Sunday Bank Holiday Sunday. What a great day. You wake up in the morning, you’ve got to read all the RSS feeds, there’s gigs on all round, you’ve got to go to one, see four bands, and you think Sunday, Bank Holiday, Sunday.

I think that last Partridge-paragraph worked better in my head - but Bank Holiday Sunday can be good for gigs, and this Sunday Wave Pictures were on at the genius Coventry gig venue - Taylor John’s House!

Actually, it was a nice surprise when it started off as I was only expecting 3 bands – but right at the foot of the bill were The Empty Set, who are a little two piece made of a singer on guitar and violinist (the violinist from Honeytrap, to be precise). They didn’t quite launch into the set - but more stumbled into the opening song in a lovely way and it had a genius Belle and Sebastian-esque tune (old school B&S naturally) and the violin used a loopy echo effect to build up the number of violins playing.

I’m hooked.

Low key songs with melodies and general New Scientist style geekery will always make me happy – and here songs cover the topics of love between protons, and Évariste Galois.

We are also treated to a fantastic cover of Some Candy Talking, which is made brilliant by a scratchy violin in the background, it’s about as close in spirit to the original as you can get with a two piece on acoustic guitar and violin.

They’ve got a collection of songs out soon on Tough Love Records so it’s worth looking out for.

Next up were their label mates Honeytrap, I’ve seen them a few times in Birmingham but tonight I caught myself wondering if bands are a bit like football teams… bare with me… in that they play better at home. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you that the times I’ve seen Honeytrap at The Sunflower Lounge they’ve come out all 4-5-1 hoping to pack the midfield and grab a goal on the break, but they did put in a great gig for the home crowd and it was the best I’ve seen them play. Maybe they’ve honed their set over time, as bands do, and it has nothing to do with the home crowd thing?

The singer’s shouty voice had a tinge of Modest Mouse to them also this time (which is a good thing in my book). They’re playing for This Is Tomorrow with KateGoes at The Yardbird on the 4th June which is shaping up to be a good gig.

It was my second four-band-line-up of the weekend so gig blindness was starting to set in at this point. That coupled with *the comfy chair* and a bottle of frankly ace Sam Smiths organic lager is a blatant recipe for lethargy

You probably couldn’t pick a better style band than The Chap to try and get someone off the comfy chair. They’re a three piece band who use a driving bang-bang-bang of the bass drum to keep the music flowing, in a quite robotic sense without letting that restrict them, and they broke out the string instruments at the end for a bit of a crazy fiddle.

To be honest, I remained seated, it was a very comfy chair – but it picked me up a bit and got me ready for Wave Pictures.

The Wave Pictures a solid band, very tight (I know, I know, that’s what you say about bands when you can’t think of anything positive to say – but they are) and they’ve got well written songs that hint towards Hefner-style, and for that, they’re brilliant.

They swapped to electric guitar halfway through the set and played a song about teeth (I think Red Wine Teeth – I’ve not got the album yet) which was a reflective standout, and the single – I Love You Like A Madman was also good to hear.

Assuming I didn’t lie to you in November by half remembering a night in London because of that drunk-haze-of-achievement that you only get after playing a gig, they’ve also dropped the excellent ukulele-ing which made this set a bit more formulaic than the last – but it’s a good formula.

Gig over, we got back at about 1.30am. Monday bank holiday monday.

It seems like ages ago when I agreed this date with The Deirdres and I assumed that we’d be living in the future, listening to some form of ethereal keyless future music as envisaged by MJ Hibbett. Not so, it seems, which is *good* news.

*inserts flyer*

It’s at The Sunflower Lounge, doors are at 8.30 and it’s £4 in. There’ll be a game where you can win things too.

I’ve been having a good rummage through my 7″ record box today taking out stuff and putting stuff in. I’ve got new singles by MJ Hibbett, The School, Moscow Olympics and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart amongst others - but as always, let me know if you have any requests.

I’ve been looking for support for the Andersens & Starlets gig on 12th July and stumbled across a nice collective of local bands called Adventures In Static Monochrome. It’s kind of like a record label but without the records, in that it’s a statement of intent and beliefs by a collective of bands who like each other, and like any good indie label, liking one band makes you want to check out the rest.

Hopefully good things will happen as part of this - there’s already talk of a compilation CD and it seems that various collaborations take place too.

These are the bands currently in the collective -

Bavarian Country Singers and Comrades
I’ve not seen these play live yet, but hopefully I will soon if they can play the Andersens gig. They’re kind of a folk lo-fi in the same way as Andersens which makes me think it’ll work really well. They use a good mix of instruments to great effect - the banjo works really well on A Stormy Day At Sea and I love the brass instruments which kick in about a minute into Hooks Pt 1.

Dan Hartland
Solo acoustic performer who plays a lot around Birmingham and has a residency at The Queens. He’s joined by a cello player from time to time too by the looks of things, and there’s some songs with more arrangement on his myspace too if you want to have a look round.

The Sleuths
Former Autumn Storeists who played at the Monkey Swallows The Universe gig just under a year ago. They’ve got an absolutely brilliant track called The Other Sleep on the Adventures in Static Monochrome page at the moment. *tries to click on it to download it and keep it forever*. Hopefully it’ll make the CD.

Jay Krause
He’s from Manchester so not as local as the rest of the collective, though you can download his songs from his myspace. It’s reflective solo songwriting, and he does some short film soundtracks too - there’s a Youtube of one on his myspace.

Mellow Peaches
I’d not had chance to listen to these before today but I’d heard good things. They’re quite bluesy with some lo-fi thrown in for good measure. I quite enjoyed the bouncy tune of ‘Fireflies’ which is on their page at the moment, and there’s some nice guitar work going on.

Gurdan Thomas
I accidentally walked in on a Gurdan Thomas gig a while back and stayed for most of the set. He’s got a really inventive use of melody and there’s a great song called I’d Have Her which you can download off his myspace. Ooh, and his myspace has recently filled with loads of local gigs.

Mmm, whilst your roving reporter was out on his travels today, he came across a new venue called The Indie Lounge in Selly Oak, on the corner of Hubert Road, opposite Aldi.

If I’m being honest, the rugged ‘edgy’ font of the sign hints that it’s indie the brand, not indie the dream - but it seems to have a tie in with Club NME so maybe they have live bands, and *hopefully* it *could* do good things for local music in an area where bands don’t play often.

It’s having it’s launch do this Thursday, (with cheap drinks if you have an NUS card) - and I might pop in to see what it’s like. If anyone has any more details then let me know in the comments box.

The debut Arthur and Martha single is out now (and has been for sometime, me done sloppy blogging) on Happy Robots which I’m hoping could develop into a great little label.

So that you can update your big indie-band-family-tree, Arthur and Martha has been assembled out of bits of Saloon and The Seven Inches

Here’s a vid -

I’ve just been added by a lovely band from Manchester called Help Stamp Out Loneliness. They’re a lo-fi dream-pop shoegazy type band, I especially like one of their songs called Lino Heart which has a catchy pop tune and just flows beautifully between the verse and chorus. That and you’re always onto a winner writing songs which involve going to a club and hearing The Television Personalities. *makes mental note to play more Television Personalities*.

They’ve got some songs on myspace for download if you want to add to your collection.

I’ve just realised how weird the first sentence would sound if you’d never used myspace.

Just come across handy guide on the Jonson Family Records website, it’s about how to get your songs released once you’ve got them recorded - with a big bit about putting them out yourself.

It’s been a busy few weeks as the band shaped tetris blocks have been slotting into place nicely for the Autumn Stores over the next few months - I suppose that this is the ’spring range’. Quite excitingly I’ve got several bands on from overseas, mainly in a big Pre-Indietracks show but also Andersens are over from Japan, which should be ace as their last album got some cracking reviews in *proper* music publications - Plan B and Wire.

Saturday 10th May - (last fm page)
The Deirdres
Amida
Winston Echo

Saturday 7th June - (last fm page)
Pete Green
Lime Chalks
I’ve also asked to see if My Sad Captains will be able to make the trip up from London

Saturday 12th July - (last fm page)
Andersens
The Starlets
One more on this line up too, I did ask Gurdan Thomas who would have been perfect, but he’s got a gig at The Jug the week after. Gutted. I’ll let you know when I get someone booked.

Tuesday 22nd July Pre Indietracks Gig - (last fm page)
The Smittens
The Zebras
Red Pony Clock

*and relax*

All of the gigs are downstairs at The Sunflower Lounge and will probably cost £3 or £4. As always there’ll be sweets and indiepop and games and fun stuff.

I’ve never been certain whether we have the right amount of venues in Birmingham to accommodate everything that wants to happen. Rooms do seem to be getting booked up well in advance at the moment, which has (um, possibly in combination with a touch of laziness on my part) created this little calm in the Autumn Store schedule between February and May.

Fully booked venues are a good thing but it probably means that we need a few more, and we can add one more new venue to the list! Woom in Hockley, which has been open for a few months now but I only visited this weekend. It’s pretty ace. You go in from the street into a little courtyard area (with a projection on the far wall) and with two little outdoor chimney/fire-pit things to keep warm.

Inside was nice too, it’s an art studio rather than a dedicated gig venue, so there are bits of art all over too (I quite like the one with the cleaning mice) and a coloured in mirror ball – it’s quite atmospheric and the sort of place that’s perfect for a shambolic lo-fi all-dayer like the one I went to in Bristol. They were talking about turning it into a café during the day too.

It’s a bit out of the way so if you visit, this map may help, but it’s not so far out of the way that you have to get a second bus connection from Birmingham centre or something.

Ok, I’ll kick off by telling you a brief history of time as I understand it. If cartoons have taught me anything, it’s that music started in the olden days when cavemen hit the amazingly-in-tune-ribs of dinosaur skeletons for the general amusement of their tribes, and to pass the time in between sleeping and eating and inventing fire. Everyone enjoyed a good old wail and music was born.

Later came the days of sophistication, and instruments which didn’t use rib cages were invented along with proper songs that people wanted to hear. The ‘best’ musicians could also get their music heard by more people than their local village, as there was a distribution system – roads! Troubadours would go from town to town singing their songs to whoever would pay them money – as Troubadours have to eat – but you could also make a pretty penny from the landed gentry.

Skip forward loads more and you start to get the first instances of recording music, and playing it back. The technology evolved and music became a lot more accessible, but there were overheads of printing pressing and marketing. I can’t imagine the logistics of being one of the early companies selling 78s as production costs would have been massively high and relatively few people could play it back! Headache.

Skip forward again to the late 70’s and early 80s (I did tell you it would be brief AND I’ve missed the bit that goes on about The Beatles) and technology gets cheaper still. Some vital things happened to music here. Firstly, it becomes cheaper and feasible for anyone to press up a load of vinyl and start a record label – Spiral Scratch is a great example of how the process of starting a record label was massively demystified and secondly, a bigger use of fanzines allowed music fans to talk to each other without having to go through the established media.

Ok, well this deliberately selective history brings us up to now. The starting up cost for a record label is as low as it’s ever been since the invention of CD Burners! More and more I find myself getting EPs from bands on CD-Rs at gigs.

But it goes further than that; we’re starting to see the CD-R label becoming a part of the landscape and I genuinely hope that this is the latest iteration of the burning DIY ethos. Some examples for you –

Cloudberry Records. A wonderful label based in Miami which specialises in jangly indiepop on 3” CD-Rs, the releases are limited to 100 and I daresay they send them to the four corners of the world. Popkids of the World Unite! The ethos is on the front page – Cloudberry believes in; unrequited love, systems of resistance, sense of community, DIY ethics and international socialism. You can get loads of free MP3s from their site too.

Asaurus Records. They say it’s alright to refer to them as the Wal-Mart of CD-R labels, and they have put out a large number of amazing bands. It’s run by musicians for musicians.

WeePOP Records. Back to the world of 3” CD-Rs, these come lovingly hand made and assembled in lovely brown paper bags. Look at their latest news and the pop-up sleeve and tell me that it isn’t something special.

And that’s just it, they’re something special. I’d rather have a CD-R in a lovingly hand made cover (the same care should be taken over the packaging as it is the music, unless you want your CD to look like everyone elses) than another proper CD with a printed top in a jewell case which is at least three times more expensive. I’ve used this blog to rave on to you about the fold-out-pirate-map Jesmond Villas CD-R cover, and the WeePOP-UP CD-R above is a good example too. I also got a lovely Wave Machines CD-R recently where the CD-R fits perfectly flush into a 5” circle cut in some cardboard. There are loads of ways to make your CD-Rs special.

There’s loads more examples well outside of indiepop too. I was browsing through the racks at Mono a few months ago to see that some noise bands in Glasgow such as Kylie Minoise are using CD-Rs too. Even Radiohead are doing it.

So there you go. Music has brought us here, to a place where you can ‘manufacture’ CD-Rs, hand-make-them-lovely, and pop them up on a website where it can be seen by everyone with internet access, and post them off to people round the world. You can build a community by starting a CD-R label of your band, and putting out stuff by bands you like too, who share an ethos or a sound. It’s now easier and cheaper to own a label now than it ever has been before in the history of music. Get one.

Here’s 100 CD-Rs. Now Start a Record Label.