Everyone knows that the Irish have an extremely enviable literary history. But what do most know of the details? Can you quote any Brendan Behan? Apart from having nothing to declare from his genius what else did Oscar Wilde have to say? Was Ulysses a sea-faring Sinbad type character?
This year the St Patrick’s Festival aims to provide an easy introduction to such matters by hosting it’s inaugural Literary Festival. Members of the community will be reciting some favourite Irish poems and prose and providing a little insight into a treasure trove that has remained in a darkened room for many of us.
This free event is due to take place at The Old Crown Inn on Tuesday March 16th at 7pm. If you’d like to get involved, why not come along to The Spotted Dog at 6pm next Tues 23rd Feb to chat event plans in the building with fellow literary souls?
I’m liking the sound of this very much – Kent Davis is planning a live literature event during Saint Patrick’s Day (or the corresponding weekend – date and venue tbc) which will be a tribute to the superb Irish literary canon.
Readers can perform their own chosen favourites and/or inspirations – and from a list that involves Behan, Beckett, O’Brien(s), O’Casey, Wilde, Synge, Doyle, Banville, Enright, MacCabe to name but a few, taking the modern with the classics – the possibilities, as they say, are many.
If you are interested in performing at this event email cowcud2001@yahoo.co.uk or comment on the Wrote Under blog post.
In the meantime, to get your New Year fix of live poetry and that, join the Wrote Under crew at their open mic event on Sunday Jan 17th at The Adam and Eve from 3pm onwards.
All welcome, free in, raffle, anything goes.. poetry, comedy, stories, karoke, drama, dance and a damn good time.
LOCAL HEROES: BIRMINGHAM, UK – A great round-up of the best of Birmingham’s music scene, which The Rainbow naturally features in:
The Rainbow is Birmingham’s epicentre for hipsters, thugs and actual creative types. Picture Andy Warhol’s factory if it was run by a drunken ex-boxer and covered in illegible tags, crude graffiti and vomit, all the while being sound tracked by pulverizing bass frequencies.
This email from Kent Davis, the adorably pantomime rock ‘n’ roll landlord of The Rainbow, deserves publishing in it’s entirety. I must warn you he swears like it’s all big and all clever. Aw, bless.
Well what a year it has been.
Street parties, noise abatement orders, Raise the roof parties, license suspensions, Joss Stone’s, UB40′S and too many memorable nights to remember (as with the 60’s – if you remember it – you weren’t there).
How can we round things off and demonstrate our gratitude to those that matter most – the unyielding support of Rainbowheads young and old – be it our promoters, artists who have performed, friends who come regularly, residents who have supported our campaigns – or those who have just discovered us for the first time.
Simple. Do what we no we can do best. Throw a motherfucker of a motherfucker of a party. Anyone who came to the Rainbow Birthday bash (in the dim distant past of April) – knows just how good these can be. Format will be similar – we will be giving personal invitations to the dearly beloved, arranging a free champagne reception, free hog roast and 30 dj’s from our best loved Rainbow brands – all of whom will be restricted to a 10 track playlist (we will set the criteria) – either in the bar, courtyard or the lovely heated Rainbow Marquee on the street outside the pub. And of course you will all be expected to come in fancy dress – 70’s style (music/film/tv/fashion etc).
FRIDAY DECEMBER 11TH. KEEP THE DATE FREE. CONTACT US FOR INVITES.
If you’re lucky enough to make it to the A-list, be sure to dress like Kent on a good day and party like it’s 1979 in order to Keep Digbeth Vibrant!
The Hearing Aid: Radio 4…Rainbow Nil – Many thanks to The Baron for posting this link to Radio 4’s You And Yours on Fri 17th July, which features the fight to save The Rainbow.
‘It’s a great little feature, again starring your friend and mine Martin Mullaney, Birmingham’s Cabinet member for Leisure, Sport and Culture. That’s a joke right? Will he not rest until the place is another nice little apartment block? Clearly not. Anyway, have a listen, it’s about 15minutes in.’
It is indeed a great piece, also featuring interviews with Rainbow landlord Kent Davis, local Music Producer John Mostyn, and UB40’s Brian Travers who states ‘The Rainbow represents the beating cultural heart of Birmingham.’ It also, very fairly, shows the other side of the coin in an interview with Abacus tenant Adam, who describes living there as ‘like being in the pub’.
The Stirrer – News that matters, campaigns that count for Birmingham, The Black Country and beyond – The Rainbow gets some surprise support from Birmingham Conservative councillor Robert Alden. There were also more optimistic noises coming from The Rainbow Facebook support group after landlord Kent Davis was invited to a meeting at the Council House on Friday with regeneration chief Clive Dutton.
Landlord Kent Davis is also sounding a little more optomistic after his meeting with Clive Dutton:
“Finally it looks as though some common sense may be being applied to this emotive subject. Clive Dutton (Director of planning and regeneration) and Cncllr Martin Mullaney organised a meeting attended by Jaqui Kennedy (Head of Regualtory services), Cllr Ernie Hendricks (who is looking at a music policy for Birmingham), myself and other interested parties. This was a first of its kind and more are needed if in Mr Dutton’s own words we are ‘to satisfactorily navigate our way through the current issues through good collaboration and common sense’.”
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.
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.
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.
“…even from the residents’ point of view, they should not be in a position to make complaints as those flats should not have been built in the way they were.
“There was no noise survey done and we are reaping the effects of that now – Environmental Protection are having to bear the brunt of it in the same way as we are.”
