Sofar Birmingham: Songs from a Birmingham Room with Cannon Street

Pop-up gigs in strange spaces. Who's on? Don't know. Take a sense of adventure with you

There's a great story in here, about doing the right thing. The story takes in a folk festival, sharp idealistic new talent, several up and coming folk bands, putting it out there and getting something back, some very solid principles - like showing some respect and really listening to performers - and a lot of people who just do what should be done. 

I love watching new talent emerge. There’s a buzz to catching someone fresh and exciting for the first time. If they're good, you almost have to support them. Interestingly, there are a surprising number of people who feel the same way, and are dedicated to helping this process along: Paul Murphy’s wonderful Songwriters Café sessions, hopefully soon to return, Sophie Handy’s Muzikstan and Tom Martin’s Tower of Song are three West Midlands examples; there are many more.

That great story? You may have heard of Cannon Street: they are Nadi and Rukaiayah Qazi. If you haven’t listened to them yet, you should, so there’s a couple of Soundcloud links further down this post.

Cannon Street on the Moseley Folk Lunar Stage, 2013

Cannon Street are enthusiastic and inventive. They write lovely songs, pick interesting covers, and deliver all of this with charm and passion. I did a tiny piece about them in this blog post, after their debut last summer at Moseley Folk.

And here's the really great bit of that great story: Two years ago, they volunteered at the festival: you do two shifts and catch the rest of the festival for free; maybe you do a bit of schmoozing and networking. Oxford’s Stornoway were a main attraction. Radio 2’s Janice Long, as usual, was compering, and listening out for new talent, as she always does. 

Nadi: 2011 was the year we volunteered! We got talking to Janice Long who very kindly introduced us to Stornoway after we told her we were big fans and that we sang a cover of one of their songs... We then found ourselves singing it to them backstage in their dressing room tent! Pretty surreal really! Stornoway have kept in touch ever since – Ollie (Steadman) has been an amazing supporter. 

You never know wno's listening. You never know who will react to what you put out. One thing leads to another. 

Sofar Sao Paulo: pic from Madman.com.br blog

It turns out that Ollie Steadman is the Oxford organiser for Sofar Sounds. Sofar? It stands for Songs From A Room. It is grassroots music making, co-ordinated globally through a pretty slick website. Organisers put on ‘secret’ gigs in living rooms worldwide. These are then shared and streamed to music-lovers on the web. If you sign up for a gig, you won’t know who is playing, or where the gig is – just the date. The rest is revealed when you get there. So you’re trusting the organisers. You might think it’s an iffy proposition, but it’s not. Paul Murphy works the same way, and the Songwriters Café never lets you down.

Nadi: We were asked to play at the first Oxford Sofar – our first or second ever gig. Ollie Steadman runs it in Oxford. So then we volunteered to do one in Birmingham. We hosted it in our living room. Four bands – ourselves, Goodnight Lenin, Count Drachma (Ollie Steadmans’ side project) and To Kill A King. It was lovely. From there, Sofar asked us to carry on… 

We host secret events in popup gigs – unusual spaces, different venues. They’re really small, intimate events. We have three to five artists at each event. Everyone plays unplugged. Percussion is stripped back – brushes or muted with cloth, and minimal amplification – maybe just a bass amp. So bands can play. The idea is that you attend the whole gig. You sit on a sofa, or on the floor. 

So this is small-scale – thirty to forty people? 

If it’s a living room, which it often is, that’s right. 

That implies some serious thinking going on here about how performers and audiences can interreact. When it’s that intimate, you can get some special moments. 

It can be incredible – just that moment where you’re captivated by what’s going on in front of you. There can be a really broad mix. 

How do you pick the artists who appear? It must be very tricky to decide who’s going to play. 

It is. It’s our role to book artists. We also have a team of film makers and engineers who shoot and stream the events. We can see who is playing at other events, and request them to come and play at ours. We contact artists directly, and artists also get in touch online, offering to play. There is a waiting list. We slot them in where we think it the best fit for a really nice mix. 

In Berlin, from the Sofar Sounds Berlin Facebook page

Nadi, this is secret, but it’s not that secret, or we wouldn’t be talking. How do people hear about your gigs? How do they get in touch? 

We have a mailing list. If you check out our videos online, or our Soundcloud, there are links allowing you to subscribe. Or you can go to the Sofar website and subscribe. Then you are notified about the events that take place close to you. The location is revealed only the night before the event. 

You’re asking for a commitment, aren’t you? 

Yes, We want the best possible audience for the artist. We ask that people don’t talk during the performances unless they’re singing along, and that they don’t use their phones unless it’s to talk on Twitter, or Facebook, about what’s going on. 

I like that. You’re using all the trappings of 21^st century social media to go back to the very essence of live performance. Lots of work though? 

Yes, but it’s worth it when you see the event take place. I think I’m quite spoiled now. 

If you dig around the Sofar website, it’s clear that a lot of time has gone into developing the concept so it can seed itself in new cities. The trick is always going to be to allow enough local autonomy to encourage grassroots growth, harnessing local idealism and savvy to a solid support and advice network. Nadi and Rukaiya have leant heavily on this support. 

Now tell me about your own music operation… How are you guys doing? 

We’re working on our first EP. We’re always exploring. We’re working out how we’re going to progress form being an acoustic act – two voices, one guitar - to having other instruments and extra musicians. Rukaiyah bought a really cool electric guitar the other day! We’ll be doing a video soon. We’re shooting next week, but I don’t know when that will be ready. 

I’ll stick it up on this blog post when it’s done...

I told you it was a great story. It touches on so many of the right things. I’m interested in the relationship between the audience and the song or the performer. You’re a performer, sending some ideas out. Who’s listening? Who’s reacting? Is anything getting in the way?

Pop and corporate mega acts can be fun, but that stuff doesn’t feed your soul. And it can not, ever, compare with the conversation that goes on when a person steps up and sings and plays, to you, live. When you’re ten feet away from a performer with something to say, it’s rare and special. It takes more than performance magic to make that happen. It takes a framework and an attitude – respect for performers and a welcoming open mind to listen with. I salute the people who make this happen. 

Links:
Cannon Street
Sofar Sounds

See also
Six acts latecomers missed at Moseley Folk 2013 

Tom Martin and the Tower of Song
Songwriters Cafe 2012: feeding the five hundred

More music and venues posts on Radio To Go

Subscribe to the mailing list!

* required field

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

Email Format

• html
• text
• mobile

Tom Martin: letting music breathe at the Tower of Song

A tiny venue in a south Birmingham suburb that does right by its musicians.

Last week’s post on crowd etiquette and the need to keep schtum and give some space for performers kicked up a nice ruckus - you can follow some of what happened in the comments section for that post; Facebook and Twitter also saw action. 

Understandably, most people agreed with me. But some said musicians need to be able to command the stage, and if they do, the audience will play along and make nice. And that’s not a bad point either. However, that only works if you’re that kind of battle-hardened musician. The big question then is: how do you get to that stage in you career? And do you even want to? Some people are all about the song and the music. And everyone has to start somewhere. 

One of the musicians I cited last week holds passionately that musicians need the chance to develop their craft on a live stage, and that the audience absolutely must play its part too.

Four places to catch brilliant new talent for free. Right here, right now.

Free gigs are great, right? As long as the performers get something out of it as well.  Chris Tye, Ben Drummond, and Hannah from Urban Fox interviewed.

It’s a huge dilemma; I don’t have the answer. Musicians who attract and entertain audiences deserve their pay. We have a wonderful, vibrant music scene in the West Midlands, a true source of inspiration, and a reputation-builder for the region. But I don’t know of anyone local who comes close to making a living from their music. Far from it - they're giving it away on Facebook and Soundcloud. And a grim report from the MU was posted this week stating that 60% of musicians worked for free in the past year.  

Performers need audiences. Promoters need to pay for PA systems and venues. Venues need to pay the rent. But it’s not right that the creativity that drives this industry winds up subsidising everything else. Like I said, I don’t have the answer. 

I do know that there are some fabulous people who craft free events for the love of it all, and to support, not exploit, the musicians and the music they believe in. Here's four of them.

Talking bout my generations: Khaliq

It's taken two or more generations, but British music is now flowing all ways between communities. 

Last month, tickets for the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary gigs sold out in record time; you can still get em for upwards of £400 on Seatwave. Hey, bargain! But just head over to Spotify and dig into those 50 year-old Stones’ R and B covers. Time is NOT on their side. 'Little Red Rooster'? Please - let me suggest Howling Wolf. 

Mick’n’Keef had a sincere go at Chicago blues back in the day, but looking back today, it all sounds a bit wonky and self-conscious. That wasn’t their fault – they certainly weren’t in control in the studio, and for all the good intentions, it was a big jump, geographically and culturally, from 60s Swinging London... to Chicago or Mississippi. 

But when those 60s English musos dabbled with stuff from way beyond their culture, they really did break new ground. Quite understandably, they didn’t hit the spot to start with. But only six years later, Zeppelin showed up with technique and showbiz chops that left Mick and co in the dust; the ball was rolling. After that, imperfectly, but slowly and surely, things opened up. Which - some time later - brings us to musicians like Khaliq.

Nowadays it’s not a one-way flow, the way it was two generations back. In fact, for the latest generation, some of whom I admire enormously, identity and ethnicity really doesn’t matter; it’s simply not relevant. And that’s a fine thing. Khaliq - the name comes from their lead singer and main writer - have just released an album, recorded at Magic Garden. Now, these boys are not spring chickens; they’ve got over thirty years’ listening shining out of their music. I wondered where Khaliq started off…. 

“When I was a kid? Led Zeppelin. My brother got me the Stairway to Heaven t-shirt. And he played me the album. I’d never heard anything like it. But I listened to everything. Sabbath… massively into Stevie Wonder… Van Morrison. Then, when I heard Bob Dylan, I didn’t listen to Zeppelin for about six months … Springsteen, Weller, Tom Petty. Genres didn’t matter. If it did something to me, that’s how I judged it. 

 “So when I started writing songs as a kid, I used to think the only songs I can ever put out have got to do the same thing to others as these songs have done to me. 

Khaliq - World Alone 

How can you judge your own songs? That’s the hardest thing in the world… 

“Not for me. I’ve got a comparison in my head. You know when you go into a studio, and you want to… reference it…to see if it’s got it going on? I’ve got that mad reference in my head. I wish I could get rid of it sometimes.

From listening to what I did, it set a certain standard, a certain level. And I can tell straight away if it’s ‘up’ there. And then we play, it and work it with the band, and see how people react… 
 How do the songs come? 

"Whole songs come. The verse, the second verse, the chorus, the last verse, the story from start to finish. It all rhymes, it all makes sense, and it comes out in five minutes. But some of them, I’ll get the first verse at 13, and the second when I’m 27. It just happens. 

Khaliq - Everybody's Talking 

That was then. Bring me up to now? 

"First band was ‘As We Are’ – heavily into U2. When I first started I started on an acoustic guitar. My brother helped a lot. He was going to gigs; no other Asian lads were going anywhere, but my brother was allowed to go because he had three A levels and eleven O levels. He was top of the school, so the community couldn’t say anything. The community couldn’t slag him off and say he was wasting time with his hair and that. He was like the impeccable Asian kid, but with hair out there, and singing Phil Lynott songs! 

Same old, same old… sounds a lot like my grandparents leaning on my dad to take a respectable career - they were German Jews. So how much pressure did you get from Mum and Dad?

“At first, people weren’t happy. I was supposed to be an accountant or a lawyer. My dad thought it was going to be a phase. After a bit they realised this was everything for me. But there were conflicts. Am I English or am I Asian? Do I go to the mosque, or do I chill out with my mates and have a quick beer? Am I even supposed to have a beer? All this mad stuff going on. But the guitar was the best thing – you can sit in your room on your own, and once you’ve hit the tune – not even a tune a couple of notes… that was it That feeling, it made me like I’ve just done something. And then the words started coming out. 

Khaliq - England 

What about the album, gigs to promote, all that?

“We’re releasing the album (Astral Projections) on iTunes and all the other online places. But we’re doing a big local release, and a big campaign in March. We’re supporting Reverend and the Makers, maybe a support slot with Simon and Oscar from Ocean Colour Scene; I’m writing with Steve Craddock for an acoustic album. He called me a week ago, before flying out to tour with Paul Weller. I’m a massive fan… and he took the album with him to give to Weller. And we’re doing a living-room tour. … 

Khaliq - and the guys in the band are great. Nice guys with passion and interesting perspectives to explore. We could have talked for hours. But as I touched on at the start, what is striking about Khaliq’s situation was how, in two generations, the flow of ideas, and our ability to knowledgeably and respectfully embrace new musics across multiple cultures, and in many cases interpret and re-interpret it with skill and passion, has so completely changed. 

A while back, I did a documentary - Handsworth Evolution - on the post-war generations of Caribbean musicians who came to the UK and saw their music flow into the creative pool. 

There’s another gig coming up soon that highlights this very clearly, when two fine sets of musicians, already featured on this blog – The Beat and Xova, second and third generations respectively - play Birmingham Town Hall on December 15th. Hey, a lot cheaper that the Stones, and it's my guess there'll be a lot more heart to the gig as well. 

It was relatively easy to trace the musical generations for my Handsworth documentary, and slightly harder to try to pinpoint the musical and creative flows out from and back into Asian musicians. I'm pretty sure that this will become clearer in time. 

Khaliq's Soundcloud page

We do it because we love it. All you have to do is find it

Great, unusual music, there to be explored and enjoyed. Free. Bring your curiosity and a sense of adventure.

Zirak Hamad plays the Daff hand-drum. Amazingly.

I first met Zirak Hamad at one of Paul Murphy’s Songwriters Café sessions. Zirak is a lovely guy, irrepressibly enthusiastic, and a terrific musician. He has a hair-raising background, which makes his current situation all the more remarkable. Zirak is largely responsible for a fascinating new musical development in Balsall Heath, an inner city part of Birmingham: Musikstan, which, every other Thursday, gathers musicians to play together from, literally, around the world. It runs on love and goodwill. 

Entry is free, but you really should make a contribution when they pass the hat around; there are musicians' expenses to pay and the event has running costs to cover. Zirak’s music is great – there’s a Musikstan clip or two to enjoy after the jump. And while it’s a worldwide music thing, chances are you’ll catch some delicious local musical collaborations, as some of Birmingham's finest have started to drop by.


Zirak’s Musikstan gigs are by no means the only music gatherings in town that run on similar lines. Once a month on Sunday afternoons on Moseley, you can catch stunning musicianship, organised by the magnificent percussionist Joelle Barker at the Dance Workshop. On top of that, the City centre Island Bar hosts the Free Love Club, an all-dayer of a folk-ish bent, for free, on Sundays; Sue Fear’s Moseley’s Muso Monday, also (logically) on Monday nights, works on the same principle, there are regular gatherings of different music stripes at the Tower Of Song; and of course there are many more such events.  If I've missed yours out, I apologise - but please do let me know for future reference. 

Here's Zirak, at Musikstan, tearing it up on the Daff hand-drum. I recorded this in September.


Zirak kicked off Musikstan in March of this year. It’s got a clear and simple goal.

Zirak Hamad: Musikstan is about sharing and bringing people together. The business side of music is important, but having music just for music’s sake is important too.  A friend of mine, Andrew Bland, invited us to play at the Old Print Works, and accompanied us on piano.  And it gave me an idea to do something regular. So that’s how it started. Musikstan is based on bringing different musicians together, from different backgrounds and different styles. People are able to ask questions about the music, about the backgrounds and the styles of each type of music. 

In the six months since you started, how has the network of musicians developed, with different people coming in to play?

To start, because I’m a musician, I can bring in many musicians that I know. But then word got out – word of mouth – about Musikstan. Session by session, it developed; musicians contacted me to come and play. We keep it very informal. Musicians are invited to join us, and we leave time for the audience to ask them questions at the end of their set.  We aim to have one musician from Birmingham, and one from outside of the area, because we want musicians to meet and exchange ideas and music, and play together. 

What about your own music?

I have a Kurdish band, and I also have a band called Village Well, which has an Indian tabla player, and a Caribbean steel pan player. I also play in a gypsy band with an Albanian and a Romanian musician…. 

Tell me about your band Village Well….? 

We got the idea in 2010, with a Khora player, me on violin, and Indian Tabla from Pritham Singh. Unfortunately, the Khora player, who lives in London, could not stay with the band, so we added Norman Stewart on Steel Pan instead. This brings all kinds of people together.  Some Kurdish people might come to see me, and Indian people because of Pritham… and Caribbean people because of Norman. So we really are bringing people together through music. 

If you went back to the old country now, after your years in the UK, what would happen? How would people react to you?

Kurdistan has changed a lot since Saddam Hussein’s regime. Kurdish people are more open-minded now. When I went back, I was made very welcome. When I left Kurdistan, I had 24 hours. I found out that a friend of mine – who was working with the Intelligence services under cover – that the next day, they were coming to arrest me, and god knows what would have happened to me afterwards.

So it was: don’t go to work tomorrow, and sort yourself out to get away, because everything was going to end for me. I left Kurdistan straight away. After ten o’clock, they went to my house, and my family said they didn’t know where I was. And that was the truth – they didn’t know where I was, or how I had left. I went to Iran, and then to Turkey, and then  in the end I came to England.

Are your family …OK?

They weren’t. They arrested them and tried to force them to tell where I was. But they didn’t know, because I didn’t tell them what I was doing. So the secret police accepted this - in the end. Now, after Saddam ‘s regime, they’re all right. We have our own government; people are more liberal, and more free…

Did you come to the UK and claim asylum? 

Yes, they gave me asylum. I had to pay a smuggler to get me to the UK. My family supported me, though friends, not directly. We couldn’t use the phone or anything like that….  

So this must have cost your family a fortune in the end.

About 8000 dollars. That’s a lot of money in Kurdistan. 

It’s an extraordinary story, but Zirak might well say that everyone is extraordinary. Now settled in Birmingham, Zirak runs school workshops in middle eastern dance and  music. In 2003, he organised a Kurdish band: Daholl Kurdish Ensemble, as Birmingham didn't have any Kurdish musicians at the time. And his dream is to see Muzikstan become a world music festival in the UK. 

So now he’s  back doing what he loves, which is making music, and working with other musicians. And, as always, this being a Birmingham thing, there’s a lot of collaboration. Paul Murphy has played at Musikstan, as has Joelle Barker, and there’s some mighty collaborations planned for the future. Live, experimental cross-cultural collaborations in an intimate acoustic environment: it’s not something you can bottle. You have to experience it. . Long may it continue

Links: 

Muso Mondays at the Station, King's Heath, Birmingham

Tower Of Song -

Songwriters Café 

Jim Cleary: 40 years on from Big Ears

Jim Cleary, a pioneering 70s Birmingham singer-songwriter and promoter, passed away on the 10th April 2012.  This post covers the day, in late 2011, that Jim came back to town, and found a room full of love.

This video clip is from a concert/gathering /celebration in October 2011. I've been messing around with the clip to set up this blog for a couple of days, and now I can't stop singing the song.  If you are of a certain vintage, or familiar with some of the great Birmingham players who emerged in the 70s, this will all make sense immediately; you’ll recognise the faces and some of the names. If not, I’d love you to read on. It’s a great story.

Jim Cleary was the man in the middle. The event was his tribute night. As guest of honour, he had a string of different and stellar musicians perform his songs, before taking to the stage to close the event out. The evening was organised by friends and colleagues, of whom more later. It took place at a tiny venue: The Tower Of Song, in King’s Norton, Birmingham. What’s really important was the how and why of it all.

Let’s roll back 40 years. In 1972, the role of the singer-songwriter was becoming restricted. After that rush of amazing late 60s talent (Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Sandy Denny, Harvey Andrews, Clifford T Ward, Pete Atkin, Arlo Guthrie… I could go on) the record companies gorged themselves by signing up anyone and everyone they thought they could market. Hey, why stop at James Taylor when you could sign his three brothers and his sister as well? This led to a glut of, frankly, substandard albums that didn’t do anyone any favours. Of course, the record companies, having messed things up, backed off as usual, focussing instead on other, mainly rock-based, areas, and leaving a lot of dashed hopes behind in their wake. 

It’s fascinating to look back at this period from our 21st century viewpoint: so much has changed. The record companies’ influence has shrunk, and we have seen a much wider acceptance of varied performance styles. This is both creative and healthy. Back then, though, artists like Jim Cleary, passed over by the mainstream record industry, faced a closing of the ranks on the folk scene as well. There was a distinctly chilly view in many folk circles about anyone who stepped outside the boundaries. Folk-Rock was completely beyond the pale.

Jim was a singer-songwriter. Back then, a lot of new music was emerging in town, not least from Jim himself, but it didn’t fit any of the fashionable niches. It wasn’t noisy enough for rock, nor acceptable to purist ears at the major folk clubs. His solution was to start a new venue, Big Ears, based at the Fighting Cocks in Moseley, where those musicians who were shut out from mainstream rock and folk could perform.

Big Ears punched above its weight. It was a pioneering venue, and it gave a broad platform to a host of fine bands and great musicians. Jim reeled out some fantastic material during that time. He recorded, with a range of different musicians; deals were signed; but sadly, nothing emerged. Big Ears ran for about five years – I remember talking up Big Ears gigs in my early days as a radio jock – before Jim moved on for work and personal reasons.

Now let’s come back up to last year.  Vo Fletcher and Catherine Howe run a regular night at the Tower of Song. In attendance, one late 2011 summer evening were Andrew Morton, of Slender Loris fame, and John Mostyn from Highbury Studio. All of them had worked and performed with Jim. Between them, they hatched up the plan to bring their much missed colleague back up to Birmingham from Kent for a closed-doors evening to celebrate his music. Old pals signed up immediately, and once word got out, the night sold out at speed. Plans to record and video the event were added; an  excerpt from these activities is the video clip at the top of this post.  If you watch the full video, and take in the banter and affection as well as some sterling performances, you’ll get an idea of how much it meant to everybody who attended.

It’s about recognition and approbation. So much creative work echoes out into the void, and we have no idea if it strikes a chord. But, and this is the central point to this post, it seems to me that if an idea strikes a spark somewhere, that spark can live on, for decades... for a lifetime. Almost daily, I find myself thinking of some of the amazing music I’ve been privileged to experience down the years, and my thoughts often turn to those musicians whose work changed my life. That’s still going on now, I am glad to say. But I wonder how often those wonderful musicians of my youth get to be recognised and celebrated in the way Jim Cleary was, last October? This was a fantastic, princely gesture from a group of musicians and music professionals, made to a much respected and loved colleague.

One of the most important parts of the music-making process is the relationship between the performer and his audience. Everything else revolves around that. Promoters deal with that reality, DJs and journalists feed off it, the radio industry feverishly tries to research it down to the nth degree, and completely misses the point by slicing and dicing far too precisely. But this event understood and respected that precious relationship. Congratulations are due to all concerned. 

There had been plans, now, sadly, shelved, to repeat the exercise in the spring. 

Links
Copies of the CD and DVD of the evening can be had from John Mostyn at john.mostyn@gmail.com.
Kris Halpin engineered the night. Here are his thoughts.

Other blog posts on people we have lost here 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Sign up to the mailing list for weekly updates

_________________________________________________________________________________