The substandard pics I took are in the slideshow above. It was so much fun, especially when we thought up the idea for a Destroyers calendar – tasteful yet sexy shots of the Destroyers boys with strategically placed instruments. Fiona got started with shooting Mr September:
Destroyers Mr September by Katchooo
Lovely. Then we made our way to The Custard Factory, where art supplies shop The Bench were celebrating their 7th birthday with some sort of graffiti-athon thing.
Unfortunately some paint ended up in the pool, which meant murky waters for the cardboard coracle race in Sunday’s Digbeth O’Lympics. The Bench are recent additions to The Custard Factory, where they’ve been for a couple of months after moving from Quinton.
Before heading home I had a another look around Inkygoodness’ Wonderland exhibition in the Vaad Gallery.
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.
As you know, I pretty much missed out on the weekend, but thanks to the internet I get to see what happened all the same. I get to see pictures of pretty Irish dancers by Very Quiet via Created in Birmingham:
And I get to see the parade on YouTube.
The crowd awaits expectantly and here it comes! St Patrick on a bus:
St Patrick ditches his bus for a tractor:
How do the dancing girls curl their hair like that?:
Possibly the most bored looking carnival queens I’ve ever seen:
The idiot, bum-baring element, and probably the reason for the street drinking ban the Big Cat Group were so disappointed with. The Doyenne of Digbeth is not impressed with the King of Stourbridge:
These guys were probably some of the people who made Digbeth High street look like a zombie film set later that night. It was like 28 Days Later, with the infected blindly chasing after taxis.
Also check out Midge Diabolik’s Flickr set of the St PatROCKS stage on Bradford Street, which has some photos of The Destroyers in full force.
Created in Birmingham » Fazeley Studio Launch – Katie Spragg has gathered together photos, reviews and anecdotes of the swanky launch party, as well as this film of The Destroyers playing. Is it me or do you always get a group of pretty young girls in floral dresses dancing at the front of a Destroyers gig?
Gigbeth, it’s some gigs, in Digbeth – It is! And I’ll be there with bells on! I can’t wait. Like Jon Bounds, I’m looking forward to seeing the 4Talent line-up and The Destroyers. If you’re a fan of The Destroyers, catch Mama Matrix at The Rainbow tomorrow night, who are in the front bar as part of the Consider It Done Gigbeth Fringe event. I remember seeing them years ago when they were ‘Mama Matrix and The Destroyers’. Not sure why they split into two, but both bands are still of a similar, mental vein.
Another Byte Of Banality: S.A.D Blog Entry – Poor, depressed Midge. Perhaps he’s coming down with this cold that’s working its way around Digbeth. Yes, I like to break the big local news – there’s a cold going around Digbeth. All the dancers at ACE dance and music are coughing away, including my flatmate. This does not bode well for my big Gigbeth weekend and I’m not happy about it!
Custard Factory – Punch announce BASS09 theme: Inspired by Africa and Africans – ‘The aim of this year’s theme is celebrate and explore Africa’s influence on the arts scene. Working with mainstream and grassroots organisations, we will also be encouraging a broad range of audiences to participate in and experience the global impact of African cultural expression.’
