Oh. (Russ L going to and fro in the Earth)

Yeah, alright, well, no, maybe not. There were going to be themed digest posts (‘live music in June’, ‘fightsports in June’ and so forth) but it appears I am too much of a lazy git to do even that. I’m just going to list the best bits of recent times. The bad bits can go hang.

~ I spent £40 on a ticket to see the Sex Pistols at The Academy on the 11th of June and almost immediately started wondering about precisely why I’d done such a silly thing. I love the Pistols, of course, but I’m not an enormous fan or anything like that (I think The Clash were by far the better band, as do all correct-livin’ folk) and I can’t say I’m hugely invested in their mythology (although I do like it). They’re really old now and last reunion around they were pretty open about the fact that they were just doing it for the money. It was bound to be crap, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t, surprisingly. Putting ‘standard disgustingness of a sold-out Academy’ aside, they were actually really fun. I’m sure it’s not nostalgia as such, since I wasn’t even alive when they were knocking about, but their songs have such resonance. It’s hard not to get a tiny bit excitable when the riff to this or that starts up. The sound was absolutely rotten (Edit: Arf. Unintentional) and this may or may not completely explain why they sounded so darn messy at times, but that doesn’t matter. That’s not why you go to see the Pistols, or at least I would hope not. I really enjoyed them.

~ Much like Mr Pryke I found myself happily getting more than I anticipated at Birmingham Town Hall on the 12th, expecting as I was an ordinary gig from The Destroyers which would include collaborations with The Dholblasters and Sanchita Pal in the middle of their set. As it turned out, for the first half of the evening The Destroyers formed the backbone of a larger ensemble which performed Cristina Piňero Maese’s “Scheherazade’s Rhapsody”, telling the tale of Scheherazade’s own thoughts and dreams during her story-telling captivity. I know even less about Indian classical music than anything else I find myself writing about while knowing nothing about it, but I really enjoyed this. Sanchita’s singing was wonderful and I really enjoyed the dancing, particularly the silhouetted routine behind a curtain in the second movement.

After a break the event transformed into more typical Destroyers gig (if such a thing can be said to exist. They entered the hall and approached the stage from the back as a monks procession, cowled and robed. Of course). My usual affliction of ‘having written about them 381,789 times before’ afflicts away with a vengeance and as such I have nothing to add, but the big finale when everyone came back to the stage (including the dancers) could be picked out as a highlight. I keep thinking that The Destroyers won’t be able to overload my senses any more than they already have, but they keep managing it. I salute.

~ The Courtesy Group! They’re always ace and were once again on Monday the 16th at The Hare And Hounds. Use was made of a chair and a dustpan brush. I sat on the chair afterwards, because my legs were tired.

~ The finale of this years series of The ‘Oo may have been a touch on the crappy side (on the plus side: ‘Midnight’ was brilliant), but Toby Hadoke’s Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf one-man-show at Bloxwich Library Theatre on the 19th was very warm and fun. The jokes, unsurprisingly, are about fandom in general and contemporary society more so than about ‘Dr Who’ itself (so don’t panic, you don’t need to know any minutiae or anything), and into this he weaves autobiographical stuff that is actually genuinely moving. I’d really recommend this to all.

~ The less said about the incredible anticlimax of a main event of the boxing at The Civic on the 20th the better*, but there were some good things on the undercard. The go-go-go Midlands Area welterweight title fight between Mark Lloyd and Andrew Alan Lowe had constant action for the eight rounds it lasted, and Steve Saville managed to just about squeak past Baz Carey in a fun brawly four-rounder. It’s always nice to see Lyndsey Scragg doing well, and the same goes for Rob Hunt even if he didn’t look at his best against the entertaining but ever-unorthodox (that’s me being all subtle and polite, y’see) Alex Brew.

~ The Big Weekend O’ Boxing continued at the NIA on the following night. The main event here was a fantastic affair and incredibly exciting to watch, although I shake my head at anyone who still thinks that Amir Khan is even remotely close to world class at the moment. His handspeed is a thing to behold and I’m glad I’ve had the chance to actually see it in real life, but not only does he keep dropping his hands and sticking his (weak) chin out, Michael Gomez has now proved that he can be hurt with bodyshots too.

The undercard had more than its fair share of good stuff. The mantle of “Best Four-Rounder I Have Ever Seen” (belonging to Martin Gethin vs Baz Carey) was very nearly transferred to D. Mitchell vs Martin Concepcion. I was happy although surprised to see Steve Bendall get the judges nod against Paul Smith for the English middleweight title in a scrappy but fun affair. Don Broadhurst looked absolutely fantastic in his dominant win, and the finish in which Curtis Woodhouse put Wayne Downing on the floor for the count with a volley of bodyshots was worthy of a highlight real.

~ It was another profoundly distasteful ’sold out venue’ experience at The Hare And Hounds on the 22nd and there were moments of distinct unpleasantness to have to endure, but Melt Banana proved worth it. ‘Grindcore’ is often where they’re said to fall, but (although I stand by my years-long protest that a genre name doesn’t equate to a qualitative judgement) that really doesn’t feel right. Rickidickidickidow, rickidickidickidow, shriek shriek shriek shriek. Only catchy. And dynamically varied. That’s how to describe them. And they’re aaaawesome.

The best bit (as with last time they were over here) was the ’short songs’ bit - a series of single ideas, single hooks, each presented without any additional nonsense to waste your time. Occasionally I think that all pop music should be like that.

~ Oh man, Bacchus (under the Burlington Hotel in Brum) is great. I love that place.

~ The UK Cagefighting Championships card at The Skydome on the 29th was pretty poor on the whole, but it’s always nice to see Team Supreme going undefeated. Well… they did as far as I remember, anyway. The results don’t seem to have been sent to any of the fightfinder sites (there is this…).

~ I had fun at Old Man Mulvaney’s retirement do on the 4th of July.

~ There’s been some good fighting for watching on screens. In terms of MMA, Rampage vs Forrest Griffin was a classic for the ages. When it comes to boxing, Manny Pacquiao vs David Diaz wasn’t really a ‘fight’ as such but it was a genuinely amazing performance from Pacman, and everyone needs to watch Ricardo Torres vs Kendall Holt II. 61 seconds of absolute hell-on-wheels.

And that’s about it, I think. Supersonic this weekend! Ooh, it’s gonna be great.

* This is hidden away in the netherworld of the asterisk due to the main post being about the good things this month, but I did feel the need to say something. Wayne Elcock vs Darren McDermott had been building up for a ridiculously long time. People had talked about it for years, but it actually seemed like a possibility when McDermott won one of those ever-valuable British title eliminators in February 2007, and Elcock won the title itself that September (I was there). Elcock proceeded to kill a bit of time by getting seven bells knocked out of himself at the hands of Arthur Abraham, but soon enough the time came to defend the belt. There were mumblings about Elcock preferring to face LocalTicketSeller Supreme Matthew Macklin and McDermott needing to win a final eliminator (told you those things were valuable), but eventually the big Black Country vs Birmingham derby was signed. It was On Like The Fall Of Saigon.

Except it wasn’t. Elcock got a chest infection. Words were exchanged in the press, McDermott’s camp accused Elcock of ducking him, Elcock’s camp accused McDermott of wanting to get out of it, and the fight was rescheduled for the 20th of June. It was On Like The Film Tron, but where oh where? Fightfans waited breath a-baited as practically every building in the West Midlands county was named as a venue. It’s at AVEC! No it’s not - it’s at The Skydome! Woah there Nelly - with less than a week to go, we’re moving it to The Civic!

The night itself came. Anticipation was building throughout and by the time the fight came around the atmosphere was something else. Our Macca was hailed as a hero by the ferociociferus (no real adjective could actually describe just how ferociociferus they were) crowd; the despised (for one night only. I’ll still support him when he’s against an opponent who’s unlucky enough to come from somewhere other than the Black Country) Elcock was looked upon as someone who’d swanned into our Yampy wonderhome and walked mud onto our carpets, dropped crumbs on our settee and made lewd comments about our daughter. In a metaphorical sense, I suppose he had. F’n Zulus.

The culmination of this epic campaign for fistic dominance and local supremacy?

Cut stoppage from an accidental clash of heads, R2.

I hate the entire world.

I’m sure anyone likely to be reading this encounters a lot of blogging-about-blogging (socialicus medius) as they safari across the internet savanna in search of fluffy little zebras to shoot, but I ain’t down with that. As the observant may have noticed, lately I’ve mostly been blogging-about-not-blogging (needlessius apologia). This is a newstyle and I get the feeling it’ll catch on. I am a pioneer. As in so many other instances, in a few years time you’ll see celebrities doing exactly what I did a few years ago. Or now, rather. I am currently doing what they will have once done. In the future they will find themselves having done what I did prior to them doing it. Or something.

Friction sparks a-fly as I return to the point - I apologise to anyone who might want to be apologised to about the current dearth of posting ( “No-one”, I suspect). I think I’m going to try to smash everything together into a few themed digest posts to get everything written about soon (hopefully before Supersonic). These will, of course, be crap, but obviously I don’t want to risk never-having-existed like all those people who are foolish enough not to document their lives on the internet.

To keep you amused in the meantime, have a bit of Swells:

“The scam that is the music industry is being gang-raped in every orifice by millions of baggy-trousered cybermonkeys. Economists reckon that by the year 2013 these stripey-jumpered virtual burglars will have stolen all our money back and spent it on lap dances and sweets. This is undoubtedly a good thing. But what about all the slack arsed chancers who blagged their way into the music industry and are now facing the screaming fucking nightmare of having to get real jobs?”

Catch you on the flipside, dudemeisters.

It feels a bit feeble this time. This would mostly be because I’m a bit feeble myself and the end of the month crept up on me too fast. Also the Ian McEwan opera thing (what a combination) seems to have disappeared from The Rep’s site, so I’m assuming that’s cancelled. Sorry.

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.

All of the Wednesdays from before now until ages away - “These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things” (Various contributors) @ Ikon Gallery, Birmingham - Various people talk about their Favourite Things, in a DesertIslandDisks stylee. Most interesting to me looks like Catherine O’ Flynn, of “What Was Lost” (amazing novel, read it if you haven’t) authorship fame on the 9th of July.

Before now until Sunday the 13th of July – Vivid’s ‘Flux-Fest’ @ Various places in Birmingham - Something calling itself a festival? In Birmingham? The heck you say. It’s to honour the memory of your good ol’ Fluxus movement, anyway.

Friday the 27th of June till Sunday the 6th – Moseley Festival @ Various places in Moseley, Birmingham - Not to be confused with the Moseley Folk Festival in August. There’s a list of events here; Rich Batsford’s Music By Candlelight on Tuesday the 1st at St Mary’s Church sounds good.

Various dates between Saturday the 28th of June and Saturday the 5th – ‘Fourplay’ (new directors showcase) @ The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham - Four new directors doing four one-act plays over the course of a couple of different double bills. The Bald Prima Donna sounds like a laugh.

Tuesday the 1st till Saturday the 5th - ‘Topless Mum’ (Tobacco Factory Productions & Imagineer Productions) @ The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry - Careful now. I mean it. We’ll have no smut here. This is a play about the actions and responsibilities of tabloid newspapers, even if they are using the poncey southern spelling of ‘mom’.

Wednesday the 2nd – Pama International / The Slackers / The Pietasters / Mungo’s Hi-Fi @ The Robin 2, Bilston - The ‘Reggae For The People’ tour. The Pietasters weren’t especially reggae-ish last time I heard them (admittedly this was years ago) but they were very good.

Thursday the 3rd – Paul Heaton @ The Academy 2, Birmingham - Your man there from The Beautiful South.

Saturday the 5th – Eddy Grant @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - Oi! He’s gonna rock down to Electric Avenue, although apparently (and disappointingly) that song is about an Electric Avenue in London rather than the one in Birmingham.

Saturday the 5th – Pentangle @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham - Apparently this is the actual proper version of Pentangle, rather than the “Jacqui McShee plus some other suckahs” version I saw a couple of years ago.

Saturday the 5th - ‘Cocomad’ (Cotteridge Festival) @ Cotteridge Park, Bourneville, Birmingham - With food and stalls and wood carving and some ace bands.

Monday the 7th – Duran Duran @ The NIA, Birmingham - Just don’t go on a pilgrimage to Saramoons where they used to drink, ‘cos although it’s still open it ain’t like that these days. Pointing this out seems to be a popular local meme of late.

Thursday the 10th till Sunday the 13th – ‘Taste Of Birmingham’ @ Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston, Birmingham - NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Friday the 11th – Lupe Fiasco @ The Academy, Birmingham - And so we kick, push, kick, push, kick, push…

Friday the 11th till Sunday the 13th – Supersonic Festival @ The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham - Look, it’s Supersonic (hey hey hey hey). If I haven’t convinced you before now then I’m not likely to. Just go, yer nutter, it’s the best annual event out there.

Saturday the 12th - Weatheroak Charity Challenge & Pig Roast @ Wythall Park Community Centre, Wythall - Including five-aside football and “It’s A Knockout” (~!).

Saturday the 12th - The Jewellery Quarter Arts & Designer Craft Festival @ all over The Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham - Bizarrely under-publicised (or at least as far as my sphere-of-noticing-things goes), but it looks interesting. There are workshops and demonstrations and things of sculpting, jewellery-making, and of course Arfs An Crarts.

Saturday the 12th – Andersens @ The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham - Cool-sounding (on the basis of their MySpace page, at least) Japanese psych-folk doings. Courtesy of The Autumn Store, who also bring you more fun ‘n’ frolics on the 22nd – have a look at their events page, whydon’tcha.

Monday the 14th – Jah Wobble @ The Glee Club, Birmingham -Dubby experimentally silly namey erstwhile PIL fella, doing what’s said to be a fusion of dub and Chinese melodies. Leslie Kong would be proud.

Wednesday the 16th – Wiley @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham - What do you do? Usually drink, usually daaaarrrrnce.

Saturday the 19th – Boxing (Sports Network) @ Aston Events Centre, Aston, Birmingham - Frizzank Wizzank defies his own self-imposed ban on promoting in Birmingham for the second time in two months. You’d almost think the Olympic boxing squad had two Brummies he wanted to sign or something. Featuring, anyway, Enzo Maccarinelli and Audley ‘Not In The Face!’ Harrison for ‘big name’ purposes and Matthew Macklin, Don Broadhurst and Thomas Costello for ‘actually getting the tickets sold’ purposes.

Tuesday the 22nd – Butthole Surfers @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton - Another “if I have to explain it, you’ll never understand” one. Not on the 6th, please note; the date has changed.

Thursday the 24th and Saturday the 26th - ‘Assassins’ (Through The Window Theatre) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham - A comical musical about the ‘fraternity of presidential assassins’ - the nine men who’ve tried to kill a US prez.

Thursday the 24th – Boxing (First Team Promotions) @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - The latest local card with a bunch of our usual faves, including (at the time of writing) Rob Hunt, Rob Kenney, Scott Evans etc. No Dean Harrison or Lyndsey Scragg though, seemingly.

Friday the 25th – Soweto Kinch @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Fresh from Flyover Show-esque success, that man Soweto presents this ‘Basement Fables’ show – the second part of his ‘A Day In The Life Of B19’ series.

Monday the 28th and Tuesday the 29th - ‘Like A Fountain Troubled’ (Untamed Shrew Productions) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham - Of the counsellor more troubled than those she counsels, and the relationship between the two. The description on the OJS site makes it sound sort of ace and sort of crap at the same time, which is as nifty a promotional trick as many you’ll encounter.

- Flossy - One of the assortment of stray cats who turn up in our garden has passed away. Flossy was lovely and loveable, if thick. Bless ‘er. She had an amazing capacity for learned behaviour (flopping around on her back to try to look cute after seeing Kitten do it, holding her paw up as though it was hurt after seeing Garfield do it), which I suppose is one (fairly bizarre, really) metric of cleverness for a household animal, but she really was endearingly dopey. She tended not to notice when (say) she had large lumps of the chicken we’d been feeding her stuck to her tail, and every now and then she used to make a mad frantic dash through the kitchen while seeming to think we wouldn’t catch up with her. She was loveable (even angry angry Garfield put up with her presence, and she doesn’t get on with any of the other cats. Or anything else, really) and I miss her. Bye bye, sillycat.

- The Big Debate - Presumably they didn’t want it to be all that big, or they wouldn’t have had it midday when most people are at work. Perhaps, since it was a debate about the effects that social media can and will have, it was only meant for people who already make their living out of that sort of thing (less “mass debate” and more… well, yes). Judging by the liveblog it turned out to be a whole lot of stating the obvious anyway (1. So, like, blogs aren’t bad because although there are lots of bad blogs there are bad newspapers too and anyway you can, like, ignore the bad ones, and anyway people do their own things now so if they don’t, like, like something else they make their own. 2. Now that you’ve got oodles of ways to get info, Teh Newz Providorz need to be, y’know, good and suit the people they’re providing for, na’mean?) so we probably didn’t miss a lot, but I do like Doug Williams’ idea that at the moment t’internet is primarily just distributing old media ONLY FASTAH and that it’ll eventually evolve it’s own form of storytelling. That’s a hoopy piece of thinking. Also the ancillary comment by Andy Mabbett about the death of traditional clubs/societies seems like a shame.

- Venues - Well, The Jug Of Ale and The Market Tavern have gone, and another blow is struck against small DIY gigs for any bands other than Oasis-o-likes. I wish I’d gone to the The Market Tavern a few more times, but I don’t think it would have made a lot of difference in the long run (or any run, really). There’ll always be memories, of course - great sets from Bela Emerson / Grandscope / Ramesses / Copter / That Forking Tank / The Courtesy Group / Mistress and squillions more at the former, and Assert and The Klopeks at the latter. Sigh. The Academy, meanwhile, is moving to the what used to be The Dome. Wahey! I wonder if they’ll let me help them demolish the current edifice (now, where can I lay my hands on a flamethrower…)? I’ve never been to The Dome, but I can’t pretend that I’m filled with confidence - obviously some of The Aca’s huge number of problems will be solved if the new place turns out to be a better building (I’ve heard differing things about whether it is or not), but not really the main ones (staffing, prices, miasmic clouds of joylessness given physical form etc). Boo sucks. In spite of what some may suspect, I would actually like to see the new version of the place be some sort of heaven on earth (no, I really would. I’m perfectly well capable of spiting my face without cutting off my nose, thankyouverymuch), but it’s hard to be too optimistic in the face of experience. I do think that the safe money would be on my “There’s not a single gig that I wouldn’t rather see in the similarly sized Wolverhampton Civic Hall” adage holding true.* What of The Bar Academy/Academy 2 bits, meanwhile? Does The Dome have appropriate annexes/outhouses/sheds for those?
Not that I go to anywhere near as many gigs as I used to any more.

* I acknowledge that The Civic can be a pain for some people in transport terms, especially if they live at the further ends of Brum. I’m a-thinking that the best state of affairs in an ideal world would be no Aca and an enforced early curfew for gigs at The Civic, so everyone can get their bus/train and such. This tends to brush up against some elements of civic (pun not in the least bit intended) pride spikiness, though.

“Too many people want to have written“, as the fellow said. I think that applies to my doings for this blog just lately. I’m sure there’ll be a catch-up post at some point soon (I haven’t exactly done tonnes of things lately, but there has been the Fierce Festival and The Flyover Show), but for the time being I thought I’d better cater for the millions worldwide who are missing a bit of Russellism in their lives:

Blah blah blah Black Country blah blah blah jalapeno peppers blah blah blah messiah complex blah blah blah Douglas Adams blah blah blah MMA blah blah blah Carina Round blah blah blah Black Sabbath blah blah blah Franz Kafka blah blah you don’t get me I’m part of the union blah blah blah Oh Man Red Stripe blah blah blah yam yam yam yam yam yam…

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.

Jez sent me a link to The Birmingham Mail’s report about the usual sort of huff and puff surrounding Cage Rage coming to Birmingham. It’s the typical “I don’t really have a clear idea of what I’m protesting against, but I’ve nevertheless decided that it must be barbaric” business (See also: “We’ve got to protect our phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen. Hurrumph! Hurrumph! I didn’t get a hurrumph outta that guy…”), but I note with interest that it contains a quote from none other than Deirdre ‘LolDeirdre’ Alden.

Forgive me, but I couldn’t help myself.

1) RSS Feeds - This continues on from this post, I suppose. RSS feeds have indeed now found a place in my life. It’s mostly of use when it comes to blogs that I don’t look at all that often, and that use is mainly the fact that I can see straight away when they’ve been updated. When it comes to ones I look at regularly, I haven’t really changed my behaviour. Maybe I will over time. What I’m a-wondering about now is whether or not this will affect my Blogroll down the side there. That’s long needed a bit of thinking about (it doesn’t list all of the blogs I read, and isn’t necessarily even my favourite ones) and a subsequent re-organisation when I’ve decided on a philosophy for it, though.

It’s slight annoying that they don’t display as the original webpages would (is that feed-readers in general, or just Bloglines?), but even that’s not all bad – it’s a positive blessing if the original site has music or videos or whatever-have-you that start to play automatically (I hate all that malarkey). There seem to be a few blogs that just won’t update in the feed-reader (irrespective of which of their feeds I add to it), but I suppose I can live with that.

Ultimately – yes, I like RSS. I haven’t yet found it to be the revolution in internet useage that it’s often described as, but it’s quite handy.

2) Twitter - “if I’m not careful I’ll find myself on effing Twitter or something next” I remarked in that abovelinked post. Turns out I was already signed up to it. I was looking at Jez’ Twitter page and realised that he was following one RussL. After one of those lovely edge-of-desk-gripping knuckles-whitening whattheforksgoingonhere justaminutenowholdup bursts of paranoia that I do so well, I remembered (I genuinely had forgotten) that I’d previously signed up to Twitter for Live Birmingham updates (something that never really took off, sadly).

I decided to have a bit of play with it. For me, Twitter has become the place for ‘little bits that don’t justify a blog post’. I have a vague compulsion to document most of my life (in my saner moments I realize that I probably shouldn’t be encouraged. World At Large: please don’t invent anything else along these lines), but I’m usually sensible enough not to actually make a post on the blog for something like “Just ordered my chicken, lamb & prawn Madras (+ sundries) from The Rowley Village. I’ve been looking forward to this so much”. I can now stick it on Twitter. Other than that, it’s just been replying to other people’s Tweets.

I don’t have other people’s messages sent to my mobile telephone; I find receiving a text message that wasn’t directed specifically to me a strangely invasive experience. Plus there’s the fact that my mobile often sits unchecked in my coat pocket for long lengths of time (and I never turn the sound on) – I’d fish it out to find about 381 out-of-date tweets to have to delete. I have set it up so that I can post messages by text (it took me a few attempts but I got there), but that’ll only happen in a month where I have free ones (every second or third, generally). I can’t imagine spending credit on this, even if it is quite fun.

There you are, then – I’m either a twit or a tweetie-bird. My Twitter page is here, or you can see the last however-many down there in the sidebar.

I can’t believe you get spam ‘followers’ on the bloody thing, though. I mean… what?

There’s usually another annual event this month, but it’s been cancelled this year.

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.

Tuesday the 26th of Feb till Saturday the 1st of March – ‘Metamorphosis’ (Vesturport Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith) @ The Rep, Birmingham - Kafka with a score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. I can barely express how much I’m looking forward to this.

Friday the 29th of Feb and Saturday the 1st of March – ‘Family Snaps’ double-bill: ‘Tidy’ and ‘Forgive Us Our Trespasses’ (MDCC Theatre Company) @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham - “Two plays about guilt, forgiveness and love. Two plays about New Labour, model airplanes and Barry Manilow” they say, by local writers Martin Drury and Elizabeth Parkes.

Monday the 3rd - Autechre @ The Medicine Bar, The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham - Beep beep beep squiggle-scronk vroom vroom blettum blettum vroom vroom blettum blettum.

Thursday the 6th – Capsule @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham - Finger-lickin’ finger-pickin’ guitar from Jack Rose, psychedelia from Hush Arbors, and post-rock from Cellar Door.

Thursday the 6th to Sunday the 9th – Crufts@ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham - Dang hounds.

Thursday the 6th to Tuesday the 12th – International Women’s Week events @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton - It doesn’t mention it on the website, but apparently there’s an exhibition showcasing work done by various women’s (and possibly LBGT) community groups on the 6th and 7th. Sundry of the plays and events around happening this time are attached to IWW (according to the printed programme, Nowhere To Belong on the 6th, In No Particular Order on the 7th, and the “Mixed Bill Of Dance” on the 12th. The website doesn’t seem to attach any of those to it, but does mention that “It’s My Life” on the afternoon of the 7th is part). I hate to be cynical about anything like this, but it doesn’t bode well for a consciousness-raising exercise to prove unable to make basic information about itself clear and accessible.

Saturday the 8th - ‘An Evening Of Russian And British Romance’ @ St Mary’s Church, Selly Oak, Birmingham - Russian and English songs, music, poetry and food. All proceeds go to St Mary’s Hospice.

Saturday the 8th – Last Night Of The Spring Proms @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham - With all the usual LNOTP favourites.

Saturday the 8th – ‘Young Storyteller Of The Year’ @ The Library Theatre, Birmingham - Still looking for entrants, apparently.

Saturday the 8th & Sunday the 9th – BEAST @ The CBSO Centre, Birmingham - Birmingham Electro-Acoustic Sound Theatre. 30 channels of speakers with different characteristics are arranged into pairs and placed at chosen points across the room, “to sculpt the spatial and dynamic implications of the music.”

Sunday the 9th – ‘Doomsday’ @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham - Dooooom metal alldayer, headlined by the awesome Lazarus Blackstar. (EDIT: Or perhaps not - apparently they’re not playing).

Wednesday the 12th – ‘Tangle’ (Unlimited Theatre) @ The Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry - I saw this at The Rep Door just over a year ago and it was fan-flipping-tastic. Entangled particles, entangled lives, pet grooming, and Great Uncle Bulgaria. There’s a Flash intro to the plot here.

Wednesday the 12th till Saturday the 15th – The Cleansing Of Constance Brown (Stan’s Café) @ 38 Floodgate Street, Digbeth, Birmingham - Themes of power, a corridor where it all happens, and limited audience numbers. Tickets via The MAC. (EDIT: Turns out that this is happening at 38 Floodgate Street. See the comments below for more details).

Friday the 14th – Sophie Ellis-Bextor @ The Academy, Birmingham - Here is Throughsilver on the subject of an SEB song that I don’t think I actually know.

Saturday the 15th – Gallhammer @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham - Sludgy doom metal with strange vocals (a common result of having your bandmembers made up of tiny Japanese girls) and unexpected New-Wave-y bits (possibly also result of same). One of them calls herself Vivian “Depressive” Slaughter. I love that. The surname wasn’t enough, she needed a nickname in the middle too… (EDIT: It appears that they’re supported by The Sontaran Experiment. Between having Paul Catten for vocals and a Dr Who reference for a name, they cannot be anything less than Pure Win).

Saturday the 15th – ‘Road’ (BSS Showbiz Group) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham - The Jim Cartwright play in which a drunken tour is given of a derelict Lancashire street. It’s won awards, don’tchaknow.

Sunday the 16th – St Patrick’s Day Parade @ Digbeth, Birmingham - They say the Birmingham one is the biggest in the world outside of New York, but (as has been noted elsewhere) that may be another ‘more cut than Venice’ claim. It’ll be huge, anyway. To be sure.

Thursday the 20th – An Evening With Tony Benn @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - What a man.

Friday the 20th - St Matthew’s Passion (Birmingham Bach Choir) @ The Symphony Hall, Birmingham - The Birmingham Bach Choir’s annual Good Friday performance.

Saturday the 22nd – The Detroit Spinners @ The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham - They’ve been working their way back to you. Babe.

Sunday the 23rd – Enablers @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham - This’ll probably (like Thomas Dolby and Pram/MTO/Shady Bard) be another one of those that’ll enable you to wipe out a good chunk of West Mids blogging with one well-placed bomb. (EDIT: Now with added Courteousness).

Monday the 24th – ‘Think No Evil Of Us’ (David Benson) @ The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham - David Benson’s funny and thoughtful one-man show about the lives of Kenneth Williams and himself. I am, however, aghast at the £18 ticket price, given that he performs his shows fairly regularly in various Black Country theatres for much cheaper.

Tuesday the 25th of March – “Basil Of The Caribbean” @ The Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton - Basil Brush! BOOM BOOM!

Wednesday the 26th – Free Easter Egg Hunt @ Bilston Craft Gallery, Bilston - Free, and all children taking part get a prize. There’s also egg-decoration and storytelling.

Thursday the 27th – Jean Michel Jarre @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Synth Jarre Jarre Synth.

Thursday the 27th – Efterklang @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham - Their set in November was one of the best of last year. Amazing, beautiful and most of all indescribable.

Thursday the 27th – Whyte & Mackay Premier League Darts @ The NIA, Birmingham - I’m given to understand that Phil Taylor has been losing a few lately. Is there nothing that can be relied on?

Saturday the 29th – Nightwish @ The Academy, Birmingham - I’m still not entirely convinced what the point of them is without Madam there. Sold out, anyway, so I don’t suppose it matters too much.

Saturday the 29th – Angrrr Management’s ‘Octagon Club’ (MMA) @ The Glades Leisure Centre, Kidderminster - Headlined by Marc Goddard vs Jacob Lovstad, which is a really well-matched fight if you ask me. (EDIT: Or perhaps not - apparently Marc Godard is out with injury).

Monday the 31st – ‘Gulls, Gulls And More Gulls’ (Steve McGinnis of the West Midlands Bird Club) @ Birmingham Medical Institute, Edgbaston, Birmingham - Caw! Caw! Gulls!

I’m still can’t really see how it’s supposed to be any was more convenient than just clicking down my blogroll on the right there, but since I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about RSS I’ll have a go (with Bloglines - is that the right way to go about it?). I suppose that this way I am told when there’s something new appearing, but there are some blogs I habitually visit frequently and some I’m only likely to check every now and then. I already find myself there in time to see everything new or new-ish with the former, and more than happy to receive the lot in one go with the latter. I’m not sure that the new method will make a fat lot of difference to me.

The backgrounds of the pages don’t display as they do in real internets. I don’t like that. I may be doing something wrong, though.

‘Ark at ‘er, getting all technological. Changing the blog’s template, playing with RSS… if I’m not careful I’ll find myself on effing Twitter or something next.

~ Russ L

EDIT: My feed-reader doesn’t seem to be keeping up-to-date with the actual blogs. Ho hum.