Let's get ready to rumble as this week, to coincide with the Leeds and Reading Festivals, the Indie Travel Guide pits the two cities against each other in a bid to discover who is Indie-est.
So, in the blue corner. West Yorkshire's finest and in the red corner, the pride of Berkshire...
We're going to do this like Indie Top Trumps. We've got several categories. Let's see how the two towns match up to each other...
Bands
Clearly, a town's Indie credentials can be judged on how many bands it has spawned and, of course, whether they are any good.
So... lining up for Reading we have:
Firmly in the Indie camp...Slowdive, Does It Offend You, Yeah? The Cooper Temple Clause - actually from nearby Wokingham and have, of course, now split up. Irwin from The Hoosiers comes from nearby Woodley and supports Reading Football Club.
Slightly more tenuously... Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - formed after meeting at a gig there and Tom Rowlands from the Chemical Brothers went to Reading Blue Coat School.
Kind of counts... Stuart Price aka Les Rhythmes Digitales and Thin White Duke, most famous for producing Madonna - also produced The Killers...
Biggest selling artist from Reading though... Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells - not so indie, though he was the first release on Virgin...
So, how does Leeds weigh in? Well, pretty impressively...
We've got some genuine Indie Hall of Famers here...
From back in the day... Gang of Four and Cud... the mighty Wedding Present.
More recently, there's the Pigeon Detectives...Hadouken! (who met at Leeds Uni) and of course the indie superstars that are The Kaiser Chiefs.
And that's before we've even mentioned the fact that Leeds arguably invented Goth as the spawning ground for Sisters of Mercy, who grew out of places like the F Club and Bar Phono.
So, at the end of that round, by my reckoning the scores are definitely 1-0 to Leeds.
Gig Venues
Ok, another key Indie factor. Does the town have any gig venues? If it doesn't it's not likely to attract any good bands.
Leeds has some goodies. There's Brudenell Social Club - which has played host to loads of gigs including some pretty impressive secret gigs - by the likes of Franz Ferdinand and the Kaisers.
There's also The Cockpit, which hosts a lot of gigs and has a place in Indie history as apparently the place where Nick Hodgson introduced Ricky Wilson to the other members of Kaiser Chiefs, who were at that point known as Runston Parva.
And perhaps most impressively of all in the rock history stakes... the legendary Refectory or 'Refec' venue at Leeds University - still the biggest venue in town I think is where The Who recorded Live in Leeds - one of the seminal live albums.
How'd you like them apples Reading?
Reading in comparison I think suffers from being a bit too near London - it doesn't have any really iconic venues.
The main places to see bands are South Street Arts, The Hexagon and the Concert Hall, none of which are likely to see any major bands recording live albums.
So, Reading might look on the ropes, but wait a minute! We should point out that the Reading leg of the festival has been going for a lot longer than its Leeds sibling and, get this - the Reading Festival is actually the longest running popular music festival in the world!!! Yes, you did read that right. Not Glastonbury, but Reading. The festival originated from the National Jazz Festival set up By Harold Pendleton, founder of the Marquee Club, in 1961 and has been based at Reading since 1971.
So, for that fact alone, I'll score it 1-0 Reading this round, putting the scores at 1-1.
Record Shops
Ok, clearly if a town is indie, it needs to have plenty of places to buy indie music. On this one, unfortunately for Reading, it's a walkover for Leeds.
Unless you count the Oxfam shop, the only decent independent record store Reading offers is The Sound Machine.
Leeds on the other hand, weighs in with such institutions as Jumbo Records, Crash Records and Relics Records.
All credible indie stores, so I'm afraid to say that round was a pasting for Reading and the scores now stand at 2-1 Leeds with one round left.
Cool Facts
My final criteria for judging the two towns is 'Cool Facts' quite simply a head to head on any interesting or quirky facts I managed to cull from Google.
So, 3 facts from each place...
Leeds:
Leeds invented cinema... Inventor and cinema pioneer Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince shot the first ever motion picture "Crossing Leeds Bridge" in Leeds in 1888.
Leeds invented traffic lights... the first permanent set of fully automatic traffic lights was installed in Leeds in 1928.
Leeds invented M&S... Kirkgate Market in Leeds is where, in 1884, Michael Marks first opened his Penny Bazaar which was to lead to the foundation of Marks & Spencer, in 1890.
Reading:
Reading apparently has 127 different spoken languages within its population, and therefore (for its population size) is unrivalled in the world with regards to number of languages spoken in one town
The roadside chain of restaurants Little Chef began in the town back in 1958. Its first branch was a small eleven-seater venue
And finally, Charles Dickens was asked to stand as MP for Reading, but declined.
Ok, none of those are particularly impressive, but out of sheer niceness and due to the fact that as an extra fact Ricky Gervais was born in Reading I'm going to score it 1-0 to Reading so we have a final score of 2-2.
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|11:00 UK time, Tuesday, 31 August 2010
