Pete Ashton's Weblog

Okay, this is the start of a 14 day series of posts, Going Deaf For A Fortnight in which I go to a gig in a small venue in Birmingham every night to see bands I mostly have never heard of before and then write about them here. By the end of it I expect to have attained a good overview of the Birmingham small gigs scene, to hopefully have discovered some good tune-smiths and to probably have descended into a nightmarish Gonzo-style meltdown. We shall see.

GDFAF #1 was a pretty easy start as it was a gig by my flatmate's band Plinth, headlining at the Jug of Ale in Moseley. It was also something of a reunion with a good showing of friends not seen for a while who'd travelled up for the event, but I had to tear myself away from such distractions as I was on a mission. The rules of this game are that I have to attentively watch every band performing - no hanging in the bar during the support acts, no nipping into the corridor for a chat - this is business. But despite being amongst friends I was also in a slightly strange place as it was the first time I'd brought the new camera to a gig along with the seems-bigger-out-of-the-shop tripod I picked up yesterday. I wasn't just going to be waving my little digicam around, I was going to be a "professional" photographer, or at least pretending to be one for tonight.

So I made my way upstairs to the gig space at the Jug and secured a nice table near the front, which wasn't too hard as there were only a dozen people up there. I know this number because the first band, The Goods made frequent references to it. They weren't a happy bunch and I got the feeling they'd done a few too many support slots to empty rooms. While I understand this attitude it's kinda self fulfilling - if you come on and moan about how there's no-one there then those who are there don't feel particularly obliged to get enthusiastic. In fact it was one of those sets where the audience reaction became more muted as it went on. Musically they were very competent, possibly too competent if that makes sense. I could tell by watching them where each note was coming from, each guitar working perfectly well on its own but not really coming together to create something new, which is sort of what you expect from a band. Not that they'll produce an amorphous noise or anything but that something special will emerge, something gestalt, if you like. And they sounded a bit like a band who really liked the Stone Roses a few years back and never quite got over it. Nothing wrong with that of course. I'm thinking if they actually gave the impression that they wanted to be there I'd have enjoyed them a lot more, but they didn't, so I didn't really.

I made the huge mistake of going downstairs and offering to buy someone a drink while the next band were setting up which in the Jug on a Friday night is something of an ordeal. I tend to only go there on a weeknight to see gigs so I'd never appreciated how full of incredibly young people it gets of a weekend. It's quite a schizo place with all the yoofs downstairs doing whatever it is they do and all the music-types upstairs being all musicy. But I made it back having only missed a couple of songs by Man In Fridge who were an quite odd band in a really nice way. In fact they were something of a counterpoint to The Goods - what they lacked in musicality they more than made up for with enthusiasm. The large hairy bassist / singer looked like a scary metal-head but came over really sweet and slightly camp between songs, while the other singer / guitarist - a short chap with spiky hair - was a ADD-fueled nutter, rolling around the stage for a couple of songs. This sort of theatrics can go horribly wrong if you're not lucky, like an embarrassing Art thing, but this worked for me principally because they were having such tremendous fun. Musically theirs was a kind of good-time funk-pop thing - nothing particularly revolutionary but highly enjoyable.

And then Plinth about whom I am somewhat biassed but bear with me. The set has settled into a pattern of slow build, starting with some steady kinda post-rock tunes and ending with a couple of tracks where singer Andy channels some kind of primal force from god knows where and the audience is left shattered and emotionally drained. But it's not the sort of pounding dirge you might expect - there's a soft edge to the aggression, a fragility to the rock posturing that brings the audience in. The band were very tight tonight, moving swiftly through the set and maintaining a presence throughout the half hour set and it was the perfect end to Plinth Year One - a good gig amongst friends.

The first thing that happened when I got off my bike at the Jug of Ale in Moseley was I discovered for the first time in my life I had pins and needles in my bollocks. It's a very strange and not particularly pleasurable sensation and though it went away fairly quickly I mention it purely in the spirit of Gonzo journalism because it might be important. Who can tell.

GDFAF #2 then, which consists of me going to a gig on my own to see three bands I'd never heard of. Both these things were novelties, the latter part of the plan, the former an unfortunate side effect of going out every night for a fortnight. In retrospect I'm not sure why this is such a big deal - if there was a band I really really wanted to see then it wouldn't be an issue, but spending two and a half hours in a pub with no idea what I was going to experience was somewhat daunting. There's also the issue that when I go with someone I tend to be the optimistic one. Chum will say something derogatory about the band and I'll counter that they're not so bad. Without that sounding board I was more likely to just go with the negative, especially when surrounded by people I would be instantly stereotyping as vacuous wankers. So bear that in mind. But don't bear it too much in mind because I'm pretty sure I'm on a road to accuracy with this one.

Consider this: a Saturday night at one of the main small venues in the city, where countless great bands have played brilliant sets. You'd expect something special, or at least a reasonable level of quality. It would seem your expectations should be lowered. Even allowing for the fact that this was bonfire night and most self-respecting thrill seekers were off watching the bangs and lights you'd hope the local music scene (and they were all Brummies) would do better than this. It was a night of skillful mediocrity. There were brief moments of inspiration but on the whole, nah, I wouldn't have bothered mate.

First up were The Tates who played to an audience of about eight people including me and the lead singer's girlfriend, but unlike The Goods yesterday they were gracious about it and thanked us for listening. They played a kind of soaring pop-punk with moments of Oi and they wouldn't have been out of place at a punk festival or biker rally. They weren't doing anything new or radical but they got the job done in an honest, competent manner. And there's not really much more I can say about them.

Next up was possibly the lowlight of my recent gigging career. Sweet Lilly were a covers band who didn't do any actual covers. My first reaction was throwback Manchester rock. I mean, I liked Oasis and Cast and especially the Stone Roses at the time but c'mon, is this stuff really still necessary? At one stage they even riffed off The Levellers for christ's sake! Of course it was all note perfect and performed with the delusion that this is the kind of thing bands are supposed to do but there was no spark of originality or wit whatsoever. Also of note was how just before they started the room was invaded by all their mates who immediately left as soon as they'd finished. I guess since these bands get paid a token share of the door if that then playing a gig at the Jug purely to entertain your friends is fair enough. For sure, most bands try and pack in their chums (at least until they get actual fans) but it would be preferable if they'd just hire a room somewhere and keep it to themselves rather than inflicting their asinine tedium on my soul. Towards the end of the set they opened with a Stone Roses riff which morphed into an Oasis vocal with lyrics that said absolutely nothing at all. I found myself realising why no-one goes to gigs unless they know the band - you find yourself at the whim of people who can play guitar but have no idea what a guitar is really for.

So after that abortion the headlining band had better be good. No, they'd better be amazing. I'd braved fireworks and the threat of a light drizzle to come here tonight. The Bleak started with a song that sounded a hell of a lot like Led Zep. They then followed this with a Jimmy Hendrix cover, then a song which owed a fair bit to Pink Floyd. After a while they covered the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Ah well...

To their credit they were definitely enjoying themselves and it was interesting to see what were essentially a bunch of kids playing around with this sort of stuff and not taking it at all seriously. I was ready to write them off as another bloomin' covers band when in the middle of one of their own songs the two guitarists stepped off to the side for a drink while the drummer did a fucking drum solo! Not even your dyed in the wool cock-rocking metal band would have that sort of audacity! They then finished up with a big fat instrumental blues jam which was, as you'd expect, perfectly competent and probably the best thing I'd heard all night but is it really headlining material?

I'll say it again - this was a Saturday night at one of the main venues for local bands in Birmingham, a venue at which I have attended some of the best gigs of my life by some of the most interesting groups in the area. As a showcase for Birmingham this was very poor. Maybe we can blame all the fireworks displays for taking the custom elsewhere (the pub was noticeably quiet compared to yesterdays crush) but I'm not here to be generous. I'm going to 14 gigs in 14 days. My patience is limited.

Before I go any further with GDFAF #3, a public service announcement about the Barfly venue in Birmingham. You know that door with the huge "Barfly" flag hanging over it on Digbeth High Street that often has a queue outside? That's not the Barfly. The Barfly is around the back of the Sanctuary club so head down Milk St and turn into what looks like a delivery yard. That's your entrance. Do this and you won't miss the first support act, like I did tonight. Also bear in mind that the Barfly shares security with the Sanctuary club so the bloke at the door will treat you like a dodgy pisshead/druggie clubber rather than the fey indie muso kid you are.

So it turned out that I'd actually been to this venue before. It's the back room of said Sanctuary and it's been through a number of changes over the years. I first went there when it was hosting the Gods Kitchen hardcore techno club nights back around 1998, all painted black with Giger-esque faces on the wall. A bit later I was at the Sanctuary itself at one of their indie nights with some old Uni mates and the back room had been painted bright red and incorporated into the club itself as their 80's room. My mates loved it, but they were too young to really appreciate the horror of such things. And now it's black again and serving as a pretty standard but nice and airy gig venue. I quite like it - there are enough nooks and crannies along with a neat balcony and plenty of room to spread out and dance but it doesn't feel like a barn like some halls do.

Like I said, I missed Sabotage Left, the first support, having stood in the wrong place for half an hour and then being blocked by the overzealous bouncer who wouldn't let us in until they'd finished for some ungodly reason. But they're a local band so I may well bump into them again.

The other support, Distophia, were very good. The problem with bands who are very good is it's hard to compare them to anyone else -the reason they're good is because they're unique in some way. Reviews posted on their site cite My Bloody Valentine a fair bit which I can kinda agree with but only at a stretch. I got more of a Husker Du vibe with elements of the Retro Spankees (specifically a tendency to yelp). They produced a robust wall of guitar noise with much twiddling of nobs and feedback but never to excess, along with, well I want to say harmonising vocals but that sounds a little soft for what was produced, more along the lines of American nerd-punk (think Weezer, but only a bit) with lots of shouting amongst the soaring. Which was also their aesthetic, a random assortment of blokes with no unifying style or attitude - very nice. And they frequently moved off the stage and played in the crowd which was a good thing. I like it when musicians do this. Finally they had their drums at the front which was quite refreshing (why, when there's space, do bands stick the drummer right at the back?) and meant I finally got a photo of a drummer that isn't a blurry smudge of darkness.

Distophia are also local and will certainly be mentally bookmarked for as worthy of seeing again. In fact I'm slightly bemused as to why I haven't heard of them before since they've been around for a while. But that's the point of this fortnight - to fill in those gaps.

And so to the headliners, Polysics, who it appears have quite a following, which again made me wonder how I'm managed not to hear of them before. I'm mean, I'm hip to the Japanese new music scene. I know my Pizzicato Five and my Cornelius. I own the Sushi 4004 compilation. How dare they pass me by! I joke - that there are bands of this quality touring the world for me to discover with no media-warped preconceptions is a damn good thing. I confess I was initially drawn to them by the red boilersuit costumes. The last time I saw a Japanese band in dressed in red boilersuits was Yumi Yumi last August who were very good so using that incredibly scientific criteria of ethnicity and attire I figured they'd be worth the £9.00 entrance. I was right. They were utterly brilliant.

The first thing to get out of the way is the Devo influence. Yes, it's there, acknowledged and blatant, and it's not a problem. There's also the fact that they're Japanese which makes them fascinatingly alien - you never know how much is normal and how much is odd, especially as they filter western freak-rock through their Tokyo punk-pop sensibilities. There are layers of subversion that are too complicated to dissect so it's best just to go with it and dance. Which is not a problem as they're one of most danceable acts I've seen in a long time, mashing up pogo-punk with electro-noize and catchy Nintendo-style tunes.

Also refreshing was a well thought out stage presence. To the right is Fumi wielding her bass with attitude (and, it must be said, great hair). Then on the left is Kayo with the synth standing utterly still throughout with the occasional robotic movement. Then bounding across the stage like some manic game show presenter is Hayashi playing up the stadium rock role with glee and getting away with it. The red boilersuits and black-strip shades both add to the slightly alien feeling and made their stage personas stronger giving a sense of spectacle sorely missing from most gigs.

Some highlights then:

• Hayashi collecting rucksacks and handbags from the audience, putting them all on and continuing to play guitar.
• Kayo suddenly producing pompoms.
• Hayashi grabbing someone's pint of beer and downing it in one.
• Hayashi getting the biggest guy in the audience to pick him up and carry him into the throng... while he played guitar.
• Kayo playing the recorder during one track which unexpectedly ended as a delicate duet between her and Hayashi
• Kayo pogoing and hitting a box at her apex which produced a boooiinnnggg sound.
• Kayo singing through a vocorder and a normal mike at the same time.
• The incredible cover of My Sharona. Yes, it's hard not to do an incredible cover of My Sharona but even so.
• and much much more...

The audience reaction was wild. It wasn't particularly rammed but that left more room for dancing which was infectious. But I can't finish this review without mentioning the tiny Japanese girl who stood right at the front completely still just bending her knees a fraction to the beat. When everything got really hectic she nodded her head maintaining a remarkable stillness while everyone else went manic.

GDFAF #4 fell on a Monday and Mondays were always going to be a problem. No-one goes out on a Monday and pubs, clubs and venues treat it as their weekend but here I am, going to fourteen gigs sequentially, so I need somewhere to go. Ideally I want to go to small gigs featuring unknown bands so the Birmingham Academy is technically not permitted. However, the gig there tonight was downgraded to Bar Academy, the 300-odd capacity venue next door that is certainly on my map, but the ticket price wasn't downgraded so it was a last resort.

I did try, honest. Having exhausted the internet I even started phoning random pubs to see if they had live music but to no avail. Chum Jez phoned about the Jeff Lewis gig on Friday and together we went through the options drawing blanks until he came across the Birmingham Clarion Singers at All Saints Church in Kings Heath. I'd been thinking about taking in an utterly non-rock concert at some point and report on it in true NME style so this seemed as good as any but we couldn't find any confirmation online (I'm still not sure how Jez even came across the info - possibly a local community newsletter or something) so I popped over on the bike to check it out. The church notice-board was surrounded by the local youths who were being all threatening but I managed to corner a middle aged woman in the car park who knew nothing about any concert tonight and was most perturbed that the potential for one existed without her knowing about it. So I took that as a no and, after checking the pubs on Kings Heath High St headed back home.

Time was marching on so I bit the bullet and headed off to Bar Academy. There was always the potential that they'd have sold out having switched to the smaller venue but no, tickets were still available. At £10. It seems there's a pricing structure for gig tickets where, say, they're advertised at £7, sold in advance for £8 (with booking fee) and on the door for £10. As I ummed and erred the nice lady behind the bar gave me the "c'mon, it's only a tenner" look and I mentioned the 14 gigs in 14 nights thing. She asked why, which was a fair question. I think I might be asking why myself soon, but I explained about the website and the reviews and smiled a weak smile. She asked her boss if he was feeling generous. He thought I was fucking mad but wasn't feeling generous. I paid my tenner.

Now, here's where it gets a little embarrassing - I'm not sure who the first band were. According to the advance publicity the bill was Voodoo Glow Skulls, No Comply, The Klopeks and Templeton Pek. I didn't make a note of who they said they were udring the gig and I have a terrible memory for that sort of thing so I figured I could just go back and check later. According to their site No Comply have cancelled all their November gigs so they can be discounted and some detailed detective work on their MySpace page reveals the second band to be The Klopecs which means the first band was Templeton Pek. Except their photos on MySpace show a clean-cut threesome while there were four guys on stage, two of whom had most impressive dreadlocks. It also says they were playing elsewhere tonight. [Update - I've been informed they were called A Day Called Desire and have edited this post accordingly.]

So first up was A Day Called Desire who were a tight metal band getting a good response from the audience. They said this was the best reception they'd ever had and it was pretty remarkable for a first support. There was even a bit of moshing going on, which foreshadowed the rest of the evening quite well.

I should say a little about the crowd - they were young. Yes, this shouldn't be a big shock but it always takes me by surprise when I'm one of the oldest people at a gig, especially when it's not a particularly hip and trendy band on stage. And there were a lot of them for the relatively small Bar Academy, about half looking all hardcore and cool and half still figuring out how to look hardcore and cool. Occasionally I'd see someone my age but they'd turn out to be one of the other bands waiting to perform or part of the crew. The main reason I mention the age is because these young people, they have so much energy! You think the kids today are all apathetic and cynical but give them the right outlet and, boom, it all gets a little hectic. Brought back some memories, I can tell you.

The Klopeks (another local band I'd not heard of before) made the most of this boundless enthusiasm and milked it to the core. It helped that, like the headliners, they were a ska-punk band with metal-ish undertones, but the huge trombone player diving into the audience and moshing didn't hinder things too much. I particularly liked their obsession with pirates and highwaymen and the way half of them played topless. That's always a good sign. Very mad-eyed and crazed with much interaction with the crowd, you'd think they were headlining.

It was about this time that I simultaneously started really enjoying myself and getting worried about my camera. I'd be interested to know if, during outbreaks of peace, war photographers go to rock gigs filled with teenagers because it was quite unnerving, even for someone who isn't adverse to a good mosh. I was standing on the stools to the right of the stage (you'll know them if you know the venue) mainly so I could actually see the bands on the inch-high stage (you'll know what I mean if you know the venue) and every time I leant down to get the camera out of it's protective case a whirling ball of testosterone would crash into me. If I'd know I would have brought the old digicam, but I was going in blind here. So, not many photos and those that were taken were a little shite. During the Klopeks' set I was wondering, if the crowd are like this now, what will they be like for the band they actually paid to see?

They tore the fucking place to pieces.

The Voodoo Glow Skulls (Wikipedia) have been around for a while as part of the US ska revival of the 1990s (remember The Mighty Mighty Bosstones?) though, as is becoming a pattern in this fortnight, I'd not come across them before. I didn't know they were from California, for example, nor that they'd be singing half in Spanish, or that they'd been around since 1992. I was sort of aware that there'd been a small ska revival in Birmingham last year amongst the student population (or at least I heard it from a student) and it would seem to be not so small after all. This crowd were hardcore fans through and through. From my vantage point I was often distracted from the stage to just watch the audience throw themselves around and while it was never nasty I did feel something close to apprehension at the flailing of limbs. Maybe if I'd not been on my own I would have dived in and joined them, but I'm not so sure.

Meanwhile on stage the Glow Skulls were tight, as you'd expect from a band who've been playing for about 15 years, and their music was fast, pounding through a mashup of ska beats, metal riffs and punk vocals with their own Mexican flavouring. Again I was struck by the age thing, and I don't want to make a big deal of it but most of the band were old enough to be parents of their fans. This was like going to a comeback gig except there didn't seem to be any original fans there unless they were listening to skacore in primary school. I might be reading too much into this but it seems to me that the gig exemplified how young people are doing music these days. I'm not aware of this sort of thing getting any mainstream coverage these days and while there has always been some kind of ska presence on the gig scene this seemed very youth specific (and about 50:50 male to female, which was interesting). One can only blame "the internet" and the way young people get their information these days, via word of mouth recommendation and downloading random music. When I was their age everything came from the NME and Radio 1. Now it's something a lot less specific and uncontrolled, yet capable of bringing 300 kids together to go utterly mental.

Or maybe it's not so complicated. All three bands namechecked MySpace. Think on that.

During a very brief lull in the chaos I got the camera out but the lense immediately steamed over with condensed sweat. I didn't fancy keeping it out to aclimatise so no photos of the Glow Skulls, which is a shame as they were worthy of them, but fuck, it was hot in there. I emerged the sweatiest I've ever been from just standing up for two hours.

Voodoo Glow Skulls - very good. UK tour continues through to November 20th. Go check them out for good times.

And so it was for GDFAF #5 that I returned to Bar Academy for my fifth gig in this series. It was raining hard so rather than cycling I put on my leather jacket and took the train, which was apt as it was a leather jacket sort of a gig. I seem to be going through a nice variety of genres at the moment: Sunday was J-rock, Monday was ska, tomorrow is whatever the hell Melt Banana are, Friday is anti-folk and tonight was apparently "death rock". We're in the world of heroin-chic, romanticised suicide, moody pouts, smoke machines and the ability to call your band The Warlocks and still be taken seriously.

I got there early thanks to the gig scene's utter inability to deal with the concept of accurate advance information and as usual had my bag checked. Since I wasn't cycling there wasn't a bundle of hi-viz and bike lights in there so the bouncer saw the camera and asked for a look. I'd always assumed they were on the lookout for anything resembling professional kit for copyright reasons and my camera does look kinda pro to a novice, but it would appear they're more concerned with concealment of illicit substances. "Digital?" he asked after turning it over a few times and let it pass, neglecting to check the 14 pockets on my person but what the hell, at least I wasn't smuggling drugs in an SLR body.

I've found sitting around at gigs on my own a strangely uncomfortable experience, especially as I'm not drinking overpriced beer for this fortnight, so having seen someone reading a paper last night I brought a book and settled down in the corner. As the room filled I saw a girl reading a Diane Arbus monograph. Hmm. Highbrow crowd tonight. A couple of guys came over and asked if I wanted to be on the Warlocks' mailing list - filling these out consists of me writing my name over and over and always feeling slightly pretentious next to all the hotmails and yahoos - and offered a badge. I ended up with six.

I heard a guitar being tuned and moved to my now usual spot on the benches to the right of the stage, but nothing seemed to be happening. Then a guy with a strange accent started talking to the audience in between setting up his gear, offering people his pints of beer which, being British, no-one accepted. This was Dead Combo, our support for this evening, a Finnish duo with guitars, a laptop serving as a drum machine (and god knows what else) along with the crustiest old Moog you've ever seen. They were an odd looking couple, vocalist (plus guitar and Moog) Nuutti Kataja looking like a skinny Lemmy with his clean shaven guitarist chum Harri Kupiainen beside him. Looking at their tour dates on MySpace they're on an incredibly intensive tour across Europe and it showed.

My limited experience of Scandinavians (specifically Norwegians) has taught me that they are kind hearted, generous folk but with a mildly psychotic edge. Roll the term "Finnish Rock" around your head - it's both exciting and slightly disturbing. I was trying to pin down exactly why the audience were so wary of this genial monster offering his bottle of poppers bought from the sex shop next door ("we don't do designer drugs, we prefer novelty drugs") and it struck me he was behaving like an amusing tramp. You're entertained but you want to keep your distance.

When they actually got down and played they were quite astonishing with grinding guitars and vocals riding a steamroller of pounding drums and that fucked up Moog that reminded me of Big Black in terms of relentless power, but everyone still kept their distance despite rewarding with rapturous applause. Everyone except one young woman who stood on her own right in front of the stage. I'd like to see Dead Combo again when they have an audience that's brave enough to interact on their level. I suspect it would be a most entertaining evening.

While they were endearingly shambolic tonight an mp3 from their site shows they can put it down on record to great effect, like My Bloody Valentine with enormous balls.

And so to our headliners, The Warlocks, consisting of two, no, three guitars, bass, keyboards, and that's a rather large drum kit, hang on two drum kits? This band has two drum kits? Without saying hello or even acknowledging the audience they started playing what struck me as shoegazer and I liked it a lot.

This sort of thing is very easy to take the piss out of, with earnest songs about drugs and suicide with miserablist-gorgeous posturing, but when it's done well it's immensely enjoyable. Whether there was a knowing smile behind the mask I'm not sure (I'm reminded of a post-rock guitarist telling me that of course it's all incredibly silly but part of how it works is not to let on how silly it is) but all the trimmings were there, from the back-lighting and smoke machine making the band darker than the audience, to the film projected behind them.

This projection was notable in this age of laptop driven shows. Behind the speaker stacks was a guy with two old-school projectors which he had to use pliers to operate. Into these he fed a number of scratchy 8mm film loops stored in notches on a strip of cardboard. As both projectors played he leant over them, alternately flipping pieces of card over the lens, mixing the images as a DJ would mix records. The images were your standard selection of psychedelia, old movies and vintage porn but to see them manually manipulated like that with such energy and for so long was quite inspiring.

I was again intrigued by the audience. I was expecting a fair amount of goth but there was none to be seen. There wasn't even much leather in attendance - just a room full of pretty ordinary looking people in their mid-20s, early 30s. If I can stretch some comparisons to last night we again had a relatively minor band from the US from a pretty well identified genre playing to what seemed to be a random assortment of people who'd become fans via their own channels. I could of course be completely off base about this but it seems to be the unexpected theme of this fortnight, that easily identifiable tribes and subcultures don't exist any more. People stumble upon scenes that in the past they shouldn't do and mix them up in a manner of their own choosing. It would appear my genre-hopping gig going isn't at all unusual - this is the norm, and I think that's a good thing.

So I ended the night having taken a band called The Warlocks seriously. That's no small feat.

I was accompanied for GDFAF #6 by Andy and Doug from Una Corda, a Birmingham based post-rock band the members of whom have been around the local scene for a while now. As we entered the Custard Factory in Digbeth they immediately started recognising people they knew. It was like a gathering of the tribes with a good chunk of the crowd in some kind of band or other - every conversation I overheard was along the lines of "where're you playing next?" or detailed expositions on tortuous projects. This was, of course, a good sign. When the luminaries of Birmingham's experimental music and intelligent rock society descend upon a gig you know you've chosen wisely. They hadn't just come to see Melt Banana, they'd come to pay homage and to learn.

This was the first gig organised by Capsule that I'd attended. Capsule are easily the most interesting promoters in the Midlands at the moment, if not the country. Using the cushion of the Custard Factory arts complex they put numerous gigs of an experimental bent, often combining international artists with local talent, both audio and visual, to create Events rather than mere events. I've always wanted to go to one but had been put off by their relatively high prices (compared to the average small gig that is - they're actually quite reasonable for what they do) and the fact that I'd often never heard of the people they'd booked. Their emails would come through like something from a delicious alien world full of wonder and confusion and it was about time I did the right thing and attended one of them.

As for the venue, the Medicine Bar is similarly impressive and nondescript. As a bar it's quite lovely, all staircases and glass looking over the Custard Factory square with its fountain, while the actual venue is just a big room with a stage, perfect for moulding into whatever you want be it a gig, club night, art show or something indescribable. It also has the most daunting speakers I've ever seen, towering over the room like the intake vents on a jet plane. They're also shockingly well placed above head level so the sound carries and doesn't murder anyone standing in front of them.

But enough of all that. You want to hear about the bands. First up was Noise Noise Allore, a relatively new band made up of four long time members of various post-rock and metal bands but utterly different to that sort of stuff. Fronted by a short chap with a pencil mustache and white shirt and tie they evoked Devo with an element of Sparks. To a heavy speed-pop backing the singer sung in a high pitched yelpy staccato, jerking in a confused, nervous fashion punctuated by sly winks to the crowd. During the tracks he thrust the mike into the palm of his hand and held it out to the audience as if it were a dangerous thing. They were quite brilliant if very hard to describe but they're playing more gigs in the area which I certainly intend to attend.

Next was Brian Duffy and The Modified Toy Orchestra consisting of five guys in suits making strange music with, as you'd expect, modified toys. If Kraftwerk look like robots this British version look like geography teachers crossed with spivs. I couldn't get close enough to see properly but their equipment consisted of music-related toys that had either been altered to make different noises or were being fed through effects machines and a doll that had been converted into a satanic controller with small metal plungers protruding out of its head that when pressed triggered odd sounds. Duffy himself was very charismatic, which was something of a shock since I had Kraftwerk on my mind, and I found out later that the drummer (I suspect he was hitting something odd with his sticks) was Fuzz Townsend from PWEI and Bentley Rhythm Ace, which came as no fucking surprise whatsoever! Their set was very short but again they're local chaps so will no doubt be playing again and I will be there, at the front, with my camera. Musically they combined the carnivalesque blips and bloops of the toys with a dark throbbing beat that was most refreshing. I like blippy electronica a lot but combined with this undulating bass it took on something quite new and special.

So the support was from two local bands of very high quality. This is what I wanted to see. Along with Distophia on Friday and The Klopeks on Monday I'm starting to build up a nice overview of the quality end of the Birmingham scene. I knew it was there - a band like Misty's Big Adventure don't emerge from a vacuum after all - but now I can put my finger on it and unlike most scenesters I'm not one to keep such information to myself, be sure of that.

The gig was pretty much sold out, as you'd expect for a band of this caliber and reputation, and lit with dark red lights, most annoying if you want to get any decent photos. Also a lot of these guys in bands are quite tall - I mean, I'm not exactly short but I was having more trouble than usual seeing the stage. So as the Toy Orchestra cleared away I went right up to the stage and stood there refusing to budge. I'm not usually so belligerent about being at the front but I had an inkling this was going to be one of those life changing gigs and I didn't want to experience it with any visual impairment.

Melt Banana were fucking awesome.

Oh, you want more? Christ, where to begin. Well, we could start with the look, an androgynous lead singer in a scrappy hoodie that looked like it was adapted from a straightjacket, a guitarist with a protective mask duct-taped to his mouth, his hat pulled down right over his eyes, but that doesn't really help. You might be familiar with the sound they produce from John Peel's show, short speed-core metal songs with an incredibly high-pitched vocal screaming over the noise and yes, this was most impressive, especially as most speed-metal doesn't really do much for me. The relentless rhythm, with drums and bass morphing into one beast, tore through the room as the utterly insane guitar created waves upon waves of beautiful discord. Sounds that seemed like they were coming from behind me popped out like distorted lions. The suddenness of their set takes your breath away as songs kick off without warning and yet still manages to build and build.

But what really made it was their presence. While the intensity of the music that came out of them seemed extraordinary it was also perfectly reasonable. They owned this stuff in the sense that you can own the weather. God, that sounds awful, but the final song illustrates it perfectly. As the music poured out, singer Yako stood rigid at the front, moving her eyes from side to side with the beat. By this time I'd moved to the back of the room but I could have been inches away. She had the whole room completely in her power having converted her ferocious voice into a stare. It was astonishing.

GDFAF #7 took place at the Flapper and Firkin round the back of Brindley Place in town. I'm not familiar with the strategies of whoever owns the Firkin chain these days but I was under the impression that all those Fandoogle and Firkin pubs had gone the way of all faddish brands. Not this one though, probably because the name has resonance as one of the main gig venues on the Birmingham small gigs scene. Back in the 90s, before the Academy was re-opened on Dale End, this was where you came to see up and coming bands that were working their way up the hard way. It was also home to the "We Brought Our Friends" collective of experimental bands like Avrocar and Magnetephone who would put on cozy gigs where everyone sat on the floor, often including the band.

Most of the gigs were organized by Zoot who started promoting there around 1994. I saw Arab Strap for the first time at a a Zoot run Flapper gig back in 1997 or so. It's probably relevant that they'll be playing later this month at Bar Academy. It's a shame but pretty inevitable that a slightly larger venue (capacity 300 compared to the Flapper's 150) run by the Academy group would take much of the touring trade leaving Zoot with predominantly local bands, partly because the Flapper itself is really nice. A cavernous cellar with slightly sloping ceilings, it's intimate but not too claustrophobic, the perfect place to see a band like, say, Arab Strap. Birmingham had needed something like the Academy complex for years but for the Flapper it's a case of be careful what you wish for.

It's also a really nice pub upstairs with a beer garden right on the canal, should you be in the area and need to escape the awfulness of Broad Street. In fact I spent half an hour sitting by the canal, reminiscing about gigs I'd attended here (Add N To X, Ten Benson...), while waiting for the door to open tonight and very pleasant it was too. Would the gig also be pleasant, a fitting continuation of good times past? Or would it be a sonic nightmare like Saturday at the Jug? Thankfully it seems the Zoot people still have good taste and, while not particularly revolutionary, this night was pretty top all told.

We started with Listen To Johnny who came over as a good-time pub band with a soft edge and a taste for pained love songs that you might find in a film soundtrack. The beat was quite up tempo, reminding me a teeny bit of the Boo Radleys (don't ask me to specify which era) and a lot of their songs started with very familiar riffs that developed into more unique songs. On their website they describe themselves as a Britpop band inspired by Ocean Colour Scene and Oasis but as a live band I think they're selling themselves a bit short. There's the elements of some lovely singer-songwriter stuff there. In spirit that is - I'm not saying they should jettison the band who were pretty tight. As a sidenote, they had a drum solo, which was a shock. I wasn't expecting two drum solos this fortnight, especially from this band, but I won't hold it against them as I like drum solos. And oh look, they have a MySpace page.

The thing with these new band night is unless the promoters get really lucky you're going to get some aesthetic clashes, and this was such a night. After the melodious pop of Listen To Johnny we had The Superglue Queens who were metal. The lead singer played a Flying V guitar! With exhaust ports! Really, there were four metal pipes poking out of the base of his guitar that served no purpose unless it really did take off like a rocket. I'm no great guitar aficionado so maybe such things are common in the world of the Flying V but it took my breath away. The aesthetic was hair and tats and they put down a solid set of rock. For a first gig they were very tight and nicely segued the first two songs together, something I'd like to see more bands doing.

(Sidenote for new bands: when you're playing a set, taking long breaks between songs kinda ruins the flow. Everyone's getting into your music and rather than build on that you let it deflate when you stop to faff about every five minutes. Give people half an hour of constant music with minimal gaps and you'll blow them away, I promise.)

Not only have I had two drum solos in my first week of GDFAF, I've also now experienced two bands with people from Finland in them. The bassist was a Fin - apparently he heard the band's music and flew over specially to join them, which may be bullshit but it's also strangely plausible - and this guy knew exactly what was expected of him, immediately putting his foot up on the monitor and posturing like a pro. Musically they were doing nothing new but they were doing it very well and I was as impressed as can be expected.

Superglue Queens were the band that brought all their friends, which makes for an interesting evening as I often feel like I've crashed some kind of family event or party, watching the group dynamics at close range and forming utterly inaccurate and spurious opinions about them. Unfortunately, this pattern of lots of people coming to see one band makes the audience slightly uneven. When everyone's come to see the headliner you can expect a nice build towards the end of the evening when everyone goes mental. Our final act, however, didn't seem to have as many friends and so reaction to them was more muted, which was a shame as they were in my opinion the more superior band.

Killing Zoe channel the spirit of Iggy Pop through a fat man. There's not other way to say it. They are old school punk with an aggressive attitude and no messing about. While his guitarists stood like warriors beside him, one craggy punk, one statuesque rocker, the singer jerked about the stage like, well, like Iggy Pop really. In fact at the end he praised Iggy, which was a shame as I was thinking I'd been really clever and made a subtle connection when in fact it was all premeditated.

But they weren't a pastiche or homage - their music was their own, even if their songs had titles like "Licking My Pistol", and the thing about doing an Iggy is you've got to take it all the way. This guy did, stripping off, hanging from the rafters and lying flat out on the floor. I half expected someone to produce a jar of peanut butter.

But sadly they didn't have the audience they richly deserve, and I have a inkling they're not the sort of band to do that self-promotion thing (I can find no mention of them online, though that might be to do with the slightly catastrophic decision to use a film title as your band name - second sidenote to new bands - Google before committing...). I think they could be on to something here. There are too many skinny punks about the place - Killing Zoe show what happens when you stick a bit of weight behind it and it is good.

Well, I could go to bed, I thought to myself, or I could record a podcast featuring a selection of music from the last seven gigs.

Continuing the genre dance, GDFAF #8 was Anti-Folk. What the hell is Anti-Folk, you might well be asking. At least everyone I've spoken to about this gig responded in that way. I guess it's like Alt-Country in that it's an appallingly stupid name for music done by young urban people in the style of old countryside people. You start off with "real" folk music done by genuine musicians with buckets of authenticity. This then gets watered down and blandified into something tedious which the young punks reject wholesale, but then someone stumbles upon the old recordings and realizes there's something to this whole folk thing and gives it a go, but they can't call what they're doing "folk" because folk sucks, so they call it anti-folk and eventually everyone gets used to it, the young punks get older and everything goes full circle. Oh, the wacky world of neologisms. What can you do...

So it was back to the Jug for the third time this fortnight so far. The first two were local band nights with sparse crowds mainly made up of friends of the groups but this was different, two bands from the States playing as part of their UK tour and the gig was pretty much sold out. The venue room at the Jug is relatively thin so if you actually want to see anything you've got to be near the front. Thankfully I'd come armed with a bunch of mates and, given the fears of a sell out, we'd got there nice and early so were able to secure a good pitch. There were also some of those lovely people who insist of sitting down at gigs and while this isn't the most efficient use of floor space it does mean more people can get a good view lending a slightly bohemian atmosphere to the occasion.

First up were Schwervon, a girlfriend-boyfriend duo with Major Matt Mason on guitar with Nan Turner on drums and both of them singing. Yes, "White Stripes", but ignore that shit. They looked strikingly normal, which seems a little odd as a lot of the bands I've been seeing have looked like they just walked off the street and picked up some instruments (occasionally they sounded like that too) but there was something refreshingly unpretentious about Schwervon. They could quite easily be your mates, which isn't to say they didn't have their quirks. Mason didn't shuffle so much as very carefully move around the stage as if he might break something or (as chum Jez put it) had once had a really bad altercation with a guitar lead and didn't want to repeat the experience, but still managed understated flourishes - at one stage he gently bent one leg behind him to emphasize a particularly notable riff which had the same effect as if he'd started swinging from the speaker stacks.

Their music was a very loud variation on the guitar/percussion thing with both of them taking lead vocals with the occasional conversational duet. Mason's vocal style had that slightly nasal wine similar in some ways to Stephen Malkmus while Turner's took me a long time to pin down, quite powerful with an attractive crack, it reminded me vaguely of Kim Deal or Kristen Hersh, but those are kludgy comparisons. Another stupid thing to say would be that most of their songs started off like Roadrunner by The Modern Lovers, but it did cross my mind a couple of times. Above all they had their own thing going on and it was good, if a little subdued compared to what followed. (mp3 clips here)

This was the third time I'd seen Jeffrey Lewis play at the Jug (reports here and here) and the sixth time he'd played there and he's certainly built up a large following in that time. As I said, the room was packed to the gills and pretty much everyone knew his stuff inside out, which always surprises me, partly because I have this irrational sense that Lewis is mine and nobody else knows about him (patent nonsense of course but I'm sure you've had this feeling about a band) but also because, outside of his gigs, I never seem to hear anything about him, online or off. I wouldn't be surprised if his success is purely down to word of mouth and that everyone at that gig can trace their being there back to someone who was at one of the earlier gigs (if you get me).

If you're not familiar with Jeffrey Lewis he has two modes, quiet solo songs of maudlin but good humoured self depreciation and loud full-on punk rock. This was more of a punk gig since he was with his full band - his equally talented brother Jack and their drummer David Beauchamp - playing a mix of new songs and old favourites. What really struck me was how tight they've become over the years, developing a real stage persona, and there was much less chatting than I'd expected - just a solid plough through the tunes. Of note was the live performance of "The History of Punk on New York's Lower East Side 1950-1975", a nine minute lecture in rhyme with snippets of the songs discussed pastiched by the band until "the whole thing moves over to England, England steals all the credit, that's how it goes". He also did a couple of his live videos, standing on a table and turning the pages of his sketch book as he sung. These are always a highlight and I'm delighted to say the "History of Communism", a work in progress that gets longer with each tour, has reached the Russian Revolution. In fact it now spans two books and threatens to eventually take over the whole set.

Lewis kept having to tune his incredibly beaten up guitar between songs and apologised, explaining that it was about to fall apart. Completely covered in stickers the front was peeling off, held on by many strips of duct tape. As it peeled the strings slacked so he had to tighten them which made it peel even more. He'd considered borrowing a different guitar but decided it would be cool to see if it exploded in the middle of set, but it didn't. Maybe the audience at one of the other gigs will have that pleasure.

This was a slightly different gig in the GDFAF scheme of things as I was not really discovering anything new. Schwervon, being from the same New York scene as Lewis, slotted in nicely and I just sat back and enjoyed myself with all the other fans. The gig was a success, playing right to the end without an encore (which is always tricky - the audience have got more music for their buck but they still feel a bit cheated when the band don't do that going off and coming back on again thing) and everyone went away very happy.

For GDFAF #9 I was sailing blind. Wanting to cover as many small gig venues as possible I phoned up the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath to see if they had a band on on Saturday. Yes, the bloke replied. Do you know who it is? No. But it's definitely open to the public and involves a band playing music? Yes. Okay then. So I bimbled along on my bike with absolutely no idea what to expect. This was how it should be - no research, no going for the safe option - just putting my fate in the laps of the gods of rock and taking whatever they dealt me. And boy did they deal me a doozy. The lurid pink poster on the way in promised the Dave Kusworth Group and looked kinda dodgy but I wasn't going to make any judgments since in this post ironic age you never know which way it's going to swing. In fact I put the notion of Dave Kusworth, about whom I knew nothing, completely out of my mind. It's a gig, that's all I need to know.

The Hare and Hounds, a grand old pub built in 1907 (and grade 2 listed), is possibly one of the oldest venues in Birmingham for live music, at at least it has that feel to it. When I mentioned I was thinking of going there I was informed it was a "fighting men's pub" which struck me as a little odd but then I'd only ever been there once before back in 1998 so what did I know. But a pub with a reputation like that is usually a perfectly safe place to go, I find, as all the wankers keep away lest they get twatted. The unspoken threat of violence keeps everything in order and no-one ever starts anything. Since I got there half an hour early I was able to check out the bar and yes, it was that kind of pub so I immediately felt very much at home.

Upstairs, then, to the venue where an older lady in a hat took my three pounds and stamped my hand. Being first in the room was still pretty empty so I sat down and took in the place. It's a bit like a school hall, quite large for a pub with a dance floor by the stage and tables laid out like a mess hall towards the bar. Unlike most venues the stage is a proper stage - a decent size and a good two feet off the ground - and the place hadn't changed a bit in the seven years since I was last there. Okay, maybe a spot of paint but the 7 inch records behind the bar were the same. There was a mirror ball which was turned on before the gig and I liked this a lot. As cigarette smoke rose it created shards of light through the air - if smoking is banned at venues the magic of the mirror ball will be somewhat diminished. Of note was a "headless" motif with two cardboard skeletons on the walls and a mannequin sitting atop the speakers, all decapitated. Very odd. I think it's probably the best venue I've been to so far in terms of potential. You could put pretty much anything on here and it would work.

As the crowd filtered in I was struck by the ages of them. Half were grown-ups. Like, real grown-ups, meaning they were at least 20 years older than my 33 years, most of them looking all respectable with a smattering looking like they never really got over whatever subculture they were in during their teens (or had dressed up special for the evening). This, presumably, was Kusworth's fan base. But who were these kids who made up the other half? And when I say kids I don't just mean anyone younger than me. I mean people too young to drink legally. There were loads of them, mingling around the dance floor like playground butterflies. Some of the adults were parents of the kids which was kinda weird and I was wondering if I'd stumbled on some kind of party. Turns out it was a lot simpler than that.

The support were All My Souls, a punky five piece who must have been local lads as suddenly all the kids rushed forward and danced like crazy. At one stage they carried one of their members aloft as they moshed like fools, having a tremendous time. As I was searching for the band to compare them to so as to give you, the reader, a broad idea of what they were like the only thing that popped into my head was the Sex Pistols, or at least late 70's DIY punk, and it was the audience that really brought this home. Here was a really really local scene of about 50 kids with their own band (who, I should add, were in their 20s). Yes, there are lots of gigs where the band brings along all their mates but this seemed different and somehow purer. While perfectly competent and in places very good they were not reaching for anything more than playing solid music to people they care about. It was quite refreshing.

And then, Dave Kusworth. Some keywords: tall, skinny, hair, headband, craggy face, scarf, hair, leopardskin-style shirt, tight jeans with laces up the sides, hair... Oh. My. God. He's a 100% genuine member of the Keith Richards school of Rock. Just looking at him on stage you knew there were stories, hundreds of stories, lying beneath that headband. This guy had obviously spent many years on the rock'n'roll rollercoaster and here he was in the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath. His band consisted of a bassist and drummer of about the same age, both of whom kept their hats on during the show. I don't know why I mention this but it seems important.

After a slightly shambolic start with much rock posturing to the crowd, the music developed into some pretty catchy R&B but the kids, who had started off attentively watching this old guy who'd let their band play, soon drifted off into the other room leaving about 10 people standing with another 30 or so sitting at the back. I took a load of photos, listened for a bit and contemplated leaving. I'd seen enough and this wasn't really working for me, plus I fancied getting home before my flatmates went to bed for a change. But rules are rules. I had to see it through to the end.

And thank god I did! During his first song this guy, who looked like a drunk nutter, had got up and sung along with Kusworth for a minute or so. As the last song picked up - a kinda punky number - this guy lept on stage taking Kusworth by surprise, grabbed the mic and started screaming along to the music: "No fun! No fun!" He stripped off his shirt and waved it around, demolishing the mic stand. The band carried on as this monster went mental and I sat there gobsmacked at the glory of it all. This was really good stuff! The drunk spilled his beer over the stage as he danced and managed to disconnect the mic in his frenzy, but the music found it's tightness and the kids suddenly streamed back in, marveling at this wonder. With all seriousness I would love to see this guy front the Dave Kusworth Group for a full gig. Honestly, those five minutes were one of the best moments of the fortnight.

When I got home Andy and Alex were still up and I regaled them with my story. Andy vaguely recognised the name and popped on t'internet to check. Turns out Kusworth, a Moseley native, was one of rock's nearly men having been involved in the formative stages of Duran Duran and Dogs D'Amore amongst others. His online biography is a chronicle of periphery but proves that he never stopped believing in what he did. This gig tonight, for those who remembered those days with nostalgia, doubled up as a showcase for a band that probably had the same spirit Kusworth did in the late 70s, who thanked him at the end of their set for letting them play.

Characters like Dave Kusworth are easy targets to take the piss out of but I've come away with an incredible sense of respect for the man and I know for certain I'll never forget that gig as long as I live.

GDFAF #10 was supposed to be at the Glee Club in Birmingham to see Jose Gonzalez, King Creosote and Paul Curreri in an event put on by Twisted Folk which seemed pretty keen and different from everything I'd seen this fortnight. I also wanted to cover the Glee Club which despite being a comedy club does put on a lot of live music at reasonable prices. But, after discovering that they've moved their entrance to the other side of the building (though they did put a nice notice on the old door informing of this, unlike some venues I could mention) I then discovered they'd sold out. No more tickets.

It was a bit of a shock but probably for the best as I'm not really supposed to be going to popular sold out events. I'm supposed to be exploring the periphery, the shadowy edges of the Birmingham live music scene, to see what moves there. And anyway, I had a back-up plan, a pub that I was pretty damn sure had live acoustic music on a Monday night, so I bimbled through Digbeth to Curzon St and went into the pub there. To be greeted by three old guys and a barman who, while very polite, informed me they only have live music on Fridays and Saturdays. Okay, thanks, I said, and exited rather confused. Then I looked at the name of the pub: the Eagle and Tun. The pub I was looking for was called... well, I couldn't remember the name but it began with an A - the Apple and Pear or the Ale and Pie or something. I'd looked it up online and based on the photo was sure it was this pub. Damn Digbeth with it's many redbrick pubs on corners all looking the same!

Knowing I'd mentioned it on the blog I phoned home and got Andy on the case while I started hunting around Digbeth for this pub. I had a inkling which pub it might be - a place I'd seen a friend's cover band play once - and that was over on the other side. Digbeth, if you're not aware, is a very strange place. It's the warehouse heart of old Birmingham consisting of loads of redbrick buildings in a pretty rigid grid formation, except when you're cycling or walking through there it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I've been there a few times to take photos, or on the way to to a job, and I can very rarely pinpoint on the map the things I've seen. Very odd.

After 15 minutes or so, and having passed about 10 pubs, I pulled up outside the Adam and Eve just as Andy was phoning me back. This must be the one. It says "live music" all over it. Bingo.

(Interlude: See my confusion: Adam and Eve site - Eagle and Tun photo. Okay, it's obvious now but consider my mental state!)

I entered the pub. It was a pub. A nice pub, but a pub all the same. It had a stage in one corner with a mic set up, which was promising, so I bought a beer and found a table, which was not hard as there were about 10 people in the place. Entrance was free, but I felt obliged to drink, what with it being a pub and all, so entrance was really £4.20 (I had a couple). At around 9.30 a young lady took to the stage with a guitar, announced herself as Jewl or Jools or Jo-El or something and started playing. The first song was called Butterfly and went "Butterfly, Flying High, In the Sky..." and so on and I cringed a little bit, wondering how the room would respond to this. Because this wasn't what you'd expect for a singer-songwriter evening. The cliental were your average working-class blokes, hard-faced with real tattoos. This was not some poncy hipster pub - this was a typical boozer with sub-MTV on the TVs and no fancy beers. And here's this woman on stage singing a song about butterflies. Would she be greeted with silence?

The clapping was, considering the number of the people in the room, very enthusiastic. As she continued everyone was silent and listened attentively throughout the 45 minute set. She played a simple yet competent guitar and sung in that generic female singer-songwriter voice, but that isn't meant as a criticism - what mattered was she sung songs she wrote herself, often with passion, and held the room, including me. Very impressive.

At around 10.30 the second act came on, a male singer/guitarist with another guy on snare drum. Just before he started a bunch of men came in, stood at the bar talking loudly and didn't clap after his first song. Uh oh, I thought, but half of them soon moved off to a table and those left at the bar turned to watch. This guy, who didn't introduce himself at all, was perfectly competent but didn't really grab me - nice tunes and a good voice but nothing special there, but again he played his own material for about an hour to a respectful crowd.

I was trying to figure this place out and the soundbite that struck me was this is the place to go if you want a basic pub drink with live music that's not too invasive. And if you're a singer-songwriter looking take your first dip into performing you could do much worse that here.

The Adam and Eve has live music pretty much every night and all of it is free entry. The singer-songwriter stuff is every Monday and is called Appleacoustic. See what they did there?

GDFAF #11 was back to Bar Academy where I feel like I'm spending rather a lot of time this fortnight even though this is only the third visit. Read into that what you will. It's kinda interesting going to the same venue to see different acts. In some ways the room does have an effect on the experience but on the whole it's the band and their audience which make the place their own. This time, however, the room was laid out slightly differently, with tables and stools scattered around the place evoking some sort of sparsely furnished late night lounge bar. Combined with the headliners being some kind of jazz-fusion thing this looked like being a kind of chilled evening. Not so.

Oh yeah, more adventures on the being-searched-at-Bar-Academy front. Last time I was there my camera was passed apparently because it was digital. This time the (very friendly, it must be said) bouncer wanted to know if it had a flash. Yes, but I don't use it, I said in a manner that implied "like I'm the sort of foolish amateur that would use a flash." I used to use flash at gigs until it was pointed out to me that bands find this sort of thing fucking irritating, so I stopped, relying on a steady hand, long exposure and loads of shots (about 150 per gig) which I think makes for better photos. But I digress.

The support were Breezer, a local band of some quality who blew away any preconceptions about the evening being laid back with some robust pop-rock. On the face of it this was pretty standard stuff - four guys, three guitars, melodic vocals to a solid 4/4 beat - but either through skill or perseverance they've managed to add something onto this formula, little flourishes that didn't get in the way, raising them above the bar while still keeping them very accessible. Unlike some bands they know what their guitars are for and use them well with moments of subtle genius amongst the noise. They were very tight, rattling through their songs with no faffing even with a broken string and toppled mic stand. I should be finding this sort of thing rather tiresome by now but I came away impressed. Nice one.

Acoustic Ladyland were our headliners and like many of the higher priced shows I've been to they had a small but loyal following. As they were setting up people started staking out their pitches near the stage to the extent that I became worried about getting a good view for photos and wound up sitting right at the front leaning against a speaker. Just before they started I spotted the band drawing on the condensation in the window behind the stage, as bands often do, and was surprised to see the drummer writing the most delicate words with his drumstick. This artistry followed through to his playing, making him the best drummer I've seen at a gig. The complexity of his playing was stunning, dipping in and out of double and tripple time, and seemingly effortless as he gazed off to one side.

This extreme level of musicianship was born out across the group. It's so rare to see a bass guitar being used for more that providing a steady rhythm and this guy produced sounds I didn't think a bass could make. Meanwhile the keyboardist veered between virtuoso jazz piano and pounding noise terror with ease. And then up front was the saxophonist, the epitome of craggy rock cool with a gloriously dull sax that had obviously been with him for a long time. The sax screamed the role of vocalist with ease and added so much more.

After a couple of tunes the folk sitting at the front were motioned to stand, which they did, and it all kicked off with limbs flailing as people tried to keep up with the changing time signatures and gave up, just letting the music drive them. My plans for taking photos were ruined as I found myself enveloped in hyperactivity with a wall of people behind me, but it didn't matter. This shit was good. The sax lends some obvious comparisons to Morphine but I found myself thinking this was what jazz was supposed to sound like - aggressive, experimental and above all exciting. It helps that Acoustic Ladyland pay homage to the New York punk scene, something which is further enhanced by this not being at all apparent in their music. A tune was announced as a tribute to a composer I didn't know (and can't remember) and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but there was nothing blatantly "punk" about it - they just channeled something and made it their own.

Interesting to note that, unless I'm forgetting someone, this was the first band I've seen that had no singer. The whole set was instrumental, and yet they felt more intimate than many of the bands I've seen. The technical musicianship could so easily have made them aloof while the desire to tear it down and rock out could have resulted in a shambles, but they trod that delicate line with confidence and passion. Wonderful stuff.

GDFAF #12 was at the Barfly again on what can only be described as an arsingly cold night. I mention this because most venues tend to be somewhat on the warm side and I've noticed a few American acts commenting on this, as if venues in the States have radical things like air conditioning. The problem for most Birmingham spaces is they tend to be in residential-ish areas and we have laws against people enjoying themselves at high volume (which on the whole I tend to agree with) so the doors and windows have to remain tightly shut. And they don't have air conditioning. Stick a couple of hundred excited people in there and the ceilings will sweat. The Barfly, on the other hand, is in Digbeth and to the best of my knowledge there ain't anyone living there so they can leave the door open. Since the venue is essentially a huge basement said door is near the ceiling and all the heat just rushes straight out. This is terrific on a club night (I remember seeing steam pouring out of that door like a boiling kettle one night) but at a relatively sparsely attended gig it's rather strange to find yourself dancing in your coat. Must be lovely in the summer though.

Like I said, not a huge turnout for tonight, although this might be more to do with the venue as it is a huge room and there were a good hundred or so people in there by my reckoning. No problems getting in - the bouncers just waved me through with no bag check leading me to suspect my face has been spread around the bouncer network as a non-threat. Either that or I'm starting to give off regular gig-going vibes. Possible tip for people going to the Barfly - when you're asked which band you're coming to see say the one at the bottom of the bill and you might get in cheaper. I was meaning to test this only my mind went blank (too many band names whizzing around my head at the moment - I haven't got a clue who I'm going to see) but give it a go. I'm pretty sure it'll knock a good 50% off your entry.

On to the bands then. First up was Paisley Riot, the local band supporting the headliners and their touring support. It's here that I wonder if I'm getting jaded when it comes to guitar bands from the Midlands as while they were very good I find I have nothing really to say about them. They were tight and their hat wearing singer had a nice intensity to him but there was nothing to really make me sit up and take notice. But don't read too much into my appraisal. I think I'm starting to recognise vocal tics amongst the Brummie / Black Country bands, not in their speech but in their singing which implies I'm getting a little too familiar with the scene. Can't put my finger on it exactly though. Oh, and this doesn't just apply to Paisley Riot by any means but bands, when announcing your name and especially when you're saying your web site address, please speak clearly! I was starting to think this was impossible but Breezer managed to lodge both in my mind last night so it can be done.

Next up were The Rumble Strips and I'm going to stick my neck out here. Of all the bands I've seen I think these guys could actually break out and be huge. Firstly they have a look that is unique but quite nostalgic, evoking scruffy 80s bands in a kind of new wave drab way. Secondly their music is a nice mix of styles bringing in keyboards, guitar, saxophone and trumpet in a very enjoyable, dancey way with some key anthemic moments. But most of all the lead singer is a revelation.

He stands there with his drab grey coat and scarf hanging off his sloping shoulders, his hair tussled at the back like he's just got out of bed and his small guitar seemingly rescued from a charity shop. His huge eyes stare into the room with a permanent squint and he looks both angry and resigned. And yet when he opens his mouth it's astounding. My immediate reaction was Specials era Terry Hall, but that's probably the brass pushing that out. There was something else I can't quite pin down (Billy Bragg maybe?) but the greatest revelation was this guy can actually sing! I don't just mean he was in tune - his voice had a power that was not assisted by the amps, nor was it mere volume. There was a controlled strength and range that you so seldom see at gigs, his singing primal and raw yet quite quite beautiful.

Backing up this incredible voice was some very competent musicianship that while not afraid to blast it out also knew the value of less. The trumpet and sax players smoothly alternated with keyboard and bass guitar respectively giving them the range of a larger band and the music flew between up-tempo beats and emotional climaxes with ease. They've got the whole package and from what I can tell it's genuine. I really hope to hear more from this band in the next year.

The only downside was a noticeable level of audience chat during their set, to which I can only say shut the fuck up you wankers and recognise genius when you see it.

The headliners, The Young Knives had to compete with this for my affections and all credit to them but they didn't quite make it. Actually that's unfair. They were very enjoyable and much better than the audio clips on their site imply. This was mostly to do with their stage banter which pretty much consisted of looking like embarrassing parents and subverting it, playing shouty heavy punk and being quite rude and funny in between. I enjoyed the show a lot - and big joke humour is a tough thing for bands to pull off - but, and this is the big one, after each song I couldn't for the life of me remember what it sounded like. This was worrying me somewhat as I knew I was going to have to write about them but, nope, nothing stuck. What on earth had a just been bouncing up and down to then? All very odd.

GDFAF #13 was at the Flapper and Firkin for the same new local bands evening as last Thursday. There are at least three tiers of bands on the small gigs circuit. First are the bands on national tours who probably have an album or two out or at least a good following. Next are the local bands who have proven themselves over the years as able to hold their own either headlining or as a solid support for the tourers. And then a the bottom are the "baby bands", recently formed (frequently from the ashes of other bands) with a set's worth of songs and a desire to get up there and see if it works. Nights like this at the Flapper (as well as the Jug and Bar Academy) are where they do it, playing for at best a share of the door if they're lucky. The venues and promotors know that they'll bring their friends who will pay to get in and buy beer which makes it cost effective, the bands get to hone their live performance and network with other bands (thus sustaining the scene) and occasionally, just occasionally, genius will be revealed.

I was running a bit late tonight having slept in 'til 7.30 so had the strange experience of standing at the bar with a pint of cheap bitter half an hour after breakfast, but such is the life of the serial gig reviewer. Thankfully the night was also running a bit late so I didn't miss anything, though this wasn't to prove fortuitous for the final act as we shall see.

An Untitled Musical Project were our first act and before I go any further that is a possibly the best name ever. Even if it gets tiresome (which I can't imagine it ever doing) it can be abbreviated Carter-style to UMP which is possibly even better. And thankfully they lived up to their nomenclature being unassuming nerds who play fast shouty punk, shouty in that controlled machine-gun vocal style that reminded me of Big Back era Steve Albini (the track Bad Penny to be specific where he goes "I dunno what a liar I am...") and be aware that I wouldn't invoke the Albini lightly. There was also something else more British in there but unfortunately the Big Black thing kinda took over my mind. Musically they were very intense, especially the guitarist-singer (the bass player also sang) who's face was positively elastic and eyes the poppiest I've seen for a while. But inbetween the songs (which had titles like "Why Isn't Paul McCartney Dead Already?") they showed their humility as if they were surprised at the noise they'd been creating let alone that anyone was actually listening. They'd been having issues with their guitar apparently (though this didn't affect the performance) and at the end this was ceremoniously tossed across the stage, an act that can seem contrived but felt genuine here, producing a wail of feedback that was oddly segued into the Flaming Lips "In The Morning Of The Magicians" by the sound engineer. As you can tell I liked UMP a lot. They're doing their own brand of loopy punk seemingly in a bubble with no obvious pretensions to greatness, which means they might actually succeed. One, as they say, to watch.

As with last week this was an evening of contrasts. Earlier on I'd heard one of the bar staff warn her bar staffing colleagues that one of the bands were under age so to check for ID. The Twang (another top name, as it happens) appeared to be that band as a bunch of agitated kids scuttled around the side of the stage. As they came on two of them stood at the front with mics but no instruments. Uh oh, we could be in for some rap here, which would be a first and made me think that in two weeks of semi-random gig going I've oddly seen nothing of the Urban genre. Behind these chaps was the usual guitar/bass/drums setup and they kicked into a song which I assume was called "Push It", partly from the lyrics but also because they musically riffed into the Salt'n'Pepper song of the same name and got away with it. The band settled into a sound that was very reminiscent of U2, though not in a particularly bad way, giving a solid backing for the main singer to do his stuff.

This guy was a cross between Mike Skinner and Shaun Ryder, a skinny, intense chav with an aggression that threatened to spill out of his songs and into real life. The songs were Streets-style heartfelt paeans to the unfairness of modern life but his delivery of them was superb, stomping around the stage givin' it all dat with his arms. After seeing so many bands who just stand there playing song after song this was most refreshing, especially his foul mouthed banter with the audience. I started creating a (probably inaccurate) story in my head of this young kid who'd been hanging out the gig scene for a few years making trouble while gathering together a bunch of mates to form a band just so he could get up there and lovingly insult everyone who'd been telling him to put his money where his dirty mouth was. They were having a great time but musically they were very together and I came away impressed.

Sadly the evening ended on a low note, one played on a broken piano in a damp basement. Astilla had turned up late and hadn't been able to sound check plus they were having "equipment issues". After an extended set-up they suddenly launched into the usual noisy metal which would have been okay except they were pretty much playing to themselves. Yes, the room was emptying (partly because most people appears to have come to see The Twang) but they really were playing to themselves, all turned in towards the drummer creating a huddle. The thing about this sort of basic metal is if you're going to make it work you've got to engage the crowd. It's the foundation from which you project your attitude and if you ain't projecting...

They weren't too bad to begin with but it all started falling apart (literally with the drums) into a shambolic mess and by the end I was starting to feel a little sorry for them, to have gone through the stress of actually getting here for naught. Some bands are shit but have no idea - these guys were fully aware of how badly this was going and presumably they could do much better. As everything ground to a halt the lead singer finally addressed the nearly empty room: "what a shit gig" he confessed. Yeah, a third of it was. Shame about that.

GDFAF #14, the last in this series of sequential gig going, was at the Actress and Bishop in Birmingham's Jewelry Quarter. This was my first visit and it's quite a nice little venue. Above what appears to be a standard biggish city centre pub (I didn't dawdle) is a small (but not too small) room with a stage slapped in the middle. To the right of the stage is a cluster of sofas with a row of high tables and stools in front of the performers meaning you don't get that awkward chasm of floor when people don't want to move forwards. It's very cosy with a somewhat random assortment of occasional lamps, if a little disorienting when you first come in from the cold and are thrust into the throng, but I liked it a lot. It's probably the closest I've come to going to a gig in someone's living room.

This was another Unsigned Band Night but it felt different to those held at the Jug, Flapper and Bar Academy because this venue could really only put on unsigned bands. Given the space and the amount of furniture the capacity was probably no more than 100 if that and even though it wasn't packed tonight it still felt busy and alive. Transplant this gig to Bar Academy and it would have felt empty and dead. That's not to say this is a lesser venue - the sound was good and the atmosphere no less professional - but the "club house" feel of the place made it perfect for this type of event. As for the crowd, and bearing in mind how woefully inaccurate these assumptions are, it seems a little more hipster-ish than at the other venues. Maybe the cosy nature (and low lights) of the place was bringing out the best in them but people of both genders seemed prettier, and not in an "oh look it's the fucking beautiful people" way either. Of course I'm feeling somewhat stale after 13 gigs so maybe it was relative, who knows. Anyway, on to the bands.

First up were Strange Time who are what is known in the trade as a "baby band" - relatively freshly formed and finding their feet. They were also the first local band I'd seen all fortnight with women taking the fore (they had a male drummer) which was notable. The Birmingham scene does tend to be very bloke dominated and while I'm sure most other cities are the same this does strike me as a shame. But back to StrangeTime and I immediately found myself thinking of PJ Harvey and Elastica, followed by my thinking how fucking predictable of me that was, but then most new bands are aping someone as they find their own voice so it's probably fair. The vocals did have that angry PJ feel to them without slipping into moaning for the sake of it and there was a real strength to the whole band with a steady beat rumbling under the slowing songs. My only criticisms would be a lack of movement on stage and that the set, while very competent, didn't build and seemed to me to keep the same level throughout. But otherwise very promising.

I got over comparing StrangeTime to PJ Harvey as soon as the next band, The International Karate Plus kicked off as they sounded exactly like Dinosaur Jr. And that, in my book, is no bad thing. They produced a controlled cacophony of noise but held it together very tightly with some interesting flourishes along the way. I was particularly taken by how all three of them sung including the drummer who made a valiant attempt to play with his sunglasses on. Apparently they're from Cardiff and a flyer shoved at me showed a pretty extensive national tour had occurred over the summer which would explain the good stage presence they've honed, though it did make me wonder about the economics of traveling to a gig like this. Maybe they were already in the area, who knows. Overall they were good, very competent and enjoyable to watch, and I liked the sounds they made.

Our third, and for me very final, act were I Am Zeitgeist who I suspect were a little drunk. Not that it affected their playing at all but they seemed to be having a little bit too much fun up there. I was most taken when the non-singing guitarist played a series of high pitched notes at the beginning of the first song that sounded like a Nintendo game and there were a few interesting moments like this scattered around the set. Even though there was a distinct touch of the Oasis about the vocals (often a kiss of death for me) I won't hold it against them too much. They brought it a whole gamut of influences to a pretty funky beat and some nice melodies and at the end trashed their equipment in the most delicate manner I've seen, except for the drummer who went for the big kick and scatter.

And it was all over. Fourteen gigs in fourteen fifteen days. Blimey.

This is a rough draft for the back cover blurb for the Going Deaf For A Fortnight zine.

For two weeks in November 2005 Pete Ashton set himself a challenge - to go to a randomly selected live music event at one of Birmingham's small venues every night and then write about it in depth on his weblog.

The subsequent reviews give a snapshot of the live music scene in Brum, from touring international bands to unsigned local talent, all experienced by a paying punter answerable to no one but his own sanity.

Thirty six bands in eight venues over fourteen nights.

I did say "rough"

This is a first draft of the introduction page for the Going Deaf For A Fortnight zine.

A bit of background, then, to put the rest of this zine into some kind of context, just so you know where I'm coming from and that.

A few years ago, circa 1998 or thereabouts, my friend Susi was writing gig reviews for some university newspaper in Birmingham and was getting bored of seeing the same old bands again and again, so to bright a sparkle of light into the proceedings she began dragging me along. For some reason I wasn't gigging a whole lot so the prospect of seeing four blokes on a stage making an unholy racket with their guitars was pretty novel. I started looking forward to these evenings bathing in waves of distortion as the stresses of the working day were blasted from my inner being and I saw some pretty decent bands along the way. Novak stuck in my mind, playing some solid tunes but adding the flute and toy xylophone to the mix, and Quickspace made a solid impression.

About the same time a guy at work mentioned he was in a band who were playing a gig at the Flapper. We all liked Perry so a bunch of us bimbled along expecting the usual guitar-based rock thing. What were saw were Avrocar and Magnetophone at one of the legendary We Brought Our Friends nights, filling the stage with complicated pieces of electrical equipment which produced beautiful ethereal music like nothing I'd heard before. Most of the audience sat on the floor, which I thought was marvelous, as did Magnetophone during their set. It struck me that the Birmingham music scene was flourishing in obscurity. No-one knew about this stuff and that was what made it work.

After this discovery I moved to London for a few years and attempted to keep the gigging thing going, but it never really came to anything. Finding the good stuff was too much effort (despite Susi also moving down to further her Theremin playing career) and every support band seemed to be wannabes desperate for a record deal. It wasn't cosy and nice like Birmingham so I stopped gigging.

And then, in 2003, I found myself living in Brum again. Some things had changed (what is this Academy all of a sudden!) but enough was the same and I started putting out feelers amongst my old contacts. Some excellent gigs were attended, notably Misty's Big Adventure and gigs put on by ColdRice, and all seemed to be well, but I had a nagging feeling I wasn't seeing enough. I seemed to be just seeing the same bands over and over, only discovering new bands if they happened to be supporting. Then at one gig I had an idea. I turned to my chum Tom and said I was going to go to fourteen gigs in a fortnight and write about them in depth on my blog. He grinned the insane grin of approval and it was set in stone. I even came up with the name of the project that night - Going Deaf For A Fortnight.

And so it came to pass on November 4th 2005 that I went to the Jug of Ale in Moseley to begin the marathon of thirty six acts at fourteen gigs in eight venues. Each report was written that night and posted on my blog along with photos in time for breakfast. The result was a personal overview of the Birmingham small gigs scene from the perspective of a paying punter. All opinions are my own and are as wrong as they might be right, filtered as they are through an increasingly fractured mind. Enjoy.

(Birmingham bands are in bold)

GDFAF #1
Man In Fridge - Overplay
GDFAF #2
The Tates
The Bleak - Overplay - MySpace
GDFAF #3
Distophia - MySpace
Polysics - MySpace
GDFAF #4
A Day Called Desire - Purevolume - MySpace
The Klopeks - MySpace
Voodoo Glow Skulls - MySpace
GDFAF #5
Dead Combo
The Warlocks - MySpace
GDFAF #6
Modified Toy Orchestra
GDFAF #7
Listen To Johnny - MySpace
Killin Zoe - MySpace
GDFAF #8
Schwervon - MySpace
Jeffrey Lewis - MySpace
GDFAF #9
Dave Kusworth
GDFAF #11
Breezer
Acoustic Ladyland
GDFAF #12
Paisley Riot - MySpace
The Rumble Strips - MySpace
The Young Knives - MySpace
GDFAF #13
An Untitled Musical Project - MySpace
Astilla - MySpace
GDFAF #14
StrangeTime - Purevolume
The International Karate Plus - Karma Download - MySpace
I Am Zeitgeist - MySpace

Other Birmingham bands I've stumbled across:

Against the Wheel - MySpace.
Sabotage Left - MySpace.
Fidget - MySpace.
Una Corda - MySpace.
Steve Ball - MySpace.

Any more? Leave links in the comments.