Interviews Archives - Page 5 of 16 -

April 21, 2018April 20, 2018

INTERVIEW: Juice Aleem

Words & illustration by Emily Doyle

It’s the beginning of Birmingham’s short-lived heatwave. Tilt, the pinball bar, has its doors open and the clatter of the machines echoes into the street. The table is laid out with marker pens, various notebooks, and a black coffee. Juice Aleem arrives and orders a stout.

Juice Aleem has been a key figure in the Birmingham hip hop scene since the mid-nineties. He’s fronted Big Dada collective New Flesh, hosted for Ninja Tune, and collaborated with Coldcut, Hexstatic, and Adam Freeland. 2016 saw the release of his album, Voodu Starchild, and a book on Afrofuturism. He is a director of B-Side Hip Hop Festival. This weekend, he joins Sid Peacock’s Surge Orchestra for a performance at mac to launch Surge in Spring II Festival.

“It’s my first time performing with Sid,” tells Aleem. “We’ve done a few things in the past, like me reviewing some of their gigs. I became aware of them around the time they were doing a tribute to Sun Ra, and I’m quite a Sun Ra fan and someone was like ‘Oh they’re doing this and maybe they could use you and you could meet Sid and you might like this…’ So, that was a two or three years ago and since then we’ve kept in contact. This is part of the culmination of that.”

The performance is titled ‘Rivers of Love’. It’s a reflection on Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, delivered fifty years ago this week in Birmingham.

“We thought a lot of people are going to concentrate on the negatives because it wasn’t the exactly most happy time,” explains Aleem, “so instead of that, let’s look at the positives of the time. Some of them are obvious, some are less so. The country that my father came to, and then my mother later, from two different islands in the Caribbean – when they came here, a bell pepper was something that was hard to get hold of. A bell pepper, as innocuous as a bell pepper is – it’s not spicy, but it only grows originally in certain parts of the world. It has to have sun, it has to have certain types of soil – and it wasn’t here in great amounts. I’m not saying people didn’t know what a bell pepper was, but it wasn’t in every meal. Like on a basic level, there’s a Caribbean food shop just there. We’re sitting here drinking beers and coffees and things. These kinds of beers and coffees in general don’t come from this country. But you know, we all drink coffee. We enjoy these things day in day out.”

“In a way though I understand his speech. I understand some of what he was getting at, though it’s very right wing. The funny thing is, it was Enoch Powell that actually made the call to bring people over here, that’s what people don’t understand. He was the main person to say ‘Hey, Nigeria, India, Jamaica, Trinidad, come over here, come help.’ He was important in that call, and afterwards he was like, ‘ah…’ And that’s what the speech actually entails. It wasn’t necessarily saying don’t come, it wasn’t necessarily saying you have to go home now, but it was saying you have to wear a bowler hat. He talks about how people speak, and learning to speak the Queen’s English. I’m paraphrasing here but like, ‘if you’re going to be here, be here like us. Don’t be too… dark’”.

When asked about the value of looking back at Enoch Powell’s speech, Aleem is quick to argue it’s cultural importance. “You have to analyse the past. That should be the reason we have history, not just to pass tests. I’m gonna quote Malcolm X: he says that most of the education we have is not an education, it’s an indoctrination. History especially – especially especially.

I think by now we should have learned some kind of lesson about invasion of people’s land and privacy, ownership, cultural hegemony. I think history is very important, and it’s important to address in it in an artistic manner. It’s incumbent upon artists to do something – you don’t have to be the most knowledgeable. You don’t have to be Public Enemy. You don’t have to be Bob Dylan. You don’t have to get yourself arrested, but at least address certain things within your understanding of the world. Whatever your issue is, whether it’s just being allowed to skateboard in a certain park – that’s your politics.”

Aleem’s own politics are rooted in the Afrofuturist movement. The author of 2016’s Afrofutures and Astro Black Travel: A Passport to a Melanated Future, he is eager to explain the label.

“I think Afrofuturism – let me say straight off, I’m not concerned with that title. It’s just a name for an idea or a concept or an emotion, and we often give things names that we can’t necessarily contain within those letters. It helps people understand… like the film Black Panther. I’ve had people come to me and say, ‘I get what you’re on about now – I’ve just watched Black Panther and I get it’.

Why did Picasso become a better artist by studying what they call primitivism and cubism, by going into African culture? The standard of European cultural so-called superiority is all based on African precepts. Mathematics, archaeology, language; it’s all from a dark skinned person somewhere, usually a dark skinned woman, funnily enough. So, then feminism features in, and intersectional feminism.”

While we talk, I’ve been making sketches for a portrait of Aleem. He looks over at what I’m working on and asks if he can sketch me too. Producing a case of markers, he gets to work. Aleem’s art style is a reflection of him – bold, unapologetic, but always endearing. It echoes eighties comic books, a recurring topic in our conversation. I ask why he feels drawn to the medium.

“I love Stan Lee and Jack Kirby,” tells Aleem. “Marvel not only made superheroes, they also took existing heroes because these aren’t owned by any copyright anymore, so you’ve got thousands of years of stories that you don’t have to pay for. You put Thor, the god of thunder from Norse mythology, you put him in to the premier superhero group of the sixties Marvel Comic Company, and this is perfect.

Superheroes already exist in mythology. One of the first heroes in East African mythology, where some people speculate we get the word ‘hero’, is Heru, or Horus. He’s already a superhero by virtue: ‘Oh my parents are kind of like gods, and I did this and I conquered that and I came back from death…’ Well, you’re a superhero. If you explain an angel to somebody without using the word, it would sound like a superhero. In west African mythology you have things called the orishas which are like gods, spirits, but lesser than the supreme. They have different attributes, this one can control the water, this one can do that. We would call those beings superheroes.

Since we’ve started calling superheroes ‘superheroes’, there’s been a lot of wars. Comics came to the fore particularly in the forties and fifties, times of world war. There’s a need in the human psyche to be saved. And as we’re, in a general, less religious, in the Judeo-Christian monotheistic sense, we might not call for Jesus anymore or Jehovah… we may call for Superman. We may call for Spiderman. And again, these archetypes already exist. Spiderman, Anansi, you know where I’m going. Superman is Kal-El – in Hebrew, ‘of god’. They’re already there.”

Juice Aleem is a font of knowledge on the lineage of the superhero archetype throughout civilisation. I ask him if it’s role within the Afrofuturist movement is a healthy one – does African/African Diaspora culture deserve a more varied representation in the future?

“I think Luke Cage is a representation of the black everyman,” answers Aleem. “Obviously, the everyman that got put through a chemical process that gives him bullet proof skin and super strong muscle strength, which obviously happens to most people… Actually, as much as I down it a little bit, I think that’s what Black Lightning’s good for. He’s got powers, but he’s very much a school teacher. I think that’s the problem with the programme. All the crescendos of the story are based in almost too normal a storyline for an African-American family. For me, personally, I’m happy to escape that. Do I need another story about black gangs, black-on-black violence, drug dealing? I think I might have seen that already.

That’s why Afrofuturism is important to me, more interesting, because it flips a different switch in your brain. Even if we consciously want to be friends with everybody, we are subconsciously going to be sexist. We are subconsciously going to be misogynist. We are subconsciously going to be homophobic, or racist. There’s certain things in our upbringing, in our society that are going to trigger us. And that’s why I think it’s important to do things that are going to challenge us, not only in our documentation but in our experimentation.”

Juice Aleem and Surge Orchestra present ‘Rivers of Love’ at mac on Saturday 21^st April. Doors open for the mac Theatre at 1pm, with ticket priced at £10 / £9.10 – for direct event information and online ticket sales, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk/event/surge-in-spring-ii-juice-aleem-and-surge-orchestra

For more on Juice Aleem, visit www.juicealeem.co.uk

For more on Sid Peacock and Surge Orchestra, visit www.surgeorchestra.com

For more from the mac, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk

March 21, 2018March 21, 2018

INTERVIEW: Rews

Words by Ed King / Pics by Paul Reynolds

“We were talking about this the other day… our second sold out show in the city. It’s absolutely fantastic. We’re so excited that there are people returning show after show to come and see us; it’s such an amazing atmosphere, we honestly can’t wait to come back.”

I’m catching up with Shauna Tohill and Collette Williams, aka Rews, as they travel from a debut gig in Leeds to another hot ticket show at the Sugarmill in Stoke. Birmingham is a few notches down on the tour post, with the rock powerhouse returning for their second consecutive sold out show in the city on 22^nd March – this time playing at the well-loved and well-programmed Hare & Hounds, with local support from You Dirty Blue and P.E.T.

“It’s been really good,” explains Collette Williams – as I ask about the rest of Rews‘ tour, “and it’s nice to be able to get to some places that we haven’t yet been to before – we haven’t actually played in Leeds before, which is crazy. I used to go to Uni in Leeds and this is the first time I’ve been back in about eight years.”

“Yeah, it’s been really brilliant,” adds Shauna Tohill. “We were just a bit sad about having to reschedule some of the gigs to being with, we now have new dates for them, but it’s been amazing so far.”

Rews keep a pretty rigorous live and tour schedule, with a focused work ethic both on and off the road. But beginning their UK tour as the tabloid titled ‘beast from the east’ closed off half the country proved to be somewhat of a challenge. “The two dates we had to postpone were because people just physically get to the venues,” continues Tohill, “the roads were all closed. That’s was Newcastle and Glasgow… we’d never been to Glasgow before either.”

Back touring the UK and Ireland, still on the crest of “this Pyro wave”, Rews have had a significant year – not only with the release of their stellar debut album, but also racking up some serious time on the national airwaves. And not just the rock stations either, for a while it seemed Rews had polished off their shotguns and taken over Broadcasting House.

“It’s been incredible, but so strange,” tells Williams. “We keep getting messages from friends and family saying, ‘I’m in my car, driving back from work, and you’re on the radio at five o’clock’. The DJs were really supportive too and took the time to find out about us. Apart from Scott Mills, who didn’t, then went on to tell everyone I was an alcoholic and flower arranger – he was like, ‘let’s just coin her with something’ which was quite hilarious.” But however they got through the BBC’s front door, or whatever floral self-destruction may or may not have happened in the green room, Rews’ time on the air has certainly bolstered their growing army of fans. Then again, a week of having your single (‘Your Tears’) pushed across the biggest broadcaster in the county should pay some dividends.

But time and tide wait for no radio playlist, and ‘Shake Shake’ is the latest Rews single – released in February and already building momentum. “A lot of people have been making comments about it,” explains Tohill, “and some have been comparing it to the older version that we had.” ‘Shake Shake’ was one of Rews’ original four singles, with the track first recorded and released in 2016. “but our ‘likes’ have gone up and you can see that reflected in people watching and interacting with it online. You can see that it’s been received well by people.”

“I guess we’ve got two different camps,” continues Williams, “we’ve got new fans who didn’t know the old version of it, but who love the energy of the new version. Then we’ve got the people who have been there from the start who can recognise it’s a different recording and a different sound. But when we play it live everyone loves it – it’s really energetic and they all get dancing to it, which is cool.”

Live gigs are where Rews undeniably make their mark, with such high octane and engaging shows you sometimes have to check there really are only two of them on stage. In your face Polyphonic Spree… But Pyro, Rews’ debut album that came out in November 2017 (read our Birmingham Review of Pyro here), is a ferocious first foot forward – an addictive ten track ‘avalanche’ of an album, with all the hallmarks of a rock classic in the making. Seriously, in about five years just wait for the listicles.

But Pyro also cemented their signing to Marshall Records, as Rews were one of the first UK bands to appear on the iconic rock brand’s recently formed label. “It’s been good,” explains Williams, “they’re quite hands off in their approach, which allows us some creative breathing space. But we’ve been with them a year and we’ve grown together, so I think they’ll be trying to kick it up a notch now – more international stuff, us getting out and playing more places we haven’t been to. There’s some exciting stuff on the horizon.”

“We do have some news…” adds Tohill, “but nothing we can tell you about now.” I’m guessing, and hoping, it has something to do with America. Rews would kill it in America.

But world domination aside, there are other good fights to fight – with Rews recently being pretty proactive on International Women’s Day, appearing in various panel discussions and interviews, as well an all-female gig in Brighton (if you get a chance, read the Women Who Rock feature on Mels Jukebox).

“There’s a whole combination of things, it can be quite complicated,” explains Tohill, as I ask the uncomfortably obvious question about ‘issues facing women in the music industry today’. “But I think a lot of it is just getting the right kind of support and respect really. Collette and I both find we’re well supported and respected, but there’s just, you know… sometimes, things like when you get groped whilst your having your photos taken. It’s not really on. It’s fine to give someone a hug, and some caring touch, but not anything more than that.”

“I think it’s about opportunities as well,” continues Williams. “There’s been a lot that’s come out about the lack of female musicians appearing on festival line ups, and I think it’s about turning some of the attention onto opportunities and filtering that in from the ground level up. It’s about inspiring young women to get into music, to take up an instrument, because it’s important to get the balance right. Whilst there might not be enough females (in areas of the music industry) you don’t want to go too heavily to the other side and have this sense of entitlement – that you’ve been put on the bill just because someone’s trying to fill some kind of gender gap.”

“It feels like it might take a few years yet,” adds Tohill “but the more awareness we have and the more women that get involved in the music industry, the more you won’t even need gender as a factor and we won’t see that divide anymore.”

How do you feel when gender is used to describe Rews? Being called ‘the female Royal Blood’ isn’t a bad thing, but it’s still steeped in sexuality.

“We’ve talked about this a few times,” continues Tohill. “We don’t really mind, too much, but it depends in what way it’s being used. Again, it is going to take a few years, generations possibly, to take away the kind of ‘unique thing’ about being a female band. But we are a female band, so we don’t mind people referencing that if they’re not doing it in a derogatory way.”

“It works both ways too,” adds Williams, “we can use it in our favour – some people are still intrigued by it, in a positive sense. But it shouldn’t be used just for the sake of it because it’s not a describing factor about our music. Ultimately it would be great to drop the gender and for it not to be a factor at all.”

The first time I met Rews we spent, or rather I spent, perhaps too long fixating on a word in their press release. But I’m also aware that during this conversation I have, repeatedly, referred to these two women as ‘you guys’. So, we all have out part to play. But as far as journalism goes there are many words to describe Rews that have nothing to do with their gender and everything to do with their music. Feel free to fish out some superlatives from this feature, or Google ‘awesome’ and take your pick from the world wide web of synonyms.

But for now, I’ll settle for the following: ‘Rews’, ‘Hare and Hounds’, ‘Thursday 22^nd March’, ‘sold out’. And if there’s any word count left, ‘excited’ and ‘respect to Birmingham’s live music scene’.

‘Shake Shake’ – Rews

Rews perform at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) on Thursday 22^nd March, with support from You Dirty Blue and P.E.T – as presented by Metropolis Music and Birmingham Review. For direct event information, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit http://bit.ly/2IFpUon

For more on Rews, visit www.rewsmusic.com

For more on You Dirty Blue, visit www.youdirtyblue.com

For more on P.E.T, visit www.facebook.com/petbanduk

For more from Metropolis Music, visit www.metropolismusic.com

For more on the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath), including venue details and further event listings, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

November 22, 2017November 22, 2017

INTERVIEW: Lydia Brookes – Singing for Supper @ The Castle & Falcon 24.11.17

Words by Ed King / Pics courtesy of Lush Birmingham

On Friday 24^th November, The Castle and Falcon in Balsall Heath will be hosting Singing for Supper, a live gig with a somewhat stellar line up – You Dirty Blue, Sofa King, Alfresco Love Sounds, The Chalet Lines will all be performing for only a £5.50 door charge. For online ticket sales, click here.

With each act worth the ticket price to just see them on stage, you’ve got three. Not a bad way to spend your money on Black Friday.

But it gets better. Singing for Supper has been organised by the Lush Birmingham soap store to raise money for The Night Shelter – a Coventry based “safe place” that “provides aid to refugees, asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers – people with no recourse to public funds, which means they’re not entitled to any benefits or any help.”

Birmingham Review caught up with Lydia Brookes, one of the Singing for Supper promoters and a ‘Lush Ambassador’, to ask what made them foray into the world of music promotions on arguably the busiest retail day of the year.

“Homelessness is a huge problem,” explains Brookes, “we see ‘rooflessness’ every single day. It’s an issue close to our hearts at Lush and we wanted to work with this charity (The Night Shelter) because they’re part of such an important community resource”. The Night Shelter is one of the services of support available at the Coventry Peace House, a collection of renovated terrace houses that work on a portfolio of charitable endevours – including projects “to make the area more environmentally friendly, to give people safe spaces and places to learn,” tells Brookes. “We care a lot about this organisation because it’s so small but it’s doing so much. It’s quite unique and we really got behind their ethos”.

But this event is looking at a broader problem than just homelessness, which in itself is a growing killer on the bitter cold streets of the UK. Lush Rocks, a name born from the retailers move into charitable music promotions, hopes their Singing for Supper gig on Friday 24^th November will help raise both “money and public awareness” for the plight of those lost in the UK’s immigration cracks, whilst encouraging “people to think about the choices they’re make in and help in any way they can”.

“People sometimes don’t realise that asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work, or claim benefits, until their case has been heard,” explains Brookes, “so refused asylum seekers essentially have no options. Only if they’re in an absolute destitution can they apply for funds and even then it’s not guaranteed. The Night Shelter gives the people a warm place to sleep, it gives them beds, its gives people access to showers and hot meals.”

And what about the school of thought that is more anti-immigration to begin with? This is a prevalent issue in the UK, but one that can receive more divided and divisive attention than just straightforward compassion. “We respect everyone’s views,” tells Brookes, “but it’s worth remembering that a good deal of asylum seeker cases that are initially refused then get granted on appeal – and these are cases that should have been granted in the first place, with the administrations going back to them saying ‘you do have a viable claim and this should have been previously granted.’ Whatever your views are on asylum seekers and destitute refugees, we need to treat them as human beings. We have to view people as people, first and foremost.”

But charitable endevours aside, Singing for Supper is a gig simply well worth the door charge – especially with You Dirty Blue on the bill, a Tamworth alt-rock two piece who recently supported Wolf Alice on the first day of their UK tour and are pegged for big and bright things in 2018.

“We’re really excited,” explains Brookes, “especially about The Chalet Lines as it’s the solo act from one of the Lush Birmingham staff (Joseph Parker). Sofa King have a really funky vibe to them and we also got Alfresco Love Sounds. Then there’s You Dirty Blue who won’t be playing in small venues for long… this will be a good chance to see them in an ‘intimate’ setting.”

With all the acts “doing it voluntarily”, Singing for Supper at The Castle and Falcon on Friday 24^th November should be able to raise a decent chunk of change for The Night Shelter – a support service that is especially pertinent at this time of year.

And if you are fighting your way to bargain blissteria this Friday, Lush Birmingham are also asking for donations of “non-perishable food items with a high energy content, things like jam and sugar. Also simple toiletries, so toothpaste, tooth brushes, toilet roll. And blankets. Just think ‘if I had to get buy on very few things, what would I need’”.

It’s almost as if this time of year isn’t just about shopping for yourself…

Singing for Supper comes to The Castle & Falcon on Friday 24^th November, with You Dirty Blue, Sofa Kings, Alfresco Love Sounds and The Chalet Lines performing – as presented by Lush Rocks (from the Ambassadors Team at Lush Birmingham).

All money raised from the gig will go to support The Night Shelter at the Coventry Peace House – a shelter for refugees, asylum seekers and people who have ‘no recourse to public funds’. For online gig ticket sales, click here.

For more on The Night Shelter, visit www.naccom.org.uk/members/peace-house-night-shelter/

For more on Coventry Peace House, visit www.coventrypeacehouse.wixsite.com/coventry-peace-house

For more from The Castle & Falcon, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.castleandfalcon.com

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Lush Birmingham are also looking for donations of non-perishable food items, toiletries and FMCGs such as sugar, breakfast cereal, rice, jam, toothbrushes, toothpaste, cooking oil, instant coffee, toilet roll, or washing powder.

If you can’t attend the Lush Rock Singing for Supper event at The Castle & Falcon on Friday 24^th Nov, donations can be sent to the Lush Ambassadors Team at: Lush Birmingham, 23 New St, Birmingham B2 4RQ

To find out more about Lush Birmingham, visit www.uk.lush.com/shop/birmingham

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To learn more about the problems faced by asylum seekers coming to the UK and people who are ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’, please visit the following website for the Birmingham based Asylum Support and Immigration Resource Team (ASIRT) www.asirt.org.uk

November 20, 2017November 20, 2017

INTERVIEW: Gary Rogers – Birmingham Film Festival @ Mockingbird Cinema 23-26.11.17

Words by Heather Kincaid / Pics courtesy of Birmingham Film Festival

Following a successful debut in 2016, Birmingham Film Festival (BFF) returns this month with an event that promises to be even bigger and better than before. More time, more screenings and new submissions categories are among the things that indie film fans can look forward to this year, with music videos and un-produced screenplays now getting a look in. Ahead of its return to the Mockingbird Cinema, Birmingham Review spoke to BFF co-founder and co-director Gary Rogers.

“We’ve got a mixture of music videos, shorts, features, documentaries, animation – you name it. There’s a bit of just about everything, really. We’ve also added an extra day to the festival this year, so now we’re running for four days as opposed to three. Last year we screened 80 films, so this year there’ll be about 100.”

“Although we accept all sorts of films, in terms of themes, I was saying recently that I’ve noticed a significant increase this year in films about mental illness this year, whether it’s general health issues or things like dementia, which is all very topical at the moment.”

Formed by a group of friends and colleagues working within Birmingham’s burgeoning filmmaking scene, the project began as something of a risky venture. Recognising a gap in the market, Rogers had been toying with the idea of a Birmingham Film Festival for some time before it eventually got off the ground. At the time, however, none of the trio responsible for turning it into a reality had much experience of organising an event of this kind.

“I’d been talking about doing a local film festival for a long time, and in my head it was only going to be quite a small affair. But while I was out shooting a film called Enter the Cage, I ended up mentioning it to the director and stunt coordinator Dean [Williams] and Kevin [McDonagh], and it just went from there. It seemed amazing to us that as the second city, Birmingham didn’t already have its own film festival. I went home and Googled the URLs just to check they were available and somehow even they hadn’t been snapped up, so we decided to go for it!”

Small-scale, themed festivals such as last month’s Screening Rights Film Festival do exist in Birmingham, of course, but the Birmingham Film Festival is unique in its approach and scale. The closest thing the city has is perhaps Flatpack Festival, but even that has a distinctly different remit.

“Flatpack work in a different way to us – they’re mobile so they move around between different venues, and they’re also like a self-contained little company, hiring out equipment and things like that. They do a lot of themed evenings and mainstream film screenings, whereas our screenings are 100% new, low budget, indie films, submitted directly by filmmakers. And when I say low budget, I think the biggest budget feature I’ve seen so far was made for about £160,000, which is nothing really.”

Happily, things seemed to fall quite quickly into place, thanks in large part to widespread support from the local film community. Some of this was down to the strong network of industry contacts that the organisers had built up over the years, but backing also came from more unexpected quarters.

“Sindy Campbell from Film Birmingham has been great. It was funny because she actually got in touch with us. Somebody had heard about us and asked her in a meeting what she thought about Birmingham Film Festival, and at the time she didn’t know anything about it. So she got in touch to find out what it was all about, and since then she’s been behind us 100%. We’ve also got [Peaky Blinders creator] Steven Knight as our official patron. Hopefully we’ll get him appearing this year – last year he was too busy but it would be great if he’s available this time.”

“We’ve had some support from local colleges too. Because I do a bit of work with Pauline Quirke Academy on Saturday mornings, they actually sponsored us last year, and this year we’ve been speaking to BOA and Birmingham University as well.”

“As far as the venue goes, we came straight to the Mockingbird, and they’ve really helped us out a lot. We did get in contact with some other cinemas in Birmingham, but most of them cost a fortune. This place was perfect for us – not only was it affordable, they’ve also been really sympathetic and keen to be part of what we’re doing. And I think it’s been good coverage for them as well; everybody who came last year said how much they loved the venue and the artistic nature of it.”

In consequence, the festival flourished, attracting huge numbers of submissions from diverse genres and countries around the world.

“For our first year we kind of had the philosophy of go big or go home, and it worked out really well. We ended up with 400 films submitted from 30+ countries, so it was really international in reach. We also organised a nice, big gala for the awards, which sold out really quickly. Last year there were 120 people at the awards, so this year we’ve gone even bigger and hired a venue that will seat up to 200.”

But as with any major undertaking, it hasn’t quite all been plain sailing, particularly since everything has been a learning curve for its creators. Along the way, there have been creases to iron out, and of course, there’s still some way to go before they’re likely to start attracting national attention.

“The first year was really scary to be honest, with it being our first time and having so many people submitting. We had people travelling in from overseas – there was even a guy from Israel who came over with his own film crew – and we were constantly worried in case things didn’t work. Mostly everything went fine, but there were some hiccups. There was one foreign language film that we decided to show which turned out not to have any subtitles on the version we tried to screen, so in the end we decided to move on and leave that one out.”

New features this year have also required new methods of planning and implementation. For example, the Birmingham Film Festival 2017 is accepting submissions of un-produced screenplays as well as finished films, and at the time of writing it wasn’t yet confirmed if or how these might be presented to the public. That said, things are settling into their own natural rhythm, with each director finding his own niche based on individual strengths and experience.

“I think we’ve all got a little area that we mostly look after, although we do cross over. Because I’m normally a cameraman and techie, I tend to look after a lot of the admin relating to submissions, so once we know which ones we’ve chosen, I’ll get in touch with them and chase the forms and copy, as well as sorting out the schedule for the day.”

“Dean’s [Williams] speciality is stunt work and fight choreography, and he’s very much a people person. He has lots of contacts and he’s been going around trying to get people on board, particularly celebrities. He’s also the one that’s sorted out the hotel and venue for the gala evening.”

“Kev [McDonagh] is similar in that he knows a lot of people, but he’s been mostly focusing on getting us funding and sponsorship. Obviously it’s all self-funded, so we’re really reliant on what we get from submissions and sales. But last year we did at least manage to cover the costs and still have a little bit left over, and this year we’ve got some big backers, including Birmingham Bullring, which is brilliant.”

Better still, delegation has also been possible this year, with the recruitment of more people to help out with assessing submissions and public promotion, as well as a growing number of volunteers signing up to help out at the event itself.

“This year we’ve got a guy called Mikey who runs Mikey’s Movie World giving us a lot of coverage. We’ve also been speaking to the local media company Think Jam, they’re really keen to get on board as well.”

“We’ve also now got a little group of people going through submissions and sort of flagging them and rating them before we watch them, whereas last year we just did all of that ourselves, which wasn’t easy. It sounds great watching 400 odd films, but wow it’s a killer when you’re actually doing it!”

“And we’ve got no shortage of volunteers. Most of them are media students but we do get people emailing us all the time and it’s getting to the stage where we can’t actually take everybody! It’s great that we’ve got so many people who want to help out, but of course you don’t want them just sitting around bored when they arrive.”

Emboldened by early success, Rogers and his collaborators are now ambitious for the future of the festival, already looking into possibilities for expansion and further diversifying the range of events on offer in years to come.

“Through my involvement in the indie film scene, I have worked with people operating on slightly higher budgets – around the £400-500,000 mark, which is big enough to have known actors in them. For example, I worked on a film last year called Milk and Honey which had people from The Bill and Emmerdale and Coronation Street in it. I think the next step is to start bringing in premieres of some of those higher end indie films, which means you’ll also get some of the stars coming in and raising the profile a bit.”

“One of the things we haven’t really managed to do so far is fit in Q&As. A lot of the filmmakers were asking us if they could do them after their screenings, but because time has been really tight in terms of showing everything we wanted to, even just having 20 minutes at the end of each one really eats into the schedule if you’re showing eight films in a day. So it’s been tricky, but we’ve been looking at the possibility of getting a dedicated networking space for meet and greets where filmmakers and audiences can interact.”

“On a similar note, we’d really like to put on extra events like workshops – on lighting and camera work and things like that. But again it’s all dependent on space, and renting extra space costs money. This year it will be fairly light on that side, but because we’re now in dialogue with the Bullring and they’re developing new spaces, it may be that we’ll be able to find a place for things like that next year.”

“Ultimately we’re aiming to make it a big deal in the vein of Sundance, Raindance and all those big festivals that people know – that’s where we want to be.”

Birmingham Film Festival runs at the Mockingbird Cinema from the 23^rd to 26^th November. For more on Birmingham Film Festival, visit www.birminghamfilmfestival.com

For more information about the Mockingbird Cinema, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.mockingbirdcinema.com

September 8, 2017September 8, 2017

INTERVIEW: John Fell – Beyond the Tracks @ Eastside Park 15-17.09.17

Words by Damien Russell / Pics by Eleanor Sutcliffe

Feeling like a lazy Sunday afternoon despite being a Monday (thank you Bank Holiday), sitting in the shade at Eastside Park has got something of a ‘last day of a festival’ feel.

Convenient really as I’ve braved exhaustion and headed out to into the sun to see a man about a festival. That man is John Fell and the festival is, of course, Beyond The Tracks.

I say ‘of course’ but given that Beyond The Tracks (for those who have missed the promo so far) is the newest addition to the Moseley Folk portfolio, it may not be as clear cut as that. This new city-centre, three day event is nestled comfortably alongside the Moseley Folk Festival itself, the Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul Festival, and the Lunar Festival, all under the Moseley Folk banner.

And John Fell is, “kind of Festival Manager, really, so to be honest I do a lot things from booking the line-up to the marketing, to the press, the finances, I get involved with a little bit of kind of planning the site and things like that. All the staffing. So, it’s a lot there really.” If he does say so himself. And I agree, it is a lot; they’re big events with stellar line-ups and not exactly spread out in either area or through the year.

Curious about this, I ask about the rest of the team. “Well, there’s me, full time, and then there’s two directors (Gerv Havill, Carl Phillips) that are kind of more part time on the festivals. They’ve got their other businesses. And we’ve just taken on a new member of staff as well and she’s become a kind of Festival Assistant, so it’s slowly growing but it’s not a big team for all the things we do really”, Fell explains.

Not a big team at all. And with a variety of other events as well as the festivals, it must be a lot to take on. John Fell is a collected man and while he will admit that focusing on so much is “quite difficult”, he quickly adds, “I’ve always been quite good at that really. I’ve always… I don’t sit still very often”. I’m glad we got him pinned down for half an hour to talk to us.

So how did it all begin? And how did it become Beyond The Tracks? “When I joined we’d just created Goodnight Lenin”, Fell says, taking us back to both the start of his band (recently announced to be on hiatus) and his time with Moseley Folk, “and JJ from the band asked me to go round and come and play music at 3 o’clock in the morning because they’d been up all night drinking. Normally I would never do it, not if I hadn’t been out already, and I thought ‘you know what, fine, I’ll go round’. If he wants to play music, I’ll do it, whatever time of day”. And a 3am video became Goodnight Lenin’s application to play Moseley Folk Festival. “Carl who ran the festival rang us up and said ‘I wanna come and see you play’ and he wanted to manage the band and put us as headlining the second stage, the Lunar stage” Fell expands, describing an opportunity most bands would do something their mothers would disapprove of, to get.

It isn’t surprising but it is good to be reminded that Moseley Folk (both festival and company) have always been committed to local talent. And actively looking for it has “always been an ethos of ours, to support that and provide a platform for that. Which is quite cool”. And not just at the festivals. They “do loads of cool shows throughout the year… and because that’s not really our… job, I guess, our festivals are where we kind of scrape our salaries… we can book who we want. We’re not pressured to book gigs, we don’t just put gigs on for the sake of it; we can book who we want”.

An envious place to be. And a powerful place. Free from the constraints of popularity and to a certain extent cost, Moseley Folk remind me of the record companies of old – able to take risks and trail-blaze if they wish, whilst hosting the type of gigs many bands dream of getting to play at.

With such an open opportunity for booking talent, I wonder how the Beyond The Tracks lineup was approached. The answer lies in being different to the other festivals in the Moseley Folk portfolio, “with Folk and Jazz, Lunar’s a bit more psychedelic… we wanted to essentially make three different gigs. I mean, originally we didn’t put weekend tickets on sale because we didn’t think there would be that much demand. Essentially it was an electronic night, an indie night and, I guess, like a post-punk, shoegaze kind of Sunday, which is cool”.

Planning, then combining, three different gigs sounds like an unusual way to approach a festival, but less so when originally it was “going to be an Ocean Colour Scene gig with, you know, Maximo Park or whoever, and it grew into a festival which is, you know…”, John Fell leaves me to offer the rather clichéd ‘really cool’ but charitably goes with it. “It is really cool. So the whole thing has just been, like, a really natural progression”.

Choosing this site, currently just open grass and quiet couples, was also natural progression; John Fell takes us back to 22^nd January 2016, and to the 20^th anniversary shows of Ocean Colour Scene’s Moseley Shoals in Moseley Park. “And that was just incredible”, Fell says, and shortly after those shows “we were just sat outside the pub, the Eagle and Tun, and looking at this space and were like ‘why have we not done a festival here?’ Or at least a gig here” so they decide they should and went full on for Beyond The Tracks.

And what a festival it’s pitched to be. “It’s Birmingham’s, you know, I guess biggest inner city, kind of ‘band festival”, in John Fell’s words. “Obviously you’ve got things like MADE which are doing incredibly at The Rainbow and a lot of other events going on” he continues, “I suppose it’s not like a Great Escape but that kind of inner city festival, Tramlines in Sheffield, that kind of thing. And we thought for the first year we should really celebrate Birmingham music. We already had Ocean Colour Scene; Editors have got strong Birmingham links. So then we just go ‘right, okay, we want to support other bands’ so, you know: Superfood, Jaws, Victories at Sea, Dorcha, Table Scraps. We just added Hoopla Blue and Sunshine Frisbee Laserbeam, there’s so many bands… The Leftfield guys are coming to DJ, Magic Door guys coming to DJ… So it’s a bit of a Birmingham love-in really. It’s gonna be really cool.”

And speaking of Hoopla Blue… I ask John about the sad news that Goodnight Lenin wouldn’t be playing and would be replaced by, you guessed it, “Hoopla Blue. Yeah, we wanted it to be a local band and Hoopla – great band – they just jumped on it straight away. It is a shame but it just felt right to end Goodnight Lenin with Liam rather than playing another show, it didn’t quite make sense”. I don’t ask about the conflict of interest in booking a band you play with; if John Fell began working for Moseley Folk through Goodnight Lenin, it stands to reason Goodnight Lenin would still be one of Moseley Folk’s regular artists.

There’s certainly plenty of Birmingham music at Beyond The Tracks, possibly more Birmingham on the stage than in the audience at times, as to my surprise, “Friday night’s about 40 percent people coming from outside the Midlands. Which is pretty incredible. It’s very similar numbers to the Jazz and Folk, to be honest with you, it’s like, high 30’s from outside the Midlands. Saturday here with Ocean Colour Scene and The Twang, is obviously more localised but it’s still a good 25 percent from outside the Midlands and Sunday as well is about 30, high 30’s. So, we are actually bringing people in,” and in saying so Fell sounds proud. And I believe he is, proud of what Birmingham has to offer and proud to be a part of it.

And not without merit either; four major festivals are not organised through hope alone, that kind of work needs vision. The vision that Beyond The Tracks is “what Birmingham needs really just to kind of give it that other, kind of, star next to its name of what we have here to offer”. The drive to “bring people to Birmingham and actually show them what we do”. And the eye on the future looking to “see what else we can do for the city now”.

But with the rise of Beyond The Tracks, we’ve seen the fall of the Lunar Festival; this yearly switch looks set to continue, as the original three year access to the Beyond The Tracks site has been scuppered by the HS2 development. “We are bringing Lunar back next year and then… we don’t have the land for this (Beyond The Tracks) next year”, Fell explains, taking me a little by surprise. “We were told two years, we could have it… three years we could have it and HS2 is being built on this land. So they’re acquiring the land. So it might be the case that we maybe have a year off Beyond The Tracks, bring Lunar back. We’ve been refining that (Lunar Festival) so we’re quite excited to bring that back. Erm, and then, you know, hopefully we can bring Beyond The Tracks back the year after, maybe”.

Maybe, maybe not; there is always the fear that “it’s four festivals. You do start eating into your own audience as well. People only have so much money”. So maybe one on, one off could be on the cards. Or maybe it’s just a one-off.

Either way, when you think that “Friday night’s going to be crazy with Leftfield and Orbital and the light show they’ve got, here, in the city centre on a Friday night”, then the local focus lineup on Saturday and Sunday, with “Fairground Rides in the middle… a Ferris wheel and everything” it’s hard not to get a building sense of excitement.

And as I walk back across the site toward The Woodman pub, thinking to myself ‘stage there, fairground there, bar somewhere here…’ it’s also hard to disagree with John Fell when he shares the sentiment, “It’s gonna be quite cool. I mean it’s gonna be phenomenal, you know. It’s costing the world, really, so it should be…. But yeah, it gonna be cool, man”. Cool indeed. Phenomenal sounds about right too; I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Beyond The Tracks comes to Eastside Park in Birmingham City Centre, running 15^th to 17^th September. Tickets for this event are £54.45 for individual day tickets, £145 for a weekend pass, with a host of after parties after each day.

For more on Beyond The Tracks, including full festival details and online ticket sales, visit www.beyondthetracks.org