Ok, I’ll kick off by telling you a brief history of time as I understand it. If cartoons have taught me anything, it’s that music started in the olden days when cavemen hit the amazingly-in-tune-ribs of dinosaur skeletons for the general amusement of their tribes, and to pass the time in between sleeping and eating and inventing fire. Everyone enjoyed a good old wail and music was born.

Later came the days of sophistication, and instruments which didn’t use rib cages were invented along with proper songs that people wanted to hear. The ‘best’ musicians could also get their music heard by more people than their local village, as there was a distribution system – roads! Troubadours would go from town to town singing their songs to whoever would pay them money – as Troubadours have to eat – but you could also make a pretty penny from the landed gentry.

Skip forward loads more and you start to get the first instances of recording music, and playing it back. The technology evolved and music became a lot more accessible, but there were overheads of printing pressing and marketing. I can’t imagine the logistics of being one of the early companies selling 78s as production costs would have been massively high and relatively few people could play it back! Headache.

Skip forward again to the late 70’s and early 80s (I did tell you it would be brief AND I’ve missed the bit that goes on about The Beatles) and technology gets cheaper still. Some vital things happened to music here. Firstly, it becomes cheaper and feasible for anyone to press up a load of vinyl and start a record label – Spiral Scratch is a great example of how the process of starting a record label was massively demystified and secondly, a bigger use of fanzines allowed music fans to talk to each other without having to go through the established media.

Ok, well this deliberately selective history brings us up to now. The starting up cost for a record label is as low as it’s ever been since the invention of CD Burners! More and more I find myself getting EPs from bands on CD-Rs at gigs.

But it goes further than that; we’re starting to see the CD-R label becoming a part of the landscape and I genuinely hope that this is the latest iteration of the burning DIY ethos. Some examples for you –

Cloudberry Records. A wonderful label based in Miami which specialises in jangly indiepop on 3” CD-Rs, the releases are limited to 100 and I daresay they send them to the four corners of the world. Popkids of the World Unite! The ethos is on the front page – Cloudberry believes in; unrequited love, systems of resistance, sense of community, DIY ethics and international socialism. You can get loads of free MP3s from their site too.

Asaurus Records. They say it’s alright to refer to them as the Wal-Mart of CD-R labels, and they have put out a large number of amazing bands. It’s run by musicians for musicians.

WeePOP Records. Back to the world of 3” CD-Rs, these come lovingly hand made and assembled in lovely brown paper bags. Look at their latest news and the pop-up sleeve and tell me that it isn’t something special.

And that’s just it, they’re something special. I’d rather have a CD-R in a lovingly hand made cover (the same care should be taken over the packaging as it is the music, unless you want your CD to look like everyone elses) than another proper CD with a printed top in a jewell case which is at least three times more expensive. I’ve used this blog to rave on to you about the fold-out-pirate-map Jesmond Villas CD-R cover, and the WeePOP-UP CD-R above is a good example too. I also got a lovely Wave Machines CD-R recently where the CD-R fits perfectly flush into a 5” circle cut in some cardboard. There are loads of ways to make your CD-Rs special.

There’s loads more examples well outside of indiepop too. I was browsing through the racks at Mono a few months ago to see that some noise bands in Glasgow such as Kylie Minoise are using CD-Rs too. Even Radiohead are doing it.

So there you go. Music has brought us here, to a place where you can ‘manufacture’ CD-Rs, hand-make-them-lovely, and pop them up on a website where it can be seen by everyone with internet access, and post them off to people round the world. You can build a community by starting a CD-R label of your band, and putting out stuff by bands you like too, who share an ethos or a sound. It’s now easier and cheaper to own a label now than it ever has been before in the history of music. Get one.

Here’s 100 CD-Rs. Now Start a Record Label.

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!

This was a Fortuna Pop! organised line up featuring Bricolage, The Wave Pictures and Wake The President, and Falling & Laughing in what was a pretty fantastic celebration of the Sound of Young Scotland. Not that we have many links with Scotland, but I think that our name secured us the spot at the bottom of the bill.

The first problem with a London gig is getting there on a Friday afternoon, when band members finish work at 4pm and soundcheck is at 7.30. Weighing up the options was a tricky one and the plan chopped and changed from staying at a Travelodge on the outskirts and booking a more traffic savy-taxi driver, to ferrying the whole band directly to the venue by cars.

Eventually, a Bearsuit myspace bulletin about London traffic scared half of us into taking the train (more expensive but at least you know when you’ll get to London with some degree of certainty) and half by car. I’d love to know how Birmingham bands who play London a) loads, and b) midweek, manage to cope with this stress. Seriously, I can think of no bigger headache than having to get to London on a Wednesday for an 8.30 set after finishing work at 5.

The train won by about half an hour in the end although the car only just made it in time to get a brief sound check, although in true first-out-of-town-gig fashion, an amp, a pedal and the copicat all played up.

The Buffalo Bar is a splendid venue downstairs, and is also independently run. It’s just the right size for small scale indie gigs, and just the right lay out to make it seem full with small numbers, but with a decent capacity, of about 150 I think. It definitely filled up early and the audience were there to listen to all the bands too, rather than chatting away over everything. This is possibly testament to the strong line up too.

We put in what was a slightly shorter set than usual but filled the time with idle chit chat in between songs. I’m still trying to work out whether this is frowned upon or not, I have the feeling that it’s either something you really like or really hate. Personally I like it when bands chat between songs, because you get a good impression of who the band are and why they are making music. Speaking of music, we made loads of mistakes too but I don’t think anyone noticed… shhh…

There were some nice comments after the gig too. Stu told me one which I really liked, about a girl who used to live in Birmingham, getting all nostaglic after hearing us namedrop so many Birmingham locations in lyrics.

Wake The President were on after us. They are a very enjoyable band to watch with some strong tunes and some good guitar work, I think they were my favourite band of the night. They had some strong melodies. It’s easy to instantly compare them to Orange Juice, but they had more a more laid back feel about them and had some parts which were a bit talky – prompting comments about how ace the Scottish accent is. The singer was wearing a The School badge too!

The Wave Pictures were on next, they used to be the backing band of Darren Hayman apparently, and you can tell, the first song launching off in very Hefner fashion. This is by no means a bad thing although it did make me wish that it was Hefner playing, that is, until the singer pulled out a ukulele and played it excellently, in borderline rock solo fashion!

At around this time I got the only disappointing crushing blow of the night – the pinball machine that had been sat in the corner, inviting me over all night, wasn’t working. Gutted.

Bricolage were the last band up. I’d seen them standing in the crowd earlier and thought “they look like a band”, so I was happy that my spidey-senses hadn’t let me down. I own a 7” by Bricolage too (the excellently named ‘Looting Takes the Waiting out of Wanting’) although it’s still sat in my in-pile. They were a very competent band who had a shade of Orange Juice to them – like everyone tonight. Two vocalists (both on guitar) contributed excellently to give the songs melodies a gentle feel.

There are some photos of the bands from the night online too, at what looks like being an excellent London Indie photography site called Underexposed.

Excitingly, my KateGoes t-shirt which I wore for the gig was spotted too, by someone from the PRS Foundation, which is a charity that funds new music – although their website seems to have only been infrequently updated since 2005. We had a nice chat and she told me that KateGoes had won a competition with them and are playing a gig in Camden, on the 7th February, with the three other bands who also won. This could be an excellent excuse to go down to London and support a good local band – though there are only 50 places for each of the four acts so you have to get in touch with KateGoes via their myspace if you want to go.

There most information that I can find out about this gig is on the KateGoes myspace, I can’t seem to find anything by googling KateGoes and PRS Foundation, which is a little worrying, as I wouldn’t of minded finding a bit more out about the competition - it sounds quite interesting.

The car was quicker back than train the next morning too.

While I’m here and getting excited about tomorrows gig, I also have to mention that the drummer from The School lives locally too in Stourbridge and performs solo indiepop gigs under the name of The Voluntary Butler Scheme.

I saw him play live a few months ago at Bohemian Jukebox and it was wonderful. Using one of those loop things which records a few bars and then plays them back ad infinitum, he built up little ramshackle drum and jingle rhythms and then played gorgeous pop tunes over the top with a guitar.

Sadly, I think gigs are a rare event – but songs seem to be changed and added to the myspace site frequently so it’s one to check every so often.

The other day I was reminded of the anecdote about Graham Coxon saying that he’d tune his guitar “once and once only” during the recording 13. I don’t know if Graham Coxon did actually say that but it’s certainly something that I’d imagine him saying. He seems to appreciate the loveliness in shambolicness.

That was kind of the ethos at an all-dayer, which I visited this weekend in the downstairs of a little book/comic shop called Here in Bristol this weekend. The only people there were essentially the acts, which always creates a good atmosphere, but it was a little room and always looked full as everyone sat on the floor facing the front like a primary school assembly. Freshly squeezed lemonade was available for 50p and yes it was as twee as it sounds! The poster was stitched fabric I’ll have ye know!

Thinking about it, I can’t think of anyone who was shambolic and lovely without simultaneously being twee, and not deliberately aiming for a professional sound. Maybe shambles only exists alongside twee. Maybe the lightness and simplicity of the arrangements allows for more whoops. Sometimes, you just want musicians to come across as human though – and there is certainly room for error in pop music.

Sadly, getting up late from the Butcher Boy gig and having to go early meant we only *actually* saw three acts. Madrigals were the first band that we saw and after the first song of their set, a string on their properly tuned telecaster decided that this place really wasn’t the place for tunings, and if it couldn’t be an out of tune string then it wasn’t going to be a string at all.

The upshot of this was that everyone used Winston Echo’s pink guitar – and as he explained as he lent the guitar to the guitarless he “didn’t really believe in tuning”.

Winston himself was the most shambolic act of the lot of them, but I mean that as - and feel that it would be taken as - a compliment. Songs slowed down and sped up all over the place as the guitar took a back role to the words and the tune, although this is not to say that the guitar didn’t have flourishes of originality. Certainly one for fans of MJ Hibbett, and if that is you then you get to see both of them at Island Bar on 30^th November.

Ray Rumours and the No-Eyed Deers was the third band that I saw and they were excellent. Sadly the increasingly out of tune guitar got in the way of some of the prettier picking patterns. I kinda like the fact that the No-Eyed Deers was infact one person who acompanied on a variety of instruments. They were sweet and Ray had a lovely voice, she kindly offered a set of spoons for someone to accompany them but nervousness got the better of the crowd.

By now, you may be wondering what could possibly be good about musicians not playing in tune or in time and I feel I have to throw an example at you. To hear what I’m on about by “shambolic”, you could do much worse than to visit the Rough Bunnies website and download Rough Bunnies Go Pirate (yarrr). It’s full of unrehearsed emotion and the little spaces that two people being out of step with each other creates, and it’s in these little spaces that something genuinely personal and touching can exist.