Amongst the headline acts at Swingamajig 2016 are Balkan Beat Box – the self described ‘intoxicating and intense sonic assault’ of Balkan brass, klezmer, gyspy folk, hip hop, dub, reggae… all the best bits from the world wide web of music we live in.
Fronted by Tomer Yosef, an energetic and intelligent mouth piece (used to be a stand-up comedian), Balkan Beat Box is the brain child of drummer Tamir Muskat and saxophonist Ori Kaplan – both of whom have appeared in the Gogol Bordello gypsy ensemble and ‘world punk’ group Firewater.
Making noise, figuratively and literally, in New York’s underground club scene in the early naughties, Balkan Beat Box started out crossing klezmer and Balkan folk with hip hop beats and punk rock percussion – debuting their first eponymous LP in 2005.
Focused on dragging traditional music into a modern context, the band brought Israeli singer/guitarist Tomer Yosef into the fold after his vocals appeared on the Balkan Beat Box debut LP. Having previously written and recorded with Tamir Muskat, Yosef brought a crowd facing fire to the live shows – quickly earning the trio a ferocious on stage reputation.
Now four albums in and present across global gig and festivals circuits, Balkan Beat Box have crissed, crossed, and crisscrossed again a multitude of influence – bringing sounds and genres from all over the world into their set.
Sounds perfect for a Swingamajig festival booking; an adverterous portfolio, with collaboration from artists including ‘the Yemenite dance music group A-Wa’ and ‘the turnt up rock group Loco Hot’.
And without wanting to rely on the rhetoric of others, Time Out summed this up by saying ‘if Balkan Beat Box is world music, it’s in the most literal sense – because it can move anyone in the world.’ Not a bad endorsement.
But don’t take our (or their) word for it, have a stop, look listen to Balkan Beat Box below:
‘I Trusted U’ – Balkan Beat Box
Birmingham get up close and personal with Balkan Beat Box at Swingamajig 2016, as they headline the main stage sometime suitably after dark. Buy don’t worry about the when and where’s, you’ll probably hear their set start wherever you are in the sprawling Rainbow Venues. I believe the term is ‘…going off’.
Swingamajig 2016 comes the Rainbow Venues in Digbeth on May 1st – running from 2pm until 6am. Tickets are priced at £22/£25/£30.
For the full Swingamagig line up, alongside everything else you need to know about the festival – including online tickets, visit http://swingamajig.co.uk/
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m in the pub. Swingamajig comes back to Birmingham in a few weeks time, taking over The Rainbow Venues on 1st May, and I am interviewing The Destroyers – one of the festival’s headline acts this year. Our chosen middle ground is The Prince of Wales in Moseley. Some days are simply better than others.
“The pub can be quiet on Monday’s and Tuesdays,” explains Leighton Hargreaves – fiddle player/room booker/diary hound for the ‘anarchic orchestra of blazing passion’, “so the owners let us have this room to rehearse.”The Destroyers are, at last count, a thirteen piece ensemble of brass, string, wind, percussion and gong; as I look around a room smaller than an executive parking space my mind does mathematical somersaults. From rehearsal rooms to stage space, I smell a Krypton Factor challenge.
“It’s a nightmare,” admits Leighton, “but the difficult thing at the moment is finding a day when everyone’s free. We book rehearsals out several months in advance but everyone’s got families and kids and it’s hard to make it work.” Do you scare off promoters? “We have seven backing vocal mics and so on. But we include a proviso that we can work with less stuff and fit on comparably smaller stages. But yes, the first thing some venues will ask is what stage space we need and whether their stage will be big enough for us.”
Swingamajig doesn’t seem perturbed though, with The Destroyers sharing the festival’s headline bill alongside Balkan Beat Box – the Tomer Yosef fronted three piece and off shoot of Gogol Bordello. And it’s the en masse energy, in part, that makes The Destroyers’ set so electric – as classically trained fervor meets a raw homage to ‘bands like Taraf De Haidouks and Besh o druM’. It’s quite a thing. But how do ‘Birmingham’s leading Mega Folk act’ – an adopted pigeonhole courtesy of a Swiss busking festival promoter, plan to tackle a well dressed flapper & dapper Electro Swing crowd?
“We’ve got one track that has a slightly swing like groove to it,” explains Leighton – as I quiz him on the band’s ‘approach’, “so we could either play that over and over for the whole hour. Or we could do what we normally do. But since our set is after midnight our approach is not to have too many artistic, audience stand-around-listening bits – we’ll just, bang bang, one danceable track after another all the way through to keep the energy up.” A small flicker of anarchy and joy escapes into the room. “…then ramp it up right towards the end; we’ll keep it a storming set. By after midnight that’s what people want.”
And that’s no doubt what the Swingamajig crowd will get, desire and by 12midnight probably deserve. Birmingham Review was shamelessly late to this particular party, breaking our cherry at Swingamajig 2015, but was won over by the embraced mayhem and mature debauchery that we witnessed 12 months ago. And it’s not really an Electro Swing event either, with enough genre bending sets to furnish moves from lindy hop to break dance. My biggest mistake was not dressing up.
But life on the festival circuit is arguably more business as usual for The Destroyers, as the klezmer jazz/gypsy folk (…Bern promoters be damned) who have “never been further east than Warsaw” are more likely to find space on a larger bill.
“We’ve been to Ireland, we’ve been to Italy, we’ve been to Switzerland, but we haven’t toured widely in Europe,” explains Leighton, “most of our gigs are in the UK. We’ve tried to tour Europe but the thing that makes it difficult is the sheer cost of it. Firstly you’ve got to fly us all there, and then we’d have to have hotels paid for on top of our fee – unless it’s a city council sponsored event it would become prohibitively expensive. When private promoters and festivals put us on in the UK we can slum it a bit; sleep on peoples floors and make it economical that way.”
I imagine it’s a concern; suddenly a bowl of red M&Ms doesn’t seem too much to manage. Our interview today was set up by Tom Hyland from Electro Swing Circus, and the man on everyone’s call sheet for Swingamajig. But honestly, I was fearful of my expense account not knowing how many destroyers would be waiting for me in Moseley. Mercifully Leighton was the only one and our conversation could be surmised in a pint.
But a band member in the pub is worth two in the bush, or words to that effect. And The Destroyers’ “current recording plan is to release two EPs” – following last May’s The Vortex with Licence to Sing, scheduled for release in June this year. Then it’s time for album No3, with a working title of The Massive Gong in the pipeline for 2017.
The Vortex Cannon – The Destroyers
“All of our recordings are named after one of the songs,” explains Leighton, as I fumble around a childish faux par, “and we’ve got a song called ‘The Massive Gong’. It’s easier to name something after a song than an instrumental. But the full album will feature some material from the two EPs alongside some new material. Then after we release our album the next thing we might do are collaborations – Katy Rose Bennett sang on or second album; maybe we’ll do some collaborations with more singers.”
Sounds good, with additional vocalists adding to the already ferocious thirteen strong ensemble. But does the logistical challenge ever become too much to get out of bed for? Thirteen is not a number known for being lucky. “It’s gone up and down over the years,” explains Leighton, “with the most we’ve had being fifteen. When we first started out we were inspired by these Balkan folks groups like Taraf DeHaidouks and it’s quite common, with those sorts of bands, for there to be more than ten players so I guess we just adopted that mindset.”
I can’t comfortably write prose with anyone else in the room. Have the changing numbers ever become a potential blue touch paper? “Sam Wooster sang the lead vocals on ‘The Vortex Cannon’, that we recorded last year, then moved to Australia before we’d had a chance to make the video. We’re keeping a space in the band open for Sam – we got a small child to mime singing his words.” Problem solved. Any greater disturbances to the force?
“WhenLouis (Robinson, founding father) left we had to decide whether to carry on or not – that’s the big change over the last couple of years. But the rest of us collectively took up the reigns so we decided to give it a go and take it from there.” And how is life after Louis? “We’re in the middle of a new recording project since then; we’ve been writing new material. It’s taken us a while to work out what we’ll do and how we’ll make it work, but it’s on a good trajectory right now.”
And Birmingham breathes a sigh of relief. But seriously, a band of thirteen playing between twenty and forty gigs a year – is that not a little… brave? Even foolhardy?
“Foolhardy… what’s the right word? It’s what we do and we’re happy with what we do. But there’s no question it’s impractical.Rather than starting out with something that would be financially viable, we just thought we’d go for something that’s a great fun carnival.”
The Destroyers headline Swingamajig 2016, on Sunday 1st May – held across The Rainbow Venues from 2pm to 6am.
It’s that time again. Spring has sprung, the chocolate chicks have hatched, and that fantastic festival crocus is popping up in flyers and on Facebook.
Swingamajig 2016 is four weeks away – time to get your glad rags out, dust down your feather boas, and dress up for some fine & dandy debauchery. 1st May people…
Moving to the Rainbow Venues, this year’s Swingamajig is the biggest festival yet – cramming ‘over 4,000 of the UK’s best dressed ladies & gents’ into the sprawling Digbeth events complex.
Curated by Electric Swing Circus & Kambe Events, Swingamajig 2016 has 6 stages on offer, ‘packing a massive program of music and performance’ into its new home – with Balkan Beatbox as the main event headliner, alongside a bevy of the bold and beautiful from Burlesque, ‘electro swing, bassline, gypsy, punk, balkan, folk, jazz, rockabilly and rock and roll.’
There’s also a tie in this year to the International Dance Festival Birmingham, with a few artist crossovers and Stomp Stomp – a day of ‘lindy hop and authentic solo jazz workshops’ at The Night Owl on Saturday 30th April. For more on Stomp Stomp, click here.
But trying to define Swingamajig, or to slot it neatly into one event pigeon hole or another, is a foolhardy endevour – as Birmingham Review found out for the first time at last year’s festival (…shame on us).
Try not to think of Swingamajig in terms or genres, just imagine a masquerade ball exploding like a glitter filled piñata inside a cabaret circus big top, with all the fire crew dressed by Mr Ben and Dita Von Tease after a mouthful of mushrooms. So hopefully that clears that up a bit.
And if a burlesque tinged psychedelic 70’s children’s TV metaphor isn’t crystal enough for you, have a look at our BREVIEW of Swingamajig 2015 – click here
So then… down to brass tacks. Swingamajig 2016 – who’s on, where, and for how much? As previously stated, this year’s festival headliners are Balkan Beatbox – who will be in The Big Top Main Stage at some point after dark.
Next on the live line up are The Destroyers – a local ‘MegaFolk’ ensemble who are as addictive as fun is legally allowed to be (in fact, they may not be legal. Defra are getting back to us), with the band that started it all, Electric Swing Circus, having their rightful place of prominence. Another first, I popped my ESC cherry last year and they are all sorts of awesome.
Click on the highlighted links to get a bit more background on all the above. Or for a wider SELLSELLSELL, have a butcher’s at this little number – you might even win something:
Swingamajig 2016
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Birmingham Review @ Swingamajig 2016
Birmingham Review is absurdly excited to say we will also be at Swingamajig 2016, with an army of well dressed reporters gathering words & pics for a special Birmingham Review @ Swingamajig 2016 souvenir brochure. You know those glossy keepsakes you get from a West End musical… kind of like one of those, but with a bit more show.
So look out for us near The Big Top Main Stage – we’ll be selling food & drink at the Birmingham Review Chai Stall, with a whole play pen of stuff to dig your fingers into as well. Come & say hi, drink some chai, dance around like a deranged demon child in drag, and scrawl your inner most secrets on the Birmingham Review Chalk Board of Thought. We promise not to tell.
Birmingham Review will also have photographers at our stand taking some souvenir snaps to email out you (free, gratis) after the event – with the first to pre-order a copy of Birmingham Review @ Swingamajig 2016 getting their pics included in the souvenir brochure, should they so desire.
Swingamajig 2016 comes the Rainbow Venues in Digbeth on May 1st – running from 2pm until 6am. Tickets are priced at £22/£25/£30. For direct festival info, including online ticket sales, visit http://swingamajig.co.uk/
Now four albums in and present across global gig and festivals circuits, Balkan Beat Box have crissed, crossed, and crisscrossed again a multitude of influence – bringing sounds and genres from all over the world into their set.
