PEACE The search for a huge Birmingham band (not fat huge, although I’m sure there’s a few around) has been going on for a while now. For a city as big as Brum, with such a rich musical heritage, we should be churning ‘em out like widgets. There have been a few success stories, Misty’s Big Adventure, Editors, The Twang, Johnny Foreigner and Goodnight Lenin have all flown the flag in one way or another and perhaps it shouldn’t matter if our local bands ‘make it’ or not...but, rightly or wrongly, to me it does. Recently one band’s been getting some really decent press though, PEACE, who proudly claim to make “music to fuck you in the heart”. Ouch. That can’t be good for your ventricles. On tonight’s performance they’ve certainly got the ability, look (all floppy fringes and black outfits) and tunes to more than justify the hype too. Previous single BBLOOD slaps you in the face like a meatier Vampire Weekend whilst elsewhere they channel influences from everything from the Velvet Underground through to the shoegaze movement and on to grunge. Yes, grunge. In fact the monstrously good forthcoming single, Follow Baby, offers up a neat indie twist on the grunge template with the kind of catchy riff that just might grip a generation. Awesome.


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Liz Green Something of a resident artist at The Glee Club now Dan Whitehouse has been playing here for many years, during which time he’s released no less than three EPs and an album of finely crafted, emotionally raw and... I’m guessing... deeply personal songs.


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Lianne La Havas Every now and again, you go to a gig and although the act has played well and ticked all the boxes, the night lacked that certain pazzazz. Sometimes however, something special, nay magical happens. A night to savour. Some might call it a 'wow night'. Monday at The Glee Club in Birmingham was one such evening. The omens were good from the start when the main act, Miss Lianne La Havas pottered past and said hello to me. Glorious! Support came from the uber talented Marques Toliver who offered an act seldom seen, belting out glorious vocal on top of looped violin, whilst playing lead violin over the top. Ingenious. In a time when people are trying find a unique twist this was certainly one.


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Producers I’m of a certain age. Not as dangerous as the one Paul Weller’s currently singing about but, you know, the wrong side of...ahem...21. Aside from, funnily enough, some of 10cc’s tracks, Mud’s Tiger Feet and anything by ABBA, my real musical awakening occurred in the early 80’s and one man seemed to be the knob twiddler behind several of my favourites, Mr Trevor Horn. ABC’s Lexicon Of Love (regularly featured in the best British albums of all time lists) and Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Welcome To The Pleasuredome both bear his fingerprints deep within the grooves (it’s a vinyl thing). Tonight Trevor’s out from behind his desk though, joined by fellow producer Steve Lipson, 10cc’s Lol Creme and drummer to the stars Ash Soan for a joyful romp through some of their collective hits and newbies from their new band's forthcoming album.


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Goodnight Lenin + Beth Jeans Houghton and The Hooves Of Destiny It’s a Leap Year Wednesday on the eve of St. David and the Moon’s in diagonal conjunction with Mars and Venus complementing a sell-out Hare that welcomes back home-boys, Goodnight Lenin, regaling us with anecdotal on-tour debauchery after a Folk Club lock-in at Richmond, Yorkshire. They admit, with bashful circumspection that, ‘What goes on tour-stays on tour’ and anyway, some of their moms are in the crowd and they’d go f**kin mad if they heard what went on. Theirs is an honest embracement of traditional and contemporary electric Folk exploiting accomplished musicianship and crisp four-part harmonies that eschew the horrors of finger-in-the ear cliched nasal keening.


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Kathleen Edwards We love the Glee Club at Gig Junkies HQ – it seems the perfect venue for a Monday night gig. It’s more refined, the clientele seem little more gentry and very often you even get a seat to rest ones weary legs. Splendid! This relaxed setting is ideal for the soothing sounds of a couple of vocally excellent ladies, both of whom hail from Canadian shores – namely Hannah Georgas and Kathleen Edwards.


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Outfit So what’s the state of music like in 2012 then eh? Discuss. I guess to a certain extent it depends on your age. Try as you might it’s impossible to resist the lure of the stuff that appealed to you during those formative years (13-18) and as you grow older you’re actually legally obliged to start moaning about whatever’s in the charts. The truth is that there’s a lot of crap around right now... but then again there always was. It’s only years later with the benefit of distance that we’re able to conveniently filter out the rubbish and bask in the warm glow of the good stuff. I mention all this because tonight’s gig was a perfect example of that ‘good stuff’ featuring a trio of bands that might well be operating under the radar right now but who each prove that, for all the musical effluent out there, 2012 has plenty to offer.


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George Barnett And The Ninth Wave At 6ft 3 (with an unruly mop of curly brown hair adding an extra inch or two) and a ceiling that’s probably not much taller, bouncing up and down might not be the wisest thing to attempt. Somehow the hair’s owner manages to avoid serious brain damage though, even if members of the audience end the set risking their own craniums by quite literally dancing on the tables. Welcome to the world of George Barnett, a 17 year old multi instrumentalist, vocalist and producer recently described by Beardyman as “one talented muthafucka”...and he should know. Given his capacity for playing pretty much every instrument ever invented George (winner of Young Drummer of the Year way back in 2008) and his band take a similarly catholic approach to musical genres, deftly embracing everything from blues rock to piano ballads, ska, boogie woogie...sometimes in the same track. Of course all this could end up sounding like a dog’s dinner, that it doesn’t is down to George’s seemingly instinctive knack for just knowing what works.


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Jordan Reyne Now what we had here was a Folk Club situation. No! Don’t run away just yet. It was a small venue setting big on surprises. Jack Harris is from a sleepy, one-sheep town in rural mid-Wales. Whilst the fiery-maned, smouldering Pre-Raphaelite tressed antipodian Circe of pedal effect sonic enchantment, Jordan Reyne, hails from New Zealand. And between them both they gave us kaleidoscopic interpretations of traditional Folk, experimental multi-loop Steampunk and all thing in between and then some. Do keep up!


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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah It’s good to see cult US indie band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah back in Britain, as part of a European tour, much of which is sold-out. But judging from the half-full venue, the word hasn’t spread to Birmingham, which means a lot of folk are missing out on a treat. However, the small audience seems to be made up of hard-core appreciative fans who give the band a rapturous welcome.


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Biohazard With all of the other bands’ gear removed from the stage, it now looks like Biohazard sound: stripped back to the core. With the bare minimum of amps and the drum-kit behind them, Billy Graziadei takes centre-stage for lead vocals; Bobby bounces around stage right, the swirling embodiment of New York hardcore; and while Evan Seinfeld has absconded, new bassist/vocalist Scott Roberts’ towering larger-than-life presence more than fills the space he left behind. With a set that spans their entire career and peppered with a couple of tracks from their latest, ‘Reborn In Defiance’, Biohazard are both cool and powerful in their energetic straight-to-the-point delivery.


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Joanna Briggs Joanna Briggs - hmm! Her fish-net suspender stockings, kitsch cute bell-boy hat and double-buttoned breath-defying basque had me thinking Peter Gabriel and Prince, with the latter at his most disgustingly sublime erotomanic best. Her impossibly Michelangelo sculptured shoulders and mouth of Hades mascaraed eyes are an intoxicating incantation of desire. The alt. dominatrix danger Babe stage persona, bathed in ersatz Lucozade laser light and backed by a slut-bucket brutal cool band are a fearful delight. But, at the same time, there’s a seductive venerability. Imagine Debbie Harry and Captain Beefheart stroking a hungry tigress. At this gig your imagination was allowed to run wild. Feral fun for grown-up children.


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Roots Manuva My Christmas Day Facebook status read "Christmas Present list: A heavily embroidered Maharishi hoodie, lots of cash, 2 bottles of rum, the Nile Rogers autobiography, aftershave I would actually wear and tickets to Roots Manuva”. I certainly did well on the last one, as tonight's show was immense! Over the years I have seen Roots Manuva live many times, and with several different line ups, but tonight ranked up there with one of his finest performances ever. Tonight Rodney Smith was on point, highly refined and most definitely splendid.


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Capital Sun Slowly but surely... well, slowly at least... I’m getting back out there into Gigland and tonight was back in my old stomping ground (I attended pretty much every one of the weekly 444 club nights there a few years back), The Rainbow, which always manages to seem both further away from ‘town’ and closer to it at the same time. I reckon they keep moving it to avoid sniffy post-yuppie types moaning about all the noise it doesn’t make any more after they were forced to seal up all of the windows, doors, gaps in the floorboards etc and fit little woolly booties on the local pigeons just in case the sound of their feet on the roof disturbed someone’s ruddy beauty sleep. Gah! Good grief.


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