Weird on Purpose: This is Tmrw come over all Record Store Day

Another Brum compilation! Hooray!

On Saturday April 16^th – Record Store Day - you are invited to a party at Stryx Gallery in Digbeth, celebrating the launch of the latest This is Tmrw project: Weird On Purpose, a 2016 compilation of Birmingham bands, centered on Indie and its variations.

This is something to be celebrated. This is Tmrw are Brum promoters who love their music. But any promoter will tell you it's one thing to run gigs because you love the music; there's a lot of sweat and financial risk in that alone. But it's quite another to try to put on record what's actually going on in our city. 

I've tried this a few times, and it's a LOT of work. I've got a bit about that after the jump too.

From Rave promoting to e-marketing 101. An object lesson from TicketSellers

Rave promoters then; impressively legit now. Who knew?

Slick and online. Times have changed....

You've almost certainly bought gigs tickets online. Leaving aside scam sites who will relieve you of £2.5k for an Adele ticket, there are dozens of straightforward operations, whose business is simply to ease the transaction process for operations both small and large. Links for gigs pop up on band sites, face book and twitter. Click and you land on the site. Pay and you get a code number which you present at the gig, on paper or on your phone. You're name's on the list, you go in. Voila. Life was never simpler for small acts and promoters.  Um. Maybe. 

The same, not the same. Horace Panter, the Specials after John Bradbury, and more

The many bands of Sir Horace Gentleman

Next month, the man who plays bass with the Specials, founder member Horace Panter, brings his latest project to Birmingham. This is his fourth band. Not sequentially mind – they all run pretty much at the same time. 

The trick is: Horace is now... going Country. That's in addition to a Blues outfit and a very purist Ska operation. Oh, and the Specials. Not bad going for a kid who bumped into Jerry Dammers at Art School in Kettering.

Pete Williams. What people remember. What fans want. What a performer is. Different.

Didn't you use to be...?

Pete Williams. On stage. In his element

Decades ago, I went to watch my beloved but useless football team (I could tell you but you'd die laughing) fold at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers. I was heading home on the train, when a friend, a Wolves fan, called to wind me up. The train was full of Wolves fans, who rapidly clocked that I was being razzed. They sat back to enjoy the spectacle.

I handed my phone to a pal. He loudly name-checked me. Big mistake. 

Amused consternation in the Wolves camp. Coo – they had a DJ in their midst to tease! To be fair, they were actually very nice... for the next interminable hour of ribbing.

But one phrase in particular stuck in my mind: “Didn't you use to be Robin Valk?”

Still am, pal, still am. And when I told this tale to Pete Williams, he fell off his chair laughing.

Call Me Unique: Better make time... to grab that chance.

The big break? How and why? Let me count the ways...

At MoFo a few years back; she's on the big stage at MoJazz this year

Let's say you're a struggling artist. You cover a lot of music areas. You have a following of sorts. Being good and distinctive (they don't always go hand in hand), putting yourself out there, gives you a chance of building a small local following. But just to get to there means effort, sweat and often a bit of heartbreak.

But how do you push on from there? How do you get to that point where the buzz is big enough to bring the big media operators sniffing around?

Mostly, the web muddies the waters while appearing to offer clarity. But sometimes you catch a break.

Miles Hunt. Straight outta Stourbridge to a world tour.

Friendly Company! The Stuffies are coming to yours

 Miles and Erica Nockalls - from The Wonder Stuff pledge page  

Like a thousand other towns across the country, developers and lousy town planning have ripped the guts out of Stourbridge. The town is a tangle of road improvements and pompous corporate new-build. It's totally out of step with the charming, human scale of the unprofitable parts left behind.

I head along old streets of small terraced houses, down a clearly ancient pathway behind a church. I fetch up in a quiet neighbourhood boozer, one of several I'd passed. No piped music, no fruit machines, no Sky Sports; instead, a large affable dog and some excellent ale. 

And Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff. 

The BBC's shiny digital future. Still waiting.

Elephants? Pah. There's a digital dinosaur in the room. 

I was at the BBC Mailbox offices in Birmingham last week. They've redone the entrance. You can now check out hot BBC WM studio action as you walk up to the reception desk. This is a good thing. I always like to see real live radio, made in Birmingham.

The sad coffee outlet and gift shop have gone. Ironically, there's now a life-size Peaky Blinders backdrop. You can take selfies! With Cillian Murphy and his gang! Well, it's nice to see Peaky Blinders stuff in Brum - that's a first too. 

Next to it is an area showcasing new digital developments. It's manned by pleasant guides who walk you though the new toys. I had a play while I waited. And then I asked questions. Well, I do that.

Welcome to the future. Here's some 60s soul.

You're making music now. It'll be around when you're not. 

                     Flickr - Rosemary Voegtll

How do you think today's music will feel in forty years time? Will it still be relevant? Will it be stupidly old? A curio? A discovery to glorify the newgen person who ostentatiously 'curated' it?

Everything's online. That's wonderful for the curious listener, but not for today's creators, who are bullied into putting up their music for free for 'exposure'. Once online, that music makes money... just not for the people who created it. Cute.

The upside is you can find things. You want classics from way back when? There you go. It's a win-win for the record companies, who once could only recoup four and five-fold from issues and reissues in different formats, the poor things. Now, the web is a permanent way to extend sales potential.

And they just love it when the old boys keel over. Just look at the sales on Bowie and the Eagles.

Hitting New Heights: A West Midlands YouTube Top 50: February 2016

BIG changes at both top and bottom of the 7th YouTube chart

Lady Leshurr on top; Laura Mvula and the Editors on the foothills.

Every six months I tot up YouTube numbers for local acts: the two most-viewed videos in the past three years, strictly defined. The totals let me do a bit of basic analysis - who is piling on the views? Who's made the biggest percentage improvement? 

A statistical health warning applies: I do this chart on my own, out of curiosity. It's perfectly possible I have missed your act. If so, please tell me and I will instantly rectify matters. 

There's some spectacular results to be picked out of this. 

The wood from the trees

Taking a mile-high view of your local music scene is tricky, but it's worth a go

It helps to have a sense of perspective.  Photo Elliot Brown

Posts here are mostly on artists and their stories. Everyone has a story; some are amazing. But this week, and probably next, it's about lots of artists. Next week, I'll publish my six monthly survey of local artists who smash it on YouTube. It's interesting, but not definitive: YouTube numbers can be, and are, fiddled for marketing advantage.

No, it's good for spotting early trends. It's fascinating to see who's coming on fast, what genres do well, and to try to work out why.

And recently, with some colleagues, I've picked up a new way of looking at what's happening. Imperfect it certainly is; rankings are subjective and based on reputation, not numbers. The sample is tiny, and taken at a specific point in time. So I won't get carried away. But I'm astonished and pleased at what we found.