A list in no particular order, as promised to Russ L. These are bands from Birmingham that I like. I also like other bands. Audio follows each blurting but always remember I’m basing my love on their live performances on the whole and some of them haven’t been near a high-end recording studio, or have come on in leaps and bounds since. All of them are worth checking out.

Courtesy Group
There’s something about Al’s merry bunch that’s both disconcerting and comforting, evoking bits of Zappa / Beefheart along with elements of British underground music that never made it above. And, most importantly, something I can’t quite put my finger on. I feel like I’m missing a reference point and that makes it all the better. Al himself is a master showman, seemingly speaking in tongues as he takes the show right into the audiences faces (and sometimes into the corridor outside) while the band are tighter than tight. They’re both intelligent and from the gutter, arty and populist, and, above all, rather hard to describe. A gem.
Questret

Misty’s Big Adventure
Misty’s have become a bit like a curry. After 10 years of active cooking as ingredients were added, the flavour is pretty much there and they’re simmering, letting the juices flow and the magic settle before the final serving. They’re touring a hell of a lot right now and, to be honest, the gigs are becoming a little repetitive, but then I have seen them at least 15 times now and they do still manage to surprise and really should be experienced at least three times a year in order to restore your faith in music. Just started their own record label with the intention of releasing records by other quirky Birmingham bands. A scene is in the making.
Never Stops Never Rests Never Sleeps

Beestung Lips
The current glory boys of the Birmingham live music scene, Beestung Lips are nigh on perfect. Been around for a while in various guises, I first came across lead singer Biff (if that is his real name) fronting Noise Noise Allore, a Devo-style post-rock thing the defied description. The Lips are more accessible, drawing their juice from punk and metal, but still utterly unique. Most importantly they’re loud and fast and frightening to behold and you never forget the experience of seeing them live. I expect big things of them.
Reverse Alchemy

Einstellung
It would be wrong not to have a proper instrumental post-rock act in here. Birmingham has many of them combining the heavy metal heritage with musical intelligence to produce some beautiful if brutal music and Einstellung are the ones who’ve impressed me the most recently. The signature of this kind of music is the quiet-loud-quiet-loud build to crescendo which means it can get a bit repetitive but Einstellung put so much power behind what they do, yet control with with such precision, that it’s frankly mind blowing. The tsumani of noise beats you into submission while your brain is unpicking the intricate details. Magnificent.
Tot (edit)

Modified Toy Orchestra
They play with toys, toys that have been modified, and it’s all good fun. You’d be forgiven for thinking MTO are a novelty group but they’re not. In fact they probably have at lot in common with the KLF. Brian Duffy, y’see, is an artist with a very big brain, as was first reveled to me in this Guardian interview. The theories of Buckmeister Fuller fuel his experiments in the art of circuit bending but it’s his ability to take this traditionally po-faced discipline and become one of the most populist art-pop bands in recent memory that makes MTO so special.
A Grand Occasion

Shady Bard
I wanted to have a more “normal” band in here, someone from the folky / singer songwriter end of things that you could play to your mum as there’s a lot of that in Birmingham. Shady Bard were always a shoe-in though, mainly because of their album, From The Ground Up never ceases to surprise me. On the surface, and Lawrence Becko’s vocals especially, they appear to be another maudlin self-obsessed English band, tinged with a brush of Coldplay. And yet their songs have a depth and power that blasts such wrong-thinking away. I’m often listening to them in the kitchen when a building song will suddenly grab my attention and I’m standing there, wooden spoon in hand, completely unaware of what I was supposed to be doing. And Lawrence’s vocals are quite beautiful, confident yet cracking. Very special.
Penguins

The Destroyers
What can one say? They’re a 15 piece classically trained bunch of musicians who take Eastern European music and go all punk with it. They’re the most danceable outfit you’ll ever come across (especially from a bunch of white boys), their musical credentials are impeccable, their work with local folk legend Paul Murphy is inspiring, their politics spot on, and they’re lovely people.
The Hot Bulgar

Kategoes…
Lots of older types on this list, which isn’t a good thing. Kate Thompson isn’t old. She’s like a precocious 9 year old who’s started a rock and roll band. So much about Kategoes just shouldn’t work. From their first gig I’ve watched with with a creeping sense that at any moment the crowd could turn on their twee-ness. They almost demand too much with their mix of performance art and toddler television antics. But last year they survived a national tour with Misty’s Big Adventure and came out stronger and tighter than before. Behind the novelty it’s clear Kate has brains and vision and beyond the music she’s someone to watch for the next 10-20 years. Right now she’s under the nurturing shadow of Misty’s Grandmaster Gareth (himself part of a long Birmingham tradition of this sort of thing) but given time she’s going to blossom spectacularly, mark my words.
Heartbeat

Untitled Musical Project
The current incarnation of “indie” as practiced by young men in shirts and tight trousers sort of leaves me cold, but then I’m not the target audiences so it’s no bad thing. Birmingham, as you’d expect, has it’s fair share of this sort of thing and I wouldn’t want to make Untitled Musical Project my representative of it, but in these two sentences kinda have done. I first came across them at one of Zoot’s nights at the Flapper during the first GDFAF in 2005 and immediately liked them a lot. They proceeded, through hard work and treating gigs like free rehearsal time (so it didn’t matter if no-one turned up), to get some attention and gigs in that London but never got too big for their boots. I saw them a year or so later, frazzled from a week of constant gigs and parties, supporting Polysics in the Barfly. The previous band had taken an age to set up. They marched on stage, plugged in their single guitar peddles, made sure they were making sounds and burst into their set. Short songs, shouty songs, stupid songs, perceptive songs, they’re some kind of post-post-post punk, bursting with confidence but very self aware of the absurdity of what they’re doing. I haven’t seen them for a while but I see they had a mini-album out last year and are still touring. Must get back in touch.
Take Your Funk And Funk Off

Mistress
Finally, Mistress, who I confess I threw in as an afterthought and haven’t seen live for over a year or more. They are awesome though. Very heavy hardcore thrash metal stuff but, and here’s the trick, accessible to those who don’t usually go for that sort of thing. At least I don’t. They take their art and message very seriously indeed but there’s also an awareness of how utterly daft this whole thing is, and an understanding that in order for the comedy (if comedy is the right word) it’s got to be done straight faced. (Their current album is called “The Glory Bitches Of Doghead”.) And they have tunes. They’re hiding under the racket but they’re definitely there. A Mistress gig is supposed to be a frightening thing, and in many ways it is as limbs flail about the place, but it’s also an exciting, vibrant and spiritually uplifting experience, something you might find surprising to hear. But it is. Honest.
Hmm. I appear to have no music by them. Check the MySpace

There are others, of course, and this is really just based on checking through my gig photos. In fact if you’ve been following my blog this last year there won’t be any surprises (except maybe Shady Bard as I’d kept quiet about that one). I’d be interested to know what Birmingham bands you think are beyond marvelous in the comments so I might see them and maybe add them to next years list.