Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands: December 2009
I’m sure there must be lots more lovely Christmas stuff, but I can’t seem to find very much of it. Nuts to New Year. This is the West Midlands, not Scotland.
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 6th of Feb – “George’s Marvellous Medicine” (Birmingham Stage Company) @ The Old Rep, Birmingham – Mixing up everything in your medicine cabinet is not recommended at home, kids. Unless you’re genuinely thirsty.
Until Saturday the 9th of January – “A Christmas Carol” (Birmingham Rep Theatre Company) @ The Rep Theatre, Birmingham – Seems fair to me to say that “Marley was dead: to begin with” is the second greatest opening line in all of literature.
Between Tuesday the 1st and Saturday the 19th – A whole tonne of Capsule stuff to celebrate ten years of ‘em @ various venues in Brum – There’s loads of stuff. I’ll list the lot (and just link to their event pages) for the sake of completeness, so this doesn’t mean I’m seriously recommending SunnO)))~!111: Monotonix, Esquilax, Beestung Lips and Cum Dogs at Vivid in Digbeth on the 1st; Tunng, Six Organs Of Admittance, Lightning Dust And Bella Emerson at the Town Hall on the 2nd (this is the one I’m most looking forward to); Lightning Bolt, Tweak Bird and Pete Prescription at Vivid on the 8th; Sunno)))}}}]]] and Om at The Asylum in Hockley on the tenth; Pram and Light Trap at Vivid on the 11th; a free afternoon film showing at Vivid on the 13th with a buffet and pictures provided by 7 Inch Cinema; Beak, Einstellung and Thought Forms at Vivid on the 16th; some sort of evening social or suchlike at Vivid on the 17th; and a final partay with Modified Toy Orchestra, PCM, Calvados Beam Trio, Una Corda and Stinky Wizzleteat at Vivid on the 19th. You owe me a pint if I’ve managed to put all of those links in without cocking up the code at all. (EDIT: There’s also one in association with Heat And Light at Vivid on the night of the 13th, with Sudden Infant and Nic Bullen).
Tuesday the 1st – Alice Cooper @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Giving a golf seminar, perhaps.
Thursday the 3rd till Saturday the 12th (but not the 7th) – Aston Hall By Candlelight @ Aston Hall, Aston, Birmingham – This year themed around the Victorian household entertaining a royal visitor.
Thursday the 3rd till Saturday the 5th – “The Just Price Of Flowers” (Stan’s Café) @ A.E. Harris, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham – Inspired by Brecht, but not actually one of his (apparently there has been some confusion). Parallels are drawn between modern-day financial nuttery and 17th century Dutch tulip nuttery.
Friday the 4th – Chris Addison @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Ollie Ollie Ollie, Oi Oi Oi.
Various dates between Saturday the 5th and Saturday the 19th – Verdi’s “Othello” (Birmingham Opera Company) @ The Argyle Works, Bordesley, Birmingham – Birmingham Opera Company’s version of “Idomeneo” last year was greater than great can be. Judging by the postcode, the venue for this should be somewhere in the general vicinity of here.
Friday the 5th – Frank Sidebottom @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Fantastic showbusiness.
Saturday the 5th – Boxing (dunno who’s promoting) @ The Hilton Hotel, Coventry – Including Max “Max” Maxwell vs Martin Concepcion, in what must be Max’s 381,789th Midlands area title match (EDIT: or 4th, if you want to be boring and accurate).
Sunday the 6th – Madball @ Busk, Birmingham – Hardcore for tuphguyzzz. I will forever maintain that “Droppin’ Many Suckers” is one of the greatest names that anyone ever has called and ever could call an album.
Monday the 7th – The Unthanks @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – North-Eastern folkifiers formerly known as “Rachel Unthank And The Winterset”. I’m glad they’ve changed their name. OtherUnthankSister didn’t outwardly appear to do any less than Rachel, so it’s fairer this way.
Tuesday the 8th – Jodi Ann Bickley @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Interesting and endearing poetry, happening at the same time as the ’Freestyle’ photography exhibiton.
Wednesday the 9th – Alexander O’Neal @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Or rather “80s soul nuisance Alexander O’Neal”, as the in-joke that you won’t get has it.
Wednesday the 9th – Seth Lakeman @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Frequently fancied fiddler fascinates folks (with) folk.
Wednesday the 9th – The Bookhouse Boys @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Like Tindersticks on holiday in Hawaii, or somesuch.
Wednesday the 9th – “Arc” (with Graft) @ The Vaults, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham – The first of a new monthly art night, with a different set of artists each time. Here ‘Graft’ (whoever they might be) will bring a Jewellery-with-other-meanings exhibition from “The Institute Of Meaningful Interaction” and artist Mark Baldwin appearing as part of the structure of the building. Apparently. All very vague as a result of the fact that no sod seems to have a web presence because… I don’t know why not. I love The Vaults, though, it’s a great place.
Thursday the 10th – Madness @ The Academy, Birmingham – Mavva Brahn’s got her knees up, presumably in the process of skanking. This one is (unsurprisingly) sold out, but they’re also at The Civic on the 17th.
Friday the 11th – “Resistance, Revolt, Rebellion: A Double Bill of Civil Disobedience” (Kindandgenerous Productions and Emma Purshouse) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – In Love And Taxes, current Brum poet laureate Adrian Johnson and Jessi of Eastfield bring songs and stories recalling the popular opposition to the poll tax. In “Are You Sitting Comfortably?”, Emma Purshouse tell poems of “rebellion, revolution and armchair inactivism”.
Sunday the 13th – Basement Jaxx @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Let’s all have a disco, let’s all have a disco.
Sunday the 13th – Depeche Mode @ The LG Arena, Marston Green, Birmingham – A band who I’d say have been quite the unsung influence on quite a fair bit of music in recent years.
Tuesday the 15th – Public Image Limited @ The Academy, Birmingham – Given that my LOTTSADITWM often feature metal and boxing, it seems only too apt that a band who put out an album called “Metal Box” should be in here. Also: post-punk legends, Country Life butter etc.
Wednesday the 16th till Sunday the 20th – “The Snow Queen” (Screamingvoiceyouththeatre) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – Screamingvoice etc.etc. are absolutely ace, they really are.
Wednesday the 16th – Nile @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Ancient Egyptian themed death metal, and I can’t see how you could possibly think that isn’t the best idea ever. Nothing I’ve ever heard by them is quite as good as the concept, but Krisiun are on the bill too and they’ll blow your earwax free (I mean that in a good way).
Wednesday the 16th – The Pogues @ The Academy, Birmingham – [Slur]Dirty old Towwwwwwwwwwn…[/slur]
Friday the 18th until Friday the 9th of January – Funworld @ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham – I don’t see how anyone could dislike a world of fun. It’s a huge indoor funfair (including, apparently, a “300ft bungee slingshot”. Indoors, I’ll repeat with vague concern) and has to win the all-time title for “event I’ve been handed the largest number of the same flyer for”.
Saturday the 21st – The Beat’s xmas party @ The Asylum, Hockley, Birmingham – 30 years since they started, apparently (see also the 27th).
Monday the 21st – The Wildhearts @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – My unbroken run of not managing to see any Wildhearts or Wildhearts-related gigs since 2001 will definitely continue here. They’re still ace though.
Monday the 21st – Musical Youth @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Don’t take the mick, you know which way you need to pass it.
Wednesday the 23rd until Sunday the 3rd of January – “The Gruffalo (Tall Stories) @ The Town Hall, Birmingham – They had The Gruffalo plodding along as part of the Reindeer Parade in town recently. I thought he was cute.
Friday the 25th – IT’S CHRIIISTMUUUUUUS!
Sunday the 27th – Drongos For Europe’s xmas party @ the Asylum, Hockley, Birmingham – 30 years since they started, apparently (see also the 21st).
Supervisual
Supersonic was over a month ago and so I suppose I really had better get on with posting something about it. A brief few words first, however, about what might be considered the Supersonic Fringe Art Festival. Or something. There are always a few exhibitions/installations dotted around that are connected-to but not-actually-part-of the festival; there are also always completely unrelated exhibitions/installations dotted around, as with every other week of the year. Johnny Supersonic Punter could, if he so wished, head out (with, perhaps, his mom and his rabbity friend) on the Saturday before the actual festival and have a look at some of them. Let me warn you, JSP – it’s interesting but it makes for a long day.
Larks started, then, with the Matthew Boulton exhibition at BMAG, which was quite interesting. The thought occurs that the fact he isn’t widely and nationally celebrated to the same degree as many of the other 19th century industrial figures we all know and love is possibly yet another result of the ridiculously Southern+Manchester-centric tendencies of the media in this country, but that’s a separate rant.
Travelling hence to Digbeth, we skipped Participation at Vivid (it was advertised as being free, but upon arriving there was a sign on the door with the price listed. This is very, very annoying) and I have no idea at all what the Tatham & O’ Sullivan at Eastside projects was trying to get across to me. Raqs Media Collective’s “When The Scales Fall From Your Eyes at Ikon eastside spoke a little bit more: the room was filled with busts that in place of heads had scales filled with sundry objects, attempting to lead one to wonder about the spurious significance (‘weight’) we afford to our prosaic everyday crapola. That link there suggests the artists wonder about the value of measurements and quantification in general, which I’m not sure I like. “Try doing without it, then watch the buildings collapse and the planes fall out of the sky” seems to be the obvious response. I know that’s a bit flip, but the emotional/psychic-wellbeing types of things that can’t/shouldn’t generally, y’know, aren’t. Having said all this, though, I do think that the validity of IQ tests (“I am ten more intelligent than you”) is quite possibly the stupidest meme to have gained common currency. And there are some pretty bloody stupid memes to have gained common currency.
The other one actually linked to Supersonic was There Are No Others, There Are Only Us by Marc Frost, at Moor Street Station. I really liked this. A little curtained-off enclave contained beanbags and a screen, onto which was projected a film of an enormous flock of birds, filmed in Denmark. It appeared more like a swarm than a flock – there was definitely something insectoid about the way they arranged into patterns before dissolving into chaos. The really spectacular and captivating images were married to various soundtracks, and played one after the other – we, happily, arrived during an Einstellung (I like them) one.
I nearly fell asleep between the comfy beanbags and darkness, though. I actually did briefly consider popping back in later for a nap.
After that it was time to head back out of the city centre, over to Perrot’s Folly in Edgbaston for Yukio Fujimoto’s “The Tower Of Time”. Yukio, as you may recall, was the chappy who played choooons on pocket calculaters at S’Sonic last year. This (aside from being a nice chance to see the inside of the tower, which I never have before. Is it open in normal circumstances? I don’t think so but I’m not sure) consisted of 1,111 clocks (well…little plastic boxes with one ticking rotating hand) arranged in the rooms adjoining to the spiral staircase as you ascend – one in the first, then ten, then 100, then a thousand. Collectively the sound of them ticking towards the top created an unusual hiss – an overall sound like white noise, but one in which you could make out each individual click. The sight of them all moving out of kilter was interesting, as well: for the second time in the day the adjective ‘insectoid’, came to mind, as the arms jerked forward before stopping like individual limbs in a huge swarm of locusts. I have no idea what big idea any of this was trying to convey, but it was a really fun combination of sights and sound.
So there we are. A post about the festival itself will follow soon-ish.
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands: July 2009
Summer is here, ayit. Blimey it’s hot.
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.
Wednesday the 1st – Wayside & Woodland night @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – An interesting-looking evening of ambient/electronica/post-rock/kindathing. Features (amongst many other things) a DJ set from Xela, who I was into for a good while before I realized that he was the son of a bloke who worked at our place.
Thursday the 2nd till Saturday the 4th – “The Tiger Who Came To Tea” (Nick Brook & Kenny Way Ltd) @ The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry – I’ve always wanted a tiger to turn up for tea at my house. “Tea time mayhem” and “clumsy chaos” are promised. Tigers are awesome.
Thursday the 2nd – “Pilot” (various theatre companies, hosted by Stan’s Café) @ The A.E. Harris Building, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham – Nine short plays, many of them site-specific. Anything touched by the hand of Stan’s Café is usually very good indeed.
Friday the 3rd until Sunday the 12th – The Birmingham International Jazz Festival @ various different venues, mostly in Brum – Featuring such outstandingly named acts as “The Fantabulous Sheepwash Playboys” and “The Shuffling Hungarians”.
Friday the 3rd – The Big Bang @ The Victoria, Birmingham – Album launch gig for the good quality local darkness ‘n’ rollers.
Saturday the 4th till Sunday the 26th – Yukio Fujimoto’s “The Tower Of Time” @ Perrot’s Folly, Edgbaston, Birmingham – The ticking of 1,111 clocks builds as you climb the tower, approaching white noise as you get to the sixth floor up. Yukio’s pocket-calculator music at last year’s Supersonic was ace.
Saturday the 4th – The Jewellery Quarter Festival @ all over The Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham – Including a guest appearance from Matthew Boulton, which should be quite the time-travelling spectacle.
Saturday the 4th – The Kings Heath Big Party/York Road Street Party @ Kings Heath Park and York Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham – All sorts of music and fun and laughter, with ‘an old fashioned charabanc’ to transport you between the two sites. A street party in the York Road near me would be an horrific thing to imagine, but I’m sure the one in Kings Heath is lovely.
Saturday the 4th – ‘Fudgestock’ @ The Public, West Bromwich – Various bands play to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness. This is undoubtedly a good thing, but dear lord what a rubbish name for an event.
Saturday the 4th – “For You” (Music Theatre Wales) @ The Rep, Birmingham – AKA ‘The Iain McEwan Opera”.
Saturday the 4th – “Goldilocks And How Many Bears?” (Krazy Kat Theatre Company) @ The Rep Door, Birmingham – This one is BYOB: Bring Your Own Bear (if you need to borrow one then make sure you don’t fall victim to ursury usury. Arf).
Sunday the 5th – boxing (First Team & Warrior Promotions) @ The Tower Ballroom, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Including the D. Mitchell vs Martin Concepcion rematch that was meant to be happening last month.
Sunday the 5th – Latin American Festival @ Victoria Square, Birmingham – With salsa, limbo and tango shows, ‘funky feathers’, amigos and American Mercenaries bringing down non-right-wing governments.
Monday the 6th – Prefuse 73 @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Our Louise has trouble distinguishing between Jill Scott and Gil Scott-Heron. Introducing an artist named Guillermo Scott Herren (for that is Prefuse 73’s real name) into the equation seems deliberately unfair.
Wednesday the 8th till Saturday the 11th – “The Importance Of Being Earnest” (Stourbridge Theatre Company) @ Himley Hall, Wombourne – “A HANDBAG?” See also: the 30th of this month.
Friday the 10th – Einstellung / Mothertrucker @ The Flapper, Birmingham – You could see this as a warm-up for Supersonic, I suppose.
Saturday the 11th till Thursday the 18th – “Dad’s Army” (Oldbury Repertory Players) @ The Oldbury Rep, Langley – Don’t tell him your name, Pike.
Saturday the 11th – “The Black Maze” (Stan’s Café) @ Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston, Birmingham – A maze in the back of a wagon. Stan’s Café are ace.
Wednesday the 15th until Saturday the 19th of September – “Little Shop Of Horrors” @ The Hippodrome, Birmingham – Feeeeeed me, Seymour.
Wednesday the 15th – Carina Round @ The Bar Academy, Birmingham – I’ve probably already said pretty much everything I’ll ever be able to say about ‘Rina.
Friday the 17th – boxing (First Team Promotions) @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Apparently dubbed ‘The Summer Slammer’, which sounds like more of an MMA name to me.
Sunday the 19th – Birmingham Eid Mela 2009 @ Kings Heath Park, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Including kabbadi matches! Oh my life that will be awesome.
Tuesday the 21st – The Autumn Store night @ The Victoria, Birmingham – A warm-up indie-pop do for the Indietracks festival in Derbyshire.
Wednesday the 22nd – “The Traveling Picture Show” (7 Inch Cinema) @ The Light House, Wolverhampton – 7 Inch Cinema’s touring film programme for kids and adults. Involves bugs, beasts, magic boxes and red balloons.
Thursday the 23rd till Saturday the 25th – “The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband” (Highbury Theatre Centre) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham – Adulterous chappy gets munched. “One from the vaults…”
Friday the 24th till Sunday the 26th – Supersonic 2009 @ The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham – My Favourite Annual Event, headlined this year by Head Of David, Corrupted and Goblin, alongside (of course) many many others. I may or may not write a post on its own about it in the next couple of weeks (it’s probably not likely, in all honesty, although you never know) but for the time being have a little listen to this Soup’n’Sonic themed podcast (disclaimer: I haven’t done so myself yet).
Friday the 24th – Roy Ayers @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – The less famous version of Stevie Wonder, perhaps.
Saturday the 25th – Testament @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Air guitar on the mic stand in no small amounts (this is a good thing).
Sunday the 26th – Geocaching taster day @ Nimmings Wood Car Park, Clent Hills, Hagley – A ‘high tech treasure hunting game’. You’re given GPS equipment and have to find the hidden containers dotted around the place, by the looks of it.
Tuesday the 28th – Emiliana Torrini @ The Glee Club, Birmingham – Dunka dunka dugga dugga dun dun.
Thursday the 30th till Saturday the 1st of August – “The Importance Of Being Earnest” (Tread The Boards Theatre Company) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham – “A HANDBAG?” See also: the 8th of this month.
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands: June 2009
A short one this month, which is more my fault than that of the rest of the world. Having given it a last read-through before posting, I’d also like to note that I’m giving some serious consideration to toning down the stupid commentary henceforth. I probably won’t, though.
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.
From Monday the 1st and onwards into July – Bass Festival @ various venues in Birmingham and other cites too – This year’s theme is “Inspired by Africa and Africans”. All sorts of things are a-going on, so have a little look at the What’s On page.
Monday the 1st – Manic Street Preachers @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Intermittently worthwhile student-radical Welshers. Must all be about five hundred years old by now.
Tuesday the 2nd – The Horrors @ The Academy 2, Birmingham – Hyped so much that even I’ve noticed, but you can have a listen to their new album here (scroll down a bit, try not to get too distracted by the picture of Rollins needing a wash) and I quite like it. 80s-style indie rock: bit of J&MC, bit of (a much more polite version of) The Birthday Party, derivative but great fun.
Tuesday the 2nd and Wednesday the 3rd – “Tempest In A Tea Cup” (Side By Side Theatre) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – There seem to be a few offshoots of ‘The Tempest’ knocking around the theatrical world lately. This one features dysfunctional MPs and is set in a kitchen and a standard lamp. Apparently.
Friday the 5th till Saturday the 13th of June – “The Government Inspector” (Crescent Theatre Company) @ The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham – Wait for it, wait for it… Corrupt politicians and their cronies are afraid that their embezzling and wrongdoing will be exposed. Also there’s a play by Gogol (hithangyew).
Saturday the 6th – Pritchattsbury Festival @ Pritchatts Park, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Apparently in its sixth year and the biggest festival in Brum, although no-one seems to have heard of it. Those playing include Just Jack, Lethal Bizzle and The Rumblestrips, although I’m getting sick of this “using ‘-bury’ as a general suffix for a festival name” lark. Just as Watergate would now be Watergategate, that thing in the West Country is presumably now Glastonburybury.
Saturday the 6th – Joan Of Arc @ The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham – Featuring ex-members of a pile of those types of bands that everyone else has heard apart from me, but never mind that: they sound like they have an interesting mix of wonky springy indie-rock, twingly-twangly guitar instrumentation that’s probably ala all those aforementioned bands although possibly not, and that kind-of-folksy-but-not-really American half-effort singing that is usually annoying but sometimes endearing, as per here. One day I’ll meet someone to whom my descriptions actually make sense, and it’ll probably bring about the apocalypse or somesuch.
Saturday the 6th – Schostakovich’s Fifth Symphony (CBSO) @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham – Nuts to that Stalin character. This’ll learn him.
Monday the 8th – Mark Thomas @ The Town Hall, Birmingham – The selection of policies for a “People’s Manifesto” continues. You can look at the full list here – I particularly like “Margaret Thatcher should pay for her own funeral”, “To replace organ donor cards with an opt out scheme”, “That the 1967 Abortion Act should be introduced to Northern Ireland”, “If MPs want a second job in order to gain a greater understanding of life outside of government, then the constituents should be able to vote and choose which job they think would best expand their MPs horizons”, and “Those who peddle homeopathic remedies should only receive homeopathic medicines when they have major illnesses”.
Tuesday the 9th – Lady Sovereign @ The Academy 2, Birmingham – Hooray for short people! I don’t know, you lot with your ‘leg room’ and your ‘ow I’ve banged my head’.
Wednesday the 10th – The Drones @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Awesome Australian indie rock’n’roll band who awesomely and Australianly actually use the word ‘daggy’ in this interview. Awesome. And Australian. And also it’s an interesting read outside of that.
Friday the 12th – Boxing (First Team) @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Steve Saville defends his Midlands Area lightweight title against Gary Reid, which is very far from a definite win for him. Lyndsey Scragg, meanwhile, has drawn Ugandan Agnes Adonga in a fight for something called the GBC women’s super-flyweight title, and Dean Harrison is on the card too.
Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th – “24 Hour Scalextric Grand Prix” (Stan’s Café) @ The A. E. Harris Building, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham – I always think ‘Scalextric’ sounds like a mispronunciation along the lines of ‘skellington’ or ‘sumbarine’. But it’s not. A 24 hour race, anyway, with running commentary through the whole thing. 7 Inch Cinema will be showing some pictures, too.
Saturday the 13th – The Flyover Show @ Hockley Flyover, Hockley, Birmngham – Urban jazzman Soweto Kinch’s second annual all-dayer under the A-Road, which makes for a really cool venue. Artists on include Ty, Bashy, and even Linton Kwesi Johnson.
Saturday the 13th – ‘Sci-Fi Fete’ @ St Mary’s Church, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham – A science-fiction themed church fete is not something you see every day.
Saturday the 13th – Æthenor / Einstellung @ The Hare And Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Brought to you by Capsule, whose ranks are now (in a way) bolstered by P’Ashton. An example of intertwingling, perhaps.
Tuesday the 16th – Boxing (no bleeding idea) @ The Arden Hotel, Solihull – Sorry about that, but it’s the best link I can find. The world of boxing, yet again, decides that the best way to make sure its shows are full of punters is to make sure everything is a bit more difficult for them than it might otherwise be (although in the name of not being quite so relentlessly negative I’ll say that I am quite happy that this now exists. That has nothing to do with this card, of course). This will apparently feature Kell Brook vs John O’Donnell in a British welterweight title fight and Gary Buckland vs Henry Castle in an eliminator for the British lightweight. Quite why those particular fights would end up happening in Solihull is beyond me, but there we are.
Thursday the 18th – Billy Bragg @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Braggy normally does the Wulfrun when he plays in Wolves, but this one is at The Civic. Climbing the capitalist ladder as ever, tsk.
Friday the 19th – “The War Of The Worlds” @ The NIA, Birmingham – UUULLLAAAAAAAAA.
Friday the 19th – UFO @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Doctor Doctor, there’s a fly in my soup. You don’t hear those jokes nowadays. I think that’s a shame. This is also quite possibly a very oblique reference.
Friday the 19th – The Sweet @ The Robin 2, Bilston – Or a version thereof, anyway. That’s right. That’s right that’s right.
Sunday the 21st – “The Secret Life Of Bees” @ Clent Hills, Hagley – Beeeeees. This is a walk and talk about bees, I should add, not a play built from the novel of the same name or anything like that.
Monday the 22nd – Shonen Knife @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Japanese girly pop-punkists who were really young when they started but have been going forever and so probably aren’t really young any more, if I understand this ‘chronology’ lark rightly (see also: 1st of the month). My favourite (possibly apocryphal) story about them is that – when they first started – the guitarist couldn’t play her instrument while standing up, having only ever practiced whilst sitting down. I think there’s something really lovely about that.
Tuesday the 23rd till Saturday the 27th – “The BFG” (Fiery Light/Royal & Derngate) @ The Rep, Birmingham – I approve of Roald Dahl as an author for children. I don’t approve of children, obviously, but if they have to exist then Roald Dahl is a good author for them to read. Then when a bit older Rushdie’s “Haroun And The Sea Of Stories” and Gaardner’s “Sophie’s World”. Continue with Alice and Hitchhikers, and then they’re ready for Kafka. I reckon.
Tuesday the 23rd – A Hawk And A Hacksaw @ The Hare And Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Them having a song called “God Bless The Ottoman Empire” gives Johnny Punter a good reason to go to this gig. Them having one of those websites (I’ve linked the MySpace instead there, to spare you) that does the ol’ “resized pop-up window” thing gives a good reason to try and spite them by not going. I thought that crap had died out. Messing about with my screen without asking me is not the best way to endear yourself to me, dunno about you.
Wednesday the 24th – Blur @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Whoo and also, if you find yourself so inclined, Hoo.
Wednesday the 24th – Hot 8 Brass Band @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – It seems to be an evolving tradition for the H&H to host a hip-hop influenced brass band every month. Not that I disapprove of this.
Thursday the 25th – B.B. King @ The NIA, Birmingham – ‘The legendary bluesman’, as professional music writers would insist you refer to him.
Thursday the 25th – Jeff Beck @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham – “So, Jeff Beck pops his head round the corner and mentions that there’s a little sweetshop at the edge of town…”
Friday the 26th till Sunday the 5th of July – Moseley Festival @ sundry locations in Moseley, Birmingham – All sorts of stuff in that there spot with those there people. I’m having trouble picturing a ‘Rocky Horror’ night at The Prince Of Wales, though. Also: it’s a bit of a digression, but Eye On Moseley has made me laugh more than any other blog I’ve seen in quite a long time.
Friday the 26th – Pendulum @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – They display an astonishing ignorance of arachnid physiology, it’s true, but they nevertheless make your body goi stiff an your spine goi numb. Come fe get some.
Sunday the 28th – Boxing (Warrior Promotions, I’m guessing) @ The Tower Ballroom, Edgbaston, Birmingham – One of these afternoon ones, I’m also guessing. Featuring a rematch between Dee Mitchell and Martin Concepcion: trust me when I say that their first fight was fantastic, up there with other four-round classics of our times like Gethin vs Carey and Davies vs Rasani.
Films from the days when the world was black & white and people walked quickly
Despite not really being the most avid follower of films, I really enjoyed a selection of shorts presented by 7 Inch Cinema at Supersonic 2007. Up until now, though, I hadn’t ever managed to get to any of their other events (unless you count the Capsule gig that was part of Flatpack ‘07).
Flatpack, I say? Flatpack is 7 Inch’s sort-of annual (there wasn’t one last year) film festival, which always includes a bunch of events that are a touch more interesting than your basic “sit in a picture house and watch a picture”. Affairs began this year with a very interesting gig from The Destroyers, and y’all know I love me some Destroyers.
Curzonara (for ‘twas its name) told the story of one Waller Jeffs, cinematic impresario (1861-1941). He, it seems, more or less brought cinema to Birmingham by organising film-showings in the old Curzon Hall between 1901 and 1912, often to crowds over 3,000 strong. We got the chance to see some of the films he showed back then, with the sonic accompaniment alternating between The Destroyers playing specially composed themes and narrations from Paul Murphy (who has a lovely voice for this sort of thing) about Jeffs’ life and the filmic tastes of the time.
We got several levels, then: the slightly sad tale of a creative man with a big vision, which just didn’t end up tallying with the way things turned out; some important social history (a poignant moment certainly came as we watched a film showing throngs of youths finishing work at the Kynoch armaments factory and Paul Murphy pointed out that within a few years the Great War will have wiped most of them out); some fun films (Georges Melies’ “Trip To The Moon” is apparently the first ever sci-fi film and charmingly features a bunch of wizards taking a trip to the moon) and some wonderful music, just as one might expect from The Destroyers (I’m still singing “We’re on the moon/on the mooooon/we’re on the moon/on the mooooooooooon”).
People really did know how to mill around in the old-timey films, didn’t they? So much energy expended falling over each other and dithering about in a small area.
Wonderful, wonderful stuff, anyway. The evening turned sharply afterwards and we were at Selly Oak A&E till about one in the morning when Louise’s knee decided to explode again, but never mind.
The Flatpack Festival continues until Sunday the 15th with plenty more for you to have a look at. I nearly missed it because of how cack their calendar page is (sorry to go on about that but it really is a pain in the arse to browse) and I’m probably not going to be able to make it, but I’d recommend the lovely Bella Emerson doing some more live soundtrack larks at Floodgate Kino (never heard of the venue before myself, but there’s a map) tonight. You can’t get better than a bit o’ Bella.
Catch up catch up catch up
So it’s a catch-up post (as ever), stretching back for three months.
The Leonard Cohen gig on the 22nd of November was originally going to be written about in a post entitled “First we take Marston Green, then we take Berlin”. Not a particularly good title, obviously, but it amused me.
To the NEC arena (has/had it not quite finished changing its name to the LG Arena yet, or has/had it? Confused am [were] we) then, stopping en route for a nice drink in Oldbury’s The Railway Inn at this end. We intended to go to the Wetherspoons at Birmingham International but it was actually shut at half six. Blimey.
He might be older than the dirt in Methuselah’s garden, but Lenny Cohen is still hugely charismatic and (I’m told) very sexy in his double-breasted suit and customary hat. He looked a lot older in the brief spells for which the hat came off. Whilst he’s never been known for being the best technical singer (and makes light of that himself), his deep sonorous voice was amazing. Perfect in every way.
His band were fantastic, n’all. Alongside regular collaborator Sharon Robinson, The Webb Sisters were his other two backing singers. They did the standard (I mean ‘standard’ not ‘bad’) pop-stars-band quasi-gospel backing vox, but from a little bit of their own that they got to do towards the end it seems that their own milieu is a lot folkier. Variation, that’s what we like. His Spanish guitar fella was also really good, and definitely added something beyond just technical proficiency.
Highlights abounded. All of it was a highlight, in fact, but if forced to pick a few than I suppose I’d have to pick “Tower of Song” complete with cheap keyboard and attempts to make Sharon laugh, “Hallelujah” obviously (ooh topical) (well, less so now but it was when I first wrote that), “Thousand Kisses Deep” (one I didn’t know before this gig, but the spoken/recited vocals made it a lot better than the sung recorded version I’ve since heard), a bombastic “First We Take Manhattan”, and probably loads more.
This would have been within my top fifteen gigs ever, easily.
Onwards into December. Whenever my Balkan-gypsy-Hammerhorror-PapaLazaru-danceband faves The Destroyers play at big daytime events (Artsfest, Moseley Folk etc) they’re always enjoyed by lots of little kids who obviously can’t go to the night-time gigs (insert the usual rant from me and various other people here: if there are two bands in the local area who are capable of appealing into a wide variety of people then they’re The Destroyers and Modified Toy Orchestra, and the fact that the conventional music industry’s genre-based schema doesn’t have the ability to read this illustrates a lot of what’s wrong with it). They decided, therefore, to make a daytime children’s show: Tweedeleededeedee, Sir Ru Barb and The Green Wolf at Birmingham Town Hall on Saturday the 6th of December. Lovely idea.
Sadly, it was a bit of a mess, although this was the first ever time it was performed there is plenty of chance to improve. We didn’t attend the singalong workshop type’o’thing that came beforehand, but the play itself had lots of nice ideas that seemed slightly badly done. My main advice would be Turn The Bleedin’ Microphones Up, ‘cos then it might be easier to hear what people are saying (also: persuade the dolly-bird/bit-of-fluff lady that the mic is more useful when spoken into, rather than held at waist level). I imagine it was mostly as a result of this communication breakdown that I found it quite difficult to follow at times. Some of the kids in attendance clearly absolutely loved it and were really getting into it/dancing in their seats, but quite a lot more just seemed to get bored and fractious (especially the little git behind us and his even worse parents). Obviously I don’t like kids to begin with and I do realise the foolishness of moaning about children at a children’s show, but I’m sure quite a few of them would have been a lot more attentive and happy if they’d been able to actually follow what was going on.
I hate saying this, because I really love The Destroyers and have a huge amount of goodwill towards anything they do. I’d also certainly never dispute the fact that this was a worthwhile thing to attempt. There were positives: there was some lovely music, I liked the animations, and the idea of a child been born as a mutant solar-powered sentient bicycle is rare genius. Rare, rare genius.
(Contrasting views exist, of course).
A mooch around Brum followed for a few hours, before heading over to The Old Joint Stock for pies. I very much recommend their pies in there.
Pies aside, the pub also has a theatre. We were there that evening for a stage version of Poe’s “Masque Of The Red Death”, courtesy of The Happiness Patrol. This, I thought, was really good. A two-hander (with the audience and a row of mannequin dolls representing the assembled throng), with Philip Hoyman as a silent servant (who managed to say a lot without saying anything), and Gareth Nichols as an incredibly intense Prince Prospero (a great performance – he kept up a large amount vicious paranoia very effectively for a long time). Unlike the story it centred around Prospero’s neurotic contempt for those he thought he was saving, but the whole thing still had a very eerie air, especially the way the different coloured rooms were represented by bathing the set with lights.
It was veeeeeery hot in there, though. Between the air temperature and all the talk of plague and disease I actually started to come over a bit queasy at the start.
(Other folks write here, here, and here).
To J.B’s for the first time in an age on Tuesday the 9th, and it’s as much of a funny ol’ place as ever. It has what is probably the lowest level of soullessness that a 1,000 capacity pop music venue is ever reasonably likely to have, but gigs there tend to be pretty damn expensive on the door and they never seem to advertise much outside of their own website. It’s unsurprising that the turnout for this Municipal Waste gig was poorer than it might have been elsewhere (I recall a lot more people going to see The Waste at the much smaller Flapper the two times that Gazberg put them on there a few years ago).
Ah well. Iron Lung were the tour support, a two piece (drums/vox and guitar) playing a pretty effective style of violent grind with some slow bits and enjoying their first time in ‘Doodley’ (a mispronunciation that seemed to really upset one heckler, even though his own voice sounded scouse). The sound was absolutely perfect for them and really let their stop/start-on-a-sixpence dynamics shine through, whilst the drummer was a nutter but an endearing one. I really enjoyed them for most of their set, although they did go on for a bit longer than might have been the optimum.
Municipal Waste were massive fun (as always) with their “exactly like DRI but no-one seems to mind, least of all me” thrash metal/hardcore crossover business. They don’t take themselves completely seriously,which is always a good thing. The highlights were predictable – “Thrashin’ Of The Christ”, “Terror Shark” and a rendition of “Municipal Waste IGFYU” after having persuaded most of the audience to get up onto the stage. Their re-titling of “I Wanna Kill The President” as “I Wanna Chill With The President” suggests that they’re not 100% living in the past. Maybe.
(Singer Tony described this gig as “a weird ass show” in a recent interview).
Christmas happened next, obviously. Christmas is lovely.
I don’t like Going To The Pictures. I’m a lot better with films in general than I was a couple of years ago, but I’d still much rather watch one at home and I definitely don’t subscribe to the ‘bigger screen is better’ theory. It’ll pass as a general outing now and again (as long as there’s a sufficiently long gap between ‘now’ and ‘again’), though, and so on Saturday the 10th we went to The Electric Cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire. Florence has since decided she feels the same way about picture-houses and so all is well, but we’d both acknowledge that The Electric is a lot better than most. So very loud, though! That can’t be necessary. The fillum itself was ace, I thought; fast-paced and exciting but still thoughtful, with a happy/fairly sentimental ending but not shying away from displaying the horribleness where necessary.
My first gig of the new year took place on Thursday the 22nd of Jan, going to see Buzzcocks at The Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. Also there was Other Stuff not suited to the maintenance of sanguine temperament, but never mind that.
We went in The Ponderosa first, which was lovely and somewhere I’ll definitely go again. The Lurkers were our supporting artistes for the evening: very Ramones-ish, although perhaps a tiny bit (just a tiny bit) more Oi. Nothing at all new, but I enjoyed them. I especially liked “Come And Reminisce If You Think You’re Old Enough”. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
Speaking of which… nah, only joking, Buzzcocks were fantastic. You can see the years on Pete Shelley though. They were playing the first two albums in full on this tour (that seems to be becoming increasingly common nowadays) alongside other odds and ends came in the encore (although we did have to leave before the end), and they sound as fresh as ever. The big yet intelligent pop hooks which we all know and love weren’t lost in translation as they gave it a surprising amount of welly. Predictably, the bits I found to be highlights were my favourites anyway – “On Our Own”, “Sixteen”, “Fallen In Love”, and… probably some others, I dunno. Lovely fun.
On Saturday the 24th we headed to the Crescent Theatre for Of Mice And Men, courtesy of their own theatre company. The Crescent can be bloody annoying at times. The bar/stairs/corridor were packed with people beforehand, as people hoping to attend the events in both the main room and the smaller one (where this was) walk in every possible direction in small spaces. At least the interval times seem to be staggered on this occasion, unlike the last time I went.
I’m blessed to have seen the definitive (no really it was) stage version of OMAM at The Rep with Matthew Kelly (no really he was), and it didn’t really surprise me to find that this one wasn’t as good. That’s not to say it was bad, though. Everyone in it seemed a little bit wooden and there was plenty of stumbling over lines, but I don’t want to go over the top with that – the cast did a decent job if not spectacular job. The use of space was very good: Candy (the black character, you’ll recall), for example, was present on stage for most of the time but separated from the rest of the cast in an effective mirror of the way he (and everyone else) are isolated.
(Thoughts on taking some kiddies to see it can be found a few paragraphs down here).
Arriving at The Rainbow to see Gregor Samsa on Monday the 26th (I was lucky to find out about the gig. I’m so out of touch these days…), I saw more stuff packed onto the stage than you often see. It was quite the sight. Saw. See. Sight.
Dream Dreams The Dreamer was our sole support for the evening (gigs with only two acts on the bill seem to increasingly be the standard aroundabout now. I don’t like this tendency) and I really wanted to like him, since I never seem to get much out of that Esquilax circle of bands. Ah well. It started with slow chords and screams reminiscent of some less-distorted version of Khanate, before building up to a maelstrom of wrecked organ sounds, feedback and white noise. Fun as that sounds, it didn’t convey anything to me beyond “I Are Sirius Cat”.
I really enjoy Gregor Samsa’s recent album while it’s playing, but can never remember a note of it afterwards (or, indeed, its title – I’ve just had to look up the fact that it’s called “Rest”. It should be noted that neither of these things are particularly unusual for me, particularly the latter). I’m not sure whether going to see them thus makes more or less sense, given that live music is just a half-recalled moment in time. They sounded absolutely gorgeous, whichever way up. A more song-y/standardly postrock-y Sigur Ros is the overall impression they give on record but live they came across as a more song-y Efterklang, with a very lush sound built from a really effective combination of little subtle things and big broad strokes (that’ll be what all the instruments packing the stage were for. Ah right Ted). The small-ish crowd applauded very enthusiastically at the end.
On top of all that, any band with a Kafka reference for a name will automatically be good. I’m sick of having to tell you this.
To the Old Joint Stock Theatre on Friday the 30th, for a version of Look Back In Anger from BISPA/Birmingham Stage School Showbiz. The play itself was new to me, but I loved it. Most of all it was extremely funny, but also a very good depiction of frustration with staid and archetypal lives.
The performance didn’t seem as good as it perhaps might have been, though. The main and biggest problem was that it was too fast – they galloped through it with nary a pause between hastily delivered sentences. A bit of breathing space really might have helped. A bit more clear enunciation might have been nice, too, Luke Beard’s Alex (a performance influenced by John Cleese, one wonders?) in particular. They’re young, though, and I’m sure it’ll all come with experience (and I sincerely apologise for sounding so patronising with that). Let’s be positive: I did really like Davut-Sebastian Atterbury (what a name) as Colonel Redfern, and I definitely wouldn’t say they were outright bad on the whole. Whichever way up, they definitely sold me on the play. I’d like to see the film now, in fact.
The afternoon of Sunday the 1st of Feb saw me going to a boxing card for the first time since June. Warrior Promotions and First Team had joined forces to promote this extravaganza, and sitting there beforehand waiting for things to start I found myself awash with sensations. Anticipation~! Of what was to come. Amusement~! At The Tower Ballroom’s seriously 70s décor. Dismay~! About the fact that someone had let Terry O’ Conner into the building, and if they’re silly enough to do that they’re probably also silly enough to let him referee some boxing matches.
I’d half-forgotten the “home boxer vs journeyman” nature of local cards. It’s not that I dislike watching those matches, necessarily, but given that it ain’t cheap to get in it’s not what you ideally want. Outside of two matches, the “..and his opponent…” corner didn’t win a single round all afternoon/evening. The two exceptions, happily, were really good fights: Rhys Davies took on Hastings Rasani in one of the best few four-rounders I’ve ever seen (toe-to-toe in an almost literal sense from start to finish. Given that this was only Rhys’ second pro fight it’s also worth saluting the brave matchmaking that led to this) and Tony Randell upset Max Maxwell in a gritty ten-rounder for the Midlands area middleweight title (that result surprised me, but not enough to cry robbery or anything like that. I thought Maxwell had edged it with busier and cleaner work, but I suppose Randell – who looked a hell of a lot better than he did last time I saw him – did land more hurtful-looking shots and he definitely had a big finish).
Never mind all that, though, the important bit: Ring Entrance (and, indeed, Name) Of The Day goes to Quinton Hillocks, who came down to the sound of Soulja Boy whilst wearing a superman cape.
(The BBN report on this card can be read here).
The 6th was the occasion for An Inspector Calls at The Rep, and it was really very good indeed – a reprise of the Stephen Daldry production that apparently was very well received some years ago, and in itself a subtly clever play with more obvious (but still worthwhile) stuff laid over the top. The scenery not only looked great but worked with well with the narrative: their big posh house in the centre functioning as the citadel that they the family are dragged out of as they are forced to think about the world outside of their own immediate gratification. At the end only Sheila and Eric end up outside, being the only two who have learned from the experience. Louis Hilyer’s performance as Inspector Goole was certainly very stylised (I would like to know what the stage directions in the script say in comparison to this), but the cast as a whole were very good (particularly Robin Whiting as Eric. I could imagine him in a lot of Coward/Wilde type things).
(Reviews a-plenty! Try here, there, here, there, here, elsewhere, everywhere, probably other places too…)
On Friday the 13th (ooh scary etc etc) we went to see the absolutely brilliant These Four Streets at The Rep Door. Based around the 2005 riot in Lozells in Birmingham (where the rumour of a rape escalated into argey bargey and resulted in a death), it was poignant but also funny and most of all humane. That it was of local interest also goes without saying. It took the form of a series of vignettes of local life, showing how little things can rise and create tension up to the point where only a spark is needed (whether it’s true or has any basis in reality or not). Some were one-offs and some had recurring characters, with the best being the old Jamaican grandmother comforting the runaway asian child and the genuinely tearjearking kid leaving pizza at his mate’s grave. The whole cast were really strong and showed range in delivering a variety of different characters, but a particular salute should go to Lorna Laidlaw. It’s still touring here and there, and is definitely worth seeing – if there’s anything from this whole post that I’d recommend then it’s this one. (EDIT: Alright, so I’d forgotten about Leonard Cohen when I typed that bit. He ain’t likely to tour in the immediate future, though, whereas I know “These Four Streets” is going to be around and about…)
(This initially seemed under-reviewed, but they’ve poured in since then. Try here, here, here, here, and here).
Woozle very kindly allowed me permission to go out on Saturday the 14th for “Priest Feast” (what a name for a tour. What a dream of a name), and so after being disabused of the notion that it was at the NIA (happily this happened before I set out) I headed off to the NEC/LG/Whatever-Have-You Arena. I am only vaguely familiar with Testament but I did enjoy their set a lot. I do at least know that the main thing you want when you go to see them is air guitar on the mic stand (I suppose that’s not actually air guitar. Stand guitar, if you will), and we got plenty. Great thrashing fun, anyway.
I saw Megadeth at only the second gig I ever attended way back in the September of 1997 (the sound was beyond dreadful but it didn’t bother me: my inexperienced self thought that maybe gigs were just like that at that sort of scale. Also: eleven and a half years ago. Ceiling Cat almighty), but that was then and this is now. They have done a lot of complete and utter tut in their time, but they stuck to the good stuff here and so all was great. “She-Wolf” was dedicated to all the She-Wolves on Valentines Day (aaaaw. How romantic), and the amazing one-two of “Symphony Of Destruction” and “Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?” put a massive grin across my face. Dave Mustaine still has a very strange singing voice. He’s still also ginger. I’m sure we wouldn’t have him any other way.
How does one write about the Judas Priest live experience? I suppose the easiest way to sum it all up is that they were what you’d expect in a good way, rather than what you’d expect in a bad way. Thus: ace. Disconnected thoughts would include: Look at Rob Halford there, enjoying himself in his glittery coat; It was a bit of a disappointment that Halfo didn’t initially ride onto the stage on his Harley, but he did that for the encore so all was well. Didn’t hit anything, either; It’s worth noting that The Priest are the first act I’ve seen since Usher to use a hydraulic lift on stage: All (well, most) of your big singalong faves were played – Breaking The Law, Electric Eye, Rock Hard Ride Free, Another Thing Comin’; Painkiller was absolutely shredding; That first one they played from the new album (“I Am Nostradamus”?) sounded fun, too; Priest~!
Right, that’ll do us for the time being. There’s been a big London trip and another boxing do since then, but they can wait for the moment.
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands – March 2009
Thought you’d seen the last, eh? LOTTSADITWM doesn’t lie down quite so easily, suckah.
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.
Sunday the 1st – The Drifters @ The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham – Or a version thereof, at least. No Ben E. King or Clyde McPhatter, for obvious reasons.
Sunday the 1st – Muay Thai (K-Star) @ The Tower Ballroom, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Elbows and knees by the reservoir, in what is quite possibly the most seventies-styled venue I have ever seen.
Monday the 2nd – “These Four Streets” (Birmingham Rep Theatre Company) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – Absolutely excellent play based around last year’s Lozells riots, showing how small frustrations can build and build into bigger tensions in a community. We saw it at The Rep Door a few weeks ago and I really can’t recommend it enough. It’s also at The Drum on the 13th.
Monday the 2nd – The Ting Tings @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – That is their name, for that is indeed what they are called.
Tuesday the 3rd till Saturday the 7th – “The Jungle Book” (Birmingham Stage Company) @ The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham – Mr Kipling makes exceedingly good anthropomorphic animals.
Thursday the 5th – Half Man Half Biscuit @ The Robin 2, Bilston – Wherein everyone will be doing The Len Ganley Stance.
Thursday the 5th till Sunday the 8th – Crufts @ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham – Hounds hounds hounds hounds hounds hounds hounds hounds.
Friday the 6th – Rolo Tomassi @ The Academy 2, Birmingham – Third on the bill of the Rock Sound sponsored (see, how cool is that? Glossy magazines!) “Shred Yr Face” tour. I would like to make it clear that I don’t like “yr” as a diminutive of “your” (rather than “year”). I didn’t like it the first time around in fanzines and now I don’t like it this time round on internets. Hurrumph.
Saturday the 7th – Fairport Convention @ The Town Hall, Birmingham – That would be the folk band Fairport Convention, of course. The Town Hall is not due to be hosting a convention of, erm, fairports.
Saturday the 7th – Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy & Chris Parkinson @ Newhampton Arts Centre, Wolverhampton – Speaking of folk… I bet this and Fairport on the same night will constitute an unfortunate date clash for some punters.
Saturday the 7th – Boxing (Mahesh Mendalia/Dennis Hobbs) @ The New Bingley Hall, Hockley, Birmingham – Featuring the last ever match of local boxing/Kung-Fu/Kickboxing legend Pele Reid (he knocked out Vitali Klitchsko in a light-contact kickboxing match. Just take a second to think about both halves of that sentence) before he retires. It’s at a new venue, too.
Wednesday the 11th till Saturday the 14th – “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?” (Dudley Little Theatre) @ Netherton Arts Centre, Netherton – Classic play and you can pop into Ma Pardoe’s for a swift ‘un after it’s finished.
Wednesday the 11th until Sunday the 15th – Flatpack Film Festival @ Various venues in Birmingham – Very eagerly anticipated by a lot of people, 7 Inch Cinema’s third Flatpack Film Festival is nearly upon us. Their calendar page seems to have been designed with the express intent of making it as awkward as possible to browse what’s going on, but I’m particularly looking forward to the Curzonara event with The Destroyers (natch) and Waller Jeffs’ animated pictures.
Thursday the 12th – “Legends Of The Oche” @ The Concert Hall, Dudley – Darts and comedy from Bobby George, John Lowe, Eric Bristow and – apparently – one Duncan “Chase Me” Norvelle.
Friday the 13th till Tuesday the 17th – St Patrick’s festival @ various venues in Birmingham – Centred, obviously, around what is reported to be the biggest St Paddy’s day parade in the world outside of Dublin and New York. Also of interest looks to be The Craic Was Good In Cricklewood at The Irish Club in Digbeth on the 16th.
Saturday the 14th and intermittently until Saturday the 11th of April – “Terrorism” mini-season @ The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham – Three plays based on matters surrounding terrorism over the course of a few weeks – The Bus (in which a girl is challenged as to why she’s taking a particular journey), Terrorism (wherein various disparate scenes are shown to be somehow similar) and Talking To Terrorists (which relays bits from interviews with an assortment of people who have been involved in or affected by terrorism). Daily Mail styled hurrumphing is probably best left at home.
Saturday the 14th – John Legend @ The Academy, Birmingham – Diminishing qualitative returns of late, obviously, but “Get Lifted” was a fantastic album.
Saturday the 14th – Boxing (Hennessy Sports) @ AVEC, Aston, Birmingham – Second city derby! Macklin vs Elcock for the British middleweight title, and they’re both Zulus so hopefully there shouldn’t be a riot or anything to spoil anyone’s day. The undercard also features Young Mutley vs Adnan Amar for the English welterweight title and this Tyson Fury (what a name) heavyweight prospect that they’re all speaking words about. On the other hand, tickets are £45. Mick Hennessy really is taking the piss.
Tuesday the 17th – “The Maids” (Phizzical Productions) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton – A Bollywood influenced version of a Genet play. That’s not a sentence you get to say every day.
Wednesday the 18th till Saturday the 21st – “Can Any Mother Help Me?” (Foursight Theatre) @ The Rep Door, Birmingham – Telling the story of the Co-Operative Correspondence Club, through which otherwise isolated women were able to make themselves heard on everything “From marriage to childbirth, hidden desires to socialism, housework to wartime politics”.
Saturday the 21st – Mono @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Japanese post-rock types that I still haven’t got around to having a listen to at the time of writing, but a few people that I’d actually pay heed to recommend them so I’ll stick ‘em in here anyway.
Saturday the 21st – Musiq Soulchild @ The Drum, Newtown, Birmingham – I’d got the idea from somewhere that he’d changed his name to just ‘Musiq’, but apparently that’s not true. Even change doesn’t stay the same these days.
Saturday the 21st – Science Day @ Edgbaston Reservoir, Edgbaston, Birmingham – An astronomically themed morning, apparently. Turn up between 11AM and 1PM.
Tuesday the 24th – Yo Majesty @ The Little Civic, Wolverhampton – Punk-funk-crunk-rap, say some. Like a more raucous Salt’n’Pepper. (EDIT: postponed, apparently. See comments).
Wednesday the 25th – Metallica @ The LG Arena, Marston Green, Birmingham – I do realise that I’m stretching the “things that looked like they might be interesting” bit from the rubric above with this one. They have been interesting at times in the past, however far removed that may be.
Thursday the 26th – Premier League Darts @ The NIA, Birmingham – Arrers thrown by arrerers, including your hero and mine Phil “The Power” Taylor.
Friday the 27th – Lemar @ The NIA, Birmingham – Apparently it’s 50/50, so any odds from 3/1 or better should be snapped up.
Friday the 27th and Saturday the 28th – White Noise Festival @ The Rainbow, Digbeth, Digbeth, Birmingham – It doesn’t look as noisy as the name would immediately suggest (I was expecting some Merzbow styled business), but there is all sorts of varied musical stuff a-happening. Dave Ball from Soft Cell is DJing, for example.
Saturday the 28th – The Beat @ The Academy, Birmingham – It’s their 30th anniversary tour, don’tchaknow.
Saturday the 28th – Tunng / Tinariwen @ The Rainbow Warehouse, Digbeth, Birmingham – A collaboratory tour between my favourite leccy-space-folk types of modern times and the Tuareg desert-blues electric-central-African-music sorts. Definitely sounds like one not to be missed.
Tuesday the 31st – Lionel Richie @ The LG Arena, Marston Green, Birmingham – I’m going to keep saying it until someone agrees with me: the man looks like a crocodile.
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands: April 2008
This month is clearly all about fighting, and orchestral & choral music. Maybe all at the same time.
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.
Saturday the 29th of March till Sunday the 6th of April – ‘Dance Steps’ (Stan’s Café) @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham – You, yes that’s you, can perform this play by means of choosing and following different sets of instructions and directions scattered around the MAC. From the people that brought you the (I’ll say it yet again) magnificent The Cleansing Of Constance Brown.
Tuesday the 1st – Beethoven’s 5th (CBSO) @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham – Dur-dur-dur DUUUURRRRR! Dur-dur-dur DUUUURRRRR!
Wednesday the 2nd and Wednesday the 9th – ‘Midland Journey: Archive Film Of Wolverhampton And The Black Country’ @ The Light House, Wolverhampton – Showing various films of how it was in The Good Old Days. It promises chainmaking and groaty pudding.
Thursday the 3rd until Saturday the 5th – ‘Days Of Hope’ (MAC Productions) @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham – A Howard Goodall musical translating the events in The Balkans in the late 80s into a Spanish civil war setting. It’s had some very good reviews.
Thursday the 3rd till Sunday the 6th – British Open Show Jumping Championships @ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham – Neigh, neigh and thrice neigh.
Friday the 4th till Sunday the 6th – MAC closing weekend @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham – The final hurrah of the Midland Arts Centre before it closes until Autumn 2009 to be refurbished and rebuilt. As well as the abovementioned ‘Dance Steps’ and ‘Days Of Hope’, Friday is the storytelling day for families, then there are a couple of days of puppetry events and the grand finale of the MAC On Screen film showing.
Saturday the 5th – Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (Ex Cathedra/Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment) @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham – Oh hey they’re playing my song.
Saturday the 5th and various dates up until till Saturday the 19th – ‘Top Girls’ (Crescent Theatre Presents) @ The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham – The excellent Caryl Churchill play. The people putting it all together have set up a blog. This is a very good thing. They’ve neglected to put the dates and times and so forth on it, but still. Baby steps.
Tuesday the 8th – John Barrowman @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham – Captain Jack sings.
Friday the 11th – ‘The Masque Of Red Death’ (The Happiness Patrol theatre company) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham – Poe. And I ain’t talking about La-La’s mate.
Saturday the 12th – AMMA @ The Holte Suite, Aston Villa Football Club, Aston, Birmingham – Amateur and B-class pro MMA, and they’re always good shows. This version of the card is fairly up-to-date, I believe.
Sunday the 13th – Portishead @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Of course it’s already sold out, you silly moo.
Sunday the 13th – Pugilist Promotions’ “Old School/New Blood” (Boxing) @ The Tower Ballroom, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Fighting sports return to the reservoir-side venue for the first time in aaages. You have amateurs early in the afternoon, then (after a break) professionals in the evening.
Monday the 14th – ‘The Terrible Tudors/The Vile Victorians’ (Horrible Histories) @ The Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton – For kiddies, though, so I doubt it will stoop to the genuine horrible and vile depths.
Monday the 14th – Mil Millington @ Hall Green Library, Hall Green, Birmingham – Go here (and laugh fulsomely) if you don’t know who Mil Millington is. This reading thingy is only for ages 16-25, though.
Wednesday the 16th – Merzbow and The Dirty Noise Ensemble @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Noizez. Not, I would suggest, for the faint of heart or the delicate of eardrum.
Thursday the 17th – Lethal Bizzle @ The Academy, Birmingham – If you’re going to this, don’t take any beef with you. You’ll risk losing some teef. And you don’t want that.
Saturday the 19th – The Presidents Of The USA – The Academy, Birmingham – This is one of those instances where I used to adore this band, but (without ever at any point consciously going off them) they’ve declined in importance to me to the point where I’m not really all that fussed. Still: “Peaches come from a can/They were put there by a man”. I can’t argue with that.
Saturday the 19th – Thai Boxing (Firewalker) @ The Light Bar, Wolverhampton – I have no details at all, but if you want to see some Muay Thai then this may be the place to go.
Sunday the 20th – ‘As Seen On TV’ (Notorious Choir) @ The Electric Cinema, Birmingham – ‘The choir with a difference’ a-singing television themes.
Sunday the 20th – Mahler’s 2nd (Birmingham Philharmonic/City Of Birmingham Choir) @ The Town Hall, Birmingham – Surely the greatest symphony to hear live. (And if you like a bit of Gustav, there’s also his Fifth at Symphony Hall on the 22nd).
Tuesday the 22nd – Gogol Bordello @ The Academy, Birmingham – Take up thy caravan and travel.
Tuesday the 22nd – Boris @ The Medicine bar, The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham – This gig in collaboration with one Michio Kurihara, which may well mean more to you than it does to me.
Thursday the 24th and Friday the 25th – “Packers” (Zip Theatre) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham – A comedy set in The Land Of The Righteous (The Black Country, to the likes of you). Apparently “a story of pain, pathos, severed digits, mad boyfriends, hypochondriacs, attempted murder, sex and parcel-tape.” Also at Newhampton Arts Centre in Wolves on the 18th and 19th.
Thursday the 24th and Friday the 25th – ‘Blue Planet’ (Manchester Camerata) @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham – A documentary from off of the telly about fishies and such (remember: keep friends close, anemones closer), with the Manchester Camerata a-playing a score specifically composed by George Fenton.
Friday the 25th – Wayne Elcock vs Darren McDermott for the British middleweight title (Hennessy Sports) @ The Aston Villa Leisure Centre, Aston, Birmingham – Birmingham vs Black Country, and it’s the big one – the British title. Come On Macca! (Although: guh! at the ticket prices. Almost glad I won’t be going, with that sort of piss-taking).
Friday the 25th – Bjork @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Well it’s Bjork. Obviously.
Friday the 25th to Sunday the 27th – English Originals @ The Town Hall & Symphony Hall, Birmingham – An English folk festival, just after St George’s Day. This really does look fantastic: the main gigs are Billy Bragg at The Town Hall on the Friday, Tunng and Seth Lakeman at The Town Hall on Saturday, and The Daughters Of Albion (Kathryn Williams, Norma Waterson, and others) at Symphony hall on he Sunday. You’ve also got free sets (Rush Hour Blues stylee) from The Old Dance School (Friday) and Little Sister (Sunday) at the Symphony Hall foyer in the ICC, and a free showing (if you have a ticket for any of the gigs) of the Folk Britannia documentary at 2pm in The Town Hall on Sunday.
Monday the 28th until Sunday the 25th of May – International Dance Festival @ all over Birmingham – Loads and loads and loads of dance and dance-related events from all over the world are taking place over the course of a month, at various venues in town.
Tuesday the 29th – Alabama 3 @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – Woke up this morning. Obviously. I wouldn’t be typing this otherwise.
Wednesday the 30th – Cursed @ The Medicine Bar, The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham – Sometimes sludgy and sometimes crusty hardcore, but (and this is the best bit) they’re actually really good unlike most of the bands that most of the people who’ll tell you Cursed are good will tell you are good. Good. Tell. Good.
Wednesday the 30th – Boxing (First Team) @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – The New And Radical Dean Harrison Matchmaking Philosophy continues to bare fruit – he’s fighting Gary Reid here, which is a genuinely risky fight. Good luck to him, ‘cos it’s great to see.
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands: September 2007
It’s back, it appears. To be entirely honest with you, it was meant to be back sooner. I didn’t feel like doing it for May but for both June and July I intended to write one of these here listings posts, and was only stopped by the small matter of ‘me being completely useless’. I couldn’t find enough stuff to make it worth restarting in August, but now – for this most transitional of months – we recommence.
Oh yeah – some of you may be wandering what on earth this is. Checka da archives-a. Before the beginning of a month I used to write some guff ‘n’ gittish comments about things due to happen in the West Midlands (based more on Birmingham and The Black Country than Coventry, though not necessarily deliberately) that had struck me as interesting/fun/worth attending.
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. Please do not contact me to ask for your event to be included. That’s not the way it works.
Saturday the 1st and Sunday the 2nd – The Moseley Folk Festival @ Moseley Park, Moseley, Birmingham – I really, really enjoyed the day of this that I went to last year. Beer-related cock-ups aside (not that I wish to downplay those. Beer Is Very Important), it was really nicely run and had a lovely atmosphere. The line-up doesn’t entice me as much this time but I’m going to go to both days. Watch out for Tunng (TheirSpace), ‘cos they’re great.
Saturday the 1st – High On Fire @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham – Clashing with Moseley Folk, but there are of course those amongst the massive who refer to folk music by various sexuality-based epithets. They may be an excercise in Banging The Head That Does Already Bang, but I like High On Fire and their Motorhead-With-Occasional-Doom-Bits larks. It’s Capsule.
Sunday the 2nd – Heart Of England Judo Championships @ The NIA, Birmingham – I believe the phrase I am looking for is THROW BY CLOTHES
Tuesday the 4th – The Police @ The NIA, Birmingham – To quote Atom And His Package, “Sting Cannot Possibly be The Same Guy Who Was In The Police.”
Tuesday the 4th – Chris Cornell @ The Academy, Birmingham – Chris Cornell, however, quite possibly could be the same guy who was in Soundgarden.
Wednesday the 5th – Regina Spektor @ The Academy, Birmingham – Just make sure you pronounce it right. It’s ‘Regeena’ apparently. I know, me too.
Wednesday the 5th – Birmingham Storytelling Circle @ Scruffy Murphy’s, Birmingham – A free meeting “for people who simply want to tell and listen to stories.” That’s a lovely idea.
Thursday the 6th – Steel Pulse @ The Academy, Birmingham – I once did a college course with the son of the keyboard player from Steel Pulse. There’s your fact of the day. Handsworth Revolution!
Sunday the 9th – Damien Dempsey @ The Academy, Birmingham – I’m not sure how this one has come about. It’s a joint headline with Nizlopi (meh), which I’d assumed was part of a tour but it appears is actually a one-off. Whichever way up and though his amateur boxing credentials may be disputed by some, Damo is a fantastic songwriter with an amazingly intense delivery.
Wednesday the 12th – Lucky Soul @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham – I haven’t decided if there’s anything to them beyond pastiche yet, but I do like this band.
Friday the 14th to Sunday the 16th – Artsfest @ all over the place in Birmingham – The annual massive assemblage of freeness. Generally there’s all sorts of gubbins for all ages going on all over the place, but they haven’t released a line-up of any kind yet. There is a ‘top ten attractions’ here (linked to CIB, since the Artsfest’s own site doesn’t have a permalink for it. Silly rabbits).
Saturday the 15th – Blaze Bayley @ The Little Civic, Wolverhampton – Good ol’ Tammuff Blaze advertised for band members through the JobCentre recently, which amuses me for reasons I can’t quite figure out. This gig is subtitled My Life Unplugged, but I have no idea whatsoever whether that means it’s acoustic or an “Evening With…” type affair or what.
Saturday the 15th – P.J. Promotions’ “Hope And Glory” (Boxing) @ The ICC, Birmingham – A boxing card being held to commemorate The Battle Of Britain, apparently. I’m not sure precisely how it’ll be commemorating it – maybe the profits are going to organisations that help veterans or something. I have no idea. Three title fights, anyway, although none of this will matter to most of us since it’s one of these dinner show larks and tables apparently cost a grand and a half.
Saturday the 15th – Misty’s Big Adventure @ The Academy 2, Birmingham – Local act considered legendary by many. I still haven’t seen them, but I suspect that the Aca2 probably isn’t the best place to do so for the first time.
Tuesday the 18th – Regional Shorts: Screen Test @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Six short films from local directors. Intriguingly, Steve Rainbow’s ‘Quest For Fire’ is about “One man’s quest to find the hottest curry in the land.”
Thursday the 20th – The Curate’s Egg @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – Less music and more comedy in this installment of what is becoming known as a reliable monthly night of weirdness. Never heard of the headlining comedians Simon Munnery or Andrew Bailey. I’ve heard of Nadeem Rangzeb. A spot of research tells me that “Godfrey Slater And His Invisible Ducks” is Al from The Courtesy Group. And, presumably, some ducks. Invisible ones.
Friday the 21st – The Misfits @ Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – As part of their 30th anniversary tour. I like this band, and so I’m trying my very hardest not to blame them for many of the regretable haircuts we see amongst the youth of today.
Saturday the 22nd – K-Star’s “Shoothai” (MMA/Muay Thai) @ The Royale Suite, Perry Bar, Birmingham – Or at least I assume it’s a mix of MMA and Muay Thai bouts, going between that link and this one. No idea who might be fighting.
Saturday the 22nd – Boxing (Coventry Sporting Club) @ The Leofric Hotel, Coventry – There’s lots of boxing this month. I would presume that this event is a dinner show.
Saturday the 22nd to Sunday the 23rd – GB Judo World Cup @ The NIA, Birmingham – I believe the phrase I’m looking for is still THROW BY CLOTHES
Sunday the 23rd – Hed(PE) @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham – Now there’s a name that’s a blast from the past. Hed(PE) were like grime-metal before there was even grime, which is quite prescient when you think about it.
Sunday the 23rd – Tortoise M.O.T. @ Birmingham Nature Centre, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Probably only of interest to tortoise-owners (a group of which I am sadly not a part), but it sounded good.
Tuesday the 25th till Thursday the 27th – “Macbeth Kill Bill Shakespeare” @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Malachi Bogdanov’s play about what would have happened if Quentin Tarantino had written had written Macbeth. Feelings of “Hmmm” leap to mind, but apparently it has been getting very good reviews.
Wednesday the 26th – Alabama 3 @ The Academy 2, Birmingham – From the Deep South. Or London, as we know it over here.
Wednesday the 26th – Akala @ Bar Academy, Birmingham – What I didn’t know about Akala was that he is apparently Ms Dynamite’s brother. Master Dynamite-Hee-Hee…
Friday the 28th – Mothertrucker / Grandscope @ The Island Bar, Birmingham – (i.e. next door to the Alexandra – apparently they sell cocktails). Two of the best local bands on the same bill. Huzzah, sez I.
Friday the 28th – Boxing (Pat Cowdell) @ The Skydome, Coventry – Headlined by Howard Eastman vs Birmingham’s Wayne Elcock for the British middleweight title. A complicated path has led to this one, what with Elcock leaving Ringside Promotions for Frank Maloney, Maloney handing the purse bids back, Brum stalwart Pat Cowdell eventually picking up the fight, and then changing the venue to The Skydome. Blimey. Matty Hough appears to be on the undercard too – let’s hope he can back to winning ways.
Friday the 28th – Boxing (Ringside Promotions) @ Your guess is as good as mine at the minute – So, Ringside were due to have a card on the 21st at the Villa Leisure Centre with a bunch of their usual fighters, but apparently that venue has closed down and now the card will be elsewhere on the 28th. Tom Podmore says in The Never-Ending Boxcot Comments Thread that it could be at town’s Holiday Inn or the National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull. Bikes and boxing together, imagine that. Punters at The Skydome will be able to smell the testosterone from there.
Sunday the 30th – ‘Meltdown Metalfest’ @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham – A strange line-up, in some ways. All of the bands play distorted guitars and use vocals that differ from sweetly singing, of course, but beyond that there seems to be no common thread (that I can divine) running through it. This is not to say that I’m opposed to nods in the vague direction of variation, of course. Note well that Assert (TheirSpace) are playing. They always tear the roof off the place.
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