Okay, this is the start of a 14 day series of posts, Going Deaf For A Fortnight in which I go to a gig in a small venue in Birmingham every night to see bands I mostly have never heard of before and then write about them here. By the end of it I expect to have attained a good overview of the Birmingham small gigs scene, to hopefully have discovered some good tune-smiths and to probably have descended into a nightmarish Gonzo-style meltdown. We shall see.

GDFAF #1 was a pretty easy start as it was a gig by my flatmate’s band Plinth, headlining at the Jug of Ale in Moseley. It was also something of a reunion with a good showing of friends not seen for a while who’d travelled up for the event, but I had to tear myself away from such distractions as I was on a mission. The rules of this game are that I have to attentively watch every band performing – no hanging in the bar during the support acts, no nipping into the corridor for a chat – this is business. But despite being amongst friends I was also in a slightly strange place as it was the first time I’d brought the new camera to a gig along with the seems-bigger-out-of-the-shop tripod I picked up yesterday. I wasn’t just going to be waving my little digicam around, I was going to be a “professional” photographer, or at least pretending to be one for tonight.

So I made my way upstairs to the gig space at the Jug and secured a nice table near the front, which wasn’t too hard as there were only a dozen people up there. I know this number because the first band, The Goods made frequent references to it. They weren’t a happy bunch and I got the feeling they’d done a few too many support slots to empty rooms. While I understand this attitude it’s kinda self fulfilling – if you come on and moan about how there’s no-one there then those who are there don’t feel particularly obliged to get enthusiastic. In fact it was one of those sets where the audience reaction became more muted as it went on. Musically they were very competent, possibly too competent if that makes sense. I could tell by watching them where each note was coming from, each guitar working perfectly well on its own but not really coming together to create something new, which is sort of what you expect from a band. Not that they’ll produce an amorphous noise or anything but that something special will emerge, something gestalt, if you like. And they sounded a bit like a band who really liked the Stone Roses a few years back and never quite got over it. Nothing wrong with that of course. I’m thinking if they actually gave the impression that they wanted to be there I’d have enjoyed them a lot more, but they didn’t, so I didn’t really.

I made the huge mistake of going downstairs and offering to buy someone a drink while the next band were setting up which in the Jug on a Friday night is something of an ordeal. I tend to only go there on a weeknight to see gigs so I’d never appreciated how full of incredibly young people it gets of a weekend. It’s quite a schizo place with all the yoofs downstairs doing whatever it is they do and all the music-types upstairs being all musicy. But I made it back having only missed a couple of songs by Man In Fridge who were an quite odd band in a really nice way. In fact they were something of a counterpoint to The Goods – what they lacked in musicality they more than made up for with enthusiasm. The large hairy bassist / singer looked like a scary metal-head but came over really sweet and slightly camp between songs, while the other singer / guitarist – a short chap with spiky hair – was a ADD-fueled nutter, rolling around the stage for a couple of songs. This sort of theatrics can go horribly wrong if you’re not lucky, like an embarrassing Art thing, but this worked for me principally because they were having such tremendous fun. Musically theirs was a kind of good-time funk-pop thing – nothing particularly revolutionary but highly enjoyable.

And then Plinth about whom I am somewhat biassed but bear with me. The set has settled into a pattern of slow build, starting with some steady kinda post-rock tunes and ending with a couple of tracks where singer Andy channels some kind of primal force from god knows where and the audience is left shattered and emotionally drained. But it’s not the sort of pounding dirge you might expect – there’s a soft edge to the aggression, a fragility to the rock posturing that brings the audience in. The band were very tight tonight, moving swiftly through the set and maintaining a presence throughout the half hour set and it was the perfect end to Plinth Year One – a good gig amongst friends.

Tonight it’s The Bleak, Sweet Lilly and The Tates again at the Jug.
Sunday is Polysics, Dispophia and Sabotage Left at the Barfly.
Monday is still empty – help!
My full schedule on Upcoming.org.