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Latest posts and news…

  • Tamworth Record Fair

    business opportunity for ailing record shops…

    I know a lot of record shops are struggling to compete with the Competition of the internet, are suffering a fall in sales and then further have eBay and bands that selling direct.

    So this new idea of starting up a traveling ‘Record Fair’ – And charging people an entrance fee to come in and look at the stock, stock that previously would have been free for all to browse, but that would be costing rent and other overheads if stored in a traditional shop. Then price the stock a good £3/4 over what things would cost in a normal independent ‘actual’ shop, which means if you should sell something, you make a damn good profit, and if not, you’ve still made a few quid from all the browsers… who would normally have walked in, and out, for free. Win win.

    On a separate note, I went to a Record Fair in Tamworth today. Some fantastic stock there from the single stallholder in the back room of some pub, but I didn’t think £15 a CD was really a ‘Record Fair’ type price. The stock was v good though. Next one is in July apparently…

    When is a Record Fair not a fair Fair?

  • Supersonic Festival 2008

    I‘m very much looking forward to the fast approaching Supersonic Festival in Birmingham.
    Last years event really was fantastic. Dates are 11th-13th July 2008 and if I list them here, it’ll save me looking them up later.

    Supersonic Festival Poster

  • Random Post

    i can make an educated guess as to why I ended up with three bulky copies of this months Birmingham Town Hall/Symphony Hall brochure though the post. My address is spelt in slightly different variations on each thick white lumpy envelope, all in uppercase on one, correctly on another and then a mix of uppercase and lowercase on the third. I guess they’ve gathered them up from tickets I’ve bought in various places and added each instance to their list.

    I have no idea at all how I ended up on the Monto Water Rats Weekly email Update, I’m not in London that often so its kind of irrelevant to me too, but I don’t like to complain…

    I was similarly confused to find a newsletter from Drift Records arriving in my inbox, I’m sure I’ve never signed up for it, In fact I’d never heard of Drift Records at all, though I had heard, and bought, the album by The R. G. Morrison who seems to be one of the guiding forces behind it.

    Anyway, there I was, tied to the laptop, toiling away on the hottest saturday of the year when it popped into my inbox. Such was my involvement with the work I was doing at the time, and my intrigue at any label with a record called ‘Finish your chips’ that I was soon off, trawling round the interweb sampling the Drift collective wares. There we’re no samples on the website so it was on to the mildly tedious myspace, it ain’t great when all you can connect to is a 56k phone line, anyway, after listening to a few tracks I was soon headed back to visit the Drift Shop.

    The above mentioned ‘Finish your chips’ album by Matt Eaton is very fine indeed. I also really liked the nicely packaged and stylistically varied Thirty Pounds of Bone  ‘The homesick children of migrant mothers’ album. In fact I’m looking forward to the listed forthcoming Mary Hampton album as well.

    As soon as I was done it gave me some much needed motivation to get back to work and earn some money to pay for the unplanned shopping excursion. Everyones a winner indeed.

    In fact the only bad thing I have to say about the whole thing is that they both cds are without the bands/albums name on them, so I know that at some future point I’m destined to spend many hours trying to remember what they are called and where the cases might be…

  • Films…

    a couple of events coming up at the Electric Cinema in Birmingham. Must admit I haven’t been there for ages but good to read they’re still keeping up with the novelty events and interesting programing…

    Friday 18 April, 8.30 at the Electric
    ROY SCHEIDER TRIBUTE
    Jaws screening with 22-piece orchestra and pina coladas.
    26/27 April at the Electric in Birmingham
    GRINDHOUSE
    The QT/RR doublebill complete with trailers.

  • Roadside 02-04-08

    number three in the increasingly random series of roadside photos.

    I was at the post office today, and whist endlessly queuing and pondering whether Kangaroos really cannot walk down stairs I was surprised to find myself surrounded on every work surface and shelf by…

    Could they be the next villain in the increasingly farcically comedic Doctor Who?

    Still, it’ll give the local paper something to write about I suppose.