Jam Jah Mondays – they're baaaaack!

They thought it was all over. It isn't, now. A Birmingham Reggae institution steps it up

Robin Giorno is persistent. He's been cooking up reggae grooves in Brum for nearly twenty years, with his studio and the Friendly Fire collective. For well over a decade, Monday nights have played host to a freebie event mostly at the Bull's Head in Moseley, Birmingham: Jam Jah Mondays.

The Bulls Head has new owners now. Its days of frenzied music craziness are over. The place has great history – Sam Redmore and the Leftfoot crew ran nights there; Ben Calvert's Bohemian Jukebox, Brum Notes' live nights and many more have all left their mark. It was a small room, with iffy sightlines but great breakout areas.

So where have they all gone? Well, Sam's breaking through nationally, and not before time. And Ben's taken his Jukebox to the Hare and Hounds every other month. Now, JamJah Sound, after a short but worrying pause, are stepping it up fifty yards down the road, with a different landlord – now it's Keith, at the Dark Horse.

How to make a small fortune promoting? Start with a large one.

Promoting small-scale gigs and making money? Defining 'folk' in 2014? Tricky.

Ben Calvert is a songwriter who runs regular Sunday night gigs and a small record label under the handle of Bohemian Jukebox. We had a terrific, lengthy and detailed conversation this past week after an email exchange triggered by a post on promoters who love what they do and the music they work with. Ben pointed out that, contrary to the popular belief that music promoter equals bloodsucker, he and many others work for ridiculously silly money. 

So we met up and he showed me his books. Guess what? He really does work for a pittance. But promoting penury hasn’t slowed him down; he loves his music. Bohemian Jukebox now runs as a venue-supported freebie at the Bulls Head in Moseley, Birmingham. After well over a decade, Ben's not getting rich; he's not alone. A huge tranche of local music businesses work this way. Without this kind of gritty idealism / bloody-mindedness / music obsessions (delete as appropriate), local scenes would be a lot poorer. 

Scary financial stuff and noble principles to follow…

This Is Tmrw: New bands, new music, new promoters

For some time I've been thinking of writing about how promoters work. But I haven't got around to it. Why? partly because it's complex and secretive - and not everybody operates, shall we say, fairly. Few promoters will offer up financial details, obviously, and that's something I'd really like to write about. 

So I am grateful to Julia Gilbert and the This is Tmrw team for stepping up to the plate - and we didn't really discuss money anyway. Like musicians, promoters do gigs for different reasons. Here's two teams taking parallel directions with different approaches. Both of them share some problems and have some solutions. Both are idealists. One team does it for love; one for love and, with a bit of luck, money. Both are important to the music infrastructure of the West Midlands.