Re Introducing

Introducing - the jazz band who formed through a brilliantly successful attempt to play DJ Shadow's Endtroducing with actual instruments - are back in Birmingham with their second project: 'Project Scruff.' With Mr Scruff arguably lacking an entire album of classics the calibre of DJ Shadow's masterwork, they have sensibly opted for picking out the greats. Here's a sneak preview from Village Underground late last year:

Introducing are at the Hare and Hounds on 18th Feb.

Two Facts About The Drums

• Fact 1: One of the Drums is really into puppetry and, after meeting Jim Henson's daughter, worked operating puppets on Sesame Street.

• Fact 2: The Drums are amazing.

Their set opener and set closer from the final date of their UK tour:

Manchester: In The City 2010

An evening that began with a nondescript egg and tomato baguette, but ended with bachanalian scenes at a lock-in. What on earth happened in between? Aside from indie celeb spots of Huw Stephens (not Huw Edwards, as Ben Answering Machine pointed out) and Bez, the closing night of Manchester's new music festival was characterised by meandering between venues, following up tips from passers-by and the Buzz Chart on In The City's own trusty iPhone app. Here are our highlights:

Golden Glow

Manchester scenester extraordinaire Pierre Hall's group offer up laconic sunshine pop with the kind of oohs and lahs that could make you fall in love.

Plank!

The best late 70s/early 80s guitar riffs you never heard, stripped of their dated vocals and put in a blender with post rock stylings. The video above is not to be skipped - the build up is too good. Gathering plaudits from a performance on Marc Riley's 6Music show earlier this year, you have to catch them live.

The Bewitched Hands

Despite one member looking exactly like the rapist from This Is England '86 (not his fault - the series almost definitely has less cultural resonance in their native France) The Bewitched Hands offer up sweet harmony-soaked indie, forming another fleck of foam on the wave being driven by Sufjan Stevens and, more recently, Freelance Whales. Full-on male/female harmonies and tonnes of reverb without any saccharine annoyances? Yes please. Debut album out on the 23rd.

Youthless

Dance craze kicking off @ Youthless. Craig Marchington is to blame. #inthecityless than a minute ago via TweetDeckDan Feeney
danpyt

Put that video and that tweet together and you get a good impression of what went on at Umbro. Manic dancing and shouting only ceased for long enough to say "how the fuck is he getting his bass to do that?!" before the pure energy the band were radiating took over again. Drummer/vocalist Alex Klimovitsky even made an impressive effort to climb on the flimsy looking pipes that run along the ceiling, making this the gig that we were still talking about as we left the pub at 6am.

Yuck

Only popped into the refurbished Band On The Wall briefly, but it was enough to decide that Yuck are lovely. Just lovely.

Dutch Uncles

Ace.

Kisses

The night didn't actually end with LA hipsters Kisses, but White Ring's screaming-and-VNV-Nation-esque deathtrance was too depressing at the time, and is too depressing now. So we're ending with the penultimate band instead.

Sing Silent Songs - TROVE

We nipped down to the TROVE September preview on Thursday and had a chat with curator and artist David Miller, and artist Paul Newman. It's a great show, with some brilliant works. Check it out:


Sing Silent Songs at TROVE from Ben Rackstraw on Vimeo.

Sheldon Nadelman at TROVE

This summer LIFB has moved into video production - hopefully there will be a lot more of this over the next year...

TROVE is a gallery in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, and their latest show was the photography of Sheldon Nadelman, curated by Morgan Quaintance. We had a chat with him and you see what he had to say here:

Morgan Quaintance at TROVE from Ben Rackstraw on Vimeo.

Hello Sunshine

We bloody love Boys Noize and Fake Blood here at LIFB, so how happy do you think we were when we saw the new Boys Noize-produced Kano tune at #5 on the Hype top 10, closely followed by a housetastic, vocal-extending, remix of Fake Blood's 'I Think I Like It'? Very happy, that's how.

The Kano tune is a bit back-of-the-top-deck-of-the-number-94-ghetto, but has production crisper than the crack of ice in rum and coke. The EXTRA ADDED VOCAL ACTION! of what the extensively named Tommie Sunshine & Figure EC$TACY have done to 'I Think I Like It' steals the tune away from sweaty 3am dancefloor territory and places it right in the middle of a park full of the coolest people you know, playing hackey-sack and tossing frisbees, in vest tops and straw hats. Like the Marks and Spencers adverts done by American Apparel.

Elvis Costello at Birmingham Symphony Hall

A lot phrases concerning performance have connotations of handling or being handled - performers carry a tune, they hold the attention of the audience. I'd never considered the significance of this until last night as Elvis Costello nurtured a collection of songs, moulding them with an ease that belied the complexity of his performance.

Accompanied by three spotlights, six guitars and a truly exceptional hat (which only left his head to be lifted in response to applause), he picked from throughout his repertoire, not afraid to mangle crowd favourites along the way.

This mangling was most apparent in a violent re-working of 'Watching the Detectives', his first hit back in 1977, which ended in Costello picking out melody lines in the wrong key over a wash of crunching distorted acoustic guitar noise. There was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, as 2000 middle-aged people heard one of their favourite songs as it might sound covered by Animal Collective. It was brilliant.

Most brilliant, however, was 'Slow Drag with Josephine', "how rock 'n' roll sounded in 1921". This trip to the past was provided by ragtime melodies, an un-amplified acoustic, and Costello, freed from the microphone, delivering the lines from the front of the stage. That something of that level of electrifying brilliance was a song from Costello's soon-released new album only highlights quality of his body of work as a whole.

Stories of having his Dad in the audience for fathers day, being unknown to American audiences when supporting Bob Dylan, and writing music with Paul McCartney ("that great Mersey-delta Bluesman") all added to the charm, but the most touching moment came with the first song request. As Costello returned for the encore someone in the stalls shouted for 'My Three Sons'. Without saying a word he took a step back, dropped the tuning on his guitar, and played it. This is an example of the connection with the audience that permeated the evening. Costello was a performer not only carrying a tune, but carrying the hearts of everyone in the Symphony Hall with him.