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 … [Read more…]
Following on from the Venue Surveys, which prompted this thread on LiveJournal, I’ve been thinking more about the Carling Academy and what’s going to happen to it when the area around Dale End is redeveloped. Plans are still sketchy (the page on BCC’s site is somewhat old) but it’s going to happen, probably in the … [Read more…]
Last year Digital Central undertook a survey of live music venues in the West Midlands to try and pinpoint where investment is needed. They questioned 184 people, 141 of whom were audience members with the rest being promoters or performers. You can download a PDF of the report but here are the conclusions: The most … [Read more…]
Gigbeth, the three day free music festival in Digbeth (see what they did there?), takes place on 1-3 November this year based around the Sanctuary, Barfly, Custard Factory and Glee Club amongst other venues. Bands and musicians from all genres are welcome to apply to play and will be paid at least Musicians’ Union rates. … [Read more…]
I came across the Brumcast podcast around the time it started and my initial impressions were “meh…” so I filed it away under “Nice idea, shame about the execution.” That was a mistake and having dabbled in podcasting myself I should have known it takes a while to get into the swing of things. Prompted … [Read more…]
A Reuters/Billboard report has declared Birmingham to be one of the music hot spots in 2007 along with Beijing, Berlin, Brisbane and, proving that they did work their way down the alphabet a bit, Marseille. In a U.K. music scene perennially dominated by London and Manchester, England’s “second city” has struggled, musically, in recent years. … [Read more…]
The third in my series of long interviews with notable people on the Birmingham creative scene is with Rich Batsford. Rich is a pianist who’s lived in Moseley all his life. However, the main focus of the interview is Project X Presents, a collective of performers and technicians who put on the multi-genre Like Fxck … [Read more…]
A Flatpack Film Festival spotlight. Mark Locke’s Saturday Night Takeaway, occurring at the MAC on Feb 3rd, is a retrospective of the film maker’s work from 90s comedy shorts to his current crop of music videos for the likes of Jeffrey Lewis, Ten Benson and local stars Misty’s Big Adventure. The performance will be in … [Read more…]