“I’d seen the band The Leaking Machine supporting Mighty Mighty; two of the band are in Mighty Mighty, so they were supporting themselves. They’ve been around for a decade and they’ve released an album but I thought they were really good, classy power pop and they had one particular song Chocolate and Cars which references both Cadbury and Longbridge so I told them if I ever had the chance I’d love to put that song out.

“I didn’t have any money at the time then shortly afterwards I got an email from Berlin asking was I the son of Rudolph Goldberg, which I was. I contacted them and they said a claim had been made for an aunt of my father’s, Jenny Goldberg, who had been killed by the Nazis. It was done by my father and another distant relative for the value of her property, which had been stolen during the Holocaust.

“Me and my two sisters were the heirs to my father and we proceeded with the claim. My father had died by then, as had the relative and also the lawyer who’d brought the case but Germany being very diligent about the Holocaust it was pursued and I vowed that if I got enough money I would put the record out and name the label in her honour. And as someone who is very proud of Birmingham, and the West Midlands, I wanted the label to represent the best of what we are. A few months ago I got a small inheritance effectively which made it possible to put the record out on CD and vinyl, in her name and that’s why it’s Jenny’s Feather Factory.”

I’ve known you for many years. I knew you’d lost relatives then but I didn’t know your father was on the Kindertransport until recently.

“My father and his brother were on very late Kindertransport. The war started in September 1939, they got out of Germany on the last day of June. His brother was young enough to be adopted by a family in Southampton but my dad was nearly 14, which was the school leaving age, so he was sent to work on a farm in Derbyshire. He joined the army, served at the end of the war and was then drawn, like many others, by the prospect of work in Birmingham.”

With such memories, of the Holocaust and war survivors, it’s important that we remember because they are the last direct link with those times and in a way having the label financed by reparations is helping keep the memory alive.

“That’s how I see it. Absolutely I made a conscious decision to name it in order to keep her memory alive. I want to find out more about her, my dad spoke a lot about her. She was a fun aunt who would carry him on her shoulders, she would wade in the river with him and was the life and soul. She ran this business where she would stuff pillows and duvets with feathers, she had a milliner’s shop. Some of the details are vague but we’d like to find out. She had a feather factory and that’s helping her memory live on.”

You’ve talked about bringing the band’s album out. Are you looking for others to sign?

“I am but a small indie label’s a tough business The first thing is to get the money back from this release to fund the next one. I’ve got plans for releasing archive material by well-known Birmingham bands and I’d also love to be signing emerging talent from the region although that very depends on getting the money back from the first release and hopefully keeping it going.”

There seems to have been a decade of Birmingham bands who’ve been on the verge but never took that final step. The Twang and Peace for example, then after them The Novus. We joke about Birmingham and say it’ll be nice when it’s finished but it never gets finished and in the same way we never have that one band who could drag the rest of them along in their wake.

“I’d say that the music I’m interested in, indie guitar music, Big Special have really punched through in the last twelve months and they’re already making waves, the Nightingales have had an incredible renaissance. These things go in circles so I think there’s enough going on here but there needs to be more. Birmingham is not enough of an indie city and I’d love it to be more than that. Bands will go to Nottingham or Bristol and we’re pretty low down the list. You can talk for hours about why that is but it come down to how many people are willing to turn out to gigs and buy records in this area.

“You can complain about it but you either make a difference or you don’t and I’m trying to give people the opportunity to make a difference. The world tends to be written by middle-aged white men, mostly in London and there’s a narrative about how cool Manchester is because people like its music from thirty or forty years ago but we do have a really vibrant and creative music scene here, we just don’t have enough punters at the moment.”

There’s never been a Brummie impresario bringing it all together like Tony Wilson in Manchester or before that Brian Epstein in Liverpool, who can combine the record label, media and live promotion. People such as Dave Travis have done it on a small scale but there’s never been anyone who’s grabbed the mainstream and become national news.

“Tony Wilson is the prime example with Factory records, gigs and their own club but you can’t set out to recreate it. We can only be what we are and there’s an incredible creative energy around Birmingham now. There’s loads of stuff, there’s never a night when you couldn’t go to three or four gigs. All that’s lacking is the audience. You look at Supersonic festival, that’s a really impressive leftfield festival – there’s nothing else like it in the country – or the Flatpack film festival. On a creative level we do so much, but part of the problem is that our local mass media are not really in tune with that stuff. We don’t have a press that promotes that so we just have to get on with it knowing there’s not a large amount of support out there.

“Go down Bennett’s Hill on a Saturday afternoon and the city centre’s really buzzing so the money’s there. We’ve just moved towards a binge society where people want to see big gigs and festivals, they’ll go to a stadium and book a hotel. But that’s their choice; I want to see the whites of a band’s eyes. If you want a scene in Birmingham there’s plenty of great people trying to make it for you. They just need people to support them.”

Finally, and this is more of a reassurance to someone. You started out with the Football Supporters Association and I joined them. Then you did a fanzine, I did one later. You started the Stirrer, which was our predecessor. Will you please, please assure my wife that I’m not going to set up a record label?

“That’s entirely on you. All I can say is that it’s a very easy way to lose money. I’m not complaining, you’ve got to work hard to sell stuff. There’s so much out there and cutting through is difficult but I’ve got the label and hopefully it will give the region something to be proud of.”