The music man

NORTH-EAST businessman Dave Cox may not quite be in the market to persuade the world to live in perfect harmony, but he certainly believes Europe is on the agenda for his futuristic idea of music venues offering everything from first rehearsal to CDs worth selling.

Starting with his home town of Darlington, Cox is about to open the first club where performers of all ages and from all types of music can use the best digital studio equipment available for as little as £5 an hour.

The tatty Victorian building at the corner of Borough Road and Brunswick Street - which started life as Darlington Borough Road School before becoming a Durham County Council Music Centre - is about to undergo a £220,000 facelift to transform into a state of the art practice and performance project.

From March onwards, the building will be renamed The Forum with a membership expected to run into thousands as musicians and, most importantly, music fans go along for an evening's entertainment.

In addition to "plug and play" attractions for the instant fame generation there is a 170-capacity performance lounge plus a bar and snack area where 80-90 members can watch the stage act on TV screens while enjoying food and drink.

Cox is in the fortunate position of being financially independent from the project - he makes his money from a car parts franchise - and claims to be driven by the North-East's lack of ambition when it comes to promoting the region's talented musicians.

He says: "The actual commercial ethos is that the club has had to run privately because there is absolutely no public support towards it. The whole thing started through the need to involve creative artists with production and music arranging. The people who need the services are the very people who can't afford it so that's where I started because I had to create a marketplace for musicians who couldn't afford hundreds and thousands of pounds.

"This meant I can to create an alternative profit stream to subsidise the musicians and to put on entertainment for a public that's not entertained at the moment.

"We're not going to just cater for rock or jazz or folk, but basically to make the centre multi-genre to cover every age group and there's nothing being done to attract all ages up to the senior citizens."

Cox, a frustrated musician himself, could easily have become bitter about the whole North-East experience after Darlington Borough Council turned down his first plan to re-open the town's former Beehive nightclub in 2002. Months of negotiation finally won a lease on the Borough Road site, but conditions include CCTV inside and outside, tight door security and a members and guests only policy to avoid potential trouble of people walking in off the street.

He says: "What I don't want to do is to emphasise any of the problems we've had because it's all history now. We've got the lease and the council are on board by the fact they've let us do it and now we move forward.

"We feel that people will quickly want to preserve the membership scheme and that is the ultimate thing to lose. So if people are misbehaving or don't suit the environment they simply don't have to be members.

"It's not a drinking venue because we aim to keep the lout out. That doesn't mean that people attending don't want cheap beer, so what we are trying to do is to offer a fair price. You'll pay what you expect to pay in a regular pub. We're not going down the line of the big corporation of 'once we got you there we'll nail you and take every penny off you'. We don't want anyone to walk out, so that every artist and every social member is a customer."

As the centre is finally starting to take shape, Cox adds: "We want the project to be the best in Europe, because there's no one else doing it.

"What I really think Darlington needs to know is that it's the first time in the United Kingdom that we've mixed a social scene with the bar with the creative development. Then we plan to use money from the centre to develop young artists and bands. We could really evolve this into a super centre. We believe it will head that way and we'll outgrow it very quickly because we already have the Northern School of Contemporary Music coming here as well." Cox knows that success or failure of The Forum rests with the 10,000-15,0000 social membership taken up by adults with disposable income, many of whom are already on the fringes of the music industry.

"In actual fact we're limited to 250 in all public areas, but we can still have 35 people in each of the larger rooms and rehearsal rooms.

"The project will become the biggest recording studio in the region open to opera, classical, choirs and amateur orchestras.

"We'll cover every aspect of music and people will have access to all of it. We're not looking for the same audience every night, we want social members who want to attend once or twice a month and are looking forward to a bloody nice evening.

"Session membership will be limited to 600-800. We haven't started marketing and we've got 450 names and each of those knows another musician so as soon as we open the floodgates we feel over-subscription will be immediate.

"We'd like something like the Forum to go to every town in the country. We have to prove it works, but if it works here it will work in Durham, it will work in Sunderland and Harrogate. And I think it's the future of the record industry to be honest.

"This is a passion and something I really feel will work, but we have to make it pay. I really feel that within ten years it has the potential of having many, many outlets.."

So far Cox and his associates are putting in nearly £300,000 in terms of hard cash and expertise. Cox and his backers who now face a three-month deadline to totally upgrade the old school involving wiring, central heating and sound-proofing.

As for the cynical eyes cast on his dream by some, Cox says: "This is totally genuine and that's the other problem... you can't come across as genuine nowadays because people think you're after something."

* For more information on The Forum ring (01325) 363135 or log onto theforumonline.co.uk

Published: 02/01/2004