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A somewhat chaotic show featuring The Deafout in studio with Chris. Also features a short preview to Einstellung's prestigious gig supporting German krautrock legends 'Cluster' at Birmingham Town Hall. This show was broadcast live on http://www.rhubarbradio.com on Monday 1st Feb at 8pm

Note - There is a small glitch in the audio in the first minute of this show. Reasons unknown.

Audio stream can be heard through Rhubarb Radio here

Or download the show direct from the Brumcast archive here

Brumcast 147 'In My City' features Hip hop, Electropop, acoustic, indie, metal, psychobilly, rock, punk and soul all written and performed by artists from Birmingham and the UK Midlands. It was broadcast live on Birmingham's own http://www.rhubarbradio.com on Monday 25th January at 8pm GMT. Download the podcast direct by clicking here!

Here's this show's playlist :-
1. B.A.D MC - In My City (4:20)
2. Electroflex - Five Years (3:27)
3. Leather Pig - Biggles bites the dust (5:06)
4. Stone Foundation - Holy Blue (3:45)
5. Johnny Normal - Time (3:05)
6. TV Influenced Me - The Whites (2:31)
7. Che - Somewhere New (3:07)
8. Black Fangs - V (6:18)
9. Dirt Box Disco - I want a really fast car (2:34)
10. Vinny and the Curse - Suicide Twist (1:56)
11. Liz Lawrence - Monday Morning (3:25)
12. New Killer Shoes - Lets Go Disco (3:28)
13. Untitled Musical Project - I don't need you honey, all I need is Rock n Roll (1:22)
14. Da Mighty Elementz - So Broke (4:37)
Brumcast is broadcast on Rhubarb Radio http://www.rhubarbradio.com Mondays 8-9pm GMT. Brumcast on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brumcast
Brumcast download archive - http://brumcast.podOmatic.com

One of the best things about January is the return of Creme Eggs. We measure out religious festivals by the consumption of appropriate confectionery: Quality Street at Christmas, eggs at Easter, those fake buttons with hundreds and thousands on that taste like dog chocolate from the pick'n'mix when watching Mel Gibson films at the pictures, Ferrero Rocher at Ambassadors receptions (when held on the thirteenth Wednesday after Pentecost).

But the Creme Egg is different, at least round here. It says something about the esteem that Cadbury's is held in that people don't think it odd sending poets to protest about potential transfer of ownership of one large corporate identity to another, and the Creme Egg is the one people feel for.

It's the one people do this to:

It's the one people refer to first: back when I really wanted to be a music journalist I wrote a piece for now-defunct (aren't they almost all) magazine Flipside, the centrepiece of which was comparing Noddy Holder to a Creme Egg -- you know "from the Midlands", "associated with a religious festival", "covered in silver foil", "deceptively sticky and covered in hairs", that sort of thing.

It's the one that people brought up when I asked people on Twitter what I should blog about here.

Now I know that I'm going to get slated for this, no Editors, no Johnny Foreigner, no Twang, no whatever is in your head....but this is my own personal opinion and believe me it was a HUGE struggle to get this list down to 15 (it should be 10!), anyways this is my submission to the Brum Bands of the decade at http://bluewhalestudios.wordpress.com/ THE BANDS ARE LISTED IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER OF RELEVANCE/IMPORTANCE ETC! they're all great! Download the podcast direct BY CLICKING HERE! Alternatively the audio streams can be found at http://brumcast.podomatic.com
Here's the playlist
1. The Destroyers - Out of Babel (4:09)
2. The $hit - Smash 'N' Grab (3:21)
3. Miss Halliwell - I'm a Puppy (5:29)
4. Crash Repeat - Trigger (3:00)
5. Fade To Sepia - Solvent Jitterbug (2:42)
6. Modified Toy Orchestra - A Grand Occasion (2:07)
7. Scarlet Harlots - Benefits (2:18)
8. Mistress - In Disgust We Trust (4:28)
9. Sunset Cinema Club - Gojira Suit (4:49)
10. Einstellung - Und Das Rest Sind Doner (9:45)
11. Misty's Big Adventure - How Did You Manage To Get Inside My Head? (4:02)
12. The Courtesy Group - Brickhouse Blues (Live) (3:06)
13. Mayday (now Tantrums) - Nigel Brown (2:01)
14. Tantrums - Gorpse (3:37)
15. Old School Tie - God's Electric Super Scene (5:26)
16. Betty & The Id - End Is Nigh (5:41)
Hope you enjoy it and a Happy New Year to all!
Cheers
Chris
Brumcast on Twitter http://twitter.com/brumcast
Brumcast on myspace http://www.myspace.com/brumcastbirmingham

It's a pretty bleak midwinter right now. I've done all the tinkering on Farm Town I can possibly do for a day or so. It's a computer game on Facebook, in case you didn't know. I've caught up with all the Dr Who episodes I missed (mwah, mwah iPlayer), ready to watch Tennant go out with a great gush of emotion on Christmas night. And his Hamlet on Boxing night as no one could get tickets at Stratford or in London. I even watched the truly excellent Dr Who edition of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I'm confidently expecting Tennant to become a US TV star on the scale of Hugh Laurie with his next project.

Living in China, so far away from home, you learn a lot. One of the biggest things you learn is how great stuff back in England is. You appreciate so much more; your family, PG Tips, the green cross code, Walkers cheese and onion crisps, your grandma's cooking, your friends, Eastenders and Sunday newspapers, to name but a few. These are things that (I think) we take for granted everyday of our lives. It isn't until they're not there anymore, that you realize they're quite irreplaceable. Oh how I look forward to hearing the familiar opening tones of the Coronation Street. It sounds sad, but these are things that us English have grown up with and however insignificant they may sound, represent home to us. The sounds of Coronation Street are as soothing to me as the smell of Sunday lunch, and the sound of lawns being mowed on the weekend and GMTV.

So yes, I will be happy to escape Beijing at this most special time of the year, and then I'll be back and ready to celebrate the biggest Chinese festival of the year - Chinese New Year, on February 14th. This is usually the time that I catch a flight home to see my family, so I've never actually experienced the beginning of the Chinese New Year from China. I hear there's lots of fireworks, drinking of the Baijiu - a very, very strong liquor, that tastes like what I'd imagine lighter fluid to taste, and watching the celebrations on TV with the family. So after a family Christmas in England, I'll be flying back to my new home for Chinese New Year with my boyfriend's Chinese family.

Now this sounds like a much better arrangement than the past two years; Expatriates doing their best to conjure up some festive spirit in China, and just ending up very drunk, and then being in England in January and February, when the sales are good, but the weather is cold, and everybody's penny pinching and looking forward to the summer time, just isn't quite the same.
Yes, this year will be good.

I was out of town for the first and, so far, only showing of 1 Day here in Birmingham. So like nearly everyone else here, I haven't seen the film made by the internationally renown Penny Woolcock and a remarkable cast of local men and women including the new-found talent Dylan Duffus.

Just as it's about to cause chaos with our Freeview boxes (due for a re-tune after noon tomorrow - Wednesday September 30) Channel 5 comes up with the most promising thing on TV for some time. Interesting, too, that it has more than a smattering of British front-of-camera talent on display - rather like The Wire.

There are detectives at the forefront again, but there the comparison ends, because FlashForward is much more like Lost. It's the same Rubik's cube-style puzzle, twisting and turning plots and characters to try to make sense of the global mega-event - the whole world passing out at the same time and seeing visions of the future. Or not if you're FBI agent John Cho, sidekick of our hero Joseph Fiennes. Where Lost had a polar bear, FlashForward has a kangaroo in downtown Los Angeles.

Ten years ago this month, I sat each evening at a supper table in Pretoria. The Afrikaans host of the pension where I stayed, put his half-dozen or so guests around the same table. Thereby I got to dine with the most interesting of companions. They ranged from diplomats to engineers. Some were South Africans, some foreigners like myself. Most were seeking to help the fledgling new society function well.

Much has been written about the recent deaths of Birmingham-born conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife, Lady Joan, at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. Whatever your personal views on assisted suicide - or death in the manner and the time of your own choosing, as others see it - it's hard not to be moved by the story of a couple married for decades who took the decision that they couldn't live without each other.

For a musician, such as Sir Edward, losing first your sight and then your hearing must be devastating. Concerns about hearing loss have been exorcising the musical world for years now. Although one might think that rock musicians are at greatest risk, players in our finest orchestras suffer just as often. And recent research shows that you are probably at risk too.