Gosh, I’ve got a huge weekend to blog about - The First Big Weekend of the Winter nonetheless - 8 bands, 5 badges, 3 cities, and 1 excellent t-shirt. I started writing this as a text heavy blow by blow account but soon got bored of that (almost as quickly as you’d have got bored of reading it) so I thought the best thing to do was to just sketch thoughts from the weekend onto the post. There are 20 of them. Friday evening starts with me at Island Bar. Monday evening ends with me in an RnB club (the excellent Robin 2). Feel free to rearrange these bits into any order within those two bookends that you find most humourous.

1. You know how you collect music and go to gigs to experience as many beautiful moments that you can, and how seeing and dancing to a good band (especially for the first time) easily outweighs any amount of disappointing second albums or ill-advised spin off projects. I had one of those moments twice this weekend and I’m certain that The Deirdres are the most magical band I’ve seen in a long time. There are seven of them writing and playing beautiful pop songs and running round the stage like liquid picking up random instruments, things that jingle, or trying to get close to a microphone to join in the communal melody. They also dance over enthusiastically when other bands are playing.

2. They also have the best hand made t-shirts. Mine is of a dinosaur (saying I am Deirdre)!

3. Sheffield seems to have a very healthy indiepop scene and has produced loads of great bands recently. I’d love to be able to attribute this to having an indiepop night called Offbeat running consistently over the last 10 years or a brilliant record shop called Forever Changes. I’d love to know if anyone else has theories on this.

4. Half Man Half Biscuit are an absolute national treasure. I laughed once every 30 seconds on average and never once got bored during a one and a half hour set. I love the way how rather than singing about abstract concepts, they sing about things like The Bottleneck at Capel Curig and having to switch the kitchen light off with your chin when you’re holding tea and toast. They also prove that there is nothing wrong with borrowing tunes if you’re going to put humorous lyrics to them. It’s not theft or breach of copyright, it’s taking the components of other things to make something wholly new - a point made by Larry Lessig. Everyone borrows from what has gone on before anyway whether they are overt about it or not - as Einstein says, the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

5. When I put an Autumn Store poster up in Jibbering Records on Saturday they were playing an amazing record, but I will never know what it was.

6. Gran and Pop put on an amazing gig at The Island Bar on Friday which was really well attended. It’s certainly led me to believe that I can throw out the bit in the Promoter’s Handbook (the imaginary book that makes the ideal Christmas gift) which says that you *have* to book a local band.

7. Gedge is an excellent name for a cat. So is Cocker, but I wouldn’t advise that you write a song about a cat called Cocker.

8. Horowitz are lovely people. I’m really looking forward to going up to Stoke to see The Deirdres, MJ Hibbett and Horowitz on the same line upon the 14th December - the day before The Autumn Store Christmas Party.

9. Winston Echo is a very watchable performer and has a lovely mix of humour and quietness, the fact that he apologised on Friday for singing the lyrics to Winchester Cathedral Choir in the wrong order and never sounds entirely in tune just adds to the charm.

10. Nat from Monkey Swallows the Universe has a lovely voice but seems more nervous performing solo (though in her defence it was her debut solo gig which I saw on Sunday). She also uses the little loopy thing which is becoming quite popular with solo performers.

11. In order to ’Do the Indie Kid‘, you need to
“Hands behind your back
Bounce your hips
Move your feet around
And do the Indie Kid”
So now you know what that dance you’ve been doing for years is called.

12. Post POPshow curries should be the staple diet the future. I need to bring this tradition to Birmingham following Autumn Stores.

13. Having The Deirdres and KateGoes on the same bill would be amazing. I really want to make this happen *sets wheels in motion*.

14. Steam Trains + Music = Brilliant idea. Indietracks really is an excellent festival and I’m very much looking forward to the big two day festival on the 26th and 27th of July after missing this years due to Emmaboda (I’m still wearing the wrist band).

15. A tweepop cover of Daydream Believer is not only credible, but also very danceable.

16. The Icicles played two gigs wearing different sets of matching clothes. There are two kinds of band image (assuming that no image isn’t an image which is what a hairdresser told me on Saturday). The first is “hey, we’d have more fun if we all went out and bought/made matching outfits”, the second is the “how will our clothes help us sell more records”. I hate the fact that stuff like this goes on. The Icicles fall into the former category and can fill a room with lovely sounds.

17. The Robin 2 is a superbly sized venue and the exact sort of mid size room with good sound which Birmingham centre is missing.

18. Pete Green might be played on Rob da Bank this Sunday. Or alternatively someone claiming to be Rob da Bank has a few Pete Green MP3s in his inbox. Or alternatively Spam has got a lot more specifically targeted and researched.

19. Rob from The Retro Spankees demonstrated the most honest way to DJ. After a record finished, he just plopped the needle straight back at the start. This is how we listen to songs at home - if we like it we play it twice (twenty) times in a row.

20. It’s officially Winter. Yay!

One of the most difficult things to do as a promoter is dealing with the large number of gig requests that come in.

It’s hard to reply to every band (if you’re reading this and you’re a band I’ve not replied to then I’m really sorry - it’s just impossible to find the time to give every band a decent listen on myspace) and any promoter is going to have to say no to some bands who they really like, sometimes because the band is looking for gigs close to already existing gigs, and also due to the sad fact that

bands you like > bands you could possibly ever hope to put on

Part of me is excited that so many people are making music – a sure indication we won the indie wars and the “here’s three chords, now start a band” ethic prevails – but the other part of me is really heartbroken by this whole process, as it’s now become hard for bands to get their head above the parapet and get noticed.

Having said all this, I find it interesting to read the differences between how bands ask for gigs, and it generally falls along a grey scale, which (like all greyscales) has two ends -

The best approach which you can take when asking for a gig is to read up on old play lists of the night (maybe even pop down and say hello to the promoter!), and mention things that you have in common with the promoter in your message. Chances are that you’re a nice person, and so is the promoter, so engage them in a conversation they want to be part of. This is by far the best approach, and even if the promoter can’t fit you in – you’ve both made a friend out of it.

The rudest approach is to demand a gig on a date that the promoter clearly isn’t organising a night on and ask for a dubiously high guarantee. You’d be surprised by how often this happens.

When I do get a chance to reply and I’m saying no, then I always try and encourage bands to self-promote, as I seriously think that this is the way that things have to change in order to address the imbalance between the number of gigs there are available, and the number of gigs which bands are available to play. It’s how the Autumn Store started as a regular thing, and if you can keep the momentum up and get a regular night going then you’ll meet all kinds of interesting people who might help you on your music career.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if you’re a new band looking to make an impact, then the best thing you can do is run your own night. It’s simple enough to book a venue such as The Sunflower Lounge or The Island Bar and if you split the financial risk between all the band members then none of you looks to loose that much.

Couple this with the fact that you are in control of your own night - you can get in bands who you’d like to play with, and you can put on the records you like in between songs – then you have the makings of a night you’ll really enjoy!

Another 7” landed on my doormat the other day – the debut single from Those Dancing Days, cunningly entitled Those Dancing Days. I’m a big fan of bands having theme songs or songs which are called the same thing as the band, as I think it’s good for bands to write about things that they enjoy (amongst other topics obviously) and you would hope that they enjoy being in the band. Otherwise why do it?

Anyway, I first heard of Those Dancing Days due to a well-placed glowing review – which I believe may have been something to do with Tack! Tack! Tack! who are big supporters of the current musical pop renaissance going on in Sweden at the moment. The review was so glowing, I was ready to text all of my friends to say that my life had changed due to Those Dancing Days and leave them with my new forwarding address in Sweden without even hearing a note. Sadly the hype outweighed what I heard and I was left slightly disappointed. Ooh, the geek in me feels an equation coming on too –

(Quality of music * Warranted hype) / Unwarranted hype = Listeners satisfaction
Equation 2 – the theory of the first listening

The song is very drum heavy, all the way through from the intro the end, which gets a bit in the way of the soft/loud dynamics that the song could have had. The instumentation is fairly spread out and sparse with exception of the drums too, and although the small sections of tune are pretty lovely though as you would expect from a Swedish band, they’re lost amongst the drums.

I can’t help but feel that with a softer arrangement then I’d be listening to this song for months. As it is, theres just too much of a contrast between what the song is and what the song is trying to be.

 Having said that, I’ll dance to it if you put it on!

One of the things that no-one ever seems to tell you about being in a band is that you will miss loads of gigs that you want to go to, due to either rehearsing or playing a gig elsewhere. This is frequently gutting, even given that for me, equation 1 holds true.

making music > listening to music > no music at all

equation 1, the general theory of musical relativity

Last night, sadly Broken Social Scene were the victim of my latest diary clash which is highly annoying, as the chance to see Anthems for a 17 Year Old Girl live slips away again.For those who don’t know it, it is a touching and gentle song, and reminds me of the time I played it on the way back from one ATP, on repeat, literally all the way from passing Oxford to Kings Heath (much to the annoyance of the other passengers).Having said that, rehearsals are generally fun affairs and we seem to have ended up in a regular rehearsal slot at the same time as Shana Tova who are a band that I’m really looking forward to seeing – hopefully on Friday at Island Bar. They’re melodic post-hardcore you know, and listening through the walls of rehearsal rooms isn’t quite the same as that full on live melodic post-hardcore band experience.Oh, and playing Anthems for a 17 Year Old Girl as the last song has since established itself as one of our favourite ways to musically wish everyone goodnight at The Autumn Store.