Picky New Promotions Two Year Anniversary
Over the last two years Northampton's music scene has been on the rise with venues opening their doors for live shows more often and the number of emerging artists finding their time under the spotlight growing. The question is in an age where grass roots venues are struggling more than ever to stay open and live music (especially local) is maybe seen as being less valuable as once before, how is it one town in the midlands is starting to thrive when others seem to be in decline?
A majority of this is down to local heroes Picky New Promotions who for the past two years have injected life into Northampton’s music scene by providing emerging talent from across the country, and as of recent parts of Europe, a platform to share their art and grow, while also building the town's reputation as a live music hot spot. This promotion company works extensively hard putting on shows weekly at two of the town's most cherished independent venues (The Lab, and The Garibaldi Hotel). I managed to ask co-founders / managers / organisers of Pick New Promotions Howard and Nancy a few questions in an interview and upon asking what the hardest part of running an independent promotion company been, I was told:
“Time and money! My husband and I both work full time jobs, and mine involves constant travel, so balancing my job and the gigs is a tough one. The most difficult thing however is funding; I put all of my disposable income into the gigs so that we can bring in the best of the up-and-coming talent. We were very proud to have amazing bands such as Welly, Van Houten, and Nightbus, among others, play free shows for us at the Garibaldi Hotel, but each band cost more than the amount that we get from the Gari to put on the gigs. Those are very expensive nights. But we have a great relationship with these bands now as they become more and more popular; we are currently working on having Nightbus return to Northampton in November, for example.”
Pick New was born out of husband and wife Howard and Nancy's combined passion and love for live music, and after being edged on by a friend while sitting in their kitchen following a gig at 2 am were encouraged to start a promotion company. The initial idea was to allow these great bands so enmeshed amongst the Brighton scene a space to show off in Northampton with at least one Brighton based band having space on the bill. Through the growing success and gradual development Picky New Promotions wider connection between Nottingham, Manchester and Bristol have allowed them to bring a wider reach of emerging music to the friendly scene of Northampton town. When asked how it feels to be celebrating such a milestone and if this is how they envisioned things to be back then they said:
“I don't know what I imagined things would be like two years down the road when we first started! We just kind of stumbled into it and have learned a lot along the way. But it feels great to have made the two-year mark and still be excited about putting on gigs in Northampton.”
To mark the two year anniversary Picky New pulled out all the stops with two shows starring some of the finest emerging talent from across the country as a celebration to all they’ve achieved and continual success as live music advocates (on top of an additional show sandwiched between). The first saw shoegaze powerhouses Bdrmm headline Northampton’s notorious Black Prince with their ambiguous arrangements of transcendent electronics on what felt like the hottest day of the year. Joined by The Youth Play and local moshpit starters Thistle these three bands started the celebrations with a scorcher of an evening as the crowd bled energy into the room despite the intense heat.
The Youth Play did great work of opening up the evening with their melodically ambitious shoegaze inspired sound while Thistle ensured the crowd were warm and ready for Bdrmm with their sporadic post-hardcore tunes. Bdrmm made the art of headlining look like child's play as they lit up the stage with their all consuming live shows of bolstering rhythms and celestial tones. The turn out they received was astounding with an audience committed to the experience of the electrifying performance, proving themselves to be rightfully where they are as one of the UK’s rising talents.
Amongst the fantastic music and illicit stage craft throughout the night what was moving to see was the support behind Picky New as the crows took up chanting their names upon putting the spotlight on them for a brief moment. When asked how it felt to have the support of so many behind them they said:
“I'm truly humbled by the shoutouts from both bdrmm and thistle and the number of people who approached me and told me that we are doing great work in keeping Northampton's music scene alive. Their words really mean a lot to me, and we hope that everyone loves the bands we bring here as much as we do. But bdrmm were the highlight of the past two years, without a doubt. It was a real labour of love to get them to Northampton! I'm friends with the band which is why the gig even happened. They did that independently of their management and booking agent, as a favour to me and Howard.”
Show two of Picky New’s two year celebration saw Brighton super stars and long time favorites of the companies Canned Pineapple make their awaited return to Northampton and local music hot spot The Garibaldi Hotel, alongside The Veltmans, Sancho Panza, and local talent Lame. With the Gari being Picky New’s homebase of sorts, seeing them put on a show most Friday evenings here really felt like a party. Seeing such a noteworthy line up being pulled together too gave the impression of them wanting this to be big, so when asked when asked about the selection process for the two shows I was told:
“We had two shows that we were touting as our Two Year Anniversary shows: bdrmm at the Black Prince on Jul 11 and Canned Pineapple at the Gari on Jul 18. These bands are close friends of ours (in fact they both joke that there's some sort of rivalry between them for my affection) so it just felt like the two perfect shows to celebrate our anniversary. Canned Pineapple headlined our very first show on Jul 3, 2023, and our promotions company is named after the working title of a bdrmm song (initially called 'Picky New' but now called 'It's Just a Bit of Blood')”
“As for the lineup of those shows, I knew I wanted a good shoegaze-y opener for the bdrmm show. We had had The Youth Play on in December, and then when I saw them again in London back in March or April, I realised that they would go perfectly with bdrmm. When I asked them if they liked bdrmm, they said they absolutely love them; when I said I'd like to put them on the bill with bdrmm, their singer, Diego, just kept saying 'are you for real?' He was genuinely excited, and that made me extremely happy for some reason, that I could somehow facilitate this. thistle just keep going from strength to strength; I have such faith in that band, but knowing how most of their fans are young, I thought if they were on the bdrmm bill, I could introduce a slightly older, Radio 6 crowd (i.e., bdrmm fans) to thistle's music. In fact, there was a couple at the thistle show on Saturday who came specifically because they saw them support bdrmm. That's exactly what I was hoping to achieve! For the Canned Pineapple gig, we knew that Lame quite like the band (plus, we absolutely love Lame), and we had been wanting to put on Sancho Panza, who, while different, complements Canned Pineapple's sound. The Veltmans were added as an opener after their singer Will told me that Canned Pineapple are his dad's favourite band, lol.”
The Veltmans opened up the stage with their lamentable rough cut alternative rock controversially yet genuinely followed by the slick style of Sancho Panza’s funky blues that got the room moving. Northampton’s hottest indie band Lame caused a spectacle with their festival worthy tunes as they drew in a commendable crowd who showed nothing but love for their favourite growing talent. One would almost question why Lame didn’t headline bringing along such a crow and performing a flawless set only a fool would poke holes in. However joy bringers and headliners of the evening Canned Pineapple showed Northampton what all the hype is about as they welcomed us to the rock show with an insane live show filled with feel good songs and charismatic energy. There was no questioning the continual support Picky New pour into the band after witnessing such a pleasurable performance which undoubtedly blew all my expectations away.
With the continual success and support behind Picky New it seems almost inevitable that a three year celebration is in the cards so I asked if these were any plans to develop further or keep with the formula that seems to be working so well, they simply said:
“Howard really wants to put on a Northampton Psych Fest next year! We've got a running list of bands that we'd like to have on. We'll see if we can make it happen! Otherwise, I'm very happy to continue to bring up-and-coming bands from all over the world to Northampton, and continue to support our local bands and scene.”
I really hope we see the continual success of Picky New Promotion who have done nothing but good for the local music scene and community by keeping music live and bringing value to the town. With such growing support behind these local heroes are undoubtedly a force for good who definitely deserve more recognition then I’m able to give. Happy two year anniversary to Picky New Promotions, and here’s to many more years of success!
