I’ve rounded up some MP3s of the bands who are playing at the next Autumn Store on the 22nd July to download. Enjoy.

The Smittens - Stop the Bombs
The Smittens - Party Time
The Smittens - Good Migrations

The Zebras - Science Competition
The Zebras - You Look Ready

Red Pony Clock - There’s Nothing Wrong With Getting High
Red Pony Clock - 12-Color Step

I’m really looking forward to this next Autumn Store on the 12th July with Andersens, The Starlets, and Bavarian Country Singers and Comrades. Partially because it’ll feature the first, second, and third time a band has used a trumpet at an Autumn Store events. Hat trick!

I’ve also tracked down a few free MP3s by the bands for you to download.

Andersens - Tear
Andersens - Christmas Eve

The Starlets - New Wave
The Starlets - Rocking In A Shy Way
The Starlets - All To Make You Feel Brand New

You can listen to some Bavarian Country Singers and Comrades tracks on their myspace.

I’ve just spotted that Swedish popsters Billie The Vision and The Dancers have their latest album online for download, including their latest release, *and* the wonderfully titled ‘I Was So Unpopular in School and Now They’re Giving Me This Beautiful Bicycle’.

You can find the downloads on the Billie The Vision and The Dancers website. They’re accepting donations too depending on how much you want to pay for them.

Billie The Vision and The Dancers are a fun band live, swaying away onstage, and it’s worth having a quick nose through some of their tracks. Or just download the ones I’ve linked below…

Billie the Vision and the Dancers - Nightmares
Billie the Vision and the Dancers - Summercat
Billie the Vision and the Dancers - You’re Not Giving Up On Me

The downloads/dontations way of releasing things is something that musicians keep mentioning to me as the way they want to release stuff. At the moment the best way of bands doing this seems to be to put up details for how to do an International band transfer or link to a paypal. If someone could find a way of incorporating the same system that Radiohead used for In Rainbows into a social networking site, or made it easy for bands to set up a page of their own to take donations for songs, I’m sure it’d be well used.

And if you’ve missed it elsewhere on the net, you can download their gig from the 13th from the Burning World blog.

It’s a question which I’ve given a lot of thought - Sex Bob-omb being the fictional Toronto band from the Scott Pilgrim comic books.

We’ll no doubt find out what they sound like in the upcoming film, but I’ve also recently stumbled Kupek - which is music by Scott Pilgrim’s author Brian Lee O’Malley. Probably the closest thing.

In good old fashioned internet style, you can download several albums for free.

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.

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.

I came across You/Me at Emmaboda festival last year, on the second stage. I’ve just checked their myspace, and they have some… songs for download! Hurrah, free stuff for you.

They put in a really nice set when I saw them and I bought an EP, which seemed to be a bit like an Electro-indiepop Bjork, which can only be a good thing. Heavy use of synths perform the backing for some timid and sincere female vocals, and there’s some nice quiet/loud touches in the backing tracks - it’s really sweet. For something so tuneful, it’s quite nice to see Aphex Twin and Explosions in the Sky listed as influences.

I quite like the lyrical bases covered too. There’s a song called Jean Luc Picard and one called Stockholm City.

Go clicky and download while they’re there.

I played a gig a few weeks back at Bohemian Jukebox supporting The Voluntary Butler Scheme, who I’ve talked about before - but also on the bill was another solo performer called Superman Revenge Squad. From Croydon.

He has a nice guitar style which I think is pretty and Malcolm Middletonesque, and he picks out nice notes behind the melodies and lots of open strings to make nice full use of the guitar.

Best of all he went into streams of poetrywords from time to time too while the guitar dropped out a touch - which is always something which bands don’t seem to do much, or indeed enough. Maybe because writing humorous and meaningful lyrics are a forgotten art but it really adds so much if done properly. I still remember the smile I had on my face seeing The Courtesy Group doing poetry the first time I saw them.

I loved his song about how Dexy’s back catalogue became overlooked the day they wrote Come On Eileen (I have a similar ABBA gripe), one called ‘When Everyone’s Dead’ about getting into grunge, and of course Idiot Food (which you download from his website along with loads of other free music… woo! Go online free music revolution!)

I had a nice chat with him about some of the Birmingham bands of yore like Jameson and The Starries, before the gig too - which was good, and a bit suprising especially as he wasn’t in Birmingham at the time!

Was the Betty & the Id gig really 12 days ago! That’s really flown by, at least I didn’t promise you a live review on this blog “soon”, over a week ago. That would have been embarrassing.

A few interesting things about this gig – mainly it was the first time I’ve put on a band from a different country, and it was Liechtenstein’s first trip to Birmingham, and they took the opportunity to spend a few days here.

Actually, I was a bit worried when they first said they were spending a few days here – what do you advise an out of town band to do in Birmingham? The nature centre is closed during the week in the winter (see the otters - it was my first thought) but most other things cost money. Most of the tourist sights seem good for evening events, sports, and shopping - or tell you to go to Cadbury World, which isn’t much good if you have no idea who Cadburys are (in Sweden, they have the worryingly tasty Plop bars).

As it was they had a potter round some canals and went to Ikon Gallery – but if you have suggestions for things that I can recommend to visiting bands on a budget, then let me know.

Betty & The Id sound checked first with relatively few problems (equipment spotting – one copicat, which made the geek in me very happy), though we did have some problems with Liechtenstein and feedback – which sadly lingered a bit into the set too.

Horowitz were on first, and to sum it up in a word they were ace. They’re a band at their best when the guitars are fuzzy and constant, so that the short songs merge. They have a style of innocent melody that’s influnced by C86 music (maybe the bumper book of Razorcuts) but the tunes are also matched by the melody of the guitar work – Sister is a perfect mix of the two.

Liechtenstein provided more influences from that era of guitar music, and it’s easy to see why they’ve been picking up so many fans – and I hope that they made a fair few friends in Birmingham with this visit. I’d compare them to The Shop Assistants, with four vocals adding depth to the songs.

Betty on the Id took us further back in time with 60’s Garage influnces and I have to admit, I’m a bit stumped about how to review them because my references are a bit shaky when you get pre-post-punk so I can’t just throw band names at you in the hope that you get the idea which is what I increasingly do when describing bands.

What I can tell you that without following it up with… “like band X do” is that they use music imaginatively. They accentuate extra beats because they don’t just 4/4 at you all of the time, they break up verses with beautiful little complimentary scales on different instruments – it’s intensely listenable. And danceable, as proved by the happy dancing people down the front.

One interesting thing was the number of good Birmingham bands which members of Betty & the Id have played in – bands that I like too! The list includes L’Augmentation (ace free downloads, follow the link), The Bee Men (they still have some 7” singles left – it’s well worth asking how to get hold of one) and best of all, a pre Pristine Christine iteration of The Sea Urchins, which brings us nicely back round to that C86 in a good old circle.

And thank you to Betty & The Id for bringing a drumkit and backline too.