Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Digbeth is "The Last of England" - small factories and small pubs - drugs and clubs and more drugs - and COBBLES. And then there's that Victorian rail viaduct that lies across the whole length of Digbeth like a black and blue bruised gargantuan brick built leech. A leech that plays dead, barely moving, surreptitiously gathering Birmingham's rain water into its vastness. It pisses out most through its large gutters and orifices but slyly absorbs and retains the rest. Once it has decanted and gleaned all the life enhancing minerals from the rain it carefully drips the spoil out drop by drop; usually from the apex of one of its many towering arches. The droplets fall 40 feet or so onto the COBBLES below. And so the black brick built leech lives on. Vast, filthy, smut ridden, darkening Digbeth and parasitically sucking at the side of the City. The Leech is Digbeth and Digbeth is "The Last of England".

At the end of the 19th Century the city planners removed all the COBBLES from the streets of Paris. They were scared that one day the disgruntled masses would pull up the COBBLES and hurl them at their masters. The French replaced their cobbles with wooden walk ways. Yes, you can "laugh about it now but at the time it was terrible". The upshot was that come 1940 the Frogs had no cobbles to lob at the Krauts. And in '68 the Students would have had their revolution No. 2, if only they'd had some cobbles to chuck about.

As Digbeth gets gentrified and gentrified and gentrified some more the COBBLES get removed. One day there will be no Victorian COBBLES left in Digbeth or in any part of England. No place where a COBBLE can be rent up from the ground by the blooded fingers of the proletariat to be proffer up as a projectile towards the posterior of a politico. When that day comes all hope will be lost. Protect the COBBLE I say, one day it could be your only hope People! Now shut up cos I can hear Eddie Cochran.

As I turned into Coventry Street it sounded like a version of Eddie Cochran's "Something Else" was vomiting out of the Old Wharf. But shit me when I got inside I found "Miss Halliwell" were actually playing Cochran's "Summertime Blues". How wrong could I be?

"Miss Halliwell" were a rubber face masked lead singer plus 4. Keyboard girl - Guitar girl - Bass boy - Drummer boy. They seem like a band that have started out with all the right directions. Except for the mask. Can't say I'm a great lover of masks in music. Masks in wrestling yes, Kendo Nagasaki!!! Come on! But in music? Nah. If there's something to be said you want to be able to read the face of the person that's doing the saying. Gauge the intent, weigh up the conviction. And I think "Miss Halliwell" had something to say. But hey what do I know. Good band. GO LISTEN.

"Circus Town" were next up. Unfortunately Circus Town were completely out of my jurisdiction, so comment, I can't. While they played I went back to a time in the early 70's, the three day working week, power cuts, a time when I had an abundance of hair like the boysin Circus Town, a time when bands had beards like Circus Town, wore cowboy boots like Circus Town and sounded like this "click here". Great eh? Well not for me it wasn't. But who are these guys? If you know you shouldn't be here.

The Old Wharf is like the Tardis in reverse. When viewed from the outside you'd think it would be tiny inside and it is. Amazing! But for all its dinkyness the sound is usually pretty damn good.

Recently the Leamington Assembly got some award for being the best venue in the country. Of course this is cock. I've been to Leamington Assembly many times since its revamp and yes it's unequivocally NICE. NICE and clean, NICE and safe, NICE and NICE with an extra slice of NICE on top. They even spray air fresher into the auditorium while the band are playing. These are truly strange days we're living through people. It's not the Assembly that takes me to Leamington it's the bands who seem to like it. But for this punter it's all just too FUCKIN NICE! What I want from a venue is; no bog roll in the women's karzi so the landlady has to walk through the crowd whilst the support are on carrying several rolls of Nisa's finest under each armpit. Walls daubed with screen printed images of the Manics, Hendrix, Steve Marriott, the messiah Marley etc. Life size mannequins of the Blues Brothers (for why?) and a Men's lavvy that has been industrially fumigated. One piss and you're smelling nothing but disinfectant for a week. This is what I want and this is what you get at the Old Wharf. It's an honest no fucking about grimy bog hole of a venue with a great sound. If it's a toss up between the Old Wharf and the antiseptic Academy 3 with its luminous urinals The Old Wharf wins everytime.

Any finally at half past very late indeed The Courtesy Group stumped up and kicked off with "Brick House Blues". The bass rumbled, the guitar jangled and the drums stomped whilst head honcho Al Hutchins went fucking ape shit. For the duration of the performance he spent 10% of the time onstage; 12% rolling on the floor, 5% dancing like Richard Jobson doing "Into the Valley" on TOTPS; 10% weaving round like Ian Curtis, 25% singing in the Men's lavvy, 10% singing in the front snug and 28% of the time skipping round the assembled like a demented loon on a mission from God. His apathetic approach and complete lack of enthusiasm led me to request the refund from the Landlady. Her reply was swift and succinct "Unless you want me to have you taken down the Custard Factory and shot, shut up or piss off you bald twat". I decided to shut up.

With Billy Joel on the bench it was mainly new songs from The Courtesy Group, with just a brace from the 2009 debut "Tradesman's Entrance". There was bit of banter, a joke or two, a quantity of Hungarian beer drunk before in the blinking of an inkling the curfew came down. I quickly assembled my Kalashnikov and made a dash for the car.


Epilogue
And so in the space of a month my unholy existential trinity has been fulfilled. The Neat @ the Civic Hall Bar Wolves; The Fall @ The Factory Manchester; and The Courtesy Group @ The Old Wharf Birmingham. If you are the sort of person who has no cognitive defined sense of personal musical taste then you won't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about. Music isn't a fleeting series of loose unrelated associations. If you've been spending your time listening to a mishmash of unconnected sounds then you've been doing it wrong my friend. Don't be led astray. You are what you is.

Click here for "The Tradesmans Entrance" from The Courtesy Group; the band "yow core kill with a stick".