An Ode to the Pub
Today is the one year anniversary of pubs closing in Britain. Their absence has diminished communal, cultural and creative life – and offered a reminder of the need to build institutions that sustain our social fabric.
Of the many pubs radiating through central Edinburgh – The Antiquary, Woodland Creatures, the Leith Depot, the Thistle Street Bar – it is The Royal Oak, Sandy Belles and The Captain’s Bar which maintain high esteem as the three main pubs of the folk scene. Commonly referred to as the ‘holy trinity’, greats like Hamish Henderson, Dick Gaughan, Andy Irvine and – if the rumours are true – David Byrne from the Talking Heads have sung there.
Each place has its own charm. In the Old Town, The Oak has a seediness that is belied by the sheer talent of those artists who inhabit it. The Thistle Street Bar, slotted into a narrow, cobbled alley, is trimmed with brass fittings and roaring fires. The modern-looking Woodland Creatures in Leith has a stage and a hip vibe, while The Captain’s sports a camp pirate theme and shelves crammed with kitsch items, books and photos of musicians.
Strolling down Leith Walk, through the New Town and Old Town and winding through Stockbridge too, it is not uncommon to catch the sound of a fiddle or guitar accompanied by the stomp of feet or the cheering of a crowd leaking out of a pub filled to bursting with clientele.
These once vibrant institutions are now silent, of course. Through the Old Town, I wind my way along the path that leads me past the places which I frequented as a folk singer. It’s a remarkably diverse community, made up of students, expats and locals.
I pass by Sandy Belles and it is dark and empty. Sporting chicken wire over its windows, The Oak looks more ominous, and one cannot help but feel heartbroken walking by the Captain’s Bar. I often see a light on in the window: inside, pub owner Pamela Macgregor redecorates the place, looking forward to better days, regardless how far away they are.
A Community in Limbo
Today is the first anniversary of Boris Johnson’s nationwide closure of pubs during the first weeks of the pandemic. The state of the pubs, the macabre visuals of their barred doors and darkened windows, have largely stayed the same for the past twelve months.
There was a brief respite when the pubs were allowed to open over last summer, but the experience was virtually alien. Subject to new social distancing laws, people sipped beer for an allotted hour and a half window of time, sitting six feet apart, in a plastic lined cubicle. There was a deep awkwardness and unreality to this new iteration of pub culture.
For folk musicians, the situation was even worse. During the summer, when pubs reopened, playing music indoors was banned. Some pubs like the Captain’s set up outdoor seating and attempted to hold sessions there. But for many more pubs, this proved to be tricky. Edinburgh City Council policed such gatherings, and more often than not, sessions were cancelled. In August, outdoor performances were cancelled. By September, the pubs were shut again.
Britain is a country where pubs provide the communal cornerstones for broad swathes of society. They are mass environments where people unwind, have a night out, escape, mourn, celebrate. Pubs function as the great social equaliser, a territory where people from different backgrounds and walks of life get together and have the craic.
In this sense, it is unsurprising that folk music, an age-old form of communicating oral history, has a symbiotic relationship with the pub. These aspects of the pub transfer to the musicians who play in them. As both clients and employees, simultaneously part of the crowd and revered musical talents, it’s not uncommon for folk musicians who inhabit these venues to belt along with the performers, or for a player to leave a session circle and melt into the crowd to embrace his mates.
For these artists, their way of life has come to a halt, and unemployment, depression, loneliness and a lack of creative outlet are among the things they suffer from. For Sylvia McGowan, a scene matriarch with bright purple hair, the loss of community hit her hardest.
‘They are my musical family,’ she tells Tribune. Folk musicians often say that one has a biological and a logical family, and a musical family is certainly composed of bartenders, regulars and musicians who fill out the pubs. ‘I felt that love, it’s special,’ Sylvia says. ‘The way they looked at you coming through the door, saying, ‘I hope you are coming on Wednesday and Thursday.’ To have it stop and to have it not happen anymore…it’s tough.’
For those making their living as musicians, it’s been brutal. Along with playing at private functions and hosting ceilidh’s, Ciaran McGhee made a circuit through Edinburgh playing at a different venue each night of the week. He remembers the week leading up to Boris Johnson’s announcement, when he received a message telling him that The Royal Oak were forced to stop booking music. ‘The next day, I was on the Royal Mile and I got a text from the Captain’s Bar saying the same. One by one pubs cancelled gigs.’
By the end of the week, Ciaran had nowhere to play. ‘I just burst into tears witnessing what was happening. Six years of building this career and it had suddenly stopped. That’s when I knew it was going to be bad.’
As a result of this uprooting, musicians like Ciaran have been forced to take on new jobs, with the highly casualised gig economy often being the only available option. While many have found jobs in supermarkets or with employers such as Deliveroo, Ciaran is currently working an Amazon courier, a transformation which he described as ‘soul crushing.’ ‘Look, I’m lucky to be able to put food on the table,’ he tells Tribune. ‘But this was my way of life.’
After Giulia Drummond made the decision to give up work as a psychologist and become a full-time musician, the Brazilian singer-songwriter moved to Edinburgh in November 2019. After having fallen in love with Scotland, she visited seven times and became convinced it was the place where her art would be most welcome. Her new album, Flight of Balloons Among the Mists, was released one month before the first lockdown.
‘It was incredibly frustrating,’ she says. ‘Here I released this new album, but I could not share it.’ For Giulia, a foreigner, playing live gigs was seminal to building connections with the wider community and establishing a following. The sight of the closed pubs in a city she moved to in order to make art was too depressing for her, and in late October, she and her husband retreated to the Perthshire countryside.
Awaiting the Return
As of March 17, the Holyrood government claims that its vaccination program has reached 44% of the nation’s population. By autumn, it is intended that all adults will have been offered the vaccine. While Scotland is currently in lockdown, lockdown restrictions should ease by Monday April 26th. On that date, restaurants and pubs will be allowed to re-open, albeit under certain restrictions.
For the folk musicians, it is uncertain when they will be able to return to performing in pubs. The Edinburgh Daily News reported that due to lockdown restrictions, nearly 12,000 jobs in the Scottish pub and bar industry have vanished, and there is the unsettling but distinct possibility that many iconic drinking institutions may never re-open. And given that the World Health Organisation has specifically singled out singing as an easy way to transmit the virus, it seems unlikely that belting into a crowded pub will be returning anytime soon.
Sylvia, an acapella singer of traditional ballads, finds this hard. ‘It’s not just about me singing – I don’t mind not singing. I like to hear it. Tunes are nice but you lose something. These are stories, our history and heritage. I was brought up with the songs as a child and miss them. To me, this is like telling a Scotsman not to wear a kilt.’ Sylvia also worries of the broader cultural damage being wrought if important folk songs, usually passed on to children in nursery schools, are no longer allowed to be sung.
The internet has served as a small blessing for many folk musicians, who have taken to live-streaming gigs as they wait for the time to return to performing. Plenty of folk pubs have begun streaming these events to help musicians keep in practice, maintain public awareness of their situation and to raise a little money through online donations, including the Captain’s Bar, one of my locals.
Through the 8 x 13 screen of my laptop, I watch friends I once jammed with gigging from home. On Wednesdays, I listen to Sam Gillespie on his flute and Kevin Gore on his guitar. On Thursdays, Siannie Moodie hauntingly plucks her harp. Fridays feature Giulia Drummond chanting with her shruti box all the way from the woods of Perthshire.
It is something, a comfort of some sort. But it is unanimously agreed among Edinburgh’s folk musician community that it’s just not the same. As Ciaran says, ‘folk music is about the give and take between the musicians and the audience. It’s about getting a room going, feeling their emotional reaction to what you put out there. Without that? It’s very hard.’