ICA London as a music venue

ile to thread!

its on the mall ! near the queens house! but the bar is a bit too small and its hard to get a drink once it fills out, sound quality was good as far as i remember and they have a good set up for multimedia displays if its that kinda gig.. nearest record shops are probably in SoHo

The ICA is the poncy Institute For The Contemporary Arts where the usual fare is an evening of obscure performance art for the price a Lear Jet. This is the place where the previous Director was forced to resign after some dimwitted remarks questioning the validity of conceptual art. As a music venue though, it's alright I s'pose. Saw the Sonic Mook Golden Jubilee rock night there, the night that Whitehall was crammed with flag waving idiots and Brian May ripped off Hendrix. It was alright actually, with the Black Madonnas putting everyone else in the shade as per. The place itself is a bit spanking for my liking and it tends to attract an annoying crowd who reckon themselves, and the drinks are too expensive but the bar staff are cute, the stage area is blacked out and the sound is good, with the stage iself right on top of the crowd. Record Shops nearby? It's on Whitehall dharling, so you're better off rocking into Soho.

Whitehall? The Mall, I mean.

the ICA has one of the worst sound systems in London. Combined with some pretty unsympathetic acoustics it makes anything in there painfully unlistenable. In the bar its pretty nice but it is completely separate from the venue bit

Re: shit sound. I thought it was alright man. But I was listening to blistering garage rock so perhaps it suited the aesthetic. And I was pissed.

how big is the venue is what i wanna know?

Pfff, about 350 capacity perhaps, maybe. Not too big, I'm trying to think of a comparable venue...

its horrible.

Anyone ever go to a club night Little Stabs at Happiness, at ICA I think? Is it still going?

I went to the London ICA in 1985 to see Max Headroom 'hosting' a lame night of music culminating in one of the first live perfomances of the Pet Shop Boys... who were midling awful. In the main room were a whole bunch of, I think, Schnabel paintings... which were awful.

well Phil, you've ruined it for me completely now ;)

I've only ever had drinks there, but it seemed like a very nice place. I had an excellent exchange rate at the time so it didn't seem expensive...

The drinks aren't that badly priced for London. It has not been the same since they removed the 20p table football table though (20p only got you 6 balls but it was 20p)

I saw "Greater than One" play there with a stage full of bloody pigs heads. And the sound system was plenty load, playing the sound of helicopters.

That was a freaky night ....

the ica's shows and door-prices aren't wildly expensive — the bar and the food are: as ed says, it has always had pretty lousy sound

its film policy is good

roger is wrong abt it being a director who had to resign: it wz someone more visible but ornamental, w/o responsibility for what goes on there

when i wz a member in the early 80s, my no.wz 49494

If you want to play the pedant Sinkah, you should paint the whole picture. Permit me to embellish your comments.

Ivan Massow, was forced to resigned from the ICA after comments made to the New Statesman, including the delightful epigram, "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat," were pounced upon by the media. The official position he held, between his appointment in 1999 and February 2002, was that of Chairman, not usually described as an "ornamental" post.

Your remark that Massow was without influence as to what went on the ICA is unfortunately something of a red herring. He was specifically brought in to boost the visibility of the ICA – since he has an irrepressible penchant for publicity and an instinct for generating newspaper copy. He is also a prominent, high-profile member of London’s gay community. As such, for a figure representative of an institution of such cultural potential to hold such pin-headed opinions, let alone air them so hysterically in print, is of course, damaging not to say embarrassing to that institution.

Massow is little better than a dilettante money-man. He made a fortune selling financial products and as an IFA. His greed and insatiable appetite for bigger and better things led him to an ultimately loss-making business merger, and his political ambitions have seen him proclaim an interest in standing as a Labour MP, only to then consider entering the London mayoral race before pulling out to back Conservative candidate Norris, then declare in 2000 that the Conservative party was, "intolerant and, frankly, just plain nasty," and defect to Labour. Massow is eminently qualified to identify the "plain nasty" since he acts as whipper-in for the East Sussex and Romney Marsh foxhounds and is joint master of the Cokeham Bloodhounds.

Clearly a man of great intelligence and greater principle then, Massow was obviously the ideal candidate to bring on board to help steady the good ship ICA, which, let’s be honest, has been slowly sinking since the heady days of the 60’s and 70’s; superseded in the 90’s by the likes of Jopling, Schubert, Miro et al. Today, it is little better than a film club with a posh bar, with visitors to this faintly elitist members-club often finding the art exhibitions staged all too rarely engaging and frequently bordering on the irrelevant, if indeed they grit their teeth against the entrance charges.

Massow himself has admitted in an interview with John Humphries that he has made something of a career of joining clubs to which he is dazzlingly ill-suited, something his brief tenure as Chair of the ICA demonstrated admirably.

there, there roger. it's all right. let it all out

roger if you *really* want pedantry don't forget that i researched, fact-checked and proofed the booklet detailing the history and chronology of the ica published in its 50th anniversary, so i can bore you mindless at far greater length if you want to take the challenge

but let's face it, what your extremely long post is basically saying is "yes mark, you're quite right and i was wrong, it was not the director who had to resign, but a chairman whose role was purely cosmetic" => quite why it's my my correction that's the red herring here escapes me

the ica's profile — and energy-level – is up considerably since the doldrums of the 80s, when it really REALLY took a dive into torpor

disclaimer: i worked with (current director) philip dodd when he wz editor of sight and sound

anti-disclaimer: the amount i wz paid for working on the chronology — and doing a very neat job IMAO — was a fkn disgrace

I love you mark. My turn then, to attempt a rebuttal. And though I must confess, I could hardly forget that you it was who researched, fact-checked and proofed etc the 50th anniversary booklet detailing the history and chronology of the ICA, since I had no idea said booklet even existed, this is no defence. With this in mind, I am half tempted to take the mark s. pedantry challenge, as a suitable chastisement and purgation.

These matters aside, to address my boorish response, while I am happy to acknowledge that Massow was indeed not a Director, I’m not sure that I could state categorically that I was supporting your view that his role was "cosmetic." In fact, I misguidedly felt I was questioning your assertion that his role was "ornamental." I even went so far as to suggest that the role of chairman was "not usually described as an ‘ornamental’ post." My aspersion that your remark was a "red herring" was based on your perceived premise (clearly misinterpreted by me) that whatever Massow said and did had no impact at the ICA, which seemed to underpin your claim that Massow was "w/o responsibility for what goes on there"; plainly not the case. Hence the media became so interested, hence he was fired. Whether Massow was a director, Chairman, Board-member or whatever, and whether or not his only task each day was to breeze in once a week and put his feet up on a mahogany desk, it is likely his outspoken, ill-judged remarks would have had the same impact and carried the same ramifications (on account of his title and position). I am, of course, open to persuasion on any and all of these concerns.

Please overlook the warping of the laws of the time-space continuum Massow would have had to achieve in order to go about his task each day by breezing in once a week.

So then, shopping in Soho while I look forward to a wonderfully what-ho upper class evening listening to a sub-par sound system while eating my home made sarnies and drinking water from a tap.

If I see any passing directors/chairmen/ornamentals I'll be sure to give them a good rebutting on behalf of us all ;-)