Just thought I’d quickly pop up the flyer for the next Autumn Store on 7th June.

Little My will be on first, at around quater to nine, as they have to get back to Cardiff to catch the end of a birthday party - so if you want to see them, best get down early.

Um, this is against Section 7 of the Promoters and Live Music Act (1992) which clearly states that bands with the fewest members go on first, gradully increasing the number of members per act as the night goes on. Ho hum.

Edit: Yay, they’ve just said they can stay all night so it’ll be Lime Chalks Chalks fist, then Pete Green, then Little My.

Ooh gosh, it’s been a hectic weekend and a half - played a gig at Freaking Legend and promoted an Autumn Store of my own.

I’ve put the playlist from Saturday’s Autumn Store up on the website *starts thinking it should be a blog post* and there’ll be a full review soon! Which will be a blog post.

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.

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.

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.

Just had to send this round on Facebook and Myspace, you may have seen it already -

Sadly Strange Idols have had to cancel their set tomorrow due to illness. We’ll hopefully be able to offer them a gig later in the year because they are ace and I’d love to see them in Birmingham.

There’ll be a reduced entry fee and we’ll still be playing some of your favourite records in between the bands and into the night (as always send me any requests) – so hopefully see you there!

It is a mighty shame, especially as I don’t think Strange Idols have played round here yet.

I did have a bit of a flap this morning trying to arrange a replacement, but sadly I was at work so wasn’t able to get one organised. As all the rest of Falling and Laughing are in warmer climes I can’t sub myself on from the bench either.

I do like the idea of a subs bench to substitute on bands to play, that would be quite funny. If you see a load of people in tracksuits at the bar next gig doing warm ups, you now know why!

Oh well, as I said in the message above - I’ll hopefully be able to get them up here later in the year, because they do write great pop songs.

Ooh, I’ve just seen an excited bulletin from Bearsuit saying that they’re number 3 in the Dandelion Festive 50 (the list is published in Feb because you need to pay loads of money to publish your playlists at the same time that the program goes out apparently).

Dandelion Radio is an excellent internet station although I don’t get chance to dip into it as often as I would like. It’s well worth a look if you find yourself twiddling your thumbs over your music without inspiration what to listen to next.

More News! That’s two news’s in the space of a day - must be some kind of record.

I love talking about indiepop, and I love talking about local bands - and occasionally there’s cross over on the big old Venn diagram of music. It’s happened today, I hear from the organiser that KateGoes are the latest band to be confirmed for Indietracks - which is officially the best festival ever if you’ve not encountered it. It’s a subtle blend of indiepop and steam trains, you’ll never know how much fun it is dancing to Camera Obscura on a moving steam train until you’ve tried it.

Having said that, I don’t know if there is a disco train at the festival, but the flickr group will give you some idea of the sights you’ll see there.

MJ Hibbett is putting together a show for the Edinburgh Fringe festival this year based on a series of articles that he wrote for the PopArt London blog. It’s musing over his music career which has spanned 10 years - or his exciting life in rock if you may.

This should be a good show, as the articles have been well written and funny so a coherent narative running through them with a few songs thrown in seems a jolly good idea.

There’s a myspace for it too.

I hinted at this in a post before, but I’ve arranged a second Autumn Store in Feb for Thursday 7th. Liechtenstein are over from Sweden and doing a mini-tour with Horowitz - so with one band being International and another being a band I’ve been meaning to put on for ages, I’ve said Yes, to everything.

It’s at The Sunflower Lounge.

This, of course, breaks a huge rule in the promoting book as there are two Autumn Stores in a week and a half and I’ve always worked on the presumption that if you put gigs too close to each other then less people come to both, so it’ll be really interesting to see how all this pans out.

Suffice to say, I’m really looking forward to both February gigs!