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September 21, 2015September 21, 2015

OPINION: Jeremy Corbyn, new son of the media circus

It’s not often I agree with Jeremy Vine, but whilst listening to his Radio2 show on 14^th Sept I managed to squeeze in a small nod of agreement.

The response in question, m’lud, was to his comment “…I feel, as journalists, we mustn’t (underestimate him) either. There’s this whole thing going on about they can’t win the next election. We’re not part of that; he can win the next election, so let’s start at that point and see what happens…”(32mins 44secs)

Jeremy Vine was talking about the newly, overwhelmingly, appointed Labour leader, and the media’s oddly McCarthy flavoured response to his snowball election. And I agree, wholeheartedly; although my solidarity was marred by the title of Vine’s show that day being ‘Jeremy Corbyn and Robots.’ Followed two days later with ‘PMQs and pig shootings.’

I should point out here I am not a member of the Labour party. I am not a member of any political party. I last voted in 1997. I am, by sad default, deeply suspicious of any mandate from any mouth on any hustings – taking the somewhat unhelpfully sniper position of armchair commentator. And I’m even arrogant enough to admit it, go me. But the Labour leadership has been a soap opera since the Brown Bounce, with the recent Corbyn Christmas Special an especially addictive cliff hanger. And I am, once again, to use the parlance of the day, engaged.

I work in media (dharlings) and so have an eye somewhat focused on the hidden content. My first role in a PR agency was to read three red tops and two broadsheets a day, and write a summary report for my co-workers – identifying the media opportunities for our clients, alongside the bedfellows of the publishing house and the editor’s political/personal predilections. It was an eye opening experience, one that has made me both intensely aware of the shifting public domain and an irritating person to challenge after a pint and half of cider.

But the volley of Red Scare, both during the Labour leadership election and its subsequent shadow cabinet reshuffle (ha, childishly undemocratic exodus) has stumped even me. I mean, I doubt Paul Dacre is on Tom Watson’s Friends & Family but there was, is, such absurdity coming from some UK column inches at the moment it’s difficult to know where to start. So let’s start with Dacre, specifically his Sunday front page on the day before the aforementioned Jeremy Vine show – pictured above; click here or on the thumbnail (right) for the full story.

My favourite line, although it was hard to choose, was ‘…teetotaller celebrated in the pub by singing socialist anthem The Red Flag…’ I bet Simon Walters actually came a little after writing that one.

But the ‘left wing’ media have been just as blindsided, many seeming to opt for the one trick pony approach as opposed to embracing what is, and what is very rare, actual politics. 59.5% of the votes were cast this man; The Guardian followed Corbyn’s first week as Labour leader with a series of often insipid op/ed pieces and tenuous attacks. 453 words went to the following story, titled ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s driver ‘pushed BBC cameramanover”

Read the copy. Watch the clip. Listen to the clip. Look at the picture. Now reread the copy, ringfencing the facts. Really?

So there I am – standing in my kitchen, shaking my head at Dennis Skinner (here’s a list of who the BBC could have asked on, told by The Independent’s own take on objective reporting) agreeing with Jeremy Vine and citing Michael Gove on the Andrew Marr show. Politics makes for strange bedfellows indeed

But 24hours is a long enough time, and with potentially half a decade between us and the next general election there will no doubt be a lot more media nonsense to navigate. The circus continues and the clowns start to cry.

I mean, I even laughed at a quote in the Daily Mail this week (thankfully, for my soul, one first published in The Huffington Post – following a blog post also worth reading) about a Birmingham MP crossing swords with the new shadow Secretary of State for International Development.

“People said to me they had always wanted to say that to her, and I don’t know why they don’t as the opportunity presents itself every other minute.”

A particularly inspired response to reactive press attention; one that (as well as making me laugh out loud) oddly also resonates with me politically. Albeit, again, from the comfort of my armchair, I’ve been shouting “fu*k off” at Diane Abbott for years.

Ed King is Editor of Birmingham Review. Follow him @EdKing2210

September 21, 2015September 20, 2015

INTERVIEW: PINS – Faith Vern

Words by Helen Knott / Pic courtesy of Bella Union

PINS bring their woozy, post Punk, Garage Pop to the Hare & Hounds on Tuesday 22nd September. Birmingham Review caught up with lead singer, guitarist and founder member, Faith Vern (née Holgate).

PINS formed in Manchester in 2011. Lead singer, Faith Vern, was fed up of being “the token girl in bands full of guys”, so she decided to find some women to form a band of her own.

Working through a mixture of friends of friends and recruits from, “posters we stuck around town” (‘new girl band forming in Manchester. Influences: The Jesus and Mary Chain…’) eventually she hit upon a mix of personalities that worked and PINS was formed. They found success, almost immediately; playing packed gigs and signing a record deal with Bella Union (also home to John Grant, Beach House and Flaming Lips) after self-releasing their first single, ‘Eleventh Hour/Shoot You’, in 2012 on their own Haus of PINS label.

PINS’ debut album, Girls Like Us – released through Bella Union in September 2013, showed a gnarly promise that went some way to living up to the early hype. Thier follow-up LP, Wild Nights, released earlier this year, marked a natural refinement in their sound (as Vern modestly puts it, “I mean, I’d hope it’s better. It feels better”), resulting in an album that’s either ‘an appealing mix of spikiness and swoon’ (The Guardian) or ‘ferociously pedestrian’ (Pitchfork), depending on which record review provider you prefer.

For Faith Vern a major development between the two albums was a very different recording process, with the band recording Wild Nights in the desert – at Joshua Tree’s Rancho de la Luna.

“The second record, Dave Catching (from Queens of the Stone Age) was directing and guiding us through it, whereas with the first one we did everything ourselves. Dave had a million pedals and would be like, “why don’t you try this one or this one?” He had amps that he thought would suit the sound and loads of equipment that he had collected over the years. I think we had more options and it’s fuller as well, with more instruments on there.”

Indeed, the recording of the second album is described by Faith as an “incredible” experience. “We only had seven days to do it. We landed in New York, lost all of our instruments, had a big stress about that, got them back then drove to Joshua Tree and met Dave Catching at 3 o’clock in the morning. Sophie and Anna stayed in literally a caravan and the rest of us were in this wooden out building thing… it was a very basic situation!”

Over the next seven days the band recorded intensively for 10 hours a day, but still managed to find some time for extracurricular activities. “There’s lots of weird stuff around there to go and see. And we managed to go and watch the Dandy Warholes play, which was really cool. The electricity went out, so they ended up playing acoustically and all the crowd was singing.”

PINS have toured America and Europe throughout the year in support of Wild Nights, including some support slots for Sleater-Kinney at their comeback UK shows. Despite the continual gigging, this is PINS‘ first gig in Birmingham in 2015 – with Birmingham Review’s net sadly slipping past their last time in the city.

Faith has fond memories of a cramped evening at The Sunflower Lounge “in the early days”, but what can we expect from their gig at the Hare & Hounds?

“It will be loud, fun. I hope it will be high energy. We’re playing all of the songs but two off the new album, then some off the first album and even a couple that are even older than that, from our first EP. Anyone’s welcome to come and dance with us and if they want to sing along they can sing along, if they want to get on the stage they can get on the stage. I feel that the more the audience gives us the more that we give back.”

After the current tour, PINS will support post-Punk icons Gang of Four. There’s also some more American dates in the pipeline, and the band have already started on songs for their third album.

“We’ve started messing around with a few songs. I can’t really say what category it would be in but I’d like to some something less Garage Rock, something more developed… It’s at the fun stage at the moment because we feel no pressure to have album three ready right now, so we’re just playing around and experimenting.”

PINS play the Hare & Hounds on Tuesday 22 September, as presented by This is Tmrw. For direct info and online tickets, visit http://hareandhoundskingsheath.skiddletickets.com/event.php?id=12452394

For more on PINS, visit http://www.wearepins.co.uk/

For more fromthe Hare & Hounds, visit http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk/

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For more from This is Tmrw, visit http://thisistmrw.co.uk/

For more from Bella Union, visit http://bellaunion.com/

September 19, 2015

BREVIEW: Girlpool @ Hare & Hounds, 11.09.15

Words by Helen Knott, pic courtesy of Wichita Recordings

Have you ever had a best friend? You spend all day together at school, but still need to chat on the phone all evening. You like the same music and films, you discuss boys or girls you fancy and your hopes for the future. You share everything.

This sort of friendship is the steady foundation that LA born band Girlpool is built on. These best friends formed a band a couple of years ago when teenagers Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad hit it off at a gig. Since then they have relocated to Philadelphia, released an album, and have received plenty of press for some rather explicit songs (sample lyric: “It’s not enough to watch a movie/Eat me out to American Beauty”).

As the duo amble on stage at the Hare & Hounds they don’t have the air of upstart teenage rock stars. They look like they might be in the middle of a country hike, or perhaps a clowning workshop; I’m talking dungarees, stripes, sensible shoes and cardigans. But this, along with an involved conversation with a girl in the audience about haircare, just serves to create a relaxed atmosphere. It’s like you’re hanging out with a couple of mates and they’re playing you a few songs that they’ve been working on.

With just two of them in the band, Girlpool keep themselves musically straightforward, utilising just a bass, guitar and vocals. Embracing the Punk spirit, simple single note guitar lines are replicated in the bass, with rarely more than three chords in a song. But despite the simplicity, the music isn’t unrefined; each word and note is thoughtful and considered. With such limited musical accompaniment,the lyrics and melodies are foregrounded. The songs explore all the big themes: love, gender, aging, racism… There’s a melancholy throughout, for example, in ‘Cherry Picking’, “Cos lovers turn to strangers/ Everyone always has to go”.

One of the most interesting songs is their album’s title track, ‘Before the World was Big’. As usual, most of the guitar part is played one note at a time, and it’s quietly hypnotic. The words explore the unsettling transition from childhood to adulthood; the streets in your neighbourhood you’ve walked, “one hundred, one million, billion, trillion times…” are haunted with memories, and they seem different now, because you are different. The song thoughtfully captures a wistful mourning for the routine and safety of childhood, mixed with excitement for what’s ahead.

The strength of Girlpool lies in the friendship between Tucker and Tividad. This is a best friend relationship externalised and channeled into a band. The result is a complete clarity of vision; they sing and play in unison because they have the same experiences and the same things to say.

Alas, all of us who have had a childhood best friend know that these relationships are too intense to last. They gradually become less important as real life – jobs, university, relationships – kicks in. Hopefully, for Girlpool, embarking on tours around the world and making records, real life isn’t going to kick in for another few albums at least.

For more on Girlpool, visit http://girlpoolmusic.com/

For more from the Hare & Hounds, visit http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk/

September 17, 2015September 17, 2015

BREVIEW: International Comic Expo @ The Studio 05-6.09.15

Words & pics by Olly MacNamee

I’ll warn you now, many of the names in this review of the International Comics Expo (ICE) you might not know – unless you are passionate about comics and know your Kirby from your Ditko. Because what ICE isn’t, is a pop-cultural carnival posing as a comic con.

ICE is a comic-con that focused squarely on all things comic. By filling their roster with so many fan favourite creators, ICE allowed us (the fans) to meet our heroes and talk to them one to one; creators of characters that have become household names and cherished memories. Judge Dredd creators John Wagner and Carlos Esquerra made a rare joint appearance, as well as legendary Iron Man artist and storyteller, Bob Layton, Watchmen co-creator, Dave Gibbons, and Walking Dead artist, Charlie Adlard. And that was just the tip of the pencil.

ICE was also a chance for the attending speakers and luminaries to socialise with one another, as well as with their fans. There were no airs and graces on show, no raging egos and all guests were easily approachable. Indeed, knowing that Bob Layton doesn’t get paid a cent in royalties for a lot of the Iron Man merch that the Disney/Marvel juggernaut churn out, I was worried he wouldn’t sign my huge Iron Man canvas. But he did, even posing with the beast. Thanks Bob, you just made my already limited edition print even more limited (one of one, by my reckoning) and a grown man childishly happy. Now imagine that multiplied by the 700 visitors to the venue – double the numbers ICE welcomed in 2014.

The Studio venue, on Cannon St in Birmingham City Centre, was brimming with the Old Masters of comics over several floors – such as inkers Joe Rubinstein and Hunt Emerson, as well as the new Renaissance talents such as John Royle and Declan Shalvey. Wherever you turned, you were likely to bump into the great or the good of the comic book world, from both the UK and America. ICE was also a place for new voices, new names, and independent creators to get on the ladder. Many who were selling on the Saturday (such as Rees Finlay, launching his The Indie Project magazine) were also present on the Sunday – when ICE transformed, like an Autobot, into Comics Uncovered and a set of seminars, workshops and networking events presented by many of the comic book pros already mentioned.

We got the chance to go behind the drawing board, so to speak, and listen to tips from the likes of Dr Who storyboard and comic book artist, Mike Collins, DC Comics group editor, Jim Chadwick and inker extraordinaire, Joe Rubinstein – all ready to cast forth their psalms of success unto us in attendance at this alternative Sunday service. After all, in this, we were all believers.

Throughout the day editors from DC and the newly formed comic book company, Aftershock Comics, Mike Marts, reviewed aspiring artists’ portfolios. One pair I met, newbies with a fire in their bellies – Joe and Angus – took on board each and every nugget of advice, immediately soaking it up with their own plans to produce their own comic. It was clear this dynamic duo left inspired and fired up; I can’t wait to see what they produce.

Attending as both a fan (on the Saturday) and a budding comic book wannabe (on the Sunday) the ICE/Comics Uncovered weekend gave me two different, but pertinent perspectives – both of which I enjoyed immensely for what it taught me and for whom I met. People I would unlikely meet again, if not for Shane Chebsey and his hard working crew (and a special big thanks to Claire, who was willing to keep my daughter entertained while I ran around like The Flash grabbing guests).

And as for the booty, the convention plunder, I didn’t do too badly either. As well as my aforementioned signed limited edition Iron Man, I picked up a wicked sketch by locally based DC artist, Phil Winslade – depicting the anti-Justice League of America, The Crime Syndicate. Having only asked for the one character of his choosing, Phil drew the whole gang. This kind of candor, genuine interest and generosity summed the whole weekend up for me.

They say you should never meet your heroes, but when I met mine – over the ICE/Comics Uncovered weekend, they often went above and beyond what they needed to do. That good will, friendliness and open arms to us fans made this one of the best cons of the year so far.

ICE came, saw and put the comics back into comic cons. And with more local cons becoming a feature of Birmingham’s social calendar (with the Birmingham Comic Fest in April at the Edgbaston Cricket Ground) expect to see more comic related features in the near future from all of us here at Birmingham Review.

Next up, the big MCM weekender in November at the NEC. Keep ‘em peeled and stay tuned for a preview of that ‘un too. After all, word on the street is that a certain Bionic Man may be in attendance.

For more details on the International Comic Expo (ICE), visit https://internationlcomicexpo.wordpress.com/

For more venue details, visit http://www.studiovenues.co.uk/conference-venues/birmingham/birmingham-conference-venue.htm

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LOST REVIEW 2015 – BIRMINGHAM REVIEW’s annual anthology will be available to purchase from Friday 27th November, online or though selected venues & outlets. Watch the website for more details.

September 16, 2015September 22, 2015

THE GALLERY: Moseley Folk Festival ’15 @ Moseley Park 04-06.09.15

Words by Ed King / Pics by Rob Hadley – Indie Images

It’s now officially autumn; the Moseley Folk Festival has been & gone – leaving only the turning leaves and an occasional plastic beaker floating though the suburban park venue. And winter is coming… with only a couple of fireworks and toffee apples to keep us all distracted.

Did you go? Did you enjoy it? Can you remember anything past Saturday lunchtime? We’re The Monkees as irritating/exciting as you thought they might be? Questions, questions…

For a full Birmingham Review you’ll have to wait until Helen Knott shares her two Moseley Folk cents in our LOST REVIEW 2015 anthology, alongside Olly MacNammee’s Public Enemy input from Mostly Jazz – available for purchase from Fri Nov 27^th.

In the meantime, the terminatoresque one-man-picture-show that is Rob Hadley has taken a bevy of beautiful snaps, which we have dutifully hovered up into a pretty extensive display.

Click here, or on any of the relevant links, to see THE GALLERY of Moseley Folk Festival ’15 in full.

N.B. Rob is only human, apparently, so there may not be every band from the three day festival in there. But it’s certainly enough to get your cyber chops around until the LOST REVIEW 2015 is available from Fri Nov 27th.

Spritiualized @ Moseley Folk Festival ’15

With a strobe so intense it made a Birmingham Mail photographer physically sick, the Friday night headliner also came draped in dry ice and light. Not the easiest set to shoot, but by the power of a digital SLR and the meticulous manual hands of Mr Hadley, there were a few appropriately shiny moments between the blackouts. Well what do you expect this close to mushroom season.

Du Blonde @ Moseley Folk Festival ’15

As Rock & Roll as you’d expect at a Folk festival, the Woolly Mammoth de-robe and onstage antics of Du Blonde made for some pretty sexy pics – in many senses of the word. Plus there’s nothing like a peroxide Punk staring down a family friendly front row. Check THE GALLERY for the obligatory guitarist double-back-kick-jump too; what a public performance should be made of.

Gaz Coombes @ Moseley Folk Festival ’15

With Wolverine prowess and a set of celebrity gnashers that could swallow Cliff and the Osmonds in a single smile, Gaz Coombes was seemingly made out of clay to play music on stage. Now on his second solo endevour, the ex-Supergrass front man has been singing loud & proud from his new album, Matador, which came out at the start of 2015. And here’s a pic or two to prove it.

Straw throwing @ Moseley Folk Festival ’15

Part of the Cut A Shine Sunday hoedown; nothing says traditional Folk like a banjo, several pints of cider and assaulting people with bales of hay. Grab your partner by the hand and cover them in straw. Mild mannered mayhem in Moseley Park, the risk assessment must have been a giggle to write.

The Polyphonic Spree @ Moseley Folk Festival ’15

And at the other end of the Spititualised rainbow we have… On the road celebrating the 15^th anniversary (kind of, sort of) of their debut album, The Beginning Stages Of…, The Polyphonic Spree helped close the Sunday night show at Moseley Folk Festival ’15. After their memorable headline set at Lunar ’14, this was a welcome return to the Moseley Folk fold for the ‘choral rock band from Dallas.’

For more about the Moseley Folk Festival, visit http://www.moseleyfolk.co.uk/

LOST REVIEW 2015 – BIRMINGHAM REVIEW’s annual anthology will be available to purchase from Friday 27^th November, online or though selected venues & outlets. Watch the website for more details.