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Brum vs Belfast #1: music scenes

Written by Nicky Getgood on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 ( One response )
Tags: birminghamitsnotshit, brumvsbelfast, joelmurphy, kentdavis, mamamatrix, noiseabatement, paulmurphy, rootsdeville, spotteddog, thedestroyers, TheRainbow

Anyone who’s so much as glanced at me or my Twitter account in the last few days will know that Karen Strunks and I spent the weekend in Belfast courtesy of BMI Baby, and had a grand old time.  Here’s my first post comparing the city with our own.

I wasn’t going to compare music scenes – I’m old before my time and usually end up listening to Radio 4 instead of choons.  But luckily I found someone who did the job for me – after about 2 minutes of being in Belfast I bumped into Joel Murphy, a musician who lived in Birmingham for many years playing his guitar and organising gigs and festivals such as Roots DeVille 2006.  He’s now returned to live in his native Belfast, although he sometimes returns to play gigs with his band Mama Matrix.  Although he believes both cities have brilliantly vibrant and varied music scenes, he sees a massive disparity in the way they’re supported by their local authorities and speaks about it on this AudioBoo:

Unfortunately Joel Murphy mumbles. For those of you without kick-ass speakers or particularly sharp hearing, here’s the best bits:

Belfast has a lot more music going on than Birmingham, it’s represented better….It’s not that [Birmingham music's] not great it’s just that it’s not represented….

For example the closure of The Spotted Dog [I put him right here!] and the attempted closure of The Rainbow…and I don’t think thats very supportive to the live music scene, not that Birmingham doesn’t have a fantastic live music scene…

[I asked him if things were better supported in Belfast] There’s a Northern Irish Music Industry Commission which supports a lot of bands, bands like Snow Patrol and Ash up to the forefront….There’s a lot of festivals happening in Belfast as well, which is great.  Every Sunday they have a street festival the Festival of Fools…here they’ve got that every weekend…there’s something going on.  I feel there’s a real buzz about Belfast at the minute.

I think for me in Birmingham I attempted to get things going and really, in the end, I realised I’d be better off where it’s already going…Closure of venues, things like that, it’s not conducive to a good live music scene. It’s a shame really. Apart from that I think Birmingham’s got some fantastic stuff going on there.  But it needs to be nurtured.

Both cities have amazing music scenes – there’s no looking at the two and saying one is alive whilst the other is dead.  You only have to take a look at the BiNS Brum Music Map to realise we’ve got a great thing going on.  But that great thing isn’t well supported or encouraged.  Instead obstacles are put in its way – it’s hindered to the point where it damages external perceptions of Birmingham.  I was discussing the whole Rainbow issue with a friend of mine, who replied with such a nail-on-the-head comment I had to write it down:

I can’t believe the way this city council approaches city living – come and move into the city, complain about the noise and get everything shut down so’s you’ve got a really dull city that won’t ever win Capital of Culture.

So there we have it – Belfast wins the first #brumvsbelfast round because, although Birmingham has some amazing stuff like Supersonic and the Flyover Show, it also has ridiculous nonsense like the Fiddle & Bone, The Spotted Dog and The Rainbow. Nice one, Birmingham City Council.

Join me for a drink in The Rainbow tomorrow evening from 6.30pm to support landlord Kent Davis in his fight against the Noise Abatement Order and later watch Joel’s uncle Paul Murphy rock the house, singing with The Destroyers.

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