Pete Ashton's Weblog

Been updating the Wish List partly as a reminder of stuff I would like to own at some point but, yeah, you got me, it's my 30th soon. Anyway, all that aside, it occured to me that after the success of the "what books should I read" question (The Master and Margarita is going down nicely) I'd throw it open for music. What one album should everyone own or at least listen to? Just the one, now.

Why is it just when you're about ready to turn off the computer and go to bed, you stumble across something really cool. John Peel just had Half Man Half Biscuit in session and mentioned their site, so I popped over to see it and it's got a glossary for every song they've released. Which is deeply fascinating. But now I must go to bed.

Sitting at the computer having dragged myself out of bed and listening to the wonderful Baggage Reclaim show on Resonance FM when one of the guests mentions his website, being sickhappyidle.com. Which was odd as Adrian Shaw, the guest, had been sending me copies of the SickHappyIdle zine for years. He certainly seems as interesting a chap on air as on paper and he's performing in London late this month, so I might go along.

Just heard this mad song by The Vandals on t'radio and did a quick google search. Most interesting...

Another top tip from Resonance 104.4 fm - arthouse radio for the London region (though they do stream online as well). After the requisite hour of "found noise" the current show is Glass Shrimp which is run by a couple of members of Quickspace, who I saw in the upstairs room of a pub in Birmingham a few years back and who really kick ass. Listen to their show, buy their records. Approved.

via blogjam

I like his show. And I like that I can listen to it at 5.00am.

Here's a great obit for Joe Strummer by Billy Bragg which I got from Blogjam...

My theremin chum writes about an intriguing event this Wednesday:

I will be guesting with insane Russian industrial techno/performance artists "POSTIVE ARROGANT'

Wednesday 12th March 2003 8pm
The Borderline
Mannette Street off Charing Cross Road, London W1.
Tickets: £10 advance

Tel: 0207 395 0777 for booking information

This is a throw back to a v. old session I did so I've no idea yet quite what I'll be doing, what I'll be playing, what the music will be like or how this event will pan out (you know, those crazy Russians...!). I think it could be prove to be quite interesting, though!

info here

A few years ago, 1996 to be precise, cartoonist Ed Pinsent started a music magazine and, to be honest, kinda fell off my radar, which was my bad. I'd bought the first issue and been completely bemused by the... um... bemusability of the whole escapade. However, eight years of John Peel, the Radio 3 New Music brigade, other nocturnal audio infusions and muso friends pushing me in the right direction, I've finally grown to the level where I can just about get The Sound Projector, now on it's 11th issue. If you're not quite there yet, check out the Gallery and experience one good reason why music magazines should be edited by cartoonists.

Y'know, it's always worth writing down those URLs that Mr Peel stumbles through after playing something odd. This time it was Abba in Hindi and we were directed towards the April Winchell weblog, specifically the multimedia section to find them in mp3 format. Didn't mention the hundreds of other weird assed audio tunage on offer though! Ms Winchell appears to be the kind of radio DJ I like, along with Grootnik P Bargelights (whose shows tragicallly appear to be offline right now...). I was particularly taken with Barry White loosing it like a sweary trooper during a trailer recording.

Friday is accordion video day!

To celebrate this great milestone in the upward trending of the accordion, I have decided that the I would perform the first accordion video naked. Then I decided I'd look even better if I wore my Famous Cowboy Hat. Then I decided that the most appropriate song would be Britney Spears' Baby One More Time.

Steve brings to our attention the news/speculation/rumour that The Pixies are to reunite for a tour / poss album next year.

Whenever I'm stuck in one of those "so what music do you like?" situations I usually say I have wide ranging tastes but I always come back to The Pixies. And it's true. Doolittle was the first album I bought that actually felt dangerous and raw and exciting, and familiarity with their sound allowed my brain to accept even more dangerous sounding tunage. But I never actually saw them perform. Since Frank Black Francis has recent made a decent album while Kim Deal's Breeders are still on a roll I have some hopes this won't be a bad thing and you may well find me speed-dialling for UK tickets no matter how low my bank balance is. Me and a million others.

But then again it might never happen...

Update: Guardian picks up on it.

Happiness is iTunes playing a James Kochalka song you never knew you had.

(btw, since getting the monster hard drive and being able to have all my mp3s in once place I find I have 5 days, 19 hours and 10 minutes worth of music. Just music. Not spoken word or radio show archives. Anyone beat that?)

Stark Effect's Mic In Track is an intriguing little album, available for download, which nicely highlights a few wonderful things. First the background:

A "mic in track" is a recording made on a PC using MusicMatch Jukebox, a music utility packaged with many new PC's that allows the user to record from the microphone input of the PC's sound card and save the recording in mp3 format. The default filename is "mic in track" followed by a number.

If that user also happens to be running a peer-to-peer file-sharing program, and unwittingly shares the directory in which the mic in track is stored, then these personal recordings can be easily downloaded from the user's computer. The vast majority of them are either silent or uninteresting, but many are like Christmas presents giftwrapped in nondescript serial numbers. They represent unique examples of audio verite.

This is another version of the "found photograph" phenomena which was quite big in the zine days and which still goes on online - little pieces of very personal ephemera taken completely out of context leading the new viewer to formulate their own stories.

This audio version appeals to me - one of my many future projects revolves around carrying a mike and recording the snatches of conversations that enter my audio-space as I walk around town, then stitching them together in some kind of verbal soundscape collage thingy.

The means of acquisition is also cool - the serendipity of not knowing what you're going to get when you download the file. Then, beyond this, the actual making of something workable from these random finds. I like the way Stark Effect has linked them together into units. This may seem obvious but too many soundscapers tend to just go with the random, and while this can produce good stuff it's also a little too easy.

Then, finally, I like the fact that the resulting tunes are actually quite good. So often a really clever idea like this is let down by the artist not really being an artist. The Mic in Track tracks can sit nicely in your playlist without jarring when they come on.

So, go download.

One of the rather unexpected side effects of turning thirty is completely losing touch with contemporary pop music. Not the stuff in the charts and the papers, but the stuff the hip kids are really listening to. I remember a year or so back listening to the Zane Lowe show on Radio 1 which had just replaced the Evening Session, one of my key music sources in my early 20s (along with Mr Peel and Mark Radcliffe). Zane had been taking a lot of flak from my generation and I took this to mean we'd been superseded and subtly being told to move on over to Radio 2. Then one day I realised that I'd been listening to his show for a good hour but could not remember the name of a single band, or if I could I couldn't connect it with a tune. It was all too new for me. While slightly annoying it was at the same time pleasing as it meant the music belonged to the kids, as it bloody well should.

Anyway, these last few weeks at the council I've most been working with Andy,19, and we've been getting on rather well. I burnt him a CD of stuff from before his era (ie pre-2000) and he's been rattling off bands that I've never heard of. A couple of hours on Acquisition and I think I've discovered what Emo is, or rather I knew what Emo was (emotional punk metal) but I've now connected it with a particular sound.

So, fire up your p2p and check out some of these:
Billy Talent : Probably my favourite of the bunch, probably because while it sounds familiar I can't quite pin it down.
Boy Hits Car : More of a metal thing going on with some nice swaying bits.
The Mad Capsule Markets : Someone's been listening to Atari Teenage Riot and mixed it up with Napalm Death and that's NO BAD THING!
Our Lady Peace: Does that "Ah-yah-ee-yay-ah" thing quite a bit, but in a good way.
Hed PE: Gutteral roaring and a bit much for my tender ears to be honest.
Franz Ferdinand: Very radio friendly, producing many "so that's who they are" moments.

As someone with 15-ish years of musical development it's easy to pick holes in this stuff but that's not really the point. Kids listening to this are definitely going to move on to, and make, some very interesting music. The future appears to be somewhat safe.

Just had my first newsletter through from Capsule an interesting looking set up running gigs and events at the Custard Factory in Birmingham. Lots of intriguing things in there so I'm posting it up verbatum.

In the last few months I've been missing gigs, so much so that I haven't been to once since, ooh, October, and then I didn't even know it was going on 'til I went to the toilet and noticed it in the basement. However I would probably have gone to at least one a month, maybe more, if I'd known about them in advance, but I always seem to find out about them a week or so after the event. The problem is that I'm not a huge music fan - I don't trawl through the gig listings or have loads of gigging mates to drag me along - but I do miss listening to four or five odd folk making a blinding racket with random instruments in a pub.

What I want is an internet guide to the toilet circuit, indexed by area with filters for specific bands. For example, Jeffrey Lewis was in the country last month and I didn't know about it. If I could subscribe to a feed that told me when he was here I would have gone along. Similarly a feed for all the small gigs in Birmingham this week would be better than all the random mailing lists I'm currently getting, some stretching ahead for months, others giving 24 hours notice. The small gigs scene works by word of mouth and pure luck, which is probably what makes it nicer than the big gig scene, but it's also quite frustrating if you're not in the loop.

Does anything like this exist? Is it worth building? I've been pondering setting up a blog for Birmingham gig scene partly as a way for forcing myself to stay on top of it but it strikes me a national version would be more sensible. Of course I have no time to actually do any of this...

I sidle up to the edge of the stage to take some photos. Out of the corner of my eye I see a familiar looking bulk tear into the mosh like an rhino embracing the chaos as Phil finally lives up to the long standing joke that he looks like a young Ozzy Osbourne. Fuck this, I think to myself, and bounce off to join him. Punk never died, it just went all ages, spanning the generations in an orgy of sweat and shoving. Old punks, metallers, young goth industrialists, an alarming number of 12 year olds and every variety of black-clad freak you can imagine staggered around in a seething mass of happy aggression. This was Stourbridge, April 1st 2004. The Dead Kennedys were in town and they fucking rocked.

I'm pooped. Gigging on a school night is not terribly recommended but it was worth it. First up were Kill Keneda who were very good. Second up were Yourcodenameis:Milo who were very very good. Headlining were Ikara Colt who were very very very good indeed. Gig was at the Medicine Bar at the Custard Factory where the beer is expensive but the sound was keen. Gig put on by Chicks Dig Jerks who were a little disorganised but were so sweet and enthusiastic it didn't matter. Crowd was so young! I felt old and craggy but in a good way. Was complimented by the door staff on my Betty Page t-shirt. Music was the tops. Three for three which doesn't often happen on a £6 ticket.

I was going to write a big long review of the whole thing but, like I say, I'm knackered. Suffice to say Ikara Colt are my new favourite band of the moment.

To celebrate this blog's 4th birthday I'm launching a new sidebarblog, so those of you reading this via the feed go to the website now.

An mp3 blog is something I'd wanted to do for a while but fear of getting my bandwidth smashed always stopped me. Now they're pretty ubiquitous it's less likely that one is going to be swamped by a swarm of message board monkeys and since I'm paying for all this bandwidth that never gets used up...

To keep things safe I'll only be making them available one at a time on a weekly basis. Once the song is off the main page you won't be able to download it. Same goes for the RSS feed - only the most recent one can be gotten - the rest will take you to the website. Unlike the Link Farm you can leave comments on the songs - struck me a good thing to do so please do. Currently it's a pop-up but I'll be changing this to static pages once I've sorted out the archives next week.

Like most things bloggy it'll evolve and mature but for now I'll be using to share interesting and/or slightly odd tunes I've come across plus some I consider important or excellent. In many ways it'll work like a linklog in that I'll try and post stuff that's new to most people. I'll try not to be too obscure or post anything too ear-bleeding but no promises.

One of my current fave mp3 blogs is 3hive which links to legal mp3s from artists websites. The selection is invariably new to me and almost all of it top quality stuff. And it's totally above board.

Slight digression - when downloading tracks from p2p networks like Gnutella one expects a certain level of inaccuracy in the metadata, that artist names will be misspelt, tracks wrongly named and so on. This is one of the iTunes store's selling points, that you get a consistency not only in quality but in data, and in return you get locked into a DRM system. In other words you can forage in the forest for mushrooms of varying quality for free or you can go to Tescos and get consistently quality mushrooms for a price thus locking you into the supply chain that may or may not have environmental consequences. Hmm, I quite like that analogy...

Anyway, back to 3hive. I love it and regularly download everything they post up. Unfortunately half the time the ID3 tags, the metadata that tells your mp3 player what the track is called, who it's by, etc, is either missing or utterly useless, meaning I have to cross-reference the original filename with the link on 3hive to figure out what the song is. On the other hand, mp3 blogs that host the files on their own server (and thus potentially incurring the wrath of the BPI) have perfect metadata. Two thing occur to me. Firstly that the lables in question don't understand mp3s and how people use them. Secondly they're unaware of blogs such as 3hive bypassing their websites and linking directly to the music files thus taking them out of their intended context. Quite often I take the vacuum approach to these mp3s, grabbing loads of them, sticking them in iTunes and filtering out the ones I don't like, then following up and bands that really grab me. Strikes me the band sites operate in the opposite way, expecting me to investigate the band (possibly following up a radio appearance or album/gig review) and then downloading a track, whereas in my case I'm checking out the tracks first.

Whatever, it's quite annoying.

There's something quite critical that never gets mentioned in the "file sharing is killing music no it's not yes it is no it's not yes it is" debate. If you work in pretty much any large factory or office in the UK there will be a person there who will sell you a DVD of a recently released movie months before it hits the shops for £3 and any mainstream music CD you want for a couple of quid, in a case with a colour cover. Now, given that there are rather more people working in these sorts of places than there are with broadband connections and a working knowledge of peer-to-peer networks, and that actual money is being made from the former while the latter are giving the stuff away for free (or sharing, as we like to call it), you'd think there'd be a bit more noise being made by the record industry, perhaps demanding that employers stop this illegal activity going on in their workplaces and getting the police to infiltrate the canteens and use CCTV footage to prosecute the dealers.

I've been wanting to write about this for ages but at first I thought I might be getting someone in the shit. Now I've seen it going on again and again in every place I've worked this year. This is bigger than the VHS pirates of the 80s, beyond the dodgy bloke at the car boot sale. This is utterly mainstream. If anything's going to hit high street sales this is it.

Maybe I'm missing something here, I dunno...

Andy and m'self are off to ColdRice in Birmingham this Saturday evening for strange musical fun. If you'd like to come too we're meeting in the Sunflower Lounge at nine.

THE PRISCILLAS
(London, UK)
The ColdRice London invasion continues! The Priscillas look cool and mean. They'll grab you by the ears and rock you until your change shakes from your pockets. They have very big hair and sing about brain surgeons, broken hearts and junk food. Formed late in 2003 in London, the four Priscillas graduated with honours from the Ramones' Rock 'n' Roll High School and then spent a salubrious term at the Academy of Tragic Melodies (the Shangri-Las' finishing school, in case you didn't know). Now Jen, Kate, Guri and Mavis have taken time out from chewing gum to leave audiences reeling across London with their fast, fun punk and anthemic harmonies. They've got attitude. They've got talent. And they've got BIG hair.

YUMI YUMI
(Kumamoto City, Japan)
Two girls from Kumamoto City in Japan were in London on an extended holiday. Fortunately for us they decided to bring their guitars and, "to satisfy a dream", play a few London venues. The reception was overwhelming.
Clearly the public's choice, YumiYumi must be seen live! It's the X-Ray Spex, Bangles, B-52s, Go-Gos. It's all hurried, cute, hungry, driven, rifftastically tuneful, slightly fuzzy and sung in the sort of broken-English you wish the girl next door would speak in. Crrrrrashing drum beats, electro bleeps, loud bits, quiet bits. it's the sound of kitchen sinks being joyfully thrown-in, not barrels being scraped.

ColdRice does it again - three quality bands on one bill for £3 in. On a Saturday. In central Birmingham. I cannot recommend this night highly enough.

Jen of The Priscillas gives me the finger, pointy style.

Normally when I go to gigs at the moment I don't really know what to expect and so I'm kinda reluctant to drag other people along just in case it''s shite. However, next month there are a couple lined up in Birmingham that I can safely say should be pretty darn good.

First up on September 11th is Yumi Yumi playing the ColdRice night at Bar Academy. I saw them a week back and loved them so come along to that. Crashing space is available at mine (the club closes at 2am).

The week after, on the 18th, Jeffrey Lewis is playing at the Jug of Ale in Moseley. I've been wanting to see him for ages and was very pissed off when I missed his Birmingham gig in the spring. There are a couple of tracks on my mp3 blog at the moment so have a taster. While I'm not making a deal about it, my birthday is the day after so if you need an excuse to come along that's as good as any. I'm not sure if I'll be crashing at mine but it's a normal pub gig so getting back shouldn't be a problem.

Let me know if you're interested!

So I set up the Gmail account for sharing mp3s as mentioned last week, gave the login to a few friends and it's all be going swimmingly. (If I haven't told you about it, no offense. I've just been randomly going through my chums, all of whom are compartmentalised differently in my mind, picking out those whose music tastes I know and probably missing key folk. Sorry if I've slighted you.) Basically we're abusing the Gmail service in a most blatant way and if the account doesn't get shut down at some point in the near future I'll be amazed. What with 20+ people all logging on to the same account from different addresses, sometimes at the same time they're bound to notice. That's if they care, of course, and plenty of other people are abusing the Gmail service in varying degrees. At least we're seeing the ads unlike those who are using it as a virtual drive. Although Jez isn't - he's hacked a way of downloading the mp3s and automatically streaming them, and to top it all his system converts the emails into speech and streams them too, which is rather boggling when you experience it. Like some kind of community radio take to it's logical extreme where every listener is a presenter.

Why do this? Well, other than that it's cool and fun I have in the space of a couple of days magically created an online community that works. That we're infringing copyright is a mere unfortunate byproduct (and since it's a closed network not really a huge problem) - the point is it's the music that binds it all together. It's been said many times but it bears repeating that music has some kind of fundamental importance to the human condition, be it singing along to the radio on the factory floor, going to clubs, concerts and gigs, sitting around a fire with a guitar or sharing tapes and now mp3s with your mates. If I was going to create a community I'd build it around music, even if I wanted to get other stuff out of it. Music is the foundation - talk about other things will come from that foundation on its own.

This Gmail experiment (and seeing as it's probably not going to be sustainable long term once a few hundred people get on board it's definitely an experiment) along with the seeming ease with which Jez has hacked cool things out of it has made me think more about developing this kind of community into something that isn't wedged somewhat uncomfortably onto an email service. In essence it'd be a closed members only site (membership gained by invite only) laid out in a similar way to MetaFilter. Songs are listed in a pile system where once the limit is reached the bottom one is deleted to make space (which might sound familiar to some people...) That much is straightforward and nothing new really, but it's the essential basics on which to build. Some of the developments will be planned out (such as a streaming radio service) but most of them will just evolve and the most interesting ones will probably come about independently of the site itself as people meet new people and stuff, be is music or more likely something else, happens.

The main stumbling block will be paying for the storage and bandwidth but that's surmountable given the community aspect and by keeping it small (500 members should do it and a fiver a year to cover costs isn't too steep). The other problem will be security. Sites like this that I've seen tend to be web-only and introducing audio streams and the like that can be played in apps like iTunes is going to be tricky to keeps members only. The trick will be keeping it secret, so if it does come to pass (and if it does it won't be for quite a while) you won't hear about it here. First and second rules...

Late notice I know but I've suddenly got a spare ticket for the Jeffrey Lewis gig in Moseley, Birmingham on Saturday night. £5.50. If you're interested let me know ASAP.

Taken

So Jez is still hacking away at the Gmail Radio experiment and today presented me with an m3u playlist file that streams tracks grabbed offa Gmail and stored on his server, which was cool in itself except any ogg or m4a files were converted to mp3 and the text of the emails that accompanied them was turned into robot-speech. The end result was a radio show generated on the fly by a range of different people. Once you understand what's going on here the potential becomes clear and mildly exciting.

Take this slightly different model. There are lots of mp3 blogs out there hosting songs. Automatically grabbing the mp3 files and creating an audio stream would be easy but it misses an important aspect - what the blogger has written about the song in question. With this system you'd get all the tunes from a range of blogs automatically but also the comments that go with them. An audio version of a blog aggregator if you like. Of course you've still got the raw information about the song, who posted it, etc, so as you're listening to the stream you could check the site, see what's being played and follow the link back to the original post. Wouldn't that be cool?

All you'd need would be a server with half a gig or so of space and unlimited bandwidth (which, if I'm not very much mistaken, and I suspect I must be, you can get here for $15 a month) to run the program on. Get it to check a selection of mp3 blogs on a 6 hourly basis (say via their full feeds), grab the mp3 files and commentary, convert it into a stream and you've got an eclectic radio station with presenters talking about each song, all automatically generated.

A similar but quite different thing is going on at Radio Paradise, which I'd recommend you check out as it's what mainstream rock radio should be like if there was any justice in the world. (I've been listening to it for three hours straight if that's any recommendation.) Essentially just one couple, Rebecca and Bill Goldsmith, in the small town of Paradise, California choosing the tunes and programming the stream, but what takes it to the next level is the listener interaction. As the stream plays the current track is displayed on the main page. Follow this link and you're in a forum where members can comment and vote on the track. More interestingly is a second stream, the Listener Review Channel, featuring songs they're considering for the main playlist, usually suggested or uploaded by listeners, with a simple voting system in place. While the station is ultimately controlled by Bill and Rebecca and has their stamp all over it, this filtered listener interaction adds subtle layers to the experience not just for those involved in the fora but for the non-interacting listener as well.

The model I'm thinking of is again similar but different. The core would be the members only music sharing site mentioned yesterday which is a no-brainer but think about all the data it's generating. A lot of this can be thrown back into the mix as you'd expect but what's exciting me is the idea of using this selection of music generated by a large-ish pool of folk to create some kind of external service. A public radio station that's above board and legal generating cash by whatever means are applicable which gets fed back into the community. And it's all run by robots.

Cool, huh?

Mr J Lewis, in sequence.

Okay. Five quid in, three hours, four bands, all great. One day I'll go to a gig and come away disappointed but right now I'm on a streak. I knew cartoonist of distinction and anti-folk superstar Jeffrey Lewis was going to be good but knew nothing about the support, which is kinda how I like to play it. Same went for Dan and Sooz who I'd turned onto Lewis a few weeks back. Tom has decided to come at the last minute, knew nothing, and walked in just as the first support started, approaching us with a big grin.

I'd been put off paying for music from the iTunes Music Store and it's not because I'm a skanky music pirate or anything. Okay, I am a skanky music pirate who tends to only buy stuff he can't get for free, but that's not really an argument against paying for digital downloads. The problem I had was with the Digital Rights Management (DRM) system, called FairPlay they load onto each track which essentially limits the number of computers the track can be played on and prevents it being converted into another format such as mp3. It's actually not as bad as some DRM systems but it's still more restrictive than buying an actual CD. In short, when you pay for music from iTunes you don't own it. You've licensed it to play only in iTunes on five different computers and, more critically in this day and age, only on the iPod. Should Apple go out of business and not be able to authorise any new computer you might buy, that music is then lost. If the tracks cost pennies then this wouldn't be a problem but they're charging about the same as HMV. So screw 'em.

(Sidenote - while checking up on what the iTunes DRM actually is I came across this gem: "Sharing is intended for personal use only.")

That said, I was pretty sure there was a way around this. You can burn a normal CD from your DRMed tracks and then rip it as unrestricted mp3s. All I needed was a reason to actually buy something from iTunes to check this out. Thankfully my good friends Dave and Anita sent me a £10 iTunes voucher for my birthday and eventually I found something I wanted. I signed up and downloaded the album, which was a painless and efficient process, and burned a normal CD, the sort that plays in most stereos, directly from the "Purchased Music" playlist the store created for me. This then appeared in the sidebar as a normal CD with all the track details intact. I imported it in mp3 format and sent a few tracks to Dave to see if he could play them. He could. The DRMed tracks were then moved off to a separate directory and my music collection remains DRM free. And the end result is I'm a lot more likely to buy stuff from iTunes now. All they need to do it add all those obscure and deleted albums I'm wanting and everyone will be happy, but that's another post for another time.

Extra time: about five minutes. Extra cost: a 30p CDR. And people actually bother to crack this?

Now. I like modern music. I have quite catholic tastes. I even like the experimental classical stuff you get on Radio 3 at odd hours of the evening. Nothing makes me happier than a few minutes of carefully scrunched found-sounds put to a random rhythm and filtered through some serious discordance. However sometimes things can just get a little too much.

For my sins I'm currently researching Estate Agent websites to see what the current standard is out there and in the vain hope there's something I can rip off. So I go to the vebra listing and randomly select a few areas of London. Then I open up about 20 of them in Firefox, all in tabs, all in the background. The Spinning Wheel of confusion starts its spin as Firefox tries to deal with 20 badly coded monstrosities but deal it does, for a while.

And then the music started. Three, maybe four of the sites had .wav files embedded with tinkly little tunes that would make a radio advertising company blush. Meanwhile there's some serious javascript/applet/flash action going on in those tabs and Firefox has given up. I was built for web standards, it's crying. You can throw anything you like at me and I'll do my best, but for this, my best is not enough! Please! Stop the Pain! Force quit me now!

And still the music continued. Like being in four different lifts at the same time. Or maybe three.

And so back I go, but one at a time this time. Y'see I'm trying to figure out a simple and effective design for an estate agency that looks nice and works, only it has to look like an estate agency website. So it's got to be good but it also has to be a little bit, well, not shit, but since that's current standard...

Feel my pain.

This make-your-own-media game is pretty easy really, if a little time consuming. A couple of years back this would have been revolutionary but armed with iMovie and the Google image search any fool can put together a slice of mildly amusing AV in about five hours.

I present, then, pepper.mov (7.8mb), a video to accompany the song Pepper by The Butthole Surfers.

All stills were taken from Google image searches for that word and movies were either memes-de-jour that I'd saved over the years or taken with my (relatively) crappy digicam. The last minute or so got a bit desperate (no lyrics!) so apologies if it drags. That said, if you've never seen a guy voluntarily being fired at with fireworks you might find it interesting.

This has been done before (notably here) and it's nothing new. It's just a proof of concept - I can do this sort of crap as well as anyone.

Now to think of something useful to do with my "skills".

Jenni's writing about searching for songs on the iTunes store to replicate mix tapes made for her years ago and iTunes not really being up to the task has prompted me to follow up my post on 'breaking' the iTunes DRM with some stating of the bleeding obvious. First up, go read The Long Tail. Done that? Okay.

I might be wrong but folk of my generation are probably Apple's prime audience. Still young enough to think we're hip (especially in this age of the adultescent) but old enough to have a reasonable disposable income. Because we were teenagers in the pre-CD era we've got a shedloads of vinyl and cassettes full of music we love. It might not be of interest to the kids of today because a lot of it wasn't actually that great but because it's the soundtrack to our youth it's important to us. The cream of it has likely been reissued on CD over the years but a lot of it, the Tail, hasn't. One thing that's struck me during the Gmail music sharing experiment is how many people have been posting and requesting obscurities from the late 80s and early 90s, which is not too surprising given it's mainly my peers involved and we're all in our early 30s. This stuff is incredibly hard to track down in a digital format. It's not on the p2p networks because even if it was released on CD hardly anyone had a CD player at the time (and certainly not us kids) and anyway, vinyl was cooler and cassettes were cheaper. Those of us with shelves of tapes and records gathering dust would like to play this music on our shiny computers and would probably pay for the privilege.

Now we come to the digital age where the Long Tail is suddenly there and we're getting used to everything being available. Every niche market is now viable and we've all got our specialist interests. The myth of the average consumer has been blown away as every Joe is able to indulge in their relatively obscure passion thanks to the net. Truly this is a golden age what we are in now.

iTunes know this I'm sure but the record labels don't seem to because there are a hell of a lot of gaps in the store, even now the legal issues with the smaller labels have been resolved. (While the UK store is notoriously bad for this, probably because they're playing catch-up with the UK rights market, the US store also has gaping holes.) It's tricky to prove anything because iTunes doesn't list the the information but if you know what label a couple of artists are on it becomes clear that iTunes is only really selling bestselling music that's currently commercially available, that the companies have in their current catalogue. In other words they're competing directly with the high street, which is why we're paying 79p/99¢ per track to ensure the high street isn't undercut.

Would it not be an absurdly good idea to dump the entire back catalogue of music that these companies own the right to onto iTunes? Yes, there are costs involved in digitising the really old stuff but I'm talking about music from the 80s and early 90s, the latter of which was released on CD on the whole, so even if it's not stored digitally there's probably a CD floating around the office they could rip and send to Apple. In fact looking on Amazon for a few of these gaps they're actually available on CD! What's going on here?

Maybe the record industry really is scared of the unknown and just doesn't get it, in which case we're going to have to wait a long time for things to change, by which time it'll probably be too late so it's going to get messy before it gets better.

One final anecdote. When I was a kid with limited pocket money and a growing interest in music I had to be choosy about what I spent my cash on. I quickly realised that at least one of my friends would buy the hit album of the moment and that I could tape it off them, so I didn't need to buy it for myself. Instead I would buy albums that my friends didn't and they would look at this weird shit I'd bought and ignore it, but that's not the point. The point is the music I couldn't get for free I'd pay for. Currently you can get pretty much all of the bestselling albums and songs via p2p networks but you can't find that obscure deleted single from 1988 that changed your life, and because it changed you're life you're actually more likely to want to pay for it unlike the ephemeral stuff you download, listen to once and forget about.

The record companies have been looking after this music for us thanks to their contracts and copyrights, keeping it nice and safe but not actually able to make any more money off it because the market just isn't there in the usual channels. But services like iTunes are not the usual channels. They can thrive on the Long Tail so when, for the love of Bob, are they going to exploit this?

I'm loading a pallet onto the shrink-wrapping machine and the radio news catches my ear. I turn to the guy in the booth. You what? "Some people are going to be pretty upset about this" he says. Yeah, me being one of them. As Teenage Kicks starts it's unexpected stint as most playlisted song of the day I find myself slightly stunned, unable to compute this information. He'll never broadcast again. I'll never hear his show live again. Kids discovering music now and in the future will not have his guiding voice. It's over and it's too early, far too early.

I continued my work in a daze, making little mistakes and bumping my pallet truck into things, as it sunk in. I sent a couple of text messages to people I guessed hadn't heard and got bemused replies. Is this a wind up? A little later some guy is singing raucously along to Teenage Kicks obviously oblivious to why it's being played. That phrase, "some people are going to be pretty upset about this" is flowing through my mind. I'm probably the only person in this warehouse who's affected by the news.

I can't remember when I first heard his show. It was probably around 1989. I was 17, had just discovered The Pixies and was making up for some seriously lost time music-wise. Up until then my music taste had been pretty terrible, growing up in Croydon and listening to Capital Radio. As I moved to Winchester Radio One moved to FM and became my chosen station. At the time he was playing music in trios. A guitar track, a dance track, a world track, a guitar track and so on. I loved the guitar stuff, hated the dance stuff and was bemused by the world stuff, but I stuck with it. Soon I came to tolerate and eventually love the whole show, which is kind of the point.

Throughout the 90s I tended to be the only person in my immediate group of friends that listened to him. As time has progressed this has changed as when that identification is made one tends to have made a friend for life and this evening nearly every weblog I read has a post like this on it. I don't think he has fans as such or followers. Rather he made a certain frame of mind acceptable and this, I think, is his real legacy.

In fact I'll go out on a limb and say it's not really about the music. The music is a conduit for something else, something quite intangible which I think comes down to that fucked up sense of juxtaposition he imposed on us. He made having an open mind cool, which is saying something when you think about it. Once you'd accepted that you could listen to every form of every form of music and appreciate it on its own merits then you could apply this to everything else in life. Any form of creative endeavour is worthwhile. The fact that someone, anyone, is doing something different and interesting becomes vital.

On the whole fans (for want of a better word) of him tend to be sensitive folk who just want things to be nice, who feel beaten down by the relentless enforcement of mediocrity. He not only provided a place on the radio for us to retreat to, his spirit encouraged others to do the same. Every small club, fanzine, website, setup of any description that implicitly encourages people to just do stuff owes him a debt, and they know it. The generation, generations really, that grew up with him learned something important and it stuck with them. We're the ones who smile when we see enthusiasm, who know that there is so much more to life. We're the ones who get it.

John Peel, thank you.

For my own record as much as anything else, a few weblog posts that, well, I want to keep to hand. I'll no doubt update this as folk move from stunned to babbling.

Andy R: "Just because the bands I wanted to hear weren't necessarily among them didn't mean I thought any less of him for playing what he wanted to and believed in."

Jenni: "One last unoriginal thought -- by gum, before it was said elsewhere, I'd thought to myself, yes, this is my peer group's Diana Death. Only without all the shops being closed."

Mo: "The point is that it's the done thing - when you go to paint woodwork, you sand the existing paintwork before you start: most of the time it makes very little difference and nobody notices either way, but it's just what you do. When you make an album, you have it pressed and sent to Peel, it's just what you do."

Simon S: "I thought it would be always there, mucked about by the schedulers, of course, but always there. And now it isn't."

Vaughan: "It was the way he talked between the records - the dry, laconic wit; the side-swipe comments he would make after some playing some particularly ear-shattering noise only available on limited edition 7" single from one second-hand record shop in Uzbekistan; the endearing incompetence which would see him play an entire track at the wrong speed and, more importantly, prefer it that way."

Fraser: "For a start, he was probably the only person in the World to be a fan of The Bhundu Boys and Bum Gravy."

City of Sound: "A personal memory is regularly driving back from football on Wednesday nights in my friend Paul Morgan's car, listening to his show and hearing the darkest of darkcore jungle, or some insanely brutal thudding techno, followed by some scratchy Charley Patton-style delta blue from the 1920s, segued from one into the other without a care in the world about musical pigeonholes or the narrowmindedness of others. Gives a vague sense of the range of the man."

Jonathan: "I found it hard dismissing music in the way I had before. I couldn't hate reggae or techno anymore. Suddenly, it all sounded good. Vainly, I think that John Peel taught me something very important, and made me somehow better."

Momus: Long and excellent tribute. "Peel, in my personal cosmology, is an angel and a devil, a friend and an enemy, a favourite uncle and a resented, oppressive boss."

Stuart Hg: "Yet beyond this temporary, self-indulgent pining for the irretrievable lies a long-term respect and fierce admiration for what he represented and what he achieved. He was unique and he will be irreplaceable, but I keep reminding myself that these are reasons for celebration rather than sorrow."

Tom has loads of links, including the thread on Metafilter which brings home how international he had become.

No Rock&Roll Fun which I somehow forgot to check until Thursday, has buckets of links to all the major and minor press plus newspaper covers.

And some from the newspapers:

Paul Moreley's tribute: "I don't think there is anyone interested in music, or broadcasting, or the splendid absurdity of life, who doesn't owe John Peel something."

Mark Radcliffe's tribute: "John showed that it was possible to be a broadcaster on a national radio station and still be yourself."

Annie Nightingale's tribute: "His latest discovery, he said, was a band called Steveless. 'They make an LP [John never said album] every week. They're called Steveless because there's no one in the band called Steve.'"

Andy Kershaw's tribute: "His legacy is far bigger than just having been a veteran DJ. It's not the longevity - it's what he did."

Appreciation in the Independent: "I have never met a regular John Peel Show listener I didn't like."

Apprecation in the Guardian: "Oh, god. The sound of a heart being torn open in the best, most jubilant way. Rapture so intense it must surely be forbidden, heard under the covers, in the dark, alone."

The Sun has a surprisingly good feature - good for them anyway. I was expecting it to slip under their radar but I guess there are some secret listeners on the editorial team.

Caitlin Moran in the Times: "It wasn’t a club one could join without some manner of initiation, however. The very first time I “found” John Peel, late at night in the dark, he played a song that consisted of three people screaming “There’s a man outside/THERE’S A MAN OUTSIDE” over a terrifying speed-metal accompaniment. And when I looked out of the window, standing outside out house at midnight, there was a man outside! I couldn’t sleep for two hours, from the terror. I’d only ever listened to The Hollies and Tears for Fears before. I thought Peel might actually be channelling the Devil."

Guardian interview from 1997

Non-music based interview from 1995: "Denied any opportunities to be shown how to use their energies creatively, obviously they're going to be destructive. I remember a record I used to play in the punk days about vandalism being a creative instinct - if you wreck something you can go passed it the next day and say "I did that"."

I've started playing with Audioscrobbler which has caught my attention. It's kinda like a Flickr for music. Kinda. Actually not at all like a Flickr for music, but sorta, maybe. What prompted me was seeing a link on Blogjam's sidebar for "Blogjam Radio" which produces a popup from Last.FM, a side-service from Audioscrobbler which takes its interpretation of Fraser's music tastes and turns it into a streaming radio station. That's cool, I thought. I want one of those. So I installed the Audioscrobbler plugin and let iTunes roll, feeding the titles of songs I'd played up to their database.

At time of writing my user page is pretty scant but in a week or so it'll have scraped enough information to have a decent profile for a decent radio station. It'll be interesting also to see who Audioscrobbler matches me with and what music I can discover from them.

Of course I'm also thinking about the Gmail experiment. It'd be really cool if we could feed songs posted there into the system but I suspect syncing Gmail and Audioscrobbler would just be too much work and break a few too many rules (though I could be wrong - Jez?).

In the meanwhile though, is anyone else using this service? It does seem incredibly unobtrusive - just sits there in the background gathering data. Let me know, either by email or in the comments.

From the SL records newsletter (though nothing on the site yet) I notice Ballboy are playing at Bar Academy in Birmingham on December 2nd (that's a Thursday) which is keen news indeed and I will endeavour to be there. There's a single of theirs available to download from the SL Records site so go listen. (They're also playing Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Brighton, London and Glasgow.)

As you may have heard, an mp3 blogger has been cease-and-desisted for hosting mp3s on his server. It's happened before but this time he's in the UK so it's a little closer to home, although his hosting service is in the States, so I guess that's moot, although the letter sent to his host was from a London address - it's all so complicated in this global world...

This is another long post in which I look at the concept of gated online communities and speculate how moves like this might make such an environment the essential norm. I think it's interesting but your mileage may vary.

When I was taking my month off blogging in December I started Podcasting, as you might have noticed if you saw the box on the right hand column suddenly appear. Podcasting is just a fancy name for putting together your own radio show and sticking it on the net and how it's suddenly, well, exploded is probably being generous but let's say "risen in profile" with this fancy new name is a combination of utopian geekery and a lowering in technology barriers. Pretty much anyone can put one together and getting one out there isn't as hard as it might have been.

Though you wouldn't necessarily think so if you read the Endgadget guide to Podcasting. Admittedly Endgadget is aimed at people who like to take the scenic route and there's nothing wrong with that. But here's how I do it with a Mac running Panther using the basic iLife applications that come with it. In other words, very simply and for free.

So I'm doing the most boring job ever but it's okay because I get to listen to my mp3cdwalkman and time kinda passes quick-ish but boy is it the dullest. Quality checking these little things that look like transistors, metal cylinders with two prongs coming out of the bottom, thousands upon thousands of them. The job lasts all week. S'money.

And so thankfully my mind starts to wander. A Pixies track comes on my "random selection of good tunes" mp3cd. It's "Where Is My Mind" and it's rather top. But is it their best track? Probably not, but what is? Can such a thing be decided, especially by someone who doesn't think the Pixies ever released a bad song ever? And even if it can't, does that make it not worth a try?

I haven't done an extended and excessive weblog-based music-related postage session for, well, since ever really and maybe it's time I did one. I shall discover, through rigorous comparison and debate, which is the best Pixies song. But how? What structure should this investigation take?

I could pick out my favourite ten or so tracks and compare them, but that would leave out the others which might have slipped through the net. Howabout a Wimbledon table system where my faves are given "seeds" and distributed amongst pools of, say, four tracks which play off against each other go forward to an eventual final. But there's too much dependent on the luck of the draw and the non-faves (or should I say, lesser faves) would be at a disadvantage.

The only way to go is to play each track off against ever other and do a tally. Picture one of those mileage charts you get in the front of road atlases. One of them. A quick look at iTunes suggests there are 60 tracks from the albums and b-sides (that many?) which means we're going to have 3540 play offs.

That's a lot. More than I thought, actually. But let's continue and pretend it's viable.

So I'm thinking this could be a new project and that I could get other Pixies fans involved, the only criteria being you have a not dislike any of their songs. Each week two songs go up against each other, "Bone Machine" vs "Debaser" for example, and those willing and able send in their arguments for and against. The winner gets two points, the loser none and if it's a draw, one each.

And then in ten years time we'll know which Pixies song is the best.

You think it's a go-er?

Here's another thing I want. It may exist and if it doesn't it should.

It's a given that your DRM-encumbered music downloading sites are kinda crappy. Some are crappier than others, but they sorta suck. There do, however, exist numerous legal download sites, like emusic for example, that will sell you unencumbered mp3s that you can do whatever you like with, just like those CDs you can buy from Amazon that often end up cheaper than iTunes. The problem is they tend to only sell songs from a limited number of indie labels. This is fine if you're into the sort of music that enlightened record companies provide, but there's a problem.

You go to the site and search for your musician of choice. But they're not on a label that's working with that site. Or they are, but that label only has download rights for the US. Or the site has some silly subscription thing where you buy 40 tracks a month which don't carry over if you don't use them. (That's the downside with emusic - I've pretty much run out of stuff I want so I'll probably cancel my sub soon. Whether I'll go through the rigmarole of re-subscribing should I discover something in the future I'm not so sure.)

That's the nature of the market, you could say. Lots of competing business competing against each other and eventually the best one will prevail. But this sort of thing is slightly more important. It needs to be shown that there's a market for DRM-free mp3s and that money can be made from them. It needs to be easy to find the music you want to buy without going to each and every site and going through the same often fruitless search. Simply put, we need an aggregator. A nice little box where you type in "The Breeders" and it brings up all the sites that stock them for your territory and how much they charge. This sort of comparison shopping stuff has been around for ages and can't be too hard to implement, and I'd imagine it'd be the sort of thing those who are campaigning against DRM would want to encourage.

So, internet? Are you listening?

This is a rather cool real-world use of emerging technology. SWSX is, amongst other things, a music festival in Austin, Texas and like all big festivals there are loads of bands playing that you probably haven't heard of. Given a massive schedule spread over a large area, how do you decide which ones are worth going to?

What they've done is provide a schedule that runs on an iPod along with 750 free mp3s from all the artists performing so you can check they out on the move. To get 2.6 Gigs of music out there it's distributed via BitTorrent, which means folks who aren't going to SWSX (like me) can also get the music at no extra cost to the organisers.

Unfortunately it seems a little swamped at the moment (309 hours to go) but a keen idea none the less.

[Update: Since bandwidth hasn't been blown I'm sticking all five parts up. Do your worst.]

A few years ago we had this neat little feature on BugPowder where comic artists would send me 10 or so tracks which I'd stick up as a RealAudio stream. It was called Car-Toon-Ists' Choice after Nick Abadzis' first one and was fairly popular. One day in the pub Woodrow Phoenix (when are you going to get a proper site, Woods?) handed me a CD for the project complete with sleeve art (see pic), only it had 80 mp3s on it. He'd gotten a bit carried away. Back then 250mb was a bit too much to be dealing with (we were all still on dialup) so I put it to one side and, to my eternal regret, never actually got around to doing anything with it.

Since I now have more space than I know what to do with, it seems right and proper that I finally share this with you all. I'm not going to say what's on it partly to stop the leachers but also because the surprise will be worth it. Even if you think you know Woodrow's mindset.

[Files gone now - sorry]

When you've got a lot of music, and I mean a lot of music, on your computer, sorting it all out is something of a mammoth task and one I've been quite slack about getting around to, preferring to just listen on random ready to skip over anything utterly unsuitable (for which FoxyTunes is essential). But there are times when I wish I'd gone through and tagged everything up properly so I could, with one click, get a playlist of songs that work together yet still surprise and inspire me. For example, Bottle Rocket by The Go! Team just cropped up and put me in a good mood, so much so I wanted to listen to more music like it. I could bring up all the Go! Team tracks I possess but it'd be more interesting to find any tracks that have the same feel to them and listen to them.

I have no idea if this can be done, but I think it might be possible. Sounds can be mapped in pitch, rhythm, volume, etc. iTunes (my player of choice) already analyses each track to average out the volume across my library so why not add a couple more sweeps, run it through some algorithm and produce a little piece of code that can be used to match similar songs? At the very least it could try and figure out the BPM. Of course it'll be inaccurate, which is part of the fun, but not wildly so.

So, after a long week walking it was off to the Jug of Ale in Moseley to see Misty's Big Adventure perform. And perform they bloody well did. I've been meaning to see them for about a year now and failed miserably, but while I'd rather have not waited it was worth it. Right now they are the best band I've ever seen live.

My companions for this trip were Matt and Marv who seemed a little reticent to go and see one of Pete's weird and probably noisy bands but were convinced by samples from their site ("sounds harmless" said Marv) and after a lovely takeaway-and-heat-up curry (what was that place called again guys?) we moseyed over to the Jug.

The first support were Killer Yogi who were aparently doing their first ever gig and had the entire family in tow with camcorders at every angle. While naively rough, as you'd expect, there was a lot of potential there and the singer, he had a good voice. Next up was the immortal Bom and his Magic Drumstick to whom comparisons to Ivor Cutler could be drawn if you wanted to, though a disservice to both would be done in doing so. I'd seen him supporting Jeffrey Lewis (who, as it happens, is at the Jug on May 8th - woot!) last September where he was telling a story about Tommy the Tortoise and his friends off on an absurd adventure. And now, seven months later, he's still telling the same story. At one point characters from chapter 12 appeared through a time hole implying this story has been going on for a long time. Here's a nice photo of Bom which looks like it was taken in the 19th century:

And so, to Misty's Big Adventure, and my power of superlatives has left me. At the front is Grandmaster Gareth, a long haired balding man who shuffles around like a sad dog. To his left and right are sax and trumpet with a couple of guitars behind them. All four do backing vocals, along with the keyboardist behind Gareth and in front of the drums. So quite the ensemble then, and the music they make is lovely. Then, bounding around all this, and countering Gareth's maudlin doggery, is Erotic Volvo, a six foot lunatic dressed in a red sack with many inflated blue gloves adorning him, who whirls like a delightful dervish. Here's a photo of him:

Somehow Matt and I made it to the front of a packed room and were dancing like fools. I've never seen so many people dancing at the Jug - it's normally more a standing still, tapping feet and stroking chin type of venue. They weren't even playing the crowd in any manipulative way - just producing an ambience that worked, full stop. A tits-off grin-fest indeed.

Interestingly, I'd bought their album a while back and while it's good, it didn't really grab me big time. Listening to it again now, with last night in my mind, it's better but it still doesn't scratch their live performance. It's the sort of thing you just can't get down on tape. I will be seeing them again, and again, and I urge you to do so too.

More photos of Misty's, 10 in all, on Flickr

Oooh, a dilemma. At the Misty's gig on Friday I noticed that Jeffrey Lewis is playing at the Jug of Ale in Moseley on Sunday May 8th. He's playing solo and supporting Dufus on their UK tour, a band I'm not familiar with though that's not a problem as I'm always happy to get familiar with new bands, as it were. So I etch that in my mind as a definite go-er.

Then, last night on the way to ColdRice at Bar Academy (which turned out to be rather less that great in that they were running so late with the bands that I managed to hear exactly 30 seconds of one song before having to get the last bus home, but given the number of times ColdRice has been blindingly superb I can forgive this one lapse) I notice that fave band of a couple of weeks ago The Go! Team are playing at the Birmingham Academy 2. On Sunday May 8th.

Damn you Lord!

On the one hand, I have a distinct feeling The Go! Team will be kinda stupendous live, if their recorded stuff is anything to go by. That said, they're based in the UK so are likely to tour again. On the other hand, and a little way up the A435 in B13, Jeff Lewis is apparently playing new songs from a forthcoming album, which will be keen, and on checking out Dufus they appear to be very interesting indeed. I'm kinda sold on this song with its accompanying video.

So, guaranteed good times and dancing verses an outsider weirdness freakshow of avant-folk? I'm erring towards Moseley, I have to say...

Sunday, May 8th 2005. Another day, another gig at the Jug of Ale, another batch of dodgy low-light, desaturated photos added to my Gigs set on Flickr...

Saturday surely was a sensually intense day. After the cinema it was a quick journey down to Moseley to see Misty's Big Adventure at the Jug who were, of course, brilliant. Again I encouraged two newbies along and again they were both utterly impressed. In this photo Grandmaster Gareth, centre, has invited the audience on stage to join in with the song "Monkeys and Donkeys". Unfortunately I was standing towards the back so couldn't join in.

Again the support was excellent. The Retro Spankees were a lot of fun with a frenetic power-pop thingy, lots of falsetto screeching (though never gratuitously) and strange sounds made with random toy instruments fed through strange effects. And it's always nice when the band looks to be having as much fun as you are.

No mp3s on their site but I did pick up their single and as expected it's a pale imitation of their live show, but if it wasn't your speakers probably wouldn't cope. I'll be sticking them on the next podcast all the same though. A pale imitation of wonderful is still pretty darn good. (More photos)

My flatmates Andy and Andy are in a band called Plinth along with fellow Waterstonian Phil and another guy. They've all been involved in various musical combos on the Birmingham scene over the years but Plinth is a relatively new venture. Their first gig is tomorrow at Bar Academy. It's a support slot so they should be on around eight. Then on the 25th they have their first headlining gig at the Flapper.

I've deliberately not heard them play so as to enjoy the gig in a pure manner, but with the plethora of guitars and amps in the flat I can say with confidence that they're good and will no doubt rock in a substantial fashion.

It's all quite exciting!

Allowing for the fact that three members of the band are good friends of mine and two of them flatmates to boot, given that sort inevitable bias in my reaction to their first gig, I have to say that Plinth were quite frankly fucking brilliant. Well done chaps.

Photos were taken.

Andy/Zoop on guitar, Andy G on primal power vocals, Phil on drums

A rare full colour gig photo.

Look at all 17 and weep.

Fave piece of feedback so far (from mild-mannered colleague): "For the first few songs you were just playing with yourselves but in the last two you ejaculated all over the room." Lovely image.

Next gig on the 25th when they'll be headlining. Bring it on!

Photo were okay in a functional good-time post-Wire eyeliner kinda way. Shocked Elevator Family I was prepared to like until they butchered, and I mean fucking killed stone dead, a great Magnetic Fields song, at which stage I decided they sucked balls.

Jrmy's tagged me with a meme. 5ongs. See what they did there? Five songs that one is digging of this moment.

I'm so glad it's not "five songs that mean something important to you lyrically, that touch your soul and make you want to write poetry" cos I'd be shit at that. Music for me is a massive ocean of tunage, mixing and churning around on random play. A song that I love to pieces one week will quickly slip in the undertow as another wave of aural pleasure cascades in. Or some shit.

Anyway, without thinking about it too much...

Mogwai have popped up recently, especially early stuff when they were a bunch of cheeky kids in hoodies. I'll plump for "Xmas Steps" from the Matador 10th Anniversary compilation because it's the last one of theirs I listened to. Post-rock intensity with a knowing smirk.

If you check my Audioscrobbler Last FM stats you'll notice a stunning amount of Magnetic Fields has been played, mostly from having 69 Love Songs on repeat. Recently I've been exploring outside that album and the much older track "100,000 Fireflies" is very nice indeed.

I got into Freezepop last year thanks to BeacoupKevin sticking one of their tracks on his site. I've had them on repeat a fair bit this last week and if I had to pick one track it'd be "I Am Not Your Gameboy". Hyper-blippy pop that makes you happy. Me like.

Andy KK burned me a bunch of stuff including Stereo Total's Musique Automatique. If I had to pick one track then I'd stick a pin on the screen and say "Wir tanzen im 4eck"

Okay, finally, from the last 20 tracks that came up on shuffle I'd have to go for "The Soldering Life" by The Decemberists because it made me bring up their other tracks and play through them for a bit.

Right. There you go.

Oh shit. I've got to pass it on. Um...

Okay, anyone who wants it can take it. Leave a link to your post in the comments. Actually, it'd be nice if people who don't usually comment took it - people I don't know.

In related news, the Misty's Big Adventure page on Wikipedia is suddenly full of information. Well, I couldn't leave it looking like this, now, could I?

It's not often you can be pretty much certain you're responsible for something neat happening. You might have been involved but the complexity of things in general means it's hard to take the credit. That said, I'm pretty sure this is my doing. It's not a particularly major thing, but it's kinda neat. So please excuse the ego. I don't mean to boast, honest. It's more a celebration really, a pumping fist, if you will.

Last year you may remember I posted up a request for a searchable small gigs database feed site thingy, a listing of gigs happening in my local area that I could filter to my needs and get RSS feeds out of. Something more useful that the kludgy sites already in existence. The general consensus was that, while a keen idea, building, maintaining and updating such a service would be far too much like hard work and nothing really came of it.

Birmingham has a pretty vibrant music scene but it's not particularly well structured. This is probably a good thing as it allows for a lot of variety and spontaneity, but it's a bugger to keep track of unless you're in the middle of it. In the last 18 months I've been keeping tabs and getting to know the lay of the land, but it's still quite bewildering.

At some point I became aware of Upcoming.org, a pretty bare-bones site created by Waxy Baio that lets you list events you're planning to attend. These are then merged with other people's listings creating a snapshot of things happening in your area, or "metro". It's pretty popular in the States, as you'd image, and metros like New York give a good idea of how it's supposed to work. I liked the idea but was disappointed to see the Birmingham metro was completely barren, rather like the page for Bury St. Edmunds, in fact. No listings at all, ever. Then it occured to me. This is the listing service I was thinking about. It's already been built and no-one's using it. It's there for the taking. So I grabbed a couple of forthcoming events listings and stuck them in. Bingo, a searchable small gigs listing that produced RSS feeds.

Next I sent a message to the Misty's Big Adventure mailing list ostensibly asking people if they could recommend any gigs on the list but with the secret agenda of spreading the word without hyping it. A few more hints were dropped here and there and before you knew it the feed was having the gigs added to it here and there, sometimes in bulk by someone with the same altruistic motives as myself, sometimes by people who were actually planning to attend.

And now, within a few months, the Birmingham metro listing looks like this. Neat, huh?

Here's some cool things you can do:

• Forthcoming gigs organised by Zoot - simply done by adding the Zoot tag to each entry.
• Gigs at Bar Academy
• Gigs where Plinth are playing
• Gigs I'm planning to attend
• and much much more

And almost all of those things produce RSS feeds, which means you can get then in your feed readers (eg Bloglines) or syndicate them onto your site, as I have on the main page, right hand column, under the photos. It would be really easy to build a page representing Birmingham based on these feeds and I might well do that at some point.

Currently I spend a few minutes every week or so updating the Zoot and Catapult Club listings but with any luck I won't have to bother even with that as the community takes over.

Just think, a few months ago this was a barren wasteland and now it's a sprouting grass-roots, non-commercial, user-built community thingy. And I kick started it.

See if you can do the same for your "metro", why don't you.

Since Plinth have no web presence, nor it seems any strong desire for any form of publicity machine other than word of mouth, it's up to me to inform the world that their second gig is later on this evening at the Flapper and Firkin in Birmingham. Here's a map. It's about £3.50 in for three bands. Plinth are headlining and should be on about 10pm. I should be getting there about eight-ish. Those of you who like teh rock should try to come along. You'll like it.

Report from the last gig.

Jez and me went down to London Town on the train to see Mr Bob Mould play a rock concert.

He played some songs I didn't know and some I did. The encore featured old Hüsker Dü songs. Jez moshed. I pogo'ed. It was very good.

We then got the last train back to Birmingham and cycled to our respective homes at 2am.

Rock.

It's my birthday on Monday, though I won't be making a fuss. Thirty three might be a cool number (except I won't be a "long player" until next January) but age wise it's nothing special. I did have the "have you thought about what you want for your birthday?" conversation with mum though which I find kinda amusing as I used to ask her the same thing when I was a kid and she never knew. These days I have no idea - things I want are far too expensive and I have no need for ephemerous trinklets - but we did agree on some kind of camera fund to replace my aging digicam with something more professional. Anyway, during this chat I joked that I wasn't planning on doing anything special this year - that can wait until I'm 40, which was greeting with a few seconds of silence followed by the whimper along the lines of "my son will be forty one day..." I guess that would be kinda scary, especially if your son is likely to still be living like a 20-something slacker.

That said, there are a few things I'll be doing this next week or so which could be construed as "going out" and "celebrating" my continued existence. Chum Matt is going out for drinks to mark his birthday on Thursday at the Prince of Wales in Moseley and I shall be joining him. Then on Saturday 24th Misty's Big Adventure are playing at the Jug of Ale, also in Moseley. They're also playing on Sunday and I shall be attending both gigs, but I'm treating Saturday as the "party" one with Sunday for photos.

Regarding flatmate-related gigs, Plinth - that's the band with both Andys in it - have a gig on Thursday 29th at Bar Academy while Andy Zoop's other band, Una Corda, have two gigs coming up, one on the 27th at Scrufy Murphys and another on October 7th at the Jug. It's said that the latter, supporting the delightfully named Church of Misery, should be the better of the two so I'll definitely be at that one if not both.

All this makes me realise I forgot to include my Upcoming.org listings in this new redesign. Better rectify that...

Una Corda have an EP out, Proper Position For Floating [1881], which is rather top. You can hear a track on their myspace page and I'll play a track from it in the next podcast. Also, Misty's new Album, The Black Hole, came out last week and it's also rather top, getting some quite hefty rotation on iTunes right now.

In other news...

• Went to stay with sister and the kids for 36 hours to help out while bro-in-law is away on a course. Not much to report - it's just a hectic world of busy over there. We did go swimming though, which was cool. Weightless babies are magic.


• Finally took the plunge and started the British small press comics entry on Wikipedia. It's in no way perfect and needs work, but that's kinda the point. Anyway, you try condensing 30 years of non-heirarchical, decentralised DIY activity into one page and see how you do.


• Went back to the Agency on Monday to re-register for temp work. That rent-thing needs to be paid and to be frank I wouldn't mind going back into the labour force for a little while. I was hoping for something involving lifting and lugging but they've placed me in an office starting Monday for a week or so.


• It's suddenly rather cold, isn't it...

The first night of the grand Misty's Big Adventure weekend residency at the Jug of Ale was a storming success. They rattled through loads of songs, mainly taken from the first album bringing some old tracks out of retirement and sprinkling in some newer ones, playing non-stop for the full set with no encore. The room was packed and dancing was constant. A very sweaty and grand time was had, so much so I barely took any photos.

Support was the same as the last time I saw them, with Bom and his Magic Drumstock continuing his story (I hope someone's been recording these) and The Retro Spankees kicking major arse with their screaming nerd-rock.

A top night, and it's back again on Sunday for part two. Blimey!

And so it was back to the Jug for the second night of the Misty's Big Adventure residency. Other than some fairly crap shots I gave up taking photos since I already have a fair few and, to be frank, felt that dancing like a fool was more the point (though I noticed my dancing has evolved into just jumping up and down a lot). A whole gaggle of us went along tonight (seven as opposed to the mere five yesterday) including a last minute surprise appearance by Shaun Bark, one of the merry Bonfire Radio podcasters, who having enjoyed Misty's at a gig more local to him decided to drive 150 miles to see them in their home town. He's currently crashed on our sofa. Podcasting - it brings people together, y'know?

Support again featured Bom and his Magic Drumstick who was a bit more shambolic than on Saturday though this didn't detract. I realised I first saw him a year ago supporting Jeffrey Lewis. Even then he seemed like he'd being doing this forever and still he's plugging away with his absurdist stories and indescribable songs. I'm getting curious now - I need to know the Bom story. However, I also fear knowing the Bom story.

Middle support tonight was The Ripps who were very interesting though I haven't quite got them placed. Kind of a happy, almost Brtipoppy sound, though that shouldn't be taken as a criticism. The Britpop thing, that is. Happy should never be taken as a criticism. I'm still not sure what I think of them, though I'm pretty sure whatever it is it'll be positive. Others in the gang were also intrigued and we'll be checking them out again I'm sure.

And then to the main event. The room was less full than yesterday so there wasn't the same rammed sweatbox of noise from the audience but it was still madness. Misty's rattled through the new album track by track then ran out of songs and took requests along with playing some of the new songs debuted yesterday.

What more can I say? Lots of dancing, and some more dancing. A bit of singing along. Additional dancing. At some point I'm going to see a real chinstroker of a band at the Jug and it'll all seem a little odd.

Top weekend - thanks guys. Adding it up I directly or indirectly brought eleven people to those gigs and all of them went away happy. Result!

Plinth had their third gig last night but the lights were so low most of my photos were shit. Plinth weren't shit though. They were storming, more than making up for the second gig nerves last month. There's now talk of publicity and the need to build up an audience that isn't composed of friends and co-workers so I guess another pro bono website is in the works. Next gig is November 4th. Spread the word.

This one came out fairly okay, but I do need to figure out a way of taking decent low-light shots. Might be time to invest in a pocket tripod.

Support was from Issue 22 who were good and fun and the astonishing, though not necessarily in a good way, Raiders of Rock n' Roll who did a kind of 80's hair metal thing without a trace of irony. I was grinning like a tit as the incredibly nerdy lead singer swung his mike stand during a climax and I'm still not sure if I was laughing at them or not. It was kinda refreshing in some strange way. Goodwin was horrified at the clip-art sexy lady on the flyer (see their site) but I like it. They're playing again at the Firkin on October 28th. You never know...

During the gig I was thinking how I only seem to go to gigs of bands I already know and how this isn't the best way to discover new bands, and I had an incredibly stupid idea. Once my tax refund finally comes through I'm going to spend two weeks going to every single gig at the Jug of Ale in Moseley (mainly because it's my nearest gig venue) and when there isn't a gig on there go to one somewhere else where I don't know the bands. 14 gigs in 14 days. And every night I shall write up my experience is as much detail as possible. I'm tentatively calling this project "Going Deaf for a Fortnight". I bellowed the idea in Tom's ear and he grinned with approval, and now I've written it here so it will happen. God help me.

Ooh yes, confirmation appeared in flyer form of Jeffrey Lewis's next Birmingham gig, at said Jug on Friday November 11th with fellow US anti-folk noiseters Schwervon (mp3s) in support. I will be there come hell or high water.

Finally a reminder that I'll be at Una Corda's gig on October 7th at the Jug for flat-mate related post-rock action.

A few days ago we were sitting in the living room watching some movie or other and I was humming along and tapping my feet to a piece of classical music on the soundtrack. Noticing this, Andy G commented that he'd forgotten that I have a thing for the classical which is true, I do, except I'm also incredibly ignorant, which is why I never mention it. Here's the story...

I was brought up in a predominately classical household. My mum is a classically trained singer, my step-dad was a conductor of orchestras and my sister is an accomplished violinist. There's a shocking amount of classical music in the house, both recorded and in sheet music form. It's not an obsessive presence by any means, but it's certainly there. In short, there was always a piano in the house when I was a kid and it was always in use but the only rock or pop music was some Beatles singles from my mum's childhood and whatever I'd accumulated in my vacuum. Mainly Queen as it happens.

During secondary school I played the trombone, which while a potentially great instrument isn't exactly cool. Well, it's cool compared with the French horn or the cello but it ain't no electric guitar. I did my stints in the local school orchestras and the like but when I moved onto 6th form the trombone went into the attic where it still lives to this day, not having much of a resale value when I'd finished with it.

And since then I've never developed any musical talent for some reason even though it's all sitting there in my brain. I have a good musical ear, a reasonable sense of rhythm and can even sing fairly well thanks to my genes but I ain't done nothing with it. If there's a reason it's probably the same as my mental block on learning languages (mum's also a retired language teacher and sister did a German degree) or why I'm not a geologist like my dad. It's all down to some stubborn teenage rebellion in my subconscious whereby I reject the talents of my parents in a half-arsed determination to forge my own way, whatever that may be. With music this meant rejecting the prescribed dogma of an orchestral score in favour of random dissonant noise, taking pleasure in happy accidents rather than perfect reconstructions. Well, that's one explanation anyway. It could just be that I'm scared of the potential for failure when perusing perfection or some shit, but that's getting a little too close to psychoanalysis so I'll move on.

But despite rejecting this classical background I do have a latent appreciation for it and even the vestiges of critical capabilities. It's quite possible that because the essence of the classical is deep inside me, when combined with my ignorance of the accepted rights and wrongs I could be quite a powerful force, cutting through the bullshit and slaying sacred cows left and right, but I'll never know because it's quite a steep learning curve and I can't really be bothered

So I have this appreciation of the whole thing and I should really make the most of it, for the entertainment value if nothing else. If you've never heard a full orchestra perform a storming symphony in a hall with decent acoustics then you've never lived. The power of 100-odd instruments working in perfect harmony with each other is the ultimate gestalt wall of sound. My sister, having gotten over two years of intensive baby production, is taking part in a concert in Banbury on November 19th and I'm popping along for it. "Tschaik 4th, some Rossini and Liszt" she says and I have no idea what that means but I'm sure it'll kick arse. I think the last time I saw her play was in Leeds in 1995, which is rather tragic of me.

I've also been looking into the various recitals and performances put on by the local Quakers in Bournville and shall report on my findings...

The band Plinth, which as you'll know by now 50% of whom share the same landlord as me, have their fourth gig at the Jug of Ale in Moseley this coming Friday. It will be good. Do come along.

In related news I've decided that I'll be doing my stupid idea Going Deaf For A Fortnight, mentioned here starting with that Plinth gig. From the 4th to the 17th of November I shall go to a gig every night and write about all fourteen here. All gigs will be at the Jug (since it's the closest venue to me and I can cycle there) except when there isn't a gig at the Jug in which case it'll be Bar Academy, the Flapper of the Barfly. You can check my Upcoming page to see where I'll be at if you want to join me.

Oh, and part of this madness will include Jeffrey Lewis on the 11th which I heartily recommend. You don't want to miss this one.

(Monday 7th is somewhat expectedly proving tricky to fill so any ideas would be appreciated...)

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.

The first thing that happened when I got off my bike at the Jug of Ale in Moseley was I discovered for the first time in my life I had pins and needles in my bollocks. It's a very strange and not particularly pleasurable sensation and though it went away fairly quickly I mention it purely in the spirit of Gonzo journalism because it might be important. Who can tell.

GDFAF #2 then, which consists of me going to a gig on my own to see three bands I'd never heard of. Both these things were novelties, the latter part of the plan, the former an unfortunate side effect of going out every night for a fortnight. In retrospect I'm not sure why this is such a big deal - if there was a band I really really wanted to see then it wouldn't be an issue, but spending two and a half hours in a pub with no idea what I was going to experience was somewhat daunting. There's also the issue that when I go with someone I tend to be the optimistic one. Chum will say something derogatory about the band and I'll counter that they're not so bad. Without that sounding board I was more likely to just go with the negative, especially when surrounded by people I would be instantly stereotyping as vacuous wankers. So bear that in mind. But don't bear it too much in mind because I'm pretty sure I'm on a road to accuracy with this one.

Consider this: a Saturday night at one of the main small venues in the city, where countless great bands have played brilliant sets. You'd expect something special, or at least a reasonable level of quality. It would seem your expectations should be lowered. Even allowing for the fact that this was bonfire night and most self-respecting thrill seekers were off watching the bangs and lights you'd hope the local music scene (and they were all Brummies) would do better than this. It was a night of skillful mediocrity. There were brief moments of inspiration but on the whole, nah, I wouldn't have bothered mate.

First up were The Tates who played to an audience of about eight people including me and the lead singer's girlfriend, but unlike The Goods yesterday they were gracious about it and thanked us for listening. They played a kind of soaring pop-punk with moments of Oi and they wouldn't have been out of place at a punk festival or biker rally. They weren't doing anything new or radical but they got the job done in an honest, competent manner. And there's not really much more I can say about them.

Next up was possibly the lowlight of my recent gigging career. Sweet Lilly were a covers band who didn't do any actual covers. My first reaction was throwback Manchester rock. I mean, I liked Oasis and Cast and especially the Stone Roses at the time but c'mon, is this stuff really still necessary? At one stage they even riffed off The Levellers for christ's sake! Of course it was all note perfect and performed with the delusion that this is the kind of thing bands are supposed to do but there was no spark of originality or wit whatsoever. Also of note was how just before they started the room was invaded by all their mates who immediately left as soon as they'd finished. I guess since these bands get paid a token share of the door if that then playing a gig at the Jug purely to entertain your friends is fair enough. For sure, most bands try and pack in their chums (at least until they get actual fans) but it would be preferable if they'd just hire a room somewhere and keep it to themselves rather than inflicting their asinine tedium on my soul. Towards the end of the set they opened with a Stone Roses riff which morphed into an Oasis vocal with lyrics that said absolutely nothing at all. I found myself realising why no-one goes to gigs unless they know the band - you find yourself at the whim of people who can play guitar but have no idea what a guitar is really for.

So after that abortion the headlining band had better be good. No, they'd better be amazing. I'd braved fireworks and the threat of a light drizzle to come here tonight. The Bleak started with a song that sounded a hell of a lot like Led Zep. They then followed this with a Jimmy Hendrix cover, then a song which owed a fair bit to Pink Floyd. After a while they covered the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Ah well...

To their credit they were definitely enjoying themselves and it was interesting to see what were essentially a bunch of kids playing around with this sort of stuff and not taking it at all seriously. I was ready to write them off as another bloomin' covers band when in the middle of one of their own songs the two guitarists stepped off to the side for a drink while the drummer did a fucking drum solo! Not even your dyed in the wool cock-rocking metal band would have that sort of audacity! They then finished up with a big fat instrumental blues jam which was, as you'd expect, perfectly competent and probably the best thing I'd heard all night but is it really headlining material?

I'll say it again - this was a Saturday night at one of the main venues for local bands in Birmingham, a venue at which I have attended some of the best gigs of my life by some of the most interesting groups in the area. As a showcase for Birmingham this was very poor. Maybe we can blame all the fireworks displays for taking the custom elsewhere (the pub was noticeably quiet compared to yesterdays crush) but I'm not here to be generous. I'm going to 14 gigs in 14 days. My patience is limited.

Before I go any further with GDFAF #3, a public service announcement about the Barfly venue in Birmingham. You know that door with the huge "Barfly" flag hanging over it on Digbeth High Street that often has a queue outside? That's not the Barfly. The Barfly is around the back of the Sanctuary club so head down Milk St and turn into what looks like a delivery yard. That's your entrance. Do this and you won't miss the first support act, like I did tonight. Also bear in mind that the Barfly shares security with the Sanctuary club so the bloke at the door will treat you like a dodgy pisshead/druggie clubber rather than the fey indie muso kid you are.

So it turned out that I'd actually been to this venue before. It's the back room of said Sanctuary and it's been through a number of changes over the years. I first went there when it was hosting the Gods Kitchen hardcore techno club nights back around 1998, all painted black with Giger-esque faces on the wall. A bit later I was at the Sanctuary itself at one of their indie nights with some old Uni mates and the back room had been painted bright red and incorporated into the club itself as their 80's room. My mates loved it, but they were too young to really appreciate the horror of such things. And now it's black again and serving as a pretty standard but nice and airy gig venue. I quite like it - there are enough nooks and crannies along with a neat balcony and plenty of room to spread out and dance but it doesn't feel like a barn like some halls do.

Like I said, I missed Sabotage Left, the first support, having stood in the wrong place for half an hour and then being blocked by the overzealous bouncer who wouldn't let us in until they'd finished for some ungodly reason. But they're a local band so I may well bump into them again.

The other support, Distophia, were very good. The problem with bands who are very good is it's hard to compare them to anyone else -the reason they're good is because they're unique in some way. Reviews posted on their site cite My Bloody Valentine a fair bit which I can kinda agree with but only at a stretch. I got more of a Husker Du vibe with elements of the Retro Spankees (specifically a tendency to yelp). They produced a robust wall of guitar noise with much twiddling of nobs and feedback but never to excess, along with, well I want to say harmonising vocals but that sounds a little soft for what was produced, more along the lines of American nerd-punk (think Weezer, but only a bit) with lots of shouting amongst the soaring. Which was also their aesthetic, a random assortment of blokes with no unifying style or attitude - very nice. And they frequently moved off the stage and played in the crowd which was a good thing. I like it when musicians do this. Finally they had their drums at the front which was quite refreshing (why, when there's space, do bands stick the drummer right at the back?) and meant I finally got a photo of a drummer that isn't a blurry smudge of darkness.

Distophia are also local and will certainly be mentally bookmarked for as worthy of seeing again. In fact I'm slightly bemused as to why I haven't heard of them before since they've been around for a while. But that's the point of this fortnight - to fill in those gaps.

And so to the headliners, Polysics, who it appears have quite a following, which again made me wonder how I'm managed not to hear of them before. I'm mean, I'm hip to the Japanese new music scene. I know my Pizzicato Five and my Cornelius. I own the Sushi 4004 compilation. How dare they pass me by! I joke - that there are bands of this quality touring the world for me to discover with no media-warped preconceptions is a damn good thing. I confess I was initially drawn to them by the red boilersuit costumes. The last time I saw a Japanese band in dressed in red boilersuits was Yumi Yumi last August who were very good so using that incredibly scientific criteria of ethnicity and attire I figured they'd be worth the £9.00 entrance. I was right. They were utterly brilliant.

The first thing to get out of the way is the Devo influence. Yes, it's there, acknowledged and blatant, and it's not a problem. There's also the fact that they're Japanese which makes them fascinatingly alien - you never know how much is normal and how much is odd, especially as they filter western freak-rock through their Tokyo punk-pop sensibilities. There are layers of subversion that are too complicated to dissect so it's best just to go with it and dance. Which is not a problem as they're one of most danceable acts I've seen in a long time, mashing up pogo-punk with electro-noize and catchy Nintendo-style tunes.

Also refreshing was a well thought out stage presence. To the right is Fumi wielding her bass with attitude (and, it must be said, great hair). Then on the left is Kayo with the synth standing utterly still throughout with the occasional robotic movement. Then bounding across the stage like some manic game show presenter is Hayashi playing up the stadium rock role with glee and getting away with it. The red boilersuits and black-strip shades both add to the slightly alien feeling and made their stage personas stronger giving a sense of spectacle sorely missing from most gigs.

Some highlights then:

• Hayashi collecting rucksacks and handbags from the audience, putting them all on and continuing to play guitar.
• Kayo suddenly producing pompoms.
• Hayashi grabbing someone's pint of beer and downing it in one.
• Hayashi getting the biggest guy in the audience to pick him up and carry him into the throng... while he played guitar.
• Kayo playing the recorder during one track which unexpectedly ended as a delicate duet between her and Hayashi
• Kayo pogoing and hitting a box at her apex which produced a boooiinnnggg sound.
• Kayo singing through a vocorder and a normal mike at the same time.
• The incredible cover of My Sharona. Yes, it's hard not to do an incredible cover of My Sharona but even so.
• and much much more...

The audience reaction was wild. It wasn't particularly rammed but that left more room for dancing which was infectious. But I can't finish this review without mentioning the tiny Japanese girl who stood right at the front completely still just bending her knees a fraction to the beat. When everything got really hectic she nodded her head maintaining a remarkable stillness while everyone else went manic.

GDFAF #4 fell on a Monday and Mondays were always going to be a problem. No-one goes out on a Monday and pubs, clubs and venues treat it as their weekend but here I am, going to fourteen gigs sequentially, so I need somewhere to go. Ideally I want to go to small gigs featuring unknown bands so the Birmingham Academy is technically not permitted. However, the gig there tonight was downgraded to Bar Academy, the 300-odd capacity venue next door that is certainly on my map, but the ticket price wasn't downgraded so it was a last resort.

I did try, honest. Having exhausted the internet I even started phoning random pubs to see if they had live music but to no avail. Chum Jez phoned about the Jeff Lewis gig on Friday and together we went through the options drawing blanks until he came across the Birmingham Clarion Singers at All Saints Church in Kings Heath. I'd been thinking about taking in an utterly non-rock concert at some point and report on it in true NME style so this seemed as good as any but we couldn't find any confirmation online (I'm still not sure how Jez even came across the info - possibly a local community newsletter or something) so I popped over on the bike to check it out. The church notice-board was surrounded by the local youths who were being all threatening but I managed to corner a middle aged woman in the car park who knew nothing about any concert tonight and was most perturbed that the potential for one existed without her knowing about it. So I took that as a no and, after checking the pubs on Kings Heath High St headed back home.

Time was marching on so I bit the bullet and headed off to Bar Academy. There was always the potential that they'd have sold out having switched to the smaller venue but no, tickets were still available. At £10. It seems there's a pricing structure for gig tickets where, say, they're advertised at £7, sold in advance for £8 (with booking fee) and on the door for £10. As I ummed and erred the nice lady behind the bar gave me the "c'mon, it's only a tenner" look and I mentioned the 14 gigs in 14 nights thing. She asked why, which was a fair question. I think I might be asking why myself soon, but I explained about the website and the reviews and smiled a weak smile. She asked her boss if he was feeling generous. He thought I was fucking mad but wasn't feeling generous. I paid my tenner.

Now, here's where it gets a little embarrassing - I'm not sure who the first band were. According to the advance publicity the bill was Voodoo Glow Skulls, No Comply, The Klopeks and Templeton Pek. I didn't make a note of who they said they were udring the gig and I have a terrible memory for that sort of thing so I figured I could just go back and check later. According to their site No Comply have cancelled all their November gigs so they can be discounted and some detailed detective work on their MySpace page reveals the second band to be The Klopecs which means the first band was Templeton Pek. Except their photos on MySpace show a clean-cut threesome while there were four guys on stage, two of whom had most impressive dreadlocks. It also says they were playing elsewhere tonight. [Update - I've been informed they were called A Day Called Desire and have edited this post accordingly.]

So first up was A Day Called Desire who were a tight metal band getting a good response from the audience. They said this was the best reception they'd ever had and it was pretty remarkable for a first support. There was even a bit of moshing going on, which foreshadowed the rest of the evening quite well.

I should say a little about the crowd - they were young. Yes, this shouldn't be a big shock but it always takes me by surprise when I'm one of the oldest people at a gig, especially when it's not a particularly hip and trendy band on stage. And there were a lot of them for the relatively small Bar Academy, about half looking all hardcore and cool and half still figuring out how to look hardcore and cool. Occasionally I'd see someone my age but they'd turn out to be one of the other bands waiting to perform or part of the crew. The main reason I mention the age is because these young people, they have so much energy! You think the kids today are all apathetic and cynical but give them the right outlet and, boom, it all gets a little hectic. Brought back some memories, I can tell you.

The Klopeks (another local band I'd not heard of before) made the most of this boundless enthusiasm and milked it to the core. It helped that, like the headliners, they were a ska-punk band with metal-ish undertones, but the huge trombone player diving into the audience and moshing didn't hinder things too much. I particularly liked their obsession with pirates and highwaymen and the way half of them played topless. That's always a good sign. Very mad-eyed and crazed with much interaction with the crowd, you'd think they were headlining.

It was about this time that I simultaneously started really enjoying myself and getting worried about my camera. I'd be interested to know if, during outbreaks of peace, war photographers go to rock gigs filled with teenagers because it was quite unnerving, even for someone who isn't adverse to a good mosh. I was standing on the stools to the right of the stage (you'll know them if you know the venue) mainly so I could actually see the bands on the inch-high stage (you'll know what I mean if you know the venue) and every time I leant down to get the camera out of it's protective case a whirling ball of testosterone would crash into me. If I'd know I would have brought the old digicam, but I was going in blind here. So, not many photos and those that were taken were a little shite. During the Klopeks' set I was wondering, if the crowd are like this now, what will they be like for the band they actually paid to see?

They tore the fucking place to pieces.

The Voodoo Glow Skulls (Wikipedia) have been around for a while as part of the US ska revival of the 1990s (remember The Mighty Mighty Bosstones?) though, as is becoming a pattern in this fortnight, I'd not come across them before. I didn't know they were from California, for example, nor that they'd be singing half in Spanish, or that they'd been around since 1992. I was sort of aware that there'd been a small ska revival in Birmingham last year amongst the student population (or at least I heard it from a student) and it would seem to be not so small after all. This crowd were hardcore fans through and through. From my vantage point I was often distracted from the stage to just watch the audience throw themselves around and while it was never nasty I did feel something close to apprehension at the flailing of limbs. Maybe if I'd not been on my own I would have dived in and joined them, but I'm not so sure.

Meanwhile on stage the Glow Skulls were tight, as you'd expect from a band who've been playing for about 15 years, and their music was fast, pounding through a mashup of ska beats, metal riffs and punk vocals with their own Mexican flavouring. Again I was struck by the age thing, and I don't want to make a big deal of it but most of the band were old enough to be parents of their fans. This was like going to a comeback gig except there didn't seem to be any original fans there unless they were listening to skacore in primary school. I might be reading too much into this but it seems to me that the gig exemplified how young people are doing music these days. I'm not aware of this sort of thing getting any mainstream coverage these days and while there has always been some kind of ska presence on the gig scene this seemed very youth specific (and about 50:50 male to female, which was interesting). One can only blame "the internet" and the way young people get their information these days, via word of mouth recommendation and downloading random music. When I was their age everything came from the NME and Radio 1. Now it's something a lot less specific and uncontrolled, yet capable of bringing 300 kids together to go utterly mental.

Or maybe it's not so complicated. All three bands namechecked MySpace. Think on that.

During a very brief lull in the chaos I got the camera out but the lense immediately steamed over with condensed sweat. I didn't fancy keeping it out to aclimatise so no photos of the Glow Skulls, which is a shame as they were worthy of them, but fuck, it was hot in there. I emerged the sweatiest I've ever been from just standing up for two hours.

Voodoo Glow Skulls - very good. UK tour continues through to November 20th. Go check them out for good times.

And so it was for GDFAF #5 that I returned to Bar Academy for my fifth gig in this series. It was raining hard so rather than cycling I put on my leather jacket and took the train, which was apt as it was a leather jacket sort of a gig. I seem to be going through a nice variety of genres at the moment: Sunday was J-rock, Monday was ska, tomorrow is whatever the hell Melt Banana are, Friday is anti-folk and tonight was apparently "death rock". We're in the world of heroin-chic, romanticised suicide, moody pouts, smoke machines and the ability to call your band The Warlocks and still be taken seriously.

I got there early thanks to the gig scene's utter inability to deal with the concept of accurate advance information and as usual had my bag checked. Since I wasn't cycling there wasn't a bundle of hi-viz and bike lights in there so the bouncer saw the camera and asked for a look. I'd always assumed they were on the lookout for anything resembling professional kit for copyright reasons and my camera does look kinda pro to a novice, but it would appear they're more concerned with concealment of illicit substances. "Digital?" he asked after turning it over a few times and let it pass, neglecting to check the 14 pockets on my person but what the hell, at least I wasn't smuggling drugs in an SLR body.

I've found sitting around at gigs on my own a strangely uncomfortable experience, especially as I'm not drinking overpriced beer for this fortnight, so having seen someone reading a paper last night I brought a book and settled down in the corner. As the room filled I saw a girl reading a Diane Arbus monograph. Hmm. Highbrow crowd tonight. A couple of guys came over and asked if I wanted to be on the Warlocks' mailing list - filling these out consists of me writing my name over and over and always feeling slightly pretentious next to all the hotmails and yahoos - and offered a badge. I ended up with six.

I heard a guitar being tuned and moved to my now usual spot on the benches to the right of the stage, but nothing seemed to be happening. Then a guy with a strange accent started talking to the audience in between setting up his gear, offering people his pints of beer which, being British, no-one accepted. This was Dead Combo, our support for this evening, a Finnish duo with guitars, a laptop serving as a drum machine (and god knows what else) along with the crustiest old Moog you've ever seen. They were an odd looking couple, vocalist (plus guitar and Moog) Nuutti Kataja looking like a skinny Lemmy with his clean shaven guitarist chum Harri Kupiainen beside him. Looking at their tour dates on MySpace they're on an incredibly intensive tour across Europe and it showed.

My limited experience of Scandinavians (specifically Norwegians) has taught me that they are kind hearted, generous folk but with a mildly psychotic edge. Roll the term "Finnish Rock" around your head - it's both exciting and slightly disturbing. I was trying to pin down exactly why the audience were so wary of this genial monster offering his bottle of poppers bought from the sex shop next door ("we don't do designer drugs, we prefer novelty drugs") and it struck me he was behaving like an amusing tramp. You're entertained but you want to keep your distance.

When they actually got down and played they were quite astonishing with grinding guitars and vocals riding a steamroller of pounding drums and that fucked up Moog that reminded me of Big Black in terms of relentless power, but everyone still kept their distance despite rewarding with rapturous applause. Everyone except one young woman who stood on her own right in front of the stage. I'd like to see Dead Combo again when they have an audience that's brave enough to interact on their level. I suspect it would be a most entertaining evening.

While they were endearingly shambolic tonight an mp3 from their site shows they can put it down on record to great effect, like My Bloody Valentine with enormous balls.

And so to our headliners, The Warlocks, consisting of two, no, three guitars, bass, keyboards, and that's a rather large drum kit, hang on two drum kits? This band has two drum kits? Without saying hello or even acknowledging the audience they started playing what struck me as shoegazer and I liked it a lot.

This sort of thing is very easy to take the piss out of, with earnest songs about drugs and suicide with miserablist-gorgeous posturing, but when it's done well it's immensely enjoyable. Whether there was a knowing smile behind the mask I'm not sure (I'm reminded of a post-rock guitarist telling me that of course it's all incredibly silly but part of how it works is not to let on how silly it is) but all the trimmings were there, from the back-lighting and smoke machine making the band darker than the audience, to the film projected behind them.

This projection was notable in this age of laptop driven shows. Behind the speaker stacks was a guy with two old-school projectors which he had to use pliers to operate. Into these he fed a number of scratchy 8mm film loops stored in notches on a strip of cardboard. As both projectors played he leant over them, alternately flipping pieces of card over the lens, mixing the images as a DJ would mix records. The images were your standard selection of psychedelia, old movies and vintage porn but to see them manually manipulated like that with such energy and for so long was quite inspiring.

I was again intrigued by the audience. I was expecting a fair amount of goth but there was none to be seen. There wasn't even much leather in attendance - just a room full of pretty ordinary looking people in their mid-20s, early 30s. If I can stretch some comparisons to last night we again had a relatively minor band from the US from a pretty well identified genre playing to what seemed to be a random assortment of people who'd become fans via their own channels. I could of course be completely off base about this but it seems to be the unexpected theme of this fortnight, that easily identifiable tribes and subcultures don't exist any more. People stumble upon scenes that in the past they shouldn't do and mix them up in a manner of their own choosing. It would appear my genre-hopping gig going isn't at all unusual - this is the norm, and I think that's a good thing.

So I ended the night having taken a band called The Warlocks seriously. That's no small feat.

I was accompanied for GDFAF #6 by Andy and Doug from Una Corda, a Birmingham based post-rock band the members of whom have been around the local scene for a while now. As we entered the Custard Factory in Digbeth they immediately started recognising people they knew. It was like a gathering of the tribes with a good chunk of the crowd in some kind of band or other - every conversation I overheard was along the lines of "where're you playing next?" or detailed expositions on tortuous projects. This was, of course, a good sign. When the luminaries of Birmingham's experimental music and intelligent rock society descend upon a gig you know you've chosen wisely. They hadn't just come to see Melt Banana, they'd come to pay homage and to learn.

This was the first gig organised by Capsule that I'd attended. Capsule are easily the most interesting promoters in the Midlands at the moment, if not the country. Using the cushion of the Custard Factory arts complex they put numerous gigs of an experimental bent, often combining international artists with local talent, both audio and visual, to create Events rather than mere events. I've always wanted to go to one but had been put off by their relatively high prices (compared to the average small gig that is - they're actually quite reasonable for what they do) and the fact that I'd often never heard of the people they'd booked. Their emails would come through like something from a delicious alien world full of wonder and confusion and it was about time I did the right thing and attended one of them.

As for the venue, the Medicine Bar is similarly impressive and nondescript. As a bar it's quite lovely, all staircases and glass looking over the Custard Factory square with its fountain, while the actual venue is just a big room with a stage, perfect for moulding into whatever you want be it a gig, club night, art show or something indescribable. It also has the most daunting speakers I've ever seen, towering over the room like the intake vents on a jet plane. They're also shockingly well placed above head level so the sound carries and doesn't murder anyone standing in front of them.

But enough of all that. You want to hear about the bands. First up was Noise Noise Allore, a relatively new band made up of four long time members of various post-rock and metal bands but utterly different to that sort of stuff. Fronted by a short chap with a pencil mustache and white shirt and tie they evoked Devo with an element of Sparks. To a heavy speed-pop backing the singer sung in a high pitched yelpy staccato, jerking in a confused, nervous fashion punctuated by sly winks to the crowd. During the tracks he thrust the mike into the palm of his hand and held it out to the audience as if it were a dangerous thing. They were quite brilliant if very hard to describe but they're playing more gigs in the area which I certainly intend to attend.

Next was Brian Duffy and The Modified Toy Orchestra consisting of five guys in suits making strange music with, as you'd expect, modified toys. If Kraftwerk look like robots this British version look like geography teachers crossed with spivs. I couldn't get close enough to see properly but their equipment consisted of music-related toys that had either been altered to make different noises or were being fed through effects machines and a doll that had been converted into a satanic controller with small metal plungers protruding out of its head that when pressed triggered odd sounds. Duffy himself was very charismatic, which was something of a shock since I had Kraftwerk on my mind, and I found out later that the drummer (I suspect he was hitting something odd with his sticks) was Fuzz Townsend from PWEI and Bentley Rhythm Ace, which came as no fucking surprise whatsoever! Their set was very short but again they're local chaps so will no doubt be playing again and I will be there, at the front, with my camera. Musically they combined the carnivalesque blips and bloops of the toys with a dark throbbing beat that was most refreshing. I like blippy electronica a lot but combined with this undulating bass it took on something quite new and special.

So the support was from two local bands of very high quality. This is what I wanted to see. Along with Distophia on Friday and The Klopeks on Monday I'm starting to build up a nice overview of the quality end of the Birmingham scene. I knew it was there - a band like Misty's Big Adventure don't emerge from a vacuum after all - but now I can put my finger on it and unlike most scenesters I'm not one to keep such information to myself, be sure of that.

The gig was pretty much sold out, as you'd expect for a band of this caliber and reputation, and lit with dark red lights, most annoying if you want to get any decent photos. Also a lot of these guys in bands are quite tall - I mean, I'm not exactly short but I was having more trouble than usual seeing the stage. So as the Toy Orchestra cleared away I went right up to the stage and stood there refusing to budge. I'm not usually so belligerent about being at the front but I had an inkling this was going to be one of those life changing gigs and I didn't want to experience it with any visual impairment.

Melt Banana were fucking awesome.

Oh, you want more? Christ, where to begin. Well, we could start with the look, an androgynous lead singer in a scrappy hoodie that looked like it was adapted from a straightjacket, a guitarist with a protective mask duct-taped to his mouth, his hat pulled down right over his eyes, but that doesn't really help. You might be familiar with the sound they produce from John Peel's show, short speed-core metal songs with an incredibly high-pitched vocal screaming over the noise and yes, this was most impressive, especially as most speed-metal doesn't really do much for me. The relentless rhythm, with drums and bass morphing into one beast, tore through the room as the utterly insane guitar created waves upon waves of beautiful discord. Sounds that seemed like they were coming from behind me popped out like distorted lions. The suddenness of their set takes your breath away as songs kick off without warning and yet still manages to build and build.

But what really made it was their presence. While the intensity of the music that came out of them seemed extraordinary it was also perfectly reasonable. They owned this stuff in the sense that you can own the weather. God, that sounds awful, but the final song illustrates it perfectly. As the music poured out, singer Yako stood rigid at the front, moving her eyes from side to side with the beat. By this time I'd moved to the back of the room but I could have been inches away. She had the whole room completely in her power having converted her ferocious voice into a stare. It was astonishing.

GDFAF #7 took place at the Flapper and Firkin round the back of Brindley Place in town. I'm not familiar with the strategies of whoever owns the Firkin chain these days but I was under the impression that all those Fandoogle and Firkin pubs had gone the way of all faddish brands. Not this one though, probably because the name has resonance as one of the main gig venues on the Birmingham small gigs scene. Back in the 90s, before the Academy was re-opened on Dale End, this was where you came to see up and coming bands that were working their way up the hard way. It was also home to the "We Brought Our Friends" collective of experimental bands like Avrocar and Magnetephone who would put on cozy gigs where everyone sat on the floor, often including the band.

Most of the gigs were organized by Zoot who started promoting there around 1994. I saw Arab Strap for the first time at a a Zoot run Flapper gig back in 1997 or so. It's probably relevant that they'll be playing later this month at Bar Academy. It's a shame but pretty inevitable that a slightly larger venue (capacity 300 compared to the Flapper's 150) run by the Academy group would take much of the touring trade leaving Zoot with predominantly local bands, partly because the Flapper itself is really nice. A cavernous cellar with slightly sloping ceilings, it's intimate but not too claustrophobic, the perfect place to see a band like, say, Arab Strap. Birmingham had needed something like the Academy complex for years but for the Flapper it's a case of be careful what you wish for.

It's also a really nice pub upstairs with a beer garden right on the canal, should you be in the area and need to escape the awfulness of Broad Street. In fact I spent half an hour sitting by the canal, reminiscing about gigs I'd attended here (Add N To X, Ten Benson...), while waiting for the door to open tonight and very pleasant it was too. Would the gig also be pleasant, a fitting continuation of good times past? Or would it be a sonic nightmare like Saturday at the Jug? Thankfully it seems the Zoot people still have good taste and, while not particularly revolutionary, this night was pretty top all told.

We started with Listen To Johnny who came over as a good-time pub band with a soft edge and a taste for pained love songs that you might find in a film soundtrack. The beat was quite up tempo, reminding me a teeny bit of the Boo Radleys (don't ask me to specify which era) and a lot of their songs started with very familiar riffs that developed into more unique songs. On their website they describe themselves as a Britpop band inspired by Ocean Colour Scene and Oasis but as a live band I think they're selling themselves a bit short. There's the elements of some lovely singer-songwriter stuff there. In spirit that is - I'm not saying they should jettison the band who were pretty tight. As a sidenote, they had a drum solo, which was a shock. I wasn't expecting two drum solos this fortnight, especially from this band, but I won't hold it against them as I like drum solos. And oh look, they have a MySpace page.

The thing with these new band night is unless the promoters get really lucky you're going to get some aesthetic clashes, and this was such a night. After the melodious pop of Listen To Johnny we had The Superglue Queens who were metal. The lead singer played a Flying V guitar! With exhaust ports! Really, there were four metal pipes poking out of the base of his guitar that served no purpose unless it really did take off like a rocket. I'm no great guitar aficionado so maybe such things are common in the world of the Flying V but it took my breath away. The aesthetic was hair and tats and they put down a solid set of rock. For a first gig they were very tight and nicely segued the first two songs together, something I'd like to see more bands doing.

(Sidenote for new bands: when you're playing a set, taking long breaks between songs kinda ruins the flow. Everyone's getting into your music and rather than build on that you let it deflate when you stop to faff about every five minutes. Give people half an hour of constant music with minimal gaps and you'll blow them away, I promise.)

Not only have I had two drum solos in my first week of GDFAF, I've also now experienced two bands with people from Finland in them. The bassist was a Fin - apparently he heard the band's music and flew over specially to join them, which may be bullshit but it's also strangely plausible - and this guy knew exactly what was expected of him, immediately putting his foot up on the monitor and posturing like a pro. Musically they were doing nothing new but they were doing it very well and I was as impressed as can be expected.

Superglue Queens were the band that brought all their friends, which makes for an interesting evening as I often feel like I've crashed some kind of family event or party, watching the group dynamics at close range and forming utterly inaccurate and spurious opinions about them. Unfortunately, this pattern of lots of people coming to see one band makes the audience slightly uneven. When everyone's come to see the headliner you can expect a nice build towards the end of the evening when everyone goes mental. Our final act, however, didn't seem to have as many friends and so reaction to them was more muted, which was a shame as they were in my opinion the more superior band.

Killing Zoe channel the spirit of Iggy Pop through a fat man. There's not other way to say it. They are old school punk with an aggressive attitude and no messing about. While his guitarists stood like warriors beside him, one craggy punk, one statuesque rocker, the singer jerked about the stage like, well, like Iggy Pop really. In fact at the end he praised Iggy, which was a shame as I was thinking I'd been really clever and made a subtle connection when in fact it was all premeditated.

But they weren't a pastiche or homage - their music was their own, even if their songs had titles like "Licking My Pistol", and the thing about doing an Iggy is you've got to take it all the way. This guy did, stripping off, hanging from the rafters and lying flat out on the floor. I half expected someone to produce a jar of peanut butter.

But sadly they didn't have the audience they richly deserve, and I have a inkling they're not the sort of band to do that self-promotion thing (I can find no mention of them online, though that might be to do with the slightly catastrophic decision to use a film title as your band name - second sidenote to new bands - Google before committing...). I think they could be on to something here. There are too many skinny punks about the place - Killing Zoe show what happens when you stick a bit of weight behind it and it is good.

Continuing the genre dance, GDFAF #8 was Anti-Folk. What the hell is Anti-Folk, you might well be asking. At least everyone I've spoken to about this gig responded in that way. I guess it's like Alt-Country in that it's an appallingly stupid name for music done by young urban people in the style of old countryside people. You start off with "real" folk music done by genuine musicians with buckets of authenticity. This then gets watered down and blandified into something tedious which the young punks reject wholesale, but then someone stumbles upon the old recordings and realizes there's something to this whole folk thing and gives it a go, but they can't call what they're doing "folk" because folk sucks, so they call it anti-folk and eventually everyone gets used to it, the young punks get older and everything goes full circle. Oh, the wacky world of neologisms. What can you do...

So it was back to the Jug for the third time this fortnight so far. The first two were local band nights with sparse crowds mainly made up of friends of the groups but this was different, two bands from the States playing as part of their UK tour and the gig was pretty much sold out. The venue room at the Jug is relatively thin so if you actually want to see anything you've got to be near the front. Thankfully I'd come armed with a bunch of mates and, given the fears of a sell out, we'd got there nice and early so were able to secure a good pitch. There were also some of those lovely people who insist of sitting down at gigs and while this isn't the most efficient use of floor space it does mean more people can get a good view lending a slightly bohemian atmosphere to the occasion.

First up were Schwervon, a girlfriend-boyfriend duo with Major Matt Mason on guitar with Nan Turner on drums and both of them singing. Yes, "White Stripes", but ignore that shit. They looked strikingly normal, which seems a little odd as a lot of the bands I've been seeing have looked like they just walked off the street and picked up some instruments (occasionally they sounded like that too) but there was something refreshingly unpretentious about Schwervon. They could quite easily be your mates, which isn't to say they didn't have their quirks. Mason didn't shuffle so much as very carefully move around the stage as if he might break something or (as chum Jez put it) had once had a really bad altercation with a guitar lead and didn't want to repeat the experience, but still managed understated flourishes - at one stage he gently bent one leg behind him to emphasize a particularly notable riff which had the same effect as if he'd started swinging from the speaker stacks.

Their music was a very loud variation on the guitar/percussion thing with both of them taking lead vocals with the occasional conversational duet. Mason's vocal style had that slightly nasal wine similar in some ways to Stephen Malkmus while Turner's took me a long time to pin down, quite powerful with an attractive crack, it reminded me vaguely of Kim Deal or Kristen Hersh, but those are kludgy comparisons. Another stupid thing to say would be that most of their songs started off like Roadrunner by The Modern Lovers, but it did cross my mind a couple of times. Above all they had their own thing going on and it was good, if a little subdued compared to what followed. (mp3 clips here)

This was the third time I'd seen Jeffrey Lewis play at the Jug (reports here and here) and the sixth time he'd played there and he's certainly built up a large following in that time. As I said, the room was packed to the gills and pretty much everyone knew his stuff inside out, which always surprises me, partly because I have this irrational sense that Lewis is mine and nobody else knows about him (patent nonsense of course but I'm sure you've had this feeling about a band) but also because, outside of his gigs, I never seem to hear anything about him, online or off. I wouldn't be surprised if his success is purely down to word of mouth and that everyone at that gig can trace their being there back to someone who was at one of the earlier gigs (if you get me).

If you're not familiar with Jeffrey Lewis he has two modes, quiet solo songs of maudlin but good humoured self depreciation and loud full-on punk rock. This was more of a punk gig since he was with his full band - his equally talented brother Jack and their drummer David Beauchamp - playing a mix of new songs and old favourites. What really struck me was how tight they've become over the years, developing a real stage persona, and there was much less chatting than I'd expected - just a solid plough through the tunes. Of note was the live performance of "The History of Punk on New York's Lower East Side 1950-1975", a nine minute lecture in rhyme with snippets of the songs discussed pastiched by the band until "the whole thing moves over to England, England steals all the credit, that's how it goes". He also did a couple of his live videos, standing on a table and turning the pages of his sketch book as he sung. These are always a highlight and I'm delighted to say the "History of Communism", a work in progress that gets longer with each tour, has reached the Russian Revolution. In fact it now spans two books and threatens to eventually take over the whole set.

Lewis kept having to tune his incredibly beaten up guitar between songs and apologised, explaining that it was about to fall apart. Completely covered in stickers the front was peeling off, held on by many strips of duct tape. As it peeled the strings slacked so he had to tighten them which made it peel even more. He'd considered borrowing a different guitar but decided it would be cool to see if it exploded in the middle of set, but it didn't. Maybe the audience at one of the other gigs will have that pleasure.

This was a slightly different gig in the GDFAF scheme of things as I was not really discovering anything new. Schwervon, being from the same New York scene as Lewis, slotted in nicely and I just sat back and enjoyed myself with all the other fans. The gig was a success, playing right to the end without an encore (which is always tricky - the audience have got more music for their buck but they still feel a bit cheated when the band don't do that going off and coming back on again thing) and everyone went away very happy.

For GDFAF #9 I was sailing blind. Wanting to cover as many small gig venues as possible I phoned up the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath to see if they had a band on on Saturday. Yes, the bloke replied. Do you know who it is? No. But it's definitely open to the public and involves a band playing music? Yes. Okay then. So I bimbled along on my bike with absolutely no idea what to expect. This was how it should be - no research, no going for the safe option - just putting my fate in the laps of the gods of rock and taking whatever they dealt me. And boy did they deal me a doozy. The lurid pink poster on the way in promised the Dave Kusworth Group and looked kinda dodgy but I wasn't going to make any judgments since in this post ironic age you never know which way it's going to swing. In fact I put the notion of Dave Kusworth, about whom I knew nothing, completely out of my mind. It's a gig, that's all I need to know.

The Hare and Hounds, a grand old pub built in 1907 (and grade 2 listed), is possibly one of the oldest venues in Birmingham for live music, at at least it has that feel to it. When I mentioned I was thinking of going there I was informed it was a "fighting men's pub" which struck me as a little odd but then I'd only ever been there once before back in 1998 so what did I know. But a pub with a reputation like that is usually a perfectly safe place to go, I find, as all the wankers keep away lest they get twatted. The unspoken threat of violence keeps everything in order and no-one ever starts anything. Since I got there half an hour early I was able to check out the bar and yes, it was that kind of pub so I immediately felt very much at home.

Upstairs, then, to the venue where an older lady in a hat took my three pounds and stamped my hand. Being first in the room was still pretty empty so I sat down and took in the place. It's a bit like a school hall, quite large for a pub with a dance floor by the stage and tables laid out like a mess hall towards the bar. Unlike most venues the stage is a proper stage - a decent size and a good two feet off the ground - and the place hadn't changed a bit in the seven years since I was last there. Okay, maybe a spot of paint but the 7 inch records behind the bar were the same. There was a mirror ball which was turned on before the gig and I liked this a lot. As cigarette smoke rose it created shards of light through the air - if smoking is banned at venues the magic of the mirror ball will be somewhat diminished. Of note was a "headless" motif with two cardboard skeletons on the walls and a mannequin sitting atop the speakers, all decapitated. Very odd. I think it's probably the best venue I've been to so far in terms of potential. You could put pretty much anything on here and it would work.

As the crowd filtered in I was struck by the ages of them. Half were grown-ups. Like, real grown-ups, meaning they were at least 20 years older than my 33 years, most of them looking all respectable with a smattering looking like they never really got over whatever subculture they were in during their teens (or had dressed up special for the evening). This, presumably, was Kusworth's fan base. But who were these kids who made up the other half? And when I say kids I don't just mean anyone younger than me. I mean people too young to drink legally. There were loads of them, mingling around the dance floor like playground butterflies. Some of the adults were parents of the kids which was kinda weird and I was wondering if I'd stumbled on some kind of party. Turns out it was a lot simpler than that.

The support were All My Souls, a punky five piece who must have been local lads as suddenly all the kids rushed forward and danced like crazy. At one stage they carried one of their members aloft as they moshed like fools, having a tremendous time. As I was searching for the band to compare them to so as to give you, the reader, a broad idea of what they were like the only thing that popped into my head was the Sex Pistols, or at least late 70's DIY punk, and it was the audience that really brought this home. Here was a really really local scene of about 50 kids with their own band (who, I should add, were in their 20s). Yes, there are lots of gigs where the band brings along all their mates but this seemed different and somehow purer. While perfectly competent and in places very good they were not reaching for anything more than playing solid music to people they care about. It was quite refreshing.

And then, Dave Kusworth. Some keywords: tall, skinny, hair, headband, craggy face, scarf, hair, leopardskin-style shirt, tight jeans with laces up the sides, hair... Oh. My. God. He's a 100% genuine member of the Keith Richards school of Rock. Just looking at him on stage you knew there were stories, hundreds of stories, lying beneath that headband. This guy had obviously spent many years on the rock'n'roll rollercoaster and here he was in the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath. His band consisted of a bassist and drummer of about the same age, both of whom kept their hats on during the show. I don't know why I mention this but it seems important.

After a slightly shambolic start with much rock posturing to the crowd, the music developed into some pretty catchy R&B but the kids, who had started off attentively watching this old guy who'd let their band play, soon drifted off into the other room leaving about 10 people standing with another 30 or so sitting at the back. I took a load of photos, listened for a bit and contemplated leaving. I'd seen enough and this wasn't really working for me, plus I fancied getting home before my flatmates went to bed for a change. But rules are rules. I had to see it through to the end.

And thank god I did! During his first song this guy, who looked like a drunk nutter, had got up and sung along with Kusworth for a minute or so. As the last song picked up - a kinda punky number - this guy lept on stage taking Kusworth by surprise, grabbed the mic and started screaming along to the music: "No fun! No fun!" He stripped off his shirt and waved it around, demolishing the mic stand. The band carried on as this monster went mental and I sat there gobsmacked at the glory of it all. This was really good stuff! The drunk spilled his beer over the stage as he danced and managed to disconnect the mic in his frenzy, but the music found it's tightness and the kids suddenly streamed back in, marveling at this wonder. With all seriousness I would love to see this guy front the Dave Kusworth Group for a full gig. Honestly, those five minutes were one of the best moments of the fortnight.

When I got home Andy and Alex were still up and I regaled them with my story. Andy vaguely recognised the name and popped on t'internet to check. Turns out Kusworth, a Moseley native, was one of rock's nearly men having been involved in the formative stages of Duran Duran and Dogs D'Amore amongst others. His online biography is a chronicle of periphery but proves that he never stopped believing in what he did. This gig tonight, for those who remembered those days with nostalgia, doubled up as a showcase for a band that probably had the same spirit Kusworth did in the late 70s, who thanked him at the end of their set for letting them play.

Characters like Dave Kusworth are easy targets to take the piss out of but I've come away with an incredible sense of respect for the man and I know for certain I'll never forget that gig as long as I live.

GDFAF #11 was back to Bar Academy where I feel like I'm spending rather a lot of time this fortnight even though this is only the third visit. Read into that what you will. It's kinda interesting going to the same venue to see different acts. In some ways the room does have an effect on the experience but on the whole it's the band and their audience which make the place their own. This time, however, the room was laid out slightly differently, with tables and stools scattered around the place evoking some sort of sparsely furnished late night lounge bar. Combined with the headliners being some kind of jazz-fusion thing this looked like being a kind of chilled evening. Not so.

Oh yeah, more adventures on the being-searched-at-Bar-Academy front. Last time I was there my camera was passed apparently because it was digital. This time the (very friendly, it must be said) bouncer wanted to know if it had a flash. Yes, but I don't use it, I said in a manner that implied "like I'm the sort of foolish amateur that would use a flash." I used to use flash at gigs until it was pointed out to me that bands find this sort of thing fucking irritating, so I stopped, relying on a steady hand, long exposure and loads of shots (about 150 per gig) which I think makes for better photos. But I digress.

The support were Breezer, a local band of some quality who blew away any preconceptions about the evening being laid back with some robust pop-rock. On the face of it this was pretty standard stuff - four guys, three guitars, melodic vocals to a solid 4/4 beat - but either through skill or perseverance they've managed to add something onto this formula, little flourishes that didn't get in the way, raising them above the bar while still keeping them very accessible. Unlike some bands they know what their guitars are for and use them well with moments of subtle genius amongst the noise. They were very tight, rattling through their songs with no faffing even with a broken string and toppled mic stand. I should be finding this sort of thing rather tiresome by now but I came away impressed. Nice one.

Acoustic Ladyland were our headliners and like many of the higher priced shows I've been to they had a small but loyal following. As they were setting up people started staking out their pitches near the stage to the extent that I became worried about getting a good view for photos and wound up sitting right at the front leaning against a speaker. Just before they started I spotted the band drawing on the condensation in the window behind the stage, as bands often do, and was surprised to see the drummer writing the most delicate words with his drumstick. This artistry followed through to his playing, making him the best drummer I've seen at a gig. The complexity of his playing was stunning, dipping in and out of double and tripple time, and seemingly effortless as he gazed off to one side.

This extreme level of musicianship was born out across the group. It's so rare to see a bass guitar being used for more that providing a steady rhythm and this guy produced sounds I didn't think a bass could make. Meanwhile the keyboardist veered between virtuoso jazz piano and pounding noise terror with ease. And then up front was the saxophonist, the epitome of craggy rock cool with a gloriously dull sax that had obviously been with him for a long time. The sax screamed the role of vocalist with ease and added so much more.

After a couple of tunes the folk sitting at the front were motioned to stand, which they did, and it all kicked off with limbs flailing as people tried to keep up with the changing time signatures and gave up, just letting the music drive them. My plans for taking photos were ruined as I found myself enveloped in hyperactivity with a wall of people behind me, but it didn't matter. This shit was good. The sax lends some obvious comparisons to Morphine but I found myself thinking this was what jazz was supposed to sound like - aggressive, experimental and above all exciting. It helps that Acoustic Ladyland pay homage to the New York punk scene, something which is further enhanced by this not being at all apparent in their music. A tune was announced as a tribute to a composer I didn't know (and can't remember) and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but there was nothing blatantly "punk" about it - they just channeled something and made it their own.

Interesting to note that, unless I'm forgetting someone, this was the first band I've seen that had no singer. The whole set was instrumental, and yet they felt more intimate than many of the bands I've seen. The technical musicianship could so easily have made them aloof while the desire to tear it down and rock out could have resulted in a shambles, but they trod that delicate line with confidence and passion. Wonderful stuff.

GDFAF #12 was at the Barfly again on what can only be described as an arsingly cold night. I mention this because most venues tend to be somewhat on the warm side and I've noticed a few American acts commenting on this, as if venues in the States have radical things like air conditioning. The problem for most Birmingham spaces is they tend to be in residential-ish areas and we have laws against people enjoying themselves at high volume (which on the whole I tend to agree with) so the doors and windows have to remain tightly shut. And they don't have air conditioning. Stick a couple of hundred excited people in there and the ceilings will sweat. The Barfly, on the other hand, is in Digbeth and to the best of my knowledge there ain't anyone living there so they can leave the door open. Since the venue is essentially a huge basement said door is near the ceiling and all the heat just rushes straight out. This is terrific on a club night (I remember seeing steam pouring out of that door like a boiling kettle one night) but at a relatively sparsely attended gig it's rather strange to find yourself dancing in your coat. Must be lovely in the summer though.

Like I said, not a huge turnout for tonight, although this might be more to do with the venue as it is a huge room and there were a good hundred or so people in there by my reckoning. No problems getting in - the bouncers just waved me through with no bag check leading me to suspect my face has been spread around the bouncer network as a non-threat. Either that or I'm starting to give off regular gig-going vibes. Possible tip for people going to the Barfly - when you're asked which band you're coming to see say the one at the bottom of the bill and you might get in cheaper. I was meaning to test this only my mind went blank (too many band names whizzing around my head at the moment - I haven't got a clue who I'm going to see) but give it a go. I'm pretty sure it'll knock a good 50% off your entry.

On to the bands then. First up was Paisley Riot, the local band supporting the headliners and their touring support. It's here that I wonder if I'm getting jaded when it comes to guitar bands from the Midlands as while they were very good I find I have nothing really to say about them. They were tight and their hat wearing singer had a nice intensity to him but there was nothing to really make me sit up and take notice. But don't read too much into my appraisal. I think I'm starting to recognise vocal tics amongst the Brummie / Black Country bands, not in their speech but in their singing which implies I'm getting a little too familiar with the scene. Can't put my finger on it exactly though. Oh, and this doesn't just apply to Paisley Riot by any means but bands, when announcing your name and especially when you're saying your web site address, please speak clearly! I was starting to think this was impossible but Breezer managed to lodge both in my mind last night so it can be done.

Next up were The Rumble Strips and I'm going to stick my neck out here. Of all the bands I've seen I think these guys could actually break out and be huge. Firstly they have a look that is unique but quite nostalgic, evoking scruffy 80s bands in a kind of new wave drab way. Secondly their music is a nice mix of styles bringing in keyboards, guitar, saxophone and trumpet in a very enjoyable, dancey way with some key anthemic moments. But most of all the lead singer is a revelation.

He stands there with his drab grey coat and scarf hanging off his sloping shoulders, his hair tussled at the back like he's just got out of bed and his small guitar seemingly rescued from a charity shop. His huge eyes stare into the room with a permanent squint and he looks both angry and resigned. And yet when he opens his mouth it's astounding. My immediate reaction was Specials era Terry Hall, but that's probably the brass pushing that out. There was something else I can't quite pin down (Billy Bragg maybe?) but the greatest revelation was this guy can actually sing! I don't just mean he was in tune - his voice had a power that was not assisted by the amps, nor was it mere volume. There was a controlled strength and range that you so seldom see at gigs, his singing primal and raw yet quite quite beautiful.

Backing up this incredible voice was some very competent musicianship that while not afraid to blast it out also knew the value of less. The trumpet and sax players smoothly alternated with keyboard and bass guitar respectively giving them the range of a larger band and the music flew between up-tempo beats and emotional climaxes with ease. They've got the whole package and from what I can tell it's genuine. I really hope to hear more from this band in the next year.

The only downside was a noticeable level of audience chat during their set, to which I can only say shut the fuck up you wankers and recognise genius when you see it.

The headliners, The Young Knives had to compete with this for my affections and all credit to them but they didn't quite make it. Actually that's unfair. They were very enjoyable and much better than the audio clips on their site imply. This was mostly to do with their stage banter which pretty much consisted of looking like embarrassing parents and subverting it, playing shouty heavy punk and being quite rude and funny in between. I enjoyed the show a lot - and big joke humour is a tough thing for bands to pull off - but, and this is the big one, after each song I couldn't for the life of me remember what it sounded like. This was worrying me somewhat as I knew I was going to have to write about them but, nope, nothing stuck. What on earth had a just been bouncing up and down to then? All very odd.

GDFAF #13 was at the Flapper and Firkin for the same new local bands evening as last Thursday. There are at least three tiers of bands on the small gigs circuit. First are the bands on national tours who probably have an album or two out or at least a good following. Next are the local bands who have proven themselves over the years as able to hold their own either headlining or as a solid support for the tourers. And then a the bottom are the "baby bands", recently formed (frequently from the ashes of other bands) with a set's worth of songs and a desire to get up there and see if it works. Nights like this at the Flapper (as well as the Jug and Bar Academy) are where they do it, playing for at best a share of the door if they're lucky. The venues and promotors know that they'll bring their friends who will pay to get in and buy beer which makes it cost effective, the bands get to hone their live performance and network with other bands (thus sustaining the scene) and occasionally, just occasionally, genius will be revealed.

I was running a bit late tonight having slept in 'til 7.30 so had the strange experience of standing at the bar with a pint of cheap bitter half an hour after breakfast, but such is the life of the serial gig reviewer. Thankfully the night was also running a bit late so I didn't miss anything, though this wasn't to prove fortuitous for the final act as we shall see.

An Untitled Musical Project were our first act and before I go any further that is a possibly the best name ever. Even if it gets tiresome (which I can't imagine it ever doing) it can be abbreviated Carter-style to UMP which is possibly even better. And thankfully they lived up to their nomenclature being unassuming nerds who play fast shouty punk, shouty in that controlled machine-gun vocal style that reminded me of Big Back era Steve Albini (the track Bad Penny to be specific where he goes "I dunno what a liar I am...") and be aware that I wouldn't invoke the Albini lightly. There was also something else more British in there but unfortunately the Big Black thing kinda took over my mind. Musically they were very intense, especially the guitarist-singer (the bass player also sang) who's face was positively elastic and eyes the poppiest I've seen for a while. But inbetween the songs (which had titles like "Why Isn't Paul McCartney Dead Already?") they showed their humility as if they were surprised at the noise they'd been creating let alone that anyone was actually listening. They'd been having issues with their guitar apparently (though this didn't affect the performance) and at the end this was ceremoniously tossed across the stage, an act that can seem contrived but felt genuine here, producing a wail of feedback that was oddly segued into the Flaming Lips "In The Morning Of The Magicians" by the sound engineer. As you can tell I liked UMP a lot. They're doing their own brand of loopy punk seemingly in a bubble with no obvious pretensions to greatness, which means they might actually succeed. One, as they say, to watch.

As with last week this was an evening of contrasts. Earlier on I'd heard one of the bar staff warn her bar staffing colleagues that one of the bands were under age so to check for ID. The Twang (another top name, as it happens) appeared to be that band as a bunch of agitated kids scuttled around the side of the stage. As they came on two of them stood at the front with mics but no instruments. Uh oh, we could be in for some rap here, which would be a first and made me think that in two weeks of semi-random gig going I've oddly seen nothing of the Urban genre. Behind these chaps was the usual guitar/bass/drums setup and they kicked into a song which I assume was called "Push It", partly from the lyrics but also because they musically riffed into the Salt'n'Pepper song of the same name and got away with it. The band settled into a sound that was very reminiscent of U2, though not in a particularly bad way, giving a solid backing for the main singer to do his stuff.

This guy was a cross between Mike Skinner and Shaun Ryder, a skinny, intense chav with an aggression that threatened to spill out of his songs and into real life. The songs were Streets-style heartfelt paeans to the unfairness of modern life but his delivery of them was superb, stomping around the stage givin' it all dat with his arms. After seeing so many bands who just stand there playing song after song this was most refreshing, especially his foul mouthed banter with the audience. I started creating a (probably inaccurate) story in my head of this young kid who'd been hanging out the gig scene for a few years making trouble while gathering together a bunch of mates to form a band just so he could get up there and lovingly insult everyone who'd been telling him to put his money where his dirty mouth was. They were having a great time but musically they were very together and I came away impressed.

Sadly the evening ended on a low note, one played on a broken piano in a damp basement. Astilla had turned up late and hadn't been able to sound check plus they were having "equipment issues". After an extended set-up they suddenly launched into the usual noisy metal which would have been okay except they were pretty much playing to themselves. Yes, the room was emptying (partly because most people appears to have come to see The Twang) but they really were playing to themselves, all turned in towards the drummer creating a huddle. The thing about this sort of basic metal is if you're going to make it work you've got to engage the crowd. It's the foundation from which you project your attitude and if you ain't projecting...

They weren't too bad to begin with but it all started falling apart (literally with the drums) into a shambolic mess and by the end I was starting to feel a little sorry for them, to have gone through the stress of actually getting here for naught. Some bands are shit but have no idea - these guys were fully aware of how badly this was going and presumably they could do much better. As everything ground to a halt the lead singer finally addressed the nearly empty room: "what a shit gig" he confessed. Yeah, a third of it was. Shame about that.

GDFAF #14, the last in this series of sequential gig going, was at the Actress and Bishop in Birmingham's Jewelry Quarter. This was my first visit and it's quite a nice little venue. Above what appears to be a standard biggish city centre pub (I didn't dawdle) is a small (but not too small) room with a stage slapped in the middle. To the right of the stage is a cluster of sofas with a row of high tables and stools in front of the performers meaning you don't get that awkward chasm of floor when people don't want to move forwards. It's very cosy with a somewhat random assortment of occasional lamps, if a little disorienting when you first come in from the cold and are thrust into the throng, but I liked it a lot. It's probably the closest I've come to going to a gig in someone's living room.

This was another Unsigned Band Night but it felt different to those held at the Jug, Flapper and Bar Academy because this venue could really only put on unsigned bands. Given the space and the amount of furniture the capacity was probably no more than 100 if that and even though it wasn't packed tonight it still felt busy and alive. Transplant this gig to Bar Academy and it would have felt empty and dead. That's not to say this is a lesser venue - the sound was good and the atmosphere no less professional - but the "club house" feel of the place made it perfect for this type of event. As for the crowd, and bearing in mind how woefully inaccurate these assumptions are, it seems a little more hipster-ish than at the other venues. Maybe the cosy nature (and low lights) of the place was bringing out the best in them but people of both genders seemed prettier, and not in an "oh look it's the fucking beautiful people" way either. Of course I'm feeling somewhat stale after 13 gigs so maybe it was relative, who knows. Anyway, on to the bands.

First up were Strange Time who are what is known in the trade as a "baby band" - relatively freshly formed and finding their feet. They were also the first local band I'd seen all fortnight with women taking the fore (they had a male drummer) which was notable. The Birmingham scene does tend to be very bloke dominated and while I'm sure most other cities are the same this does strike me as a shame. But back to StrangeTime and I immediately found myself thinking of PJ Harvey and Elastica, followed by my thinking how fucking predictable of me that was, but then most new bands are aping someone as they find their own voice so it's probably fair. The vocals did have that angry PJ feel to them without slipping into moaning for the sake of it and there was a real strength to the whole band with a steady beat rumbling under the slowing songs. My only criticisms would be a lack of movement on stage and that the set, while very competent, didn't build and seemed to me to keep the same level throughout. But otherwise very promising.

I got over comparing StrangeTime to PJ Harvey as soon as the next band, The International Karate Plus kicked off as they sounded exactly like Dinosaur Jr. And that, in my book, is no bad thing. They produced a controlled cacophony of noise but held it together very tightly with some interesting flourishes along the way. I was particularly taken by how all three of them sung including the drummer who made a valiant attempt to play with his sunglasses on. Apparently they're from Cardiff and a flyer shoved at me showed a pretty extensive national tour had occurred over the summer which would explain the good stage presence they've honed, though it did make me wonder about the economics of traveling to a gig like this. Maybe they were already in the area, who knows. Overall they were good, very competent and enjoyable to watch, and I liked the sounds they made.

Our third, and for me very final, act were I Am Zeitgeist who I suspect were a little drunk. Not that it affected their playing at all but they seemed to be having a little bit too much fun up there. I was most taken when the non-singing guitarist played a series of high pitched notes at the beginning of the first song that sounded like a Nintendo game and there were a few interesting moments like this scattered around the set. Even though there was a distinct touch of the Oasis about the vocals (often a kiss of death for me) I won't hold it against them too much. They brought it a whole gamut of influences to a pretty funky beat and some nice melodies and at the end trashed their equipment in the most delicate manner I've seen, except for the drummer who went for the big kick and scatter.

And it was all over. Fourteen gigs in fourteen fifteen days. Blimey.

I should, all things being equal, have recovered enough to start going to gigs again in December and have a few mapped out.

Dec 6th is the A Different Kettle of Fish night at the Flapper with a bunch of bands I'm not familiar with. It's organised by Phil of Danger High Postage and should be fun. £3.00 in.

Dec 10th is Noise Noise Allore! at the Hare and Hounds. I saw them supporting Melt Banana and liked them a lot so this is a no-brainer really.

Dec 21st is the Capsule Xmas gig with Pelican, Mistress and Una Corda at the Medicine Bar. Flatmate Andy Zoop is in Una Corda and I still haven't seen them play so again, a no brainer, but Pelican are apparently the premier post-rock band around at the moment so should be good. £5.00 in.

Dec 23rd is Misty's Big Adventure at the Jug, the final gig in their Xmas tour which should be stormingly good fun.

All this is assuming my employment doesn't wind up as insane as last year of course...

Brain still not working properly but here's some thinking. Actually, it's more an expression of the fecking obvious but nice to see.

Some research into p2p file sharing indicated that sales are depressed for top selling artists while niche artists benefit.

Which explains why the record industry is so rabid about file sharing. What strikes me is that the system whereby a small number of musicians are incredibly successful while the majority can't pay the bills is unnatural. Back in yee olden days each town would have its musicians and performers who would be famous only in their area. With the advent of travel and recording (audio and print) you start getting stars who can cover a much wider area but only a few can succeed. And so on.

But what we're finding now is a return of sorts to that earlier age only it's not defined by geography any more. A real level playing field is emerging where the superstar artists have to compete with the unknowns on ability alone, which, for some of them, must be kinda scary. Bring it on I say.

Popped down to the Flapper last night to take some photos of An Untitled Musical Project (GDFAF report) with their blessing in return for free entry and a pint of beer, my going rate at the moment. Didn't stay for the whole gig but I did have a nice chat with drummer James and inevitably we got talking about MySpace which was apparently responsible for everything they've achieved of late, from gigs to getting a manager. What was interesting was it required no effort from them on the networking front. They just uploaded the songs, filled in the info and kept the gig listings updated - everything else just happened. Which sounds a little too good to be true for a band that's only been around for 9 months or so but the proof is there.

Despite a tiny crowd they were still tight and highly enjoyable, which was nice as I couldn't remember exactly what it was I'd heard before with all 14 gigs merging in my mind, so go check them out when they're next playing. And they only live around the corner from me which means I can deliver the photos bike-courier style. Magic.

All my UMP photos.

I linked to The Metasciences yesterday because I like their music - kinda quirky anti-folk which reminds me of Jeffrey Lewis' solo work and the stuff my mate Steve Ball has been recording in our living room (more on this later...) - but how they bubbled up into my consciousness is, I think, interesting.

Warren Ellis runs a podcast called The Apparat Programme comprised of mp3s sent to him by unsigned bands which he edits (with no speech) into a half hour show. Feedback implied that a lot of people though the Metasciences were the standout act so he gave them a plug which I took him up on.

This is interesting because of the combination of randomness and curatorship along with Warren's uncanny feel for how the internet works. On the one side you've got this chaotic mass of music out there with no easy way to navigate through it without some serious commitment and on the other side you've got people who recommend stuff based on their own point of view and singular experience. Neither of these are optimal, the former being too wide and the latter being far to subjective. To put it another way, if you're listening to music chosen by Joe Muso as part of the Joe Muso experience then that's great, but if you don't really care for Joe or 90% of the music he recommends then you need to do some filtering, and if you can't be bothered then you're going to miss out on that 10%.

What we have here is a middle ground. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, Warren isn't wholeheartedly recommending all the music in the Apparat Programme, merely filtering out the dross and leaving in stuff that has a certain spark. A kind of "not shit" criteria if you like, acting as a primary filter which will lead to other things. He then notices chatter about one of the bands (which he might not even have paid too much attention to when putting the show together) and gives them a blog entry with all the weight of his endorsement that implies, allowing those who can't be bothered with the podcast itself (I've got about five of them sitting there unlistened at the moment) to cut right to the good stuff.

Certainly, this kind of swarming recommendation is nothing new - the del.icio.us popular aggregator works along these lines - but it's the human hand involved that interests me. Maybe it's nothing special and goes on all the time, but there's something about Warren throwing a load of music at his readers and getting them to sort through it swarm-style that appeals.

I'm now wondering if something like this for Birmingham unsigned bands would work, but in the meantime go to The Metasciences MySpace page, scroll down a bit, and download their album. It's very good.

The campaign to turn our good friend Steve into a global star begins.

Pretty skeletal at the moment but there are a couple of new songs you won't have heard before and they're all available to download. It's all very exciting!

(Birmingham bands are in bold)

GDFAF #1
Man In Fridge - Overplay
GDFAF #2
The Tates
The Bleak - Overplay - MySpace
GDFAF #3
Distophia - MySpace
Polysics - MySpace
GDFAF #4
A Day Called Desire - Purevolume - MySpace
The Klopeks - MySpace
Voodoo Glow Skulls - MySpace
GDFAF #5
Dead Combo
The Warlocks - MySpace
GDFAF #6
Modified Toy Orchestra
GDFAF #7
Listen To Johnny - MySpace
Killin Zoe - MySpace
GDFAF #8
Schwervon - MySpace
Jeffrey Lewis - MySpace
GDFAF #9
Dave Kusworth
GDFAF #11
Breezer
Acoustic Ladyland
GDFAF #12
Paisley Riot - MySpace
The Rumble Strips - MySpace
The Young Knives - MySpace
GDFAF #13
An Untitled Musical Project - MySpace
Astilla - MySpace
GDFAF #14
StrangeTime - Purevolume
The International Karate Plus - Karma Download - MySpace
I Am Zeitgeist - MySpace

Other Birmingham bands I've stumbled across:

Against the Wheel - MySpace.
Sabotage Left - MySpace.
Fidget - MySpace.
Una Corda - MySpace.
Steve Ball - MySpace.

Any more? Leave links in the comments.

Saturday night was at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath for my first proper gig since the GDFAF fortnight featuring a roster of bands of the Gringo Records stable from around the country plus one from Birmingham. Our genre for this evening was uncertain but veered towards the intelligent loud rock end of the spectrum. In fact I learned a new genre this evening: math-rock, being music that consists of rapidly changing time signatures and patterns yet remains heavy, the meeting point between jazz and guitar-based rawk, if you like. This wasn't an exclusively math-rock event but there were plenty of blokes in glasses in the audience, and I was one of them.

Actual music and performances aside, this gig exemplified the music scene's utter inability to deal with the concept of time. The flyer said 7.30, the poster on the door said 8.00 and the doors actually opened at 8.30 with the first band starting nearer to nine. We had four bands to get through before closing time (no late licenses here) so this was going to be tight...

First up were Soeza from Bristol who immediately intrigued by having two drum kits along with french horn and euphonium (yes, I had to look that up...). Their music was a smooth flowing thing with a complicated undercurrent bringing to mind Broadcast a little bit, though somewhat heavier. And with two drummers. I wasn't entirely sold on them but this was probably because they were a little ramshackle performance-wise with a couple of false starts and technical issues (due to the late running sound check perhaps?), but others in my posse were highly impressed, and I have to admit that quibbles aside they were doing interesting things. Having the brass player sing into the bell of his euphonium with a mic dangling inside was utterly inspired for example and I'd certainly see them again.

Next were Lords, a three-piece from Nottingham/Leeds/Derby who impressed no end by having the drummer at the front of the stage with the singer/guitarists on either side. This turned out not to be some novelty thing but utterly essential as this guy really was the leader of the band, playing the most skillful and complicated drumming I've seen (with the possible exception of Acoustic Ladyland), managing to maintain the role of rhythm section but with the personality and uniqueness you'd normally expect of a singer or guitarist. He also had the cheekiest monkey-grin face, possibly an inconsequential feature but it added a lot to my appreciation of them. Meanwhile their music was incredibly loud. It started loud and got louder and eventually the whole room was filled with sound of such volume that it became a physical force. At one stage it seemed to overwhelm my senses and break though some kind of barrier, like the roar of a jet engine that suddenly goes quiet before it booms. But this wasn't an uncontrolled noise - there was a delicate beauty to it which exemplified what this whole math/post/intelligent/whatever-rock is all about. If "normal" rock is a scud missile and orchestral music is a majestic ocean liner, this is the space shuttle.

Our third act were Bilge Pump from Leeds and with a name like that they had a lot to live up to because it is unquestionably a very nice name. And yes, they were good, but something didn't quite click for me. Unfortunately I wasn't taking notes and can't quite remember what it was, but suffice to say they didn't blow me away. Which isn't really a criticism and they did put on a good solid set. On the superficial side the bass player had a very nice red shirt and the drummer a most impressive Ramones-style haircut - these things matter to me in the world of gig going for some reason. Overall I'd see them again I reckon and I wonder, if they'd had a less interesting name, would I have been so hard on them?

And then to our Birmingham based headliners, Noise Noise Allore!, previously seen at the Melt Banana gig a month ago. This was the band I'd really come to see and at twenty to eleven it was touch and go as to how much we were going to experience. But to be honest, while more would have been great, less was more than sufficient. This is the sort of band that so easily could be terrible, but thanks to a combination of musicianship and audacity they pull it off with aplomb. Lead singer Biff set up his little Moog and promptly vanished as the rest of the band got ready, returning at the start of the set dressed in pale-blue tight shorts and a figure hugging white cotton shirt with tie. Combined with the pencil mustache he looked like a seedy games teacher or parody of a 1940s army fitness instructor. In the context of a generally blokey rock environment seeing this character on stage is very odd indeed. It fits, but it's coming at such a strange angle that you can quite place why it fits.

And then they start playing, and it's all quite wonderful. Mainly this is due to the other three members of the band being very accomplished musicians who appear to be using the oddness of Biff to really push the boundaries of their skills, bouncing around a staccato rock that threatens to fall into freeform jazz but never does. Meanwhile, at the front, Biff is stealing the show so all credit to the others for letting him do this. His vocal style is high-pitched yelping like a demented castrato (though thanks to the shorts we knew this wasn't the cause) or a speed-fueled tellytubby punctuated by what can only be described as spastic dancing as he throws his body around the stage and moments of jogging on the spot. Contrasted with his normal banter between songs this is all quite shocking stuff, and when you think about it, quite close to the bone. We knew it was all an act but parallels to the mentally handicapped were certainly there. I don't think this is a problem but it illustrates the power of making your audience feel ever so slightly uncomfortable about enjoying themselves so much.

And enjoy it I did. I found myself at the side of the stage torn between needing to take as many photos of this spectacle as possible (196 as it happens - the pick of them are here) and to just stare, mouth agape, at the glory of it all. At the Melt Banana gig I'd been at the back of the room, here I was a few feet away. It was astonishing. What's odd is that, despite being in existence for about a year, they don't have anything recorded and no internet presence. Apparently (and this is just word of mouth) they all have commitments to other bands and this is just an experimental side project that isn't really supposed to go anywhere, but I think it could go far. Musically and theatrically the whole package is there and it'll be something of a crying shame if more people don't get to experience it.

And then, the final song having been played with the house lights up, we dashed off with our ears ringing to catch the last bus home. Sure, I was tired after a day at the car park with three hours sleep the night before, but I was having trouble processing exactly what I'd seen. As my flatmates enthusiastically discussed the evening, bringing in references and pinpointing key moments, I realised I was a mere dilettante in this world. I can enjoy it and appreciate the glorious complication of the musicianship but I can't open the case and understand the inner workings. All I know is that it is excellent stuff, and at £4.00 in, incredibly good value.

The next gig along these lines is also at the Hare and Hounds. Moff Fest, on Saturday December 17th, allegedly starts at 7.00pm which it better do as there are five bands on the line-up - Una Corda, Burnst, Mothertrucker, The Hubble Constant and Cornish Tin Miners. Four of them are local and the second and fifth are described on the flyer as "math-rock", more info is here and the whole thing costs £3.00, which is slightly absurd really.

Saturday and I'm back at the Hare and Hounds for more post-rock frivolities at Moff Fest.

Five bands playing instrumental guitar/drums-based music after a long day at work and I think I'll be forgiven for saying it all kinda merged into one after a while, but then I'm not a hardcore intelli-rock aficionado and this evening was for those who most certainly are. It was also a full on DIY event, the first gig organised by this chap Phil and done purely because he wanted to do it, which always makes for the niceness. You could tell it was his first gig because he'd booked five bands and organised a laptop-powered projection show for each one but the gods were smiling as it all ran smoothly with no over-runs or technical mishaps - no mean feat when you're dealing with bands with a lot of kit and the desire to sound just right.

Of the bands, Burnst and The Hubble Constant didn't make a huge impact on me, which is not to say they were sub-standard in any way - they just weren't my cup of noodle-rock. I really liked Cornish Tin Miners, the opening act, who, if memory serves (such is the curse of the opening act) were a drums/bass/guitar three piece who did a delicate, complicated almost jazzy set that made me think "ah, so that's math-rock!" Unfortunately their set was very short but I'd like to see them again. Kinda in the style of Tortoise and that's a good thing. If they have a website or some music online I'd like to know about it.

Mothertrucker were a lot of fun, though they were the closest to trad-rock of the bunch so I was probably able to connect with them easier. You can't go wrong with a good solid thumping riff and they had plenty of these. On a more superficial level their background projection was quite inspired. While the other bands had random clips and images accompanying Mothertrucker simply had a DVD of Duel, a movie I've inexplicably not seen before. It started with a giant truck pummeling down the road, which was kinda obvious, but halfway through moved to a tense and paranoid scene in a diner. The projection stopped being a distraction (sorry, but I'm not a fan of this sort of thing on the whole) and suddenly merged with the music creating something quite large despite the band being unaware that they'd be playing against it. A lovely piece of serendipity, but even without this Mothertrucker were very good and I'd recommend seeing them if you like rock of the stoner variety.

And then to the headliners, Una Corda, who I hadn't seen before despite one of my flatmates being in the band and the drummer having been a friend for a year or so. I've alluded to it before, but Una Corda are mountain men, giant slabs of hair and bloke who you can imagine driving 18 wheelers or wrestling cows for the fun of it. When I opened my front door to the other three for the first time I felt strangely intimidated, as if the psychic power of their manliness threatened to bring my inner mouse to the fore. And hey, I used to hang with hairy bikers in my youth, not to mention some of the characters I've worked with via the temp agency, so this is saying something. Of course they turned out to be lovely people but their collective size, especially when compared to the predominance of somewhat nerdy glasses wearing skinny chaps on this scene (which, I have to say, I like), bears mentioning.

As for their music, I was somewhat blown away. I'd heard their EP, Proper Position for Floating (review), and what with living with one of them knew they'd be pretty good, but I had no idea they'd be this good. Comprising of two bass guitars, two lead guitars and drums you'd expect them to make a lot of noise, and they do, but it's incredibly controlled and subtle, taking the established norms of repeated layers of riffs and quiet-loud build as the base from which to develop some complex ideas and emotions. The lack of a vocalist is more than made up for by having each player lead at different times, but not in a cheesy solo way, more that they actually lead the others into one direction as part of a coherent whole. No disrespect to the other bands but Una Corda really felt professional - they had a control over their songs (and they were really songs, not tunes) that was precise yet not clinical, complicated but accessible, and they put a big grin on my face.

And then that was it. I think Moff Fest was a success - at least everyone seemed to enjoy themselves a lot and it all went very smoothly. Even though this isn't a genre I'm heavily into I had a good time and it was good to see this sort of DIY event taking place fueled by a real passion. I was going to put post-rock to one side for a bit but by golly there's another one on Wednesday (tomorrow!) - the Capsule Xmas Party with Pelican, Mistress and, oh, Una Corda. See you there?

A combination of poor light and blokes playing guitars not being that visually exciting means my photos from the night aren't that stunning but I'm dead pleased with this one, taken during a burst of strobe light:

Other pre-Xmas gigs include seeing my old mate Dek Baker in his classic punk band Drongos for Europe support GBH at the Academy on Thursday and then Misty's Big Adventure at the Jug on Friday. Three gigs in a row! How will I cope? Oh yeah, this is me...

And so it was off to the Custard Factory in Digbeth for the Capsule Xmas Party gig for a wodge of rock with two locals and a US import.

Una Corda were the first support and it was interesting to see them so soon after Moff Fest. They were still superb and rattled through the set to a room that rapidly filled with new converts and by the end got a rapturous reception. I think they've become my favourite band at the moment, surprisingly beautiful music for such a heavy band, and they have that rare stage presence you often don't get with guitar-based instrumental outfits. Lovely stuff.

During their set I spotted a lot of people with chunky cameras - at least four, maybe five - doing the rounds. I'd noticed this at the last Capsule event I went to as well. Most of the gigs I go to have one or two "professional" camera people (I use quotes because having an expensive camera doesn't make you a pro by any means) but these Medicine Bar events seem to attract them like flies. It's a kinda weird experience, checking out other people's kit with, well, let's be honest, envy really. Don't get me wrong, I love my camera, but standing next to some guy wielding a DSLR with a fancy lens and flash does lead to penis analogies. Speaking of flash, they were all using it so, since I wasn't getting the results I wanted I abandoned my no-flash rule and joined in, with quite spectacular results. I think I might be sold on this now, though it will have to be tempered. Despite Andy (who, being the most active guy on stage, was beaming like a strobe light) saying he didn't notice the cameras I'd imagine it can be fucking annoying having all this going off a couple of feet from your face. But I found my hit ratio increased dramatically so a balance shouldn't be too hard to find. I'd also be curious to see the photos these "pros" are getting, if only so I can learn from them. If any stumble this way, might I point them towards the Birmingham Live Music pool on Flickr, which could do with some more members. Or of course I could just say hello.

Anyway, back to the gig. Next up were Mistress, a local band of the hardcore thrash metal variety. I moved forward but the room was getting rammed so couldn't get to the front, finding myself pretty much in the middle. Suddenly, as the second song kicked off, there was an explosion as the chap right in front of me instigated a mosh pit, joined in a split second by about 10 others who had been waiting, coiled up, for this moment. As they moshed and moshed hard I quickly buried my camera away in its case and took a few steps back. But these few had created quite a space and I noticed a slot right at the front under the singer, so after waiting for a rare quiet moment I marched through (receiving a mere elbow to the mouth) and took my position. I was later informed that being at the front for a Mistress gig is considered somewhat hardcore and while this was probably a mild one for them, what with most of the crowd being here for the less raucous Pelican, it certainly had that war-zone vibe.

Now I'm not a huge thrash metal fan and to be honest wouldn't listen to this kind of thing at home for fun but I fucking loved watching Mistress live, especially at close quarters (there ain't no zoom on those photos). The power and fury they generated was utterly intense and they seem to understand that what they do is vitally important yet has to be fun. And did I detect some tunes in-amongst all the roaring? I think I did, and a thick grin was plastered over my face when it was all over. Magic stuff.

And then to the headliners, Pelican from Chicago, USA. I again found myself right at the front, though this time slightly to the side, right by the speakers that look like fighter jet exhausts, so having been warned that Pelican were loud I put in my ear plugs for the first time at a gig. It was a very strange experience, like being there but not being there, swimming through the physical shock-waves of the dull audio. Not ideal for the listening so I got my photos and moved back to appreciate them properly. Pelican were good, but something wasn't really working for me. There was plenty of power and musicianship going on but it didn't really go anywhere and after about 20 minutes I was starting to think I'd maybe had enough. Maybe I was missing something, I dunno. I was standing next to Doug from Una Corda who reacted to something with a "C'mon!" and raised fist and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what had prompted this.

Fortunately the catching of the last train home saved me from an hour of this stuff, though I did feel a slight pang of regret in not seeing what the guitarist would do with the violin bow I'd seen him wax up. So, a mildly disappointing headliner more than made up for by some stellar support. More Capsule events will be attended next year for sure.

Decided against seeing Drongos tonight but they're playing at Edwards on Jan 19th so all is not lost. Friday is Misty's at the Jug where I imagine a fair number of my readers will be in attendance, along with podcasters Shaun and Kats who are traveling up specially. Now that's dedication!

I started writing a post about my adventures in music in 2005 and while it didn't really go anywhere (thanks to my not really keeping track of the absurd amount of tunes that came my way) it was clear that Misty's Big Adventure were my band-of-the-year. For a local I was something of a late-comer, only hearing about them in 2004 and not actually seeing them perform until April, but after that I was 100% sold and saw them another three times, confirming myself as A Big Fan. I've evangelised them like crazy and even wrote the bulk of their Wikipedia entry so it was kinda fitting that on December 23rd my final gig of the year, the last two months of which have been somewhat gig-crazy, should be seeing Misty's play at the Jug for the fifth time.

It's been quite a mad year for them too, pushing the tricky transformation from quirky local act to national phenomena and thanks to a punishing touring schedule (at least 100 gigs) along with an excellent new album they look like they might just achieve this because anyone with a soul can't help but be converted to the cause once they've seen them perform. It's rare that the modern world allows such a thing to happen but it appears to be happening for them, and that is a good thing.

Of course this success does have one downside and that is, after years of playing at the Jug of Ale in Moseley, their "spiritual home" really can't contain them anymore, which is a big shame as seeing them play in any of the larger venues in Birmingham would just be wrong, so unless they have a massive popularity drop in the new year (along with hell freezing over) this could well have been the last time they play there, not just because they sold out to capacity but because everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone all the way to the back, was dancing like a monkey and it was hotter than hell.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The support tonight was interesting. Misty's always seem to pick their support acts but the two bands playing tonight really seemed to be part of the Misty's extended family and it felt a little like the audience was getting on stage. The first band were a five-piece doing their first ever gig and didn't even have a name so I'll call them The Kate Thompson Experience, since, as I found out later, that was the name of the lead singer. They set up looking kinda nervous, giving he impression of a baby band taking their first faltering steps, but what they produced was quite astounding. Given that they were part of the Misty's posse they had many friends in the audience who whooped their support but as the set progressed this applause increased as everyone was completely sold on them. The songs ranged from sweet little ditties about love and fluffy things to pieces that brought to mind The Dresden Dolls, mainly for Kate's astonishing voice, and the band were incredibly tight for a first gig, bringing in clarinets (two of them) and toys to the mix with aplomb. But what really made the set for me was Kate's reaction to the audience's reaction - with a massive grin she was completely taken aback. I really hope Kate and her band do many more gigs in 2006 as I think they're really onto something here.

Next up were Dog Food who I'd heard of before but never seen. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they've been around about as long as Misty's and certainly share a bouncy ska-esque vibe along with being a little silly with hats and wigs and, yes, toys that make sounds. But on the whole they were musically accomplished and very danceable. As they came on I was sure I knew the singer from somewhere and put it down to a similarity to someone I know from the small press comics scene but it still bugged me. A couple of days later I realised I'd seen him at the front during other Misty's gigs and even have a photo of the back of his head from September.

The biggest problem with seeing these two bands was that, good as they were, and they were stunningly good, really setting up the evening perfectly, any memory of what they sounded like was smurshed from my memory by what followed. After so much touring Misty's have perfected their performance to an incredible degree and while this is a wonderful thing it does somewhat negate the idea of introducing other similar acts to their fans. It does mean I have an extra motive to see them again but it occurred to me that when lead singer Gareth's new album is out (The Party Sounds of Grandmaster Gareth - see his MySpace page for samples) a neat idea would be for him to host an evening, playing his Minute Melodies between the acts and introducing them, so I throw that out there... Wadayathink Gareth?

So there's not much I can really say about the Misty's Big Adventure that hasn't been said before. They are at the height of their powers and while seeing them playing to a home crowd is apparently very different to when they're supporting other bands around the country, it's hard to imagine where they can go next. In the meanwhile, though, you really need to see the live, preferably at a sell out gig in the Jug of Ale, Moseley. Can't be beat!

Thanks to the packed and pulsating audience photos were somewhat hard to come by but the best of the bunch can be found here, mainly taken perched on a rickety chair which I then couldn't get down from so proceeded to dance upon. Thankfully it didn't break...

No more gigs until late January, thank fuck!

Thursday 19th is Drongos for Europe at Edwards No 8, one of those reformed punk bands from the 70s / early 80s only I know the bass player. Except I haven't seen Dek for years, ever since Drongos reformed, so this was going to be the perfect opportunity. Ah well. Jez is probably still going along with some of the other pub meet gang but I'll be sorry to miss this.

Also on Thursday is Plinth, the band-with-two-of-my-housemates-in-it, playing at Bar Academy. I was probably going to have to miss this to see Drongos but thankfully now won't have to make that decision. That said, I might make it along for the last hour if I get out of work early.

Friday 20th is Strangetime at the Actress and Bishop. I saw them on the last night of the GDFAF thing and was looking forward to seeing them in a slightly less frazzled state. The are playing at the Barfly on the 31st so all is not lost.

Friday 20th was also going to be my photography clients An Untitled Musical Project at the Barfly so choices were going to have to be made again. Perhaps this job has been a blessing in disguise... (They've got some new tracks on their MySpace page btw - go download.)

Monday 23rd was going to be Bob Mould doing a solo gig in Bristol. The less said about this the better, quite frankly...

Of course I can still go to gigs at weekends but the bands I like don't play weekend gigs as a rule. Any tips for the next month would be appreciated.

Details...

I'm getting "friended" by a fair number of Birmingham-based bands on MySpace at the moment which is super-keen though I'm having trouble keeping track of them all in my head, so here's a brief summary.

Morning View - Acoustic four piece. Playing a gig at the Actress and Bishop on Sunday Feb 5th and have asked me to take some photos of them.

The Arm - starts out sounding like standard post-rock noodling metal but then a vocorder-thingy comes into play and I grin.

Captain Dangerous - This all sounds very familiar and I'll kick myself when I put my finger on it, possibly tapping the same vein as The Rumble Strips, and it's all good stuff. They seem to be touring around the country a fair bit and the next Brum gig isn't until April.

The Graham Parsnip Liquidiser Torture Think-Tank Project - I'm still not sure how much my mileage is varying with this bunch who are playing on that tightrope of comedy rock. I think I'll need to see them live to be sure. On Feb 4th in fact.

The Magnetic Four have a nice chugga chugga to their indie rock thing and appear to play in Brum every month or so.

The Motive made me sit up and take notice with a blatant Stooges homage but they build upon that nicely and I'm still taking notice.

Devil and Casey Jones describe themselves as "That fight that happened between Neil Finn and Big Black. You know, the one refereed by Frank Black" and for that I'm prepared to like them a lot. As a bonus I also like their music and should be going to see them at the Flapper on Saturday.

Betty and The Id are just downright intriguing. The music is of the dreamy 60's psychedelic variety but I suspect their live show could be something special. They possibly slip into the Misty's spectrum of the local scene and that's a good thing.

And that's all in the last fortnight. Blimey.

Finished work early on Thursday and fancied a beer so I went to the Plinth gig, managing to catch all three bands because it started late. Didn't take the camera and wasn't in a reviewing kinda mind but, as usual, it got me thinking, mainly because the other two bands were, once again, utterly, irreconcilably different to Plinth. This happens a lot at the Thursday local band nights at Bar Academy and the Flapper with each band essentially playing their own gig pretty much in isolation to the other two. The audiences don't mix and the evening doesn't really have flow to it. And, as was pointed out to me by one band member, it would be nice for them to play with other bands who were on their wavelength rather than this often bizarre mishmash of styles. Don't get me wrong, I love a good mishmash, but not when it's as painful as on Thursday.

The first idea was getting three bands together and presenting them to one of the existing promoters. The next idea, naturally, was just putting gigs on ourselves. In the last few months I've started getting a pretty good grip on the Birmingham scene but what I've also discovered is that of the people I know we've got quite a network going on here that if tapped could produce some interesting stuff. And at the end of the day, it can't be that hard to put on a gig, can it? Sure, if I were to do it all on my own then, yes, it'd be a nightmare, but if we go in mob-handed?

The main driving force for doing this isn't just to provide a space for bands to play because there's a pretty good infrastructure already in place for that. The point is to do it in a way that creates something bigger than just going to a venue to see a band play some songs for 45 minutes. Something like the Moff Fest gig I went to in December.

As always, this is just an idea I'm putting out there. It won't necessarily come to anything but I have a feeling it probably should...

Another gathering of West Midlands musical activity noticed on MySpace. As always with this stuff taste is relative and your mileage will vary.

Sabotage Left I nearly saw once and maybe I'll actually see them one day. Nice fast poundy guitar shouty punky stuff going on there.

Long Day Gone do melodic guitar based rock that all sounds very familiar in a road house kinda way.

Pagan are a female fronted (and I wish that wasn't notable but it is, damn it) rock band with edges of metal. I keep thinking they should be heavier but that's probably just the pentagram.

The Culprit are from Stratford but that's close enough and do that harmonising metal thing.

Tobias again do the harmonising metal thing. I think the kids call it Emo, but what do I know.

Photo buck the trend slightly by coming from a more pop-punk angle and I think I can detect interesting things going on there.

The True Believers are kinda odd, with vocals sounding like 80s crooner-pop and a whole gamut of musical styles from electronica to country.

Morning View are of the acoustic songwritery vibe and need some photos taken, something I'll hopefully be able to help with.

H.O.S.T.I.L.E. describe themselves as "Progressive / Death Metal" and have a song called "Urine Love". Like a lot of this kind of thing it doesn't do much for me through the headphones but I'm sure it's enormous fun live.

I might be in an overly critical mood (music can be susceptible to that kind of thing) but not much really leapt out and grabbed me from that bunch. Of course this is all based on their music streaming from MySpace - live performances are bound to be different - so don't read too much into that. What's really becoming apparent is there's a shitload of yer basic rock and metal out there and while I support that it's not really my thing. Where are the Misty's, the Noise Noise Allores, the Magnetophones? Give me some quirk!

Also noted: Miss Lisa is putting on gigs of the post-rock / intelli-metal (I made that one up) variety. Zoot, who put on gigs at the Flapper, have a MySpace presence, as does Arthur of the Catapult Club who does gigs at the Jug and Bar Academy. And here's Capsule for all your Custard Factory needs.

Links to other Brum bands in the comments please, or just friend me.

Previous Brum roundup

Since Songbird appears (I haven't played with it yet) to do pretty much what I requested on this blog a year ago it would appear prudent to put in another request.

I like going to gigs. There are a large number of musicians and bands whose gigs I'd be interested in attending, too many for me to track individually so I'm very likely to miss them unless I religiously scan the gig listings every week, which I don't because there are far too many of them.

What I need is a way of filtering the listings according to my preferences. I could do this by manually entering my favourite artists into a list and cross referencing that with upcoming gigs, but that's far too much effort.

However, it occurred to me today that I already have a list of my favourite artists - my iTunes library. It's safe to assume if I have an album's worth of tracks by someone that I'd be interested in seeing them play live and this information is stored in a handy XML file.

What I want is to be able to upload that file to a service that will produce a list of my "favourites", cross reference it with gig listings for my area and alert me, via email or RSS, when a gig is scheduled.

Can't be that hard, surely?

Update: Tom points me to Upcomingscrobbler which pretty much does this except it uses Last FM data for which bands you listen to and compares it with the Upcoming.org listings. It's pretty keen and I'll be subscribing to my listing but a couple of problems spring to mind. Firstly it misses out on the bands that I like but don't listen to that often, the "long tail" of my music library if you like (an example would be Asobi Seksu who I recently "rediscovered" having not listened to them for a year or so) and secondly Upcoming isn't that comprehensive, at least for the UK. But it's a tremendous leap down the right track. Go check it out.

Third in an ongoing harvest of Birmingham-ish based musicians found on MySpace. If you want to be on this list then friend me.

The Big Bang do a stomping, throbbing rock thing with echos of 80s Matchbox. Apparently they're really good live.

Deluka are very interesting. Couldn't put my finger on them until the words "New York Punk" filtered through my brain, but even that's not quite right. Hmmmm... (ta)

The Nameless In House Jam Band. They jam. No two performances ever the same. Have the audacity to put a really long jam session on their MySpace page. Respect is due.

Destroy Cowboy - interesting shoegazer-type stuff with an experimental edge. Need to see live to be sure.

Thee Moths - this seems to be close to the Avrocar / Magnetophone style but with a hefty lump of guitar/folk thrown in. Very slow and atmospheric and quite beautiful. Hmm...

Chrissy Van Dyke - powerful female singer-songerwriter stuff at an intriguingly high standards. One to check out methinks.

Robin - more of the singer-songwriter stuff. Not quite sure about this one - some good moments...

Perception - grinding dirty grunge rock stuff.

Previous Brum Roundups: 0, 1, 2.

Since I'm not working this week I'm thinking I might take in a couple of gigs.

Wednesday (that'll be tonight) is Red Sparowes, Made Out Of Babies and Una Corda at the Medicine Bar in Digbeth. Rock of the heavy but interesting variety. Una Corda are a known quantity (1, 2), Made Out Of Babies are just fucking intriguing ("In the tradition of artists as evocative as Jesus Lizard; as imaginative and impassioned as Bjork; as discomfortingly frank as Big Black and as unnerving as filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, the New York City quartet summons a wholly unique claustrophobic fury.") and while I don't hold out much hope for Red Sparowes they are, apparently, not as dull as Pelican were, and, as I've learned, it's not always about the headliners at Capsule gigs. I'm 99% sure I'll be going to this since I have a flatmate in one of the bands.

Thursday I'm thinking of checking out the Zoot night at the Flapper where The Twang are playing along with two bands I've not heard of (Half Day Closing and Love Life Arena). I liked The Twang when I saw them last November and would be interested to see how they've developed, plus the Zoot nights I've been to have always been of high quality for three quid unsigned band gigs. However, I'm less likely to go to this without someone else to make me get off my arse and into town.

So, anyone up for some live music?

And so it was off to the Custard Factory arts complex in Digbeth, Birmingham, for a Capsule gig. And a very good gig it was too.

First up were local boys Una Corda who I've seen a couple of time already. They appear to be on something of a step-up in the wacky world of post-rock, doing a fair number of support slots for Capsule and with their first London gig on Friday / tonight (at the Camden Underworld with the same lineup as here should you be in the area and fancy it) which is good and in many ways deserved as they've got a good thing going on.

The set was a little scrappy but not in a bad way and the band seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot. Bassist Paul (in green) was bouncing around with glee towards the end and this is one of the things that marks them apart from the usual crop of intelli-metal instrumental bands who just stand there all dull-like - Una Corda actually have a personality, both in their music and their stage presence. Musically they were very enjoyable with some new pieces and I suspect that, while this genre is not a massive one, they're on the cusp of going somewhere within it. But of course I'm biassed. I live with one of them.

In the middle were Made out of Babies who I'd describe as a bit like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but more metal, less art-rock. Standard four-piece with guitar and bass on the sides and a diminutive female singer pacing around the middle. Which made a change, having someone interesting looking to photograph at a rock gig, so I did.

It was very refreshing to see a band who, while their music was of-a-type, actually had some kind of "act". And even though the whole neurotic girl thing wasn't 100% convincing there was enough conviction and passion behind it from the whole band to draw me right in. Very good stuff and a keen example for other four-piece bands of how to do the stage thing. Me liked a lot.

And then the headliners, Red Sparowes who, as I said before, I wasn't expecting a lot from. I'm a stranger in this scene, to be sure, but I'd got the impression that in the world of soaring post-rock the Brits don't take it too seriously while the Yanks take it very seriously indeed. Pelican, another American post-rock band seen last December were technically brilliant but didn't do anything for me really. Red Sparrows, on the other hand, were somewhat fantastic.

After I took the photo shown here I was tapped on the should and told the band didn't want any flash photography, which was fair enough (and I only tend to use it when I see others doing so) but they were playing with the lights completely off and just a film projection above their heads. So that's knocked the photos on the head then, I figured, and went to the back to take in the show. Initially I wasn't overly impressed as the music did the complicated quiet-loud thing but then something clicked and I found myself getting into it. And then I found myself getting tired as my legs gave way and I needed to lean against the wall. Eventually I was sitting on the floor nodding my head to the music, and it's not like I'd had a busy day - got up at noon, went shopping, made a curry, went to gig - but I was really knackered. I've got no idea what it was that did this. Yes, they were loud, but it wasn't like I was being beaten by the sonics in an aggressive way - more that it was punching me subtly from the inside. Or something. By the end I was utterly drained though I had no sense of what it was that had drained me. I was, in effect, a boiled frog, albeit a happy one.

The playing in the dark with projection thing was an interesting move, acknowledging, perhaps, that the band on stage were utterly uninteresting to look at. For the last couple of tracks I moved to the front with a good view of the stage from the side and the guys were just milling around, swapping instruments and twiddling with effects peddles (and something that looked like a high-tech zither). They were more like lab technicians than rock musicians and while the live performance was utterly necessary it wasn't necessary to see them do it. That said, I'm getting more and more jaded with the projections you tend to get at gigs. The general theme here was decay with old newsreels of buildings being demolished, post-war cities in ruins and curious medical experiments. If the Belsen photos had cropped up I wouldn't have been surprised and thankfully they didn't but it was all kinda uninspired and I preferred to shut my eyes and really experience them in the dark than be distracted by the magic lantern show. It's a very tricky line to tread between doing something meaningful but chilched and plunging into tedious irony and very few people manage it, possibly because while the music has been refined over many years the film show is often done as a extra, often by someone not intrinsically connected with the band so it doesn't quite mesh. However, like I say, I'm naturally cynical about these things - maybe most people appreciate them, who knows.

So all in all an excellent gig that left me happy, tired and not that bothered that I'd only got a few photos.

Capsule have a shedload of gigs scheduled for April and in theory I'd like to go to them all. Maybe I will. April shall be Capsule month. At the very least I'll be looking to see KK.Null on April 8th cos I'm a sucker for Japanese experimental noise and Noise Noise Allore! (previous gig review) supporting some foreigners on April 16th.

• Steve Wright is a twat. This is not news and I've known it for years, but by god, having had to listen to his inane glorification of the stupid for two days it bears repeating.
• Went to see the CBSO on Thursday. Went in blind and it turned out to be Mahler's Symphony No.2 (Resurrection) which was, well, quite stunning. I particularly taken with the indulgence of the piece, employing a full choir who only sung at the climax. Give that the acoustics in Symphony Hall are spot-on throughout the venue and their cheap seats are only a fiver I must make the effort to go more often. That said, it would be nice to be able to stand. It seems unfair that the only person who's able to dance is the conductor. (Dad's review)
• The office block in which I've been working has, unsurprisingly, reaffirmed my belief that such places are just not good. They had a "dress down Friday" (the irony being I'd made a special effort to wear clothes that weren't really scraggy) combined with a St Patrick's theme. The sight of middle aged women in large green foam hats combining the seriousness of their job with the desire to be wacky is just depressing. Also I noted the number of posters about the place for charity fundraising, none of which were directly connected with poverty. Given that the majority of the building deal with debt collection (resulting from other departments in the company pushing loans onto people who really shouldn't have loans) this was not too surprising, like they're trying to balance out the karma without dealing with the root cause.
• This last fortnight I've been feeling like I'm drowning in half-baked ideas and projects, but I made a list of them and it's not actually that bad. Maybe I'll actually get them done now.
• Oddly, or maybe not, I'm been contemplating putting myself forward for medical trials, the logic being as follows: 1) The noise made over the recent TGN1412 thing implies these things don't go wrong very often. 2) At the same time a significant number of people will be put off applying so they'll be looking for guineapigs. 3) I've been known to spend a couple of weeks feeling grotty and not getting anything done so I might as well get paid for it. 4) A couple of grand would free me up for a month or so of book writing. 5) Blog fodder! (Oh, altruism and for the good of mankind and all that too...)
• It's too fucking cold and I'm sick of it. This better break into Spring soon.

Apologies for the short notice. I meant to inform of these earlier and forgot, but there are some rather keen gigs happening in Birmingham this weekend. At least I'll be attending them so if you like what I like you'll probably like them.

Friday my chums An Untitled Musical Project are playing at the Flapper along with Kid Captain and Sabotage Left. From what I know of the latter two it should be a nice shouty punky indie night. Kicks off at 8.30, £4.00 in (£3.00 if you print off the flyer.)

Then Saturday is fucking packed. First up is the free, as in FREE, gig at the Barfly Sanctury Club, part of the Gigbeth festival from 2pm to 9pm. The lineup is Misty's Big Adventure, Distophia, The Big Bang, Envy & Other Sins, The High Society and The Twang. Of these I can highly recommend Misty's, Distophia and The Twang. The others I intend to find out about on the day but "eclectic mix of local talent" would be a good tagline.

Then, if you fancy a quick dart up to the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath you can catch some post-rock action in the form of Enablers, Una Corda and Mills & Boon. The 'Corda are expected to be on about nine-ish and Enablers are, by all accounts, very good indeed. This one is £6.00 in and is a DIY-type event organised by Miss Lisa should you be the sort of person who likes to support DIY events.

See you there?

Do you get that thing where your social life putters along like a crippled shrew for ages and then suddenly bursts into relative madness? Saturday there were two gigs running nearly sequentially in different parts of the city and a pub containing friends. It was originally my intention to do all of them. Then, realising I'd perhaps bitten off a bit too much, it became my intention to do a couple of them. In the end, however, I did them all.

First up was that Gigbeth thing, a series of free entry gigs in the Digbeth district of Birmingham spread over three days. Like a lot of these things it just seemed to spring up from nowhere but it was certainly well organised with a lot of the better local bands from most of the main promoters. As such it's a good focal point for the local scene, tying everything together and, of course, giving those not involved something hefty to kick against, so here's hoping it's repeated next year. I might even make a more concerted effort to attend.

As it was I bumbled along to the Sanctuary club at a little after 5pm (the event started at two) to see what was what. The Sanctuary is one of those old theatre / music hall type venues spread over three floors that's been converted into a nightclub (along with the Barfly gig venue behind it) and even in the afternoon with the daylight creeping through the dirty windows it had that 2am feel about it. Nightclubs are best experienced late at night when pissed and so it all felt a teeny bit wrong to be there in a daytime sober state, especially as many of the punters were acting like it was a club. Or maybe I'm just getting old, I dunno.

I wandered into one of the smaller rooms where a trio were playing some very competent rock-blues but something wasn't working for me. I was on my own, for a start, which is always odd at gigs and this club vibe kinda amplified that but, to be honest, the music wasn't really doing much for me. Competent is a fair stretch away from interesting. I checked the listings and the bands I really wanted to see were on at 7pm so I did what any self respecting person would do. I went to the pub where my mates were.

Suitably refreshed I returned as Distophia were starting their set. I'd seen them as part of the Going Deaf For A Fortnight Project and had rated them highly so it was good to see them again. Unfortunately there was something about the main stage at the Sanctuary that wasn't working for me. It could have been the way the lights, not really set up for a gig, were shining not on the band but in the faces of the audience, it could have been the cavernous size of the room, it could just have been my state of mind but while everything about the band was spot on and perfect I couldn't quite get into it. Need a smaller, more intimate venue methinks. At least I do.

Next were the headliners (or at least the last band on) Misty's Big Adventure who, as you'll know, I've seen numerous times before but never outside of the Jug of Ale in Moseley. The last time I saw them at the Jug in December it was utterly rammed leading me to suspect they wouldn't be able to play there again lest all their fans die of heat exhaustion. They did play there again (I was away...) but this was the first time I'd seen them elsewhere. It was, as you'd expect, somewhat odd.

On the plus side there was a lot more room to dance and there was plenty of dancing. And there was more room on stage for the band which has got to help. On the downside, well, that venue again. There's ostensibly nothing wrong with the Sanctuary. It just has a weird kind of vibe, like the gods of clubbing are looking down and shaking their heads at this invasion. Still, Misty's are nothing if not accomplished at the moment and any doubts about where I was were quickly pushed aside. (At least until Gareth introduced The Wising Up Song as about every bad clubbing experience he's ever had.)

A new song was premiered, Lots Of Money, a humorous story of a band who buy a bunch of records in a charity shop, copy them, get signed, make lots of money, get copied by 50 other bands, lose their popularity and get ripped off their manager. I don't think subtext is the right word. In fact it brought home how hard it is to describe Misty's to someone who's never heard them. (I went for "Leonard Cohen / Ska Punk / Jazz" in the pub before the gig and Metcalf justifiably declined to join me.) But the fact that they can only be described in terms of other bands who are impossible to describe is a good thing, and this was a good gig leaving me in that usual sweaty positive state. I was thinking I hadn't seen them for ages yet it had only been three months. That says it all.

(One advantage of the Sanctuary was I did manage at last to get some nice photos of them.)

The day before Jez had emailed saying he was wanting to go to my other planned gig in Kings Heath but due to work-related fragility didn't want to go alone. Having already bailed out of a gig on Friday I was lowering my expectations so told him it probably wasn't going to happen, so he went to the aforementioned pub. Misty's had finished a little earlier than I was expecting so rather than hang about I dashed back to the pub. If we left now we could get there in time for it to be worthwhile, but we had to leave now. Jez thought about it for a minute and suddenly we were in a taxi heading for the Hare and Hounds.

Sequential gigging in the same evening is strange. The ritual of arriving at the venue, getting a drink and going upstairs (it's usually upstairs) isn't supposed to be done with a sweaty t-shirt and ringing ears. That's supposed to happen at the end. "I though you were at another gig tonight" said Andy. Been there, it was great, when are you on? "Five minutes or so."

We'd missed the first support but, as said, were in time for Una Corda who I've now seen an embarrassing number of times. As always they were very good indeed and appear, to my ears, to be pushing their music in new directions. What those directions are I wouldn't like to say, but this lack of complacency is a good thing. Jez liked them too, which was nice as I'd hoped he would.

Kings Heath is a fairly nondescript area of Birmingham and the upstairs room of the Hare and Hounds is a pretty average sort of place, something between a community centre and school hall, only smaller and darker. It has a glitter ball. It's not the sort of place you'd expect to see a San Franciscan poet of the Beat variety accompanied by a power-trio of soaring post-rock. Unless, of course, you've been to the Hare and Hounds a few times in which case you won't be surprised at all.

Enablers consist of Pete Simonelli speaking his words accompanied by guitar, bass and drums. The music veered from fiddly syncopated jazzy stuff to full-on hefty rock while Simonelli evoked a cross between William Burroughs and Captain Beefheart in my mind, yet with the craggy intensity of Tom Waites, maybe, and told his stories of, well, I'm not sure exactly as it was all a bit loud, but it was certainly something dirty, decayed and romantic. As the music rose Simonelli transformed into a psychotic preacher and we were no longer in the upstairs of a Midlands pub. We were transported elsewhere to a place of myth, an environment that is universal yet utterly connected that seam of Americana.

In many ways what they were doing was nothing new, but "new" only has so much value. The tools for this sort of thing may be well established but it's what you do with them that counts. Enablers took the usually disparate mediums of spoken word and post-rock and combined them in a way that made perfect sense, the music giving an intensity to the words which in turn drove the music to new heights. It was, in a word, stunning and I'm surprised more bands don't do this sort of thing. But then in order to pull it off you'd need someone like Pete Simonelli, the likes of who are few and far between.

There are three mp3s on this page and I highly recommend you listen to this half hour session on WFMU (RealAudio).

Don't worry, I'm not going to keep posting these every week. Just until, well, can't say yet.

Anyway, should you be looking to stand in a darkened room and listen to music that is not crap in the city of Birmingham this weekend, here's what I'd recommend.

Friday, I'd go for The Motive at the Sunflower Lounge on Smallbrook Queensway for some jangly rock.

Saturday is Johnny Foreigner, KateGoes and Devil and Casey Jones at the Jug of Ale, Moseley. KateGoes is Kate Thompson's band who I enjoyed a lot in December at their first gig. Devil and Casey Jones are on my "to check out" list of bands I need to check out and Johnny Foreigner seems intriguing.

Sunday, there's an all-dayer at the Custard Factory orgainised by local zinesters Salvo It starts at 4.30pm, costs £4 (£3 with this flyer) and features nine bands. I hear rumour there's a BBQ as well.

Monday sees Bearsuit finally playing in Birmingham at the Flapper. I've been wanting to see Bearsuit live for ages now so this is something of a no brainer. £5, 8pm.

I may go to all of these, I may go to none of them, but I hope to take in a couple. Maybe I'll see you there?

Update: Definitely going to the Jug on Saturday.

Trivial Update: This was the 2,000th post I've written on this blog since June 2000. I just thought it worth mentioning.

Saturday's gig was at the Jug of Ale in Moseley.

Devil and Casey Jones were very enjoyable and, as tends to happen whenever someone is bouncing around the stage in a hyperactive, yelpy, nerdy kinda way, evoked Devo in my mind. There was a lot of guitar going on (three of them) but it wasn't overpowering and the band complemented singer Alex's madness very well. I was particularly taken with his use of a chair for standing on and sitting in the audience, not to mention the climbing on top of the amps. It was all very entertaining - suddenly he was up against the ceiling, then he's running into the middle of the crowd, then he's sitting on the guitarist's back - and on top of the theatrics the music was very good with much dancing potential.

Alex said at the start of their set that judging by the soundcheck this was going to be a mismatched gig but I felt they complemented KateGoes... really well. Sometimes it's enough that even if the bands sound completely different they share the same kind of spirit and while I'm not sure I can explain the connection it was certainly there. Possibly something to do with enthusiasm, I dunno.

I'd seen KateGoes... back in December at their first ever gig when they didn't have a name yet and that went so well that this second gig was going to be interesting. Was there enough there to sustain them into a "proper" band or were they just a nice idea at the time? This uncertainly (on my part, I should emphasize) wasn't helped by their somewhat fanatical fan base drawn from the local Misty's Big Adventure army. By dint of their only having been around for a very short time there isn't a whole lot of substance yet so these people are getting enthused by an idea which has great potential but has yet to be born out. This could all go horribly wrong.

Rather than worry about such things the band seem to be taking the right approach, figuring what works by trying everything, throwing ideas around with gay abandon and seeing what sticks. There were moments when I felt things might tip from inspired genius into tragic embarrassment but it never quite happened. It occurred to me that Novak, Dog Food, Misty's and other Birmingham bands of a kitchen-sink experimental bent were probably like this to begin with, ignoring the "right" way to do things and developing their own uniqueness by doing stuff no-one else dared to. It'll be very interesting to see where KateGoes... are in a couple of years because I'm sure they have no idea. And that's a good thing.

As for this whole experimental thing being a little trying I was accompanied for this gig by my chum Leon along with is dad and step-mum, none of whom knew much about the current Birmingham music scene, and they were completely won over and thought it brilliant.

So two bands to keep a close eye on there. Devil and Casey Jones are at the top of a game they know isn't over for a while yet while watching KateGoes... develop is going to be fascinating.

Coming soon: What Bearsuit were like.

Sometimes the old ways of discovering music are the best. Alex, one of my relatively young friends, handed me a CD by a band I'd never heard of the other day which she'd bought in a shop. "I think you might like this" she said, and I did, a lot. "Where did you hear of this rather good band?" I asked, always intrigued as to how these things come about. Turned out she'd read a review in a magazine printed on paper. How terribly old skool.

Beyond that quite stunningly sexy album cover Giant Drag, of Los Angeles, USA, touch base with numerous items of musical goodness for me. The rumbling, undulating roar of guitars evokes shoegazer circa My Bloody Valentine and Ride with a touch of post-rock chugging while the vocals spark off connections with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Veruca Salt and countless others. Yet despite all this they seem to be carving their own chunk of uniqueness. The album, Hearts and Unicorns, has been on repeat for a few days resulting in a sustained, if not increasing, appreciation. They be good. (If you're checking their MySpace page I recommend the track "Kevin is Gay".)

Anyway, there's a UK tour in progress at the moment with a Birmingham gig on April 18th which I intend to attend with Alex and Andy. I expect it to be most enjoyable.

Seb from Distophia writes to plug Robot vs Dinosaur, a evening of clubby goodness he's involved with.

Hardcore electronix, analogue madness, lap-pop, post-post-rock and clicks & cuts from the likes of: 13&god, add n To (x), aphex twin, arovane, autechre, battles, berg sans nipple, blockhead, boards of canada, the books, broadcast, brokeback, brothomstates, buffalo daughter, capitol K, caustic window, ceephax acid crew, chris clark, cornelius, cylob, daedalus, dntel, fizzarum, the flashbulb, four tet, germlin, holy fuck, hood, kid 606, M83, manitoba, matmos, max tundra, takako minekawa, modified toy orchestra, the most serene republic, mouse on mars, ninja cuts, the notwist, OOO, plone, polysics, polygon window, the postal service, prefuse 73, pulseprogramming, bogdan raczynski, ulrich schnauss, squarepusher, stereolab, tarwater, amon tobin, to rococco rot, tortoise, venetian snares, luke vibert, xiu xiu, susumu yokota... and whatever else we can find on our ipods."

I may well be there, probably in my Monkey vs Robot t-shirt because I'm that fucking obvious.

So I popped along to the Sunflower Lounge on Smallbrook Queensway for the inaugural night of Robot vs Dinosaur and it occurred to me that I don't often go to these sort of things, club nights based around a loose theme that don't take place in nightclubs, but this one seemed worth supporting, not least because if it does prove popular they're looking to expand into putting on actual gigs. The music promised to be a load of stuff I liked along with a bunch of things I suspected I'd probably like and proved to be fairly accurate, if quite hard to pin down. These genres of music can quite comfortably sit together but once you bring in any descriptives or examples, such as "electronica", "post-analogue" or "blippy bloopy noise" you start excluding whole chunks. It's probably best described as that weird but nice music you hear when you're sitting in your mate's living room, the guy with the "eclectic" tastes. Or if you are that guy, it's the sort of music you wished they played at clubs rather than going for the most tedious common denominator. Above all the music didn't operate in an exclusive manner. Aficionados could sit and chinstroke while the rest could treat it as interesting wallpaper, which is how it should be.

The living room vibe a fairly accurate description of how the thing felt making the event a much more convivial than is usually the case. I was struck by how a gap was being filled for people who explore the interesting edges of the Birmingham music scene, giving them an actual club in the social sense. I'm quite interested in the establishment of nodal points within wider scenes which serve to filter out the crud (trust me, it's slightly more fascinating than it sounds) and this seemed to serve that purpose well. Any flyers for gigs picked up there would come with an implicit endorsement of quality, for example.

Personally I had some nice chats with Alex, Matt, Chloe and Seb who organised the thing with Ben, who turned out to be in The Hubble Constant and have one of my photos of them on their MySpace page. Some other connections were discovered on my return home which confirmed what I already knew - the Birmingham music scene is as intertwingled as world of bookselling, and in many cases overlaps.

So, a good night (with a fair turnout for a new event on a rainy Wednesday) which I'd recommend for a drink and a chat or some hardcore networking, whichever floats your boat. I took a bunch of photos, ostensibly for Seb to use, and I was fairly happy with a few which you can find here.

[Update: I've added another 10 photos which Seb wanted copies of. Same link]

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Tangle razzle dingle zap bleeb ingle wuggle boo woogle. Hum blongity gobbleabracadabra! "Ha quibble yap?" shnuzzle. Boo tingity izzle flobbing ha shnoz roo zappity flingdizzle. Dang ho quibble blop. "Yip dee?" shizzle Wampi. "Boo funk zip?" blip quibblezing. "Zip shnoz ho?" dongle quabbleblab. Ho funk You...flungity sloppy shnazzlebling. Dee ting a woogleflab!

Thanks to Blippity Fling-Flang for helping put the indescribably wonderful into words. I may write a proper review once my head stops spinning but don't hold your breath. Gig of the fucking century!

It used to be that the Guardian's Technology section (previously known as Online) understood the internet while the Media section, by framing it within the bounds of existing paradigms, patently didn't. A recent article in the former, Making a song and dance, shows the emergence of a new mutant strain of article in that it kinda gets it but ultimately fails miserably.

The basic premise is that when you look in detail at all the bands and artists that have "made it big" on the back of "the MySpace revolution" it's really all about old fashioned major record label activity and thus is nothing new. Therefore the online revolution in music discovery and promotion is the same old system in new clothes.

Which is correct. If you only look at the artists that have signed deals with the major labels. The rise of the Arctic Monkeys, regardless of their musical abilities, is not at all interesting as it all boils down to word of mouth which has fueled the discovery of new non-manufactured acts since pop music began. Their management seized on this buzz and got them signed and the record company exploited it, which is great for them and those that like their music, but it's got nothing to do with "the MySpace revolution".

So, at the risk of banging my head against a brick wall, this is my final say on what MySpace and other online music-related social networking services are all about.

It's not about MySpace specifically

One day MySpace will be replaced by something better, probably when the next generation of teens emerge onto the online realm. To understand its success you have to understand the appalling state of band websites. Invariably built in Flash they were impossible to navigate, obfuscated all the important information, were never updated and often made you register before you could hear any music. By contrast a MySpace music page has everything you need on one page - band members, influences, biography, tour dates and, most importantly, the actual music. You could cover it in shit and it would still be an improvement, but that doesn't mean it's the ultimate way of doing this sort of thing, just the first time the information has been vaguely standardised in a manageable format.

It's all about the Long Tail

So Madonna has a MySpace page. This isn't interesting. What's important is every band you see at every venue in the country also has one and they all exists on a level playing field.

Success is relative

Not every band or artist wants to be famous. At this stage in the game most people are aware of The Problem With Music and while some don't know or don't care there are many who are quite happy with a small but significant number of fans who will buy their albums and fill out their gigs. Previously this middle ground was hard to get established in but MySpace has provided a backbone making it all a lot easier to DIY.

It's how the bands use it

Social networks like MySpace are, by their nature, about social networking. I'm kinda surprised I need to say that but within the old paradigm of broadcast it seems to get forgotten. What's interesting about MySpace is not what you see when you visit someone's page but what's going on behind the scenes. People are talking to each other, sharing information and getting connected. Bands are finding gigs, managers, labels and other like-minded artists through MySpace in a manner that dwarfs he previous methods of doing such things.

There's a halo effect

Tying in to this are all the other actors on the music scene - the promoters, small labels, badge makers, photographers, bloggers / zinesters, etc. The barriers to setting up your own operation have been lowered significantly by hooking into the relevant MySpace communities as all the contacts and information you need is there - it's just a matter of doing something with it. The end result is an ecosystem which, while it may not replace the major labels, provides a viable alternative.

The death of bullshit

There are a lot of wankers in the music scene and their currency is cool. When everything you could possibly know came from the NME and Melody Maker it was easy to get away with pretending you knew the cool. Now, with an infinite number of MySpace music pages out there, it's impossible. You've never heard of the bands I like, but I've never heard of the bands you like either - shall we share links while we laugh at the hipsters?

Nobody cares what you think

So what happens when you've got a large number of overlapping communities of artists forming a vibrant and self-sufficient means to produce and disseminate their works? The traditional means of getting music to fans becomes less and less important. In the past a band might have said "fuck the labels, fuck the journalists" and been left with nothing. Now bands and their fans don't even notice them. Music journos and A&R men used to hold the keys to the Rock Castle but no-one wants to get in anymore. I don't care what you think of my favourite band. Who are you anyway?

Most importantly a band on MySpace is not a "MySpace band". This should be obvious, but then so should this whole post.

Yes, MySpace sucks big hairy balls. Yes, it's full of the rather annoying variety of teenager. But when it comes to music it's possibly the only place to go, not because it's a great service (it patently isn't in so many ways) but because of what it allows musicians and those who like music to do. Understand this and you understand why "the MySpace revolution" is important, and remember, this is only the first faltering steps. Just wait to something decent comes along.

Brief notes on the acts I saw at Supersonic, the music festival organised by Capsule at the Custard Factory in Birmingham on Saturday 22nd July 2006.

Una Corda - Very good set from the local post-rock boys (disclaimer - I live with one of them). They're always good value but the size of the stage and the sound, not to mention their obvious pleasure at opening Supersonic, really brought out their best. Good crowd reaction too.

Hanne Hukkelburg - A complete switch of gear with this eclectic Norwegian band (instruments included saxophone, flute, accordion, violin and a bicycle. Yes, a mic-ed up bike) fronted by a diminutive singer with a beautiful voice and powerful presence. I liked a lot, especially the divine cover of the Pixies "Break My Bones". Lovely.

Circulus - "Medieval Neo Acid Psych Folk" said Capsule and that'll do as a description. I only caught the end of the set but it was hugely enjoyable with an old-worlde hippy-nerd vibe and very danceable. I need to see them again

Michael Gira - Think Johnny Cash in a really fucking bad mood. Okay, that's a superficial description. Solo acoustic from the singer of Swans, one of the more aggressively negative industrial rock bands. This set was more subdued but still relentlessly dark and quite hypnotic. I was a little scared.

Modified Toy Orchestra - Previously experienced in November this was one of the acts I was most keen to see and they didn't disappoint. On reflection the performance is as important as the music itself but it's all tremendous fun with five guys in spiv-suits making strange noises with plastic toys they've fucked about with.

Broadcast - The legendary Birmingham band who epitomize that late 90's era of retro-electronica experimental bands that Brum produced and who I'd never seen before, something I was determined to rectify. I'm a something of a loss to describe them but the sound they made was great, creating strange noises with great control, while singer Trish Keenan exuded indie-goddess power and attitude. I was rapt.

Isis were the post-rock / metal band I was keen to see on recommendation and they didn't disappoint, giving me that anger and raw energy I love live (but can't be bothered with on record - go figure). They were evil, they were loud, they were absurd, they were intelligent. For half an hour or so I was in love.

Zombi - I only caught a bit of their set but liked what I saw. Initial impressions were 70's prog keyboards with drums, but it was more than that. The music was kinda techno-ish but the live drums really brought it all out in a kinda Math-rock way, maybe.

Rother & Moebius were the sort of act Supersonic was built for - two 70s electronica musicians who are legendary to the select group who filled the Theatre space. They were on about midnight and I was feeling a little tired so I lay down at the front and let their beautiful music wash over me while heavy metal raged outside. For a moment the ICA was in Birmingham and it was a good thing.

Shy Child - Another drums and keyboard act, this time more happy dancey than Zombi, they were the last act on and I liked them a lot. They're playing the Sunflower lounge on August 24th and I think I might check them out again in a slightly less frazzled state.

As you can see I liked everything I saw and I didn't see half the acts. Supersonic was tremendous and a credit to everyone involved.

On a personal note it was good to meet up with fellow photographer Stu (aka harri b) whose Supersonic shots are here. I got to play with his Through The Viewfinder contraption and think I might be hooked. Anyone got a defunct twin lens reflex box camera they don't want?

There were, as expected, hoards of photographers at the festival, most with their fancypants DSLRs and monster lenses. (Here's the Supersonic Flickr tag in case any of them feel like sharing.) I went with a manual SLR and 3200 speed Ilford film and it was good shooting bands in a very different way as I've gotten bored with gig photos generally. It was especially nice to be able to shoot in the dark at 1/60 f8! I also got a few comments as I stood at the stage changing lenses and winding on the film - "kicking it old school" was my reply. Here's hoping the results, due in a week or so, are worth it.

I also bumped into Suzi, my old chum from Uni days who I thought was in London. Turns out she's now in Nottingham and might be moving back to Brum, which was keen news. She's the theremin player I've mentioned on this blog in the past.

So, a top day and no mistake. I'll be there again next year for sure!

Chum-through-Flickr Harri B, who you might know as the guy who does the Through The Viewfinder photos amongst other left-field stuff, has turned out to be something of a renaissance man as he's also in a band called Routine. He sent out an email yesterday which I'll reproduce in full:

Hi,

As you may (or may not) know, I have a few audio projects that i'm involved with. One of them being "Routine" so I hope you bear with me while I outline it a little here. We are currently working on a show which has, at its heart, a new song called Everyone's Dying. Last week we recorded a live version with the audience joining in on the chorus (which was amazing!) and this is being mixed into the final track...We are also planning a picnic / party to record a video as part of the project.

Another part of the project is to have a photo slideshow, sooooooo, I'm getting in touch with my flickr contacts to see whether you would like to contribute an image to the slideshow?

We are looking for images that are personal to you, maybe people, friends family...An image which you may remember fondly for the rest of your life... that kind of thing.

It can be something from your stream or a new image if you like. All the images will have the title and photographers name during the slideshow. The slideshow will available for you online too once its finished. Also there will be a big link to Flickr should people wish to further check out your images.

(the whole shebang will take place at a local gallery late summer / early autumn...depends when we get everything finished!)

My problem is I haven't been thinking about my photos in this way for a while now - it's all been about the art/craft rather than the emotional resonance (yes, there is an overlap but not in this context) so I'm struggling somewhat. But I'm sure not everyone is a wanker like me in this regard so, with his permission, I'm extending the invite.

You can contact Harri (or Stu as he's know in reality) via Flickr or the band's site or MySpace, and needless to say, you don't have to be a Flickr user to be involved.

All Tomorrows Parties 2007, the music festival for the more discerning punter, has been announced. The lineup is still in flux (so far only The Dirty Three confirmed for weekend one, 27th - 29th April) but the venue has changed to from Camber Sands to Butlins Minehead (map). Getting there is, as with Camber, going to be something of an adventure. A bit of preliminary investigation reveals there's no train service to Minehead, merely a bus that leaves from Taunton every hour. That bus is going to get pretty full so probably won't be a go-er. Alternatively there's a National Express coach (singular) which goes right to Butlins itself and only takes 4 hours from Birmingham. I suspect car shares will be the way forward, though that coach has me intrigued if it doesn't sell out immediately.

Then there's the chalet sharing though that usually works itself out in the end, and there are more options now.

I went last year and had a terrific time in so many ways so I highly recommend going. I'll keep you posted as to which weekend we decide on nearer the time.

Gigs can be like busses sometimes.

This Saturday, the 21st of October, there are two I'd like to attend.

In the centre of town at the Barfly venue you will find Misty's Big Adventure with support from Kate Goes. Both of these acts I've seen before but not for a while now. It would be good to see Misty's again and to catch up on the recent development of Kate Goes.

In the suburb of Moseley at the Jug of Ale venue you will find Schwervon, who I caught as part of GDFAF last year, along with a couple of acts I know nothing about - Toby Goodshank and Lisa Li-lund - but who sounds pretty keen from their MySpace pages. I'd also really like to see Schwervon again.

I'm erring towards the latter. Perhaps. Sometime I'm erring towards the former.

Is anyone planning on attending either of these?

Mildly related to this, the mighty Andy Pryke emails with a tip for tonight:

"There's a good band on at the Sunflower Lounge on Thursday called Defiance Ohio. I saw them this summer when I was in Reykjavik and they really got the audience going - stage diving, ball room dancing, singing along etc!"

My sleep patterns are all over the shop right now so I might not be awake for this but it does seem rather good.

Other upcoming gigs of note in Birmingham include Tunng at the Glee Club on Sunday, an intriguing event at the MAC called The Photophonic Experiment featuring Pram on October 28th and Enablers (previously reviewed) at the Hare and Hounds on November 3rd. I'm ranking these three as Maybe, Probably and Definitely in that order.

Strange how there seems to be a glut of decent gigs around this time of year. You could put it down to the Xmas CD market but that doesn't quite ring true on the small gigs scene.

Anyway, here are my tips for the next couple of weeks in Birmingham.

Tomorrow, being Friday 3rd, is possibly the best of the bunch - Enablers at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath. I saw them in March and described them thus:

"Simonelli evoked a cross between William Burroughs and Captain Beefheart in my mind, yet with the craggy intensity of Tom Waites, maybe, and told his stories of, well, I'm not sure exactly as it was all a bit loud, but it was certainly something dirty, decayed and romantic. As the music rose Simonelli transformed into a psychotic preacher and we were no longer in the upstairs of a Midlands pub. We were transported elsewhere to a place of myth, an environment that is universal yet utterly connected that seam of Americana."

Sunday 5th is A Slice of the Pie at the Rainbow in Digbeth, a DIY-style night I've been meaning to check out for a while now. Here's the line-up.

Thursday 9th is Flaming Lips at the NIA and will be the first time I've been to a gig at that monstrosity. The F'Lips will be terrific, I'm sure, and there were still tickets available yesterday.

Sunday 12th is Dufus at the Jug who I saw last May and would like to see again. They're also on a European tour and are worth checking out. Bouncy folk-rock with squirly scratches. (I'm kinda-officially photographing them so I'll be the annoying cunt at the front getting in your way.)

[That Sunday is also the Birmingham Flickrmeet for November should you be a photographer in Birmingham]

Further in the future sees The Autumn Store mini-club night at the Sunflower Lounge on November 16th and the full Jeffrey Lewis Band at the Barfly on November 25th. And probably some more stuff.

King Heath, November 3rd. Full set.

Friday was the much anticipated Enablers gig at the Hare and Hounds. It was terrific. They are if not one of my favourite bands then definitely one of my favourite live bands ever. Here's RussL's GDFAF report and I should also note I finally met Russ and he's a good man, if a little tired. But I understand that, having been there before. The middle of Going Deaf For A Fortnight is always the hardest. You're knackered from the first week, the second week looks horrifying daunting but you've still got sufficient mental faculties to feel the fear. I was amused to hear he's ending with a Motorhead gig. Now that's brave!

Was also good to meet Lisa who had put the gig on for no other reason that she felt it a necessary thing to do. Folk like her, operating outside the usual circles of promoters, are an inspiration, especially when it results in gigs like this. Support from Last of the Real Hardmen was great and while they only played one song it was a long one that built from simple guitars and tricksy drums into a pounding roar of feedback and loops. More from them next time please.

The Enablers were stunning. Nuff said really. I took a shitload of photos, going with the "whack open the lens, point the camera a click 300 times" technique which seemed to work fairly well with 32 making the grade. I'm still torn as to whether there's an art to gig photography or whether it's just luck, but I have to say watching Simonelli through what is essentially a telescope is quite thrilling.

Three free mp3's are for the taking here. Go get them now.

Jug of Ale, Moseley, November 12th
Full set of 24 photos

Went to see Dufus on Sunday. They were very good indeed as were the support Mr Bones & The Dreamers who I intend to check out again on the 30th. I'd seen Dufus supporting Jeffrey Lewis last May and wrote about them here but that review can pretty much be discounted as representative of this gig as the lineup was completely different. Except the drummer. I think he was the same. Looking at their recent CD I realised that Dufus is basically lead bloke Seth with about 24 other musicians who come and go so every tour is probably different. Last time they were a bouncy bloke-heavy party rock band. This time they were more of an intense, performance art-ish folk-rock band. Maybe. Definitely on the odd side of the spectrum and in a really good way. The monstrous beard that Seth has grown in the last 18 months only added to this dissonance and it was only when they played songs I recognised from the Ball of Design CD that I was 100% they were the same band. It was a terrific set lasting for what seemed like a good hour or so and I'd highly recommend seeing them again, whatever their construction.

This was also a slightly different gig for me as I'd been asked by Mark of Iron Man Records to take some photos of the band in return for some quality schwag, the closest I've gotten to a paid shoot in this regard. I've done gig shoots on a pro-bono basis before but this felt different somehow. Kinda professional and very enjoyable. It helped that Dufus were a very photographable band but I'm really pleased with the results (slideshow). Of course I can't take all the credit. The new 50mm lens did most of the work and I took 580 shots so the chances of them all being shit was slim, but even so I think some kind of corner has been turned and it's got me pondering. This, of course, is assuming Mark is happy with them.

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...)

I've been letting Last.FM track my music habits since October 2004 which is a hell of a long time in internet years. (Actually, thinking about it, you don't see people making that net-time-compression comment much these days. Maybe things have stabilized. Or maybe the real world just caught up.)

I never really used the service but I figured it might come in useful one day and the wonderfully names Scrobbler wasn't intrusive as it sat there feeding the stats. Now Last.FM is getting more useful and might have reached some kind of tipping point thanks, no doubt, to having this incredibly rich data set to play with. Their new Events recommendation service, based on your listening habits and those of your friends, is really impressive. This is the sort of thing web services should be doing once they've gathered a bunch of user data - Amazon do it well but where's the recommendation stuff on Flickr or MySpace? It should be a no-brainer.

However, there is a quirk in my Last.fm stuff. I listen to music on random (or as we now call it "shuffle") most of the time. This is drawn from a relatively small playlist containing a little under 4,000 tracks that I built for the 20 Gig iPod I've been borrowing this year. (If you're interested my audio library has 16,533 items that will play for 54 days weighing 84.25 GB. And I thinned it down recently...) So when I play an album by a single artist a few times it really spikes on Last.fm.

Here are my "Top Artists" at the time of writing with the number of times I've listened to them in brackets:

1: The Magnetic Fields (926)
2: The Flaming Lips (666)
3: The Mountain Goats (642)
4: Pixies (603)
5: Misty's Big Adventure (552)
6: The Kleptones (501)
7: Bright Eyes (489)
8: The Beatles (347)
9: Jeffrey Lewis (316)
10: The Decemberists (269)

That's pretty representative of my music tastes, although I kinda got over my Magnetic Fields obsession a while back now and haven't listened to 69 Love Songs on its own for ages.

However, Last.fm says I've played 27,821 tracks in the last two years which means those Magnetic Fields songs constitute a mere 3.3% of my listening. Number 20 (Freezepop) is 0.7%, Number 100 (ew, Snow Patrol) is 0.2% and then it plateaus into statistical irrelevance. Suddenly that top ten doesn't seem so representative.

What can we conclude from this?

I'm so Long Tail it hurts.

(Can I get a t-shirt with that on?)

A top ten for 2006 generated by Last.fm which is mildly illuminating allowing for that fact that it doesn't include plays on the iPod and that I mainly listen to music on random when on the computer. These are the artists that I liked enough to listen to on their own.

The Flaming Lips (479)
Saw them live twice and acquired the complete back catalogue which pretty much accounts for their position at the top. The three most recent albums (Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi and Mystics) make up the bulk of this but I've been quite taken with the older Clouds Taste Metallic.

Pixies (282)
Inevitable really given they're pretty much my teenage musical touchstone and notable because I don't think I've listened to them in solid chunks much. Having all their songs highly rated means they crop up on random a lot and that's not a problem.

Misty's Big Adventure (215)
Not bad for only two albums and indicates a bit of mainlining usually related to seeing them live which happens a fair bit in Birmingham.

Grandaddy (212)
One of my big discoveries of 2006. From the same "school" as the Lips and Mercury Rev but with their own thing going on. The Sophtware Slump and Under the Western Freeway are in my possession and that I don't own any other albums (though intend to) is an indication of how good those two are.

The Beatles (208)
Went through a bit of a Beatles period this year, specifically Revolver and The White Album. Not much to add other that they really piss all over the Stones. In my view.

The Kleptones (189)
The primary source of quality mashup concept albums this year Eric released 24 Hours which, while not as addictive as last year's A Night At The Hip-Hopera, got some rotation on my 'puter.

Bright Eyes (145)
Who doesn't love a bit of overly earnest angst now and then?

Clearlake (127)
Slightly surprised to see them this high. I like Clearlake for the same reason I like Muse (who are down at number 32) - big dumb anthemic nonsense with soul.

Sleater-Kinney (124)
Seen at ATP and fell in love immediately. Turned out to be one of their last gigs ever.

Jeffrey Lewis (120)
Perennial favourite with blips thanks to gigs and finally getting my hands on City and Eastern Songs.

And then it all gets a bit random...

Kings Heath, January 13th

Saturday saw The Destroyers playing The Station in Kings Heath. I wrote a bit about them on Created in Birmingham but suffice to say they're currently one of my favourite musical acts in the city. A must see.

The Station is an interesting venue. A very traditional looking pub with wood beams all over which continues into the back room, usually a sparse affair at venues. Really nice atmosphere. Apparently they have live music there regularly on Saturday nights, usually in the folk vein.

Interesting article on Comment is Free this morning. The Pirates' Code, by one Ned Beauman, tries to figure out why stuff gets pirated in the first place when there's no financial reward. For example, recording, editing and encoding TV shows so they can be distributed by BitTorrent within hours of broadcast or risking their jobs by leaking preview copies of albums and movies. He notes the somewhat bizarre news that torrent tracking site The Pirate Bay, which recently formed its own political party in Sweden, is planning to buy the legendary micronation Sealand off the Suffolk coast. But the real question is what motivates the thousands of others who make it so easy for the likes of us to get stuff from the big media companies in the first place?

This has puzzled me too. I figured out a while back that there are online communities (warez groups) who rip and encode stuff to agreed standards but why they made their word available to everyone outside their gangs remained a mystery.

Beauman reckons it's indicative of a general disillusionment with the mediocrity of the entertainment industry, which might seem a little odd given they're spending their time distributing stuff they apparently don't like. If you're sick of seeing endless shite movies being released why would you risk prosecution by pirating them? "They want to strike back against this regime of mediocrity in the only way they can. The executives from the film studios and the record labels treat them like drooling cattle, and they want to prove that they're not." In other words, by releasing Hollywood stuff for free the pirate is helping to bankrupt Hollywood, stripping its power away and forcing it to take notice that its customers don't respect it anymore, if they ever did.

It's stretching things a bit, certainly, but there's a grain of truth in there. I recently bought a couple of DVD box sets for the first time in my life, seasons 1 and 2 of The Wire. I could have downloaded them but, having sampled season 3 illegally and being blown away by it, I decided I wanted to support this sort of TV in the hope that, however small my actions, it might go some way to encouraging less of the shit and more of the quality. Despite having downloaded and watched seasons 3 and 4 I intend to also buy those box sets when they come out, partly for the quality (the leaked episodes of season 4 are a bit ropey) but again because I want to thank them financially. Buying stuff has become something of a political act, culturally speaking. Same goes for my eMusic subscription - I'll pay for the music I respect on terms that don't insult me even though I can probably get it for free somewhere else. The only language these people understand is money so I shall talk to them in that language.

Interestingly this attitude reminded me of Decadent Action, a slightly tongue in cheek counter culture movement from the 1990s that reasoned the best way to overthrow capitalism was by having everyone spend beyond their means.

"We use the simple economic principles of supply and demand with their intrinsic link to inflation to establish our theories. The state must control these factors to run the economy efficiently; throw in the wild card of massive irrational overspending on seemingly random luxury goods and the government is unable to take control. This will lead to hyper inflation and large scale social unrest, leading to the collapse of the monetary system and disintegration of the state apparatus."

Piracy - it's not theft, it's a political act intended to overthrow the cultural hegemony of a morally bankrupt entertainment industry.

Or not.

Just had a nice thing happen. I'm listening to the stream of Mary Anne Hobbs' Friday night experimental music show because Dr. Ellis recommended it. It's two hours of "beatless" records on a show that normally has a lot of beats. That'll be good working music, I thought, and it is. The stream should be there 'til this Friday if you want to check it out.

So I'm taking a break and hitting some links in my feed reader, loading up a few pages in the browser to investigate. As I'm reading some article I notice one of the tracks appears to be mixed up with a talk I recognise. The phrase "the interface just disappears" keeps cropping up. It's some demo of a new technology that I remember seeing a few months back and it works really well. Neat, I think to myself.

Closing a tab I realise that it's not part of the mix but a streaming video linked to by Gordon that I didn't realise I'd loaded up. And then I discover the track it fitted so well with (at around 1:25 in) is by an artist called Xela who co-runs a label called Type with my Flickr chum Stef.

And all this makes me smile.

That video clip is worth checking out, by the way. It appeared months before the iPhone and shows a much more advanced form of touch screen manipulation. And related to this, I once tried to put this Ruby of Rails demo to music but my skills were lacking. I'd love for someone with the requisite ability to have a go though.

Word to the wannbe wise. Watching a film for 90 minutes while lying on your back on a cold concrete floor in a yurt in a warehouse in Digbeth is never a good idea. If you then follow this by cycling home from the MAC around midnight on what turned out to be a -8 degree night, meaning you had to scrape a substantial amount of ice, not frost, ice off your saddle you know there's going to be trouble.

Urrgh... Sunday's Flatpack Festival schedule has been a write off. Thankfully I already had tickets for Bang on a Can's performance of Brian Eno's Music For Airports at Symphony Hall so couldn't back out of that. It was very good. Much better than I was expecting.

The first half consisted of pieces that weren't by Brian Eno. Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint consisted of a guitarist playing alongside a recording of himself and was very good. David Lang's Sunray I remember liking but don't remember much about. Don Byron's Show Him Some Lub and and Dark Room were okay but didn't quite work for me. Finally Thurston Moore's Stroking Piece was superb, sounding just enough like Sonic Youth to be interesting but not too much to be obvious.

After the break the entire Music for Airports album was recreated with predominantly classical instruments in four acts. I've somehow never heard the original electronic recording so this was fresh for me. I liked it a lot. At times it repaid rapt attention in spades, at others it allowed my fuggy brain to float away. By the end I didn't really want to go outside where everything was normal, though I couldn't really figure out why.

Bang on a Can is an American music festival where lots of interesting things related to contemporary music happen, such as 12 hour marathon concerts. This manifestation, also known as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, comprises of six members playing piano, clarinet, percussion / drums, cello, double bass and electric guitar. The guitar player has very impressive hair.

Oooh, Bang on a Can have stuff on eMusic. Not MfA unfortunately but probably worth a dig.

Also of interest are the program notes for MfA.

(Big thanks to Gareth for getting the cheap tickets. Pic nicked from the Bang on a Can site)