Music and Life in England's Third Highest City
Then we’re hot!
A wonderful evening in the mind blowing splendor of Worcester Cathedral last week when MOD organised the music for the Lord Stafford Innovation Awards. Top players Vo and Joe Fletcher and Ric Sanders got the music just right for the occasion. Here’s their view of the evening:
Meanwhile our very own smileymic got to meet the Sugarhill Gang last month. Here’s the video that won him the honour:
Just had a lovely cup of tea with the ever cool Ranking Roger to round off the day.
Another quiet spell for this blog as last week was really busy which I blogged a little about here and this week I’m off on a course with some very nice people to learn some stuff – wish me luck!
I’ve been wondering how to blog some things that come to mind from the past due to something current. No big deal but little memories that might amuse some readers. So I’m going to flag them up ‘Memory’ and those with no interest in modest snippets of popular music history can just pass on by.
Thinking of it today as I see Derrick May is in town tomorrow night at The Factory 13th B’party. My old mate Neil Rushton released Derrick’s ground breaking records in the UK at the very start of Techno when Neil and only a couple of others from the UK saw what Derrick, Kevin Saunderson and Co were doing in Detroit. I had the honour of taking Herbie Hancock to London’s Heaven in ‘87 where the whole Acid thing had kicked off to hear Derrick DJ and see what Techno was about and then to introduce them in Herbie’s Mayfair hotel room later.
Derrick was so high post show that when he came to Herbie’s suite he literally ran up the wall to around 5′ from the ground and then horizontally round half the large room. A surprised but always cool Herbie asked Derrick if he’d be interested in working on a film score with him but it was all too much for Derrick who needed more space and fled the room to run through Hyde Park I think.
Nice to see them both still around and both doing what they love.
Don’t know if you twitter but top twitter fun today led by many and summed up beautifully again by Nicky at her Digbeth Is Good blog here.
Might have been one of those moments when you just had to be there but top fun.
Capital Letters that is. They were a reggae band from Wolverhampton who I worked with 30 years ago. They had top rhythms and top tunes and they were big – usually 8 or more on stage. Their place in history was really only documented the other week on Radio 2 when during the excellent ‘Two Tone Story’ Jerry Dammers spoke of how he used to DJ at punk events and everyone danced so hard that they collapsed after an hour or two. He said that he started slipping some reggae into his set to give dancers a chance to slow down and it was one night whilst playing Capital Letters that he had the idea of a band mixing Punk and Reggae…….
Capital Letters enjoyed a John Peel session and sold a lot of 12″ of their classic “Smoking My Ganja” but went their separate ways in 82.
Capital Letters back in the day
I was lucky enough a couple of weeks ago to hear that they were getting back together and tracked them down. They invited me to a rehearsal room in Wolverhampton and they sounded even better than they had in ‘82 so after checking with our partners for the Nov 7th top night Mr Elephant Presents I invited them to play in Birmingham. If you are around Digbeth on Nov 7th pop in to The Rainbow as amongst some other truly great stuff you can hear British Reggae at its best.
Yep it’s a month since I posted. I think it was my turn to go through the “What am I blogging for?” phase that Clare Edwards went through a while ago but out of the blue the answer has come so here we go:
First of all the inspirational: Lots of Birmingham bloggers, too many to mention got together last week to hold a Birmingham Social Media Surgery to help voluntary groups in Birmingham better understand the power of the social web. Nick Booth blogged about it here. Brilliantly done all, I hereby offer to make the tea at the next one.
Now the puzzling: I’ve been working with Creative Republic and other good folk to try to draw together some of the great stuff in the city into a more cohesive whole so that the images that go out from the city reflect in part just how cool it is. Far brighter people than I working on it but music being my thing I had a few ideas for the Creative City Awards this year. Imagine my surprise when Neville Summerfield who I’ve known, not well, for 25 years as my local florist and is now the City’s regeneration chief appears as the first bit of news re the Creative City Awards this year. Here’s the link, it’s not for the faint hearted. Yep that’s me puzzled.
Photo time: Pete Ashton on the Custard Factory blog logged the Digbeth Olympics under stupid which I felt was a little harsh, especially as it’s only companion is a piece of real stupidity from the NME. Nonsense would seem more appropriate to me. Anyway in the morning before it all kicked off I realised a long time ambition to raft down the River Rae by our office window. We went from Highgate Middleway to Fazeley St. Naturally I would absolutely not recommend it to anyone:
Matt powering and I on lookout duties
Before I go now I’m adding some great blogs to my blog roll, starting with Nicky Getgood’s wonderful blog for people who live and work in Digbeth. Nick Booth’s Podnosh blog always has something interesting. D’log who from somewhere in rural Staffordshire keeps a very keen eye on what’s going on in the West Mids and far too late a big up to Josh (I think) who has put the best online events listings site ever together for Birmingham at Live BrumThank You All.
“You sing it, we’ll hum it” is exactly what we said to two fine, young new friends from Germany who were guests at the Ancient Digbeth Olympics on Sunday. We said it as the winning 3 snails in the snail race were placed respectfully on the human size podium, their flags still held aloft and our friends obliged with ‘Das Lied Der Deutschen’ with 100 Digbethians humming along. You really had to be there.
Due to it being the first revival this century of the Ancient Digbeth Olympics no media were invited but hopefully some amateur footage of the event might be up soon which I shall link to immediately it appears as if it as funny on film as it was on the day we are all in for a treat.
Great Olympics stills and frank commentary here from Nicky Getgood
Before the start of the games proper 2 friends and myself did sail the Rae from Highgate Middleway to Fazeley St but it was purely in the interest of research and we would not recommend the trip to anyone.
Meanwhile must comment that this weekend followed the highlights of Artsfest last weekend where I had my best Artsfest ever, partly by being drawn to hear Ex Cathedra for the first time. This happened to be in St Phillip’s Cathedral in candlelight with the Edward Burne-Jones window lit to best effect. Utterly, stunningly, beautiful singing. Hearing that organ played brilliantly in the place it was built for was another amazing experience of the night but led me to think: What’s happening to the organ from The Institute during the Barfly referb? Anybody know?
Sandwiched between The Cathedral and The Olympics were the best Mod band in the midlands – DC Fontana who played jammed onto the stage at the Adam and Eve on Saturday. The brilliant brass section performed in the space of a medium sized wardrobe and the way the band played on as a ruckus broke out amongst 8 ladies? all dressed in pink feather boas took me back to ‘64. Wonderful!
Birmingham – Love it or leave it.
Oops! here we go, first Olympic footage is in:
According to a survey published today , Powys, in Wales for the geographically challenged, is named as the place in Britain where people are happiest. I’ve suspected this for some time. Some people might wonder why I have a wholesome section in my links to the right. Well Clare Edwards is about to be moved from that to music as she revs up for this November’s Gigbeth but my dear friend Sorelle (Soz) will stay there as an island of peace and wholesomeness in this crazy world. Where does she live? Powys. Take 5 minutes, have a cup of tea and take a trip to Sozland, you’ll feel better for it. She’s coming to a party in Brum on Saturday – I hope she’s ready for it.
Within a couple of days last week I was lucky enough to meet several people at the top of their game.
Thursday was leader of BCC Mike Whitby and other fine folk at the Council House at the Creative Republic/BCC debate “Generating Creative Ideas for Birmingham” – photos are here on the CR site.
Pete Ashton has a mind map of the event here and if you’d like some background reading check the very fine report from Professor Michael Parkinson which is a good starting point at the bottom of this page from the Birmingham Post here
I got up to mischief (as always) on Friday with my favourite pub landlord and current Brummie of the Year – John Tighe of The Spotted Dog. He’s up to something with a penguin.
Meanwhile further discussion were had re the upcoming Ancient Digbeth Olympics. I seem to have something to do with the aquatic events so if urban rafting has ever appealed to you please drop me a line……
Saturday, an hour or two in the company of Michael Wolff who Creative Republic have coming to a most interesting event here on September 9th
Later on Saturday briefly chatted with Graham Vick over a sandwich at the last night party of BOC’s King Idomeneo. What he and his team are bringing to this city is priceless.
Three regrets of the weekend – missing the unveiling of the big picture as reported so well on Podnoshos’s blog here, missing the favourite Shambala festival and finally having to miss the wonderful Morgan Heritage at The Custard Factory on Friday but for those who missed them here’s a great way to start the week after the holiday:
As I mentioned there’s been a major clear out in the office but thought I should share this one:
Fed up a couple of years ago with the ’second city’ tag I wondered if Birmingham is the highest city in the country? I mailed Ordnance Survey and they said they couldn’t tell me. Then they mailed to say they could, then within 24 hours mailed to say they couldn’t. “Well if you can’t then who can?” I ask “Beats us” they say.
Not buying this I dropped a line to my wonderful local MP Dr Lynne Jones who wrote to Ordnance Survey on my behalf and below is their reply. Shame about the result but now we know and hopefully something here for you pub quiz compilers:
Fourth
Having been prompted by Dr Lynne Ordnance Survey sent the following too
Heights for cities in England based upon the average height of the points within a city boundary:
