Googling for info on some flyers picked up in Jibbering Records I stumbled across Quoonsweird, a collection of videos on YouTube of live music and poetry performances in the Moseley Area. It’s mainly open mike and acoustic stuff and there’s a lot of things I’ve never heard of here.
The open mike scene in Birmingham is certainly active but very hard to get a handle on, taking place in the back rooms of random pubs off the beaten track.
The Chaos Acoustic Club seem to crop up a lot though never at the same venue. Their most recent one, to my knowledge, was at the Rainbow in Digbeth on Feb 1st. More info on them as I find it.
Also at the Rainbow is a monthly open mike night on the first Tuesday of each month run by Wrote Under Publishing who have events lined up until July. From their MySpace they seem very intriguing…
Wrote Under Publishing was formed in Autumn 2005 by a group of performance poets, writers and artists from the West Midlands. All met through a love of performing at the various open mic and live music gigs in the area.
The idea is to reach out to the community and promote and champion local underground talent including ourselves. To do this Wrote Under has set up two successful open mic events in the Birmingham area of Digbeth – the Sunday Xpress @ The Market Tavern and the First Tuesday @ The Rainbow. Anyone can join in, it’s free and friendly.
When at a gig – please note our impressive merchandice stall. This has been set up by the collective to showcase our material that we have produced over the years – CDs, DVDs, Books, a quarterly poetry magazine, greetings cards, craft and other haberdashery.
Their next Sunday Xpress is on 25th Feb followed by a First Tuesday on 6th March.
Any other open mike or similar events, please let me know!
Update
Matt Scriven of the Island Bar on Suffolk Street informs me they run an Open Mike every Thursday along with a more structured Acoustic night on Tuesdays.