Posts Tagged ‘ band ’

Brum’s Worst Band Name

Note, not worst band. We like some of the bands listed. You can be a great band and have an appalling name, or at least you can have hit records and have a shite name (Audio Bullys — sort the grammar out thickos) or have a good frontman and a guitar genius and have a shite name (The Tears — as it eye water leakage or ripping? sort it out). You can certainly come from New York and have a shite name, and that’s where we’ll be shamelessly half-inching this idea from. “band names have only gotten more loathsome ever since we ran out of words back in 1993.” Annually* BiNS in association with the The Big Paws will be launching the hunt to find the worst band name in Brum. The rule: 1. The band must actually play shows in the city. Anyone can name a bedroom project Private Lynndie England & The Ball-Pointer-Atters but it takes real nerve to actually book a show and put it on a flyer. Here are some to think about: Rase — decent indie pop, but can’t work out how to pronounce it, doesn’t mean anything… don’t think you’re allowed to make...

(Self)-Published by the brilliantly named Brummie Git Press Luke James’s Stairway To Nowhere is out now. He says it’s “the true, unexpurgated, and twisted story (with pictures) of the original line-up of Fàshiön (1978-80)” and who are we to argue — the singer should know. It’s available for just under a tenner as a book and at £3.19 as a download, both from lulu.com If you’re not aware of them, the blurb might well sell it to you: “Stairway To Nowhere is the true story of late 1970’s, Birmingham, UK band Fàshiön. In the brief spotlight of their fifteen minutes of fame, Fàshiön toured both the USA and UK as opening band for The Police, did a UK club tour with a then unknown band from Ireland called U2, opened for The B52’S on their first ever UK tour, and had a new band called Duran Duran open shows for them.The book tells the story of how four young, unemployed working class gits from the gutters of Brum donned make-up, attitude, weird clothes and swaggered forth to escape the dreaded clutches Birmingham’s car factory mentality by conquering the music business. On their voyage of escape and discovery, Fàshiön encounter...

Rotunda

Those needing a bit of Brum-rooted punk rock could do nowt better than popping along to one of Rotunda’s upcoming gigs: Sound Bar – Nov 2nd The Adam and Eve – Nov 8th Scruffy Murphys – 13th Nov Subside – 16th nov The asylum – 27th Dec It almost counts as a tour.

This photo is on the back cover of a 2007 compilation of the work of the 60s psych-rock Brummie band ‘Breakthru’ (Adventures Highway). From the liner notes they released one (not self penned) single “Ice Cream Tree” (produced by Mike Batt!) which didn’t fly. Click through to Flickr to see it slightly bigger. The photo is of them playing on a roof in the centre of Brum, as far as I can tell – the sign obscured by the afro points left to Digbeth, right towards (I guess) the Coventry Rd. Main clue is the shop Hardy & Co in the background, the print is pretty low res and blowing up doesn’t help much. So, where do you think it is?

Oasis in the toilet of the Jug of Ale

"The dressing room at the Jug Of Ale in Moseley was actually a toilet" – happy memories of the upstairs toilet in the old Jug. Back in '94(?) I think, I must have been at this gig.

There’s a painfully slow flash site announcing a Kerrang radio unsigned bands competition — with the chance to play at the Bull Ring. Festibull is going on at the Bull Ring on the 18th and 19th of October — where eight bands battle the public vote to win the chance to support ‘Cage The Elephant’ (whoever they are). To get the chance to be one of those bands you have to upload an mp3 to the website (plus photos and videos if you have them) and then get your mates to vote.

It’s big, it’s round, it never had a revolving restaurant at the top

I met Clive Dutton yesterday, he reminded me a bit of Jonathan Meades, which is a fine compliment for a city planner. I also met the architect of the Rotunda a wonderful man called James Roberts (pictured below), and briefly spoke to Chris Upton about beermats. The reason for this gathering of Brummie luminaries (and the excuse for my attendance) was the première of Nic Gaunt’s film ‘Rotunda: 21 Stories’, a ‘Towering Inferno’ for the psychogeographic Midlands. The film, also book, DVD and exhibition, found 21 stories about the Rotunda to match each of the 21 storeys of the building — you see what they did there? Clever. Some were deeply frivolous, me, Malcolm Stent doing a joke about Selfridges and hub-caps, ex-mayor Randall Brew XI claiming that “they’ll have to carry me out of Birmingham in a box” (didn’t know the lack of burial space had got that bad), and some were very serious; a number of takes on the Pub Bombings. Some of the stories come from James Roberts designer and architect father of the building: He reveals his thoughts on the original build — that it gained 5 floors almost a whim — and how pleased...

Mistress no more

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...

A night with the Woods, in the Heath

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”

Page 1 of 2

1 2 »

Recent Comments

Archives

Is Brum Happy?

Birmingham's emotional wellbeing* on Saturday 11th of February 2012 07:04: 56.8 % (average)

Posts Tagged ‘ band ’

Brum’s Worst Band Name

Back in Fàshiön

Rotunda

Spot the afro, but where?

Oasis in the toilet of the Jug of Ale

Bull vs Elephant

It’s big, it’s round, it never had a revolving restaurant at the top

Mistress no more

A night with the Woods, in the Heath

@onBirmingham – Breaking Brum News on Twitter