Without question, the funniest content of any post on this blog
I am, you know. I am going to do an opera round-up post of the seven I’ve been to since the start of March and the one I’m going to tonight.
At some point.
In the meantime, have a selection of opera-themed cartoons:
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That oughta hold the little…
In this edition of “Taxonomy Weekly”…
… we will be discussing precisely what constitutes “a book”.
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands – March 2012
Oh mercy, there’s one thing I don’t like about March but so very many good things during this March in particular. So very many. Lots of walking tours, lots of opera, lots of HOUNDS, lots of everything.
Standard disclaimers: I can’t ensure that these events will go ahead, that they’ll be good, or that I will be going to them. This is just a list of things I found that looked like they might be interesting, so please do not contact me to ask for your event to be included. That’s not the way it works.
Until Saturday the 3rd – “Ministry Of Meh” (Belgrade Senior Youth Theatre) @ The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry – About the fact that the West Midlands is apparently the “obesity capital” of Europe. I did not know that (although these things are usually based on a survey of about four people).
Thursday the 1st till Saturday the 10th – “Lady Windermere’s Fan” (Blue Orange Arts) @ The Blue Orange Theatre, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham – Go Wilde in the country Jewellery Quarter.
Saturday the 2nd – Mel C @ The Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham – Your erstwhile Sporty Spice.
Friday the 2nd – “Time Gentlemen Please!” dance event @ The Town Hall, Birmingham – Hip-hop and folk dancing all together: “Clog, Sword and Morris meet B-boying, Popping and Krump”. It may or may not be wrong of me to immediately want to say “En garde, I’ll let you try my Wu-Tang style” (and then make a load of slashing noises) when I think of sword dancing next to hip-hop.
Saturday the 3rd – Wagner’s “Tristan Und Isolde” (CBSO/CBSO Chorus) @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham – This will be the first opera that I’ll ever have seen live twice, fact fans.
Saturday the 3rd – Great Gran’s Great Games” (Birmingham Rep Theatre Company) @ The Old Rep, Birmingham – Nan’s swimming, for ages four and up.
Saturday the 3rd – Joe Cutler’s “Ping” (The Coull Quartet) @ The Warwick Arts Centre, near Coventry – Music for quartet and four table tennis players. No, really.
Monday the 5th – Teeth Of The Sea @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham -
The psychedelic industrialistas who were, according to me and various others, the best band of Supersonic last year.
Tuesday the 6th till Saturday the 10th – Welsh National Opera mini season @ The Hippodrome, Birmingham – Continuing what has turned out to be a very operatic month indeed (see also the 3rd and 21st), here you have La Traviata on the 6th and 9th, Beatrice And Benedict on the 7th, and The Marriage Of Figaro on the 8th and 10th.
Tuesday the 6th till Saturday the 10th – “The Diary Of Anne Frank” (Touring Consortium Theatre Company) @ The Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton – I can’t pretend that the idea of a big-stage version of Anne Frank in a big-stage theatre that normally has musicals and glossy “shows” strikes me as an enormously good idea, but you never know. There is potential for it to be interesting.
Wednesday the 7th till Saturday the 10th – “The Glass Menagerie” (Dudley Little Theatre) @ Netherton Arts Centre, Netherton – Which of the Williams’ is the best at Tennis? Why, Tennessee Williams, of course (arf).
Wednesday the 7th – Chris Wood @ The Red Lion, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Awake, arise, you drousy sleepers.
Thursday the 8th till Sunday the 11th – Crufts @ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham – HOUNDS.
Thursday the 9th and Friday the 10th – “Mummy Mafia” (First Floor Theatre) @ The Drum, Newtown, Birmingham – In which the posh mothers don’t like the ordinary ones. It’s mommy mafia round here, we’ll have you know.
Thursday the 8th – Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings @ The Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham – Blimey, that is a soul-funkin’ lot of days and nights.
Friday the 9th till Saturday the 17th – St Padraig’s Day Festival @ various places in Digbeth, Birmingham – With the parade itself on (helpfully) the 17th. (EDIT: And by ’17th’ I mean ’11th’, obviously).
Friday the 9th – Fairport Convention @ The Town Hall, Birmingham – A Fairport gig, a Fairport gig, the first one of the year (Disclaimer: it’s probably not really their first gig of the year).
Friday the 9th – The Presidents Of The United States Of America @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Your first peach-related band of the month.
Saturday the 10th – The Stranglers @ The Academy, Birmingham – Your second peach-related band of the month.
Saturday the 10th – “Bite Size” (various theatre companies) @ The Warwick Arts Centre (studio), near Coventry – Lots of short plays, throughout the days. Well, it’s only one day, but that didn’t rhyme.
Sunday the 11th – Cannibal Corpse @ The Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham – Those sensitive purveyors of songs about hammer-smashed faces and suchlike.
Monday the 12th – Mark Lanegan @ The Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham – You do have to wonder what he actually did to those poor trees.
Tuesday the 13th till Saturday the 17th – “Waiting For Godot” (A Talawa Theatre Company/West Yokshire Playhouse) @ The Old Rep, Birmingham – Nothing, as ever, to be done.
Tuesday the 13th – Joan Baez @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham – The night they drove ol’ Brummie down.
Tuesday the 13th – “The Ethics Of Progress” (Unlimited Theatre) @ The Warwick Arts Centre (studio), near Coventry – Quantum for the perplexed. Although that was by somebody else.
Wednesday the 14th till Sunday the 18th – the Flatpack Film Festival @ various venues in Birmingham – The vaunted, feted, celebrated annual festival of films and film-related doings, courtesy of those good folks at 7 Inch Cinema. The line-up abounds with huge amounts of stuff, not least Laurel & Hardy in a church, films on a boat, biking, cinematic remixes, the best film ever made, digital projectors, psychedelic music, Yam-yam-ery, magnets and magic lanterns, and oh so much more.
Wednesday the 14th – The Three Degrees @ The Jam House, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham – (Insert stock grumble about The Jam House here).
Thursday the 15th till Saturday the 1st of April – Still Walking Festival @ various routes around Birmingham – A festival of walks (in the sense of “guided tours around places”, not in the sense of “keep fit”. Although it no doubt will help with that if you go on enough of them).
Thursday the 15th till Saturday the 17th – “The Big Bang” science & engineering fair @ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham – Science~! For free. Free science.
Thursday the 15th – Chris Addison @ The New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham – Although I don’t know what he’s doing here, given that they were meant to be filming a new series of “The Thick Of It” aroundabout now (and, much as I hate to say it, that’s altogether more important).
Friday the 16th – “Undefeated” boxing bill (Coldwell Boxing) @ The New Bingley Hall, Hockley, Birmingham – Headlined by a local derby between Jamie Ball and Nasser Al Harbi for the English light-middleweight title, which sounds suspiciously like a proper fight.
Friday the 16th – The Spaghetti Western Orchestra @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham – Doing Morricone and such. (Edit: just realised that this is part of the Flatpack Festival, as above).
Saturday the 17th – The Dubliners @ The Town Hall, Birmingham – Every year they play at Brum town hall for St Padraig’s day, every year I think “surely that’ll be the best gig ever”, and every year I fail to get around to getting a ticket before it sells out.
Tuesday the 20th till Friday the 23rd – “Ann Boleyn” (ETT/Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Company) @ The New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham – *Counts on fingers* … beheaded?
Tuesday the 20th and Wednesday the 21st – Harold Pinter double bill (European Arts Company) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – With The Dumb Waiter and The Lover.
Wednesday the 21st till Saturday the 31st – Jonathon Dove’s “Life Is A Dream” (Birmingham Opera Company) @ The Argyle Works, Bordesley Green (or is this still Digbeth?), Birmingham – Right, seriously now: even though there’s Flatpack and Crufts and everything else this month, this is the big one for March (and quite possibly all of 2012). And that’s no insult to any of the other lovely things going on. This is a new opera based in Calderon that has been specifically written (by Jonathon Dove, libretto by Alasdair Middleton) for the Birmingham Opera Company, whose performances place you in the midst of an immersive world rather than have you sit there looking at a stage. Go go go go go to this, you will not regret it.
Thursday the 22nd – The Four Tops / The Temptations / Tavares / The Crystals @ The NIA, Birmingham – It’s a soul bonanza.
Friday the 23rd till Friday the 30th – “Irminsul: You Are Lost” @ Perrott’s Folly, Edgbaston, Birmingham – A collaborative art project (full list of artistes at that link), and also a good excuse to go up Perrott’s Folly, which you don’t get absolutely every day (although there have been a few things there before).
Friday the 23rd – Syleena Johnson @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Tonight, she’s gonna let go. (EDIT: Note well, if it’s important to you for transport and such – it’s a club-night type of gig and Syleena will be on later in the night).
Friday the 23rd – Boxing (Frank Warren Promotions/First Team Promotions) @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Headlined by Enzo Maccarinelli vs Shane McPhilbin for the British cruiserweight belt.
Friday the 23rd – Dave Swarbrick @ The Newhampton Arts Centre, Wolverhampton – The usual “any given month must feature at least one of the Watersons/Carthys” rule seems to be having a rare break, so have someone affiliated with them instead (see also the 7th).
Saturday the 24th – Discharge @ The Ballroom, Birmingham – Why?
Saturday the 24th – Mixed Martial Arts (BAMMA) @ The NIA, Birmingham – No longer featuring Nate Marquardt. Let’s hope someone else does the Gouveia finishing sequence instead.
Monday the 26th till Saturday the 31st – “Spamalot” (theatre company?) @ The New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham – It is a silly place.
Wednesday the 28th – “I, Bertolt Brecht” (Fuschia Films & Media) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – A documentary play about the fella, based on experiences with his own theatre company.
Thursday the 29th till the 8th of April – Fierce Festival @ various venues in Birmingham – The annual art/performance art festival, and another one with countless things of interest: here we have one-to-one book readings (intense), guided tours of Berlin in Birmingham, HOUNDS, Viking funerals of your personal messages, and going off into the unknown under a blindfold.
Thursday the 29th – The Osmonds @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham – Apparently their last ever UK tour. Cra-zy Hor-ses WAAAAAAA~! WAAAAAAA~!
Thursday the 29th – “Coffin Up” (Village Idiots Mask Theatre) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – What happens when a funeral director can’t get enough business by ordinary means.
Friday the 30th – Grouper @ Vivid, Digbeth, Birmingham – That would be the American ambient lady Grouper, not the local covers band who have (for some reason) decided to use the same name.
Friday the 30th – The Selecter @ The Robin 2, Bilston – Just a simple show, on their radio. Although this is a gig, at The Robin.
Friday the 30th – The Destroyers @ The Prince Of Wales, Moseley, Birmingham – The new album is out!
Saturday the 31st till Saturday the 7th of April – “The Pillowman” (Crescent Theatre Company) @ The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham – Martin McDonagh’s tale of authoritarian interrogation. “You wrote that so it was you what done it.”
Saturday the 31st – Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” (Heart Of England Singers) @ Shirley Methodist Church, Shirley, Birmingham – O Fortuna, Velut Luna, and on you go.
Linklogification – 25/2/12
~ The Muppet Wicker Man – see also this video (via Fypa).
~ I saw (via The Complete Review) that the shortlist of The Diagram Prize For The Oddest Book Title Of The Year is out, and that gave me the thought of looking at the list of past winners. My favourite would have to be the 2004 champ “Bombproof Your Horse”, although I’m also very partial to 1992’s “How To Avoid Huge Ships”.
~ “The Dark Room” – an extremely funny (really) YouTube game (via Waxy).
From the old linklog:
~ The Quietus’ retrospective of Neurosis – I haven’t listened to Neurosis very much in these recent years. Maybe I should, Milhouse, maybe I should.
~ The attractiveness of waitresses as economic indicator (originally via Kottke).
~ The ten oldest still-inhabited cities (originally via Kottke).
~ The Science Of Cosby (originally via Waxy).
Resistance is measured in Amps (hurrah for the punning title)
Amplification has its bad sides. I have, this very day, seen microphones used to talk over people and not let them be heard at the (supposedly democratic) Annual General Meeting of our PCS union branch. This made me feel very sad, and when I get melancholic that’s a good sign that something has really gotten to me good and proper (I mean, I spend a lot of my time being angry. That’s not unusual. This is not to say that something making me angry necessarily hasn’t gotten to me good and proper, obviously, it’s just that when I feel all sad and disappointed then I know it for definite).
I only mention this out of a very vague and possibly completely misguided search for catharsis about something that has really bothered me. I’m not saying anything beyond what I have immediately said about our branch or PCS or unions in general, all of which I still believe to be very good things in the world. I’m furthermore very definitely not fishing for someone to ask me to elaborate (as I suspect this may look like). I won’t be doing that.
Anyway.
Amplification has a good side too. On Monday night I went to one of those popular music gigs that you used to hear about on this blog, back in the days when I still went to a lot of them, this time headlined by those loveable metallic urchins Kylesa. This was in the multi-room Institute in Birmingham’s own Digberff. Apparently there was another gig going on in the downstairs/main room, but I got a bit confused about the two remaining. I’d got the idea from somewhere that this gig was in the middle room (the former Barfly, now known as the ‘Temple’ for reasons better known to someone other than me), in spite of thinking that it seemed a bit ambitious capacity-wise for a band like Kylesa (although what do I know? I have a grand history of getting that sort of thing thoroughly wrong). Turns out that it wasn’t in there anyway, and was actually in the top/smallest/‘Library’ room. There was a point to this story but, as the fellow said, it has temporarily escaped the chronicler’s mind. (EDIT: No, hang on, apparently the small room is The Temple and the middle one is The Library. If they scattered some books or religious iconography around it might make things easier). (EDIT EDIT: It gets better, apparently the other gig mentioned above was in The Library room, not the main room. I’m going to stop talking about all this now).
I arrived in time for the later half of Ken Mode, and I am always absolutely all about band names that sound like one person. They seemed alright, anyway – typical noise rock stylee slowbigriff, interspersed with quieter bits in which they whispered about how naughty religion can be. The latter sounded to me a touch like Machine Head, although it is possible that I have them on the brain and that I’m still having war flashbacks from all that nonsense a couple of months ago. Ken Mode probably wouldn’t like the comparison but sod ‘em, it’s me having to live with the nightmares.
Circle Takes The Square were on next. Were they the faves of many way back when in the Communion.co.uk board days? I’m not sure, I can’t remember, but the name definitely seems familiar as a band that might have been. A mixed bag of stuff, anyway: assorted bits of screamo, sludge, straight-ahead ramshackle punk, and would-be-portentious goth spoken poetry. Odd bits were fun, but on the whole this set felt like separate parts stuck together haphazardly. “All over the place” can actually be the best thing possible, I think, but it worked out dull here. Also, they seemed to go on for about five hours. The definitely had their following, whichever way up. Perhaps some of the olde-timey Communion-ites were in attendance.
Kylesa also have aspects of all kinds of everything (sludge, hardcore punk, crust, Iron Maiden widdly-wah guitar, some bits sort-of seeming a bit psychedelic), but always sound altogether cohesive. I wouldn’t want to make it sound like I think ‘cohesive’ is automatically good any more than I would want to make it sound that ‘all over the place’ is automatically bad, but Kylesa do it very well indeed and have catchy songs and a general live feel of rollicking-ness to boot. The two drummers don’t hurt (I’m surprised more guitar bands don’t do that nowadays, actually), and even for a band as generally tight as Kylesa it’s a genuinely surprising thing to see two drummers hitting the same beat at the same time.
Theremin, too. Theremin is not as fun as the sousaphone (I’ve told you before that the sousaphone is The Best Instrument), but it is definitely fun.
Linklogification – 16/2/12
Log that link.
~ Gorgeous video of bookshelves organising themselves (via Fyeepa Pyeet) (see also: Bookshelf Porn, safe for work in spite of the contextless ubiquity of the word ‘porn’ nowadays, via Ben Swizzle).
~ “Chatchat”, a game about being a cat (as far as I can tell it loads in Firefox and not IE, though) (via Waxy).
~ Diamanda Galas on the subject of Whitney Houston, and whilst I’m not going to pretend that a little part of the reason that I’m linking this is because that’s not the sort of sentence that you get to type very often, it’s not the only reason (via Bookslut).
From the old linklog:
~ Detective Mittens (and there are lots of funny videos on that there Filmcow site).
~ The Social History Of The MP3 (originally via Tom Ewing).
“You’re Looking At It Wrong” – sales of different music formats over time (although why they started in 73 is anyone’s guess, as I said at the time).
~ “Hyperland” – Douglas Adams’ 1990 documentary about the future of “interactive media”. Also: Tom Baker.
Assorted gubbins of less-than-world-shattering importance
~ Happy Valentine’s Day, yer smug couples yers.
~ I went bowling for the first time in about fourteen years, more or less. It was hilarious. But then you ache afterwards.
~ We’re halfway through now, give or take, but (at least some of) the Black Country Ales pubs have a great offer on through all of February – you get a little card to be stamped whenever you buy a pint of anything, and when you have eight you can have a free one. It’s slightly misleading/naughty in that not all of their pubs are participating in it even though it has been made to sound like they are (The Wellington in Brum definitely isn’t, for example. The Black Country Arms in Walsall definitely is. Beyond that I cannot help you. Yet), but still. Free beer.
~ Festival newz~! A fair chunk of the line-up for the Flatpack Fillum Festival is available (not all of it, but there’s apparently going to be a full list of runners and riders by the 22nd); the Fierce Festival will have a recreation of the Daschund UN; the Lunar Festival will have one Benjamin Francis Leftwich playing, who I don’t know but his name sounds similar to ‘sandwich’ and so realistically he must be good; a few bands have declared for the Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul festival, with a lot more to come; the thought of Sabbath being at Download Festival led to me being as near to (coming close to considering the mere beginning of the speculation of the thought of) going to one of these (plainly-stupid advertising-hoarding-based) big festivals as I have been in many years, but Iommi has come down Ill and Ward had come down Wanting, so they’re probably not going to end up playing there. I say that almost as though it was likely in the first place.
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