A Beginners Guide to Being “Unique”
Recently The Zanzibar club in Liverpool closed its doors and is being replaced with a generic trad Irish bar and it got me thinking about mundanity in popular culture and wider life and why we shouldn’t accept it.
The Zanzibar, Liverpool
For those who don’t know The Zanzibar it really was considered a legendary music venue hosting acts such as The Coral, Noel Gallagher, The Zutons, The Libertines to name just a few. The Zanzi was much more than that though, it was a place where young bands could cut their teeth and have a supportive safe space to do it in. Tony Butler really did care about the local music scene and made me feel very welcome when I started playing there in my teenage years.
The Zanzibar was zero thrills, minimal furniture, a simple bar and a few places to rest your drink, but the nights in there were electric and eclectic. There was some kind of magic that existed in there. After Tony’s death the bar changed hands and we lost so much in that moment.
A photo on my fridge of myself playing drums in the Zanzibar probs 2004? Photo by Ceri-Jayne
The bar modernised, new fancy lights, an lcd screen to play visuals whilst the bands performed and prices that reflected those changes. I know this might come over as “old man shouts at technology” but with these changes the bar felt more generic, as we have many venues that offer the same experience in other parts of the city. It still seemed popular hosting Uni nights and more of a “nightclub” experience rather than a live music venue.
The writing was on the wall for the venue and this week work began to change it to an Irish bar called “McNasty’s”. With a viewing area for live sports and space for a solo acoustic singer to perform.
The owners of the bar already hold quite the monopoly of venues around the city which offer the exact same experience, if you like to hear an acoustic version of James’ Sit Down or Sweet Caroline then you’re in luck! We have them in abundance!
McNasty’s.
It got me thinking about why do we accept this? Why is this so popular? It’s obviously a winning formula but it all feels so mundane, generic and boring.
I find it the same with other parts of life, TikTok/instagram reels seems to be filled with people doing the latest trend, rather than pushing their own uniqueness or own vision of the world around them. Jokes that were once funny played out again and again by different accounts trying to capture the zeitgeist of the original.
I get pushed a lot of popular photography reels and content via the algorithm and right now its all about “the vision” and from I can tell the vision seems to be a very boring way of seeing the world, aesthetically pleasing images that lack heart and soul. A distinct copy and paste formula of a slow shutter London bus passing a London landmark using the near exact colour grading.
Slow Shutter club, London.
I must mention in all art forms to learn the techniques you must first emulate those you’ve seen or heard, we all start from knowing nothing, though influences should be like a aquarium, and what you’re inspired by should be like the fish swimming, some are in the back and hard to see, whilst others loom much larger, but when you step back and see the bigger picture it’s uniquely yours. (For full clarity someone at a house party attributed this quote to Tom Waits but after extensive research I can’t find out who said it, but it has always shaped how I look at being influenced by things that I like)
Yes, it’s going to be hard in a world where everything has been done before, but if you show the world what is unique to you then you’ll build a body of work that is yours and not like anyone else’s and right now that’s more important than ever. Even Neil Diamond was unique once.
So Good… So Good
So rebel against the copy and paste formula, the mediocrity, the mundane and bring something different to the world. Otherwise we’ll all be listening to Sweet Caroline in the same bar, in the same town forever… and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and…