June 17th, 2008
4:36 pm by bounder
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The Clifton Bingo hall in Great Barr is to call time, along with “house”, “clickey-click” and other bizarre bits of slang, this coming Monday (23rd June), closing Gala the owners say, due to “the smoking ban, increased taxation and new laws banning big jackpot machines.” (via the Mail). I like bingo as a concept far more than as a game, but it’s doubly sad as it throws into question the future of a lovely piece of art-deco architecture (seen above in the BiNS calendar 2006).
Built in 1938, as a cinema, it’s Grade II Listed which means it’s safe from the bulldozers at the moment at least, but the commercial uses in this day and age for a building of its size and structure are few.
This particular area of North Birmingham has a fair amount of shops and pubs, but there isn’t a lot of entertainment around (as I remember from my youth) — what would be lovely would be if the council could buy it and open it up as a community space of some kind. Theatre space, art space, community hall for meetings, how great that would be.
June 15th, 2008
6:13 pm by bounder
Regular readers may have noticed unstinting praise here for the work of Speechification, and Stephen Duffy (apart from his time with a fat bloke from Stoke). A joy to bring them both together, take it away speechification:
Before they were in Duran Duran various Duranies, and Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy, were The Devils. And they made a famously lost album called ‘Dark Circles’. The musical stuff is interesting but what’s especially nice is to hear a story of an emerging ’scene’; the post-punk, new romantic world of Birmingham. I first got to The Rum Runner after the glory had faded but it still carried the Duran Imprimatur, a message that you could have a glamourous life without being born in Soho. MP3 here.
Btw the album isn’t lost as such, I’ve got a copy and you can pick it up at Amazon here
.
May 29th, 2008
10:00 am by bounder
This is one of those things that is so good you just have to mention, but then it’s so good that most people already know about it. If you don’t know, then Soweto Kinch has organised a show under Hockley flyover (well known to anyone who takes the 16 bus into town) if you do know, then he still has. The BBC Birmingham site has a good feature, and here’s the flyer (not my poor compression):
March 5th, 2008
10:05 am by bounder
News reaches us from The Communion (via Russ obviously) that Brum metal legends Mistress have called it a day (this stuff is awash with genre-specific terminology so excuse the copy and paste):
Sludge-grind legends Mistress and rock quintet Exploder have decided to call it a day. The overlapping personnel involved in both bands have been making music together in various forms for a number of years. Multi-instrumentalist Mick Kenney’s side project Frost is also to be no more.
Sludge -grind, hmm, I’d been wondering what it was called. Years ago I was dragged by a band-mate from our practice room in Robannas up to see what his friend’s band were doing in their subterranean bunker down the corridor (to tell you the truth you could hear them anyway). I sat sipping a can of Tennent’s and was scared shitless by their sheer power - and the anger of Dave C. As were audiences around the country no doubt over the years.
It made what we were doing sound tired (and what our other mates next-door Coaster were doing sound ancient - Coaster changed many times and eventually front-man Rob found himself in Dexter - now Walk. Don’t Walk it seems), widely differing musical styles, but it was always a bit dispiriting to see that another band had got ‘it’ when you probably hadn’t.
Silver lining on the non-more-black cloud for metal fans is that it might mean more from Anaal Nathrakh.
February 29th, 2008
10:03 am by bounder
Another day, another new Brum site - this one Birminghammusicnetwork.com is for the Birmingham Music Network who are:
“a music networking organisation, leading the way by working with the local community to stimulate growth, inspire, and share knowledge. We offer practical based industry experience and are not genre specific…”
If you’re in the Brum music scene and you don’t know of these guys then you really should go and check it out – and go along to one of their meetings. If not then you still might find out something interesting.
Theme looks mighty familiar…
February 28th, 2008
10:16 am by bounder
On the end of his wristies? In Iraq? Sorry. According to The Hearing Aid - it’s a new music venue above the pub in Bearwood. Good.
What is it with these refurbed pubs and ghastly identikit flock logos?
February 27th, 2008
1:39 pm by bounder
From Friends of the Stars…
In the late 1990s in California Dorian Wood decided to track down his worldwide namesakes using the interweb and eventually got in touch with Birmingham-based Dorian Wood. Finding someone who shares your slightly out-of-the-ordinary name on the other side of the globe would be one thing, but to find out that you are both involved in the creation of strange and beautiful music is something quite altogether different.
On Good Friday 21st March 2008 (Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath)we are bringing together these unique two talents to play on the same bill for the very first time.
More and sounds on the FotS blog. “free entry if your name is also Dorian Wood”
February 26th, 2008
4:36 pm by bounder
When people do jokes about how SPAM seems directly targeted to them it’s normally because they have a small penis. Let me share you a much odder form – that I’ve being reliving at the rate of two or three a day to my various email addresses.
May I gain your permission to send you some details on the upcoming British “ELO’s Great Hits” concerts of the Former ELEC. LIGHT ORCHESTRA and E.L.O. PT Two Classic Members, now referred to as THE ORCHESTRA? I would be grateful if you would visit http://www.eloformermembers.com/optin.php?email=xxxxxxxx to agree. These shows start on the 4th of March and you can review the schedule on the website www.orchestrafan.com to determine if you would like further details.
Thanks so much,
R.J JOHNSON
Permission Requests
Now that’s direct marketing SPAM, who else do you know that would be interested (no enough to actually go, but interested) in the touring plans of a bunch of people that may have been in a band with Jeff Lynne at some point? And not even good people that have been in a band with Jeff Lynne (Dylan, George Harrision, Tom Petty, Bev Bevan…).
Oh, and it looks like they’re playing at the Alex in March if you care.
February 18th, 2008
9:32 am by bounder
Birmingham Rocks! (their exclamation) spreads the whispers that:
Rumours abound that The Barfly will soon be taking over The Sanctuary and looking to bring in bigger gigs at the venue.
The Carling Academy has been rumoured to be closing for years but could soon be leaving its Dale End address and moving to the site of The Dome nightclub.
February 17th, 2008
10:53 am by bounder
When ex-Iron Maiden frontman (and Brum native) Wolfsbane’s Blaze Bayley discovered he was losing his hair his treatment/syrup/magical formula was so good he bought the company. Or rather appeared in this advert I found at the back of Mojo - you can’t headbang without flowing locks.
Optima’s website has other folically-challenged local clebs on it too - such as ex-Villa and England winger Tony Daley, usually only mentioned on teh interwebs in connection with his “dodgy haircut” on those oh-so-amusing sites that treat football as an extension of Loaded magazine. Tony lost his dreads after a “prank” by his teammates, which is frankly a bit worrying, whereas cricketer Kabir Ali was moved to treatment after being taunted by Vikram Solanki.
So if you’re a professional sportsman with vindictive colleagues, or a heavy metal singer with a part-time job at a “well-known UK car accessories retailer” (wikipedia, so erm..) with hair-loss problems you may want to weave (sorry) a path to Edgbaston.
