Gigbeth. Saturday

So with bleary head and about five hours sleep under my belt I threw myself into Saturday with the weary conviction of a marathon runner with finish line in site.
“Funny story about this song, Steve” says the acoustic guitar strumming middle aged man with a dad hair cut and repertoire of samey melancholy acoustic music.
“Oh yeah?” replies the sound engineer and obvious friend to this folksy Bob Dylan wannabe. I’m at The Old Crown, feeling tired and wired.
“Yeah, it was written the day of 9/11, when we were recording that album” he says as he starts the next ballad. Nobody laughed, which had a little to do with the fact that there nothing funny about that particular story what so ever, it’s not even a story to be honest. I waited around for the chorus in case the song was called “Die Screaming in Flames Capitalist Devils” but left disappointed.

The first two Acts at the Kerrang! hosted Barfly gig were cookie cutter rock and roll Fratellis clones, the first band Oneyesblue only notable because the vocalists mad lunatic eyes and because they ripped through their set like they had a train to catch barely pausing for breath.

In a way it’s lucky they were disappointing because if I hadn’t escaped upstairs to the Sanctuary I would have missed Mistys Big Adventure, the unusual move to put out the headliners at eight thirty probably counted towards the less than spectacular turnout. Having never seen the band live before I was surprised to be confronted by a dancing red blob covered with blue gloves, this, I thought to myself, would explain why a warm can of larger had cost so much, because surely a high dose of hallucinogenic chemicals is the only way to justify a price so high. When I did realise that the guy was some sort of surreal Bez character and not a drug phantom I felt suitably ripped off again. But even the pocket rape at the bar couldn’t spoil my enjoyment, Grandmaster Gareth’s deep voice strangely reminiscent of Jim Morrison and intelligent funny lyrics complimenting the full dreamy sound while the red and blue hand jester attacked the crowd.

“We’ll get together and make babies. Space babies” screams a tiny man almost as soon as I walked through the door of The Rainbow, Cutting Pink With Knives are a screamcore electro screech rock band, that seem to start the next song just to stop the lead singers annoying babbling.

The funny thing about big hard doses of metal is, you never really know you need one until you get one. Plight are a terrifying onslaught of metal up your ass, with a beardy weirdly singer hitting all the right metal poses and an “Asschapel” t-shirt. Foot-on-monitor best -crotch-forward sort of stuff and a perfect set up for the next band, BeeStung Lips. You know a band are not going to take themselves seriously when the drummer appears on stage wearing a Jimmy Savile wig claiming,
“The singers head had exploded” although I had heard a buzz about the band, I had never heard the actual band, so I never knew they had a singer and thought they were just being flippant about their three piece status. The music was a pure assault of drum driven noise with chugging guitar. An amazing set that, too drag out a music cliché, blew me away. I’m not even a fan of bands without vocalists, but these guys were amazing. In the future this is the band your kids will play at volume 11 because they hate you.

Ears ringing and with more than a little booze under my belt, I stumbled up the road to see LTJ Bukem, but the steep ten pound surcharge to what had already been a pricey night was beyond my budget, rather helpfully we were directed up the road about a hundred yards to Heducation. I wasn’t going to bother, but my journalistic integrity to see the story through drove me on. And I’m glad I did. The Anomalies are my new favorite band; or rather my favorite new band, would be more accurate, their breed of fresh Rap/Indie/sheer enthusiasm blew me away. Gigbeth, to me, is about discovering new music, and although very entertained so far, there were only a couple of bands I would have made the effort to see again. Until this band, like the best period of the Beastie Boys they fuse Rap with a myriad of other genres and sense of fun with live drumming, samples and a the smilest lady singer you could wish to see. And even an impressive freestyle where they rapped about subjects thrown out from the audience (including clothes, belly’s, and they wasn’t even phased by my friends shouted suggestion of stem cell research).

Afterwards came the headliners DJ JFB vs. Beardyman, although I don’t know what the VS. was about they seemed to be getting on just fine as they whipped up an erratic mixture of mind blowing Beardyman's beatboxing, which my only other cultural reference is that black guy off the police academy movies (but with music), and DJ JFB's casually brilliant turntablism. At this point I have to admit I lost all journalistic integrity and danced like, what can only be described as, “a loon”.

Three days of live, new music, drink and general cavorting, the standard was high but while there were no really poor acts, there were quite a few bland ones. I have no doubts that those bands will do well because record companies hate to take chances so sign these seen it before bands and then drop them as soon as the cultural wind changes. So, therefore its good to know, through an event like Gigbeth, that not only are there new and interesting sounds out there; but that their finding audiences too.

Gigbeth. Friday

Sadly Friday I was only able to catch a few bands, the first being Shoot Panda Liars Club, a band so bland that they haven’t even bothered with a website, tight and professional guitar music with a little swagger but so dull my note book is just a list of other bands that they sound like. No character, unlike The Getaways who had so much character they could have appeared in a Dickens novel. In the intimate back room of the Sanctuary, these balls out, sweat covered scamps were so charmingly roguish that I wanted to reach forward and scruff their hair. Next Jess James, a tiny wisp of a girl bravely took to the stage and performed the usual sensitive singer/songwriter material which no one paid a blind bit of notice because unfortunately the lyrics, which I have no doubt she agonized hours over, were rendered incomprehensible by the acoustics of the room. By then the momentum of the gig had been killed, but that didn’t stop The JD from doing their hardest to RAWK the dwindling crowd, overlong in places and struggling not to sound like a sixth-form band that got lucky, I did enjoy the use of guitar solos something I personally miss from contemporary music.

Gigbeth. Thurs opening cermony

It’s the morning after the weekend before and I feel slightly sick, very tired, and for all intents and purposes, deaf. Gigbeth is a music festival that happens over three day days in and around the music venues in Digbeth, it has just finished its second year and I was there making notes and drinking drinks, so please excuse me while I try to decipher those notes and rummage clumsy through my memory.

There is a reason that festivals happen during the summer and sell booze, which I discovered last night when I arrived ten minutes early to the Gigbeth opening ceremony.

With no clear entrance I joined the crowd, waiting by one edge of the barricade. Well if you could call it a crowd, I’m not sure if twenty or so people, mainly made up of bored passing pedestrians and the mentally sub-normal, can be called a “crowd”. We were told that the event wouldn’t start until half past seven. At twenty to eight we were told we were queuing in the wrong place, and after climbing over a fence, let in.

We shouldn’t have rushed though, the first act wasn’t very good, his name was Pete and the Sound Engineers his songs were mainly cryptically called things like “channel 26”, “Still buzzing on the slave Amp” and who can forget the classic “I’m Gonna Have to put the Snare Through Mono”. And at 45 mins his was by far the longest set; unfortunately it only consisted of single instrument being half hearted played at varying levels of volume and static. Shambolic to say the least, but determined not to let the hour and a quarter I had stood in the cold, beerless reflect on the bands, the first band started.

Nizlopi are a two piece band, Gigbeth veterans that use a mixture of a beat-boxing double bass player and the standard singer/acoustic guitar front man who uses an endearing half singing half white boy rap hybrid. Their enthusiasm and cheerfulness couldn’t help but warm the crowd up and the mixture of approaches lift the duo beyond the tired singer – songwriter format. Unfortunately the left hand side speakers stopped working halfway through, and during the end song when they tried to bring in the drummers from Achanak their mikes only worked intermittently. The crowd didn’t care at this point and enthusiastically joined in, something more down too underdog rooting and blitz spirit than the cheesy uplifting political message of the song itself. Like all of the bands it would have been nice to see the full set, and I am really trying not to catalogue all the gaffs and technical difficulties, but its kinda hard not to.

Achanak were surprisingly good, I say surprising not because I expected them not to be very good, but because I never expected to enjoy a Bangra drum band so much. It’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer energy of the performance and speed of the drums, mixed with Rap samples, including a cheekily reclaimed Buster Rhymes excerpt. And again although beset with sound problems, the band soldiered on with smiles on their faces and even an embarrassing bit of dad dancing at the end.

Soweto Kinch started with his brand of jazz noddlings. This was made all the more disjointed by running the sax through an effects pedal, which, although confusing, was enjoyable and had the added bonus of making the crowd feel as cool and sophisticated as he was dressed. Soweto oozed charisma as he glided through some freestyle rap accompanied by slow bass. As the self proclaimed “Victor Meldrew of hip-hop” began his next song he explained it as an attack on hip-hop culture, the song “SO!”, he asks of the rap community “Can I have some Art please?” and I know from bitter experience that if you are going to start an argument like that, you had better be bloody good yourself, and fortunately for him, he is.

Speaking of talented people, Mr Hudson (and the Library) controlled the stage like a battle general, switching mic’s, gesturing to sound engineers and bring troops on and off the stage. The first song was a little weak with the guest rapper embarrassing himself by repeating the “free styling” he had just done with Soweto, and Mr Hudson reduced to live samples. Mr Hudson has a good voice, which is excellently harmonized by the backing singer, but for someone who played up his brummie roots when he sings he sounds more cockney than Danny Dyer at a chimneysweep convention. The bands sound defiantly benefits from the live performance, its multi-layered, melancholy reggae beat sounding a little flat on there debut CD.

The crowd, all 10 of us, defiantly enjoyed the gig. With a rousing and seemingly impromptu performance of “Pass the Duthcie” and a badly remembered version of “Rudy” that made up for enthusiasm that it lacked in accuracy. The technical difficulties endeared the musicians to us rather than alienating the crowd. It was sad to see the event woefully unattended but the smaller audience gave it a more personal feel, and maybe a larger crowd would have been less forgiving. Especially without any beer to placate them.