It’s easy for people like me to type stuff about how terrible it is that small music venues are closing down across the UK. For various reasons, mainly economic, venues as diverse as Madame Jojo’s, The 12 Bar Club, The Marquee and The Astoria have closed in recent years. Whether you think it’s about economics or cultural cleansing, the end result’s the same; it’s becoming more and more difficult for small bands to build an audience and develop themselves by playing the small gig circuit. So who’s doing anything about it? Well the Music Venue Trust is, campaigning on issues related to the survival of small venues. It’s gathered support from the business and creative sides of the industry and artist patrons include Elbow, Frank Turner and Neil Hannon.

This list has now been joined by The Carnabys. The band has built up a following for their powerful live act by playing in those venues that are at risk now and they want to do something about it by backing the “Save Live Music” initiative. But this isn’t just about a photo opportunity and a few canapes; this is about providing financial backing. Their much-anticipated second album “Too Much Never Enough” comes out in August and the band is launching it for pre-release now with all of the profits from the sales going to “Save Live Music”. That’s what you call putting you money where your mouth is. Not only that, the band is using their promotional campaign for the album and the lead single, ”Scars and Safety Pins/Caught in the Rain” to raise awareness of the live music situation.

You can pre-order “Too Much Never Enough” here, and all of the profits will go to “Save Live Music”. Meanwhile, we’ll try to get a review for you in the next few weeks.