It’s been about three months since the last Autumn Store and I’ve genuinely missed doing it. Promoting a line up made completely of out of town bands has its good bits (getting bands you want to see play closer to home, with bands you want to see them play with) and bad bits (finding and bringing amps and bits of drum kit so that they can do that).

All in all, the former outweighs the latter and tonight was a prime example of why those dream line-ups you think of should make the transition on to a stage near you.

Having said that, this line up had a quick reshuffle on the night, so that Amida could go on first as they had to make the daftly early last train back to Manchester – it was at 10.20pm!! This pushed Winston Echo into the most desirable second slot (you get to play to both people who arrive late, or leave early, AND you can drink before going on without running the risk of becoming a boozy headliner). It also ran against every rule that you learn in promoter school about making the acoustic guy go on first.

They did play what was a fantastic set, mixing all kinds of influences. At times they touch on the blend of enthusiasm and sensitivity that you may find caught on the grooves of Postcard records, and at other times they find a sharp chord sequence and rhythm that wouldn’t look out of place on a Buzzcocks song. The upbeat tunes and short songs made them come across as a very summery band, which was just perfect given the weather.

Winston Echo played next and he/they played some excellent lo-fi songs on acoustic guitar and snare drum. Standouts were Winchester Cathedral Choir and Bureaux de Change, the last song was pretty ace too but its title escapes me. They did a Nirvana cover too, which they had lying about from a gig in December when they covered the whole of Nevermind from start to finish.

Genres are crap at the best of times – and if you can argue that the word grunge tells you about the sound of Nevermind but doesn’t give away that it contains some pop-inspired-melodies, the same goes for the anti-folk tag and Winston Echo for, um, much the same reasons. There are some tunes in this set that will get stuck in your head.

Finally, it was time for The Deirdres to play their first Birmingham gig. I could quite happily plunder the whole thesaurus for increasingly amusing chains of words and phrases that are the same as “cracking set” - but I’d still feel I should be adding more positive things to say at the end.

They kick off the set with Electro Magic and coordinated dance moves, and go through a full set of wonderful songs with great quiet/loud dynamics. All seven of them join in with so much energy. Claire, Are We Safe To Be On Our Own is still as magical as the first time I heard it, and a new song called Ball In A Cup fits into the set wonderfully and already feels like a classic that’s so thoroughly established and recognisable that you wouldn’t be surprised if it popped up on the next version of Guitar Hero. Assuming the next version of Guitar Hero comes with glockenspiel and melodica peripherals, obviously.

It genuinely takes me back to the early days of getting into indiepop, so full of happiness with the discovery of this whole new genre that can leave you wandering round rainy streets on starry-eyed-autopilot, and inspired you to make music of your own.

One wonderful thing happened after the gig too, when one of Ace Bushy Striptease gave me a lovely handmade fanzine. Apparently they do a fanzine or something similar for every gig so far – I’m really looking forward to seeing them play the next Tropical Hotdog on Friday 6th June.

The indiepop disco finished off the night and you can find the tracklists on the website. Roll on Sat 7th June when we’ve got Pete Green (now with band), Little My, and Lime Chalks… which I’m a member of, so I don’t think there’s any way that I can get out finding and bringing amps and bits of drumkit to this next one. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it just as much though.

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.

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.

I’m just getting my act together to send off details about The Deirdres gig to online places round Brum, so I just thought I’d list the ones I use for you.

Firstly, JDTraynor’s Birmingham and West Midlands gigs myspace group is usually very well researched and collated but if you’re starting up it’s probably worth dropping him a note. He has a nice list of local promoters too along with how often they promote and where. I sometimes quite like to just click through all the bands linked to make sure I’m not missing something amazing.

There’s a few blogs, all with a slightly different take on things -

Birmingham Gig Guide (myspace or myspace) has been running for a while now and covers mainly indie, big and small.

Birmingham Music (myspace) who also seem to have a bit of a news thing running, venues list, and other bits and bobs.

Coming Up Birmingham (myspace) added me on myspace yesterday and promises to cover all styles of music with a focus on smaller events and venues.

Have I missed any? Let me know in the comments and I’ll update the list. Likewise if I come across anything then I’ll update this post.

I quite like it when people do stuff like Pete’s Gig Guide or Russ L’s monthly roundup and put together a more personal list - which makes it exceptionally useful if you click with someone’s musical bubble. I should be doing more of this with this blog to be honest. It’s no good you reading a review on here and thinking “I’d have liked to have gone to that if you’d have told me dunc, you git.”.

I promise to use the Upcoming Gigs tag more…

Edit 27/03/08 - Additions
Birmingham:INS have rightly pointed out that Birmingham Alive and feeltheheat also have listings, and Upcoming is also a good site to use. Anymore for the online listings listings?

Edit 09/04/08 - Additions
One more called Live Brum. They have a twitter.

Edit 06/05/08 - Additions
Just come across What’s On In Brum?. Oooh, it’s got a promoter’s area you say…

Ooh, it’s all been a bit quiet on the Autumn Store surface recently, but like a duck I’ve been paddling away under the surface to get gigs organised. Um, I’m sorry to subject you to the duck simile too.

I was keeping April free for a Japanese band called Andersens, who had penciled in a tour of the UK, though it had to be postponed for now (hopefully I’ll get them on tour later this year, and hopefully with The Starlets too…). I did then try to organise something for My Sad Captains but finding a venue was a little tricky as loads of places already had bookings.

Sooo… let’s quickly forget about what I’ve not done and talk about what is coming up!

May 10th sees the long awaited Birmingham debut of The Deirdres who I’ve talked about before on this blog. They’re lovely, if you missed the post. There are seven Deirdres all adding their own little brand of shambly joy to their songs, all of which have beautiful pop hooks. One of the thinks I find amazing about The Deirdres is that although they’d not come across ‘indiepop‘ as a genre before promoters started booking them with ‘indiepop’ bands, but their songs really should be the examples of the genres definition on Wikipedia - it’s everything I love in music, the hand made T-shirts and CD covers, glorious melodies which you hum all day, getting over the little mistakes by laughing, excessive numbers of twee instuments on stage, and songs which actually go somewhere rather than just verse-chorus-versing at you.

They also play with Amida, who apperared on the Kids at The Club compilation and whos guitars and loose vocals will take you take you right back to the days of Orange Juice.

Both of these bands are playing at the increasingly legendary Indietracks line up, which is of course, reason enought to come down to the Sunflower Lounge on the 10th May.

Winston Echo completes the line up with his lovely songs.

Speaking of Indietracks, I’ve agreed to host a pre Indietracks gig on Tuesday the 22nd of July so that some bands who are over from other countries can play a few warm up gigs and do a little tour. The Smittens from the US are already confirmed and we’ll see what other nice suprises the Indietracks line up throws up.

And that’s been my recent frantic paddling! Quack.

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.

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.

Seb from Robot vs Dinosaur mentioned the topic of putting up posters round Birmingham to me the other day (mainly if I knew any good spots), so I thought it was about time I covered that topic in a bit of depth – once again in the hope that having this type of information readily available will make it easier for people who want to start up nights of their own.

Weirdly, I get the impression that posters are relatively rare in Birmingham when compared to other cities (we do a good line in stickers though). I was wondering if this might be to do with a relatively low amount of independent shops.

Over the last few years several spots have been and gone (the Post Office in Selly Oak which allowed me a prime spot in the window onto Bristol Road has become Selly Oaks 28th Estate Agent) where as some have remained firm favourites of mine. Things do change, frustratingly from month-to-month depending on who you ask.

One thing that can happen frequently is someone will say something like “just give them to me and I’ll put them up later”. If you’ve got blu-tac then offer to put it up there and then and save them a bit of time, I say this because there have been times when I’ve handed posters over and they’ve vanished so it’s best to see if you can pop it up before you leave.

It goes without saying (but I will do anyway) that the best places to put posters are in locations where people who are likely to enjoy your event will go. Record shops I find to be good locations, but be creative. I like putting posters in vintage clothes shops and laundrettes but you might think of something I’ve not.

The holy grail of poster positioning is to get one of your posters facing the street where people walk past, and if you can stick one on the back covering the inside then that’s perfect. Places near venues are good, though some have deals with the venues not to put up posters for other events (the news agent close to The Academy only has posters for Academy events).

One thing I have to growl (grrr) about here is please please please never take someone else’s poster down unlss the event has passed. Obvious, but people do. There is nothing more frustrating in this world than seeing a big A3 glossy poster replace one of yours in a matter of days, especially if you’d hand made it like the early Autumn Store posters were.

Time for an “if-I-could-change-one-thing” moment. I do wish there was cross-pollination of posters between venues, so that as much information as possible is available to people. I’m partially thinking of that massive wall in the Academy as you go in, that would be a brilliant wall to give over to local promoters and have it filled with posters (for aesthetic reasons as well as local music reasons). After all Academy size bands don’t just pop up over night, they play gigs in local pubs first, put on by local promoters, and watched by local people and supporting this whole system is essential if anyone wants to fill a large venue like The Academy with gig goers.

Anyway, here’s my “core” poster list though if you see posters up somewhere not on here then ask them if you can put them up. There’s probably more, I’m still on the how-to-promote-bands learning curve too, but please let me know of any I’ve not covered and I’ll put it on this list. I’m off to do some postering in most of these places this week so this will hopefully be updated as I go along.

City Centre
Tempest Records – 2 posters
Oasis – fill the walls with posters!!
Swordfish Records – 1 poster
Music and Video Exchange – 1 or 2 posters

Moseley & Kings Heath
Retro Bizarre – 2 posters for the changing rooms (though I went back today to find it not open – has it shut down?)
Jibbering Records – 1 poster
Polar Bear Records – 1 poster
There are a few sandwich shops and takeaways which have posters too

Selly Oak (used to be really good, now less so)
Mud – 1 poster
Woodstock – 1 poster
Café Face – 1 or 2 posters
Liquor Locker (I used to put 1 poster outside but there was a very high risk of it going walkies so I stopped)
Selly Sausage (the posters have to be approved with a mysterious ticket agency)
Tasty Pastry (though yesterday I was told that they were taking all the posters down)

Old School Daze have also kindly put my posters up in the past.

Digbeth
I’ve been meaning to have a good sniff round The Custard Factory for ages.

Sadly, I’ve not found anywhere in Harborne, Bearwood, or places to the north of the city centre (places around Aston Uni & BCU would be particularly helpful)

Oh, and don’t forget to put some up in the venue!

Edit 04/02 - Rehearsal rooms are good places to put posters up!

Fatback Studios
Madhouse Rehearsals
Muthers Studio
Rich Bitch Studios
Robannas Studios

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!

The Autumn Store Christmas party has been and gone, wow, what a day! 

First things first, the press round up - to see if the e-mail addresses I fire listings off to work! I was quite excited to see it listed in Saturday’s Guardian, which is very exciting, the Birmingham Metro also carried the listings (thank you both!).

Completely predictably, the NME didn’t include the listing - and only informed readers about gigs at The Barfly and two of the Academy Venues. I’m not saying that I or anyone has a divine right to waltz into the NME printed listings but it’s just a bit disappointing that the one music publication which is available in most local news agents is writing itself out of local music scenes, all around the country. 

Having said all this, I think one of the things that I learnt from Falling and Laughing’s recent London gig is that a good press release with full on descriptions of the bands (and maybe a photo) may go further than the bare details. I’ll try sending something like that through to them next time and report back to you on how that works out.

It was a fair slog to the venue with guitars, guitar amp, bass amp and all the DJing records. I need to start convincing bands to bring more equipment next time… Arctic Circle were the first band to arrive for the sound check, which ran over a bit and so the doors opened at 8.45. This also meant that the night ran over a bit and so apologies if anyone missed the end of Pocketbooks due to public transporting.

I suppose this is one of the difficulties when sound checking a large 7 piece band, and we were scared to move any of the equipment after they had sound checked, so when Falling and Laughing came on, we had to tiptoe round Arctic Circle’s forest of instruments. Glockenspiels and Keyboards lived on top of guitar amps as every square foot of space counted.

I really enjoyed this Falling and Laughing gig, probably the last one with this line up sadly, and Birmingham is going to again miss Stu’s melodic basslines. In true ‘potentially the last gig with this line up’ fashion there were loads of tuning problems at the start which led to shambles - although during our first gig Darryl managed to kick through the skin of his bass drum during a particularly energetic ska rhythm and tuning problems pale into insignificance compared to the power of a split drum skin.

I protested when the word ’shambolic’ appeared on the poster (poster making duties have been subcontracted/kingly taken over by Debbie) as I think we’re relatively tight, only to have the reply “yes, but what about the 5 minutes of talking and faff between songs”. Fair point.

Arctic Circle were on next and didn’t take that long to re-set up the equipment, before launching into a stunningly beautiful set. It really was beautiful and expansive, having seven members really did fill the room and during the set there were drums on the floor, holding hands, instrument swopping, (more) songs about light pollution, girl/boy vocals and excellently written songs. I hope they sold some copies of their great album during their trip to Birmingham.

Also during the Arctic Circle set I got chance to look through the pile of CDs which were for the secret santa compilation swap, there looked like there were some lovely submissions with nice covers and a very wide range of bands between the CDs, I find it fascinating looking at what people put on compilation CDs.

Pocketbooks were up last and played an excellent Pocketbooks set, despite Andy struggling with a cold *and* being unfairly forced by the band to sing more than one song in a row at one point. As always the twin keyboard and (more) girl/boy vocals worked well and at one point I was even invited onstage to play the sleigh bells during their christmas song. I felt like a twee christmas Bez.

The Pocketbooks gig was also of note because we found out that Leon had won X-Factor during the set (to the dismay of the crowd, seems there were a fair few Same Difference fans present that night). The Autumn Store, keeping you up to date with DisposablePop culture since 2007.

There was DJing until 1 in the morning, and then that was it for another year. Thank you for all the bands who have played and people who have come down to see them in 2007, none of this would be fun without you, and hopefully see you next year!