A couple of months later (on 15 May) Danny received a threatening email from Surface Unsigned which worried him. After a weekend of checking that CiB had done nothing wrong, the original post was amended and an addendum was posted.

Danny blogged about it, then Pete blogged and I blogged. Then a lovely thing happened – the blogging community of Birmingham showed their support. As ever, BiNS and D’Log were quick on the scene.

Cat Bray was amused. Russ L made me laugh. Goodfaf Central chipped in. Birmingham Alive put up a banner. Simon Gray posted on his blog and on The Stirrer forum where an interview with Surface was promised ’soon’ (as if that forum and the comments section of an increasing number of blog posts didn’t give them enough space to reply/apologise).

And the blog posts did increase, with contributions from Brenda Dada, Bobbie Gardner, Si Hammond, Mabblog, The Careless Gene (aw, one of my faves), Graphiquillan, Art Stalking Ana and New Folder. Andrew Dubber pondered pay-to-play on New Music Strategies while Antonio Roberts got visual.

Dave Harte got forensic on his Birmingham Post blog, revealing who was behind Surface, shortly before the interview on The Stirrer appeared with the representative of Surface asking not to be identified (hello to Jay, probably). The interview discussed pay-to-play but not sending unnecessarily aggressive emails. Dave Harte cross-posted to his own blog, where dp wisely commented that

it’s interesting watching this thing unfold, partly because it’s going through phases, where the first reaction was indignation, then organised criticism, then more reflective stuff

Widening the social media net, several people tagged the story on delicious including Joanna Geary and Catnip, who deployed the word ‘nastygram’ to devastating effect.

Then things started moving away from Birmingham. First to Oxford (OxfordBands), then Yorkshire (fictions) and then on to the national music site Culturedeluxe.

By the end of the day Danny was feeling much happier.

But it didn’t stop there, with Ben Neal (who once played at Surface) saying hi. The Getgood Guide got with the LOLspeak. Stef examined what Surface should perhaps have done (executive summary – anything but what they did) and even the Daily Mirror’s forum received the good news. Paul Thewlis threw a link in, as did Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From. Dunc from the Autumn Store says we don’t need battle-of-the-band contests.

And so on.

Today’s the day we’re supposed to take down the original post. We’re not going to, obviously – Danny’s still not even received an apology.

However, as far as CiB’s concerned I intend to draw a line under the matter with this post (the comments are still open of course). It’s been fun but we’ve made our point. I for one would rather turn my attention to the many positive things happening in Birmingham (although every time I Google ‘Surface Unsigned’ I stare hungrily at all the forums that appear).

I’d just like to say thanks to those who have offered support, kind words and legal advice over the past few days. You’re beautiful people.

Round one of the regional Surface Unsigned Festival ’08 is nearly over, but have no fear sheer volume of acts they are dealing with in the midlands alone should mean there are plenty of gigs to come, if I’ve done the maths right the competition should be finished sometime in 2112.

Now each act are not going to be the-ghost-of-Jimi-Hendrix-playing-a-seven-hour-set-amazing admittedly, but this could be a great way of seeing local unsigned acts.

Tomorrow Digbeth favorite, The Rainbow (whose lack of decent website surprises me for some reason) will, play host too, Product Of This, Trial of Origin, The Singles Club, Planetman, Astro Reality, and Just Sweet Theft.

In the interest of transparency I found out about this because I will be there tomorrow (long hair, scruffy beard/stubble and waistcoat, say hello I’m nice) supporting Planetman, old friends and IMO one of the best unsigned bands in Birmingham.

As this has provoked quite the discussion, I give my report into Surface and the machinations thereof.

As I knew one of the bands at the gig last night any review that I do will have a bias. Anyway the structure of the event and competition as a whole is far more interesting, and by interesting I mean sketchy.

First of all I want to qualify my criticisms with the insistence that I did have a good time last night. Six pounds isn’t a massive price to pay if the money was going to the bands or covering costs. And I still think there is a case to be made for showcase style show with six or so bands playing twenty minutes each.

Walking in the gig wasn’t packed, Surface don’t really do any promotion, that they leave to the bands to do themselves, expecting each band to sell 25 tickets each;

Note: We had previously reprinted verbatim an excerpt of the terms and conditions. Surface have requested we remove this as they consider it a breach of copyright so what follows is a paraphrased version written in a tone that we hope cannot be mistaken for that of Surface.

Oh hai! For to plai at event ur ordiance can haz 25 pipple. U muzt sell 25 tikkits 4 eech gig ur in. If u can not haz cell 25 tikkits u can still haz plai but ur band will NOT go froo 2 necks rawnd no matta haw mannie Sourfice Raiteens U getz. Kthnxbai!

From how empty the venue was, it meant a lot of bands must of eat shit on ticket sales and bought them themselves, you also only get the money back from tickets sales if you sell all 25 which is even then only a pound a ticket. So for 25 £6 tickets, the bands get £25 and Surface gets £125 now there are a minimum of six band at each gig so that means each gig they get a minimum of £750 (not to much maths I hope, my head kinda pickled as it is but I will push on regardless), now the first round of the Birmingham heats there are 38 gigs, which adds up too £28,500! just for the first round, all this, according to the booklet, going towards

“Sound engineer, Venue, Booth Operative, Security, Bar staff, PA, Lighting etc”(bold theirs)

From what I saw last night, lighting and PA was the venues own, bar staff provided by the venue also, there was no security. All the other stuff amps etc were provided by the sponsors, and to be honest the lead guitars speaker actually catching fire during the set isn’t the hugest endorsement for their products.

Another criticism is the choosing of the bands the whole night was Rock/Ska/Pop, which means the Screamo band put in the second from last slot was never going to get as many votes seeing as they drove most of the crowd to the connecting bar. In fact the esoteric voting system is so much BS I won’t go into it in detail, needless to say the MC’s main job was to push the text voting, seeing as the other voting was the highly scientific system of raised hands and I wouldn’t trust this broad to count her children in the car on the way back from Alton Towers.

I would love to see the same structure applied to a regular night were six or so unsigned band played half an hour each and split the door, giving relatively new bands a chance to cut their teeth and punters a regular night to sample a section of the local scene.