Amos Jacob (New Pantheon Club) Interview
On Wednesday 2 November, New Pantheon Club comes to MONO for their first show outside of its DIY birthplace at the Warehouse. Nicholas Heartland spoke to organiser Amos Jacob about the group, the upcoming gig and the ongoing student community arts scene of Falmouth.
NH: Let’s talk about New Pantheon Club. How did it come about?
AJ: Ultimately it grew out of space and the opportunity that having space to play allows people. Last year I was living in this block which was a converted warehouse, and there were 20 people living in 7 flats. We were so lucky because we had living rooms that were 7m+ square to play with. There was a time, around November, when about 7 people ended up there and we just had a little jam, cooked dinner and were there until really late. This ability to invite people back to our own space, it allowed people not to worry about other spaces. So suddenly people were relaxed and chatty and it was just how you would want it to be, and it felt organic. So without there being a plan to make it bigger particularly, I invited about 20/30 people - I say “I”, there were two flats side by side and we shared the responsibility - to come round, watch a film and play some music. Eventually there was a life drawing lesson because a lot of people were fine artists. Then that became more formalised again, we put on a programme of play where we did more drawing, some sound improvisation, we went to go see a dance show at AMATA, and we had a massive curry that I cooked that morning.
That carried on a few iterations and then people who were going to that were also in bands, their bands were at a stage where I thought, you’ve got songs, you’ve got friends who want to share each other’s practice, but there’s no obvious place for gigs. Although the open mic nights are great in Falmouth, they have such a locked culture, and it’s not that difficult to get a gig in the established venues but then you’re immediately locked to that space and the commercial culture of that space or the audience of that space, so it’s out of our control. My worry is that it’s so easy to slip into the standard industry model, which I don’t think works and I don’t think it’s what we want. I think it’s become so industrial and capitalist and that’s not what the arts are for really. So it made complete sense, as we have a massive front room, and we can hire all the tech equipment from the university (because that’s what we’re paying for), to put on a night there with three friends’ bands and we had about 40 people and it was amazing; the bands had a great time, the audience had a great time, and it felt so communal. There wasn’t a boundary between the audience and the band, it was people playing for their friends and friends appreciating them, and again it just felt so organic.
To finish off the year we did another one, which for whatever reason became my project - some people who were there at the start stepped back a bit and other people went off to do other projects - and this was the first time it was justifiably called New Pantheon Club. We had a band who are now called The Empty Threats and Luna Plexus also played. Security came, and rightly so, we had 80 people and the floor was bowing, and I was aware this wasn’t the best location to do it but it was the only one we had, and that wasn’t a reason not to do it. Some people are lucky enough to be able to articulate to themselves what choices are generally sustainable and what choices are just bad ideas. It felt like there were was a lot of energy and a lot of talk around community and all this left-wing, artistic, we-can-do-it mentality, which exists quite a lot in Falmouth and at the university and in Cornwall largely. New Pantheon Club had manifested in something that was real and it wasn’t just talk, it was like we had actually done something that exists.
NH: How do you feel that the New Pantheon Club fits into the wider music scene? Do you feel it can only exist because of the communities that come out of the uni?
I don’t for a second think that it is owned by the university, and one of the reasons for not having any branding ties or asking them for support (beyond what I happened to be entitled to as a student, in terms of getting kit out) is because I don’t think that it’s a very healthy way of approaching life. The university is great for what it does and academia is fascinating but the wider community that we actually live in is worth so much more. I was lucky enough last year to get involved with the Penryn community and felt very welcomed there - trying to build a proper new park sort of level of community engagement. When you have that sort of foundation, everything else becomes real, because you do see people in the street that you recognise - multigenerational and multicultural stuff. I realised recently that idea of diversity, it’s not a cute liberal ideal. If you believe in the mythology of science then the planet has spent around 400 million years figuring out what works, and it turns out diversity works. If you have lots of different things going on that are all integrated and all bouncing off each other then you have sustainable life. For myself, there are a lot of people that the world makes important and I love them to pieces, and the danger is that in a year and a half, on something like May 28th, no-one has anywhere to live, no-one is going to get a job, everyone splits up, and the community that had formed isn’t sustainable because it’s founded on the membership of Falmouth University. As soon as that’s gone then there’s nothing left, and that sucks for the individuals, and it sucks for the wider society, because that way it stops communities building foundations and everyone becomes alien to each other.
So I really hope New Pantheon Club organically grows into the community that’s there. I have no interest in forcing anything or building anything because it might be it turns out the best thing it can do is to help a smaller community, which might be the student community, but I doubt that’s what’s going to happen. The moment you try to force something on someone, it’s not right, but I’m very confident that because of what I want to do with it and because I know what people who are involved with it are interested in, that it will grow out. I really want to start doing acoustic nights, but acoustic is a word that is so often bastardised because you usually go to an acoustic night and there’s an amp and a microphone and that’s not acoustic at all. So the plan is to get a totally different setting to MONO, maybe somewhere like Beerwolf or Chintz, or maybe somewhere completely unaffiliated in any way, and have a mixture of musicians who can play acoustically, whether that’s jazz or metal or singer/songwriter, classic, folk. The rule is - I love rules because it’s what they imply and the freedom rules give you - the music has to be made acoustically, without amplification. Then also having a bit where the musicians teach things to the audience, whether it’s choruses or three part harmonies. I feel no need to force it, but allow it to enfold and just water it and prune off dead leaves here and there, but actually I think it will do its own thing and be fine. I hope it will be much more appropriate, more accessible, more meaningful and more fun, to then start making a community around music, as opposed to just a music community because I only know the bands I know. There’s a problem there that I could never really easily programme bands until I meet them.
It comes from an understanding that it’s about giving an invitation, and that’s so much more powerful than I could ever imagine. And actually, if you don’t accept the invitation then that’s absolutely fine, but try to actually meaningfully come and join in. It’s a safe space where you will be welcomed, where also if you want to just be quiet and sit at the side and watch that’s fine as well.
NH: You’ve got this MONO gig coming up, how does that fit in with everything you’ve just said about organically taking New Pantheon Club into the wider community?
AJ: On the strategic, philosophical level, which I do really start from, and it can come across in some conversations as a bit conceited, but it does come from a philosophical standpoint. That’s our power as conscious beings, we can imagine things, play out scenarios that don’t actually happen in time and space. Well, they happen in time and space, but there’s also the dimension of consciousness which we can manipulate so much more easily than the other two. So the process of thinking things through, you can play with stuff and you can put it into practice and then it’s easier to guide it when you see opportunities. It’s that moment when you’re leafing through a magazine or Facebook or the library, and suddenly you see exactly the thing you were thinking of and clearly the fact that it’s there and the process in which you notice it is the art of being curious. So that’s the standpoint to it.
MONO fits into the growth because it’s defined and it can be related to by the bands, by the audience. Because MONO is such a small capacity, it is possible that some people will be unable to go - and it’s not about exclusivity, there’s the fire regulations in that space - but for those people, and for the people who might hear about it afterwards, if it’s done with integrity and there’s a reputation of integrity then that hopefully gives a trunk, a sturdy trunk that means doing more projects off the back of the success of something like that is so much easier because it’s starting to build, or at least validate its reputation. Everybody involved will be able to reflect upon it a bit and think actually, where does it go next?
I would love more ideas to grow out of this collective entity and I’d love other people to come in and ask, could we do this? Yes, we could do this. I can’t do it, but if you want to do it and it fits with the culture, then it becomes a way of bringing people together and everyone benefits. The idea that there’s some commercial value to the exclusivity and to the horrible marketing words like branding, personal reputation, I’m really not interested in that, because outside of the tiny community we’re actually in, there’s the student community, then there’s the Falmouth community, then there’s the Cornish community, personal reputation is irrelevant anyway.
NH: So is this kind of thing that’s going to provide the platform for more upcoming student bands as well as local bands?
I hope so. The intention of this is to make it a monthly night, and the format we had in the Warehouse is the same as here; three or four bands, half hour sets. If there’s one thing I could ask to the people who might be coming to this is come at the start, there’s going to be music from 8:15/8:30, four different bands, singer/songwriter, blues rock, electro-indie and post-punk. It’s an eclectic mix but everything you can dance to, and that was the rule for New Pantheon. I don’t care what it is, you have to be able to dance to it. Then after 11, which is when the licence for live ends, Rose, who was very integral to the Warehouse - she was one of the inspirations for wanting to make things like a community - she goes by the name of Woman and DJs this amazing mix of ska, reggae, world and getting heavier as the night goes on, starting to bring in more bass and dub. It’s nice because it’s not what you usually hear, it’s not just a night of music lifted from a chart, it’s almost like coming from cultures where circle dancing and communal music is the only way music exists. So it felt really appropriate to ask her to come and DJ because it’s a lot more inward looking - it’s not about the celebrities or the bands or the producers. But if there’s more DJs who want to DJ then they can do sets. It’s about building into a more communal enterprise where it’s not really about the individual, and also for the bands it’s not really about the individual, it’s about the opportunity to play with an audience safely and play with performance.
NH: Did you ever get to any of the Space 37 events? Because for me this feels like a continuation of that culture, filling the void left by Space 37 as well as the DIY arts nights that came before it.
AJ: There was a moment, probably in late October last year, when we heard about this thing in the garage [Space 37] and me and Ella Squirrell (who is playing in November), saw this group of people who were trying to build this community and we felt like we’d arrived - this is our school, this is where all the things we’ve ever thought or dreamt come together. The openness of Space 37 and also the openness of places like the Poly and the Newlyn Exchange, all the cultural institutions that are there in the community, not so much in the academic community but actually trying to get in touch with the people, they’re all so welcoming and they’re all so supportive, and Space 37 was supportive of me and my peers. Suddenly it reframes it because it’s not third year, second year, first year hierarchy, suddenly it’s not local/student binary opposites, it’s like we just want to share something we feel is really important, because that’s what we happen to believe. If it turns out other people, for whatever reason, believe it too, then that’s sweet and we can work together towards something that’s beneficial to the whole.
Interview by Nicholas Heartland