Live Music Archives - Page 7 of 11 -

March 12, 2019March 12, 2019

THE GALLERY: Wood and Nails @ The Flapper 02.03.19

Words by Ed King / Pics by Aatish Ramchurn

On Saturday 2^nd March, Wood and Nails headlined at The Flapper – with support from Dearist, George Gadd, and Last Light.

Promoted by Surprise You’re Dead, the gig was a raucous celebration of Wood and Nails’ latest single ‘Searching for an Exit’ – which you can wrap your grubby little music-for-free ears around here. Or better still, click here to buy something from the band in question and keep them in diamond crusted plectrums. Or food. Or whatever it is that artistes need to survive these days.

But by all on and offline reports, recollections, fervent cries and night terrors of loss and longing, the evening was a rip-roaring success. So much so, in fact, that the Birmingham Review front line reporter has been missing in action ever since… if found, please return to BRHQ.

Luckily, we had more troops in the crowd – a man who shall now and forever be referred to as ‘photo ninja’, for his Matrixesque ability to weave through a mosh pit whilst messing about with that all important ISO.

And as for the rest of you, indulge yourselves in some glorious gig shots from Saturday 2^nd March at The Flapper in THE GALLERY – featuring headliners Wood and Nails, alongside support acts Last Light, George Gadd, and Dearist. There are a few picked cherries to begin with, then the larger mosaic gallery – so viddy below my droogs, such a gromky shoom horrorshow:

Woods and Nails @ The Flapper 02.03.19 / Aatish Ramchurn

For more on Wood and Nails, visit their Spotify artist profile by clicking here – or to visit the Wood and Nails Facebook page for more info and links, click here.

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Dearist – supporting Woods and Nails @ The Flapper 02.03.19 / Aatish Ramchurn

For more on Dearist, visit www.facebook.com/DearistUK

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George Gadd – supporting Woods and Nails @ The Flapper 02.03.19 / Aatish Ramchurn

For more on George Gadd, visit www.georgegadd.bandcamp.com

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Last Light – supporting Woods and Nails @ The Flapper 02.03.19 / Aatish Ramchurn

For more on Last Light, visit www.soundcloud.com/lastlightuk

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All photography by Aatish Ramchurn / Aatish Photography.

For more from Surprise You’re Dead, including further event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.surpriseyouredeadmusic.co.uk

For more on The Flapper, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.theflapper.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this feature – or if you want to report an act of sexual aggression, abuse, or assault – click here for information via the ‘Help & Support’ page on the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK website.

March 11, 2019March 11, 2019

BPREVIEW: Mutes @ Hare & Hounds 13.03.19

Words by Ed King

On Wednesday 13^th March, Mutes headline at the Hare & Hounds – with support from Robert Craig Oulton. Sofa King were originally scheduled to perform but had to pull out of the gig – so look out for someone possibly filling in.

Doors open at 7:30pm, with tickets available for £6 (advance +booking fee) – as presented by FOMA. For direct gig information, including links to online ticket sales, click here.

There’s probably a music journalist handbook out there that would help me with genres and comparisons, one that is updated every year to keep the lexicon cutting edge. I mean, seriously, who coined ‘trap’ music…?

But one of the joys to this job is the constant evolution, especially when it comes from an arena of intelligence and not some attention/chart grabbing pretender.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Swallowing-Light.jpg

Enter Mutes, closely followed by a list that will include My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, a couple of curveballs and an apologetic recognition as to the list itself. Sprinkle some clever metaphors, make a reference to Sub-Pop, throw in an opiate analogy and – if you’re feeling brave – a joke about revolving doors and band members. Mwah…. we mean it with love.

But it’s been just shy of two years since the James Brown led ghost in the music machine (…stir in some existential philosophy) released No Desire, the somewhat bold and beautiful debut album from Mutes. And now they’re back with Round Two. The as-of-yet unnamed new album (in the public domain at least) is set for release sometime soon, we think, we hope, but there is one single already dangling like the proverbial carrot – check out ‘Swallowing Light’ below, being performed live at the Hare & Hounds back in July 2016.

Now the more observant of you will note this is nearly a year before Mutes’ ‘dichotomy of extremes’ debut album came out, sans ‘Swallowing Light’ – so questions, questions, questions…

Now if we were to jump a gun or two, heaven forbid, it could mean that the ambient swirls and prolonged rabbit holes of No Desire have been set aside for the simple ball kicking grunge rock that Brown & Co can deliver so well. Which would be no bad thing. Or it could mean the sophomore LP is a reworking of some tried, tested, loved and live tracks from the Mutes back catalogue – with some new nuggets thrown in. Or it’s a coincidence, or an accident. Or it’s all a ruse and the rest of album two is a spoken word diatribe about penguins.

But with an album promoting gig at the Hare & Hounds on Wednesday 13^th March, you’ll probably get a sneaky peak and hopefully some clarity soon enough. Or not. But you might. In the meantime, I’m going to dust down my Roget’s Thesaurus and frayed copies of DIY, so I can be rhetoric ready for when the album does arrive.

The rest of you can keep yourselves busy with the link below, or click here to check out what happened when we danced this dance before – including an interview with James Brown about what brought No Desire to the table. Enjoy. And save some mental space for the next Mutes album, coming soon on FOMA Records. TBC…

‘Swallowing Light’ – Mutes

Mutes headline at the Hare & Hounds on Wednesday 13^th March, with support from Robert Craig Oulton. For more direct gig information and links to online ticket sales, click here.

For more on Mutes, visit www.mutesuk.bandcamp.com

For more on Robert Craig Oulton, visit www.facebook.com/RobertCraigOulton

For more from FOMA, visit www.wearefoma.bigcartel.com

For more from the Hare & Hounds, including full event listings and venue details, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here.

December 7, 2018February 27, 2019

THE GALLERY: Bare Bones @ Café Artum 01.12.18

Words by Emily Doyle / Pics by Ed King

Café Artum, a vinyl-filled setting nestled at the far end of Corporation Street, is busier than usual on this Saturday afternoon.

“This one’s for my mum, over there. This is the first time she’s ever seen me play, today” says Liám Mckeown, taking his seat in front of the window. The room grows quiet. At the back of the cafe, one guy listens to a record on headphones, seemingly oblivious.

Mckeown builds up loops of rhythm guitar before layering effortless lead over the top. Best known for his role in local psych-rock outfit Brain Food, solo he conjures up a much more mellow sound. His singer-songwriter vibe verges on jazzy at points, but always has a psychedelic tinge.

Mckeown covers Neil Young’s 1972 release ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ – it’s ambitious but heartfelt; the audience listens in stillness as the X51 bus rolls past the window behind him. The set also features stripped back versions of Brain Food songs, including ‘Lemon & Lime’ from the band’s debut EP Get One On. These feel more vocal-led than the rest of Mckeown’s performance and round off the set nicely.

The first full band of the bill, Handwaxx, have made only minor concessions to Bare Bones’ advertised ‘raw, stripped back’ ethos. New member Will Sutton, having been recruited to the group just a month ago, has traded out his Vox Phantom for an acoustic guitar, but otherwise the only thing especially stripped back about the outfit’s sound is the lack of a proper PA.

Handwaxx describe themselves as ‘psychedelic indie pop’, which seems like a fair label. Their sound blends a brit-poppish sensibility with a sprinkling of dreamy shoegaze, backed up by impressive lead guitar work from Ryan Baynham. Their set reaches a high point with the last two songs, which move in a more Morricone-esque direction. Handwaxx’s reverb drenched surfy sound is perfect for brightening up a gloomy Saturday afternoon.

The promo material for Bare Bones argued that The Mighty Young ‘could probably still melt your face off with an acoustic set’, but it’s clear we won’t find out about that today, as the only acoustic instrument on stage is the drum kit. This is loud, raucous garage rock ‘n’ roll from one of Birmingham’s trusty trios, and there’s not a Cajon in sight.

The Mighty Young have always embraced a stripped back, DIY ethos with their sound, though. Reminiscent of The White Stripes, their straight-to-the-point performance and songwriting are a joy, unphased by some minor technical hitches.

A jubilant sing-a-long cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ provides the soundtrack as one of the bar staff weaves through the dense crowd, putting tealights out on the tables – it’s grown dark out. A passerby outside stops by the window to listen, intrigued. A few younger audience members, who’ve got another ten years to wait before they can get in to any other Mighty Young shows, are growing a little restless, but the rest of the crowd are fully engaged.

As six o’ clock approaches and the trio draw things to a close with a slow, bluesy ballad; it’s clear that this inaugural Bare Bones session was a success. And although perhaps not as ‘stripped back’ as originally intended, neither the performers nor the audience seemed to mind. Watching the punters filter back out into the cold and on to the next stop on their Saturday nights, there’s a sense that things are only just beginning.

THE GALLERY: Bare Bones – with The Mighty Young, Handwaxx, Liám Mckeown @ Café Artum 01.12.18 / Ed King

Gallery not found.

For more on Liám Mckeown/Brain Food, visit www.facebook.com/brainfoodofficial

For more on Handwaxx, visit www.soundcloud.com/handwaxx

For more on The Mighty Young, visit www.facebook.com/ruttingdevil

For more on further events from Bare Bones, visit www.facebook.com/whiskpresents

For more on Café Artum, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.cafeartum.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here.

December 4, 2018February 27, 2019

BREVIEW: Katie Melua @ Symphony Hall 30.11.18

Words by Ed King / Pics from Symphony Hall by Dave Cox – courtesy of the Express & Star. Pics from Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre by Allan Jones – courtesy of Republic Media

So, I have this thing about honesty. It’s a rule and a burden. Yet it’s also a freedom, if you can understand why. One that keeps us in bed with the truth and one that’s behind anything I put into the public domain. I also have this thing about framing techniques.

Katie Melua is in Birmingham tonight, stopping of on her European tour to play to a sold out Symphony Hall crowd (no mean feat) with a set that promises tracks from her latest album, In Winter – joined live on stage by the Gori Women’s Choir, who were a home grown backbone to her 2016 release. That in itself carries a high expectation; the Gori Women’s Choir’s three albums are all quite powerful collections (thank you Spotify) and tonight’s marriage of a strong vocal ensemble with an acoustic lead are a tempting hook to this little fish.

But my interest has been further piqued by the lack of a Mike Batt signature anywhere on the paperwork. Locked into an arguably suffocating six album deal whilst still in her late teens, I’m curious to see a Melua set without Orinoco waiting in the wings – although I suspect there will still be a few laments about to two wheeled statistics and borderline personality disorders.

As we file slowly, languidly, into the hall, the stage is set simply for Melua and her band. Large screen backdrops host a medley of soft illustrations, pastels, and swirling patterns of light against water – eight mics, for the sixteen extra mouths that will fall in and out across the evening, stand ready and waiting stage right. We are poised for a dimple yet elegant display.

Melua’s opening number is sung solo (in what I assume to be as Georgian) and begins the evening with something seemingly untouchable, yet once embraced – as music can allow you to close your eyes and accept without shame, query or question – quite beautiful.

Her immediate follow up, ‘Plane Song’, brings in her younger brother on guitar accompaniment – layering a subtle red brick onto the Cyrillic foundations. And by the time we are halfway through ‘Nine Million Bicycles’, I am yearning for the return of a language that I don’t understand. Melua, even from this immediate dissection, offers a much firmer delivery when her performance is less obvious. To a solely English speaker, at least.

A curiously saccharine cover of ‘Just Like Heaven’ gets served up next, giving Robert Smith a sugar coating that was endearing but perhaps misjudged, before the Gori Women’s Choir return for another homage – this time to the prickly Christmas tree of Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’. Now there’s a moment when every evening finds its point, and when the words that were first delivered in 1971 – exorcising Mitchell’s broken heart – are reissued by nearly 50 years later, I can’t move my attention away from the following:

“I’m going to make a lot of money and quit this crazy scene”.

Katie Melua is a widely respected artist, with both a strong international fan base and public appearance track record. She has travelled the world and the world has travelled behind her. But I have not, with tonight being my first encounter of seeing this artist on stage. And when I’m watching a seasoned performer, walk with well rehearsed blocking around a stage set designed for a cause, planting every note with the precision of a LAMDA exam distinction, I clap with only half of my heart. No matter how surprising or wonderful the occasion has turned out to be.

But here, echoing the words of a woman who will always be remembered for brave intent and anti-establishment honesty, I want to stand in ovation and solidarity. Bill Hicks wanted his rock stars dead, and I’m not Bill Hicks (and Katie Melua is not a ‘rock star’) but the request is the same. And when it is answered, in whatever language, with whatever accompaniment, the more visceral response is quite a spectacle.

I wasn’t sure how much of this evening I’d enjoy, it had been a long day in a longer week, and when the Gori Women’s Choir sang I simply acquiesced and stopped thinking. But Katie Melua is a much more impressive artist than I had I walked into this room believing, and with all the set’s manicures, pop infused covers, and platinum achieving polish, the most glorious of moments were the ones from an older heart.

I surmise, as such: discernible talent deserves the rawest and most truthful of edges, for else what are we but obligation or ego? So let go. More. Scream if you have to, with a yawp or elocution. But give this world what you want it to see and trust in this, anyone who challenges a truthful intent is simply not worth appeasing. What’s left is heartfelt and an honest delight.

For more on Katie Melua, visit www.katiemelua.com

For more on the Gori Women’s Choir, visit www.facebook.com/GoriWomensChoir

For more from the Town & Symphony Halls, including venues details and full event programmes, visit www.thsh.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here.

November 28, 2018

BPREVIEW: Bare Bones – with The Mighty Young, Handwaxx, Liám Mckeown @ Café Artum 01.12.18

Words by Ed King / Artwork by Rocío Álvarez Osuna

On Saturday 1^st December, the inaugural Bare Bones comes to Café Artum – with acoustic sets from The Mighty Young, Handwaxx, and Liám Mckeown.

The event runs from 3pm until 6pm, with three live sets alongside music from Carlton Wainwright on the wheels of steel. Or, you know, the CDs of chaos. Mix tapes of mayhem. The idiosyncrasies of an iPod shuffle…? Whatever the kids are spinning these days.

What we can be sure of is Bare Bones will cost you all of £3 sterling to enter – as presented by The Whisk. Spaces will be limited at Café Artum, with advance tickets available online via Skiddle, click here. Or for more direct event information visit the Bare Bones Facebook event page, click here.

Now this is a good idea… As the Bare Bones promo rhetoric states, ‘expect to see your favourite local artists perform raw, stripped back, great music with no frills’ performing in ‘a bare minimum set up and a super intimate venue’.

It actually says all that the other way around, but the idea of getting some good ol’ garage rock, indie, and six stringed psychedelia played ‘stripped back’ and ‘raw’ absolutely works for – us regardless of what order the words are in. Plus it’s cheap as chips. In fact, it’s cheaper than chips – it’s cheap as a bag of potatoes and a saucepan of cooking oil that will one day become chips. And we like that too.

The Mighty Young are a familiar favourite on the local live circuit, with their barrage of blues and garage rock making a lot of lovely noise in venues across the city for a few years now. ‘Aint alliteration ace… But always a good night out (or in, if you’re throwing a wildly adventurous house party) it will be a rare delight to watch what unfurls when The Mighty Young have to perform sitting down sans distortion pedal. Our money is on ‘quietly kicking ass’. For more on The Mighty Young, visit www.facebook.com/ruttingdevil

Handwaxx are at the somewhat more swirly colours end of the rock rainbow, with a wah wah here and a… you get the idea. But the Birmingham three piece have been making some pretty noticeable sonic waves recently, and as the Bare Bones Facebook event page says ‘don’t miss your chance check them out in a completely different perspective’ – pun intended, we very much hope. For more on Hardwaxx, visit www.soundcloud.com/handwaxx

And last but by no means least is Liám Mckeown, better known (perhaps, who knows what he does in his spare time) as the centre piece of Brain Food – Birmingham’s delectable ‘swirling psych-soaked four piece’. We like Brain Food a lot, on stage and off, and their commitment to the local music scene is a heart warming addition to the city’s cultural cache.

No idea what Mr Mckeown will be doing flying solo, but we want to find out and suggest you should too. And in the absence of a Liam Mckeown specific URL, for more on Brain Food visit www.facebook.com/brainfoodofficial

Bare Bones presents its first afternoon of ‘stripped back’ acoustic sets at Café Artum on Saturday 1^st December, running from 3pm top 6pm. For more information and links to online ticket sales, visit the Bare Bones Facebook event page – click here.

For more on Café Artum, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.cafeartum.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here.