If
your idea of a Festival is getting hilariously off your face in a stinky mud bath, with hopes of random copping off, your time has probably been
and gone. But relax, they don't do that at Moseley anyway...
Do NOT pray for rain. Photo by Alicia Zinn from Pexels
It's
been 49 years since Hendrix at Woodstock over there and Dylan at the
Isle of White over here: 60s hippy enthusiasm sparking legends and juicy profits. Profits? Woodstock lost an absolute packet because of the rain (there's an ongoing theme here) but they seriously cashed in with the movie and the albums.
I have it on
first-hand authority, by the way, that Woodstock was actually a ghastly ill-conceived and massively overcrowded shit-storm; to which I can add that the Isle of Wight shindig was
rather fine, apart from the trek back to the ferry. But since then,
things have rather evolved. The big boys moved in.
UPDATE: A revised and expanded version of this post
is included in the new Radio To Go ebook Survivors
It’s year 2 for Reggae City: a festival – an all-night festival, but a festival nonetheless – that explicitly showcases what Reggae means in Birmingham. It means a lot to a lot of people. The long term plan is to mean a lot more, as it grows into a big, yearly, urban festival. But, as always, there are obstacles.
Reggae City showcases music – the core of which is British Reggae – that is both diverse geographically and chronologically. Alongside the cream of new and local 21st century reggae crews, there’s a slot for Ranking Roger’s Beat, and visiting acts from Jamaica, Brazil and Poland, as well as other UK based acts.
The event is managed by Kambe events, who also handle Shambala and some other fine events. John Walsh from Kambe was, as usual, impressively calm and relaxed when I talked to him.
They say Birmingham exports more reggae and sends more bands and sound systems out on tour than Jamaica. That's a hell of a statistic.
True or not, 21st century Birmingham reggae is still huge. It's still at the heart of music making in the city: a continuing hotbed for reggae, dancehall and old-school/new-school mash-ups. Sympathetic promoters and enthusiastic audiences abound. There are (at least) two production houses, both in Balsall Heath, pretty much a stones’ throw apart. There's way more to talk about than one blog post can cover.
If you trace 70s and 80s Birmingham music, the emphasis eventually lands squarely on reggae and cross-cultural mixes. Much of this came from Handsworth and Balsall Heath: tough, inner city areas
with overlapping cultures - always promising
from a musical perspective. Handsworth had the edge, with Steel Pulse, Ruby Turner, Cornerstone, Beshara and Apache Indian, and many
others. But Balsall Heath can lay a powerful claim, being home to most of UB40
for many years.
With Andy Hamilton’s generation as a starting point, all of the above are second generation reggae/soul artists. British
by birth, and from a bewildering range of backgrounds, all of them
happily worked, and mostly still work, across a whole pile of musical genres.
Robin Giorno’s Friendly Fire operation has been up and
running for around ten years. He takes an old-school view, working with a core
set of musicians - Friendly Fire Music - who back up both local artists and
visiting stars from the old country. Most of Robin’s work sees the light of day
on his own label, and he also backs his music and label work up with regular JamJah Sound DJ
sets, setting himself a ferocious schedule. If you check out the PST and Reggae City Festival sites, he's there - with his band or as a DJ.
Friendly Fire HQ is an unconventional but effective studio and production centre, spread across several rooms, and leveraging both old-school techniques and web-powered tools. It can be a one-stop shop, with a production chain marked out by a mic and shield rig and decks at one end, and a CD duplicating machine at the other.
Robin Giorno is French; he came to the UK at 18 to
study electronic engineering. It’s a complicated story.
"Studying in England is different. In England it’s much more along personal
development lines, whereas in France
it’s much more rigorous. If I’d stayed in France
I’d have only met other engineers; in England I got fully involved in….
all sorts of areas."
Including Reggae?
"I started listening to Reggae a couple of years before I
left France; all the old-school guys like Marley, Toots, Gladiators, all the
roots 70s guys."
So were you aware of the second-generation Birmingham reggae tradition?
"I don’t think I was! But I wound up going to Summit Records in the
Bullring… and all these songs I could only hear on the radio, on Friday nights
from 10.30 till 11.30 …they were all there! I could get the whole album! So Winston,
who runs Summit,
he guided me a little bit."
"Now those Indie shops are disappearing, the guys like
Winston who fulfilled that role – the benevolent guy behind the counter who turns
you on to this or that sound – are getting rarer and rarer. We’re going to pay
for that in the end."
Robin's exactly right there. Losing the bricks and mortar stores is a 21st century tragedy. Record shopping online works fine, but there's no soul or passion, and it's driven most old-school stores to the wall..
Robin had already cut his teeth on guitar as a teenager in France, into Kiss and Glam rock, but his first UK band is
still the band he plays in now. It emerged from some looped experimental work, to which local rapper Paradox added a vocal track. That found its way to a local studio
which gave Robin some free time to develop some ideas… and the band came into
being.
Check the Friendly Fire site for more - there's a lot more - as well as the gigs list at the bottom of the post.
Nip down the road from Friendly Fire, take a right at the
crossroads, and then right again up the next alleyway, and you’ll find
yourself at Elephant House, home of Overproof Sound System, who happily overlap with G-Corp and others.
You’ll often find the same musicians working in both Friendly Fire and Elephant House; relationships are cordial
and mutually supportive. Brian Nordhoff and Robert Cimarosti run Elephant
House. If you want to read about their studio setup, there’s
a post here.
Nordhoff has been working in and around Reggae since the
late 70s.
"Cornerstone was one of the seminal Birmingham roots bands.
They were one of the few reggae bands to get a Peel session... I started working with
them, then I worked with a crew called African Star, I ended up producing
because I was unimpressed with the live sound we were getting. One night I was
standing by a desk, moaning, and someone said ‘Well, You do it then!’. So I
jumped on, that led onto studio work, started getting more and more involved."
Nordhoff was jumping back and forth between music areas.
"The Elephant House started because we had a band called Electribe101, which we thought was dubby electronic stuff. But we were hailed as the
forerunners of British House. So we had front pages on the NME and Top Of The
Pops… which gave us enough money to build this place."
After major and repeated record company shenanigans (detailed here, and well worth a read if you're about to sign a record deal) the production team that grew out of Electribe 101 walked away
to work independently, and have stayed independent ever since.
So, like Robin Giorno, The Elephant House team spread
themselves pretty far and wide, touring with Overproof Sound System, issuing
material as G-Corp, and producing or mixing a surprisingly wide range of material - including Sly and Robbie, Dillinger, Big Youth, Luciano, Dubmatix, Adrian Sherwood / Dub
syndicate, and a lot more.
"I do find the way new musicians are using older music
very inspiring. They aren’t restricted – they’re delving into all sorts of
music. I think that’s fantastic. It’s much less tribal. The whole dubstep thing
– somebody popped in earlier who’s connected through Jimmy Brown’s and Earl
Falconer’s label – and we produced their Dub Specimen album. I thought it was
fantastic. But I don’t know if anyone has heard it – it was a labour of love
for them.. But I thought it was well worth the effort. It’s going to become a
rare groove CD… "
When G Corp aren't busy touring Overproof, their studio is home to a wide range of bands (covered on this blog in a previous post).
Here's one of the latest productions, with Xova, who embody yet another facet of Birmingham's 3rd Reggae Generation; their management are currently working on a documentary covering the Birmingham reggae tradition.
Knife Crime City - XOVA (G-Corp Album Edit)
Chatting with Brian about music in general and Birmingham in particular
can take you all over the place. We eventually wound up taking about Country Music in Reggae,
and in Old-school Soul.
"I can reel off so many Country songs that were done in the Reggae format. There was a period in Reggae when it was so linked to Country. I
spent the 70s in Handsworth, and everybody’s mum and dad were listening to Jim
Reeves and all the big Country artists of the time. It’s always had a
black/white connection. Bob Marley and
Black Uhuru was produced by Alex Sadkin, and that and Chris Blackwell crossed him
over to the world."
‘Toots In Memphis’, Muscle Shoals, the Stax and Motown
House bands…
"We went over to the Cayman islands to produce an album, and
what struck me was how all the cultures – Black Chinese, Asian, White - all speak either Jamaican Patois or with a
Bajan or a Cayman accent. And everyone is actually seen as a Jamaican. It’s not
what we see from here! The biggest reggae label in the world, VP, which is now
run from Queens in New York,
is run by the Chin brothers, who are Chinese Jamaicans! I grew up with Stax, Motown and Reggae, and that’s led us to where we are now."
It’s an odd but lovely thing to see the Stax-Volt house band concept being carried on in a highly individual reggae-oriented way by Robin
Giorno, while Brian Nordhoff and Rob Cimarosti happily skate across a whole range of genres, while still centering on reggae, sound systems and dancehall. Just part of the grass roots in this town: the creative foundation from which all sorts of brilliant new work can grow. And while we listen to the current generation, be sure that there's a fourth generation getting ready. Some of them might be trying some moves out at Reggaebaby Lounge.
Quiet relaxing times for Birmingham's festival planners? Not a chance.
I’m so old, I was at festivals in the 60s. Dylan, The Band, Family, Third Ear Band, Tom Paxton, Richie Havens, the Moodies and more, at the Isle of Wight. It was chaotic, good-natured, and, of course, stoned; but not particularly expensive. The next year, Shepton Mallet: Zeppelin, Santana, Fairport, Canned Heat, Byrds, Country Joe, and on, and on, and on. More expensive; indescribable toilets. Just as stoned, of course. The UK Rock Festivals site covers all this rather well. I dug around to see if I could find myself in the crowd shots, but you try picking out one bearded pony tailed bloke with John Lennon shades from dozens of others on the grainy black and white crowd shots. A needle in a suburban hippie haystack. Those 60s and 70s festivals were full-on free enterprise ventures, overlaid with the faintest idealist ethos. Since then, festivals have - I use the word deliberately - mushroomed. There's hundreds. Some are great, some diverse and eccentric, some super-specialised, and some - too many - built to separate you from your money as efficiently as possible. Idealism is rare. Glastonbury is still seen as cool, by the BBC at least, and is a must-play venue for artists. Others give you little more for your money than touring acts on the take, a sea of mud, expensive concession stands, and corporate branding upfront and centre.
There are exceptions…..
Summer festivals feel like a lifetime away. But for those who do the planning, right now is when it gets complicated and frantic. Birmingham’s Mostly Jazz, Funk and Soul has already had its launch party; the festival itself isn’t until the end of June. Its big brother, Moseley Folk, runs at the end of August. And fabled but elusive Shambala, held in remotest Northamptonshire but organised from Birmingham, runs the preceding weekend.
Half a year away from d-day, both Moseley Folk and Shambala are trying to pull off the interesting trick of bringing in advance ticket sales without revealing too much - or indeed, anything - too far in advance. Mystery, magic and surprise is part of the deal at Shambala, while Moseley builds anticipation by going public about its star billings in a splashy, deliberate and calculated way. It's an interesting challenge to try to glean details of what's been settled already. While I'm pretty confident about some of the brilliant local bands and acts who will appear - you'll find quite a few of them featured on this blog - it looks like both festival teams are busy painting their portraits not so much on canvas as on water.
Squeezing time out of organisers at this stage is difficult, but I eventually had long chats talking Shambala with Jonathan Walsh, of Kambé Events and Jibbering, and Moseley Folk with John Fell, who also fronts the excellent Goodnight Lenin. Both were gracious, if rushed off their feet. Kambé also work with St Paul's Carnival Bristol and Reggae City Birmingham. Jibbering, some people may remember, was once a hip record shop in Moseley, with great expresso, cool music, and free wifi. A fine combination for customers. Sadly, there was only so much free browsing time Jibbering could afford to dish out to customers who then used Jibbering's free wifi to order the records Jibbering sold... from Amazon. Jibbering continues with regular promotions at places like the Hare and Hounds in Birmingham, and elsewhere
Jon Walsh first…
It’s a crowded festival timetable. Yours takes place on the same weekend as Reading. What’s the most important thing to nail right now?
JW: At this time of year, boringly, one of the most important things is the budget. What venues are we going to have at Shambala, what the make up of the event is going to be, what proportion of the budget we’re going to put into art installation, as opposed to music or site services…
When you started, what did you have in mind? Has it deviated? Is it a monster out of control?
JW: It is a monster, but it’s not out of control. When we started, it was a stage, and a few friends…. and a party!. Twelve years on, fundamentally, that’s still what it is. The analogy is, it’s a bit like a rolling stone that you guide along its path. It’s such a creative force in itself – new things pop up, new perspectives arise each year.
If we weren’t in the 21st century, I’d have thought I was having a conversation with you about a festival from the late 60s, full of idealism and goodwill. But this still a business, and it’s still got to pay its way…do you ever get caught in the middle?
JW: You're right. That ethos is still very very true. It’s a massive event with massive budgets now. Hand on heart, we try to make sure the whole event is fair. We won’t suddenly go out and book an artist for £50,000, and have to skew what’s happening across the rest of the event. In the early days, we did beg and borrow kit and make it happen. Now, we’ve moved into a realm where we have to put money in, and then balance that shift from doing it for the love of it to having to pay for certain things.
So, a philosophical approach. Beyond discussing the multimedia approach of Shambala, John will not be drawn, either on who is appearing, or exactly what sort of non-music events are planned for the Festival, except to say that they do, inevitably, suffer from leaks... and this year it may lead to their publishing some details in advance... which might help sales along.
JW: The difference is that Shambala isn't so much about the acts, it's the fabric and depth to the event... the people, their respect for each other, and their open mindedness... something to discover every step of the way...
Nor is the Shambala location, a constant for some considerable time, ever formally disclosed. This may seem wilfully perverse, but it’s part of the package, and it works. Those who go swear by the festival, and return yearly if they possibly can. If you want to find out more, you need to ask around, or try to read between lines on the website. It was amusing to see the Guardian describe Shambala as a boutique festival last year – my guess is they didn’t have much of an idea what was planned.
But that doesn’t stop the marketing exercises, which are in full swing on Facebook right now. And here’s a sweet video made last year.
Again, it comes down to selling the festival as an idea, rather than a music destination. Nor does it stop the advance sales. All the Shambala Early Bird tickets are already gone, and sales are 80% up this year on last.
Compare and contrast to Moseley Folk, five minutes away along Fazeley Street
from Kambé's Custard Factory headquarters. The Moseley Folk team also
delivers the Jazz/Funk/Soul festival and a string of other events
throughout the year. Tickets do not go on sale until the end of this month. Moseley Folk announce details of headliners in advance of the event (but not just yet), following up with details on freshly booked acts, to hopefully generate a steady stream of ticket sales. The affable John Fell of Goodnight Lenin - not a total surprise to see them happily already on the bill, as you'll see - does most of the festival publicity.
What’s the most important thing to nail right now?
JF: The most important thing about any festival should be the music. At present, we’re working hard on bringing the line up; there’ll be a lot of acts that the usual Moseley Folk crowd may have not heard. We’re trying to confirm some international acts. We need to tie these in early to make sure we have the music which we want to promote.
When Moseley Folk started up, what did they have in mind? Has it deviated? Is it a monster out of control?
JF: The key aim was to give folk a platform. The same philosophy is still there although now at at a higher level. We are especially proud to offer local bands the opportunity to play along international household names.
Moseley Folk and Shambala have very different policies on announcing headline acts. You go public early. How soon to you tie yours down?
JF: We start to look into the line-up two months or so after the festival has finished although don’t start confirming bands until the New Year. Although we are confident that Moseley Folk has a regular audience who trust our programming, we like to announce the headliners as early as possible. This year we will be announcing the line up in segments to add a little excitement.
What about an early scoop on a star name - just one - for when I publish this conversation?
JF: Ha! Goodnight Lenin are on the Saturday bill!... Unfortunately, we're not announcing before 1st March. It's all very nu-school.
Shambala runs on exactly the same dates as Reading, and that is deliberate. What sets the timetable for Moseley’s festival dates?
We always run on the first weekend of September. It’s the best time: all the commercial have been and gone, and we can relax in the autumn with a beautiful independent inner city festival.
Posters, press, radio or word of mouth? What's best for you?
JF: Everything! There is a lot of competition when it comes to festivals although we don’t see it like that. We encourage new events all the time however have to be wary that if we don’t focus on all promotion channels we may not reach all those that would be interested in the acts that Moseley Folk books. Therefore we work with Radio, Press, and Posters which all help in creating a word of mouth buzz around the festival.
The festivals do not overlap; the choice is
therefore yours - Shambala, Moseley, or even both. One thing to bear in mind: you’re going to see an awful lot of
the same people at both festivals. It’s just that at Shambala people may look
a little… weirder… but in a good way. Prices? Full price at Shambala will run
you £119 for up to four days; Moseley Folk haven’t announced their prices yet,
but the three-day Jazz Funk and Soul event will run you around £79; I expect
something similar for Folk. For comparison, Glastonbury tickets ran you £195 in 2011.
