Friday 25 July 2008

There's Nothing Not to Like About Goodshank

On the other hand, there's plenty not to like about Brummies. Just about the entire crowd at last night's Toby Goodshank gig appeared to be there to see either the sub-James Blunt tedium of ***** ***** or the soft rock garbage of **** ****. Fuck it, you can find out their names easily enough if you really want but there's no way I'm giving them the slightest acknowledgement here. Not only were they both embarrassingly poor but them and their fans, or rather their gullible mates, seemed to think that standing around chatting really loudly and not even clapping was appropriate behaviour during the other acts. Its annoying at any gig, but when you're trying to watch quiet solo artists, who have come all the way from America and are both spectacularly good maybe, just maybe, you could learn to SHUT THE FUCK UP. The main pub area was practically deserted, if you absolutely desperately needed to talk to the guys you see down the pub every other night of week would it kill you to leave the gig room?

Despite the annoyances it was a great way to kick off my adventures re-discovering the alternative scene in Brum. Both Toby and Isabel were amazing and two of the friendliest people I've met in a long while. Turns out I wasn't the only person there planning to blog about the gig either! Like the pissed twat I usually am by the end of a gig I have completely forgotten the guy's name but his blog, The Hearing Aid, can be found here and it looks like it could be a great source of information to help me get further into alt-Brum. As if that's not quite enough I also met Ben who had arranged the gig and runs Bohemian Jukebox, one of the few local nights I've already been to and which I'm sure to go along to again in the future (well, it is held in my local...)

I realise I've not said that much about the music itself but from the look of his past posts it'll get a better written review than I could manage over at The Hearing Aid, will be interesting to see his take on the local guys...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Neil,

Daron here (aka The Baron...aka The Hearing Aid). Good point, well made about 'the chatterers'. I have vented my spleen about 'people' like this in the past. I've even tried tackling people like this in the flesh...sadly they are often pond life who can't grasp the concept of shutting the f*** up when an artist is performing, regardless of whether they know or like the music. Re the support artists, I think a difference of opinion is no bad thing! I'm generally positive about most bands firstly 'cos I have pretty broad tastes and secondly, having known a few local artists personally I can see how hard a lot of them work, often for little or no financial rewards (in fact, in a number of cases, they end up out of pocket). I look at it that they're up there doing their stuff...which is a lot more than I'm doing! It's good to have another local blogger on the scene. Vive le difference (or something like that...).

Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Way to be constructive man. Next time stay you should stay at home and watch TV, play your playstation and wank yourself silly over a picture of Judy Finnigan. I was going to try and be nice and explain what being creative is actually about but you seem like a lost cause so i'll just resort to saying this - You're a massive cunt, get a life.

Anonymous said...

It definitely makes me happy to learn that I'm not the only Judy Finnigan fetishist in local blogland.

NRG said...

What worries me is how he knew...