The Flapper 4/4/09 UPDATED!!!!

The Blackbelts are playing the Flapper tonight in birmingham.

Mytoytrain
Red Myst
14ten
Cathexis
The Blackbelts
Girlfixer
Blind Ignorance

Doors 7pm

18+

£6

We come 2nd out of 7 bands on the night so are through to round 2 which will be on the 10th June (just after my birthday) at the rainbow in Birmingham.

Here is a review from the Surface Website of us!!


The Blackbelts
Next up was Coventry based four-piece The Blackbelts. Hard and sleazy Rock with a Punk edge – it’s a dark and twisted noise that sits somewhere between Mudhoney and early Cooper Temple Clause. The rawness and energy with which the band performs really comes across in their music and saw the band tearing through an impressive set’s worth of material in a performance that proved amongst the strongest of the night.

I am quite impressed and it has restored my faith in Battle of the bands as we only had 4 people there for us and the rest of the bands had loads!!

How many bands went through ?

another reviewer who got the mudhoney reference eh!

Mark, was this a pay to play event, old boy?

The most infamous pay to play event in the country, the owners make hundreds of thousands out of it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

how much did the text voting count for?

yeah its a bit of a shitter about the pay thing, we got into it thinking the 25 quid was a deposit, paid back when you turn up on the night, only to find out it relied on you making them £150 first (by selling your 25 tickets). We we thought just go along with it, a gigs a gig sort of thing, didn't push it too much and took just a few people, well expected to get knocked out straight away like.

It operates on a system of...

text vote - 1 point
crowd vote - 5 points
band vote (every band picks 2 faves) - 20 points
industry vote (someone to do with the music industry, usually oxjam bloke it seems) - 30 points

so basically, you can hammer the texts and bring a massive crowd and get through (at least in the early stages, its all judges later) or you can just hope that you get other bands votes and the industry ones.

In our case we won over a few votes from other fans (pretty good like as most fans only voted for their own band then buggered off) had same band votes as most of the others, but took both of the industry votes, which is what got us through, and to be honest i reckon thats fucking mint, and i'm really proud of it, considering they could have just given the votes to someone who sold lots of tickets.

overall it was a good experience, playing a cool venue with awesome sound on a well run night, but then you'd expect it for the money. well looking forward to the next one, apparently its under a big railway arch in brum, sounds good

Rig wrote:

another reviewer who got the mudhoney reference eh!

I think i'm going to have to listen to some mudhoney if thats what we sound like!

Still well done for getting though!!

end of the day, I had a wicked night, played a wicked gig at a wicked venue, got some top pro photos coming and got a review to stick about the place. .. and to top it off got a bit of an ego boost from all the compliments we got, so 25 quid is fuck all, plus we don't have to pay another penny now, just that initial 25 quid. its all fun at the end of the day, it's when you start taking things dead serious and whine for 10 years if you don't go through that things get tedious for me.

Cleary wrote:

Still well done for getting though!!

cheeeeeeeeeeers! is so quality to have done it by being the best band rather than by buying our way through, i'm well made up, even though it was a little metal night thing, still gets you buzzing, and the review is mint, gonna show it all round work until everyone is sick of me, haha, how sad...

yeah, thats right mark, whatever happens now its been well worth it and we'll have had two brum gigs under our belt, hopefully can use that to shoehorn in some more over there

may i recommend mudhoneys self titled album mudhoney, full of classic tracks like flat out fucked, you got it, magnolia caboose babyshit, here comes sickness

or EP's boiled beef & rotting teeth or superfuzz bigmuff

well done on getting through, but yeah, big con on your fans money really innit the further you progress. i wonder if the next round is at the subway? used to go raving there 'back in the day'

Fans, what are they!?

Oh Mark*










*copyright Boris the Spider, hermit boards 2008

yeah i mean £7 quid entry to see a 20 minute set by a local band is a bit much, but then there are 7 bands on and its a night in brum, so in that respect its a wee bit better. The money the company must make is frightening, though thats probably the same at every level of music, bands are just pawns being used to make cash.

i'll check out that mudhoney album

i think its the fact they bag most of the bands money too which adds to the 'income'

i reckon a few of us should do one in the autumn, feckin shit loads of cash to pry out of young bands hands

just listening to mudhoney now as it goes as i have no blackbelts cd, brings back the memories

mr stuart wrote:

.

i'll check out that mudhoney album

i got them, ill lend em you

markyg wrote:

mr stuart wrote:

.

i'll check out that mudhoney album

i got them, ill lend em you

wickeeeeed