October's Spotlight on The Cave

The Cave Music Project is a Teignmouth-based charity that serves as a community rehearsal space where musicians both old and new can book out the space to practice. The Cave has been a fixture of the area’s blossoming music scene for years, previously situated in the Eastcliff car park before re-opening post-pandemic in the historic Old Quay Warehouse.
Director Robin Brown shares his experiences running The Cave, as well as his ambitions to champion Teignmouth’s up and coming artists.

How did the idea for The Cave emerge?
I used to be a street-based youth worker in 2004, something that’s sadly lacking a lot on our streets these days. I once met a group of young people who played together but weren’t in any bands and their needs for a space were not being met. They were more into metal and grunge, rather than their youth clubs filled with ‘townies’ who were into dance music and pop.
I remember myself at their age where I wished there were more spaces to play music, so I thought about how we could engage this group. The basement in the Eastcliff Centre was only being used to store equipment, so I pitched the idea of a rehearsal space to the Devon Youth Service area manager.
Back in those days, there was a lot of funding for the youth, so I introduced the group to the centre manager, who then took them to buy all the various bits of kit to make a live music space. It was called The Pulse, which became a real success. The young people used the space to jam on a Friday night, then the ‘townies’ upstairs would go down to listen to the bands. Before you knew it, all of these groups that used to avoid each other started mingling together through the power of music!
However, when we went into recession, all the youth work in Devon came grinding to a halt. The project was closed until 2011 when I was consulted by Teignmouth Town Council to re-open it. When I took it on, I tried to make it more of a community space so adults could get involved as well as teenagers.
The decision to rename it to The Cave was inspired by Muse’s second single. Muse came out of Teignmouth and went on to become one of the biggest bands in the world, though they’ve sadly not been to The Cave yet! But by naming ourselves after a Muse song, we’re saying that people can achieve that success even if you come out of a small seaside town like Teignmouth.
How has your move in location changed your audience?
We closed in 2020 mid-pandemic, so in that time between then and now, the landscape in music has changed quite considerably since we’ve reopened. The majority of the people using the space at the moment are 30-50 year olds, as well as people in bands playing in venues. At the moment, I’m lacking the mix of old and young people, as well as the people we used to get in that just played music for pleasure.
What community events do you host as part of The Cave?
I used to do Cave Sessions regularly, which were live gigs to support original music, as those sorts of bands need the most support. It would also be a good opportunity to give young bands their first gigging opportunity and get them to go through the motions of performing in front of others. I soon plan on re-booting these again.
We were just lucky enough to get a bit of funding for some new jam sessions, including Teenage Kicks and Silver Sessions, which are acoustic and electric music sessions for teenagers and retired musicians of all abilities.
Our new teenage open-mic nights have also been really successful. We’ve been using The Alice Cross Centre as a place to run them, which is a good venue since the families of those performing can easily come along while still giving young people a sense of ownership over a session.
There’s something really wonderful about playing music together. I’ve just had a really nice session today where people left smiling. If you’re playing on your own, you’ve got to fill all the spaces, but playing together, you learn to listen and respond, which is good for us as well as being very enjoyable.
What have been the difficulties of managing The Cave?
It’s taken a very long time to get us started again. We had the new building for two years because planning permission and listed building consent took so long. It took a hit on our funds because of the long period of time we were paying for rent on a place we couldn’t open. We got to a point where we came very close to running out of money as a charity.
I’m trying to build a job for myself since we’ve re-opened. It’s been tricky because the project without money is reliant on volunteer work, so I’m taking things in steps as we find little bits of funding. It’ll take a while before we’re fully functioning to the best of our ability.
What successes have you found running The Cave?
On many occasions I have watched and played a part in helping young lives change for the better. When somebody new comes into the project, they may lack direction, confidence and drive, but with a little help in enabling them, they discover new things about themselves they like. With it, they find meaning and a new trajectory in life with clear goals and ambitions.
The other thing I love as well is when I work with young musicians, putting on events and gigging opportunities, you’ll see their parents, their carer, or grandparents turning up to their gig, and it’s so good to be a part of that family building.
Some may even go on to study music further or go to college with the aim of making music their career. Then you hear things through social media that they’re in a band or have become session musicians, sound engineers and project managers. One young Cave dweller Luke Friend even went off to do the X Factor and is a singer songwriter now!
I think quite often that people, maybe parents, look down on music as not being a proper job, and there’s still an attitude in this country that the arts aren’t taken seriously. Musicians, artists, actors, performers were told to retrain when we went into the pandemic, but at the same time, we all turned to TV, films, art and music. In times of difficulty, we always turn to music, so it’s a vital part of our existence.
Have you got any advice for anyone wanting to open a community music space?
Ideally, every town should have a place where people can play music that’s affordable and accessible. We’ve always supplied the equipment but encourage people to bring their microphones, guitars and drumsticks so anyone can turn up with everything they need on their back.
If you’re planning on starting a music space, you’ll need people to support what you’re doing, such as Board members and a steering group. The hardest thing is finding an appropriate place where people can make noise without disturbing neighbours and other businesses.
It helps if you’re a charity or CIC, but as a business, you’ll need to become sustainable through bookings. It’s not a great time to be a musician, so it’s not something that will make you a fortune.
What up and coming bands should we be paying attention to?
There are lots of great young bands producing original music: Die Twice, Three Days of Wonder, Obvious Reasons, Zaffiros, Saff Juno, New Relic, Vienna Youth, Venus Blue, Drawer of Lemons, Ellie Finnarty, Lazy Snacks, and Bramwell, just to name a few!
This country has a proud musical heritage producing some of the biggest bands ever. That is worth keeping hold of. We need new names as our biggest names are aging and, in some cases, no longer producing music or touring. We are in danger of losing our global influence to countries that value and support their musicians.