we are not yr friends

backsprunt

back for unsuccessful second series. 

family sighs

So last saturday at midnight, i smoked a joint and walked the length of Broad Street, something i haven’t done for at least 7 years, or since XLs closed down. Jesus, Birmingham, what are we now..

My name has a dirty secret, I found out a couple of years ago. I’m the last Berrow here by a good 150 miles now, but up until 3 generations  ago my family where one of a handful who ran central Birmingham’s nightlife. They branched out from bookies and mild gangsterism,  I think they understood community. They’d let local bands rehearse on the empty stages in the day, in exchange for working the bar or the door in the night. Live bands were waaay more popular in your grandparent’s era. And it got to the point in the mid seventies, where their clubs were too popular; where their reputation had overpowered capacity and the exclusive proto Studio 54 atmosphere of Rum Runner on Broad Street was ruined by the uncultured masses wanting to get in.

So they built another nightclub. A cheaper nightclub, that could divert the influx of curious latecomers who just wanted to get drunk enough to pull, so they didn’t  have to keep replacing smashed coke mirror tables and clean up student vomit. Local musicians were retasked to bricks and mortar, the cheap club was built and Rum Runner and later the equally discotastic Barberellas became the twin hubs of a massive Birmingham glam scene. Birmingham. Glam. Say it. My uncles were promotors, hustlers, sons of the gangsters who owned the properties. They saw the potential. They started managing Rum Runners’ house band, renamed them after Barberella’s arch enemy, and within 5 years they had homes in LA. They had fucking yachts. 

Anyone with passing knowledge of The Eighties probably knows more about this than I do. I’ve never spoken to my uncles; my family doesn’t do transatlanticism well. I have memories of PA systems buried in gardens and optics in the spirit cabinet and everyone making jokes about insurance companies i didn’t understand. I remember being at a funeral and my dad having to explain to me that the two guys who turned up late and wore sunglasses and left in matching range rovers with blacked out windows weren’t the blues brothers. When I was 18 I lived with my grandad for a bit, he’d occasionally get drunk and tell me I was the wrong side of the family to be messing around with eyeliner and electric guitars but he’d never elaborate, and every few months someone will forward me a contact for one of Not The Blues Brothers. I’ll write, but I never hear back; i just piece the backstory together via wikipedia and various mutual passing acquaintances.

And like, Backstory is all it’s ever been. I still can’t believe how i wrote “massive birmingham glam scene”. That time, that money, that atmosphere, it’s long gone; has little bearing on my nightclub days and probably even less on yours. um, all apart from that cheap club. That purpose built social cattle market, built by musicians who dreamt of speedboats. outlasted the mirror tables and the dreams and all that tacky decadence. My family sold it. Someone else’s family sold it. C4 set a TOTALLY UNDERRATED sitcom above it. Your parents danced there. It got sold again, they stopped having bands. Someone died and someone bought it. It’s still there. for him, wednesday means one thing.

And they’ve never changed the name. Great sense of humour, my family

thecommontouch:

That horrible moment when a musician’s/band’s music is ruined for you because you find out that you actually can’t stand their personalities (e.g. Los Campensinos, Johnny Foreigner)

bedroom archeology

so  last night i pure couldn’t sleep and went looking in an old drawer i hadn’t used 5 years and hadn’t sorted out, ever.

and i found all this stuff:

this end is a beginning lyrics (and two more dead songs way too embarrassingly bad to show)

djs get doubts lyrics

demo track listing and first attempt at salt pepa words. i do all this stuff on laptop notepad now, and i’m kinda sad i’m never going to experience this history rush again.

and then underneath them (and a pile of old bills) were these kawaii little guys:

the future of portable music, 1997 - 2001. 

and, like a weird musical Mr Driller trip, underneath that;

so that there pile of dead media is, every song i recorded on my own from 1998 - 2001, band demos from 1996 and 1997, home made stuff from 1998-2000, gigs and rehearsals from the band i was in (with tom calories) 2001-3, a panda love unit show from the jug of ale in 2004 and a load of mystery labelled stuff like “NOT ME” and “super awesome don’t” and “1-12 man talking and 13-24 weird shit” 

there was also a Pixies compilation kelly made me, but in the case of a Twist compilation kelly made me. So someone somewhere was invariably disappointed 

i’d forgotten so much of the music stuff existed and thought i’d lost the rest. i think it’s gonna make for mostly embarrassing listening, as soon as i can rob someone with a minidisc and tape player, but i’m weirdly glad i found it all. 

idk what the point of this post was. i think i feel obligated to document it more than sticking it on a memory card and putting it back in the drawer. 

I fucking HATE Jofo fans.

richwhiteterrormom:

They can’t even do it right.

Holy fuck, every Los Camp! fan knows that yr means you’re, not your. Holy shit.

Fucking ignorant fans and their shitty wannabe Los Camp! ban.

kids these days. /sigh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Yr_Idols

yr friends am shit at poetry

Hello. The UNNAMED merch company I work for has won this years most coveted contract-cow, the OHLIMPIK GAYMSE. which is good in that I’ll no doubt meet more idiots for comic fodder and see the kinds of spectacle that you peasants have to pay megabucks for, but bad in that we have to be all proper and official and WHAT THE FUCK I HAVE TO LIVE IN LONDON AND WAIT TWO MONTHS TO GET PAID.

So necessity be the mother of writing pop music in bed; I present to you the third Yr Friends EP, all proceeds going to council tax on a house I’ll be leaving empty, and whichever branches of Greggs in London do corned beef pasties.  

I don’t know what these songs are. I told loads of people I was doing poetry but I think I’m using that as a pretentious way to say, no choruses. or much singing. I showed them to Lewes and he called them plays, so i’ll go with that if anyone needs a quote. If anyone mentions hip hop imma die of white boy shame. 

There’s also a cover of Third Planet by Modest Mouse, which is easily the best song about a dead baby that you’ll ever hear. It’s taken from rehearsal for Alcopopalooza 2012, so feel free to come to that and here a bunch of other songs i should probably have rehearsed. 

Anyway yo, no choruses. that’s why it’s £2 not £3, but GUESS WHAT, bandcamp now has a feature where you can pay more if you like. hint. according to their FAQ, over 40% of people pay over the requested price, so I’ll just go to bed and you guys do me proud.  link below…

listen to and buy yr friends am shit at poetry.

thankee / goodnight

saliva

for radiogasm, of the internet

fight like apes are awesome tho.