, which were known for a lurid and inaccurate reporting of facts and opinions, described by the end of the century as "yellow journalism". Under Ochs' guidance, aided by Carr
The Research
The Research were a band from Wakefield, England. The members were: Russell'The Disaster' Searle, Georgia Lashbrook, Sarah Williams, their songs - about themes of love and fear - are notable for their plaintive lyrics and vocal harmonies. In February 2006 they released their debut album, Breaking Up, via At Large Recordings, a subsidiary of EMI. Following the album's release, the band parted company with At Large, signed to This Is Fake DIY Records, with whom they released their second album; the Old Terminal, its accompanying single "I Think She's The One I Love", were released in autumn 2008. In the time between the end of the band's promotion of their debut album and the announcement that they had left EMI, the band's MySpace.com blog detailed the recording of a second album in various places including Malmo, where the band worked with Cardigans producer, Per Sunding. The band announced that they had recruited a lead guitarist named Johnny White, that Searle had moved from playing a keyboard live to playing guitar.
The band played several concerts in this configuration before White left the band and was not replaced. In March 2008, after a period of seeming inactivity the band's MySpace was revamped, with several new songs, a handwritten announcement by Searle detailing the current status of the band, their departure from EMI and their plans for the future; this was followed by several blog posts clarifying aspects of the note, answering fans' queries. "I Would Like To Be Forgiven", one of the tracks on The Old Terminal is a collaboration with Gary Jarman, of fellow Wakefield band The Cribs. The band split up in 2008. "She's Not Leaving" - UK #73 "C'mon Chameleon" / "I Love You But..." - UK #63 "The Way You Used To Smile" - UK #66 "Lonely Hearts Still Beat The Same" / "all these feelings" "The Hard Times" "For Christmas I Got Pityriasis Rosea" "I Think She's The One I Love" Breaking Up The Old Terminal Profile on This is Fake DIY Official MySpace Review of'The Old Terminal'
The Pigeon Detectives
The Pigeon Detectives are an English indie rock band from Rothwell in Leeds, West Yorkshire, who formed in 2004. They performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2006, where they were tagged "the band most to leap to the main stage in 2007" in an NME review; the band again performed on the NME stage. Speaking about the band's name, the drummer Jimmi Naylor said: "I never liked the name at first, but it's stuck– and it's got us more attention having a silly name. The band were just discussing band names and he came up with'The Pigeon Detectives', it became an in-joke but we thought nothing of it. But when it came to our first gig in Leeds the promoter was saying,'What's your name?' We were like'Oh, um... "The Pigeon Detectives".'"When asked by BBC Sound about the name, Naylor said, "Dave breeds pigeons, there's a pigeon that lives in a shed, thats his special pigeon, this pigeon writes all the songs". Another story about the band's name was proposed when Matt Bowman and Ryan Wilson were interviewed for Later with Jools Holland.
When asked about the Leeds Festival rumour Bowman denies it and said, "There's a rumour that there's a giant pigeon at the bottom of our garden that writes all the lyrics, but that's as untrue." According to Bowman's Twitter, the band is in fact named after a 1970s French cartoon. The band have appeared on the football based entertainment show Soccer AM on four occasions. On the 2007 Christmas Day special, they became the first band to play in the Soccer AM studio, playing the singles "I Found Out" and "I'm Not Sorry". During the same episode, Bowman announced that he had suffered a fractured heel bone, after jumping off a set of speakers while performing at Manchester Academy; the Pigeon Detectives are signed to the independent label Dance To The Radio with whom their first album, Wait for Me, was released on CD, 12" heavyweight vinyl and digital download on 28 May 2007. The album, recorded in autumn 2006, was produced by Will Jackson and was recorded in the band's home town of Leeds. An early version of the album was leaked to underground music download sites on the internet on 11 April 2007.
The album entered the UK Top 40 chart at number 3. On 14 August 2007, the band appeared on the Jo Whiley show and performed their current single "Take Her Back" and a cover of Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" in the Live Lounge In July 2007, the band played at Oxegen, an Irish festival in County Kildare, again in July 2008. During September 2007, the band played at JerseyLive, a weekend event held in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, which included The Fratellis and Kasabian. In September 2007 it was announced that the Pigeon Detectives had been nominated for Best New Act at the Q Awards, but they lost out to The Enemy; the band supported Kaiser Chiefs on three of their November/December UK tour dates, including 1 December 2007 at the Manchester Evening News Arena and 15 December 2007 at Earls Court in London. A cover of the Huey Lewis and the News track "The Power of Love" appears on the Radio 1 Established 1967 compilation CD; the band finished promoting Wait For Me and began promoting their second album, Emergency, in May 2008 with two consecutive gigs at Millennium Square in Leeds, playing to 15,000 fans over the two nights.
In July 2008, the single "I Found Out" was featured in the film Angus and Perfect Snogging. In January 2008, they recorded their second album, titled Emergency, with producer Stephen Street in Monnow Valley Studios in Monmouth, Wales; the album was released on 26 May 2008, entering the UK album charts at number 5. The lead single, "This Is an Emergency", peaked at number 14, their second-highest charting single. Shortly before the album's release, the Pigeon Detectives played their biggest shows at Leeds Millennium Square playing to over 15,000 people in two sold out shows. In June 2008 the Pigeon Detectives had their show at the Brighton Dome filmed and broadcast on Channelbee. After a busy summer of festival gigs, including huge shows at Glastonbury, T in the Park and the V Festival, the band released the second single from Emergency, "Everybody Wants Me"; the band finished the Emergency promotion by playing a sold-out UK and Ireland tour and a special show at Alexandra Palace in London to 8,000 fans.
After finishing the Emergency tour at the end of 2008, the band took a break. They had been demoing songs over the course of the year in between festival slots, the last of, headlining the Underage Festival in London, they were working on a new album. In October 2009, the band recorded and released a cover of "Tainted Love", with all proceeds going to charity to help neglected children in Leeds; the Pigeon Detectives toured as special guests with the Manchester band James in December 2010. The band's third album, Up, Guards and at'Em!, was recorded in Brooklyn, New York, with producer Justin Gerrish in summer 2010 and was released on 4 April 2011, with the lead single being "Done In Secret". The album peaked at number 30 in the UK charts; the band followed the album with two successful UK and Ireland tours, a European tour and a main stage appearance at the Reading and Leeds festival sharing the stage with The Strokes and Pulp. The band toured Europe and Scandinavia in February 2012 to promote the album, as well as playing at Bingley Music Live on 1 September 2012.
The band released their fourth album, We Met At Sea, on 29 April 2013. The band went more back to basics, they decided to record the album in their home town Leeds, they recorded it wit
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, England, 128 miles north of London, 45 miles northeast of Birmingham and 56 miles southeast of Manchester, in the East Midlands. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin Hood and to the lace-making and tobacco industries, it was granted its city charter in 1897 as part of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Nottingham is a tourist destination. In 2017, Nottingham had an estimated population of 329,200; the population of the city proper, compared to its regional counterparts, has been attributed to its historical and tightly-drawn city boundaries. The wider conurbation, which includes many of the city's suburbs, has a population of 768,638, it is the second-largest in The Midlands. Its Functional Urban Area the largest in the East Midlands, has a population of 912,482; the population of the Nottingham/Derby metropolitan area is estimated to be 1,610,000. Its metropolitan economy is the seventh largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $50.9bn.
The city was the first in the East Midlands to be ranked as a sufficiency-level world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Nottingham has an award-winning public transport system, including the largest publicly owned bus network in England and is served by Nottingham railway station and the modern Nottingham Express Transit tram system, it is a major sporting centre, in October 2015 was named'Home of English Sport'. The National Ice Centre, Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre, Trent Bridge international cricket ground are all based in or around the city, the home of two professional league football teams; the city has professional rugby, ice hockey and cricket teams, the Aegon Nottingham Open, an international tennis tournament on the ATP and WTA tours. This accolade came just over a year. On 11 December 2015, Nottingham was named a "City of Literature" by UNESCO, joining Dublin, Edinburgh and Prague as one of only a handful in the world; the title reflects Nottingham's literary heritage, with Lord Byron, D. H. Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe having links to the city, as well as a contemporary literary community, a publishing industry and a poetry scene.
The city has two universities—Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham—both of which are spread over several campuses in the city, with a total university student population of over 61,000. The city predates Anglo-Saxon times and was known in Brythonic as Tigguo Cobauc, meaning Place of Caves. In modern Welsh it is known poetically as Y Ty Ogofog and Irish as Na Tithe Uaimh "The Cavey Dwelling"; when it fell under the rule of a Saxon chieftain named Snot it became known as "Snotingaham". Some authors derive "Nottingham" from Snottenga and ham, but "this has nothing to do with the English form". Nottingham Castle was constructed in 1068 on a sandstone outcrop by the River Leen; the Anglo-Saxon settlement was confined to the area today known as the Lace Market and was surrounded by a substantial defensive ditch and rampart, which fell out of use following the Norman Conquest and was filled by the time of the Domesday Survey. Following the Norman Conquest the Saxon settlement developed into the English Borough of Nottingham and housed a Town Hall and Law Courts.
A settlement developed around the castle on the hill opposite and was the French borough supporting the Normans in the castle. The space between was built on as the town grew and the Old Market Square became the focus of Nottingham several centuries later. Defences, consisted of a ditch and bank in the early 12th century; the ditch was widened, in the mid-13th century, a stone wall built around much of the perimeter of the town. A short length of the wall survives, is visible at the northern end of Maid Marian Way, is protected as a Scheduled Monument. On the return of Richard the Lionheart from the Crusades, the castle was occupied by supporters of Prince John, including the Sheriff of Nottingham, it was besieged by Richard and, after a sharp conflict, was captured. In the legends of Robin Hood, Nottingham Castle is the scene of the final showdown between the Sheriff and the hero outlaw. By the 15th century Nottingham had established itself as a centre of a thriving export trade in religious sculpture made from Nottingham alabaster.
The town became a county corporate in 1449 giving it effective self-government, in the words of the charter, "for eternity". The Castle and Shire Hall were expressly excluded and remained as detached Parishes of Nottinghamshire. One of those impressed by Nottingham in the late 18th century was the German traveller C. P. Moritz, who wrote in 1782, "Of all the towns I have seen outside London, Nottingham is the loveliest and neatest. Everything had a modern look, a large space in the centre was hardly less handsome than a London square. A charming footpath leads over the fields to the highway. … Nottingham … with its high houses, red roofs and church steeples, looks excellent from a distance."During the Industrial Revolution, much of Nottingham's prosperity was founded on the textile industry.
Post-punk revival
Post-punk revival is a genre of indie rock that developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, inspired by the original sounds and aesthetics of garage rock of the 1960s and new wave and post-punk of the 1980s. Bands that broke through to the mainstream from local scenes across the world in the early 2000s included the Strokes, the Killers, Franz Ferdinand, The Kooks, Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs who were followed to commercial success by many established and new acts. By the end of the decade, most of the bands had broken up, moved on to other projects or were on hiatus, although some bands returned to recording and touring in the 2010s. In the early 2000s, a new group of bands that played a stripped down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock emerged into the mainstream, they were variously characterized as part of new wave or post-punk revival. Influences ranged through new wave to grunge; the music ranged from the atonal tracks of bands like Liars to the melodic pop songs of groups like the Sounds, popularising distorted guitar sounds.
They shared an emphasis on energetic live performance and used aesthetics aligned with their fans drawing on fashion of the 1950s and 1960s, with "skinny ties, white belts shag haircuts". There was an emphasis on "rock authenticity", seen as a reaction to the commercialism of MTV-oriented nu metal, hip hop and "bland" post-Britpop groups; because the bands came from countries around the world, cited diverse influences and adopted differing styles of dress, their unity as a genre has been disputed. For garage rock historian Eric James Abbey, these were diverse bands that appropriated the label "garage" to gain a degree of credibility. There was interest in garage rock and elements of punk in the 1980s and 1990s, by 2000 local music scenes in several countries had bands playing alternative and indie music; the Detroit rock scene included the Von Bondies. The city was a crucial stomping ground for Ohio's the Black Keys. New York's scene included the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On the Radio, the Walkmen, the Rapture, the Liars.
In Los Angeles & San Francisco, the scene was centered around Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dandy Warhols and Silversun Pickups. Other countries had their own local bands incorporating post-punk music; the term post-punk was coined to describe groups who took punk and experimented with more challenging musical structures and lyrical themes, a self-consciously art-based image, while retaining punk's initial iconoclastic stance. AllMusic argued that rather than a revival, the history of post-punk was more of a continuum from the mid-1980s, with scattered bands that included Big Flame, World Domination Enterprises, Minimal Compact extending the genre. In the mid-1990s, notable bands in this vein included Six Finger Satellite and Elastica. At the turn of the century, the term "post-punk" began to appear in the music press again, with a number of critics reviving the label to describe a new set of bands that shared some of the aesthetics of the original post-punk era. Music critic Simon Reynolds noted that bands like the Rapture and Franz Ferdinand were influenced by the more angular strain of post-punk bands such as Wire and Gang of Four.
Others identified this movement as another wave of garage rock revivalism, with NME in 2003 designating it a "new garage rock revolution", or a "new rock revolution". According to music critic Jim DeRogatis, the Strokes, the White Stripes and the Hives all had a sound "to some extent rooted in Nuggets-era garage rock"; the commercial breakthrough from these scenes began in the UK, was led by a small group of bands. The Strokes emerged from the New York club scene with their debut album, Is This It, which debuted at No. 2 in the UK and cracked the Top 50 in America. The White Stripes, from Detroit, released their third album, White Blood Cells, which charted decently in both the US and the UK, as well as spawning two transatlantic Top 25 singles; the Hives, from Sweden, became a mainstream success with their compilation album Your New Favourite Band which peaked at No. 7 on the UK charts. In 2001, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's debut album hit No. 5 in the UK. The Vines, from Australia, released Highly Evolved in 2002, a top 5 success in both England and Australia, peaked at No. 11 in the US.
Along with the Strokes, White Stripes and others, they were christened by parts of the media as the "The" bands, dubbed "the saviours of rock'n' roll", prompting Rolling Stone magazine to declare on its September 2002 cover, "Rock is Back!" This press attention, in turn, led to accusations of hype, some dismissed the scene as unoriginal, image-conscious and tuneless. According to Reynolds, "apart from maybe the White Stripes, none could be described as retro". In the wake of this attention, existing acts like Yeah Yeah Yeahs were able to sign to major record labels. A second wave of bands that managed to gain international recognition as a result of the movement included Interpol, the Killers, Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse, the Shins and the National in the US, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, the Futureheads, the Libertines, Kaiser Chiefs and the Kooks in the UK. Arctic Monkeys were the most prominent act to owe their initial commercial success to the use of Internet social networking, with two No. 1 singles and Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, which became the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history.
As a dominant commercial force, the revival was short-lived. By 2007, the
Brudenell Social Club
The Brudenell Social Club is a live music venue and social club in Hyde Park, England. While being a nonprofit organisation, it retains the "community atmosphere of its origins as a working men's club"; the club is split into three areas—a 400 capacity concert room, a bar area and games room section and a second concert area, known as the Community Room, which opened in 2017. The club was formed in 1913 by local businessmen, who built a wooden clubhouse at 33 Queen's Road which opened on 2 December of the same year. After falling into disrepair, this wooden structure was replaced by the present brick building in 1978, with the club reopening on 7 December; the Clark family took on the club's license in 1992 and began to put on gigs after a shift in the makeup of Hyde Park's population caused by more students moving into the area. Initial shows were focused around the local DIY music scene. From 2004 to 2005, noise complaints forced the club to abandon gigs. After a period of fundraising, soundproof firedoors were purchased and installed, while a new public address system was added to the concert room as a result of a National Lottery grant.
A few years in 2007, the Brudenell moved from being a members club to being a "publicly open, licensed place that runs as a social enterprise and reinvests its money". The club has played host to "secret gigs" by the likes of Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand, hosted The Cribs as they played three-consecutive nights, billed as "Cribsmas", in December 2007 and celebrated its 100th anniversary in December 2013, with shows by The Wedding Present, The Fall and ¡Forward, Russia! among others. A "primary cog in the Leeds music scene", the Brudenell Social Club was joint winner of the best live music venue in 2014's Rock the House competition, was shortlisted for The Fly magazine's 2014 UK Venue of the Year' award and the NME's Britain's Best Small Venue award in 2011, 2012 and 2015. Although exact details regarding its foundation are unknown, it is believed that the Brudenell Social Club was started by a group of businessmen who wanted to create an unaffiliated club, free from ties to political parties or any other kind of movement.
These businessmen formed the Brudenell as a "social and recreational club" in November 1913, intended to build a clubhouse several hundreds yards from the eventual location, on land which would be used to construct the Hyde Park Picture House. However, after this plan failed to come to fruition, a clubhouse was built at 33 Queen's Road, on the site of the present club's car park. Subsequently, this clubhouse opened on 2 December 1913; the original wooden structure had fallen into disrepair by 1978 and was replaced by the present brick building. The Brudenell Social Club reopened on 30 November 1978, with an official opening taking place on 7 December. Malcolm and Patricia Clark became the Brudenell's licensees in 1992 and, following a shift in the makeup of the local population which saw large numbers of students moving into the area, "rescued from financial ruin" by putting on bands. Gigs were staged by the likes of Mike Jolly, founder of the Holbeck-based Cloth Cat music charity, members of the scene surrounding local DIY fanzine Cops & Robbers.
The Termite Club ran at the venue, hosting noise rock events. During the 1995 Hyde Park riots, the club staged a lock-in; the Brudenell hosted initial meetings by the group that set up Unity Day, a community festival created to "celebrate the people and community of LS6" in the wake of the unrest. The Clarks' son, took over the running of the club in 2004 after his father fell ill. In 2004–2005 the Brudenell was placed on a "final warning" following noise complaints and had to stop putting on shows; the club ran quizzes and "Bullseye nights", sold badges and, in July 2005, hosted the'Keep the Brudenell A-Live Aid' all-day gig in order to raise enough money to purchase expensive acoustic fire doors. The success of this fundraising activity prompted an application for a National Lottery grant to purchase a new public address system for the concert room. In response to a change in the United Kingdom's licensing laws and the smoking ban implemented in England in 2007, which made it illegal to smoke in enclosed work places, the Brudenell moved from being a member's club to an public venture—"a not for profit company that still has the same aims as the club always had a publicly open, licensed place that runs as a social enterprise and reinvests its money"—with Nathan believing that the venue had to "evolve or die".
Unlike many social clubs in the United Kingdom, the Brudenell has never been part of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, which Clark believes has enabled the venue to be more flexible than may otherwise have been the case. All profits are reinvested—staff are paid a "living wage", the club has been able to make improvements, such as installing new toilets and showers, upgrading the dressing rooms, which Clark feels make the club of a higher quality than other venues "putting on similar gigs"; the building itself has been "paid for", which means that the club does not have to worry about rent increases. The club is split into three areas—a 400 capacity concert area to the left of the entrance doors, with a bar area and games room and second concert area, the Community Room, to the right; the bar "retains the atmosphere of working men's club", offering "comfortable" chairs, Sky television, a pool table and dartboard. The venue serves cask ales alongside speciality beers from around the world, works with local companies, such as Kirkstall Brewery, to sell beer at competitive prices.
In March 2017 the Brudenell announced plans to buil
