michellemartin Archives - Page 6 of 6 -

March 16, 2016March 17, 2016

BPREVIEW: MCM Comic Con Birmingham @ NEC 19-21.03.16

MCM Comic Con Birmingham 2016 will be hosted at the NEC between 18-21st March. For direct event details, including online ticket sales, click here.

And while I am unconvinced that a two day jamboree calling itself the MCM Comic Con Birmingham, at which comics and comic book creators have a minimal presence, is truly a comics focused convention – it is nonetheless a great celebration of all things geek inspired.

And it draws a crowd. If Anime’s your thing, they’ve got it covered. American candy? Ditto. Cool collectibles (or are they really toys for grownups, I wonder?) yep, covered. Comics..? I’ll refer you to my previous statement on that matter.

But there are a lot of indie creators at MCM Comic Con Birmingham this March that will thank you for taking the time to read their self published comics. So look out for local talents such as Sammy Borras – creator of Giant Rhinos In Space and Coventry’s own GeeBees comic series, and support your local artistic talent in the same way we’re often asked to support our local independent stores.

MCM Comic Con Birmingham takes up its two-day NEC spring residency with a high level of TV, film and gaming celebrities (both past and present) in attendance. MCM favourites, Red Dwarf’s Robert Llewellyn and Danny John-Jules, will be there – along with anyone who may have played a Stormtrooper, Jawa, or even farted in Star Wars offering to autograph your photos, collectibles and whatever else you may have with you. For a price, of course.

But the big guest attraction this time round, and trying to top Lee (The Bionic Man) Majors’ appearance back in November, is Lindsay Wagner – TV’s The Bionic Woman. And for the younger audience at MCM Comic Con Birmingham, who might be scratching their head at this point and asking themselves ‘…who?’, there’s also the pull of Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate voice star Paul Amos, who lends his voice to Jacob Frye in the game.

The main pull however, for me and for other guests I’ve witnessed, are the cosplayers and their amazing costumes. And watching from afar it is clear they tend to know each other; I have certainly seen the same masked men and maidens doing the rounds up and down the country when covering different comic conventions in the past.

But there is no doubt that the cosplayers add an essential element to the MCM Comic Con Birmingham, one that elevates the event to something more than just a cash cow for the bigger exhibitors. Although, it is debatable how much they spend when there. I mean to say, where would Spider-man or Harley Quinn keep their money? Those costumes are tighter than Scrooge.

So bring your camera (do people still have these, or just phones?) but always ask politely for a snap. And be careful, many of these costumes can be very fragile and could well represent many months of hard work (and financial expense) from the cosplayer for it to look so good.

But overall, my advice would be to go to MCM Comic Con Birmingham on Sunday 21st March if you want to avoid the throngs. It’s also the best time to grab a bargain too.

MCM Comic Con Birmingham comes to the NEC between 19-21^st March. For direct event details, including online ticket sales, visit http://www.mcmcomiccon.com/birmingham/

For more from the NEC Group, including links to full event listings across all venues, visit https://www.necgroup.co.uk/

March 2, 2016March 2, 2016

BREVIEW: British Sea Power @ Town Hall 27.02.16

Words by Helen Knott / Pics by Michelle Martin

There have been some weird and wonderful musical collaborations over the years. Kylie and Nick Cave, Aerosmith and Run DMC, Tom Jones and… well, take your pick. Sometimes they result in a timeless classic, sometimes we get something unbelievably abysmal.

Tonight’s match up between art rockers British Sea Power and brass orchestra Jaguar Land Rover Band lies somewhere between the two. British Sea Power’s most recent album Sea of Brass saw the band collaborate with arranger Peter Wraight to re-work songs from their 12 year career. They performed these new arrangements with a number of different brass ensembles during a 2014 UK tour and this Town Hall gig is a one-off reprisal of the indie/brass pairing.

I’m not sure if it’s the one-off nature of the gig that’s to blame, but the evening starts very awkwardly. The first track is ‘Heavenly Waters’, which in its recorded form is a Mogwai-esque instrumental B-side that provides a dramatic and filmic opening to Sea of Brass. It sounds messy and under-rehearsed on stage. On the record, complex brass motifs weave with melodic guitar lines to create a cohesive whole. Here it just sounds like a song that’s really difficult to play.

A traditional brass band like Jaguar Land Rover doesn’t feature any trumpet or saxophone, so this isn’t the sexy jazz sound of a Big Band; it’s more traditional and mellow. Not a problem, but if the brass isn’t being used to create drama, like in Radiohead’s ‘The National Anthem’ say, it needs to sound totally gorgeous. It never quite does – the tone is dull and flat, when it should be rich and resonant.

It’s not like the raw materials aren’t there to work with – British Sea Power have some gorgeous songs. The two tracks that close their debut album The Decline of British Sea Power, ‘A Wooden Horse’ and ‘Lately’, are both performed tonight. Weirdly, considering how many instruments are on stage, both lack the dynamic range of the album versions. ‘Lately’s frantic guitars and screeching vocals are lost, along with much of its emotional impact.

Things do improve as the gig goes along. The two bands seem to relax a little in each other’s company, carried by the enthusiasm of the crowd. By the encore, audience members are wedding reception-style dancing in the aisles, much to the displeasure of a steward. She makes them sit down again. “Dad dancing? Not on my watch.”

This is a rather middle aged affair. The bite, mayhem and eccentricity of past British Sea Power gigs is very much missed. Even the famous British Sea Power foliage, which they haphazardly decorated stages with at the start of their career, has been prettied up with twinkly fairy lights. The extra instrumentation should be making the songs soar, but instead the brass, and maybe even the elegant, all-seater venue, actually seems to subdue and restrain the performance.

Perhaps I’m being harsh – the show was warmly received by the audience, reviews of the original 2014 tour were largely positive and the album itself has some wonderful moments.

Maybe the bands were just having a bit of an off night. But, on tonight’s evidence, this is one pop collaboration that I don’t need to hear more of.

For more on British Sea Power visit http://www.britishseapower.co.uk

For more from Town Hall Symphony Hall, visit http://www.thsh.co.uk/

February 25, 2016

BPREVIEW: British Sea Power @ Town Hall 27.02.16

Words by Helen Knott

On Saturday 27th February, British Sea Power appear at the Town Hall. The band is on stage at 8pm with tickets priced at £19.50 – for direct gig info and online ticket sales, click here.

British Sea Power will be accompanied by Jaguar Land Rover Band, a prize-winning full brass orchestra, performing songs from their latest album Sea of Brass. With only two other gigs currently in the diary, the Birmingham Town Hall gig is likely to be a rare chance to see British Sea Power live in 2016 – as the band focuses on writing songs for their ninth studio album.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 13 years since British Sea Power burst onto the music scene with The Decline of British Sea Power; I loved the screechy, post punk, literary weirdness of their debut album.

You could argue that British Sea Power have never quite reached the heights of their first LP. But still, the band have continued to attract critical acclaim and a cult following – becoming well known for their odd, slightly gimmicky live performances, featuring props like animal costumes, stuffed birds and artificial plants.

The idea of reimagining their back catalogue with the help of one of music’s most unfashionable ensembles – a brass band – is a pretty unusual one; indie bands tend to lay on the strings when trying to fatten up their sound. The seeds of Sea of Brass grew from an Arts Council funded project, one that British Sea Power developed in to a UK tour in 2014.

The resulting 2015 album, ambitious and filmic in its scope, fits well with British Sea Power’s most recent output – which has included a number of film soundtracks. Check out the lead track from Sea of Brass below:

‘Heavenly Waters’ by British Sea Power

British Sea Power come to the Town Hall (Birmingham) on Saturday 27 February. For direct gig info and online sales, visit http://www.thsh.co.uk/event/british-sea-power-sea-of-brass/

For more on British Sea Power visit http://www.britishseapower.co.uk

For more from Town Hall Symphony Hall, visit http://www.thsh.co.uk/

January 29, 2016

BPREVIEW: Sun Club @ Sunflower Lounge 30.01.16

Words by Ed King / Pic by Shervin Lainez

On Saturday 30^th January, Sun Club will be performing at The Sunflower Lounge, with support from Callum Pickard & the Third Look.

Doors open at 7:30pm, with tickets priced at £6 – as promoted by Birmingham Promoters. For direct gig info & online ticket sales, click here.

Out n’about promoting their first full length LP, the curiously titled The Dongo Durango, Sun Club play at The Sunflower Lounge on their first of six UK dates – ending up at (the even more curiously titled) Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar in Brighton. What could possibly go wrong..?

Born and raised in a Baltimore basement or two, Sun Club are the happy amalgamation of brothers Shane & Devlin McCord with neighbor Mikey Powers, plus friends Kory Johnson and Adam Shane. Cutting their teeth on the colloquial circuit, for the first two years Sun Club ‘mostly played friends’ parties and toured people’s basements’ before moving into established venues. But the five piece have finished taking their ‘baby steps’, having now supported acts such as FIDLAR and Fat White Family, as well as being invited onto the Sweetlife Festival bill in May 2015.

But with the release of Sun Club’s debut LP, ‘the focus is just making music that you feel strongly about, and about releasing it’; The Dongo Durango (…a well endowed city in North West Mexico? Colorado?) is glorious eleven track endevour of unashamed psychedelic Surf Rock. OK, ten tracks – the title song is a 15sec request to check out someone’s birthday suit. And Sun Club come from Baltimore, so perhaps it’s not Surf Rock.

For that matter I’m not sure you can use the term ‘psychedelic’ post 1977. But it is fun, lots of fun; DIY drum echoes, punchy melodies, washed out guitar riffs, with Mikey Powers’s vocals foot stomping a polite Punk march over the top. And like drop kicking a My Little Pony, once you start it’s a little hard to stop.

In fact, whilst we’re on the subject of fighting with neon haired plastic toys…

‘Tropicoller Lease’ by Sun Club

Sun Club perform at The Sunflower Lounge on Saturday 30^th January, with support from Callum Pickard & the Third Look. For direct gig info & online ticket sales, visit http://birminghampromoters.com/Events/sun-club-2/

N.B. All ‘quotes in italics’ are taken from an interview with Mikey Powers for www.baltimoremagazine.net – to read Lydia Woolever’s article in full, click here or on the highlighted quotes above.

For more on Sun Club, visit http://www.sunclubband.com/

For more from The Sunflower Lounge, visit http://thesunflowerlounge.com/

For more from Birmingham Promoters, including online ticket sales, visit http://birminghampromoters.com/