The Dirty Stopout’s Guide to 1980’s Birmingham brings back memories of people, places and events.
Local music promoting legend Jim Simpson has been reposnsible for many things in the city since he first started in business back in 1968. He managed Black Sabbath to international success, brought a string of legendary names to the city and began what became Europe’s biggest free jazz festival.
But perhaps his greatest achievement has come with the publication of his latest book, The Dirty Stopout’s Guide to 1980’s Birmingham. Because Jim, and his co-author brother Ron, has made a decade that was at best patchy into something both memorable and enjoyable to relive.
The eighties were a tumultous decade in the city, which began with the effects of recession and de-industralisation. There was mass unemployment two lots of Handsworth riots and a lot of concrete in the city centre. These get touched on but the book is mostly about the entertainment scene that was emerging in the city. Pride of place goes, as always, to the big names – the local bands who went on to massive global success and who are still revered now.
There’s also hefty mentions of the lesser bands and promoters that kept the flame of live music in Birmingham going at a time when mainstream nightlife in Birmingham was, to put it mildly, uninspiring. The infamous dress restrictions and licensing laws that made the city centre such a dreary place once the shops shut are glossed over, which is fair enough as this book is a celebration of the city and there was nothing to celebrate when even getting into a pub meant advance planning on a scale the SAS would have thought twice about, and if you did get in you were out again when they closed at eleven.
But there were still events and places to remember, and this book brings them back in vivid detail. The Superprix and other attempts to re-invent Birmingham; some worked, some were doomed to failure, others were just ahead of their time. Football gets a mention, and in particular the brief period when our city was home to the European champions, only to see them fall dramatically and rise again just as quickly (modestly forbids me to say who wrote this bit but frankly it’s by far the best thing about the book). Everything from Burberries to the Mermaid, from Kahn & Bell to Eddie Fewtrell, it’s in here. There’s also a look at Birmingham media – believe it or not there were two major TV studios in the city, producing some of the country’s most popular programmes, as well as one of the leading regional newspapers.
It’s by no means perfect – a lot of the book’s text and in particular the newspaper clippings were difficult to read and I’d like to have seen a bit more about the fight to improve going Up Town in the face of a brewing duopoly that strangled competition and licensing justices that imposed draconian regulations on every attempt to provide an alternative. But that apart, The Dirty Stopouts Guide will bring back memories of a time when Birmingham, despite everything, yet again gave so much to the world.
The Dirty Stopout’s Guide to 1980’s Birmingham is out now.