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Bournville, November 28th

Today’s Photo

Longbridge Sunset by Kate Drew.

Music

When I heard that the NME had done a feature on the music scene of Birmingham and surrounding areas under the knowingly awful banner Best Midlands I knew I had to buy it, partly because some of the bands I like were mentioned and partly just to see how the magazine would deal with a scene I’ve had something of an eye on these last few years. I’ve often said that one of the paradoxically nice things about Birmingham bands is they’re pretty resigned to not making it big quickly and so they concentrate on being good instead. If they want to be famous they’ll fuck off to London which is why when I lived in London I never went gigging. It was too depressing. That said, I’d love for some of the genuine talent in this city to get the recognition it deserves and, for good or bad, things like the NME are what makes that happen. And at the very least this features means that a few hundred folk in the area can now put a face to some of the dozens of bands playing at the Jug or the Flapper and might well check them out. That alone can only be a good thing.

Since the NME is quaintly printed on paper and sold in shops for one week only before being recycled into pulp and doesn’t keep a digital archive I’ve take the liberty of scanning this historical document and uploading it to the internet on their behalf.

(Here’s the 1.7mb readable version.)

And here are the bands themselves with handy MySpace linkage. Those I can recommend are in bold and those I haven’t seen but intend to check out soonish are asterisked.

Ripchord
The Enemy
The Twang
Untitled Musical Project
The Ripps
Envy and Other Sins*
Deluka
Murdoch
The Gravity Crisis*
The Big Bang
Vijay Kishore*
Sunset Cinema Club*

When you consider the paper could have picked all the sub-Oasis clones and Libertines wannabes that plague our city this is not a bad selection all told. The paucity of women does cause one to pause but it is regrettably representative of the guitar-based scene. We really need a decent Ladyfest-style movement and soon.

Campaign News

I was sorry to miss the blockading of Gas Street Basin this weekend by dozens of narrowboats protesting the £7 million cut to British Waterways’ budget. Birmingham’s canal network has benefitted hugely from this investment over the years and it’s hard to believe they used to be no-go areas. While a case, however pitifully weak, could be made that the bulk of the work has been done and it’s just a caretaking job now, the scale of these cuts and the 180 redundancies that inevitably come with them are pretty shocking. From a purely tourist point of view the canals are a valuable asset to Birmingham not to mention providing essential cycle routes into the city. And it strikes me that £7m isn’t actually that much compared to other investments made by government agencies on our behalf. coughIraqcough

[Update: Photos of the protest on Flickr from Martin.O'C]

On a more petty note Andy Pryke was telling me about singing in the Complaints Choir of Birmingham the other month and I had no idea what he was on about. Seems I should have paid more attention as it’s become something of a YouTube phenomena. After the (admittedly superior so don’t watch it yet) Complaints Choir of Helsinki some wise folk in Birmingham decided we needed one too…

YouTube link.

If there’s a story behind this worth retelling I shall endeavour to provide it to you.

Transport News

From the unlikely source of LiveJournal’s Birmingham department I learned that bus fairs are going up again in the new year to £1.40. That’s an increase of 17% which seems a little high. The last increase was, if memory serves, in the winter of 2004/2005 and then it was from £1.10 to £1.20. It would appear the vile and unavoidable-unless-you-sit-right-at-the-front-upstairs TV screens aren’t proving the revenue earning devices it was hoped they would be. That said, and allowing for my relentlessly optimistic attitude to such things, I don’t think the bus service is that bad in the city. Not a patch on London’s (oh for a night bus system of such glory!) but better than most cities I’ve seen. The only problems I can see with it are all the fucking cars that get in the way. Oh, and the arseholes who think I want to listen to their shit music pumped through the tinny speakers of their git-phones. Other than that though… I can’t find any confirmation of this on the spangly new Network West Midlands site but that wasn’t a big surprise. However while googling around I did stumble across this review of the Birmingham transport system from 2002 which raised a smirk.

Back to robbing the BBC for stories, it seems the campaign to rejuvenate New Street Station has picked up steam again with a bunch of the great and good petitioning central goverment to kick start a £500m scheme. Everyone’s favourite local historian Lord Carl of Chinn is quoted as saying “If we as a region do not grasp the need to be part of the transport revolution of the 21st Century, we will continue to lose jobs.” Which will come as news to those of us unaware we were in the middle of a transport revolution or that having a shiny new train station would have kept Rover open. What I did find notable about the current proposals is that the entrance to New St will be flanked by two giant phalluses. Lovely!

Recommended Gigs

Briefly, as it’s getting late. Go see the following if you can.

Wednesday 29th: Rumblestrips at Academy 2.
Thursday 30th: Mr Bones and the Dreamers at the Sunflower Lounge

Nonsense

The Pantomime Horse Grand National returns this year on December 3rd. Last year Jon of BiNS came last. He hopes to improve on this. No idea where it’s actually taking place - if anyone knows the comment box is below…

From the BiNS newsletter:

Victoria and Chamberlain Squares
Sunday 3rd December 2006

1.15pm Parade of Horses to The Bullring
1.45pm All horses in Parade Ring for build up to the event
2.30pm Colts - Heat 1
3pm Colts - Heat 2
3.30pm Fillies Final
4pm Colts Final
4.30pm Prize-winning presentations

This has been part of Pete Ashton’s Brum Blog experiment to see if a weblog dedicated to Birmingham is a viable thing. Here are the archives.

Baywatch in Birmingham

(YouTube link for the RSS people, via the complicated life of Adam Nazir Ahmed Teladia.)

Bugger all to report today, mainly because I haven’t been looking. A new project is on the horizon. It’s Birmingham related and it’s rather large. More info next week.

In the meanwhile go read issue eight of Diary of a Silver Footed Gig Slut. It’s very good.

This has been part of Pete Ashton’s Brum Blog experiment to see if a weblog dedicated to Birmingham is a viable thing. Here are the archives.

Gas Street Basin, Birmingham, November 20th

Monday night the photographers were out en masse taking photos at the Frankfurt Market and wound up on the canals, tripods at the ready, for some long exposure action. Here are the photos.

While shooting the canals we noticed that occasionally the reflections were bending. In reality there was a slight bend but it was mostly an optical illusion. On a 20-30 second exposure the bend was really pronounced. There are numerous explanations for this but none of them quite add up. Anyone with a decent knowledge of light care to shed any?

In which I give bullet points a try…

• The musician, artist and accidental superstar blogger Momus held a lecture in Birmingham recently and, naturally, presented his impressions of the city on his blog Click Opera in two posts, Breakfast in Brum and Panspermingham.

  The church that stands opposite the blob, for instance, what is its spire but a long stone finger pointing out into space in the vague direction of a supernatural deity? And me, I’ve arrived in a plane to give a lecture here. I’m from space too. When you think about it, even the industrial revolution which gave this town its core identity was really a series of tools falling from the sky, rather like the bone the monkeys in “2001: A Space Odyssey” threw up in the air — and which came down as waltzing spacecraft. The spinning jenny, the steam engine, they must have seemed like spores when they arrived, changing everything.

• The 24 Hour Museum’s Birmingham City Guide is a bit of a gem, bringing together museum, gallery and general heritage information with some original material of its own like city trails. It’s also nice to see a site like this that understands the important of linking - browsing through their pages leads to all manner of interesting stuff. such as…
• Digital Handsworth is one of many slick online local history resources produced by a variety of individuals and organisations under the auspices of the Council’s culture departments and the Lottery people, leveraging the expertise of the city archives department and the knowledge of the actual people of the city. It’s a wonderful resource, going from the 14th century to the present day, and contains many gems such as the extensive galleries of Vanley Burke who’s been photographing the people of Handsworth since 1967.

  

  There are a number of online initiatives like Digital Handsworth which deserve wider awareness and which I’ll be bringing to your attention over time.

• I popped past the burnt out shell of Edwards (see Brum Blog #1) on Saturday to grab some pictures before the somewhat inevitable demolition and noticed this stuck to the railings:

  

  Bunches of flowers like this usually signify the site of a road accident or murder, but these were for the club. Obviously this (along with the makeshift memorial plaque) don’t constitute a public outpouring of grief but I did find it significant. While I’m generally positive about the rapid redevelopment of the centre of town (which I touch on in this thread) it’s notable how people can get attached to areas of the city that, in town planning eyes, are a blight.

  Finally, I neglected to check the Edwards forum where, amongst the expected reminiscences, I found news of a Deposit Fund to raise money for the “rebuild” of the club.

• Do you want to go see Misty’s Big Adventure and the “anthemic nerdcore” of the ZX Spectrum Orchestra at the Glee Club on December 6th? For free? Since it’s being broadcast on Radio 6’s Freak Zone they ain’t charging but the Glee Club isn’t huge so get there quick. While Misty’s play regularly in Birmingham (there’s a gig at the Jug of Ale on Wednesday) a set from the ZX Spectrum Orchestra is a rare treat indeed.
• BBC Brum has details of a mass Sleep Out in a Digbeth car park on Friday November 24th, organised by St Basils to raise money and awareness of youth homelessness in the city.
• BiNS link of the week: Made in Birmingham - one man’s attempt to record every company based in the city. It’s somewhat mad but does contain some real gems. I particularly liked the entry for Coronet cameras as I’d picked up one of their models (a Twelve 20 Box) for a couple of quid purely because I liked the typeface. Turns out it was made here.
• Later in the week I want to do a Birmingham Blog roundup to start building a list of the quality end of the local blogosphere, so consider this a call for submissions. The comment box is below.

This has been part of Pete Ashton’s Brum Blog experiment to see if a weblog dedicated to Birmingham is a viable thing. Here are the archives.

As you know, I’m intending to go to one of the All Tomorrow’s Parties weekend festivals this year (previous post). Part of the ritual is deciding, and then agreeing with your friends, which weekend you’re going to attend. This year it’s got a little odd as they’re trying something different.

The first weekend is the usual formula. One band, The Dirty Three, are curating the event and inviting their favourite acts to play. The lineup is looking pretty keen with Nick Cave, Low and Bill Callahan of Smog already confirmed amongst others. Looks good.

The second weekend, announced yesterday, is a little different. ATP themselves are curating half the weekend with the other half being left up to the fans. Everyone who buys a ticket is able to nominate ten acts they’d like to see. These are then collated into a chart which the organisers will work through to create the billing. The catch is if you wait until the lineup is more solid you won’t have a say in who’s playing.

This has led to something of a mindfuck. Given that those who book early for ATP are more likely (in theory) to have better taste than those who leave it to the last minute, the bands could be really good. On the other hand given that everyone’s tastes are quite eclectic the votes could be spread wide amongst the good stuff with mediocre popular acts bubbling to the top. So, do we go with the certainty of the first weekend or risk it with the second?

The other factor is, given this uncertainty, is the first weekend going to sell out more quickly than usual?

Whatever happens it’ll still be a good weekend no matter what the lineup. I’m tempted to just leave the decision making up to others (though I’d really like to see Low…)