Like many others, Lou Smith's channel was how I first learned that the city I lived in had a great music scene. It motivated me to go to gigs at the venues he usually filmed, even if I didn't have anyone else to go with at first, and led me to discover many bands that I listen to regularly and have since become friends with.

By the time I found his channel in 2021, Lou had already been filming gigs for over a decade. In this interview we go over how he got started, what changed, what hasn't and more. Bolded sentences are mine, non-bolded are his.

Did you grow up in South London?

I grew up in Leeds, north of England. Moved with my dad's work. My dad was a geologist and bizarrely they moved his office to Prince's Gate, which is in central London. That was in 1976, which is the year of punk.

We stayed in West London, Uxbridge at around that time. I was 14, I felt like a bit of an outcast because I wasn't well assimilated into the southern vibe. I got into punk music quite early on though, and that started my love of live music I guess.

My move to South London was pretty much random, I met somebody when I was traveling and he gave me their address. It was a squat in Brixton, right behind the police station. I came round his place to say hi, on the day that he was leaving. I was traveling at the time and had just split up with this girl I had been going out with, so I decided to start a new life in South London. I didn't have anywhere to stay so I moved into that squat. I stayed in the kitchen under the table for 3-4 months.

What year was this?

This would have been 1984.

Did you get to see The Clash live around this time?

I remember seeing them a couple of times, but the last time I saw them was post-Mick. They had a weird lineup, I saw them in Brixton Academy and it was obviously not the same (laughs).

After you moved to London, when did you actually start going to gigs regularly?

That was much later on. I got married, I had a child in 2008. I had already bought this camera, which at that time had this cutting-edge DSLR technology. You could download some software and hack it, to get more functionality out of it. At the time I was just doing short clips. I had that camera to mainly chronicle my daughter, as much as anything.

Wednesday night was Easycome night, with Hank Dog, I don't know if you know him. This legendary provider of great folk music back then. It was a good escape valve for me, so I had somewhere to go that wasn't just babies and married life and all that sort of stuff. This was around 2009, I started going to Easycome. There were a bunch of regulars there, this guy called Floyd Henry, he has a one-man-band setup. He's very innovative with these different microphones, loops, psychedelic guitars. There was a guy called Boycott Coca Cola, who's still going now. So this kind of weird, eclectic mix of people who were all really talented. And it was into that that Fat White Family suddenly appeared one day, at the Old Nun's Head. I was blown away by it. They were what hooked me in, because it spoke to me of the early punk stuff, pushing the boundaries of what is tasteful.

You see so many bands perform from their earliest gigs, some break out of the local scene and achieve great success later on, do you have this intuition of which bands will be able to do it professionally when you see them live?

So some of the bands I promote because I love the people, I believe in them. Bands like Y for instance, I've followed since early on. Bands like that, I know the people before I know the band, so I'm there at their first gig and I know they're going to bring something cool out. If I have that relationship with them, meaning that I like them enough to do that, it means there's something about them that's going to be special. I know that much from the start.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation probably. I plug bands that I love. Generally I can tell, the first time I see a band I'll know. There are bands that deserve to be doing really well like Children of the Pope, who just haven't achieved it yet. When I say 'deserve' it's a tricky one, since they have the talent but not necessarily the other skills you need like marketing.

Some bands are slow burners, like Black Bordello who are one of my favourite bands. It's a slow process, they are on their third album now. Some bands get hype and then flatten down a little bit, like Picture Parlour. Like when Courtney Love stole some of my footage and pretended it was hers. They blew up, as a result of them being plugged by Courtney. There was a whole 'industry plant' thing going on at the time with The Last Dinner Party, who I don't think are industry plants at all, they just did their homework. They had an idea of what they wanted to look like, and obviously come from backgrounds where they could afford to spend time on that, but I don't think they are manufactured at all. Same with Picture Parlour.

At this point you've documented the London scene for over a decade, what are some things that changed and some things that remained the same over that time?

It definitely has changed. People who were there at the beginning are complaining about how much it has changed (laughs). Sometimes I go down the Windmill and there's a crowd, I don't know anyone in the crowd at all. Other days I feel like I know half the room.

I try to keep in with the new bands as they come through, and they know me now. They are happy that I'm filming them, rather than me just being a guy in the audience who is filming them. Like Black Midi didn't know who I was, I was just a Fat White Family maximalist back then. I used to film all the FWF adjacent bands like Warmduscher, Sleaze, Meat Raffle, Madonnatron etc.

I guess Fat White Family and those bands were the 'first wave'. On the back of those came proteges like Shame, Goat Girl etc. I think those bands were the 'second wave'. Black Country, New Road, Black Midi were the third wave. For a lot of people those two bands are where it started. That brought in a different crowd, and it took me a while to break into that crowd.

I suppose the 4th wave would be the insurgence of women in bands. It's gone through the roof recently and it's great to see. Bands like The Last Dinner Party, of course, Picture Parlour, Luvcat... All these bands that know how to get into the mind of the female fandom. I think that's where we're at at the moment. There's some interesting bands coming through. Bathing Suits, Newbuild, Charlemagne etc.

You can definitely see the influence of 3rd wave bands in the current wave.

Definitely. Particularly Black Midi with that noise rock/jazz influence. Looking at my most viewed videos on Youtube, it's mainly Black Midi, BCNR, Black Midi, New Road and The Last Dinner Party.

How do you manage to consistently upload gig footage on your channel?

I don't make that much money from the channel, usually around 100 dollars a month. I do t-shirt pressings on the side to finance the channel. Since my car got stolen I've started to embrace bicycle and public transport. I'm over 60 now so I get free public transport, if I didn't get that I probably wouldn't afford to do half of what I do. I'm mortgage-free luckily, that's also allowed me to do what I do.

Nowadays, how do you decide which gigs to go to?

I'm not very organised, I'm missing a lot of stuff at the moment. I have this medical thing where I lost all hearing in one ear, around 2 years ago. My ear just started ringing, and within an hour it was entirely silent. That came with nausea and loss of balance and stuff like that. I'm slowly overcoming it.

Half of what I do has to do with visuals. People standing around and not doing very much is more tiring, if they are doing stuff then I get into a state of flow. It takes me away and a lot of the physical problems I have evaporate. That's why I love doing it, it takes me out of what would otherwise be handicapping me.

If a band is starting out, in the London scene, what do you think they can do to maximise their chances of doing this 'professionally', meaning they make enough money to live off it?

I honestly don't know, because it's so rare for that to happen. The only advice I have is don't get rid of the day job, but at the same time you have to give up the day job at some point if you want to make a success of it. They've got to be good, they gotta be fanatical about what they do, they need to prioritise it. Their job needs to take a back seat a bit.

It's so hard, so I really don't know. Clearly we're getting more privileged kids coming through with the music because they can afford to prolong their 'youthfulness' without necessarily having to crunch into the reality of paying rent. I honestly don't know how people pay rent and get 5-6 people together to rehearse and hire rehearsal space and all of that. In terms of advice, it's a fucking hard one. They do it because they love it, and I can't give them advice other than to keep doing it if they love it.

Some bands pick up very quickly and for some it's a slow grind. If you're not feeling like you're progressing after a couple of years, then I don't know. Change tack, mix it up. The audience is pretty educated and they'll know if you're ready to headline and stuff like that. But even then, when you begin touring that's when your financial woes begin, because it costs a fortune and you're not getting it back through ticket sales necessarily.

It definitely seems to be a labour of love sort of thing, looking at how much work you have to put in and how little money you get back.

It's generally been that way in this country. There was a time when you could make a decent living, when living costs were lower and you got paid more compared to what they make off you. Especially with Spotify and all these services. I buy records of bands I love and I listen to those, but other than that the music I consume is all live.

If a band asks me to come and see them, I usually see if there's any footage of them playing on Youtube. If I think they could do with some better Youtube footage I go and do it, it's quite rare though.

Who are your favourite up-and-coming acts, let's say you have to choose 3.

Oh god. Y are still up-and-coming aren't they. They are my faves as I love the people in it. In terms of exciting... I was very excited by French Toast as I have mentioned. Just because of the attitude, to see so much "raw" power coming from a woman in a way that you'd see from Lias in Fat White Family. She gives the performance her all and I really admire that. Third... so many bands... Bathing Suits. I've been a big fan of them. There's loads of bands though, too many to mention.