Gatecrasher close gates on repayments

The collapse of megaclub company Gatecrasher is going to leave 230 creditors with losses, after the company was taken into a totally legal flatpack insolvency. The Birmingham Post explains:

A progress report into the ‘pre-pack’ administration of the Birmingham-based nightclub group reveals that 233 creditors have been left out of pocket to the tune of £2,081,840.

The report, by administrators Duff and Phelps, said: “Based upon the current information available, there will be insufficient realisations to enable a distribution to the non-preferential unsecured creditors of the companies.”

The cash blow for creditors comes six months after Broad Street-based Gatecrasher went bust when its owners piled up multi-million pound debts.
[...]
A statement last year from Gatecrasher managing director Simon Raine said: “Substantial external equity funding is in place to allow the immediate progression of Gatecrasher’s expansion plans.

“Critically we have a new direction and will return to producing the global events and festivals that originally made the brand a worldwide clubbing phenomenon.”

But an unnamed creditor owed several thousands of pounds told the Post: “Some of the DJs, for example, are owed thousands. They kept saying ‘the cheque is in the post’ but it never arrived.

“Loads of people have been affected by this. I definitely would not work for these people again – the thing that is really annoying is that they can just walk away from their obligations, leaving all those people out of pocket.

“And the sad thing is that the law is on their side. Millions have been written off and it makes you sick.”

There's a support group for those who've lost out on Facebook; Birmingham University's Guild of Students are advising their members to avoid working with the "new" Gatecrasher.

Venuewatch: Hare And Hounds

Worrying news from Birmingham, where a flat has been proposed for a building adjacent to the Hare and Hounds.

As we've seen before, there's a tendency for people to build residences right next to venues which have been operating for donkeys', only for the residents to move in and object to that venue "making noise".

Naturally, the Hare And Hounds is worried - they're getting a petition together.

"Are you free, BRMB?" "I'm free"

Orion, the owners of BRMB in Birmingham, have decided to change the station's name.

To Free Radio Birmingham.

God help us all.

{Phil] Riley, the chief executive of Orion Media, said: "The decision to change the name of our stations after each one has been broadcasting in their areas under their original names for so long has not been easy or one that we have taken lightly.

"We have given this a great deal of consideration and undertaken detailed research. The original on air names of each station means a lot to all of us at Orion, and we know and understand the deep affection many people have for those names.

"But" continued Riley "we really don't care."

Oh, hang on, he didn't say that:

"However, the radio market has changed dramatically recently and we have to adapt and respond."

It's not entirely clear what "dramatic changes" have meant the only logical response is to throw away four decades of brand recognition and heritage (Mercia, Beacon and Wyvern are also being shorn of their names.)

So, what's the thinking behind the name? Some might wonder about the chutzpah of using "free radio" - usually a sign of a rebel group broadcasting against a despotic government rather than a Top 40 hits station with the weather forecast sponsored by Anglian Windows. So, is this the International Brigade of broadcasting?

Riley said the "Free Radio" name was chosen because it was "easy to remember, easy to spell, and is flexible enough to work in a number of different ways. It's not free as in cheap, it's free as in freedom to have a bit more character".

Ah. Freedom to have more character. Created by taking four distinct stations, each with their own character, and imposing a bland, marketing-driven blanket name over the lot.

Help Thomas Dolby

You - assuming you're in Birmingham and have a bass - have the power to save Thomas Dolby's gig.

He just tweeted this:

Matthew's fretless bass is broken! Can anyone bring one to Birmingham O2 Academy tonight?

I see a sea of fretless basses swimming down the street to the Hummingbird.

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Record shops

There's a sad-but-heartfelt forum thread over on West Midlands site The Stirrer remembering old Birmingham record shops:

Who remembers the record shop in Piccadily Arcade with the mad welsh man who threw you out at 10am if he didnt like you pretending he was closing for lunch as an excuse. I went in with a Virgin record bag once and he threw me out as well because i shopped at the opposition.

Radio WM dropping some or all music

It's not just 6Music and the Asian Network that are being mucked about with at the moment. BBC Local radio is also having one of its periodic 'being tugged about from the centre' upheavals.

The Stirrer has claimed that Radio WM is about to drop music altogether, although the Birmingham-based station's controller Keith Beech says not quite:

Beech said, “Since Helen Boaden became head of news we have become much more focussed on news, and if you look at what’s happened to Phil Upton’s [breakfast] show, that’s gone all speech until 9.30.

“Local radio is going back to its roots, but we’ve seen this coming, so we’re in a good place to respond to the strategic review.

“We’re ahead of the game”.

To be fair, much of the music played on the BBC local stations performs the function of the jam in an Arctic Roll - sticking things together without providing much distinctive flavour - but there are a couple of specialist shows on WM. Most notably, there's the West Midlands variant of Introducing - and if 6Music is to die, let's hope the regions can keep their couple of hours supporting new music alive, at least.

JLS too much for West Midlands police to handle

According to Twitter, it looks like the big turn-on of Christmas Lights in Birmingham has been cancelled by West Midlands Police, who were afraid they couldn't control the crowds who'd turned out to catch a glimpse of JLS.

Mail uncovers new top-level scandal

Yes, you did feel the ground shake: The Daily Mail has been angered again.

DJs sacked after 'porn star' slur on Des O'Connor's daughter

Uh-oh - who's put their foot in it this time?

Two radio DJs have been sacked after claiming live on air that Des O'Connor's daughter secretly worked as a pornographic actress.

The lack of a mention of the BBC in either headline or first paragraph would suggest that this must be a commercial station - so is it TalkSport? Virgin Radio or whatever it's not being called these days? Johnny Vaughan?

The allegation, which is unfounded, was heard by listeners across the West Midlands after it was broadcast on...

The West Midlands? BRMB, then?

... after it was broadcast on the Birmingham University station Burn FM.

Sorry, who?

Birmingham University station Burn FM.

So, Daily Mail, when you say "listeners across the West Midlands", you neglected to add in the words "a couple of".

Yes, it was a snide thing to say, and unacceptable - but this is a student radio station. Which makes the whole story a little weak. As you must know, Mail, otherwise you might have mentioned "student djs" in the headline.

What are you going after next? Someone being a bit fruity over the PA in a supermarket?

Galaxy 102.2 gets in touch with its audience

Global Radio are probably wishing they'd removed all local programming from their network, after someone managed to break into West Midlands Galaxy 102.2 and started to swear on air, apparently. The phrase "I'm still fucking here" might have been heard, depending on who you choose to believe.

Police arrested the intruder, although it's believed John Noel Management is offering to represent him.

Johnny Foreigner Sunday: Sometimes In The Bullring

About as close as you can get to the Bullring without a humourless security guard telling you to not take pictures "because the public is copyright", this is the band live at Birmingham's Flapper and Firkin:



[Part of Johnny Foreigner Sunday]

The Daily Winehouse

Yesterday, the Telegraph carried an article attacking the audiences who complained about the Winehouse Birmingham show.

Today, they've run another, almost identical piece, this time filed by Andrew Pierce:

The whingers are lucky she even turned up. Don't they read the newspapers? Or listen to the Today programme, which has also referred to this talented but deeply flawed diva's personal problems?

Imagine how the Telegraph would react if, instead of being a musician, she was a plumber who turned up late, botched the job, spat and threatened the customers before leaving with task still unfinished. It's odd they're so relaxed about Winehouse doing it.

Pierce attempts to suggest that she's in the tradition of Joplin, Piaf and Hendrix, before adding another name to her forebears:

Needless to say the tabloids, typically, have chronicled every disaster in her relentlessly downward spiral. We have seen it all before. They build them up - think Paul Gascoigne - and stick the boot in when they are on the way down.

Probably the first time Winehouse and Gascoigne have been compared - although, of course, Gascoigne himself made his own visit to the charts - and the mention is interesting.

It's true that the tabloids did build Gazza up, when he was playing well. And, yes, when he slipped, they gleefully detailed his decline. But it's just fantasy to lay the blame for his fall from grace on the papers: he enjoyed a drink - too much; he enjoyed his food - too much, for an athlete. He was the architect of his own misfortune and while you might find the red tops' delight in sharing his decline callous, he'd have still been eating the kebabs and drinking the booze. Just without the attention. The same, you feel, would be true of Winehouse. However reprehensible you might find the behaviour of Fleet Street, it's not like they're forcing Blake to (allegedly) conspire to pervert the course of justice after (again allegedly) beating the shit out of someone, or making Amy sit in the toilets puffing away on fags. For a paper which supposedly believes in personal responsibility, it's interesting how quickly they are to remove that responsibility from Winehouse's shoulders.

The Telegraph comes out for Amy

Helen Brown, who reviewed the Winehouse gig for the Telegraph, is so outraged that people have criticised her show, she's filed a second column about it.

The Braclay brothers will, of course, be delighted that train ticket to the West Midlands is turning up so much copy.

Brown suggests that people who paid to go have no right to complain:

If the "appalled fans" had bought their £20 tickets to see a slick, wholesome pop show, they'd have had cause for complaint. But they can't pretend that was the case.

Whatever else Winehouse might be accused of, the self-proclaimed "ugly drunk" can't be charged with mis-selling herself. She lives a life of high drama. And she has used that troubled experience to create an excellent album's worth of highly dramatic songs about desperate love, alcohol addiction and drug smoking. Her "appalled fans" must have heard them or they wouldn't have paid for tickets.

She has a point - you probably do know that there's a chance Winehouse might not be any good when you buy the tickets, but is it fair to assume that the audience were there merely to watch the sideshow rather than hear the music?

It's probably analogous to Mark E Smith. If you buy Fall tickets, you know there's a chance that Mark E Smith might turn up in no real state to do a show and turn in a bit of a stunker. And when that happens, you don't think "aha - what a night of high drama", you go home grumbling because you could have seen one of the truly sublime bands but instead got a honking drunk. I suspect the same would be true of the people who bought Winehouse tickets - whereas Brown assumes they went in the hope of seeing a stumbling freakshow, I imagine most people hoped they'd get the woman who, from time to time, turns in a decent performance.

It's curious that Brown is angry that the press turned up expecting a dreadful performance - which is bad of them - while she's apparently okay with the audience buying tickets for the same reason.

Brown suggests they should count their blessings:

[The night] even for the "appalled", surely unforgettable.

Well, yes. It's unforgettable if you go on a date and the person you're with is sick all over your shoes. It doesn't mean it's good for the relationship.

Brown also appears to be quite selective in her account of the gig:

So now we come to the "crazed rant". When a group of young men booed, Winehouse pointed out that if they didn't like her music they were "muggy ****s" for buying tickets. While indecorously phrased, she had a point.

Surely the nub of her slagging of the crowd wasn't the calling them cunts, more the threat that people booing would be beaten up when her husband is released from prison? And were the "young men" booing Winehouse's music, or her performance? Because if you've paid to see someone who can't do the show, booing - while indecorously phrased, might be to the point.

Ultimately, Brown is doing Winehouse no favours. By suggesting that a mentally-fragile woman is a thrilling show, (like "Holiday or Simone"), she's validating the backstage team who forced her on despite the mini-breakdown minutes before taking the stage [reported in this morning's Mirror].

There's nothing artistic in seeing someone crumble before your eyes. Ultimately, the audience who effectively called out "get her off the stage" were being kinder to Winehouse than people like Brown insisting "the show must go on". She's clearly vulnerable, and rather than excitedly trilling about how thrilling it is to watch, the humane thing to do is look away.

First night: Amy's on the road again

Last night was the first night of Amy Winehouse's UK tour at the NIA in Birmingham. So, how did it go?

Stephen Dalton, in The Times, reported the show was alright, but misfired:

For all these churning emotions, this was not a classic show. Clearly the troubled chanteuse has other things on her mind, but the size of the venue also appeared to overwhelm her at times. The fetchingly sloppy, intimate delivery that works a treat in smaller clubs does not translate well to arenas, and some of her bouncy retro-soul hits fell a little flat.

However, The Sun's unnamed reviewer suggests the audience felt it was more than "a little flat":

AMY WINEHOUSE went into meltdown on stage last night hours after visiting her husband in jail.

The star appeared drunk and turned her gig into a crazed tribute to hubby BLAKE FIELDER-CIVIL, which had fans booing and walking out.

Hundreds left Birmingham’s NIA on the first night of her 17-date UK tour.

Now, we know when the Sun reports 'hundreds' walking out, it usually means a few, but the boos appear to have been genuine, as Amy, erm, threatened the people who expressed their disapproval:

And as fans tired of the mumbling star and began booing, Amy turned on her audience.

She said: “Let me tell you something. First of all, if you’re booing you’re a mug for buying a ticket.

“Second to all the people booing — just wait till my husband gets out.”

That's the best thing you can possibly say about a bloke who's soon to go on trial accused of beating the crap out of someone, we'd imagine.

And what of the stage outfit? Stephen Dalton in The Times was impressed:

She was dressed in a skimpy, shiny top and tight black skirt and her magnificent beehive squatted on top of her tiny head like a huge dead octopus.

The Sun, however, suggested someone should have told her she wasn't going out dressed like that:

Dressed in a tight black miniskirt and with her see-through top showing off her black bra, at one point her boobs almost popped out after she lost her balance.

Apparently, she trumped off stage before the gig was even properly finished as well - perhaps she went to join the small throng demanding their money back:

Fan James Dyas was one of those who walked out demanding his money back.

He said: “She came on stage half an hour late. She managed four songs but was slurring her words and swaying all over the place.

“She fell into the guitar stand and dropped the microphone — it was atrocious."

You could argue, though, that if you've bought a ticket to a Winehouse gig in the last six months or so, you do so on the understanding that you're not really to expect her to turn up, never mind stand up.

On the BBC News site, monkfish-faced jazz criminal Jamie Cullum pops up to offer his 'support' for Amy's professionalism:

"I don't think she'd want to miss a tour because she likes playing too much," he said.

Which is an optimistic viewpoint, but even that pales into the official response from the Winehouse camp to the wobbly show, which attempts to spin the thing:

A spokesman for Amy said last night: “It’s been a really emotional time for Amy but she was determined to do the gig.

“She broke down on stage a couple of times with real tears. That real emotion is why people love her, but it’s just really heightened at the moment."

Yes, people love being threatened with being beaten up by a thug by the person they've paid money to see. That'd be "heightened emotion", then.

Naked and unconscious: Ryan Jarman barely makes it

Only the brave and the foolish leave the safety of the stage to wade into the audience.

We're not sure which The Cribs' Ryan Jarman is, but he sure is lucky.

NME reports on the Birmingham Acadmey show from Friday night:

Jarman lost consciousness near the end of the set, after he hurled himself into the crowd where he was mobbed. He was hauled from the crowd unconscious by a security guard, with most of his clothes ripped off him by fans. He regained consciousness after being shaken by another security guard. Jarman was unconscious for around 20 seconds in total.

Medical opinion suggests he was dehydrated and exhausted. Apparently he returned to the stage "shirtless" and with his jeans in tatters. Let's hope he didn't have anything important in his pockets.

Kerrang picks up Big Brother presenter

Last week, Ofcom reduced the amount of new music Kerrang had to play on its Birmingham FM station. This week, Kerrang have announced that Kate Lawler is taking over the breakfast show from current host Ugly Phil.

Kate Lawler at breakfast, eh? Let's hope nobody remembers RI:SE.

Brum do: Lauryn Hill disappoints

We're a little surprised at the clamour of disapproval from so many Lauren Hill fans at her ropey performance in Birmingham yesterday evening:

“I witnessed and experienced a first last night – the complete and utter demise of a personal hero and the worst gig of my life.

“Not only did the woman not grace the stage until 10.30 - the venue to close at 11.00 – providing the good value of about £5 per 5 minutes of music! But she looked like a cracked out, mad old bag lady that you make considerable efforts to cross the street to avoid. We are trying to get our money back for this complete and utter farce.”

but, if Lauryn Hill is your hero, surely you'd be aware that buying tickets for one of her gigs isn't even a lottery. You know she'll turn up late, looking like Pete Doherty dressed as Kate Moss, sing terribly and wobble off after ten minutes or so. It's a little like complaining that Mark E Smith has turned up drunk.

Could Nas be hiding from all of Croatia?

Ten days ago, Nerys Hucker emailed us in response to the story about Nas insisting on a police escort through the mean streets of Birmingham. And, erm, we put the email into a pile of things to respond to and forgot.

However, belatedly, we can bring you Nerys' theory: Seeing as Nas pulled out of going to Croatia, because it was too dangerous, could he be afraid of bumping into Balkans?

On the other hand, a man who thinks Croatia is too dangerous might be nervous about going to Birmingham for its own sake. After all, it's the only city in England to have shut itself down for the night because of fear of... erm, something or other.

Jamelia drives away

Oddly, considering the way the 3AM Girls usually report everything that Jamelia does within seconds of it happening, they seem to have somehow missed the story about her driving off without paying a GBP20 parking fee.

The official line is that she'd "forgotten her purse" and so swerved round the car in front of her at the barrier, with every intention of coming back later to pay:

Her spokesman said: “She intended to return and pay. A row did occur. The fee has been paid.”

The odd thing though - even odder than "how come she didn't realise she had 'forgotten her purse' until the very moment she arrived at barrier, as if she'd run up a big parking fee surely she must have been doing something in that time which would have required a rummage in her handbag? - is: if she fully intended to return and pay, why did she not merely say to the bloke in the booth 'I am Jamelia, who had a minor hit or two a while back, I have suddenly realised I have forgotten my purse, I will go and get money' rather than swerving round the car in front and trying to flee without a word? Obviously, her spokesperson is a n honourable man and would never tell a fib, but surely even he must see that her behaviour, however pure her intentions, was 'driving away from a car park without paying'?

Nas confuses himself with some sort of dignitry

Can it really be true that Nas - the man who claims in "NY State of Mind" to win "gun battles with mega cops" - has tried to insist that he gets a police escort to his gig in Birmingham tonight?

Nas has insisted in his rider:

"Under no circumstances is the artist to be delayed arriving or departing the venue due to traffic."

And how, exactly, is the venue meant to make the traffic in a city bend to his will?

If ever there was a time and place just begging for a Reclaim The Streets demo, this, surely, is it. How priceless would the look on Nas' silly I-love-murder chops be if his cars sailed round a corner into a street blocked by people enjoying a bicycle party?

Ozzy on the street

The NME is rather generously calling Birmingham's proposed 'walk of fame' "Hollywood-style", but it's really just the latest in a number of etched paving stones like the slightly embarrassing one at Brighton Marina - they've just added the BBC London breakfast show host to join a distinguished list of other names including, erm, the local paper, and Julie Burchill.

The first Birmingham star is going to go to Ozzy Osbourne, which suggests they're already running out of ideas.

The Lord Mayor of Birmingham elect, Randal Brew, said: "I really look forward to welcoming Ozzy back to Birmingham in July. It is a great honour to be able to offer him the very first star on the Birmingham Walk Of Stars."

Osbourne, who was also inducted onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002, stated: "I have a star in Hollywood on their Walk Of Fame but having a star in my home town means so much more to me. A personal thanks goes out to Lord Mayor Randal Brew."

We're not sure if it's more demeaning for him to be doing the marge adverts, or for the Prince of Darkness to be offering personal thanks to elected men in tricorn hats.