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A: Planet Beet was a weekly gig night in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK, and Norwich, Norfolk, UK which ran from August 2002 until Feb 2008, putting on over 275 gigs in this time.
It started off in the back half of a pub called The Priors Inn, in August 2002. At the time, there was nowhere in Bury for original bands to play, and the thriving local music scene was starting to get a bit stale.
I'd been homeless for over a year, and had been searching Bury high and low for 9 months, looking for a suitable potential venue, with the idea of moving here if it took off. I'd scoured the town in that time, viewing about 15 potential venues, none of which turned out to be suitable, and I was just about to give up and move to Norwich when Tasha (my little sister) and I stumbled across The Priors Inn. We'd been driving around aimlessly for hours, searching for potential venues, when we decided to check out probably the only street that we'd not looked down, on our way back to her flat in Haverhill. The Priors was in the middle of having lots of building work done, but Geordie (the landlord) showed us round the venue part of the pub (which was covered in plastic sheeting and brick-dust!), and we were delighted to spot a stage over by the door! We immediately booked up the place on the spot.
We needed a name for the gigs, and we came up with "Planet Beet". We got "Planet" from the band me & Tasha are in (Animal Planet), and we got "Beet" from the Sugarbeet industry that's based in Bury. We quickly built up a reputation as a fantastic small venue, due to great sound, great people, and a friendly atmosphere. Planet Beet still runs every Thursday night, with three bands plus a DJ, and we've sofar booked over 150 gigs there, which is, well, a lot of bands! We've booked bands from all over the UK, and some from Europe and the USA too.
In September 2005 we were forced to move to a new venue, after being chucked out of The Priors by the new landlady.. He moved to Pot Black, off Eastgate St, Bury St Edmunds, and we liked it there.
We also started new Monthly "ACOUSTIC Beet" & "DUVET" nights, which run on the 1st & 3rd Mondays of each month respectively. We then stopped the gigs for 4 months whilst we built our recording studio (www.oldschoolstudios.co.uk), and returned to putting on gigs at The Priors Inn, which by this time had a new nicer landlord and lady. We then moved to Norwich, putting on gigs at B2. We stopped putting on gigs in early 2008, after over 275 of them, and have no current plans to return. Thanks for the mammories!
In our spare time we also run a usy recording studio (www.oldschoolstudios.co.uk), a small record label called Lap Records, and play and record in various bands, including The Deets, Camarilla, Indie Girls, James Eliot Taylor, & Animal Planet.