brum notes magazine - september 2014

1September 2014

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September 2014

music and lifestyle for the west midlands

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2 Brum Notes Magazine

16-18 Horsefair, Bristol St, Birmingham, B1 1DBDoors 7.00pm unless stated • Venue box office opening hours: Mon-Fri 12pm-4pm, Sat 11am-4pm • No booking fee on cash transactions

ticketweb.co.uk • seetickets.com • gigantic.com • ticketmaster.co.uk

10.30pm-3.30am • £4 advOVER 18S ONLY - PROOF OF AGE REQUIRED

Sat 6th Sept • £8.50 adv6.30pm - 11pm

Ones To Watch ft. Bare John + Hope Street + The Bad Flowers + Duke + Red Light + The Nics + Sour Scarlet + Plastic Factory

Sat 13th Sept • £39.50 adv Blondie Sat 20th Sept • £10 adv UK Foo Fighters Tues 23rd Sept • £35/£45 advMs. Lauryn HillThurs 25th Sept • £9 advDownload Freezes Over - King 810Sat 27th Sept • £20 advThe FraySat 27th Sept • £12 adv8pm - 1am • over 18s only

Quadrophenia Club NightBig Screen Film Show with DJ Drew Stansall (The Specials) + The Atlantics (playing the movie hits) + The Coopers + The Birmingham Club A Go Go DJs

Sun 28th Sept • £13 advThe Urban Voodoo Machine+ Captain Jeffery + Brothers of Caedmon

Thurs 2nd Oct • £7 adv 10pm - 3am • NUS over 18s only

The Birmingham Freshers Festivalft. MK + Miss Dynamite + Majestic

Tues 7th Oct • £20 advBlack Veil Brides Tues 7th Oct • £13.50 advThe 8123 UK Tourft. The Maine+ special guests Lydia and Nick Santino

Thurs 9th Oct • £13 advAlestorm+ Lagerstein + Redrum + Rainbowdragoneyes

Fri 10th Oct • £14 adv6pm -10pm

The Lawrence Arms+ Sam Russo + Bangers

Mon 13th Oct • £16 advThe Hold Steady+ The So So Glos

Weds 15th Oct • £15 advKid Ink

Thurs 16th Oct • £18 advJustin Furstenfeld Sat 18th Oct • £16 advKaty B Sat 18th Oct • £10 advWe Are The Ocean Sun 19th Oct • £11.50 advICW: Ringo’s Despair Weds 22nd Oct • £15 advClean Bandit + Years & Years

Thurs 23rd Oct • £13.50 adv / £27 VIPRixton Fri 24th Oct • £20 adv / £35 VIP 6pm - 10pm

Coma+ special guests Metasoma + ResPublica

Sat 25th Oct • £15 adv 1pm -11pm • Weekend tix £25 adv

UK B-Boy Championships Knock-Out Jam

Sun 26th Oct • £17.50 adv3pm -11pm • Weekend tix £25 adv

UK B-Boy ChampionshipsWorld Final

Mon 27th Oct • £13 advChevelleSat 1st Nov • £34.50 advCounting Crows + Lucy Rose

Sat 1st Nov • £13.50 advKlaxonsMon 3rd Nov • £13 advBakermat Tues 4th Nov • £12 advTesseracT & Animals As Leaders Weds 5th Nov • £37.50 advBilly IdolThurs 6th Nov • £21.50 advRise Against+ Pennywise + Emily’s Army

Fri 7th Nov • £16.50 adv5.30pm -10pm

Asking Alexandria+ The Ghost Inside+ Crown The Empire + Secrets

Sat 8th Nov • £19.50 advThe Wailersperforming the album ‘Legend’

Sun 9th Nov • £14 advSikth Sat 11th Nov • £22.50 adv9pm - 5am • over 18s only

I Am LegendMC Trigga’s Birthday Bash

Thurs 13th Nov • £19.50 advJamie T

Thurs 13th Nov • £10 advLords Of The Riff Vol.2 ft. Anti-Mortem Fri 14th Nov • £22.50 adv6pm -10pm

Levellers Fri 14th Nov • £14 adv6pm -10pm

Against Me! Sat 15th Nov • £19.50 advThe Kooks Sat 15th Nov • £11 advThe Smyths 30th Anniversary of “Hatful of Hollow”

Thurs 20th Nov • £19.50 advCourteeners Fri 21st Nov • £27.50 adv6pm -10pm

Example + Feed Me

Sat 22nd Nov • £15 advMad Caddies Sun 23rd Nov • £24.50 advThe Gaslight Anthem + Deer Tick + Bayside

Weds 26th Nov • £32.50 advLily Allen Weds 26th Nov • £14 advDelain + Wolf

Fri 28th Nov • £15 adv6pm -10pm

Hollywood Undead+ Icon For Hire

Sat 29th Nov • £22.50 advMastodon + Big Business + Krokodil

Weds 3rd Dec • £12 advElectric SixThurs 4th Dec • £30 advBoyz II MenFri 5th Dec • £15 adv6.30pm -10pm

Graham BonnetCatch the Rainbow Tour

Sat 6th Dec • £18.50 advRescheduled show • original tickets valid

Professor Green

FOR FULL AND LATEST LISTINGS CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE

Sat 6th Sept • £8 advBenjamin BookerMon 8th Sept • £17 advJesus Jones - Doubt Tour+ Electric Cake Salad + The Second Trip

Tues 9th Sept • £10 adv Pearl Jem (Pearl Jam Tribute)

Thurs 11th Sept • FREE tix at www.ourzonemag.com/tours6.30pm - 10.30pm

Ourzone Found Tour 2014ft. As It Is + Like Torches

Sat 13th Sept • £5 adv 6.45pm - 11pm

Beneath The Remains Weds 17th Sept • £8 adv Beartooth Fri 19th Sept • £10 adv 6.30pm - 10pm

Definitely Mightbe (Oasis Tribute) 20 Year Celebration, Performing Definitely Maybe in Full

Sat 20th Sept • £6 adv The Stirs + SLTP + Pony and Trap + Brooklyn Lights + Chaucer

Weds 24th Sept • £7 adv Me vs Hero Sun 28th Sept • £12.50 adv Rescheduled • original tix valid

Hats Off To Led Zeppelin Sat 4th Oct • £13 adv 6pm - 10pm

Skeletal Family & Salvation

Sun 5th Oct • £7.50 adv Kobra And The Lotus Weds 8th Oct • £15 adv Supersuckers + The Trews

Fri 10th Oct • £10 adv 6pm - 10pm

Mamas GunTues 14th Oct • £8 adv Eliza and the Bear + Lisbon

Weds 15th Oct • £9 adv The Big Cheese Tourft. Marmozets + Lonely The Brave + Allusondrugs

Fri 17th Oct • £10 adv 6.30pm - 10pm

The ModfathersThe UK’s No. 1 Tributeto Paul Weller & The Jam

Sat 18th Oct • £10 adv Danny & The Champions Of The World+ Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou + Brokenwitt Rebels

Sun 19th Oct • £10 advKnotslip + Destroyed Beyond Belief + Our World Below? + Slaughter Horse

Thurs 23rd Oct • £12 adv GhettsFri 24th Oct • £8 adv 6pm -10pm

Dave GilesFri 31st Oct • £12 adv 6pm - 10pm

Framing Hanley

m e t r o p o l i s m u s i c p r e s e n t

TO U R A N N O U N C E M E N TS & P R I O R I T Y B O O K I N GS • F I N D U S O N

THE BLACK KEYSTURN BLUE WORLD TOUR 2015

SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY LG ARENA

THETICKETFACTORY.COM GIGSANDTOURS.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK NEW ALBUM ‘TURN BLUE’ OUT NOW THEBLACKKEYS.COM

A METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CAA

Metropolis Music by arrangement with Primary Talent International present

Wednesday 3 December

The InstituteTicketmaster.co.uk Gigsandtours.com

New album ‘Junto’ out now

Basementjaxx.com

FKA twigs

FRI 03 OCT // THE INSTITUTEGIGSANDTOURS.COM // TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

TUESDAY 18 NOVEMBERTHE INSTITUTEgigsandtours.com | ticketmaster.co.uk

New album ‘Nabuma Rubberband’ out now

NABUMARUBBERBAND.COM

A Metropolis Music presentation by arrangement with CAA

+ D J S

PLUS GUESTS

THE RAMONA FLOWERS

THURSDAY 30 OCTOBER

THE INSTITUTE GIGSANDTOURS.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

LAMBOFFICIAL.COM

A METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL

FRIDAY 5 DECEMBER

THE INSTITUTE

GIGSANDTOURS.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

WARPAINTWARPAINT.COMA METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTATION

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CODA

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

3September 2014


TO U R A N N O U N C E M E N TS & P R I O R I T Y B O O K I N GS • F I N D U S O N

THE BLACK KEYSTURN BLUE WORLD TOUR 2015

SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY LG ARENA

THETICKETFACTORY.COM GIGSANDTOURS.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK NEW ALBUM ‘TURN BLUE’ OUT NOW THEBLACKKEYS.COM

A METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CAA

Metropolis Music by arrangement with Primary Talent International present

Wednesday 3 December

The InstituteTicketmaster.co.uk Gigsandtours.com

New album ‘Junto’ out now

Basementjaxx.com

FKA twigs

FRI 03 OCT // THE INSTITUTEGIGSANDTOURS.COM // TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

TUESDAY 18 NOVEMBERTHE INSTITUTEgigsandtours.com | ticketmaster.co.uk

New album ‘Nabuma Rubberband’ out now

NABUMARUBBERBAND.COM

A Metropolis Music presentation by arrangement with CAA

+ D J S

PLUS GUESTS

THE RAMONA FLOWERS

THURSDAY 30 OCTOBER

THE INSTITUTE GIGSANDTOURS.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

LAMBOFFICIAL.COM

A METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL

FRIDAY 5 DECEMBER

THE INSTITUTE

GIGSANDTOURS.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

WARPAINTWARPAINT.COMA METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTATION

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CODA

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS


CONTENTS

Regulars

News 6-7

Fresh Talent 12-13

Style 30-31

Food & Drink 32

Live Reviews 34-35

Album Reviews 36-37

What’s On Guide 38-46

Music and Features

Competition: Win a Golden Ticket! 9

Behind the Scenes: Death or Glory Records 10-11

Arts & Culture: Ben Norris 14

Arts & Culture: Rudy’s Rare Records 16-17

Famy 20

Benjamin Booker 21

Honeyblood / Fear of Men 22-23

Gruff Rhys 24-25

Alt-J 26-27

Sleepy Sun 28-29

All content © Brum Notes Magazine. Views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Brum Notes Magazine.

While all care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of content, Brum Notes Magazine will not be held liable for any

errors or losses claimed to have been incurred by any errors. Advertising terms and conditions available on request.

The famous faces at Snobs Nightclub, which moves to a new home this month after more than 41 years. Read more on P39. Photo by Dave Travis.

Brum Notes Magazine Unit 12 The Bond 180-182 Fazeley Street BirminghamB5 [email protected] 0121 224 7363 Advertising0121 224 7363 [email protected]! 0121 224 7364

Editor: Chris MoriartyContributorsWords: Andrew Gutteridge, Becky Rogers, Ben Russell, Dan Cooper-Gavin, Dan Owens, Dave Vincent, Daron Billings, Jack Parker, Tajinder Hayer, Stephen BrolanAssistant Editor: Amy Sumner Arts Editor: Dan Cooper-GavinFood & Drink Editor: Daron BillingsPictures: Richard Shakespeare, Rob Hadley, Dave Travis, Sam Wood Design: Adam Williams, Andy Aitken

ConnectTwitter: @BrumNotesMagFacebook: www.facebook.com/BrumNotesMagazineOnline: www.brumnotes.com

5September 2014


New festival to transform Digbeth into huge street art gallery this monthMore than 100 street artists will descend on Birmingham this month to trans-form Digbeth into one of the largest outdoor art galleries in the country. The City of Colours festival, taking place at venues and streets in and around The Custard Factory on September 6, will bring together live painting, music, b-boy demos, beatboxing, illustration battles and more. Artists from across the UK will take part, including some of the most respected names on the street art scene, including Inkie, Chu, Andy Council, Dan Kitchener, Gent48 and Lucy McLauchlan. They will be joined by rising stars and new talent from the world of urban art, while a series of workshops covering graffi ti, breakdancing, music production and DJing will also give young people and adults alike the chance to hone their own skills. Most of the action will take place around the unique spaces of The Custard Factory, with exhibitions, interactive displays, live performances, art sales and more across the whole site, with an after party taking place at Alfi e Bird’s from 9pm to 5am featuring Om Unit and Kenny Ken. Other nearby venues taking part include The Old Crown, Spotlight and The Arena. City of Colours takes place on Saturday, September 6, with live painting and enter-tainment from 11am, followed by a viewing day on September 7 from 11am-5pm. Visit www.cityofcolours.co.uk for full details.

godskitchen invites you into the next dimension

Dance music superbrand Godskitchen is hoping to take clubbing into the next dimen-sion with the launch of its brand new produc-tion concept MEKANIKA.Launching on September 27, it uses state of the art projection mapping, promising a ‘futuristic gate to another dimension’, with animations cascading and morphing into windows looking in on other worlds.MEKANIKA makes its international debut at Godskitchen TXXENTY on Saturday, September 28, with headline appearances from Paul van Dyk, Pure NRG and John 00 Fleming at The Rainbow Textile Factory in Birmingham, before heading out on a world-wide tour. Details at www.godskitchen.com.

b-boy championships to head back to brumBirmingham will once again welcome some of the fi nest hip hop and urban dancers when the B-Boy Championships World Finals returns to the city. The two-day event is now in its 19th year but was hosted in the Second City for the fi rst time last year. The 2014 fi nals take place at the O2 Academy in Birmingham city centre from October 25-26. For ticket details and more info visit www.bboychampionships.com.

Think you’ve got what it takes to party hard? you know, really party hard? Well, put your clubbing credentials to the test at the 24 Hour Rave Experiment. In a true test of stamina, anyone who makes it from midday on September 20 until the same time the following day will get their £24 ticket money back. And if you don’t make it? Well, that’s all good too because you’ll forfeit your ticket money to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. No napping either, as if you’re caught sleeping at any point that will

be the end of the party for you, with your money going to charity too. Ravers will be able to enjoy 10 rooms of music across indoor and outdoor spaces at The Rainbow Venues in Digbeth, with an eclectic mix of underground house, techno, bass, DnB and trance from local and inter-national DJ names. All contenders must be in the venue by midday on September 20. Tickets availa-ble from various outlets or fi nd full details at www.facebook.com/24hrRaveExperiment.

news

In Search of Birmingham’s own 24 hour party people

Kids In G

lass Houses

A rib-tickling lineup of more than 150 international names and rising stars descends on the Second City next month for Birmingham Comedy Festival. The annual city-wide funnyfest returns from October 3-12 and will include a brand new Breaking Talent Award for the fi rst time. Among those taking part in the 10-day festi-val are leading Irish funnyman Tommy Tier-nan (Oct 4, Town Hall), fast-rising James Acaster (Oct 9, The Glee Club), comedian and actor Doc Brown (Oct 11, Town Hall)

and author and stand-up Mark Watson (Oct 4, Mac Birmingham).Cult radio series The Goon Show will be revived at The Old Joint Stock on Oct 3 and 4, while local comics will also be well repre-sented throughout by the likes of Foghorn Improv, Mickey Sharma, Mrs Barbara Nice and Andy Robinson. A special All-Dayer will see 15 acts performing one-hour shows at Cherry Reds and The Victoria from 1pm on Oct 5. For full information and listings see www.bhamcomfest.co.uk.

FIERCE FESTIVAL TO CHALLENGE PRECONCEPTIONS OF YOUTH with eclectic celebration of live art

Fierce Festival returns to Birmingham next month with a series of projects aimed at shifting perceptions of youth culture and young people. The annual celebration of adven-turous art and performance runs from October 2-12 at various venues and will this year explore Birmingham’s status as the youngest city in Europe, with nearly 40 per cent of the popu-lation aged under 25. In honour of this fact, several of the events on the programme will attempt to challenge the ideas of what young people can do.

Croatian artist Dina Roncevic leads Car Deconstructions at Eastside Projects in Digbeth, in which seven local girls aged 10-12 will learn basic car mechanics, disassembling a car to its nuts and bolts over three days. In Eat the Street, a group of local 12-year-olds will become restaurant critics, inviting you to dine with them whilst they offer up brutally honest opinions on food, service and décor. The project, led by Canadian artist group Mammalian Diving Refl ex, aims to dismantle the barriers between age groups, allowing children a chance to take charge and be heard. A 12-hour musical experiment will also see Australian artist Sarah-Jane Norman invited former child prodigy pianists to sight-read Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No 3.

Other highlights of the programme include two UK premieres presented in association with DanceXchange, Heavens What Have I Done from provocative New York chore-ographer Gutierrez, and the stereotype-challenging Yellow Towel from Dana Michel.Lebanese artist Tania El Khoury refl ects on the Syrian crisis with her interactive sound installation Gardens Speak, two projects take place in the historic Moseley Road Baths, while the unique Council of Community Conveyors will see clipboard-bearing volun-teers knocking on 1,500 doors and passing messages between neighbours. The buzz-ing Festival Hub at The Edge in Digbeth will also be home to a variety of smaller-scale performances and exhibits.

Fierce Festival’s infamous club nights will also return, including Algorave, featuring live coding and music at The Edge in Digbeth on October 4, while the Polish Centre will host the Fierce Slow Dance on October 11. Individual show tickets are on sale from September 2, with weekend passes available now. To book tickets or for full programme details visit www.wearefi erce.org.

lineup announced for all years leavingEagulls, Hookworms, Traams, Cheatahs, God Damn, The Voyeurs and more will all take to the stage for this year’s All Years Leaving festival. The two-day live music event takes over the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath on October 24-25. Curated by This is Tmrw, the festival is now in its second year and will include street food, live art and a pop-up bar in the stables, alongside live acts and late night DJs in the main room. Day tickets cost £13.50, with weekend tick-ets £25 and available to book now from www.theticketsellers.co.uk.

oxjam VENUES UNVEILEDThe OxjamBrum Takeover Festival will return on October 18. Seven venues have now been confi rmed for the annual charity fund-raiser, with live sets taking place at The Flap-per, The Sunfl ower Lounge, The Oobleck, Talk, 6/8 Kafe and Island Bar, as well as on the fl oating favourite, Frederick the Canal Barge. Acts performing include Loom, Alex Moir, Haze, Curb and KIN, with the full line-up set to be unveiled in early September. Limited £8 early bird tickets are on sale now at www.wegottickets.com.

Tuesdays to become Bluesdays once againBlues lovers will be able to get their fi x with a brand new weekly blues night launching in Birmingham this month. Big Bear Records will host Nothin’ But the Blues every Tuesday at The Asylum 2 in Hockley, kicking off on September 23 with a live performance from The 58’s Blues Band. The night is inspired by the legendary Henry’s Blueshouse, which took place every Tuesday at The Crown in Station Street in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and provided a platform for blues-inspired artists, including members of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in the bands’ early days. Entry is £5.

birmingham Comedy festival returns next month

Kids In G

lass Houses

Tommy Tiernan

Car Deconstruction by Dina Roncevic (image

courtesy of Anti Festival)

7September 2014

New festival to transform Digbeth into huge street art gallery this monthMore than 100 street artists will descend on Birmingham this month to trans-form Digbeth into one of the largest outdoor art galleries in the country. The City of Colours festival, taking place at venues and streets in and around The Custard Factory on September 6, will bring together live painting, music, b-boy demos, beatboxing, illustration battles and more. Artists from across the UK will take part, including some of the most respected names on the street art scene, including Inkie, Chu, Andy Council, Dan Kitchener, Gent48 and Lucy McLauchlan. They will be joined by rising stars and new talent from the world of urban art, while a series of workshops covering graffi ti, breakdancing, music production and DJing will also give young people and adults alike the chance to hone their own skills. Most of the action will take place around the unique spaces of The Custard Factory, with exhibitions, interactive displays, live performances, art sales and more across the whole site, with an after party taking place at Alfi e Bird’s from 9pm to 5am featuring Om Unit and Kenny Ken. Other nearby venues taking part include The Old Crown, Spotlight and The Arena. City of Colours takes place on Saturday, September 6, with live painting and enter-tainment from 11am, followed by a viewing day on September 7 from 11am-5pm. Visit www.cityofcolours.co.uk for full details.

godskitchen invites you into the next dimension

Dance music superbrand Godskitchen is hoping to take clubbing into the next dimen-sion with the launch of its brand new produc-tion concept MEKANIKA.Launching on September 27, it uses state of the art projection mapping, promising a ‘futuristic gate to another dimension’, with animations cascading and morphing into windows looking in on other worlds.MEKANIKA makes its international debut at Godskitchen TXXENTY on Saturday, September 28, with headline appearances from Paul van Dyk, Pure NRG and John 00 Fleming at The Rainbow Textile Factory in Birmingham, before heading out on a world-wide tour. Details at www.godskitchen.com.

b-boy championships to head back to brumBirmingham will once again welcome some of the fi nest hip hop and urban dancers when the B-Boy Championships World Finals returns to the city. The two-day event is now in its 19th year but was hosted in the Second City for the fi rst time last year. The 2014 fi nals take place at the O2 Academy in Birmingham city centre from October 25-26. For ticket details and more info visit www.bboychampionships.com.

Think you’ve got what it takes to party hard? you know, really party hard? Well, put your clubbing credentials to the test at the 24 Hour Rave Experiment. In a true test of stamina, anyone who makes it from midday on September 20 until the same time the following day will get their £24 ticket money back. And if you don’t make it? Well, that’s all good too because you’ll forfeit your ticket money to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. No napping either, as if you’re caught sleeping at any point that will

be the end of the party for you, with your money going to charity too. Ravers will be able to enjoy 10 rooms of music across indoor and outdoor spaces at The Rainbow Venues in Digbeth, with an eclectic mix of underground house, techno, bass, DnB and trance from local and inter-national DJ names. All contenders must be in the venue by midday on September 20. Tickets availa-ble from various outlets or fi nd full details at www.facebook.com/24hrRaveExperiment.

news

In Search of Birmingham’s own 24 hour party peopleK

ids In Glass H

ouses

A rib-tickling lineup of more than 150 international names and rising stars descends on the Second City next month for Birmingham Comedy Festival. The annual city-wide funnyfest returns from October 3-12 and will include a brand new Breaking Talent Award for the fi rst time. Among those taking part in the 10-day festi-val are leading Irish funnyman Tommy Tier-nan (Oct 4, Town Hall), fast-rising James Acaster (Oct 9, The Glee Club), comedian and actor Doc Brown (Oct 11, Town Hall)

and author and stand-up Mark Watson (Oct 4, Mac Birmingham).Cult radio series The Goon Show will be revived at The Old Joint Stock on Oct 3 and 4, while local comics will also be well repre-sented throughout by the likes of Foghorn Improv, Mickey Sharma, Mrs Barbara Nice and Andy Robinson. A special All-Dayer will see 15 acts performing one-hour shows at Cherry Reds and The Victoria from 1pm on Oct 5. For full information and listings see www.bhamcomfest.co.uk.

FIERCE FESTIVAL TO CHALLENGE PRECONCEPTIONS OF YOUTH with eclectic celebration of live art

Fierce Festival returns to Birmingham next month with a series of projects aimed at shifting perceptions of youth culture and young people. The annual celebration of adven-turous art and performance runs from October 2-12 at various venues and will this year explore Birmingham’s status as the youngest city in Europe, with nearly 40 per cent of the popu-lation aged under 25. In honour of this fact, several of the events on the programme will attempt to challenge the ideas of what young people can do.

Croatian artist Dina Roncevic leads Car Deconstructions at Eastside Projects in Digbeth, in which seven local girls aged 10-12 will learn basic car mechanics, disassembling a car to its nuts and bolts over three days. In Eat the Street, a group of local 12-year-olds will become restaurant critics, inviting you to dine with them whilst they offer up brutally honest opinions on food, service and décor. The project, led by Canadian artist group Mammalian Diving Refl ex, aims to dismantle the barriers between age groups, allowing children a chance to take charge and be heard. A 12-hour musical experiment will also see Australian artist Sarah-Jane Norman invited former child prodigy pianists to sight-read Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No 3.

Other highlights of the programme include two UK premieres presented in association with DanceXchange, Heavens What Have I Done from provocative New York chore-ographer Gutierrez, and the stereotype-challenging Yellow Towel from Dana Michel.Lebanese artist Tania El Khoury refl ects on the Syrian crisis with her interactive sound installation Gardens Speak, two projects take place in the historic Moseley Road Baths, while the unique Council of Community Conveyors will see clipboard-bearing volun-teers knocking on 1,500 doors and passing messages between neighbours. The buzz-ing Festival Hub at The Edge in Digbeth will also be home to a variety of smaller-scale performances and exhibits.

Fierce Festival’s infamous club nights will also return, including Algorave, featuring live coding and music at The Edge in Digbeth on October 4, while the Polish Centre will host the Fierce Slow Dance on October 11. Individual show tickets are on sale from September 2, with weekend passes available now. To book tickets or for full programme details visit www.wearefi erce.org.

lineup announced for all years leavingEagulls, Hookworms, Traams, Cheatahs, God Damn, The Voyeurs and more will all take to the stage for this year’s All Years Leaving festival. The two-day live music event takes over the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath on October 24-25. Curated by This is Tmrw, the festival is now in its second year and will include street food, live art and a pop-up bar in the stables, alongside live acts and late night DJs in the main room. Day tickets cost £13.50, with weekend tick-ets £25 and available to book now from www.theticketsellers.co.uk.

oxjam VENUES UNVEILEDThe OxjamBrum Takeover Festival will return on October 18. Seven venues have now been confi rmed for the annual charity fund-raiser, with live sets taking place at The Flap-per, The Sunfl ower Lounge, The Oobleck, Talk, 6/8 Kafe and Island Bar, as well as on the fl oating favourite, Frederick the Canal Barge. Acts performing include Loom, Alex Moir, Haze, Curb and KIN, with the full line-up set to be unveiled in early September. Limited £8 early bird tickets are on sale now at www.wegottickets.com.

Tuesdays to become Bluesdays once againBlues lovers will be able to get their fi x with a brand new weekly blues night launching in Birmingham this month. Big Bear Records will host Nothin’ But the Blues every Tuesday at The Asylum 2 in Hockley, kicking off on September 23 with a live performance from The 58’s Blues Band. The night is inspired by the legendary Henry’s Blueshouse, which took place every Tuesday at The Crown in Station Street in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and provided a platform for blues-inspired artists, including members of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in the bands’ early days. Entry is £5.

birmingham Comedy festival returns next monthK

ids In Glass H

ouses

Tommy Tiernan

Car Deconstruction by Dina Roncevic (image

courtesy of Anti Festival)


THE CUSTARD FACTORY • DIGBETH • BIRMINGHAM • B9 4AAKEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS ALFIE AT WWW.ALFIEBIRDS.CO.UKFACEBOOK: ALFIE BIRDS / THE OOBLECK TWITTER: @ALFIEBIRDS @THEOOBLECKGET YOUR TICKETS FROM THETICKETSELLERS.CO.UK OR SEETICKETS.COM

SATURDAY 6TH SEPTEMBER

CITY OF COLOURSSTREET ART FESTIVAL

AND AFTERPARTYFRIDAY 5TH/12TH/19TH/26TH SEPTEMBER

FREE FUN FRIDAYSDJS IN THE BAR FROM 8 TIL LATE

FREE ENTRY!SATURDAY 20TH SEPTEMBER

JAWS& SUPPORT


BACK DOOR BETTY90s & 00s HOUSEWEDNESDAY 24TH SEPTEMBER

LUST FOR YOUTH& SUPPORT

BROTHERS ACOUSTIC JAM& OPEN MIC

HOSTED BY OCEAN COLOUR SCENE’S

ANDY BENNETT & KHALIQ

SUNDAY AFTERNOONS


CHICKS DIG JERKSwith SUNSHINE FRISBEE LASERBEAM/BURNING ALMS/HOOPLA BLUE

SUNDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER

SLEEPY SUNASTEROID No4/GRAND UNION/

THE EXPLODING SOUND MACHINE/SCHNAUSER

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01/05/2014 09:56

9September 2014

There are more than 30 shows to choose from next month, including sold out dates from the likes of George Ezra (Oct 25) and Kids in Glass Houses (Oct 20), plus other big name appearances from Ella Eyre (Oct 1), Lethal Bizzle (Oct 7), Buzzcocks (Oct 9), Dry the River (Oct 10), Maverick Sabre (Oct 21), St Vincent (Oct 24), Jungle (Oct 27) and many more. From rising stars, to legendary names covering a wide spectrum of genres, it’s the dream ticket for any music lover – and while maths isn’t our strong point, we can safely say it’s worth hundreds of pounds as well.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply tell us: What is the name of the debut album by George Ezra?

Send your answer with name, age and contact details to [email protected] by September 26. Entrants must be aged 18 or above. Terms and conditions apply. The winner will be notified by email by September 30. The Golden Ticket entitles the winner to entry for two to all live shows at The Institute during October 2014.

Brum Notes Magazine turns the grand old age of five next month, after first hitting the streets of Birmingham way back in October 2009. And to celebrate we’ve teamed up with one of the city’s finest music venues, The Institute in Digbeth, to give away a special Golden Ticket offering one lucky winner and a friend entry to an entire month of gigs for free. That means you’ll be able to catch some of the hottest acts in the world throughout the whole of October without having to spend a penny on tickets.

WIN: A GOLDEN TICKET TO SEE EVERY GIG AT THE INSTITUTE DURING OCTOBER

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on from the initial idea, at least we were open. We’ve just located to a new shop, still in Redditch but in the Church Green area of the centre. It’s picturesque and makes a nice change to seeing Poundland every day. Really it’s the property we want-ed originally and it will give us the chance to grow – we now can be a venue, a shop, have a home for the record label, and a base for the management company. We’ve also put in a recording studio and have Layers’ Elliot Vaughan based here.

“In terms of the store, the records we stock range from new releases to pre-loved classics. Ordering is a team effort – everyone gets a say, including our work experience team. We also sell local bands’ records commission-free, the idea being that we support them and they buy their music through us...though some have yet to realise that.”

A few months ago, after Redditch was named the least musical place in the UK in a study carried out by researchers from Goldsmiths, the University of London and BBC Lab UK, Death or Glory hit back, publishing their own compilation

album featuring some of the town’s finest talent. Shortly after that Duran Duran’s John Taylor circulated his own mixtape of Redditch musicians with a tracklisting fairly indebted to the Death or Glory version.

“It came about when his cousin came into the shop,” explains Steve of the relationship. He said ‘John would love this, I’ll get him to call you’. I didn’t expect anything to come from it but John attended our last band forum. Having him support what we are doing has been brilliant – he’ll phone up or drop us an email just to check how things are going.”

And next on the cards? Death or Glory Records the record label has just whirred into action with its first signing, Byron Hare, who have just finished their debut EP. It looks like an exciting autumn ahead.

Visit Death or Glory Records at 3 Church Green West, Redditch, Worcestershire (approx 30 mins from Birmingham), or find out more at www.facebook.com/DeathorGloryRecords or on Twitter @DorG_Records.

Sticking two fingers up to the worldwide decline of record stores, Steve Hadley first opened the doors to Death or Glory Records in Redditch in January this year. Initially a record shop, the project escalated into a music hub creating its own compilations of local music, hosting band forums and workshops and gaining the support of some real local legends. Next on the list is beginning their own record label. We chat to the man behind it all to find out more.

behindthe scenes

“My background was in the care sector working in various support and managerial roles,” explains Steve of his past experience. “I worked with chil-dren with autism and adults with learning difficul-ties, homeless projects, drug and alcohol rehab projects and with a children’s home, all over a 10-year period. But it was always my aim to run my own business of some kind and I began to develop the idea of bringing a music hub to Redditch. I wanted a place that covered every-thing from selling records to releasing music. The original idea came from wanting to combine my experience with my passion for music – I read [Patti Smith memoir] Just Kids and loved the romance of the scene that they developed. I wanted that for Redditch, a shop, and a scene to be proud of.

“Finding the right location and premises was diffi-cult, I found a few that were right but too expen-sive or cheap but in the wrong location. In the end I had to go into the Kingfisher Shopping Centre, which wasn’t ideal as the setup costs were vast and location-wise it wasn’t really where we wanted to be. But it was a starting point, so 12 months

Photos by Rob Hadley

11September 2014

on from the initial idea, at least we were open. We’ve just located to a new shop, still in Redditch but in the Church Green area of the centre. It’s picturesque and makes a nice change to seeing Poundland every day. Really it’s the property we want-ed originally and it will give us the chance to grow – we now can be a venue, a shop, have a home for the record label, and a base for the management company. We’ve also put in a recording studio and have Layers’ Elliot Vaughan based here.

“In terms of the store, the records we stock range from new releases to pre-loved classics. Ordering is a team effort – everyone gets a say, including our work experience team. We also sell local bands’ records commission-free, the idea being that we support them and they buy their music through us...though some have yet to realise that.”

A few months ago, after Redditch was named the least musical place in the UK in a study carried out by researchers from Goldsmiths, the University of London and BBC Lab UK, Death or Glory hit back, publishing their own compilation

album featuring some of the town’s finest talent. Shortly after that Duran Duran’s John Taylor circulated his own mixtape of Redditch musicians with a tracklisting fairly indebted to the Death or Glory version.

“It came about when his cousin came into the shop,” explains Steve of the relationship. He said ‘John would love this, I’ll get him to call you’. I didn’t expect anything to come from it but John attended our last band forum. Having him support what we are doing has been brilliant – he’ll phone up or drop us an email just to check how things are going.”

And next on the cards? Death or Glory Records the record label has just whirred into action with its first signing, Byron Hare, who have just finished their debut EP. It looks like an exciting autumn ahead.

Visit Death or Glory Records at 3 Church Green West, Redditch, Worcestershire (approx 30 mins from Birmingham), or find out more at www.facebook.com/DeathorGloryRecords or on Twitter @DorG_Records.

Sticking two fingers up to the worldwide decline of record stores, Steve Hadley first opened the doors to Death or Glory Records in Redditch in January this year. Initially a record shop, the project escalated into a music hub creating its own compilations of local music, hosting band forums and workshops and gaining the support of some real local legends. Next on the list is beginning their own record label. We chat to the man behind it all to find out more.

behindthe scenes

“My background was in the care sector working in various support and managerial roles,” explains Steve of his past experience. “I worked with chil-dren with autism and adults with learning difficul-ties, homeless projects, drug and alcohol rehab projects and with a children’s home, all over a 10-year period. But it was always my aim to run my own business of some kind and I began to develop the idea of bringing a music hub to Redditch. I wanted a place that covered every-thing from selling records to releasing music. The original idea came from wanting to combine my experience with my passion for music – I read [Patti Smith memoir] Just Kids and loved the romance of the scene that they developed. I wanted that for Redditch, a shop, and a scene to be proud of.

“Finding the right location and premises was diffi-cult, I found a few that were right but too expen-sive or cheap but in the wrong location. In the end I had to go into the Kingfisher Shopping Centre, which wasn’t ideal as the setup costs were vast and location-wise it wasn’t really where we wanted to be. But it was a starting point, so 12 months

Photos by Rob Hadley


Words by Amy Sumner

“You can’t push for creativity, it either happens or it doesn’t,” says guitarist James Watton, as he and his bandmates mull it over. “But once an idea is conceived, you kind of know if you should pursue it or not.” The band are sat in the studio tweaking their live set ahead of their support slot with Mel-bourne singer songwriter Gossling at the end of the month. Formed in Redditch about a year ago after varying musical projects between them, they recorded their first track, Shake, decided they par-ticularly liked that word, and added that all-impor-tant extra vowel to cement their band name.Currently the band have only two demos available online, Long Way Down and Demons, but within those bluesy guitar riffs lie soulful jazz vocals. In-corporating their individual musical backgrounds and tastes, the band are ensuring they tie togeth-er seamlessly.“As a collective we love artists like Joan Armatrad-ing and Fleetwood Mac and their life stories are

as much of an influence as the music. Individually, I love Jimmy Page and the truth and rawness in Jack White’s music. Our drummer Oli [Jefferson] loves the technicalities of artists such as Tower Of Power and frontwoman Suzi [Dingle] enjoys the soulful and influential voice of Stevie Wonder and the more contemporary and complex vocals and arrangements from Kimbra and Lalah Hathaway.”So what can we expect from their appearance in Moseley this month? “We’ve written six songs and we want to debut them fully at that gig,” James continues. “We’ll have guitars, drums and microphones to make some good noise and afterwards we’ll be edging towards the release of our debut EP. We’re excited to have something ready to present to the rest of the world before the end of the year.”

Shaake are live at the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath on September 22, supporting Gossling.

SHAAKE facebook.com/weareshaake

Photo by Chris Lever

13September 2014

“It’s rooted in pop history and experimental punk though is heading forwards with a more progressive metropolitan element,” deliber-ates frontman Jack Solomon Smith about the quartet’s sonic appeal. “Originally, [guitarist] Harry Shaw and I recorded on cassette with a Fostex four-track, mainly because it was cheap and we had no software between us. We never cleaned the tape heads and I’m pretty sure we used the wrong tape out of ignorance or laziness so it sounded pret-ty cruddy, but also like a portal to 1981, which was cool. We’ve since gone digital and haven’t looked back, but we’re still do-ing all the recordings ourselves.”Mirrorhall’s foundation stones, Jack and Har-ry, met at a New Year’s Eve party in 2012, started talking and formed a band there and then – because after all, “if you can get on with someone for two hours and they can play an instrument that you can’t then they should probably be in your band”. They be-gan to record some music and met drum-mer Jimmy Kirk, playing a few shows as a trio before Hannah Al-Shemmeri joined on keys to complete the setup. “The keyboards

mean that now the sound is more meshed out, more dense. It means we can be more ambitious with how we arrange our songs,” says Jack.Mirrorhall are crafting well-considered art rock, not that the tag much quantifies their sound. Visually they’re urban and brutalist, drawing from their Birmingham home. Au-rally they’re a little softer but for the sharp juts and jags of Jack’s vocals which bring to mind flailing elbows and knees in Cur-tis-esque abandon. It feels kaleidoscopic, but in monochrome.“I make a separation between the artwork I make for the band and the other stuff I do so it’s usually created with a particu-lar song in mind because it’s there to at-tract people,” explains Jack, who creates posters and cover art to accompany the band’s movements. “But at the same time the artwork can’t over-explain or talk over a song; it just has to ask the right ques-tions and form part of the whole.”On September 3, Mirrorhall release their second EP, a five-track follow-up to Hor-rorscope which they released last year. “They’re all new songs, all have a twist in them and it’s a good representation of the stuff we’ve been making recently,” says Jack.The EP will be a physical cassette release with most of the tracks also available on-line. In an increasingly digital world, is the physical format something to be treas-ured or done away with, and does the internet detract from the specialness of the tangible?“There’s a sentimentality to cassettes,” surmises Jack, “they don’t sound the best but at this point they’re a nicer physical object than CDs and there will be a down-load code included. The physical release is a tangible representation of where we are at this point in time – for good or bad, we exist somewhere other than the inter-minable cloud.”

Mirrorhall play The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham, on September 3.

PEACELost On MeIf it’s their pedal-powered, 1998-style sounds that enamour you then Lost On Me, which keeps with their last single Money and the upcoming second album in its more disco pop approach, isn’t necessarily going to make your end of year list. It probably will get your toe tapping though...Out September 28, streaming now via youtube.com/peacebandforever

mOdErN miNdSEscapeFive boys belting out indie rock at a rate of knots, Modern Minds are beginning to attract attention outside our fair city. Having released Escape last month, they’ve a headline show booked in for October – a good choice to keep an eye on.Available now via iTunes

APrilTen Miles HighFour minutes of Britpop nostalgia rooted in Oasis and their previous guise as Nunea-ton’s Noir. The vocals of Gallagher and the pop construction of Albarn, we await the next instalment to see if they can consolidate the sound as their own.Streaming now via soundcloud.com/apriltheband

THE PlAYliST

ONES TO WATCH

mirrOrHAllfacebook.com/mirrorhallmusic

LuKE WyLDE & THE JAPESAfter a summer of festival ap-pearances alongside the likes of Boney M, The Beat and Tim-my Mallet, Luke Wylde & The Japes celebrate the release of their new EP of upbeat folk pop rhythms.The Slade Rooms, Wolver-hampton, September 13

HOLLOW PEOPLEA summery dose of guitar pop embodies Surf, the debut demo from this Birmingham five-piece. With the promise of further ma-terial on the horizon and a Cat-apult Club show to accompany, we’re enjoying these fledgling murmurings.O2 Academy 3, September 5

VELVET TExAS CANNONBALLVelvet Texas Cannonball have been bubbling away for a num-ber of years but with a recent flur-ry of activity we’re really pleased to have their retro rock’n’blues-psych back in our eardrums. A band who really come into their own on the live stage. The Oobleck, September 28

SWOOMPTHEENGWe first saw Swoomptheeng back in February and to be hon-est we didn’t know what to make of them. We still have no idea – it’s hardcore rave played in dis-guise on computers and gaming devices. A see it to believe it kind of thing...TALK, September 20

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Did your dad approve of the project?I started to tell him about it, but his response was perfunctory – which is, I guess, exactly why I wanted to go on the trip. That said, I got the sense that some very private part of him was interested, perhaps even flattered.

Hitchhiking seems like an exciting/terrifying way to travel?In theory, yes. In practice, also yes. More exciting than terrifying – although ask me that on the pave-ment-less slip road to an enormous motorway with 40-tonne trucks hurtling by, I might answer differ-ently. It depends on who picks you up. I met such a wide range of mostly wonderful characters on the trip, extroverted, generous and curious enough to give a dishevelled hitchhiker like me a lift.

In your blog, you’re less than enthusiastic about a certain budget hotel chain that you stayed in…

Ha ha! So you noticed? It wasn’t that bad. My animosity was fairly arbitrary – when you’re physi-cally and emotionally exhausted, a plastic bag is just as likely to bear the brunt of your frustration as a hotel. I was in the hotel when writing most of the blog posts, and thus it became inseparable from the idea of sweaty, sleep-deprived impris-onment. And UHT milk.

What were the best and worst moments of your journey? My favourite experiences were always conver-sations – my Saturday night pub run and curry with Marcus, my dad’s friend of 42 years, and the two conversations I had in Welwyn Garden City with my dad’s aunt and cousin. No place will ever tell you as much about a person as a single encounter with someone who was there, whose stories make the place and person absolutely come alive. Those are the moments I’m particularly keen to do justice to in the

show. The worst was probably walking for what seemed like an age in the rain in Luton, being soaked over and over again by passing, indif-ferent cars. Or when a motorcyclist called me a fucking cunt before I’d even properly set off. That was a shame.

Do you feel closer to your dad now?I do, because the trip and writing the show allowed me to relive the memories we’ve shared together. It made me want to go home and spend time with him in Nottingham, despite the fact we’d soon run out of things to say to each other. I like to think that if he sees the show – and I hope one day he will – it will help him to understand me, and why relationships are important to me, as much as it’s helped me to understand him.

Ben Norris: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family is at Mac Birmingham on September 6.

Feeling something lacking in his relationship with his father, the poet and playwright Ben Norris set off on a hitchhike to retrace the key steps in his dad’s life, from his current home in Nottingham down to Wembley Stadium, the venue of his beloved Luton Town’s finest hour. As he prepares to bring his one-man show, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family, to the Mac in Birmingham, he tells Dan Cooper-Gavin more about his M1 odyssey…

POETRY IN MOTION

arts & culture

15September 2014

Did your dad approve of the project?I started to tell him about it, but his response was perfunctory – which is, I guess, exactly why I wanted to go on the trip. That said, I got the sense that some very private part of him was interested, perhaps even flattered.

Hitchhiking seems like an exciting/terrifying way to travel?In theory, yes. In practice, also yes. More exciting than terrifying – although ask me that on the pave-ment-less slip road to an enormous motorway with 40-tonne trucks hurtling by, I might answer differ-ently. It depends on who picks you up. I met such a wide range of mostly wonderful characters on the trip, extroverted, generous and curious enough to give a dishevelled hitchhiker like me a lift.

In your blog, you’re less than enthusiastic about a certain budget hotel chain that you stayed in…

Ha ha! So you noticed? It wasn’t that bad. My animosity was fairly arbitrary – when you’re physi-cally and emotionally exhausted, a plastic bag is just as likely to bear the brunt of your frustration as a hotel. I was in the hotel when writing most of the blog posts, and thus it became inseparable from the idea of sweaty, sleep-deprived impris-onment. And UHT milk.

What were the best and worst moments of your journey? My favourite experiences were always conver-sations – my Saturday night pub run and curry with Marcus, my dad’s friend of 42 years, and the two conversations I had in Welwyn Garden City with my dad’s aunt and cousin. No place will ever tell you as much about a person as a single encounter with someone who was there, whose stories make the place and person absolutely come alive. Those are the moments I’m particularly keen to do justice to in the

show. The worst was probably walking for what seemed like an age in the rain in Luton, being soaked over and over again by passing, indif-ferent cars. Or when a motorcyclist called me a fucking cunt before I’d even properly set off. That was a shame.

Do you feel closer to your dad now?I do, because the trip and writing the show allowed me to relive the memories we’ve shared together. It made me want to go home and spend time with him in Nottingham, despite the fact we’d soon run out of things to say to each other. I like to think that if he sees the show – and I hope one day he will – it will help him to understand me, and why relationships are important to me, as much as it’s helped me to understand him.

Ben Norris: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family is at Mac Birmingham on September 6.

Feeling something lacking in his relationship with his father, the poet and playwright Ben Norris set off on a hitchhike to retrace the key steps in his dad’s life, from his current home in Nottingham down to Wembley Stadium, the venue of his beloved Luton Town’s finest hour. As he prepares to bring his one-man show, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family, to the Mac in Birmingham, he tells Dan Cooper-Gavin more about his M1 odyssey…

POETRY IN MOTION

arts & culture


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With Lenny’s recent metamorphosis into a criti-cally-acclaimed theatre actor – earning ecstatic reviews for his Othello and his turn in August Wilson’s 1950s drama Fences – it’s perhaps not surprising that Rudy’s Rare Records should also make the move from broadcast to stage. But the adaptation, a co-production between The Rep and London’s Hackney Empire, required a differ-ent approach from Danny.

“My normal writing experience is about how to tell a tightly-plotted story full of jokes over half an hour,” he says. “It’s vital in sitcom to have strong characters, but they don’t really go on emotion-al journeys in the way characters in a play do. In sitcom, plot is king – in a play, often not a lot actu-ally happens in terms of plot. Sometimes, charac-ters simply react to one event that has happened before the play starts, but a huge amount goes on in terms of how they emotionally develop, for good or ill.

“It’s stuffed with jokes as the sitcom was, but I know we wouldn’t hold our audience’s atten-tion if we didn’t also send our characters on an emotional journey. It can’t be just jokes – it has to be things that make you laugh, things that make you think, things that make you cry, things that make you want to get up and shake your booty and sing along. We’ve got all that, I hope.”

The booty shaking will be expedited by a live band, accompanying the action with songs that would be heard in Rudy’s store. “We wrote a list of songs that we loved and we thought Rudy would want as the soundtrack to his shop,” explains Danny, “and then we found out which ones the music-copyright people would let us use. Thankfully, we got pretty much everything we wanted, and we have some great tunes in the show by the likes of Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, The Sugarhill Gang, Eddy Grant, Toots & the Maytals.

“And we get Lenny rapping too, and Joivan [Wade], who plays Richie – he’s part of this group Mandem On The Wall, who are a YouTube phenomenon and known for their rap parodies.”

As well as his wide range of appearances across BBC TV and radio and his fl eeting moment of pop stardom (he was responsible for the sample on DJ Dee Kline’s number 11 hit I Don’t Smoke), Danny’s disparate CV includes collaborations with talents as diverse as Armando Iannucci, Joan Rivers, Ronnie Barker and Basil Brush. It’s clear, though, that he holds special affection for his work with Lenny.

“As a comedy writer, it’s a joy to fi nd somebody you click with and can riff off, and Lenny is that,” he says. “We’ve been working together for a long time now, and I think we’re quite attuned to each other. We’re not afraid to wander round a room, spewing out joke ideas at each other, knowing some will be rubbish and some will be good. I think Lenny is very open, approachable, up for new experiences, as his recent work testifi es. Not everyone is like that – some people are more cautious and conservative with the kind of work they do and who they work with.”

While Rudy’s Rare Records is an examination of the family and a celebration of the music, it’s also a love letter to the record shop. In a neat microcosm of wider trends, the stage show sees Rudy’s family needing to come together to secure the future of the shop in the face of threats from developers.

“The setting of a record shop is a place that deeply resonates with both of us,” explains Danny. “The demise of the record shop is clearly very real. Over the last decade, about 60 per cent of them have closed – there’s around 300 left, I believe. I think any pronouncements that they will soon be totally extinct are wrong, though. The last time I

popped into The Diskery in Birmingham, which was one of the inspirations for Rudy’s shop, they said business was booming.

“There’s a defi nite vinyl revival going on. For me, a future without record shops is bleak. Consum-ing music has become such a solitary pursuit, we browse music blogs for recommendations alone, we click and buy it alone and then we listen to it on our headphones alone. Record shops were and are a place to meet people, talk about music and listen to it together. Bands formed in record shops, lifelong friendships started there. Most of the bands I like came from a recommendation given to me by someone in an independent record store. Amazon and iTunes are doing their best to kill them, but I like to think people’s need to be with other people will win through.”

Rudy’s Rare Records is at The Rep, Birming-ham, from September 4–20.

“ Both Lenny and I grew up spending our youths in record shops, buying vinyl and discovering new music.”

arts &culture

Starring at The Rep this month is none other than Lenny Henry, bringing home a stage adaptation of his hit radio comedy Rudy’s Rare Records. Dan Cooper-Gavin speaks to the show’s writer Danny Robins about a project that’s a real labour of love.

RECORD STOREDAYS

A reggae record shop in Birmingham is the setting of a fi ne comedy which has delighted Radio 4 listeners since 2008. Rudy’s Rare Records is the creation of Lenny Henry and the comedian and writer Danny Robins, with Lenny playing the role of Adam, the put-upon son of the shop’s maver-ick owner. As Danny explains, it’s a show that’s close to their hearts.

“Lenny had an idea to do a sitcom set in a Jamai-can record shop in Birmingham, revolving around three generations of one family,” he explains. “A producer put him in touch with me and my then-writing partner Dan Tetsell, and together we

developed the idea into a fl eshed-out sitcom. It was an idea I immediately clicked with.

“They say the best comedy comes from truth, and the setting and characters were very much drawn on people Lenny had grown up with. Since the very fi rst radio recording, we’ve both felt that something about the combination of characters and setting worked in a way that was special and also hugely signifi cant to both of us.

“For Lenny, I know the relationship between Adam and Rudy represents a chance to have a conversation with his own father, an emotionally

closed-off man who he never really talked to in life in any meaningful way. He describes him as the Daily Mirror with arms and legs – he never put down the paper long enough to talk. I too have a diffi cult relationship with my father, and also fi nd this show a way to explore that particular relationship – comedy as therapy, I guess! Since the birth of my own son, I’ve also found myself becoming increasingly interested in exploring the relationship between Adam and his own son Richie. And then there is the music, of course. Both Lenny and I grew up spending our youths in record shops, buying vinyl and discovering new music.”

Lenny Henry as Adam (Photo: Robert Day)

The cast (Photo: Nobby Clark)

Jeffery Kissoon as Clifton and Joivan Wade as Richie in rehearsals for Rudy’s Rare Records (Photo: Robert Day)

17September 2014

With Lenny’s recent metamorphosis into a criti-cally-acclaimed theatre actor – earning ecstatic reviews for his Othello and his turn in August Wilson’s 1950s drama Fences – it’s perhaps not surprising that Rudy’s Rare Records should also make the move from broadcast to stage. But the adaptation, a co-production between The Rep and London’s Hackney Empire, required a differ-ent approach from Danny.

“My normal writing experience is about how to tell a tightly-plotted story full of jokes over half an hour,” he says. “It’s vital in sitcom to have strong characters, but they don’t really go on emotion-al journeys in the way characters in a play do. In sitcom, plot is king – in a play, often not a lot actu-ally happens in terms of plot. Sometimes, charac-ters simply react to one event that has happened before the play starts, but a huge amount goes on in terms of how they emotionally develop, for good or ill.

“It’s stuffed with jokes as the sitcom was, but I know we wouldn’t hold our audience’s atten-tion if we didn’t also send our characters on an emotional journey. It can’t be just jokes – it has to be things that make you laugh, things that make you think, things that make you cry, things that make you want to get up and shake your booty and sing along. We’ve got all that, I hope.”

The booty shaking will be expedited by a live band, accompanying the action with songs that would be heard in Rudy’s store. “We wrote a list of songs that we loved and we thought Rudy would want as the soundtrack to his shop,” explains Danny, “and then we found out which ones the music-copyright people would let us use. Thankfully, we got pretty much everything we wanted, and we have some great tunes in the show by the likes of Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, The Sugarhill Gang, Eddy Grant, Toots & the Maytals.

“And we get Lenny rapping too, and Joivan [Wade], who plays Richie – he’s part of this group Mandem On The Wall, who are a YouTube phenomenon and known for their rap parodies.”

As well as his wide range of appearances across BBC TV and radio and his fl eeting moment of pop stardom (he was responsible for the sample on DJ Dee Kline’s number 11 hit I Don’t Smoke), Danny’s disparate CV includes collaborations with talents as diverse as Armando Iannucci, Joan Rivers, Ronnie Barker and Basil Brush. It’s clear, though, that he holds special affection for his work with Lenny.

“As a comedy writer, it’s a joy to fi nd somebody you click with and can riff off, and Lenny is that,” he says. “We’ve been working together for a long time now, and I think we’re quite attuned to each other. We’re not afraid to wander round a room, spewing out joke ideas at each other, knowing some will be rubbish and some will be good. I think Lenny is very open, approachable, up for new experiences, as his recent work testifi es. Not everyone is like that – some people are more cautious and conservative with the kind of work they do and who they work with.”

While Rudy’s Rare Records is an examination of the family and a celebration of the music, it’s also a love letter to the record shop. In a neat microcosm of wider trends, the stage show sees Rudy’s family needing to come together to secure the future of the shop in the face of threats from developers.

“The setting of a record shop is a place that deeply resonates with both of us,” explains Danny. “The demise of the record shop is clearly very real. Over the last decade, about 60 per cent of them have closed – there’s around 300 left, I believe. I think any pronouncements that they will soon be totally extinct are wrong, though. The last time I

popped into The Diskery in Birmingham, which was one of the inspirations for Rudy’s shop, they said business was booming.

“There’s a defi nite vinyl revival going on. For me, a future without record shops is bleak. Consum-ing music has become such a solitary pursuit, we browse music blogs for recommendations alone, we click and buy it alone and then we listen to it on our headphones alone. Record shops were and are a place to meet people, talk about music and listen to it together. Bands formed in record shops, lifelong friendships started there. Most of the bands I like came from a recommendation given to me by someone in an independent record store. Amazon and iTunes are doing their best to kill them, but I like to think people’s need to be with other people will win through.”

Rudy’s Rare Records is at The Rep, Birming-ham, from September 4–20.

“ Both Lenny and I grew up spending our youths in record shops, buying vinyl and discovering new music.”

arts &culture

Starring at The Rep this month is none other than Lenny Henry, bringing home a stage adaptation of his hit radio comedy Rudy’s Rare Records. Dan Cooper-Gavin speaks to the show’s writer Danny Robins about a project that’s a real labour of love.

RECORD STOREDAYS

A reggae record shop in Birmingham is the setting of a fi ne comedy which has delighted Radio 4 listeners since 2008. Rudy’s Rare Records is the creation of Lenny Henry and the comedian and writer Danny Robins, with Lenny playing the role of Adam, the put-upon son of the shop’s maver-ick owner. As Danny explains, it’s a show that’s close to their hearts.

“Lenny had an idea to do a sitcom set in a Jamai-can record shop in Birmingham, revolving around three generations of one family,” he explains. “A producer put him in touch with me and my then-writing partner Dan Tetsell, and together we

developed the idea into a fl eshed-out sitcom. It was an idea I immediately clicked with.

“They say the best comedy comes from truth, and the setting and characters were very much drawn on people Lenny had grown up with. Since the very fi rst radio recording, we’ve both felt that something about the combination of characters and setting worked in a way that was special and also hugely signifi cant to both of us.

“For Lenny, I know the relationship between Adam and Rudy represents a chance to have a conversation with his own father, an emotionally

closed-off man who he never really talked to in life in any meaningful way. He describes him as the Daily Mirror with arms and legs – he never put down the paper long enough to talk. I too have a diffi cult relationship with my father, and also fi nd this show a way to explore that particular relationship – comedy as therapy, I guess! Since the birth of my own son, I’ve also found myself becoming increasingly interested in exploring the relationship between Adam and his own son Richie. And then there is the music, of course. Both Lenny and I grew up spending our youths in record shops, buying vinyl and discovering new music.”

Lenny Henry as Adam (Photo: Robert Day)

The cast (Photo: Nobby Clark)

Jeffery Kissoon as Clifton and Joivan Wade as Richie in rehearsals for Rudy’s Rare Records (Photo: Robert Day)


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Back in 2011, Famy looked poised to break through. Their debut single, Dogg Dogg, result-ed in a slew of well-placed reviews on infl uen-tial blogs and music sites, and within a year the band were recording their debut album, We Fam Econo, which included the track Donkey. Conclud-ing with the declaration “Famy is here!”, in retro-spect it seemed a little premature as it’s only now that the fruits of Famy’s labour are seeing the light of day, with that album fi nally due out more than two years later.

“We recorded the album in the summer of 2012 and we’ve had a lot of management issues, boring kinds of things that just needed loads of time to sort out,” explains Arthur Yates of the album’s much delayed release. “So we’ve been sitting on this record which we really believe in, but we had to sort out all the logistical things fi rst.

“It was the most frustrating thing,” he contin-ues. “When you write something, you want to record it straight away and get it out imme-diately after.

“To be honest,” he sighs, “to have that gap, it can be frustrating. But we stand by the record, we completely believe in the record. Things in the music industry just happen at their own speed.”

Arthur, brother Bruce and Italian pal Luca Maria Galbiati formed Famy in the south of France.

“We all met when we moved out there. Luca moved there from Italy, myself and my brother moved there as our parents wanted to be in the sun and experience a less hectic lifestyle than

London. That’s how it all happened, and we met at school.”

From the warm air of Europe, the band later relo-cated to London, and it’s here that the Famy sound – think Glasvegas reverb mashed with indie/folk sunshine – began to solidify.

“Our inspiration was coming from where we grew up. Our record, for me, sounds like a rock band in the south of France. There is The Sandpipers in there,” says Arthur, referencing the easy listen-ing 60s combo, “and the Beach Boys – they had that Mediterranean feel. Then we came to London and we discovered rock’n’roll. So it’s a marriage of those two sounds, the south of France and London.”

The 1980s DIY punk/hardcore scene has also been an infl uence, though it’s more about the artistic integrity, work ethic and can-do attitude than the music.

“Possibly the biggest important infl uence for us is the Minutemen, they’re DIY forever. Their idea for punk was great, for them, making a record or making whatever they wanted to make…they did.”

Recorded in Gloucestershire by Miti Adhikari (whose CV includes BBC Radio 1, Nirvana and Radiohead), We Fam Econo’s distinctive, echo-ey sound was a product of the unique choice of recording venue.

“We recorded in a church in the English coun-tryside, this very big church that gives the record that cavernous sound that we really like. It suits

our music,” says Arthur. “We tried to make it sound as natural as possible, so we put the bass amp in the bell tower of the church and recorded that.”

But does the delay between recording and release affect how the band feel about the album? “The way I see this record is, I see this as a period, a record of the band at that period,” Arthur explains. “It encapsulates the place we were. It’s naïve, it has a lot of beauty to it. It’s a very honest and humble record that we made. It’s very, very pure. We’d just started up the band. I think those are the best parts of being in a band – that time when you’re just creating, not trying to create some kind of product.

“Live we try to keep it fresh, but it does have a differ-ent sound. Live it’s more raw, there’s more of a punky edge, we like to make our shows more raucous.”

For those who haven’t seen the band live, a clue to where they are today musically is the recently recorded new single Friends Home.

“That’s naturally the direction we’re going in, it’s where our new stuff is going,” Arthur says about the non-album track. “Our fi rst album gave us a lot of room to explore new avenues. It came very early for us. Our newer stuff is more considered, we’ve had time to look at where we are going and where we want to go. We have a plan.”

Famy are live at The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham, on September 22. Debut album We Fam Econo is released on September 8 through Transgressive.

After recording it back in the summer of 2012, the debut album by Famy fi nally sees the light of day this month. They’ll be heading out on the road as well, determined to show why the early excitement they generated was fully justifi ed. They talk to David Vincent.

Slow Burners

21September 2014

“It’s way, way harder than any job I’ve ever had – musicians can’t screw around and expect to get anywhere anymore,” says Benjamin Booker, as we link up with the New Orleans songwriter for a chat ahead of his Birmingham date at the O2 Academy.

He’s had a pretty successful year as they go. Signing with ATO Records (Alabama Shakes, My Morning Jacket) in the USA off the back of one grainy, homemade demo, the blues man has just stepped off tour with Jack White, who handpicked the musician and thus helped catapult him from relative unknown right in front of the eagerly antici-pating earholes of 5,000 fans a night.

“It was amazing,” Booker enthuses. “At the end I was talking to the band and I said, ‘what the hell are we supposed to do now?’ If this whole thing ended abruptly, I’d be happy just having had that opportunity to tour with Jack and the wonderful musicians and crew he’s surrounded himself with.”

He has a pretty feisty reputation though, Jack White…?

“There were no crazy rockstar moments at all. I read something which described him as ‘the last rockstar’ but he’s a very normal family man who just so happens to shred!”

Describing his music as ‘punk-blues’, Book-er creates traditional blues rock’n’roll songs with a grittier flourish to boot.

“I pulled from This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb, Ted Hawkins, The Gun Club, a bunch of delta blues artists when it came to developing the sound I wanted,” he says, inspired by “boredom and a stressful time period that gave me a lot of things to get off my chest.”

Releasing his self-titled debut album last month, Booker worked with analogue producer Andrija Tokic to lock down his sound. “He worked with another band from

New Orleans called Hurray for the Riff Raff,” explains Ben. “I was looking for an analogue studio and found out that’s who they record-ed with. All of the songs mean a lot to me – it was important to me not to make a record with a couple of favourites and then a bunch of filler.”

And live it’s an ever-expanding entity, having started off with just himself and his guitar. “It’s a three-piece now. Bass has really changed things around and that’s what’s opened up the live show. The band will defi-nitely grow as time goes on – I’m just look-ing for the right folks.”

Benjamin Booker is live at the O2 Acad-emy 3, Birmingham, on September 6. His self-titled debut album is out now on Rough Trade.

Things have moved pretty fast for Benjamin Booker. Earning a record deal off the back of a homemade demo, he was soon invited to tour with Jack White and is now revelling in the release of a critically acclaimed debut album. He tells Amy Sumner what has inspired his punky brand of gravel-toned blues.

“ I pulled from This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb, Ted Hawkins, The Gun Club a bunch of delta blues artists when it came to developing the sound I wanted.”

OPEN BOOK


‘I will hate you forever / Scumbag sleaze, slime-ball grease / You really do disgust me.’ So goes the chorus to Honeyblood’s fan favourite, Super Rat – and the clue’s in the band name with this one. Talk about the term ‘bittersweet’. Formed in Glasgow two years ago, Honeyblood are guitarist Stina Tweeddale and drummer Shona McVicar, who play as a duo embodying the age-old adage that less really can be more. Listening to them play, there are obvious musical touch-stones – PJ Harvey, The Breeders and Best Coast, acts the girls themselves refer to as inspiration. It’s garage rock dispatching Joanna Gruesome-style distaste and it’s beautifully harmonious in its delivery. Upon meeting at Glasgow University, both had already played in bands for a decade. They bond-ed over Best Coast, started writing songs and in July this year they released their self-titled debut

album, recorded in Peter Katis’ (The National, Frightened Rabbit) residential recording studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was a rigorous sched-ule laying down 13 songs in 10 days, but the results were as promising as their early demos always suggested. “To be truthful I can’t even remember what I envi-sioned the fi nished product to be before the album was made,” refl ects Stina, “but I think that’s a good thing because the album feels right to me.”

In a rather pleasing juxtaposition, Mojo described the band as creating sounds “equal parts sweet-ness and butchery” and with a setup encompass-ing just the two, it’s a feat that the record never at any point feels lacking – it’s well-balanced and it’s well-judged. “It makes us play differently,” explains Stina, when asked if they mourn the lack of bass. “It’s so comfortable now for us to be just us. I do wish sometimes that we had extra voices to

sing some harmonies.” But perhaps that’s the next stage in the process? “That’s the sound that just comes naturally to us,” says Stina, “we just play how we want and we can’t make a noise that’s unnatural.” Honeyblood have had a successful year to date playing festivals across Europe and a run of dates in the US. In Birmingham we last saw the pair at the Hare & Hounds, where they played tour support to Melbourne’s Courtney Barnett in May, and they appear to have had a blast doing so across the UK in the process. This month the pair return to the venue to play a deserving head-line show of their own – bittersweet symphonies all round.

Honeyblood are live at the Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, on September 26.

Peddling grungy pop, laced with both delightful harmonies and lo-fi garage sensibilities, Glaswegian duo Honeyblood are a delicious dichotomy. As they prepare to return to Birmingham as part of their debut headline tour, they tell Amy Sumner why they’re just doing what comes naturally.

Bitter withthe Sweet

23September 2014

Formed back in 2011 after guitarist Daniel Falvey heard singer Jess Weiss’ reverb-laden soundtrack at an art exhibition, Fear of Men have since gone on to push the boundaries of music.

Debut album Loom’s emotion-fi lled, personal lyrics have led to many comparisons to a young Morrissey. Indeed, his contrasts of melancholic, harder hitting lyrics with seductive pop melodies are something Fear of Men have tried to learn from when creating their own sound.

“I love The Smiths so that’s a really huge compli-ment to me,” says frontwoman Jess. “What we really respect about [The Smiths] as a band is the way they had a lot of different sounds over their career but it was their kind of incisive, thought-out lyrics which you don’t really get in pop songs. I think that’s a really interesting way to juxtapose.”

The Smiths’ experimental approach is mirrored by Fear of Men’s, as is their lack of interest in the ‘proper’ way of doing things. But the addi-tion of some modern technology into the mix, namely some recording equipment borrowed from a friend, opened up the ability for Jess to begin creating their own multi-layered sound.

“Before that I’d only been able to have just one person playing the guitar and singing. You can’t get experimental with sounds, you can’t use effects, you can’t layer things up. Then suddenly I had this amazing new toy to play with which I

spent hours and hours with in my room sampling different things.”

The intrigue in disorders and medical conditions, especially androphobia (the fear of men), also brings up another comparison to a young Moz, but also signals her belief that it is now the turn of both the boys and the girls.

“I think it’s a really good time for music in that there are so many more girls in bands than there used to be, and it’s less of a gimmick because I think it’s obviously always positive to have women in bands but for it to be 50/50. It’s really gratifying to see women telling their own stories with music rather than, I guess, maybe like the 90s where there was a bit of cliché of a sexy bassist, but I think it’s kind of the women’s turn to say something new and connect with a different audience on that.”

The last record took over a year but just a couple of months later another is already in the works – and is already signalling an evolution in their sound. Having been on tour since March and surrounded by new people, events and places constantly, it has inevitably infl uenced the way they’ve approached their latest recordings.

“I think my perspective on life has probably changed a little bit in the last few months,” Jess explains. “We’re defi nitely going to push things forward and move forward with the kind

of musical anguish that we’ve been secreting between the three of us.”

The upcoming headline tour follows their three-month long run of dates supporting The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart across the UK and Europe. And Jess admits she is looking forward to the mini-break before hitting the road again. “As soon as we get off this tour we’re going to get into rehearsals. Mike the drummer, his parents live on a farm so we’re just going to go there for the weekend, play music all day and it’ll be really good to have a rest like that and sleep in the same bed for a few nights in a row.”

Last time Fear of Men appeared in Birmingham, in support of Best Coast, things ended up pretty weird with the lights cutting out mid-show. But two years later and with their debut album under their belt, things have developed signifi cantly both off stage and on it.

“I was really nervous when I was fi rst playing shows,” continues the singer. “Now I feel like I’ve got a bit more strength, but then the songs are sometimes about vulnerable introspective things that I feel needs to come across in our live sets too. We’ll defi nitely get the chance to play some more songs, extend the set a bit and try some new things out, which will be fun.”

Fear of Men are live at the Bull’s Head, Moseley, on September 30.

Combining wistful, dream pop sounds with introspective lyrics, Brighton art school outfi t Fear of Men make for intriguing listening. With a well received debut album out earlier this year and a growing confi dence in their live performance, Becky Rogers meets a band with nothing to fear, as they prepare for their biggest headline tour to date.

No fear

Pho

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ick


He’s no stranger to music award lists, but the latest project from Gruff Rhys has seen him nomi-nated not just for the AIM Independent Album Of The Year, but also two literature prizes, the Guardian First Book Award and the Gordon Burn Prize.

“I’m always surprised and grateful to be nomi-nated for anything. I’m excited that people have just read it and listened to it,” he laughs. “And when people do it amazes me. I’m so surprised. It’s difficult to take it in, you know?”

The focus of critical attention is the album Amer-ican Interior and accompanying history book (subtitled The Quixotic Journey of John Evans, His Search for a Lost Tribe and How, Fuelled by Fantasy and (Possibly) Booze, He Accidentally Annexed a Third of North America), alongside an app and documentary film all triggered by a figure from history’s margins.

To all but a relative few, John Evans is a forgot-ten 18th century Welsh explorer who, inspired by the notion that a Welshman beat Christopher Columbus to America by several centuries, set off in search of a mythical tribe of light-skinned,

Welsh speaking native Americans. Evans’ jour-ney across the Atlantic backed by the Span-ish led him beyond the known borders of the United States, and along the Mississippi, with his map later used by the pioneering Lewis and Clark Expedition.

“John isn’t taught in schools, apart from in his home village [Waunfawr, near Caernarfon] where the kids are forced to do school projects about him. He’s very obscure, only appearing in foot-notes of other people’s stories. Crossing through America, he features in Spanish history in a very low level and I suppose this was a chance to make a fuss of him, make him historically rele-vant,” says Gruff, who heard the stories of Evans’ travels from his family and later found himself traversing a similar route.

“The more I travelled America as a musician the more I found myself crossing his path, so I booked a tour along the route he took…”

But how did that idea spiral into a grand multi-media project, with each component exploring a different element of the story? “The tour came first and then the songs, and the tour itself had

a slideshow where I started to tell this story. And the further into the tour, the more I found out, I had more research, added facts to songs. It became apparently enough for a book. I wanted the songs to be more emotional, based on feel-ings rather than a compilation of historical facts. Everything went hand in hand, kind of. For me it’s like an album, but you get a load more.”

The project reunited Rhys with filmmaker Dylan Goch. They’ve previously collaborated on 2010 film Separado!, which found Gruff heading to Patagonia to trace ancestors who’d emigrated there in Victorian times.

“It’s great to do something with him again,” says Gruff. “He’s a great director and editor. We’ve made two films now, so it would be great to do more as it’s always an adventure. He’s very inno-vative and I’d love to do another film, but he’s just getting over this. He took about a year to edit the film and then started to edit a version for DVD of just songs. So he needs a break.”

American Interior isn’t the first time Gruff has delved into biography. His collaborations with Boom Bip as Neon Neon, for example, were

triggered by the lives of controversial car maker John DeLorean (2008’s Stainless Style) and publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (last year’s Praxis Makes Perfect), while his next (solo) release is the soundtrack to Set Fire to the Stars.

“It’s a feature film about Dylan Thomas’s agent, John Malcolm Brinnin, played by Elijah Wood, and about a week in the life of Dylan Thom-as in the 1950s when his American agent was trying to keep him off the sauce.”

Directed by Andy Goddard (Downton Abbey) and co-starring Celyn Jones (as Thomas), the cast also includes Steven Mackintosh, Shirley Henderson and Kevin Eldon, and is part of the ongoing celebrations marking the centenary of the Welsh literary giant’s birth.

“There’s three songy songs and the others are all instrumentals, but there’s an album worth of material,” continues Gruff. “I’m really happy with it, it’s very orchestral. It’s different again. One of the songs, Set Fire to the Stars, is based on a Dylan Thomas poem [Love In The Asylum], but otherwise they’re all my own lyrics. That was pretty daunting – having to write lyrics about Dylan Thomas!”

As to what comes next, the Super Furry Animals co-founder says he’s not short on ideas.

“I’ve got lots of ideas, but I suppose I’m just going to enjoy playing American Interior for a while. It took about two years, pretty solid, making the film, getting out touring and making the book and it’s been hectic. This is the most intensive thing I’ve ever been involved in creating. Everything’s finished now. To just enjoy touring and playing the songs to people and not anything much else for a while is what I want to do.”

Gruff Rhys is live at The Glee Club, Birmingham, on September 15.

Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys has never been afraid to experiment. But his latest solo project sees him ploughing into almost unchartered territory, combining an album, book, film and app to tell the tale of a little-known Welsh explorer. He tells David Vincent why he’s never short of ideas.

PUSHING THE “ This is the most intensive thing I’ve ever been involved in creating.”

25September 2014

He’s no stranger to music award lists, but the latest project from Gruff Rhys has seen him nomi-nated not just for the AIM Independent Album Of The Year, but also two literature prizes, the Guardian First Book Award and the Gordon Burn Prize.

“I’m always surprised and grateful to be nomi-nated for anything. I’m excited that people have just read it and listened to it,” he laughs. “And when people do it amazes me. I’m so surprised. It’s difficult to take it in, you know?”

The focus of critical attention is the album Amer-ican Interior and accompanying history book (subtitled The Quixotic Journey of John Evans, His Search for a Lost Tribe and How, Fuelled by Fantasy and (Possibly) Booze, He Accidentally Annexed a Third of North America), alongside an app and documentary film all triggered by a figure from history’s margins.

To all but a relative few, John Evans is a forgot-ten 18th century Welsh explorer who, inspired by the notion that a Welshman beat Christopher Columbus to America by several centuries, set off in search of a mythical tribe of light-skinned,

Welsh speaking native Americans. Evans’ jour-ney across the Atlantic backed by the Span-ish led him beyond the known borders of the United States, and along the Mississippi, with his map later used by the pioneering Lewis and Clark Expedition.

“John isn’t taught in schools, apart from in his home village [Waunfawr, near Caernarfon] where the kids are forced to do school projects about him. He’s very obscure, only appearing in foot-notes of other people’s stories. Crossing through America, he features in Spanish history in a very low level and I suppose this was a chance to make a fuss of him, make him historically rele-vant,” says Gruff, who heard the stories of Evans’ travels from his family and later found himself traversing a similar route.

“The more I travelled America as a musician the more I found myself crossing his path, so I booked a tour along the route he took…”

But how did that idea spiral into a grand multi-media project, with each component exploring a different element of the story? “The tour came first and then the songs, and the tour itself had

a slideshow where I started to tell this story. And the further into the tour, the more I found out, I had more research, added facts to songs. It became apparently enough for a book. I wanted the songs to be more emotional, based on feel-ings rather than a compilation of historical facts. Everything went hand in hand, kind of. For me it’s like an album, but you get a load more.”

The project reunited Rhys with filmmaker Dylan Goch. They’ve previously collaborated on 2010 film Separado!, which found Gruff heading to Patagonia to trace ancestors who’d emigrated there in Victorian times.

“It’s great to do something with him again,” says Gruff. “He’s a great director and editor. We’ve made two films now, so it would be great to do more as it’s always an adventure. He’s very inno-vative and I’d love to do another film, but he’s just getting over this. He took about a year to edit the film and then started to edit a version for DVD of just songs. So he needs a break.”

American Interior isn’t the first time Gruff has delved into biography. His collaborations with Boom Bip as Neon Neon, for example, were

triggered by the lives of controversial car maker John DeLorean (2008’s Stainless Style) and publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (last year’s Praxis Makes Perfect), while his next (solo) release is the soundtrack to Set Fire to the Stars.

“It’s a feature film about Dylan Thomas’s agent, John Malcolm Brinnin, played by Elijah Wood, and about a week in the life of Dylan Thom-as in the 1950s when his American agent was trying to keep him off the sauce.”

Directed by Andy Goddard (Downton Abbey) and co-starring Celyn Jones (as Thomas), the cast also includes Steven Mackintosh, Shirley Henderson and Kevin Eldon, and is part of the ongoing celebrations marking the centenary of the Welsh literary giant’s birth.

“There’s three songy songs and the others are all instrumentals, but there’s an album worth of material,” continues Gruff. “I’m really happy with it, it’s very orchestral. It’s different again. One of the songs, Set Fire to the Stars, is based on a Dylan Thomas poem [Love In The Asylum], but otherwise they’re all my own lyrics. That was pretty daunting – having to write lyrics about Dylan Thomas!”

As to what comes next, the Super Furry Animals co-founder says he’s not short on ideas.

“I’ve got lots of ideas, but I suppose I’m just going to enjoy playing American Interior for a while. It took about two years, pretty solid, making the film, getting out touring and making the book and it’s been hectic. This is the most intensive thing I’ve ever been involved in creating. Everything’s finished now. To just enjoy touring and playing the songs to people and not anything much else for a while is what I want to do.”

Gruff Rhys is live at The Glee Club, Birmingham, on September 15.

Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys has never been afraid to experiment. But his latest solo project sees him ploughing into almost unchartered territory, combining an album, book, film and app to tell the tale of a little-known Welsh explorer. He tells David Vincent why he’s never short of ideas.

PUSHING THE “ This is the most intensive thing I’ve ever been involved in creating.”


Alt-J drummer Thom Green is sat in his Dalston fl at waiting for his broken ankle to heal. Sod’s law. He’s at rehearsal in a few hours, when the band will begin practicing for what’s shaping up to be a pretty important tour to support the release of their second full-length album, This Is All Yours, this autumn. The record pretty much has to be good – to date, the band’s 2012 Mercury-winning debut, An Awesome Wave, has sold over one million copies and is generally regarded among that year’s fi nest offerings. The dangers of going in strong. But Thom at least doesn’t appear to be overly concerned.

“It was diffi cult but not in the sense that we strug-gled with it,” he explains of the writing process. “We had some material written but the majority was conceived over a six month period and that was intense and quite stressful at points. To start with we were a bit apprehensive to see how it was going to go because you can’t avoid the fact that we had a successful fi rst album and we wanted to do that justice and follow it up – we didn’t want to be a fl uke. But we knew that we weren’t and that we just had to crack on and connect with the music that we were making and luckily we did that quite easily.

“In terms of differences there’s a lot more produc-tion on this album, more electronics and more programmed drums. It sounds a bit cleaner, a bit more polished. It still sounds like us…I don’t want to say it’s better but I do love this album. It sounds like we’ve refi ned our sound.”

The initial offerings are promising. Left Hand Free (which is available for instant download with the pre-order of the album), is different to prior mate-rial, more bluesy and more guitar-focused but instantly as infectious. It’s the ‘big single’ their American label had been hoping for. The record’s fi rst single, Hunger of the Pine, familiarly channels the wonderful vocals of lead singer Joe Newman, which sound like they’re wrapped round with Ivy and Virginia Creeper, entwining with years of deft-ly cryptic folklore, and builds to an almost cine-matic synth crescendo which, teamed with its video (directed by Nabil Elderkin - Kanye West, Frank Ocean, The Black Eyed Peas), doesn’t half leave an impression. It’s promising indeed. It also samples Miley Cyrus…

“I was remixing one of her album tracks called 4x4,” explains Thom of the somewhat controversial and fully unexpected match, “so I had the stems whilst we were writing Hunger of the Pine. I was

playing my remix in the studio and realised that the vocal was in the same key so I chopped that section out and put it over what we were doing at the time, which is pretty much exactly how the track ended up. We sat on it for a while because we weren’t sure if we wanted to be associated with her name but it sounded good and she’s actually a really nice person. She’s been kind of a friend, I’ve spoken to her more and more – she’s really hard working and we have a lot of respect for her so it would have been silly not to use it. The more I think about it, it’s kind of nice because it’s so random and so different – there are not a lot of bands who could do it…Though I’ve been getting tonnes of people on Twitter following me and asking me to speak to her for them.”

Earlier in the year, Alt-J made the transition from a four-piece to a trio when their founding member Gwil Sainsbury amicably bowed out, citing disa-greements with the touring lifestyle. It seemed a concerning development for the fans on the outside looking in. But the remaining members were deter-mined to come out of it stronger than ever.

“It brought us closer as a three-piece because we realised that we had to stick together and just crack on with it really,” says Thom. “Gwil leaving was a bit of a shock but it gave a bit more space to the music and the writing process because it felt like there was less to get confused about. We’ll have a session musician to play Gwil’s parts live because a lot of the tracks are quite layered and we physically can’t play everything. But we actually saw him last night – he’s fi ne and he’s doing really well. It just wasn’t for him when it came down to it – touring wasn’t what he enjoyed, so he made the right decision.”

Alt-J’s appeal lies not only in the intricacies and complexities of their music, but in the stories, the cultural references and the allusions which nestle inside it. Half of the pleasure comes from deci-phering these codes. An Awesome Wave was an opus referencing everything from Where the Wild

Things Are (Breezeblocks), to cult classic novel Last Exit to Brooklyn (Fitzpleasure), to a love story between two WW2 photographers, Robert Capa and Gerda Taro (Taro). It’s tricksy and elliptical in a way that draws you in rather than turning you off. And by the sounds of it, This Is All Yours will be a present just as exciting.

“There’s this track called The Gospel of John Hurt,” explains Thom, “which is about this one particu-lar scene in the fi lm Alien, which Joe has some-how managed to write a whole song about. Nara is about the place in Japan, the deer there are regarded as being sacred and are just allowed to wander around and as people you can’t touch them. That’s kind of a nice way of saying that people should be left alone and allowed to do what they want to do with their lives. Joe’s very good at storytelling and interpreting things in his own weird way. There are the lines from Alfred de Musset’s poem L’espoir en Dieu at the end of Hunger of the Pine too. Admittedly there’s a couple of tracks which have no meaning at all…they’re just lyrics that sound good together.”

In a recent interview, The Guardian pointed out that Alt-J had really managed to embody that holy grail of success – fame without the celebrity. It’s true that it was only a year or so ago that Alt-J started allowing interviews and press shots were even less forthcoming. The band still don’t appear in their videos and we’re probably pretty safe in the assumption that they’ll never ‘do a Nicki Minaj’ in their artwork…

“We don’t want to be famous unless we really have to be,” concludes Thom. “We understand that it’s good for people to know what we look like because it gives some kind of emotional attach-ment and context to the music – people like to know who they’re listening to and we understand that but we’re not in our music videos or the album covers because we just fi nd that unnecessary.”

Which, when you think about it, is really an unusu-ally pristine way of looking at things. And therein lies Alt-J’s appeal – in fusing those novelly tradi-tional elements with the forward-thinking sounds they’ve primed us with, it’s no wonder they’ve been such a success story.

Alt-J are live at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall on September 22. Their new album, This Is All Yours, is out on the same date on Infectious. Turn to P36 to read our verdict on the record.

Hailed as one of the most inventive bands to emerge from the UK in recent years, Alt-J were catapulted into new realms of expectation following the million-selling success of 2012’s debut album An Awesome Wave. Despite the turbulence of losing a founder member just a few months ago, the now three-piece have embraced the anticipation ahead of the release of their second record This Is All Yours this month. They tell Amy Sumner why they were so determined to do themselves justice.

“You can’t avoid the fact that we had a successful fi rst album and we wanted to do that justice and follow it up – we didn’t want to be a fl uke.”

THE POWER OF THREE

27September 2014

Alt-J drummer Thom Green is sat in his Dalston fl at waiting for his broken ankle to heal. Sod’s law. He’s at rehearsal in a few hours, when the band will begin practicing for what’s shaping up to be a pretty important tour to support the release of their second full-length album, This Is All Yours, this autumn. The record pretty much has to be good – to date, the band’s 2012 Mercury-winning debut, An Awesome Wave, has sold over one million copies and is generally regarded among that year’s fi nest offerings. The dangers of going in strong. But Thom at least doesn’t appear to be overly concerned.

“It was diffi cult but not in the sense that we strug-gled with it,” he explains of the writing process. “We had some material written but the majority was conceived over a six month period and that was intense and quite stressful at points. To start with we were a bit apprehensive to see how it was going to go because you can’t avoid the fact that we had a successful fi rst album and we wanted to do that justice and follow it up – we didn’t want to be a fl uke. But we knew that we weren’t and that we just had to crack on and connect with the music that we were making and luckily we did that quite easily.

“In terms of differences there’s a lot more produc-tion on this album, more electronics and more programmed drums. It sounds a bit cleaner, a bit more polished. It still sounds like us…I don’t want to say it’s better but I do love this album. It sounds like we’ve refi ned our sound.”

The initial offerings are promising. Left Hand Free (which is available for instant download with the pre-order of the album), is different to prior mate-rial, more bluesy and more guitar-focused but instantly as infectious. It’s the ‘big single’ their American label had been hoping for. The record’s fi rst single, Hunger of the Pine, familiarly channels the wonderful vocals of lead singer Joe Newman, which sound like they’re wrapped round with Ivy and Virginia Creeper, entwining with years of deft-ly cryptic folklore, and builds to an almost cine-matic synth crescendo which, teamed with its video (directed by Nabil Elderkin - Kanye West, Frank Ocean, The Black Eyed Peas), doesn’t half leave an impression. It’s promising indeed. It also samples Miley Cyrus…

“I was remixing one of her album tracks called 4x4,” explains Thom of the somewhat controversial and fully unexpected match, “so I had the stems whilst we were writing Hunger of the Pine. I was

playing my remix in the studio and realised that the vocal was in the same key so I chopped that section out and put it over what we were doing at the time, which is pretty much exactly how the track ended up. We sat on it for a while because we weren’t sure if we wanted to be associated with her name but it sounded good and she’s actually a really nice person. She’s been kind of a friend, I’ve spoken to her more and more – she’s really hard working and we have a lot of respect for her so it would have been silly not to use it. The more I think about it, it’s kind of nice because it’s so random and so different – there are not a lot of bands who could do it…Though I’ve been getting tonnes of people on Twitter following me and asking me to speak to her for them.”

Earlier in the year, Alt-J made the transition from a four-piece to a trio when their founding member Gwil Sainsbury amicably bowed out, citing disa-greements with the touring lifestyle. It seemed a concerning development for the fans on the outside looking in. But the remaining members were deter-mined to come out of it stronger than ever.

“It brought us closer as a three-piece because we realised that we had to stick together and just crack on with it really,” says Thom. “Gwil leaving was a bit of a shock but it gave a bit more space to the music and the writing process because it felt like there was less to get confused about. We’ll have a session musician to play Gwil’s parts live because a lot of the tracks are quite layered and we physically can’t play everything. But we actually saw him last night – he’s fi ne and he’s doing really well. It just wasn’t for him when it came down to it – touring wasn’t what he enjoyed, so he made the right decision.”

Alt-J’s appeal lies not only in the intricacies and complexities of their music, but in the stories, the cultural references and the allusions which nestle inside it. Half of the pleasure comes from deci-phering these codes. An Awesome Wave was an opus referencing everything from Where the Wild

Things Are (Breezeblocks), to cult classic novel Last Exit to Brooklyn (Fitzpleasure), to a love story between two WW2 photographers, Robert Capa and Gerda Taro (Taro). It’s tricksy and elliptical in a way that draws you in rather than turning you off. And by the sounds of it, This Is All Yours will be a present just as exciting.

“There’s this track called The Gospel of John Hurt,” explains Thom, “which is about this one particu-lar scene in the fi lm Alien, which Joe has some-how managed to write a whole song about. Nara is about the place in Japan, the deer there are regarded as being sacred and are just allowed to wander around and as people you can’t touch them. That’s kind of a nice way of saying that people should be left alone and allowed to do what they want to do with their lives. Joe’s very good at storytelling and interpreting things in his own weird way. There are the lines from Alfred de Musset’s poem L’espoir en Dieu at the end of Hunger of the Pine too. Admittedly there’s a couple of tracks which have no meaning at all…they’re just lyrics that sound good together.”

In a recent interview, The Guardian pointed out that Alt-J had really managed to embody that holy grail of success – fame without the celebrity. It’s true that it was only a year or so ago that Alt-J started allowing interviews and press shots were even less forthcoming. The band still don’t appear in their videos and we’re probably pretty safe in the assumption that they’ll never ‘do a Nicki Minaj’ in their artwork…

“We don’t want to be famous unless we really have to be,” concludes Thom. “We understand that it’s good for people to know what we look like because it gives some kind of emotional attach-ment and context to the music – people like to know who they’re listening to and we understand that but we’re not in our music videos or the album covers because we just fi nd that unnecessary.”

Which, when you think about it, is really an unusu-ally pristine way of looking at things. And therein lies Alt-J’s appeal – in fusing those novelly tradi-tional elements with the forward-thinking sounds they’ve primed us with, it’s no wonder they’ve been such a success story.

Alt-J are live at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall on September 22. Their new album, This Is All Yours, is out on the same date on Infectious. Turn to P36 to read our verdict on the record.

Hailed as one of the most inventive bands to emerge from the UK in recent years, Alt-J were catapulted into new realms of expectation following the million-selling success of 2012’s debut album An Awesome Wave. Despite the turbulence of losing a founder member just a few months ago, the now three-piece have embraced the anticipation ahead of the release of their second record This Is All Yours this month. They tell Amy Sumner why they were so determined to do themselves justice.

“You can’t avoid the fact that we had a successful fi rst album and we wanted to do that justice and follow it up – we didn’t want to be a fl uke.”

THE POWER OF THREE


in a way that preserves their live feel, or their most organic form in its most honest state, which is at times imperfect and dissonant. To me, these are the qualities of records that outlast trend and popularity.”

Maui Tears received some really wonderful praise, and justly – it’s a beautifully crafted piece of work. With the recent revival and rejuvenation of the psych rock genre, it manages to hold its footing in an increasingly busy market place. But after 10 years, four albums and a heck of a lot of touring, is it tricky to keep up the momentum?

“For me, it’s the musical dynamic between the fi ve of us,” says Bret. “Every so often, there’s a magi-cal energy that whirls about the room. When we collectively tune in to such moments, this makes it all worth it to me.”

If you’re wondering what this all sounds like live, Sleepy Sun’s band bio identifi es an ‘onstage mixture of alchemy and architecture’, which sounds appealingly heady.

“I suppose it’s about being immersed in the music,” continues Bret. “The alchemy has to do with what happens when one is completely present in the performance, it’s an escape from reality, the point of action that is effortless and

SUNSHINEHIT ME

“As a kid I was a huge fan of comedians like Dana Carvey and Jim Carrey who, through imitation, taught me how to use the muscles in my throat and face,” explains frontman Bret Constantino, name-checking somewhat surprising infl uences that helped him on his way to creating music. “That was the beginning of learning to manipulate sound and tone with my voice.”

Formed predominantly at UC Santa Cruz with garage rock origins in their initial guise as Mania, Sleepy Sun progressed into psychedelia around 2007, releasing four albums since that point. Fused

together by a love of classic rock groups includ-ing Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, individually tastes and inspirations are fairly diverse within the band, ranging from Black Flag to Badalamenti.

“I think the diversity is refl ected in our music more and more with each record we produce, iden-tifi es Bret. “Personally, [writer] Henry Miller is always someone I return to. He describes inter-action with the muse and offers insight into the creative perspective by abstracting the process. He discusses the muse without deluding the

mystique, and even though he doesn’t speak about writing music, his work is musical.”

In January this year the quintet released their fourth album Maui Tears, a relatively prolifi c output compared to many of their contemporaries in this day and age.

“The fi nished product never manifests in the way you initially envisioned,” says Bret, “but I think we came close this time. A lot of that should be cred-ited to the producer we worked with, Tim Green. He has an exceptional talent capturing the songs

Californian outfi t Sleepy Sun combine the visceral haze of psychedelia with the fuzzy riffage of 1970s-inspired rock. Both blissful and powerful in equal measure, it’s an engaging combination. Frontman Bret Constantino tells Amy Sumner how they try to capture their “magical energy”.

“The alchemy has to do with what happens when

one is completely present in the performance.”

infi nite in its reach. I guess the architecture has to do with the songs as constructs and how each of us contributes pieces to a larger picture. It’s through music that we attempt to create a space or a house in which we can all, audience included, experience a kind of alchemy or shift in consciousness.”

On September 28, Sleepy Sun hop over to the UK and play a show at The Oobleck in Birming-ham as part of their run of dates.

“British audiences seem more attentive and sincere than audiences in Santa Cruz, but perhaps more critical,” Bret observes. But what is his band’s favourite thing about England?

“I love how clever the English are with speech,” says Bret. “If you spend too much time in Amer-ica, you become aware of the downfall of the English language. Visiting the UK, I’m reminded of the vitality of the English language and how eloquence is not a lost vernacular. That and clot-ted cream.”

Sleepy Sun are live at The Oobleck, Birming-ham, on September 28 with support from Asteroid No 4, Grand Union, The Exploding Sound Machine, Velvet Texas Cannonball and Schnauser.

29September 2014

in a way that preserves their live feel, or their most organic form in its most honest state, which is at times imperfect and dissonant. To me, these are the qualities of records that outlast trend and popularity.”

Maui Tears received some really wonderful praise, and justly – it’s a beautifully crafted piece of work. With the recent revival and rejuvenation of the psych rock genre, it manages to hold its footing in an increasingly busy market place. But after 10 years, four albums and a heck of a lot of touring, is it tricky to keep up the momentum?

“For me, it’s the musical dynamic between the fi ve of us,” says Bret. “Every so often, there’s a magi-cal energy that whirls about the room. When we collectively tune in to such moments, this makes it all worth it to me.”

If you’re wondering what this all sounds like live, Sleepy Sun’s band bio identifi es an ‘onstage mixture of alchemy and architecture’, which sounds appealingly heady.

“I suppose it’s about being immersed in the music,” continues Bret. “The alchemy has to do with what happens when one is completely present in the performance, it’s an escape from reality, the point of action that is effortless and

SUNSHINEHIT ME

“As a kid I was a huge fan of comedians like Dana Carvey and Jim Carrey who, through imitation, taught me how to use the muscles in my throat and face,” explains frontman Bret Constantino, name-checking somewhat surprising infl uences that helped him on his way to creating music. “That was the beginning of learning to manipulate sound and tone with my voice.”

Formed predominantly at UC Santa Cruz with garage rock origins in their initial guise as Mania, Sleepy Sun progressed into psychedelia around 2007, releasing four albums since that point. Fused

together by a love of classic rock groups includ-ing Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, individually tastes and inspirations are fairly diverse within the band, ranging from Black Flag to Badalamenti.

“I think the diversity is refl ected in our music more and more with each record we produce, iden-tifi es Bret. “Personally, [writer] Henry Miller is always someone I return to. He describes inter-action with the muse and offers insight into the creative perspective by abstracting the process. He discusses the muse without deluding the

mystique, and even though he doesn’t speak about writing music, his work is musical.”

In January this year the quintet released their fourth album Maui Tears, a relatively prolifi c output compared to many of their contemporaries in this day and age.

“The fi nished product never manifests in the way you initially envisioned,” says Bret, “but I think we came close this time. A lot of that should be cred-ited to the producer we worked with, Tim Green. He has an exceptional talent capturing the songs

Californian outfi t Sleepy Sun combine the visceral haze of psychedelia with the fuzzy riffage of 1970s-inspired rock. Both blissful and powerful in equal measure, it’s an engaging combination. Frontman Bret Constantino tells Amy Sumner how they try to capture their “magical energy”.

“The alchemy has to do with what happens when

one is completely present in the performance.”

infi nite in its reach. I guess the architecture has to do with the songs as constructs and how each of us contributes pieces to a larger picture. It’s through music that we attempt to create a space or a house in which we can all, audience included, experience a kind of alchemy or shift in consciousness.”

On September 28, Sleepy Sun hop over to the UK and play a show at The Oobleck in Birming-ham as part of their run of dates.

“British audiences seem more attentive and sincere than audiences in Santa Cruz, but perhaps more critical,” Bret observes. But what is his band’s favourite thing about England?

“I love how clever the English are with speech,” says Bret. “If you spend too much time in Amer-ica, you become aware of the downfall of the English language. Visiting the UK, I’m reminded of the vitality of the English language and how eloquence is not a lost vernacular. That and clot-ted cream.”

Sleepy Sun are live at The Oobleck, Birming-ham, on September 28 with support from Asteroid No 4, Grand Union, The Exploding Sound Machine, Velvet Texas Cannonball and Schnauser.

SEPTEMBER AT THE ROADHOUSEThe Roadhouse Birmingham, Wharfside Leisure Complex, Lifford Lane, Stirchley, Birmingham, B30 3DZ0121 246 2273 // www.theroadhousebirmingham.com

THU 4th Main Room: METAL NIGHT Ft: CØNSTANTINE + ARMONIGHT + CAPTAIN HORIZON + VALOUSLive Lounge: ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC w/ TIM WALKERDINE

FRI 5th SOUL JUNCTION: 9 piece soul band playing classic Motown, Stax and Northern Soul w/ spt from LISA MORRALL

SAT 6th STRAIGHTEN OUT: A TRIBUTE TO THE STRANGLERS

SUN 7th SO CALLED STUDIOS BATTLE OF THE BANDS: GRAND FINAL w/ finalists HIGHTOWER + KILLGLASS + ARAMANTUS

TUE 9th VENGEANCE PROMOTIONS In Association with Angry Badger Records Present: KODIAK JACK w/ special guests GUERILLA MONSOON and HAMMERJACK

THU 11th Main Room: DURAN – The Tribute w/ spt from CITIZEN-X | Live Lounge: ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC with IAN BEVAN

SAT 13th THE UK’s BEST AC/DC TRIBUTE + HELLS BELLS

SUN 14th CASH – Johnny Cash Tribute (special acoustic performance) w/ spt from retro girl group THE GLAMOPHONES

THU 18th Main Room: MRP & SOUND SHARE Present: BLAST BEAT - An exclusive Hip-Hop night Ft: JIMMIE BLACK + DANNY B + JOSH ‘SMIIFFY’ + MERKAGE + SWIFTY + SOL MORGANLive Lounge: ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC with COREY YOUNG

FRI 19th JILTED GENERATION – The World’s only full live tribute band to the Prodigy. Spt from ELECTRIC CAKE SALAD

SAT 20th HI-ON-MAIDEN w/ spt from ACELDAMA

SUN 21st ROADHOUSE Presents: ACOUSTIC ALL-DAYER (3pm Doors) Ft: FRANKIE LORENZO + AIDAN BYRNE + ROSIE SAMARAS + TAYLOR LOUISE + HOSTILE HEART AND THE COYOTE + CRAIG LENNON + MESCH + MR. APOLLO + DOVEHEART + VICTORIA CROSS + ALAN MASON + PAOLA + SAMUEL PENNANT

MON 22nd Main Room: THE ROADHOUSE OPEN MIC NIGHT w/ special guests LET THERE BE LIGHTLive Lounge: COMEDY NIGHT Hosted by Hannah Silvester

THU 25th Main Room: KING KRAB | Live Lounge: ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC w/ HELEN JONES

FRI 26th THE BORN AGAIN BEATLES

SAT 27th GUNS VS ROSES - UK GUNS N ROSES TRIBUTE BAND EXPERIENCE w/ spt from SALVATION

SUN 28th ROXX TO RUIN – HARD ROCK ALL-DAYER (3pm Doors) Hosted by Birmingham’s own DJ Yentonian! Ft: SLASH UK + WILDSIDE RIOT + STOP STOP + SILENT JACK + FALLEN MAFIA + HANGFIRE + ENDLESS MILE + THE VIGIL + TIGERPUNCH + WYLDE ORCHID + ANGER RISING + SECTION NINETEEN + INBETWEENSEAS + OUT OF LUCK + THE CARSON EXPERIENCE

All listings are correct at time of print, however, they are subject to change at any time so please check website or call the Roadhouse Team before you travel. Please note: We are strictly 18+ on Friday & Saturday Nights

OPEN MIC COMEDY EVERY MONDAY WITH HANNAH SILVESTER

LIVE LOUNGE ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC

EVERY THURSDAY

MAIN GIG ROOMOPEN MIC

EVERY MONDAY WITH BEN DALBY


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Bethany thoMpSon, 22, iLLuStrator, BethanyiLLuStration.Co.ukjacket: mum’s unwanted m&stop: white stuffstyle icon: Zoe deschanel

thoMaS huSSey, 21, graphiC deSign Studenttop: river islandjeans: hollistershoes: nikefave shop: river island

Fran Stone, 29, BLogger, FaLLFordiy.CoMtop: h&mjeans: new lookstyle icon: alexa chung

Steve Bond, 33, graphiC deSigner/iLLuStrator, BeLLetragedie.CoMshirt: johnny cupcakesjeans: topmanfave shop: johnny cupcakes

This month’s Street Style was shot at Glug Birmingham in August. The next Glug event takes place on November 20. www.glugevents.com

31September 2014

On Trend: AUTUMN Style Picks

By Tajinder Hayer

FOR

HER

FOR

HIM

PHOTOS BY Sam Wood

STREET STYLEBIRMINGHAMstyle style

Zara shoes with pointed toesBurtonwode loungewearnew Look bright blue sweater

Lord dotte pocket squareSuperdry retro sherpa gilet river iSLand camouflage hooded jacket

topShop feather hem dressaSoS ballet flatsriver iSLand grey croc quilted duffle bag

Zara leather coatwarehouSe culotte jumpsuitnew Look navy and red check wrap

£20

£35

£13

£80

£70

£22

£140

£65

£239

£250

£79

£40

aLyS Beider, 26, Manager at Cherry redS, kingS heathshirt: homemade (courtney barnett) jeans: american apparelcoat: harborne charity shopshoes: Zarafave shop: pdsa kings heath

toM BradBury, 20, retaiL aSSiStant, providetop: providejeans: h&mstyle icon: the hundredsfave shop: johnny cupcakes

Bethany thoMpSon, 22, iLLuStrator, BethanyiLLuStration.Co.ukjacket: mum’s unwanted m&stop: white stuffstyle icon: Zoe deschanel

thoMaS huSSey, 21, graphiC deSign Studenttop: river islandjeans: hollistershoes: nikefave shop: river island

Fran Stone, 29, BLogger, FaLLFordiy.CoMtop: h&mjeans: new lookstyle icon: alexa chung

Steve Bond, 33, graphiC deSigner/iLLuStrator, BeLLetragedie.CoMshirt: johnny cupcakesjeans: topmanfave shop: johnny cupcakes

This month’s Street Style was shot at Glug Birmingham in August. The next Glug event takes place on November 20. www.glugevents.com


eastzeast 197 Broad Street, Birmingham B15 1AY 0121 643 4808 www.eastzeast.com

If there’s something Birmingham’s already bless-ed with plenty of it’s Indian restaurants and, with the famous Balti Triangle barely a Seekh Kebab’s throw away, perhaps it takes a brave soul to open a new one – especially on Broad Street which has certainly seen its fair share of restaurants come and go over the years. EastZEast already has fi ve seemingly very successful venues in the north west though so they must know what they’re doing. This is their fi rst foray down ‘south’ and from the moment you step through the doors you can clear-ly tell they’ve spent a rupee or two fi tting the place out. Dazzling white walls and crystal chandeliers greet you and it feels a little more like a palace than a curry house. In fact less karahi, more Liber-ace you could say. The menu’s pretty extensive too so allow a good few minutes to plough through it all, although fans of the cuisine will be pretty familiar with many of the offerings. For starters we went for the old favourite Seekh Kebab and one of the many veggie options, Aloo Tikka. The kebab was suit-ably deli-seekh; juicy, well spiced and retaining a

decent meaty texture whilst the Aloo Tikka was a moist parcel of potatoey loveliness with just enough heat. That pretty much set the template for the mains, good food, well fl avoured and cooked with just that little more sophistication than usual. The Chicken Tikka Masala, whilst distinctly lacking the deep (and let’s face it sometimes slightly gory and suspicious looking) red hue of some examples, was sweet, mild and creamy. The Lamb Sookah Bhuna packed a decent punch and the meat itself had clearly been cooked long and slooooooooow as it genuinely melted in the mouth, dissolving in a saliva erupting burst of heat and spicy fl avour. Highly recommended. In the interests of research

we tried a couple more veggie dishes too, a deli-ciously smooth and creamy Tarka Daal and a chunky Aloo Gobi Mutter that delivered the kind of fl avours and textures rarely found in a dish that doesn’t contain various bits of animal. The rice was fi ne, perhaps a little clumpy (this was opening night and more of a buffet set up so allowances can be made), but the naan was spot on, thinner than some but suffi ciently robust to mop up the sauces without feeling that you were eating an entire king size dough-vet. No doubt the Halva we shared for pudding contained more calories than the average human should consume in a month but it was worth it. In terms of taste, think a slightly lighter treacle pudding with some plump raisins chucked in for good measure and a little more textural variety. Indian puddings can sometimes be tooth-rottingly sweet but this one was just right. Price-wise you’re obviously paying a little bit of a premium for the opulence, location and that little extra sophistication in the cooking but if bling’s your thing EastZEast is hard to beat. Daron Billings

The bustling independent food and drink scene in Birmingham will be celebrated in true gastronom-ic style this month. The Birmingham Independ-ent Food Fair takes place at Millennium Point on September 13, serving up live cooking demos, samples galore and plenty of dishes to take home. There will be more than 40 independent food and drink businesses available to explore on the day, including high end restaurants, specialist

delis, street food vendors, expert coffee shops and bespoke bakeries, while drinks including specialist spirits, cocktails and ales will be on offer from the likes of sponsors Langley’s Gin and Purity Brew-ing Company, plus Birmingham’s popular Bitters ‘n’ Twisted bars. Tickets for the event, organised by food guide Dine Birmingham, are £7.50 adv and available through www.bhamindfoodfair.co.uk.

diary: birmingham independent food fairSeptember 13, Millennium Point Website: www.bhamindfoodfair.co.uk

Cuisine: Punjabi

Price: £25 for three courses

Service:

Atmosphere:

Food:

Overall:

33September 2014

sunonthehill.co.uk - @sunonthehill - facebook.com - the sun on the hill sunatthestation.co.uk - @sunatthestation - facebook.com - the sun at the station

sunday 7th september for a massive kings heath street

festival. we’ll have a brothers cider bar and live bands!

free entry from 11am - 8pm!

PRESENTS... IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY steady hands HERE ON

FRIDAY 26TH! EXPECT LIVE MUSIC, VISUALS, SPECIAL GUESTS AND

DJ’S UNTIL LATE!

AS IT IS OUR 5TH BIRTHDAY, WE’RE GIVING THE SUN ON THE HILL A NEW LOOK AND HAVING A BIT OF A PARTY

STARTS AT 6PM WITH SOMESPECIAL GUEST DJs TILL LATE

An eclectic mix of handpicked musicians & poets create the foundation for this cross platform, intimate event. at the

station every sunday from 6pm. free in!

An evening of musical talent spanning a breadth of genres hosted by the one and only ‘H’! Every sunday at the sun

on the hill from 4pm! Free entry!

COME AND CHECK OUT OUR NEW FOOD MENUS FROM 5TH OF SEPTEMBER, INCLUDING

BRUNCH AND MONTHLY SPECIALSAT THE STATION!

eastzeast 197 Broad Street, Birmingham B15 1AY 0121 643 4808 www.eastzeast.com

If there’s something Birmingham’s already bless-ed with plenty of it’s Indian restaurants and, with the famous Balti Triangle barely a Seekh Kebab’s throw away, perhaps it takes a brave soul to open a new one – especially on Broad Street which has certainly seen its fair share of restaurants come and go over the years. EastZEast already has fi ve seemingly very successful venues in the north west though so they must know what they’re doing. This is their fi rst foray down ‘south’ and from the moment you step through the doors you can clear-ly tell they’ve spent a rupee or two fi tting the place out. Dazzling white walls and crystal chandeliers greet you and it feels a little more like a palace than a curry house. In fact less karahi, more Liber-ace you could say. The menu’s pretty extensive too so allow a good few minutes to plough through it all, although fans of the cuisine will be pretty familiar with many of the offerings. For starters we went for the old favourite Seekh Kebab and one of the many veggie options, Aloo Tikka. The kebab was suit-ably deli-seekh; juicy, well spiced and retaining a

decent meaty texture whilst the Aloo Tikka was a moist parcel of potatoey loveliness with just enough heat. That pretty much set the template for the mains, good food, well fl avoured and cooked with just that little more sophistication than usual. The Chicken Tikka Masala, whilst distinctly lacking the deep (and let’s face it sometimes slightly gory and suspicious looking) red hue of some examples, was sweet, mild and creamy. The Lamb Sookah Bhuna packed a decent punch and the meat itself had clearly been cooked long and slooooooooow as it genuinely melted in the mouth, dissolving in a saliva erupting burst of heat and spicy fl avour. Highly recommended. In the interests of research

we tried a couple more veggie dishes too, a deli-ciously smooth and creamy Tarka Daal and a chunky Aloo Gobi Mutter that delivered the kind of fl avours and textures rarely found in a dish that doesn’t contain various bits of animal. The rice was fi ne, perhaps a little clumpy (this was opening night and more of a buffet set up so allowances can be made), but the naan was spot on, thinner than some but suffi ciently robust to mop up the sauces without feeling that you were eating an entire king size dough-vet. No doubt the Halva we shared for pudding contained more calories than the average human should consume in a month but it was worth it. In terms of taste, think a slightly lighter treacle pudding with some plump raisins chucked in for good measure and a little more textural variety. Indian puddings can sometimes be tooth-rottingly sweet but this one was just right. Price-wise you’re obviously paying a little bit of a premium for the opulence, location and that little extra sophistication in the cooking but if bling’s your thing EastZEast is hard to beat. Daron Billings

The bustling independent food and drink scene in Birmingham will be celebrated in true gastronom-ic style this month. The Birmingham Independ-ent Food Fair takes place at Millennium Point on September 13, serving up live cooking demos, samples galore and plenty of dishes to take home. There will be more than 40 independent food and drink businesses available to explore on the day, including high end restaurants, specialist

delis, street food vendors, expert coffee shops and bespoke bakeries, while drinks including specialist spirits, cocktails and ales will be on offer from the likes of sponsors Langley’s Gin and Purity Brew-ing Company, plus Birmingham’s popular Bitters ‘n’ Twisted bars. Tickets for the event, organised by food guide Dine Birmingham, are £7.50 adv and available through www.bhamindfoodfair.co.uk.

diary: birmingham independent food fairSeptember 13, Millennium Point Website: www.bhamindfoodfair.co.uk

Cuisine: Punjabi

Price: £25 for three courses

Service:

Atmosphere:

Food:

Overall:


It seems that two-pieces are everywhere nowadays – Royal Blood, Sleaford Mods and our own local favourites God Damn to name just three. However, there is one more duo you should certainly be paying attention to, The Garden. These twins from Orange County, California, are hitting cat-walks for Yves Saint Laurent and making lo-fi neo-punk with just a drum kit and a vintage Hofner bass guitar. From their music to their look and attitudes this is one band that you can’t help but fall in love with. Tonight, fol-lowing the release of three singles at once, the twins bring The VadaVerse to Birming-ham’s Sunflower Lounge.From the start it’s clear that they aren’t con-tent just standing there playing their songs and expecting the audience to enjoy it. Con-stantly in motion, the infectious energy gets the crowd thrashing in songs like The Ap-ple, Open Abyss, What We Are and Crys-tal Clear. Fletcher leaping out from behind the drumkit pulling shapes draws laughter from the crowd as Wyatt starts up anoth-er grimey bassline that is the signature of this band. The surprise of the night comes when they put down their instruments and

put on an iPod –what happens next is truly spectacular.Breaking away from their neo-punk sounds, they begin the ‘electronic’ part of the set, more closely related to their solo projects Enjoy (Wyatt) and Puzzle (Fletcher) than to the music they put out as The Garden – al-though the mood remains just as dark. With beats reminiscent of Death Grips reverber-ating around the room, the crowd absolute-ly going crazy and as the duo jumping from speaker stacks, it’s clear that this band is truly something special.As they return to their ‘normal’ positions be-hind their instruments to wrap up their set, the energy in the room is at fever pitch and no one is left standing still through songs like I’m A Woman and their party anthem We Be Grindin’. The Garden are a band just as involved in the energy as the audience is, it feels like a genuine performance and the passion that these twins have is obvious. Not bad for a couple of models from California.Matthew Burdon | Photo by Sam Wood

ORiGiNAL HiGH FiVE Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath14/08/14

How many Swedes does it take to form a ska band? Seven apparently, as Original High Five pile onto the stage at the Hare & Hounds. The crowd is underwhelming in number yet high in spirit, but OHF are by no means put off, colouring the room with their first track Forget.Imagine a blessed union between Hot 8 Brass Band and Millencolin and you’d be close; OHF ooze charisma and come across as more of a brotherhood than a band. A buoyant mixture of reggae and energet-ic punk-rock form the foundation of their

power-ska style.The sound is full, clean and robust, with sax, trombone and trumpet weaving through the rhythm section. The brass isn’t just for show, the tone is exceptional, Martin Lund-fall (trumpet/vocals) smacks of Chet Baker in ska form.Vocals come from Adam, Bobo and/or Martin with all three pitching in to produce ‘ska-monies’ that immediately have people dancing. New singles Life on the Run and the Dixieland inspired Average Guy show-case why OHF have already played some of Sweden’s biggest festivals. With that al-most mystical, music camaraderie resonat-ing from band to audience, Original High Five sign off with an all-Swedish encore and a seven-man “SKÅL!” It’s a toast the joyous crowd are only too happy to return.Will Pace

ELECTRiC SWiNG CiRCuSThe Botanical Gardens, Edgbaston28/07/14

As the sun sets over the idyllic gardens, Electric Swing Circus take to the Victorian bandstand as a large crowd gathers on the main lawn. With no hint of the rigours of their recent touring, they leap into their two-hour set with zeal. Through synths, Rashad Gregory conjures forth the brass and string ghosts of the roaring 20s swing era for his bandmates to flesh out with dub, gypsy jazz, ska, electro and whatever else they see fit.Foot-tapping quickly becomes full-blown jiving as pockets of the audience erupt into dance, the band setting the tone with some moves of their own. Professional musicians to the last, ESC punctuate the set with heav-ier dub numbers such as I’m OK while main-taining their high-octane start.Frontwomen Laura Louise and Bridget Walsh between them seem to have mas-tered the entire sound spectrum, guitarist Tom Hyland finds Django in his strings, while bassist Patrick Wreford and, as Tom de-scribes him, the “ninja drumming octopus” Chandra Walker champion the rhythms.Shifting through the gears, ESC throw in the ska-laden new offering That Skat, be-fore closing with their new anthem Val-entine. “This only works if you all go bananas,”exclaims Tom and the audience obliges. How could they not? Electric Swing Circus are simply irresistible.Will Pace | Photo by Sam Wood

THE GARDENThe Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham15/08/14

live

Original High FivePhoto by Will Pace

35September 2014

MOSTLy JAzz, FuNK & SOuL FESTiVALMoseley Park, Moseley11-13/07/14

With two genuine legends, Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul well and truly cemented its reputation as one of the best events of its kind in Eu-rope. Here are just some of the highlights...Day One Sons of Kemet made an early pitch for act of the weekend with an intoxicating mix of jazz, West Indian rhythms and bowel rumbling tuba, paving the way for Kraak & Smaak. As names go it might not be the best but this Dutch collective were every bit as addictive, fusing 90s style Euro house and disco beats with fabulously funky basslines. Ever wondered what would happen if you kidnapped Prince and made him smoke ‘erb for six months? You’re not alone. Radio Rid-dler clearly also pondered this question late one fuggy night and, oddly enough, it works. It’s great festival fare and their reggae-fied versions of everything from Let’s Go Crazy to When Doves Cry were ‘spliffing’. Omar’s band may have been detained at a border somewhere but you can’t keep a good Souleyman down and he treated the early evening crowd to the truly unique sound of Syrian rave, perfect for A-ravian nights. Canadian six-piece Soul Jazz Or-chestra closed the second stage in fine style with their mix of Latin and Afro grooves be-fore day one climaxed with Fun Lovin’ Crimi-nals’ fan friendly, hits heavy set. Huey was in fine motherfuckin’ form. From the laid back groove of King Of New York through to the band’s unofficial anthem, Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, and on to the biggies Scooby Snacks, Barry White and Fun Lovin’ Crimi-nal itself, it was a timely reminder (20 years or so after they formed) that FLC have some pretty awesome tunes under their belts. Day Two Host Craig Charles celebrated his 50th birthday by seeing son Jack blow the place apart as vocalist for Lack of Afro with Recipe For Love, a soul crate digger’s wet dream. As the sun beat down the next few acts took it in turns to try to out-sweat each other. Myron and E were up first, an old school vocal duo

in the style of Sam and Dave, then King Khan & The Shrines went balls out with an irresistibly nuts mix of psychedel-ic soul, R’n’B and garage punk. Can he kick it? Yes he Khan. It takes some act to follow that but Cody Chesnutt nailed it. Channel-ling the spirit of Mar-vin Gaye but with his own unique feel this dude could well be the most soulful man on planet earth right now. “It’s taken me 50 years to have the best birthday evvvvaaahhhhh!” yelled Craig Charles before introducing the next band. Ibibio Sound Machine didn’t let the side down. Their mix of West African highlife, tribal rhythms, synths, funky jazzy brass and anything else they want to chuck into the mix got more people up and shaking their ass than anyone else. Then it was the turn of Miss Mavis Staples. Still in fine voice a mere 64 years into her ca-reer she had us in the palm of her hand from opening number Come Go With Me. Free-dom Highway and I Like the Things About Me may be separated by the decades but they’re united by the same sense of pride that saw her play a part in changing the world during the civil rights movement. How many other artists can lay such a claim? Af-ter a stunningly soulful cover of The Weight she left us with an equally sublime I’ll Take You There. She sure did...Day Three London Afrobeat Collective blew away the hangovers before The Heliocentrics left planet earth altogether – imagine Paloma Faith fronting an acid funk band. Reed Bass flew the Birmingham flag with some neat jazz fusion and great solos, including one from the drummer perhaps mindful of who was up next.Ginger Baker may have spent much of the last 50 years or so play-ing hide and seek with the grim reaper but he’s still here. Remarkably he seems to come back to life behind a drum kit, playing with the intuitive ease of man born with sticks in his hands. His current band, Ginger Baker’s Jazz Con-fusion, has a distinctly Afrocentric vibe, a passion that no doubt dates back

to his jams with Fela Kuti, and this set fused the two genres perfectly. “I need a piss,” he said suddenly halfway through and wan-dered off, returning a few moments later to continue the show. Given that he was once voted the musician least likely to survive the 60s it’s easy to forgive such ‘foibles’. Courtney Pine’s hugely entertaining set won over pretty much everyone in the place. Seemingly capable of playing any tune ever written on his sax he’s the kind of dude that could motivate a corpse to get up and dance. Young Pilgrims kept the party go-ing with brass fuelled mayhem paving the way for Earth, Wind and...hang on...that ain’t Earth, Wind & Fire. Nope, sadly their vocal-ist had lost his voice but help was at hand courtesy of The Family Stone. If you were looking to compile the ultimate party album it’s a safe bet that they’d be several Family Stone tracks on there and this evening they played them all, from Sing a Simple Song right through to spellchecker’s nightmare Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). This current lineup features three of the orig-inal members with Alex Davis doing a fine job of filling Sly’s boots and together they delivered the hands in the air climax that this year’s Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul deserved, I Want To Take You Higher inducing the kind of crowd euphoria that normally takes illegal substances to achieve. Daron BillingsPhotos by Richard Shakespeare

Fun Lovin’ Criminals

Ibibio Sound Machine

Kraak & Smaak


ALT-JThis is All yoursOut September 22 (Infectious)

It depends what you want from this record as to how much you’re going to enjoy it – it isn’t Mercury-winning debut, An Awesome Wave. Two-and-a-half minutes of instrumental intercepted by harmonious tonsil-work initiates a slow start, each of the opening three tracks drawing out the introduction of drums a little longer than strictly necessary, a placid theme that honestly recurs throughout. It’s decidedly more mellow than its predecessor.

That said, it’s characteristically woven through with that intricate puzzle of intrigue which made Alt-J so fascinating to begin with, a web of allusions, refer-ences and, at times, just plain weirdness. Every Other Freckle, for instance, is a genre-melding confusion of eroticism: ‘I want to turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet’, entices sing-er Joe Newman before the song melts into some kind of medieval court ditty. It couldn’t be accused of being pop, that’s for sure, but it is unnervingly erotic – it’s the pissing on each other of the music world. Probably. Anyway, it marks a turning point of sorts as the more classic rock swing of Left Hand Free stands to attention. The album’s gemstone is Hunger Of

The Pine, ironic considering that’s the one that features Miley Cyrus, but undeniably it’s a perfect mesh of synth, vocal melody and a kind of brood-ing ambience. And then it all slows down again. As an album, it’s a stroll, but with an inquisi-tive mind for the duration you should fi nd your common ground. And it sure couldn’t be accused of copyism.Amy Sumner

Dark HorsesHail Lucid StateOut now (Last Gang Records)

Hail Lucid State is the second album from Brighton’s Dark Horses and, as the title suggests, signifi es a sense of triumphant arrival. Their 2012 debut, Black Music, was a brooding lo-fi affair that showed signs of promise but couldn’t seem to pull through the fug of its own making. Their second sees the band surface from the murk with vital signs intact. Employing the production skills again of Richard Fearless (Death In Vegas), whose infl uence can be heard throughout, the album combines krautrock rhythms, snarling guitars and Swedish singer Lisa Elle’s vocals, morphing through Karen O cool-cut breathiness to Siouxsie

Sioux post-punk shrill. Album opener Live On Hunger perfectly demonstrates this, a track that is hatched from Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Mosquito and transforms into a swirling, psych drama. Desire harks back to the gloaming of Black Music while Saturn Returns has glistening 80s style synths that pierce through the gloom, illuminat-ing Elle’s vocals as she sings of ‘blinking into twilight’. On Transistor we feel the presence of The Subways’ Rock & Roll Queen with the chill of Joy Division, and on Wise Blood we have the closest the album gets to a Death In Vegas track. The defi ning track of the album is The Bravest, with lyrics taken from the writings of Marianne Faithfull’s mother Eva, spoken amidst a Savages style, post-punk wasteground. Beneath it all, the overriding infl uence of The Velvet Underground runs deep in their DNA. With their second album, Dark Horses have emerged as a safe bet to go further. Andrew Gutteridge

JawsBe SlowlyOut September 15 (Rattlepop)

Despite their debut album sporting the title Be Slowly, Jaws haven’t taken their own advice and have been touring and releasing music in the fast lane ever since the band were brought into fruition in 2012 by lead singer Connor Schofi eld. After the sugar-rush of the Milkshake EP, it’s clear whilst listening to the full length follow-up that they were keen to produce a collection of songs that communicated more feelings than that of just pure elation. Moody opener Time is just one of the parts of the album on which the band’s sound veers closer towards a more brooding ebb and build. Other tracks like Filth and Home fl ow in a similarly

albumreviews

37September 2014

more sinister vein. Fans of the four-piece’s more hopelessly romantic highs will fi nd solace in Swim and Sunset State, two bright and buoyant blasts that permeate the album. It’s testament to Jaws’ close relationship with their followers that the album includes fan-favourites Gold and Surround You, both sure-fi re ways to whip up the crowds that go to see them live. Early demo Cameron is also given a rehash and now acts as a showcase to the playful yet powerful drumming of Eddy Geach. The inclusion of strong-er songs from the band’s previous output, howev-er, doesn’t outshine the rest of the album as the two singles Be Slowly and Think Too Much Feel Too Little perfectly encapsulate the pop sensi-bilities in their songwriting and are easily two of the band’s best. Each song is made to sound as big as it possibly can, with every note allowed to echo and reverber-ate. Subtle details are also quietly noticeable with the odd accentuated sigh here and a dreamy ‘ooh’ there. That’s what Jaws do best, ever so slightly understating gargantuan pop songs that in the hands of another band would sound a lot differ-ent. This is pop music for shy people and they’ll fi nd a home in Be Slowly. Pre-existing fans of the band will adore this album. Will it convert new listeners to the Jaws cause? Slowly but surely. Jack Parker

KONGOSLunaticOut September 22(Epic Records)

Family bands are a curious breed. Wheth-er it’s the telepathic symmetry of The Cribs or the psychotic rivalry of the Gallaghers, the results often attain a certain cohesion. In these instanc-es, the adage ‘You can choose your friends but…’ goes out the window, and family is forged into harmony, in spite of sibling rivalry. Or else.In the case of Kongos – brothers Jesse, John-ny, Daniel and Dylan – the dynamic is a curious one. While their Kwaito-tinged musical ensemble is comprehensive, their contrast of personalities makes them utterly compelling.With each brother writing individually, the diver-gence of styles and infl uences is quadrophenic. While opener I’m Only Joking sees Jesse’s fusion of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk exploded by Arcade Fire-works, Johnny’s single Come With Me Now sees Beck rhapsodising over a raucous, Slade-like chorus. Guitarist Daniel chips in with Kids These Days – a truncated set-to of guitar and accordion egged on by a bloodthirsty Kasabian. From this, a segue into the mountain-bound celtic ethereality of As We Are draws you back into a ballad that somehow incorporates reggae. Dylan, meanwhile, gives us the Paul Simon-meets-Supergrass earth-iness of Sex On The Radio, and the Keane-like

haunting ballad of Travelling On. But for all their differences, album closer This Time I Won’t Forget draws everything together, a Pink Floyd-like hymn to the will of the human spirit that understands that heart is where the home is. Sibling rivalry has never sounded so good. Stephen Brolan

Dry the RiverAlarms in the HeartOut now (Trangressive)

On debut record Shal-low Bed, Dry the River came on like the bunk buddies of Mumford & Sons. Five more anguish-stained and brooding gentle-men obsessed with bombast, rag-tag peddlers of a neo-folk noise at its most pompous and over-blown. It’s no surprise then that their follow-up is every bit as grandiose. Throughout the album, frontman Peter Liddle remains Stuart Murdoch-soft in delivery. His is the tender call of a choirboy that soars on each song’s pseudo-orchestral wings, veering from maudlin to triumphant as he navigates every key change and recalling the ghosts of broken pasts, perished pilgrims and doomed moths with wide-eyed innocence and a well-hewn cynicism. Yet, as distinctive an atmosphere as Alarms in the Heart sets forth, it sounds, for the most part, over-cooked and over-produced, with even its heaviest songs (Hidden Hand, Everlasting Light) failing to stop its shtick from becoming wearisome. Opting for a dramatic style over any real substance, Dry the River’s modern re-imagining of folk lacks the grisly heart that made the original genre so powerful and, as a result, brands Alarms in the Heart nothing but a vessel with its sights set fi rmly on the middle of the road. Dan Owens

IONS Wake upOut now (Smokin’ Records)

Ever get the feeling that smoking copi-ous amounts of the green stuff isn’t quite your drug of choice? Ions present a tricky quandary in that respect. Their album Wake Up, released on Smokin’ Records, gives an instant sense of herbal enlightenment as opener Strawman kicks in. An amalgam of Pearl Jam-meets-Soundgarden holler-ing sets one’s nerves on edge, but not possibly in the way intended. There is an early 90s naive-té on display in the opening chimes of the song, before a surprisingly interesting middle section kicks in, and halfway through you’re appreciating the guitar vs drum riffage assaulting your ears. The slow burn of Bullet Cluster and its dual vocal

adds some drama to the early point of the record, but overlong instrumental patterns at times lend themselves to a feeling of overblown rock.The Universe offers some nice Minus the Bear-style guitar workout action, while Grave in Wait offers a beautiful picked intro, leading into John Carpenter-style synth noises and a chorus remi-niscent of Disarm by The Smashing Pumpkins.Wake Up is a victim of its own constant mid-tempo, however. It’s only by The Separation that any kind of up-tempo appears and that is only for the 16-beat intro and chorus sections. There is some excellent musicianship fl owing throughout the record, take the dual guitar lead on The Event Horizon, but there seems an over reliance on the fast bit = twiddly, half-time bit = heavy formulae. That is not to say all is lost. This is defi nitely a mid-paced album, and if you like a good toke whilst debating the best way to sync up the Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon, you may well have found your aural soul mate. Mix up the tempos next time and I reckon an interestingly ace slab of tunes could be yours, Ions. Katie Duffy

Stubblemelt Gypaetus BarbatusOut now

Fancy taking a trip down the rabbit hole? Not with Alice though, but with experimental alt-rockers Stubblemelt. There are not many bands that can transport you so easily to an entirely different headspace, espe-cially after listening to just one song.But Brum-based Stubblemelt do exactly that with the album Gypaetus Barbatus (the bearded vulture, for anyone who was wondering).Right from the get-go you can tell this is going to be something a bit different, a bit skewed. And after that, completely bonkers. The band, who have been kicking around for a few years, have managed to create something that sounds like Freddie Mercury being chased by Muse’s Matt Bellamy around The Crystal Maze, while presenter Richard O’Brien looks on bemused.The entire album, full of ambitious, grandiose synth-led songs and over-the-top vocals, would not be out of place as the score to a theatre show – probably involving gun-toting space cowboys riding unicorns and winged ligers. ‘Theatrical’ would be a nice way of describing the album.Gypaetus Barbatus, while over-the-top and at times a bit too much, earns major brownie points for being so different to anything else out there on the local scene at the moment.The band themselves describe their songs as “a joyous apogee for our ears”. However, life is not always about the culmination of something, it’s about the journey that takes you there and the build up. This really does need to be heard to be appreciated. Ben Russell


Vance JoyThe Institute, September 28Melbourne singer-songwriter Vance Joy releas-es his debut full-length record, Dream Your Life Away, this month and tours the UK in support of it. Perhaps best known for his Riptide single, the artist fi rst cut his teeth performing at open mic nights in Melbourne, feeding himself on a diet of The Pogues and Paul Kelly. He plays The Library at The Institute with support from Ezra Vine. MazesBull’s Head, September 24Following on from their second album, the sample and loop-laden Ores & Minerals released in Febru-ary, and a short run of dates with Stephen Malk-mus & The Jicks, Manchester’s Mazes return with mini album Better Ghosts and a run of UK shows. With a fresh and expansive catalogue of sounds referencing Velvet Underground and, indeed, Pavement, Mazes are hotly-tipped by the music press right now – now’s your chance to fi nd out why. TalonsThe Flapper, September 13Supporting the release of their recent full-length New Topographics, Hereford sextet Talons re-emerge from their four-year absence with gusto. Crafting post-rock and instrumental sounds

into an energetic, visceral and raw experience, Talons are a band best served live. Jesus JonesO2 Academy, September 8Alt dance act Jesus Jones celebrate over 25 years and six albums together with their Doubt tour this Autumn, which sees them play the number one album in full for the fi rst time ever. With the original lineup and a number of other hits up their sleeves, this will be an intimate show for the Real Real Real and Right Here, Right Now creators. DarliaThe Institute, September 22Blackpool rock revival trio Darlia have been tout-ed as ‘the best new guitar band in the UK’ so many times that by now it’s probably old news to them. Referencing the grunge rock of Nirvana and the New Wave sounds of S*M*A*S*H and These Animal Men, they’ve now released two EPs, last October’s debut Knock Knock and its follow-up, April’s Candyman, both produced by Cam Black-wood (George Ezra, Florence and The Machine).

Chicks Dig Jerks club night, ft Sunshine Frisbee LaserbeamThe Oobleck, September 27 The Chicks Dig Jerks club night makes a welcome return in its new home nestled within The Custard Factory, delivering a killer live lineup boasting some of the fi nest slacker rock, lo-fi and alt guitar heroes that Birmingham has to offer. The ever-excellent Sunshine Frisbee Laserbeam head up proceedings, joined by the feedback-drenched Burning Alms and the swirling sonic adventurers Hoopla Blue. Doors open at 10pm for a real party vibe and Chicks Dig Jerks resident DJs will keep the spirit going until the early hours too.

JJM Club Night with Modern Minds + Regale + JuiceJJM Studios, Walsall, September 27Quality live music is back on the bill in Walsall thanks to JJM Studios, which launches a brand new monthly club night in September. Modern Minds bring their polished brand of soaring guitar anthems, alongside the shimmering indie of Walsall fi ve-piece Regale, and the swirling, swaggering Brit-rock of Birmingham outfi t Juice. Plus, the party doesn’t end there, you can also enjoy two rooms of DJs, with indie and alternative in one room and progressive, techno and deep house in t’other. Saddle up, the party starts here...

gigs

Ms Lauryn HillO2 Academy, September 23Playing a set of UK dates which sees her perform on British soil for only the second time in fi ve years, the Fugees soulstress ventures to Birmingham’s O2 Academy for a rare solo set. Having released two studio albums with her former group (1994’s Blunted On Real-ity and 1996’s The Score) as well as her own Billboard-topping The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998, expect a mixture of material from the fl ighty fusionista.

PICK

Darlia

39September 2014

Cirque Du SoulThe Arena, September 27After their last event featuring Groove Armada, Cirque Du Soul bring the Big Top back to Lower Trinity Street for another dose of magic. A travel-ling collective of energy, colour and dance, each city bags its own headliner to go alongside visuals, long tails and corsets, top hats and canes, glitter, sequins and feathers, as well as an eclectic selec-tion of DJs. All aboard! The 24 Hour Rave ExperimentThe Rainbow, September 20The rules: everyone must be at the venue at 12 noon on Saturday until 12 noon on Sunday; anyone caught sleeping will be ejected from the venue; ticket money will be refunded to you if you complete the challenge and donated to charity if not. Challenge accepted. 30 Years of House with Marshall Jefferson & Maurice FultonHare & Hounds, September 27Celebrating 30 years of house music across two rooms at the Hare & Hounds, Trax’s Marshall Jefferson and Maurice Fulton play alongside the likes of Jock Lee, Lee Fisher and Leftfoot resi-dents Adam Regan and Matthew Beck. One not to be missed for any house fans worth their salt.

The Portal Presents Santé NextDoor, September 12After August’s event was forced to close its doors at midnight due to a phenomenal turnout, the next Portal installment is set to be just as busy as it welcomes Avotre’s Santé to its decks. With support from David Glass and Smak Pony amongst others, the party continues until 5am so bring your best party legs. DJ YodaHare & Hounds, September 26From hip hop beginnings, DJ Yoda has evolved over a 10-year career, using his turntable skills and diverse infl uences to make unashamed party music. Championed by Q Magazine as ‘one of the 10 DJs to see before you die’, you can make sure you do that by catching him at the Hare &

Hounds this month, with support from DJ Mylz and Ben Dunn. Godskitchen Presents TXXENTYThe Rainbow, September 27The fi rst in the series of TXXENTY shows kicks off in Birmingham on Saturday September 27 utilising brand new venue, The Rainbow Textile Factory. With acts including Paul van Dyk, the debut European set from Pure NRG and live sets from Solarstone & Giuseppe Ottaviani and John 00 Fleming amongst others, it’s a killer lineup. And it will all be complemented by the world exclusive launch of a brand new visual production concept from Gatecrasher, known as MEKANIKA, prom-ising a window to another world. Are you ready to get intergalactic?

club nights

lazy sunday moving party (aka closing night)Snobs, September 21 The fi nal hurrah in its original venue for the iconic indie hotspot and Birmingham’s longest standing nightclub, before it moves to its new home at the former Vudu Club on the corner of Smallbrook Queensway and Hurst Street. The near-legendary underground nightspot has spent more than 41 years in its current location, which will soon make way for a new hotel development. Fear not, however, you won’t be without it for long as the new Snobs opens its doors on September 24, and they’re even taking some of the decor with them.

PICK

DJ Yoda

Ph

oto

by

Dave

Tra

vis

Send us your #SnobsMemories to @BrumNotesMag


Broken Ensemble: War Damaged Musical Instru-ments (brass section)Eastside Projects, from September 20A hugely exciting new work from 2010 Turner Prize-winning sound artist Susan Philipsz. With East-side’s building dating back to the time of World War I, Philipsz’ site-specifi c piece fi lls the gallery with the sounds of brass instruments damaged during the Great War. Also new at Eastside this month is Old Hill Uprising, featuring paintings of cartoonish melancholy from Sandwell-based Polish artist Rafal Zar.

Lee BulIkon, from September 10Ikon’s fi ne track record for bringing towering global talent to Brindleyplace continues with this, the fi rst UK solo show from South Korea’s Lee Bul. Many of her intricate, intelligent constructions critique the utopian ideals of progress, none more so than the sculpture After Bruno Taut (Devotion To Drift) – a specially-commissioned chandelier-like sculp-ture with over-elaborate adornments suggesting the unsustainability of relentless growth.

Yinka Shonibare MBEIkon, from September 10Five Under Garments And Much More, a 1995

installation by the British-Nigerian artist, repre-sents the 1990s in the latest instalment of the Ikon Icons series, which is revisiting the gallery’s proud fi ve-decade history. Shonibare’s characteristical-ly vivid array of supersized corsetry represents the artist’s subversion of traditional social norms.

Marcia Farquhar: Larger Than LifeGrand Union, from September 6The beginning of a two-month run in the Digbeth gallery for the irreverent London-based perform-er, photographer and painter, who specialises in the conceptual and the unpredictable. As such, precise details are thin on the ground, though we do know that Farquhar will be in residence for a weekend in October, and there’ll be a doll-making workshop in November to mark the Day of the Dead.

KanavalOrt Gallery, from September 10A photographic show from Leah Gordon docu-menting Mardi Gras celebrations in Haiti. Captured by Gordon’s Rolleicord camera are wild perfor-mances chronicling the nation’s mythology, history and current affairs, with the pictures accompanied by oral accounts of voodoo rituals and personal experiences. A small part of the show will attempt

to draw parallels between Haitian Kanaval and Ort’s local Balsall Heath Carnival.

Rudy’s Rare RecordsThe Rep, September 4-20Lenny Henry returns to Birmingham with a stage adaptation of his hit Radio 4 comedy, charting the intergenerational relationships of a Brummie family running a reggae record shop. With the threat of developers looming, the family need to put their differences aside to save the shop’s future. A live band provides the soundtrack, featuring songs by Desmond Dekker, Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff.

Ben Norris: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the FamilyMac Birmingham, September 6The poet, playwright and actor Ben Norris felt somewhat distant from his father – so he planned out a whistle-stop tour of the key places in his dad’s life, dropping in on his friends and family members and ending up at Wembley Stadium, home to his beloved Luton Town’s 1988 Little-woods Cup victory. In this work-in-progress, Norris recounts his adventure.

Get more weekly arts tips and keep up with the best of what’s on across the West Midlands at www.brumnotes.com.

arts &culture

Not I/Footfalls/RockabyThe Rep, September 16-20The Royal Court’s hugely acclaimed triple bill of short Samuel Beckett pieces arrives in Birmingham, delivering an impossibly intense and exhilarating hour of theatre. All three works are performed by Irish actress Lisa Dwan, who was mentored by Beckett’s own proté-gée Billie Whitelaw. In Not I, all that is visible is a mouth delivering a stream of consciousness at breakneck speed, obliquely refl ect-ing on a diffi cult life. Meanwhile, Footfalls follows a ragged woman’s vigil outside her dying mother’s room, while Rockaby explores the loneliness of the prematurely-aged protagonist, dressed in an evening gown, sitting on a rocking chair that apparently rocks itself. Not to be missed.

PICK

41September 2014

JOHN SIMMITA BRAND NEW

COMEDY SEASON HOSTED BY

“the most enterprising black comedy promoters in the country” (The Guardian)

STEPHEN K AMOS BBC TV’s Live at The Apollo

FELICITY ETHNIC Ms Brutal

FUNMBI Award-winning newcomer

SEPTEMBER SLAM

WIL E ROBO (USA) P Diddy’s Bad Boys of Comedy

SEAN G (USA)Winner of USA’s student

comedian of the year

AKAASH SINGH (USA) Leader of the Indian invasion

USA SPECIAL

KAT (HOST) MTV Bass

TONY HENDRIKS Pale & repping JA around

the world

MAUREEN YOUNGER The Scary lady

SMASH Birmingham’s new comedy hope

WINTER WARMER

JEFFERSON & WHITFIELD

The return of the silky smooth duo

JAMIE HOWARD Not sarcastic really

THANYIA MOOREOne to watch

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

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KEY TO LISTINGS:M = LIVE MUSICCN = CLUB NIGHTC = COMEDYWHAT’S ON

Monday, Sep 1

M The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Jam Jah Bull’s Head Moseley

Tuesday, Sep 2

M Freddie Gibbs The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Jessy Lanza Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

C Last of the Summer Wits

Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

Wednesday, Sep 3

M Delray Rockets The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Mirrorhall The Sunflower Lounge

Birmingham

M Roland Gift Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Jules Rendell Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

CN Impact with Dubcher-ry

Bull’s Head Moseley

Thursday, Sep 4

M Burn the Empire The Rainbow Birmingham

M St Paul and the Bro-ken Bones

The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Andrew Combs Trio Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M The Delegates Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Constantine The Roadhouse

Stirchley

C Comedy Carousel ft Andy Robinson

The Glee Club

Birmingham

C Manilla Road Com-edy

The Victoria Birmingham

Friday, Sep 5

M Lisa Stansfield Symphony Hall

Birmingham

M Winston’s Big Brother

The Actress & Bishop

Birmingham

M Vieon The Rainbow Birmingham

M Plastic Factory The Sunflower Lounge

Birmingham

M Brum Punx Picnic ft Johnny Kowalski & The Sexy Weirdos

Wagon & Horses

Birmingham

M Cloudbusting Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Supersonic Vague Gatecrasher Birmingham

CN Dub-Rehab Lab11 Birmingham

CN Alexkid & Archie Hamilton

NextDoor Birmingham

CN Dirty Disco Rooftop Birmingham

CN Kaleidoscope The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

CN Resonance 3rd Birthday

The Rainbow Birmingham

CN Hysteria The Rainbow Warehouse

Birmingham

CN Simian Mobile Disco (DJ Set)

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN M O D O with Steffan Taylor


C September Slam! The Drum Aston

C Charlie Baker The Glee Club

Birmingham

Saturday, Sep 6

M XVII + A Born Dis-aster

The Slade Rooms

Wolverhampton

M Renny Jackson Ort Balsall Heath

M Ones To Watch ft The Ella Arts

O2 Academy 2

Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM: O2 Academy, Horsefair, Bristol St B1, 0844 4772000; The Institute, High St, Digbeth B5, 0844 2485037; NIA, King Edwards Rd B1, 0121 7804141; LG Arena, NEC, Solihull B40, 0121 7804141; The Flapper, Kingston Row B1, 0121 2362421; The Victoria, John Bright St B1, 0121 6339439; Hare & Hounds, High St, Kings Heath B14, 0121 4442081; The Actress & Bishop, Ludgate Hill B3, 0121 2367426; The Sunflower Lounge, Smallbrook Queensway B5, 0121 6327656; Symphony Hall, Broad St B1, 0121 7803333; Town Hall, Victoria Sq B3, 0121 7803333; Kitchen Garden Cafe, York Road, Kings Heath B14, 0121 4434725; Alexandra Theatre, Station St B1, 0844 8472302; Bull’s Head, St Marys Row, Moseley B13, 0121 2567777; Island Bar, Suffolk St B1, 0121 6325296; The Jam House, St Pauls Sq B3, 0121 2003030; Ort, Moseley Rd, Balsall Heath, B12; The Asylum, Hampton St, Hockley B19, 0121 2331109; The Rainbow, High St, Digbeth B12, 0121 7728174; Adam & Eve, Bradford St, Digbeth B12, 0121 6931500; The Rose Villa Tavern, Warstone Lane, B18, 0121 2367910; The Yardbird, Paradise Place B3, 0121 2122524; The Glee Club, The Arcadian, Hurst St B5, 0871 4720400; MAC, Cannon Hill Park B12, 0121 4463232; Nightingale, Kent St B5, 0121 6221718; Scruffy Murphys, The Priory Queensway B4, 0121 2362035; The Wagon & Horses, Adderley St, Digbeth B9, 0121 7721403; Lab11, Trent St B5, lab11.co.uk; The Moseley Arms, Ravenhurst St B12, 0121 7668467; The Oobleck, The Custard Factory B9, 0121 270 6665; Suki10c, Bordesley Street B5; Gatecrasher, Broad St B15, 0121 633 1520

Want your gig or club

night listed in our monthly guide? Send

details to:

[email protected]

All details correct at time of going to press.

Check with venues before

setting out.

43September 2014

M Benjamin Booker O2 Academy 3

Birmingham

M The Oldest House The Actress & Bishop

Birmingham

M Steve Ajao & The Blues Giants

The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Brum Punx Picnic ft Police Bastard

Wagon & Horses

Birmingham

CN Moschino Hoe, Ver-sace Hottie

Spotlight Birmingham

CN Absolutely Gorgeous Sticky Warehouse

Birmingham

CN The Afterparty The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

CN City of Colours After-party

The Oobleck Birmingham

CN FACE The Rainbow Birmingham

CN MOAN Recordings Showcase


CN Heroes of House Warehouse Club

Birmingham

CN Bruk Up with Garth Boogie Bwoy & Bruce Q

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Circles present Ed Rush

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Hot Wax Bull’s Head Moseley

C Charlie Baker The Glee Club

Birmingham

Sunday, Sep 7

M Dick Venom & The Terrorstones

The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Brum Punx Picnic ft Inner Terrestrials

Wagon & Horses

Birmingham

M Grey Wolf Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

C Rough Works The Glee Club

Birmingham

Monday, Sep 8

M Jesus Jones O2 Academy 3

Birmingham

M Red Bird Sky Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

CN Gatecrasher Mon-days

Gatecrasher Birmingham


C Lee Mack Symphony Hall

Birmingham

Tuesday, Sep 9

M Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra

Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

M Kodiak Jack The Roadhouse

Stirchley


Birmingham

C Comedy Night The Rose Villa Tavern

Birmingham

Wednesday, Sep 10


Birmingham

C Laughing Cows Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

Thursday, Sep 11

M As It Is O2 Academy 3

Birmingham

M Tony Bennett Symphony Hall

Birmingham

M Patrick Duff Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath


The Glee Club

Birmingham

Friday, Sep 12

M Silver The Actress & Bishop

Birmingham

M Dutch Cousin The Rainbow Birmingham

M Sweet Lilly The Sunflower Lounge

Birmingham

M Coasts The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Incognito Town Hall Birmingham

M Ruts DC Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Lucha Libre Bodega Birmingham

CN The Portal presents Santé

NextDoor Birmingham

CN Psykout Suki10c Birmingham


Birmingham

CN Cache with Niall Wolfe



Birmingham

C Andy Robinson The Glee Club

Birmingham

Saturday, Sep 13

M Blondie O2 Academy Birmingham

M Beneath The Re-mains

O2 Academy 3

Birmingham

M The Mighty Young The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Talons + IO + Enquiry The Flapper Birmingham

M Beorma The Oobleck Birmingham

M CYTOTA The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Dangerous Girls Reunited

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Playlounge Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Luke Wylde & The Japes

The Slade Rooms

Wolverhampton


Birmingham

CN Back Door Betty The Oobleck Birmingham

CN FACE presents Xone Select Party


CN Revolution Disco Wagon & Horses

Birmingham

CN An Evening with Knicker Bocker Corey



Birmingham

C Tom Stade: Decisions Decisions

Civic Hall Wolverhampton

Sunday, Sep 14

M Bohemian Jukebox Sunday Social with Dutch Cousin, Gyspy-fingers, Pomander.


CN The Freshers Launch Pad

The Institute Birmingham

C Milton Jones: The Best of Milton Jones

The Glee Club

Birmingham

45September 2014

Monday, Sep 15

M The Saturdays NIA Birmingham

M Gruff Rhys: American Interior

The Glee Club

Birmingham

Tuesday, Sep 16

M The Magic Numbers The Library @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Martin Stephenson Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Kris Drever & Ea-monn Coyne

Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

CN Supa Fresh Gatecrasher Birmingham

C The Axis of Awesome The Glee Club

Birmingham

Wednesday, Sep 17

M Beartooth O2 Academy 3

Birmingham

M Ani DiFranco The Glee Club

Birmingham

Thursday, Sep 18

M 999 The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Jonny Cole The Glee Club

Birmingham

M Syd Arthur The Sunflower Lounge

Birmingham

M An Acoustic Even-ing with Andy Cairns (Therapy?)

The Slade Rooms

Wolverhampton

CN Blast Beat Hip Hop Night

The Roadhouse

Stirchley


Birmingham

C John Bishop: Work in Progress

The Wulfrun Hall

Wolverhampton

Friday, Sep 19

M Beau Trap The Actress & Bishop

Birmingham

M The Wreck Kings The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Second City Fire The Rainbow Birmingham

M M O T H E R The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M The Burning Hell Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Click Friday Moving Party

Snobs Birmingham


Birmingham

CN Hot Club De Swing with The Electric Swing Circus

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Blackbox Bull’s Head Moseley

C Hardeep Singh Kohli Mac Birmingham

C Holly Walsh The Glee Club

Birmingham

C Chas n Dave The Wulfrun Hall

Wolverhampton

Saturday, Sep 20

M The Stirs O2 Academy 3

Birmingham

M Hightower The Actress & Bishop

Birmingham

M Dave McPherson (InMe)

The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Rusty G’s + Vault of Eagles

The Flapper Birmingham

M Jaws The Oobleck Birmingham

M The Moons Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Only After Dark Apres Birmingham

CN Soul Steppers 20th Party

NextDoor Birmingham


Birmingham

CN The 24 Hour Rave Experiment

The Rainbow Venues

Birmingham

CN Enter The Dragon Bull’s Head Moseley

C Holly Walsh The Glee Club

Birmingham

Sunday, Sep 21

M The Webb The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Chris Cleverly Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

M Acoustic All-Dayer ft Frankie Lorenzo

The Roadhouse

Stirchley

CN Naughty Horse Fresh-ers Welcome Party

Gatecrasher Birmingham

CN Lazy Sunday Moving Party

Snobs Birmingham

CN Zoo Disco The Institute Birmingham

CN Jazzifunk presents Bubblin

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

Monday, Sep 22

M Darlia The Library @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Gossling + Shaake Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Lisbee Stainton Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

M Alt-J Civic Hall Wolverhampton


C Comedy Night The Roadhouse

Stirchley

Tuesday, Sep 23

M Ms Lauryn Hill O2 Academy Birmingham

M The 58’s Blues Band The Asylum 2

Birmingham

M Sharon Corr The Glee Club

Birmingham

M The Dunwells Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M The Misers Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

Wednesday, Sep 24

M Woo + Ruane Mau-rice

Ort Balsall Heath

M Me vs Hero O2 Academy 3

Birmingham

M The Pierces The Glee Club

Birmingham

M Lust for Youth The Oobleck Birmingham

M Mazes Bull’s Head Moseley

CN Big Wednesday Opening Night

NEW Snobs Birmingham

Thursday, Sep 25

M KING 810 O2 Academy 2

Birmingham


M WATSKY The Library @ The Institute

Birmingham

M The Jacarandas The Sunflower Lounge

Birmingham

M The Foreign Ex-change

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Woman’s Hour Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Anathema: Satellites Over Europe 2014

The Slade Rooms

Wolverhampton

CN F*ck My Life It’s Freshers

The Institute Birmingham

CN Drum’n’Bounce 2nd Birthday Bash



The Glee Club

Birmingham

Friday, Sep 26

M James Taylor LG Arena Birmingham

M The Little Liam Band The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Exit Calm + Victories at Sea + Mutes

The Flapper Birmingham

M New At Ten The Rainbow Birmingham

M Joel Gion The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Honeyblood Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN Lucha Libre Bodega Birmingham

CN Fall Off Your Turkey Suki10c Birmingham


Birmingham

CN Shards of Ordinance Festival ft MK9

Wagon & Horses

Birmingham

CN Jam Hott Presents DJ Yoda

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

C Danny Bhoy Mac Birmingham

C Joe Bor The Glee Club

Birmingham

Saturday, Sep 27

M Black Seas Ort Balsall Heath

M The Fray O2 Academy Birmingham

M Among the Echoes The Actress & Bishop

Birmingham

M The Ramonas The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Ben Marwood The Flapper Birmingham

M Grant Nicholas The Library @ The Institute

Birmingham

M DZ Deathrays The Sunflower Lounge

Birmingham

M Dragonforce The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Steve Craddock The Slade Rooms

Wolverhampton

CN Champion MCs & Lovers Rock Singers Roll Call

The Drum Aston

CN Boxxed Fresh Boxxed Birmingham

CN Alexander Nut Club PST Birmingham

CN Quadrophenia Club Night

O2 Academy 2

Birmingham

CN Jungle Showdown 2014

PST Rooftop Birmingham

CN Raise2Raise Suki10c Birmingham


Birmingham

CN Chicks Dig Jerks ft Sunshine Frisbee Laserbeam (live)

The Oobleck Birmingham

CN Cirque Du Soul The Rainbow Arena

Birmingham

CN Godskitchen TXX-ENTY

The Rainbow Textile Factory

Birmingham

CN Shards of Ordinance Festival ft JK Flesh

Wagon & Horses

Birmingham

CN The Summers End Payback Party

Warehouse Club

Birmingham

CN 30 Years Of House with Marshall Jeffer-son + Maurice Fulton

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

CN For The Love with Paul Boots


C Joe Bor The Glee Club

Birmingham

Sunday, Sep 28

M The Urban Voodoo Machine

O2 Academy 2

Birmingham

M The Lurkers The Adam & Eve

Birmingham

M Vance Joy The Library @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Sleepy Sun The Oobleck Birmingham

M Michael Nesmith Town Hall Birmingham

M Delilah Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Vin Garbutt Kitchen Garden Cafe

Kings Heath

M Roxx to Ruin Hard Rock All-Dayer

The Roadhouse

Stirchley

M Toseland The Slade Rooms

Wolverhampton

C Richard Blackwood & Friends

The Glee Club

Birmingham

C Christian Reilly Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

Monday, Sep 29

M The Horrors The Institute Birmingham

M Max Jury The Sunflower Lounge

Birmingham

M July Talk The Temple @ The Institute

Birmingham

M Andrea Balency & NLF3

Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M The 1975 Civic Hall Wolverhampton


Tuesday, Sep 30

M Keston Cobblers’ Club


M Jake Isaac Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M The Phantom Band Hare & Hounds

Kings Heath

M Fear of Men Bull’s Head Moseley

47September 2014

brum notes magazine - september 2014

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