There’s some quite exciting Birmingham pop moments coming up in the next month!

The Party Planning Committee

First up is the first ever gig organised by the Party Planning Committee (they’re also on twitter) and it’s on Friday the 11th of February. Things should be kicking off at 7.30, and on the line up for the evening is…

The Lovely Eggs
Fever Fever
The Thyme Machine
Falling & Laughing

It’s at The Victoria. We’ve been promised DJing till late too. Should be an excellent evening. Here’s the facebook event.

Gran and Pop

The literally awesome occasional Gran and Pop night - who have brought bands like Bearsuit and The Icicles to Brum before - have only gone and booked Eux Autres on Wednesday the 2nd of March. They’re playing at Island Bar.

Also playing are The Sweet Nothings and Fox.

There’s a We Got Tickets thing and a thread on Anorak about it at the moment.

Dont Sweat The Small Stuff

And while I’m here, Ace Bushy Striptease are organising a tour with The Middle Ones in April. Looks like the Birmingham leg is scheduled for April the 25th!

Here we go! Here’s the timings for the all dayer. I’ll try and keep it running to schedule. There should be a little appropriate food gaps in between MJ Hibbett and LookIMakeMusic, and also a bit of time between Pocketbooks and Horowitz - just make sure you don’t miss Alan Farmer’s excellent Japanese Indie DJ set!

3pm: Flowers of Despair
3.40pm: My Autumn Empire
4.30pm: Vom Vorton
5.10pm: MJ Hibbett and his Dinosaur Planet

6.40pm: LookIMakeMusic
7.30pm: Pocketbooks

Alan Farmer DJs some awesome Japanese Indie

8.40pm: Horowitz
9.30pm: Kate Goes
10.20pm: Ace Bushy Striptease

Autumn Store Disco!

I’ve finished a poster! Unfortunately it isn’t as animally as many of the older posters. Maybe I can claim that it’s a cakefish or some other deep ocean dwelling curiosity. You can’t prove that there isn’t such a thing as a cakefish!

Bands start at 3 and the entry fee is £5, for like 8 bands and a play about dinosaurs!

I know! 5th Birthday!

On 11th January 2006 The Autumn Store was born as a pre-Snobs DJ night. The first song we ever played was Pristine Christine by The Sea Urchins and it was played to one other person who I *forced* to be there from the start in case I failed at being able to DJ. The playlist is still on myspace here.

That all means in January 2011 we’ll be FIVE YEARS OLD! And we’re planning an action packed all-dayer with BANDS, ZINES, DANCING, SUGARY FOOD STUFF, DINOSAURS, and hopefully COMMUNITY.

There’s a Facebook Group…

We’ve still got several exciting TBCs and the timings to announce but already confirmed to play are…

KateGoes
http://www.myspace.com/kategoes

Ace Bushy Striptease
http://acebushystriptease.com/

My Autumn Empire
http://www.myspace.com/myautumnempire

Horowitz
http://www.myspace.com/horowitzband

Flowers of Despair
http://www.myspace.com/flowersofdespair

MJ Hibbett’s Dinosaur Planet
http://www.mjhibbett.co.uk/dinosaurplanet/

We’ll be doing an Autumn Store DJ set into the night too!

Hurrah, hopefully see you on 22nd January!

And the second of our two gigs is our annual Indietracks Warm Up show! The third one in a row and for the third time we’ve got The Smittens! Hat Trick! Back of the net. Jurassic Park. etc

Again, it’s at The Victoria and all for the price of £4

There’s a facebook event here.

This is the full line up

THE SMITTENS
Last year we described them as “tip top pop brimming with sunshine and smiles”, and that’s still spot on. In previous visits to the UK they’ve become well known for their outstanding performances at Indietracks which has established them as a regular performer there. With upbeat songs that contain amazing three part vocals, it’s totally understandable why.

www.smittens.com
www.myspace.com/thesmittens

JAM ON BREAD
Jam on Bread is one chap with a Uke and we’re delighted to be giving him his first Birmigham show. He has songs about Labrador records (whos releases often make up chunks of the Autumn Store play lists) and has appeared on Brainlove records (again, along with releases which make up chunks of the Autumn Store playlist). Expect popsongs and smilealongs.

www.myspace.com/jamonbreadyay

LIME CHALKS
Birmingham’s Lime Chalks started life in 2003 as a one-piece, named after a wilfully misheard Pavement lyric. They later became a three-piece, then a five-piece, then a no-piece, and now a four-piece. They play indiefolklofipop or whatever you’d care to call it, and their philosophy is thus: cheerfulness, melodiousness, harmoniousness!

www.last.fm/music/Lime+Chalks

More about Indietracks Festival: www.indietracks.co.uk

(no, I’ve never seen a red steam train either, not outside of Ticket to Ride http://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/ anyway)

I know, we’ve not done a gig for months, and then two come along at once.

The first one is on Friday 16th July, and it’s a joint collaboration between us and ATTA girl for a one off awesome-o gig! With….

THE LOVELY EGGS
+
FEVER FEVER
+
HOTPANTS ROMANCE

It’s at The Victoria, and all for a rather reasonable £4

Advance tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/85478

There’s an ATTA Girl facebook event here!

THE LOVELY EGGS
Recently performed at SXSW in March 2010 and also toured in the UK with Eddie Argos new band Everybody Was In The French Resistance… Now. They were at Indietracks last year (we were there!) and The Autumn Store welcome them back as they played with them at The Victoria in 2009. With much radio play including a BBC 6 music session with Marc Riley and a BBC Radio 1 session with Huw Stephens we ask you… Have you ever heard The Lovely Eggs?
http://www.myspace.com/thelovelyeggs

FEVER FEVER
We right love Fever Fever. Their debut single came out in June 2009 and they’ve just had an EP release “Monster”. Another band played by Huw Stephens and Steve Lamacq!
http://feverfevertheband.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/feverfevertheband

HOTPANTS ROMANCE
First seen in Birmingham playing in a garage for their tour with The Lovely Eggs. Raffles and unruly behaviour! Awesome times and you can’t beat an Everett True seal of approval:
“Hotpants Romance are easily my perfect band this year or any other.” Everett True, Plan B Magazine
They also released a joint cassette with The Lovely Eggs from their tour in 2009 “Songs About People We Met On Tour” where winners of the raffle got a song made about them.
http://www.myspace.com/hotpantsromance

It’s going to be ace!

And after the band awesomeness there’s an ATTA girl vs The Autumn Store disco til 2am! DANCE MAGIC DANCE!

Woot! This gig pushes us nicely over the 4 year mark, and we’re lucky to get The School back!

The facebook event is here. What’s this Songkick thing people keep tweeting about? Do I need a songkick?

The School

The School first played at The Autumn Store in November 2008 (I autoreviewed it on this blog and Ken did a nice review over here), since then they’ve signed to Elefant, and put out a pink 7” single and an EP with hidden moments of magic throughout. Here is a band that understands POP MUSIC and DANCING by mixing strains of modern indie with 60’s girl groups and bring violins and trumpets and melodicas and many many members to make sure that the whole thing goes, well, um, really nicely indeed.

http://www.myspace.com/theschoolband
http://theschoolband.blogspot.com/
http://www.elefant.com/

Pagan Wanderer Lu

Pagan Wanderer Lu is one man with many genres. Songs dribble their way around lofi, folk, pop and Zelda soundtracks like some kind of skillful winger. A skillfull winger who is also a one man band.

http://www.myspace.com/paganwandererlu
http://paganwandererlu.wordpress.com

Falling and Laughing

Falling & Laughing is me and a chap called Darryl on drums, and it’s always hard to write about yourself (other people have here). I’d like to claim we’re halfway between indiepop and post-rock but, um, I suppose it’s your call on whether we’ve achieved that.

http://www.myspace.com/duncsfallingandlaughing
http://www.prospectingdistantsystems.co.uk/

The venue is The Victoria once again - http://www.thevictoriabirmingham.co.uk/ - and there’s a map here.

Ace cakes!

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.