Paradise Circus – Page 41 – A Birmingham Miscellany

Requiem for a piss stained short cut

It was a shocking moment when after nineteen years of living in Birmingham I realised it will never be finished. The building work will never be done, some part will always be being demolished for another part to be built fresh: no one will ever take a step back, with their hands on their hips, and turn around with a ‘TA-DAA’. The ubiquitous cranes will always be part of the skyline, they’re not visitors they’re residents.

Cities are the bodies of our collective souls, and like bodies they change, regenerate, and can be easily marred. Ever see Ground Zero from up high? It looks like a fuck-awful scar across the face of pretty girl.

The Queens Drive staircase is an access staircase that travels from the bottom of Station Street up to the passageway that connects the Pallasades to the Bull Ring, with an exit to New Street station halfway up. And it’s to be closed soon.

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Skinner in the Underworld

Going Through Hell is Mike Skinner’s first single from his last album as The Streets. It’s an oddly poetic title that has a lot of resonances, including echoes of the Greek myth Orpheus when our titular hero walked through hell to return his wife, Eurydice, to the Land of the Living. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was completely intentional, Mike Skinner strikes me as a smart guy.

The image of a Greek hero is also apt, an all-conquering hero after many trials and tests returning home but finding this his hardest test yet is an old rote. It was, after all and as he kept reminding us the last time he would be performing in his home city. And I don’t use the word ‘hero’ lightly. The gig tonight was a story of someone facing adversity, and overcoming it with aplomb. The adversity being the crowd. When I first got there the crowd was notable by its diversity, a massive age range. But as the venue started filling up, the mid-twenties gym rat started to swell the ranks, polo-shirted skinheads stinking of Lynx deodorant. In the half an hour between the support acts and The Streets starting things were already getting unruly, plastic cups being launched and people leaving the dance floor with worried and angry looks. At the point where two guys were carrying a obviously paralytic girl to get some air I knew something was up.

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On Holiday By Mistake

Routine crushes me, most of the time I can feel its weight on my chest. When it really takes hold I start getting odder and odder thoughts compelling me to something dumb, dangerous or both. I can mitigate these brain whispers by smaller and regular spur of the moment decisions: change the way I walk home, buy gum instead of crisps or split up with my girlfriend and quit my job to search for something better on one of the best freelance sites I can find. Saturday was an example of one of these mild but weird decisions.

I went to Coventry

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A Christmas Carol

The life of a blogger is nothing if not glamorous, only last week I was backstage at the dress rehearsal for 3P’s marvellous version of The Nativity. Even before the performance, the squash was flowing and more than a couple of biscuits were passed around. Amid all the revelry the pre-performance jitters were in evidence: the third Wise Man had to be cajoled to climb out of the book cupboard and several shepherds had to be persuaded from kicking their prop sheep out of the window altogether.

The performance was a masterpiece, including a entirely improvised bank robbery sub-plot and a song and dance number that went on for three or four extra verses because none of the cast could remember how to end the song. I’m proud to be a part of such a game changing version of the Christmas story, which this year focussed completely on the story of the shepherds as 3P has no girls in it to play Mary. Granted, my role was to stand in the wings and push the correct performer to his mark at their cue. I got pretty good too, I now reckon I can shove an average-sized seven year old with an Olympic degree of accuracy.

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Grit and wisdom

Given last years hysterical SNOWPOCOLYSE response from the media, its good to see the novelty has worn off. Of course the reaction was purely from the media, and it was disingenuous to say the least to see the TV news swing from headlines inferring that the poor are eating their young to a slideshow of people sledding, building snowmen and generally larking about, in the same show.

It’s not even newsworthy to mention how the snow has suddenly become not that newsworthy, which is good, because the implications of that could cause a recursive news feedback loop which would by 2015 see Nick Owen reading the news from his inside his own lungs.
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Take That, legal system

I hate Howard Donald, I hate his surprising lack of talent, I hate his weird under-bite that reminds of a duck’s face and even his name which, upon reflection, is where I really get the duck association from*. I also hate that he was one of the many people overjoyed at the news two rich inbreeds will be spending our money on a wedding. This in a time of what were told is aggressive austerity. People are angrily shouting about their indifference and spending a lot of time stating how much they couldn’t care less. We haven’t had such an explosion of poor wit since the Pope’s visit.

Not that Howard the Donald Duck is massive royalist that I know of, he was overjoyed along with a whole slew of people because he was able to bury the news of his Super Injunction underneath a whole bunch of flag waving jingoistic piffle. For others try here.
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Glam Racket

The opinions of Danny Smith do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers of this blog, its affiliates, or any sane adult human beings. He currently lives in your cupboard, watching, always watching.

Is it weird to be nostalgic for a period of time you were never part of? Some would argue all nostalgia is this way: that your memory or perception of the events you pine for are rose-tinted by time. But, I yearn for a bygone age where men were men but dressed like women and women had massive lady-bush growlers that would require their own bottle of shampoo. I talk of course about the seventies—era of Glam Rock.

I suppose I’ve been thinking about it because one of the godfathers of Glam, Roy Wood, got his own star on the increasingly hilarious and ever-tenuous Birmingham Walk Of Stars. Seriously, if anything symbolises the flaw in Birmingham’s self-perception better than the Broad Street Walk of Stars, I’ve yet to see it. Our struggling middle-child attitude of trying to emulate the success of others by copying what they do, our lack of confidence to trust in the emerging talent this city has in droves, our willingness to be what others want us to be rather than being proud of what we are. And it’s all set in concrete and littered on an area of Birmingham that resembles a boozy crèche for the mentally violent and sexually weird four nights a week.

That’s not to say I don’t respect Roy Wood, or any of the Star recipients, although if I hear I wish it could be Christmas everyday with its usual frequency this holiday season I may climb a clock tower and start picking people off.

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On the buses

I am thirty years-old (-ish) and have lived in Birmingham all my life (except the times I haven’t) in that time I have never learnt to drive. Consider this my favour to you. Seeing as I’m an notorious booze enthusiast, prone to bad decisions, and have somewhat of an impulse problem giving me a car would be like giving a toddler semi automatic weapon; hilarious but someone would get hurt. So I get around using public transport, more specifically the bus.

Now its easy to complain about the bus system in Birmingham, as you’ll see in the next few hundred words. But I, as ever, have a point.
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Winterval starts here

Last year Birmingham City Council held a Christmas lights ceremony that ended in what most called a ‘fiasco’. Our crap Altamont was down to nobody guessing that one of the biggest bands of the moment giving a free concert would be popular.

This year instead of a big fuss there will be a Christmas parade. In November. One month and ten days before Christmas, reindeer and whatnot will be kicking off our celebrations. With no pretence at trying to encompass other celebrations to draw out the shopping season, at least with ‘Winterval’ they were trying. Its an old rote that Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year but five weeks before Christmas is bordering on silly, seeing as most men are still be scurrying around in the dark on Christmas eve wondering if a bottle of screen wash is a suitable present for a ten year old. Granted, Jesus was probably born in April but lets try to stay within December eh?

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Birmingham Music Map

With the Birmingham Popular Music Archive I’ve been inviting the public to contribute to an online database of music culture in Birmingham, by placing venues, artists, people or anything they feel relates to music on a map.

The results so far were commissioned in the form of the Birmingham Music Map as part of ‘plug in’ mac‘s opening exhibition curated by Simon Poulter, more details on the exhibition are here. Here’s a shot of it in situ.

Poster copies are available, screenprinted on gorgeous white archival paper at B1 (707 × 1000mm /27.8 × 39.4in) in a signed and numbered limited edition of 100 copies. (~~£25~~ Now £15 plus £5 postage and packing — recorded delivery.)

Price for framed copies on application. Please email for details.

Explore the online version, either click and drag, or use the zoom and scroll controls at the bottom:

PDF Version of map

You can still add your memories to the map, here.