It’s The Autumn Store Christmas Party #4 and we’re quite excited about this line up…

The Give It Ups

The Give It Ups are up from London. Their myspace says that they’re “two girls and three boys from South London, who play short, fuzzy pop songs” where as I’d say they play ACE short, fuzzy pop songs. Melodically they’re everything you’d want in a band, and songs like Four Day Week set out some kind of brilliant manifesto.

(the video’s a bit cameraphonebuzzy but I like it)

Standard Fare

There are many words or phrases which should never precede the word ‘band’, some examples are ‘underground’, ‘unsigned’, ‘up and coming’ and ‘hotly tipped’. That said, so many people have fallen in love with and raved on about Standard Fare this year, that the latter phrase might just fit. They seem to effortlessly craft together genius pop songs.

Horowitz

Horowitz are set to kick the night off with a well aimed burst of room-filling fuzzy pop - yet they manage to combine this sound with something that’s sweet and comforting that can be held on to. It’s a magical combo.

The annual tradition of the Autumn Store Christmas CD Swap will also return - if you bring a compilation CD, you’ll get to leave with someone elses!

The facebook event is here.

You can find more information about the venue at http://www.thevictoriabirmingham.co.uk/ and there’s a map here.

PS I realise that the phrase fuzzy pop has been used twice. It’s a good phrase

I’m sorry to announce that tonight’s Darren Hayman gig has been cancelled.

This is reposted from the facebook event:

“Sadly Darren Hayman and his drummer were attacked the other night. We’re all very sad about it and wish him a swift recovery and hope he can come back next year.

If you have any troubles with WeGotTickets refunding your ticket please email hello@attagrrl.co.uk I’ve taken the tickets offline and WeGotTickets should refund you automatically.”

We wish them a speedy recovery!

Hurrah, we’re putting The Lovely Eggs on, on Friday 13th November…

The Lovely Eggs are a husband & wife duo slash tag team who create really catchy tunes on guitar and drums, coupled with a really lo-fi garage freshness. Once you’ve heard “Have you ever heard a digital accordion”, you won’t forget it for a good while…

They’re supported by The July Days, a Birmingham band who sound like they take their musical hints from Los Campesinos! and Art Brut. Throw in occasional trumpets, violins and melodicas and you’ve got one of them Indiepop orchestras I keep hearing about.

David Leach, skilled in the twin arts of knitting and ukulele-ing opens the evening with a set of wonderfuly crafted and straight talking northern songs.

And there’s a facebook event here.

Its at The Victoria (map)

The ace poster was kindly made by Claire from ATTA Girl

Tickets for Darren Hayman on 15th November are selling nicely too, you can get them from We Got Tickets.

There’s no way not to be utterly excited about this one - we’ve teamed up with The Victoria to put Darren Hayman on in Birmingham, on his We Love the Industrial Cities Tour.

One big difference between this gig and the others I’ve put on is it’s tickets in advance. They’re £7 and you can get them from the We Got Tickets website. Doors will be at 8pm.

I’ve only ever seen Darren Hayman in huge cavernous venues or festivals before, so seeing him in a decent upstairs pub room is going to be a genuinely unique experience.

Supports come from Poppy and Friends and Lime Chalks.

Thank you to everyone who came down on Saturday, and to everyone who danced. The playlist is below, we managed to make it to 100 songs….

1) What’s In Store – Architecture In Helsinki
2) The Story Of Love – Misty’s Big Adventure
3) Marathon Not A Sprint – Camera Obscura
4) You Vary With A Function Of Time – Lardpony
5) Ageless Beauty – Stars

6) Lewis – Yo La Tengo
7) Marie – Sambassadeur
8.) We Will Become Silhouettes – The Postal Service
9) The Man With The Golden Arm – Jeffrey Lewis
10) Cut Your Hair – Pavement

11) What Salinger Wrote – Airport Girl
12) I Think I Need A New Heart – Magnetic Fields
13) Spiderman On Hollywood
14) These Are The Dreams Of The Working Girl – Comet Gain
15) Harmony In My Head – Buzzcocks

16) Christian Girls – Hefner
17) Painted My Face – Je Suis Animal
18) Scooby Driver – Belle & Sebastian
19) Bored To Hear Your Heart Still Breaks – Tullycraft
20) 4AD3DCD – Half Man Half Biscuit

21) Raisins – Dinosaur Jr
22) Sunny Sundae Smile – My Bloody Valentine
23) Safety Net – The Shop Assistants
24) George Romero – Sprites
25) Just Too Bloody Stupid – Close Lobsters

26) Four Day Week – The Give It Ups
27) Velouria – Pixies
28) Wow – Cinerama
29) Invisible Rock – Kevin Blechdom
30) Dirty Dream #2 – Belle & Sebastian

31) Itsuko Got Married – Bearsuit
32) Get Up And Use Me – Fire Engines
33) If I Could Shine – The Sweetest Ache
34) Holsters and Spiders – My Old Sofa
35) It Started With A Mixx – Los Campensinos!

36) Teenage Caveman – Beat Happening
37) Outer Space – The 3Ds
38) I’ve Got Pictures Of You In Your Underwear – ballboy
39) Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit’sworldwouldfallapart – The Manic Street Preachers
40) Hey Paul – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

41) Sapphire – The Smittens
42) Postcard to Nina - Jens Lekman
43) Do You Remember The First Time – Pulp
44) Spinetrack – The Fall
45) Kissing The Lipless – The Shins

46) Fairytale in the Supermarket - The Raincoats
47) Deceptacon – Le Tigre
48) Let It Slip – The School
49) Oddity – The Clean
50) 7/4 Shoreline – Broken Social Scene

51) Here Comes Your Man – Pixies
52) Corduroy (Single Version) – The Wedding Present
53) Yeah! Oh Yeah! – The Magnetic Fields
54) Kung Fu Dancing – KateGoes
55) Stutter – Elastica

56) Punka – Kenickie
57) Sleep The Clock Around – Belle & Sebastian
58) Shady Lane – Pavement
59) No Good Time – Graham Coxon
60) Teenage Riot – Sonic Youth

61) The Day That Thatcher Dies – Hefner
62) Milk Is Politics – The Deirdres
63) Mothball – One Happy Island
64) You! Me! Dancing! – Los Campensinos!
65) Friday Night At The Drive In Bingo – Jens Lekman

66) Living It For The Moment – Daniel Johnson
67) Today Is The Day – You La Tengo
68) Young Adult Friction – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
69) Gold Soundz – Pavement
70) Mr November – The National

71) Returning To The Fold – The Thermals
72) Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues – Mclusky
73) I Was A Kaleidoscope – Death Cab For Cutie
74) French Disko – Stereolab
75) 100,000 Fireflies - Superchunk

76) Speedway Star – The Pastels
77) Michael A Grammar – Broadcast
78) Everything’s For Sale – Liechtenstein
79) Brand New Love – Sebadoh
80) Holland 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel

81) Soft Revolution – Stars
82) Ban Marriage – Hidden Cameras
83) Defy The Law – The Orchids
84) Sylvie – St Etienne
85) What Goes On – The Velvet Underground

86) Son Of A Gun – The Vaselines
87) Memorise The City – The Organ
88) Debris Slide – Pavement
89) You Can Hide Your Love Forever – Comet Gain
90) She Fills The Spaces – Misty’s Big Adventure

91) Do The Indie Kid – MJ Hibbett and the Validators
92) Ring-a-Ding-Ding – Brakes
93) Nothing To Hide – Yo La Tengo
94) The Classical – The Fall
95) C Is The Heavenly Option – Heavenly

96) Punk Is Dead – Jeffrey Lewis
97) Man’s Man – I, Ludicrous
98) I’ve Got It And It’s Not Worth Having – Boyracer
99) Dashboard – Modest Mouse
100) It’s Oh So Quiet - Bjork

When the Autumn Store first started in January 2006 it was a disco night. It mumbled along in that style for the year before we did our first Autumn Store Christmas party gig with Pete Green, The Retro Spankees and Das Wanderlust and the promoting bug set in.

The disco nights have only been occasional since then - and the last one was in 2007 - which is why I’m excited about this one:

Ta da!

It’s at Island Bar on Friday 25th September. Free in, doors are at 8.30 and it’ll go on till about 1ish.

And there’s a Facebook Event.

Pop any requests in the comments.

So here’s the third in the recent Autumn Store batch of three. Sticking to the aquatic theme, it’s a sea turtle! This is also our pre-Indietracks gig (and you can see all of the pre-Indietracks gigs in other cities on the Indietracks Website)

There’s the Facebook Event here and the Last.fm event here.

There’s links to the bands sites too

The Smittens
One Happy Island
Pete Green

It takes place at The Victoria (map)

You can read interviews with Pete Green and Colin Clarey of The Smittens on the Indietracks blog.

There’s also a special indietracks download from Pete Green too, called Hey Dr Beeching. It’s free, but you can also make a donation to Lincolnshire Wolds Railway while you’re on Pete’s site.

Incidentally, remember when this blog used to have content other than gig posters on it. I’ll try and make more of an effort in future. Sorry.

Hot on the tail of the last Autumn Store comes the next, um, Autumn Store.

As always, there’s the Facebook Event here

Or a Last.fm event if that’s your cup of internet tea.

Or if you’re a MySpace type of person then the following links will help…

MJ Hibbett and the Validators
Waldo Jeffers
Moofish Catfish

So, after 4 years since the rise of social networking sites, there’s links to 3 different ones. Extrapolating the trend, blog posts about gigs in 2026 will contain links to 15 different sites. We can all look forward to keeping tabs on so many profiles.

Oh also - map to the Sunflower Lounge

View Larger Map

Hopefully see you there!

It seems like ages since the last Autumn Store, but we’re back for another ‘batch of three’. The big question on your lips may well be which animal is the poster star - well, due to popular demand… it’s an otter! It’s a shouty otter. Holler back.

There’s a Facebook Event here

Or a Last.fm event if that’s your cup of internet tea.

Other handy links -

KateGoes
Northern Portrait
Lime Chalks

Atta Girl
The Victoria

A follow up post to Thursday’s big old list of Autumn Store dates. As always, there are other good things going on in Birmingham including two NEW and EXCITING nights starting up.

Fridays 8th May - Don’t Sweat About The Small Stuff

At Scruffy Murphys (map link)

We Aeronauts
The Bumblebees
Town Bike
Marble Krusher

As mentioned by Ace Bushy Striptease in their recent interview, they’re starting up a night of their own at Scruffy Murphys. Cuddlecore in a metal pub! Genius.

Dont Sweat the Small Stuff on Last fm.

Tuesday 19th May - 444 Club

At The Rainbow (map link)

Vivian Girls

Had to just do a little cough and point, The Vivian Girls are playing in Birmingham at the 444 Club.

Saturday 6th June - ATTA Girl

At Island Bar (map link)

Here’s the jumping up and down I promised you when they announced their first date, and it’s on a Sturday too. It’s a DJ night with a love of predominantly female vocals. They say: Expect free zines, vegan cake and for the first few through the door an ATTA girl mix in your choice of c.d or tape!

Full list of the sort of stuff they’re playing on the ATTA Girl website.

Shaping up to be a good summer of gigs and club nights!