Harleighblu on MySpace Music – Harleighblu is a soulful young singer who’ll be performing in The Spotted Dog this Thursday 6th August at 8pm. John Tighe has asked that we all ‘Come and marvel for free. See what Nina Simone was like at 17years old.’
Archaeologists have uncovered remarkable evidence that stone age man lived in the centre of Birmingham more than 10,000 years ago. The settlers used basic flint knives to hunt and cut meat and used fire to clear areas of woodland for grazing and growing food.
They then threw their flint knives away outside Curzon Street Station in Eastside. Does this mean we’ll have a Time Team in Digbeth? Fingers crossed.
The Rainbow was packed on Friday night with people waiting to see Kent Davis react to Birmingham City Council’s serving of a Noise Abatement Order against his much-loved live music venue. And what a stirring, impassioned speech it was – people were saying things like ‘Henry V’ and ‘Agincourt’ afterwards. If you missed it (and trust me, you missed something a bit special), Pete Ashton caught the whole thing on his Flip camera:
I caught up with Kent afterwards, who described himself as ‘overwhealmed’ with the level of support he’s received:
I also had a chat with Digbeth Residents’ Association Chair Adam Crossley, who mused that The Rainbow had really caught the public imagination and was possibly a ‘better platform’ for tackling the issue than The Spotted Dog was.
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Normally, I would link to all the other online media regarding this nonsense around about here. But I don’t need to. Pete Ashton’s gone and done the job for me by creating a thread on The Rainbow’s Facebook group.
Music Is Not Pollution | Rich Batsford – A fantastic film, which needs to be watched and circulated by everyone, about the noise pollution nonsense threatening our local music venues, which I’ll let Rich describe in his own words:
A rather beautiful little film from the Project X team in response to the continued threat to the music and wider community in Birmingham. Save our Pubs!!
In Moseley and Digbeth, very small numbers of people who happen to live near centers of musical activity might be in real danger of closing down venues which are of benefit to thousands. Its an absurd situation, but all too real for those involved.
Music and pubs are always a good combination, whatever Environmental Health might think, so on Sunday I went to join the Notorious ‘choir with a difference’ on their Mind the Craic! crawl of The Old Crown, The Kerry Man and the Spotted Dog.
It was a lovely afternoon, starting off gently with traditional folk tunes in The Old Crown. Band Elfynn were ‘bridging the gap between the traditional and the contemporary’ in The Kerry Man and their jigs got people in the dancing mood.
Spotted Dog landlord John Tighe took a bit of a shine to Elfynn’s Louisa Davies-Foley. “I love girls who play the violin, it’s almost as erotic as the harp.”
In the choir’s last stop at The Spotted Dog, Notorious sang re-worked popular music such the Boomtown Rats’ I Don’t Like Mondays in the above video. After they finished everyone got stuck into some delicious stew.
It was such a lovely idea – a pub crawl with a cultural difference. Hopefully there will be a lot more of this type of thing to help Keep Digbeth Vibrant.
The Spotted Dog « Inspiraculum – Artist Melinda Scwakhofer talks about her visit to Digbeth and discovering the Spotted Dog. She took some brilliant photos whilst she was there which culminated in this artwork commissioned by landlord John Tighe, which you can now see hanging on the wall just by the back entrance. Go take a look, it’s a lovely, tactile, double-sided piece.
Tighe wanted to post an ironic “thank you” to Birmingham’s planning department, environmental health and the developer Concept Design Solutions who he feels are damaging the historic Irish quarter.
He also planned a sarcastic reference to one un-named local responsibe for leading the complaints against the area’s traditional late night pub and club culture.
Parade organisers decided to cut the ad, with Chair Karen Barry saying: “The St Patrick’s Festival and Parade is a celebration for the city and the people who live here.
“The committee feel that the Festival Brochure is not the platform for furthering political agendas.
Meet the Spotted Dog’s resident DJ The Doctor, so called on account of his stripy scarf. Every Friday afternoon he heads to the Spotted Dog on Warwick Street with his collection of 78’s to play on John Tighe’s vintage record players. Catch him spinning some tunes on Fridays from about 5-ish.
Here’s some Flip footage of traditional Irish music in the Spotted Dog pub. John Tighe said there’ll be tonnes more of the same this Saturday night and his wife Anne is under instructions to make Irish stew for at least 40 musicians. The musicians play there regularly every other Monday, the next one being 22 December.
Eastside Gallery Launches One-Day Comic – The BIrmingham Mail announces a trat for the comic book fans: ‘FRIDAY 5th December sees the launch of a One-Day Comic at the newly opened Eastside Projects, a new artist-run space as public art gallery for the city of Birmingham. Conceived by Berlin based artist Henrik Schrat…has collaborated with twelve artists to create twelve comic books over the past six months. The original pages and completed comics will be presented in the main gallery at Eastisde Projects as part of an installation crossing genres from Schrat’s comic world into the wild west film sets of Shezad Dawood’s solo exhibition taking place in the gallery. Schrat will present large-scale drawings in the space and arrange the gallery as a whole into a reading room.’
WIN TICKETS – STARLIGHT – If you’re not old like me and the very idea of going to this doesn’t make your head hurt, take part in the competition for free Starlight tickets at the Custard Factory on Sat 20 Dec.
