Response from students who opposed a U.K. rock show

Awhile back, I made a post about how I couldn’t believe that students at a small college in the U.K. protested against a rock show by the band Clinic so they could focus on their studies instead. You can read my post and get more background information here.

The beauty of the internet is that someone who was actually there found my post and left a comment on it, four months after the whole ordeal. Additionally, “Sue” was one of those students who opposed the show and gave her account of what happened and why. I find this incredibly fascinating that I’m posting her comment here to make an update to my previous post in this topic.

This is such an old story if feels odd posting a comment, but I only came across all the internet ranting on the issue today. I was one of the students that protested about the gig, to be honest we were told it had moved venue and thought nothing more of the matter. However now I feel that I should set the record straight(although probably no-one will even read this).

The gig that was to “last a couple of hours” demanded that we destroy our sculptures in order to move out of the performance space; our studios. We were given one weeks notice. A couple of weeks after the scheduled gig we had a very important assessment that lead directly into our degree show. After three years of studying our result is determined by the degree show. This assesment was CRUCIAL. However we were told to remove everything from the studio(which demanded destroying many of the works). We would have less than 1 week to build new work before our 3 year degree began to be assessed on the basis on what was being presented.

Also in response to the endless record company lies, It wasn’t the first gig to be played there since the sex pistol. A year prior to the clinic scheduled gig a big promotional gig with the paddingtons had happened to mark the 30th anniversary of the sex pistol’s first gig. Central Saint Martins has used this fact to establish itself as a venue to whore band, making false connection with rock’s history, to create artifical connections between the music industry and art students, when infact its just the old money making men pushing promotional bullshit. It was a disguting act of record label PR/branding. Yuk!!!

And finally, not to be rude but St Martins is not a “small” school, it is internationally reknowned for its on going contribution to our creative environment. Its just a shame that the reality of this reputation (you see really the sex pistols played for 5 minutes before college heads unplugged them and chucked them out)is perpetuated by vulgar marketing, where the dean ignores his students in order to contrive PR stunts with money hungry record companies.

Thanks for the clarification, and I certainly stand corrected on the details. I am very much against having anything destroyed when it comes to art, so you officially have my support, Sue. This shows a real beauty in the reach that blogging has, and your comment certainly reached me.

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