Bristol Album Club

I’m going to miss a lot of things not living in a city. Many of them are the obvious stuff. 

Walking out of the door of our old house and round the corner and within 5 mins you could be in the delightful Dave Giles butcher, at Joe’s the bakery, Pawsons greengrocer and all of the rest of delights of Gloucester Road.

I’m already missing Designers – best Bristol barbers bar none; people who take a real pride in a personal service. Missing flipping a coin as to whether it’d be John or Kiri cutting my hair this time. Missing walking past and getting a wave from John - one of those characters that knows everyone; been cutting hair in that shop for 25 years.  It felt like I was cheating on them when I had a haircut elsewhere a few days ago.

But one of the things I am going to miss most is Bristol Album Club.

A very close friend sowed the seed when talking about a (now-defunct) London Album Club he ran, and I used to badger him to set up the same in Bristol. But I ended up taking on the mantle when I realised it wouldn’t happen unless I did it.

The premise of the endeavour was and is simple.

One person picks an album, we all listen to it in our own time over the course of a month, and then get together around a central Bristol pub table to talk about it. The guiding principle is that the album has to have been released in the last 12 months, or it’s a record that the chooser has heard for the first time in their life in the last 12 months. Mostly people keep it fresh with new releases, but occasionally a more obscure older record comes through – like Ivor Cutler’s Jammy Smears. Compilations aren’t permitted (mostly), though soundtracks are. Part of the charm is arbitrary interpretation of the loose rules - but a cast iron rule is no discussion of the album until we meet on the night and it's introduced formally by the picker.

Our first meeting was in Jan 2020. We got two in-person meets in before Covid struck and we moved to Discord, then to Zoom meetings (even going to fortnightly during full lockdown), and then to meetings outside in Castle Park when the rules allowed. 

Everyone gives their thoughts and then we vote using a quick google form that gets pulled together during the discussion by the 'Head of Tech' (often me but sometimes Ollie) and anyone that wants to can vote using a link on the inevitable WhatsApp chat. A bar chart snapshot is posted and someone else, usually H in her capacity of ‘Head of Average Scores’ works out the average. 'Head of Archiving' Big Jim then at some point updates the website - www.bristolalbumclub.com.

The next album is chosen by someone that’s turned up that month and can make the next date, and we use a random number generator (1-100) to choose the person if more than one person is up for it. Recent pickers don’t go again until a suitable amount of time has elapsed and you can’t be a picker unless you’ve come to a few meets. Or alternatively the benevolent dictator just picks someone.

It’s best to not over-think a choice; trying to pick a record that you think other people will like, or a personal sacred cow, is a risky business. The best nights are not those where everyone likes the record, but usually where there’s a wide range of views. But of course the low scorers do linger in the memory. Rufus Wainwright got pretty slammed (sorry Ads).

It’s not really the music per se that I’ll miss (it’s the absolute power to make arbitrary decisions in a personal fiefdom) but the cast of characters that bring things to life and people new and old that I’ve met. Whether it’s someone that just makes the occasional meet, to the stalwarts that miss rarely if ever. I’m going to miss the little foibles that have developed about how things run on particular hamming up the arcane nature of the various rules as much as possible.

Sometimes we’ve had as few as 4 or 5 people – sometimes more than 12. And usually we end up somewhere between those two numbers.

Having a regular excuse to go out and have a few drinks is, in and of itself, a glorious thing. Doing that with an evolving group of like-minded people is even better; I've met so many new and lovely people, as well as cementing existing friendships; it's a real wrench to be leaving it behind. Though a Friday morning hangover if things progress, as they sometimes inevitably do to Elmer’s (yes I am looking at you Tom), is a price of doing business.

We’re now over 40 albums in but meeting on 4 May will be my last as convenor, before we leave for France. Hopefully I can time any return trips to coincide. If you want to listen to this month's album (picked by me - it's a fix!) it's Surgeon - Crash Recoil.