Created in Birmingham

The NME said some nice things about this here city in an article called ‘The Rise of Birmingham’. It’s not online (that I can tell) but the good people of Troumaca have scanned it so you can have a read then dash down to your local newsagent to read quotes such as:

the city has quietly (and undisturbed) fostered a genuinely exciting DIY music scene

and

Brum can stake a claim as the hottest place in UK indie

The folks who got mentions are:

• Bands: Peace, Swim Deep, Troumaca, The Carpels, The Bombergs, Two Fathoms, Bombers, Greg Bird & Flamingo Flame, Prisms, Victories At Sea, Heavy Waves, Jaws
• Promoters: This Is Tomorrow, Atta Girl, Likely Lads (anyone got a link?), Chicks Dig Jerks
• Venues: Hare and Hounds, The Rainbow, The Victoria, The Sunflower Lounge

Here’s Pete Ashton’s post from the last time they wrote an article like this, with links to all the bands from back then.

While I’m embarking on this brief foray into musicland, here are a couple of videos. First up is one from Poppy & The Jezebels:

and here’s an advert for Friends of the Stars’ fried chicken seasoning:

I can’t say I keep up with what Godskitchen are up to very much, but I stumbled across a trailer for their big upcoming May Bank Holiday bash. They do a lot of city centre/Digbeth-based time lapse stuff.

Birmingham Live has had a bit of a facelift. Looks like they’re branching out into interviews and album reviews too.

A journey around Symphony Hall for Adventurous ears of all ages! On Saturday 7th April 2012 at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Curated by Fierce Festival for Symphony Hall’s 21st birthday celebrations.

This is on today at midday and looks like it’ll be well worth popping in to. Here’s the schedule.

Our 2nd LP, “Faith’s Meat Kiosk“, is coming out on 23rd April 2012 and to celebrate we’ve teamed up with Birmingham’s wonderful Jack Rabbit and created our very own Fried Chicken Seasoning.

As you do. Excellent lateral thinking from Friends of the Stars.

Actually, while I’m the subject, now’s as good a time as any to shoehorn in a mention of Rock and Roll Tedium – a little thing run by Craig from the band. It’ll chew up a good chunk of your day, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Digbeth is Good recently had news of a couple of new clubs opening their doors over that side of town.

• Gibb Street Warehouse is the old Space 2, apparently brought up to scratch by the people behind Fabric in London.
• LAB11 will be on Trent Street and comes from the people behind TRMNL. (DiG post here).

Both open on 31 March, coincidentally.

There’s something about this I really like:

The video for Goodnight Lenin’s new track was done by Chris Keenan and Steven Spencer and was filmed at Second Home Studios.

The latter two were also involved in First Light’s ‘How to’ videos we mentioned a little while back.

In his keynote speech at the State of the Arts conference in Manchester last week, in a list of notable cultural things happening this year, Ed Vaizey included:

an epic new choral work from composer Jonathan Harvey to be performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Which was a coincidence because, only a few days before, the person behind the @thinkwalsall Twitter account mentioned to me that Jonathan Harvey is from Sutton Coldfield.

I’d not heard of Jonathan Harvey before but I did some quick digging around and here’s his website and his Wikipedia page. Very recently the BBC put on a weekend of music, film and discussion celebrating his music at the Barbican.

If you’d like a listen to some of his work, here’s ‘Madonna of Winter and Spring” for orchestra, synthesizers and live electronics, from 1986.

I’m not convinced the Sutton Coldfield Orchestra has ever been mentioned on this here blog.

Founded in 1975, Sutton Coldfield Orchestra performs up to six concerts per year, including a concert for young soloists in spring, and a family Christmas concert.

A little while back I linked to a questionnaire about Birmingham’s music scene that was doing the rounds. The report and a series of recommendations are now out.

For a bit of background, there’s this from Cllr Philip Parkin, Chairman of the Leisure, Sport & Culture Overview & Scrutiny Committee (who were responsible for the report):

Last year’s UK Music report, ‘Destination UK’, was the ‘most comprehensive study ever undertaken on the power of music as a tourist draw’ and the first of its kind to quantify the economic value of ‘music tourism’ to the country’s regions. It also laid down a challenge to public bodies, locally and nationally, to ‘realise the potential of this considerable economic asset’. And the Scrutiny Committee that I chair in Birmingham has responded to that challenge, coming up with a series of recommendations for city council approval – in our scrutiny report ‘Destination Birmingham‘ – that I hope will send out the clear message that we see popular music as being of huge importance to the cultural and economic life of our city.

You can download the Destination Birmingham report (PDF) here.

There are a series of recommendations on pages 8-10. I’ve not read the whole thing yet but will maybe, probably get round to it at some point. A quick flick through seems to suggest there are some interesting bits in there.

Music Birmingham

The recommendation picked up by the Birmingham Post is for the council to have a person able to act as a point of contact for studios, venues, promoters, producers and artists. Someone with:

the ability to bring together different departments and take responsibility for providing advice and support

That sounds like it could be alright. I remember hearing that Soweto Kinch’s Flyover Show (which is happening over in South Africa at the end of March and coming back to Brum on 11 August) stalled for years because of the difficulties with coordinating with so many parts of such a large council.

As a side point, it’s a very different thing, but it kinda reminds me of the discussions a few years back about whether Birmingham needs a Creative Director.

Celebrating our musical heritage

This was the other main recommendation highlighted in the preface:

It is also important that we do more to celebrate Birmingham’s rich musical heritage. Following the success of the Home of Metal exhibition, and in the year that Black Sabbath reform, we should celebrate Birmingham’s role in the origins of heavy metal. We should also be celebrating other music events and genres – bhangra and reggae also have their origins in Birmingham.

And don’t forget Duran Duran.

Thoughts?

If I’ve anything to add from the brief glance I’ve given the thing, it’s that there’s a lot about providing space and resources for archives and heritage and rather less about how conditions might be improved for the current/next generation.

Anyway, if you have a read of the report and Philip Parkin’s blog post I’d be interested in hearing what you think.

This is pretty impressive:

Ken Jones of Bright Eyes has sent an incredible list of gigs he attended at the Town Hall (and other venues) from 1964 to 1974

Presumably that’s not Bright Eyes as in Conor Oberst’s band. Or maybe it is.

In other Town Hall news, Classic FM have got an interview with Andrew Jowett, the Chief Executive of Town Hall Symphony Hall Birmingham.

Secret Admirer puts interviews with bands, mainly from around Birmingham and the West Mids, on her blog. I was just at the This Is Tomorrow gig the other night at the Hare & Hounds, so the Matt Beck interview and Silver Souvenirs made for good reading.

Is anyone else out there blogging about Birmingham’s music scene? The Blue Whale Blog used to be my main place for that kind of thing but that’s been quiet for a while. BrumNotes and Counteract do a decent job but there must be more (especially non-indie stuff) out there.

The Eastern Electronic Festival is back in either May or October this year (this says both). To pass the time before then, Shaanti (who produce the festival) have put out their first in a new podcast series.

SHAANTI PRESENTS PODCAST SERIES 001 – BY SHARNITA K ATHWAL (DEC 2011) by Shaanti

It’s been more than a year since I last mentioned RoxXxan. In the time since she’s been signed by Polydor and keeps cropping up in interviews all over the place. There’s been talk of a mixtape called Prepare 4When I Land but it looks like that’s going to be out in the new year now.

In the meantime, she’s made this of Hudson Mohawke‘s Thunder Bay.

Mind out for the strong language if you don’t like that sort of thing.