If you’re a lover of seventies style classic rock with a modern stripped-down feel, you could do worse than head to the Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton on Friday, where the Whiskey Syndicate will be headlining. Five bands in total for £6 – bargain.
Appearing the same night at the 02 Academy in Birmingham are Britrockers Skunk Anansie. Best known for their first albums Paranoid & Sunburnt and Stoosh, the band reformed in 2009 and released the acclaimed Wonderluster last year.
Skunk Anansie – Skunk Anansie – Because Of You on MUZU.
One of the most interesting new bands on the local scene are Naked Remedy, who sound like a sixties garage band brought up to date. They play the Sunflower Lounge, Smallbrook Queensway, Birmingham on Friday.
And on a totally different level, that oft-overused word legend is perfectly suited to the performers at Birmingham Town Hall that night, namely jazz veterans Acker Bilk and the Big Chris Barber Band.
If that’s not enough jazz, the even more veteran Brummie legend (that word again) Andy Hamilton performs in the Symphony Hall foyer bar on Saturday lunchtime.
Saturday sees another promising new act at the Slade Rooms in the shape of the Rimes. Influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, with touches of Travis and (sadly) U2, they have also been described as Editors merged with Radiohead and, maybe more accurately, the best unsigned band in the area.
If it’s something different you want, the Academy3 provides it on Saturday with CW Stoneking, an Australian banjo player whose calypso-tinged jazz draws heavily on pre-war influences and claims to have been shaped by his being shipwrecked off the coast of West Africa. .
Bilston’s Robin2 has become one of the leading prog rock venues in the country, and that reputation will be enhanced on Sunday with the visit of Godsticks, the genre’s finest new arrival of the past couple of years.
Cockney comedian Micky Flanagan is at Birmingham Town Hall on Sunday, bringing his tales of growing up in the East End prior to a return engagement at Symphony Hall next month.
The Slade Rooms completes an exciting weekend line-up on Sunday with comedian Andi Osho, as seen on Mock the Week, with her show Afroblighty, a touchingly funny account of identity crisis in a multi-cultural society.
Sunday also sees a visit to the Roadhouse, Lifford Lane, Cotteridge, of Australian alt rock/blues steel guitarist Gwyn Ashton.
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