Previews by Mike Davies
Friday December 1

Asia

The 80s resurrection continues with the 25th anniversary return of the original line up of Steve Howe, Carl Palmer, John Wetton and Geoff Downes, a British contribution stadium designed poodle pomp rock with attendant white shorts and naff t-shirts.

Launching with an eponymous debut album driven by the bombastic Heat of the Moment, they were actually a lot closer to ELO than American counterparts like Toto or REO Speedwagon, their pop sensibilities spilling all over Don’t Cry. Memory may well play tricks about the band’s popularity, but the fact is that was their only UK hit single, while the accompanying 1983 Alpha album, which featured the likes of The Smile Has Left Your Eyes and The Heat Goes On, was the only one to make it into the Top 10.

In America it was a different tale, the debut album topping the charts for nine weeks with tracks like Only Time Will Tell and Here Comes The Feeling gaining saturation airplay. Which, underscored by the size of venues, rather begs the question of who’s coming out of the woodwork for this tour, accompanied by the obligatory Definitive Collection (Geffen) culled from the back catalogue. Still, an opportunity to dust down those old headbands for some air guitar solos and unnecessarily extended keyboard breaks, eh.

7.30pm. £16. Wulfrun Hall

Saturday December 2

Randy Crawford & Joe Sample

Some 30 years ago, Crawford and pianist Sample met up during the recording of her debut album, Everything Must Change. He was clearly impressed by what he heard. When putting together the next Crusaders album, he asked her to be guest vocalist and wrote a track, the classic Street Life, for her to sing. It was her breakthrough moment, launching a solo career that would be graced by such hits as One Day I’ll Fly Away, Give Me The Night, Rainy Night In Georgia and her version of Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.

They’ve worked together on several occasions since, the most current example being Feeling Good (PRA), the album that brings them to these shores with its mix of soul, pop, blues, jazz and gospel.

As relaxed and sophisticated as you might expect given their joint histories and pedigrees, it slips down with late in the evening ease on such songs as the Newley/Bricusse title track, jazz standard But Beautiful, a torchy cover of Billie Holiday’s Tell Me More And Then Some, a samba jazz reading of Everybody’s Talking and a late night last dance lounge sway through When I Need You. Sample contributes the 40s blues bar shuffle boogie Last Night At Danceland, while other smooth grooves include a Marvin Gaye moody Rio De Janiero Blue and an inspired slinky city streets funk take on Peter Gabriel’s Lovetown that interpolates Sweet Dreams Are Made Of this.

With a hefty dose of past classics sure to put in an appearance on the set list alongside material from the album, this is going to be a classy gig from a very classy act.

7.30pm. £27.50/£25. Symphony Hall

Saturday December 2

Men, Women and Children

Back plugging their self-titled debut album (Warners), a solid fist of 1970 and early 80s influenced gay disco pop that borrows from Duran Duran, early Prince, Earth, Wind and Fire and Sylvester alike on such amped up hips shifters as Dance In My Blood, Who Found Mr Fabulous?, Time For The Future and Lighting Strikes Twice In New York. Sales of mirror balls seem likely to enjoy a revival.

8pm. £7. Barfly

Sunday December 3

Richard Ashcroft

The lad’s in musically ebullient mood for Why Not Nothing, the driving guitar rock single lifted from current album Keys To The World (Parlophone), a collection that largely draws a line in the sand between his past with The Verve and his current solo work. Indeed, Music Is Power sees him engaging in soul folk of the Van Morrison persuasion, filtered through a Curtis Mayfield sample while World Keeps Turning has a definite touch of the Dylans and, partly down to that deep vocal timbre, Words Just Get In The Way bizarrely calls to mind Neil Diamond.

Built around songs about love, loss, depression and loneliness (no change there then), it’s not a complete departure and both the orchestral swelling Simple Song, swirling ballad Why Do Lovers? and the harpsichord backed Break The Night With Colour will certainly find favour with those still stuck in the Bittersweet Symphony Loop. Ultimately, it’s not quite up there with the best of the Verve but it’s certainly his finest solo work to date and, while there’ll be doubtless calls for the old favourites he really doesn’t need to rely on the back catalogue to deliver a night to remember.

 7.30pm. £23.50. NIA

Sunday December 3

The Kate Doubleday Band

Gearing up for the second album, the Kings Heath based singer-songwriter is pulling out the stops with a proper band set to flesh out likely previews of new material as well as bulking up choices from her debut’s jazz and world tinted rootsy folk. Support comes from fellow local songsmith Mike Bethel who’ll be showcasing his own new album, Fenetrapocrypha, and no, I have no idea either.

 6.30pm. £5 (kids free). Kitchen Garden Cafe' ,York Road, Kings Heath

Saturday December 2-Monday December 4

George Michael

It doesn’t seem so long ago since George was saying he’d retired, wouldn’t be playing live and wouldn’t be releasing records other than as on line downloads. So, here we are, two years (a biodocumentary, drugs busts and tabloid headlines) on from the release of Patience (an album ranging from the sublime of John And Elvis Are Dead to the ridiculous of Shoot The Dog), and a major tour in support of his 25th anniversary double disc Greatest Hits collection, aptly titled Twenty Five.

For those keeping count, it’s actually his fourth best of, though at least this time fans aren’t being shortchanged (well aside from the glaring omission of Kissing A Fool and I Want Your Sex) since it takes a career overview that looks back to the early Wham! days and comes up to date with recent singles An Easier Affair and his duet with former Sugarbabe Mutya Buena on This Is Not Real Love.

If he follows the same pattern for the set list, it’s going to prove an interestingly jumbled show, bouncing around to Wake Me Up Before You Go Go one minute and getting moody to Jesus To A Child or funky with Outside, though I’d put odds on the biggest cheers coming from any revisits to the Wham days. Especially if he gets into a festive swing and throws in Last Christmas too.

7.30pm. £40. NEC

Monday December 4

Brakes

Spawned from the ranks of British Sea Power and Electric Soft Parade, the Brighton boys confirm they’re in for the long haul with sophomore album Beatific Visions (Rough Trade), an album that builds on Give Blood’s ramshackle punky guitar pop and political conscience songs. Both strands are jubilantly in evidence on the one minute live favourite blast of Iraq themed Porcupine Or Pineapple and the equally hand grenade staccato romp that is Margarita.

But they ring the musical changes too, On Your Side a country twangy voiced bounce that, alongside the honky tonk piano plinking If I Should Die Tonight and pedal steel keening on Mobile Communication reminds you the album was recorded in Nashville, Isabel a simple acoustic tender ballad and play out track No Return a strings enhanced slice of Hovis autumn pop.

The opening guitar chug Hold Me In The River, a song that references Scarlett Johansson, harks back to the debut album’s Roxy Music gone folk hints but Cease and Desist suggests they’ve dug out the Monkees albums too, borrowing the intro and middle eight from Pleasant Valley Sunday to go with the Virginia Plain keyboard riff. And, on top of all that, they’ve come up with their own indie disco hoedown dance too, The Spring Chicken. You’d be clucking barmy to miss this one.

Opening up will be West Yorkshire quintet Tiny Dancers, again showcasing material from next year’s debut album of 60s flavoured pop and country, techno and punk influences. With recent EP Lions Tigers And Lions picking up favourable reviews, they should attract a sizeable crowd of their own, looking to party down to the handclappy Russian Snow and the glam stomping Going Away.

7.30pm. £7. Bar Academy

Tuesday December 5

Basement Jaxx

Arguably the biggest name on the UK dance scene, last year’s singles collection went double platinum and now their new studio album, Crazy Itch Radio (XL) has been lording it over the charts and club floors with its relentlessly upbeat hip pop beats and gypsy and Balkan folk flavourings.

It’s uncertain how many of the album collaborators will be along for the live experience, though middle aged Russian accordionist Serge, Swedish pop kitten Robyn, Linda Lewis and the thirty piece choir of African orphans on Hey U seem unlikely. However, Vula Malinga will be there belting it through the cool pop r&b of Hush Boy, while you can probably make safe bets that tracks like the banjo rippled Philly soul groove Take Me Back to Your House, slinky jazzed On The Train, the woozy Smoke Bubbles and the party fun Keep Keep On will be putting in appearances between old favourites Bingo Bango, Where’s Your Head At and Red Alert.

7.30pm. £23.50. NIA

Tuesday December 5


Joan As Police Woman

Currently to be heard contributing violin to Tanya Donnelly’s new album and more than likely gearing up for spots on new work from Rufus Wainwright and Antony & The Johnsons, Joan Wasser takes a moment to concentrate on her own career, reminding Christmas shoppers to include a copy of the current Real Life album on their Santa list. A collection of moslty piano based ballads along the lines of the r&b styled Eternal Flame, the languid Feed The Light and an acoustic We Don’t Own It, it also includes upcoming single The Ride showing off those Carole King/Carly Simon colours to good effect.

 8pm. £10. Glee Club

Tuesday December 5


Tom McRae

Taking time out from recording the follow up to All Maps Welcome, McRae recharges the batteries with this low key outing, showcasing a new song or two but mostly revisiting the old favourites from his previous three albums and their wistful, heart bruised romantic melancholic songs of loss and loneliness. With luck the set list will be featuring such gems as Ghost of A Shark, the devastating Human Remains, My Vampire Heart and The Girl Who Falls Downstairs’ Celtic folk beauty, but I daresay if not he’ll be open to requests.

It’s also a special evening in that he’s bringing along guests artists from LA’s Hotel Cafe talent hot spot, Jo Purdy, the Cary Brothers, Jim Bianco and Steve Reynolds pitching in for what promises to be something of an informal songswap.

7.30pm. £13. Barfly

Wednesday December 6

Mudbone

Having just completed the extended Pink tour, this is a chance to see Gary Cooper headline his own set, affording scope to explore more flavours from his current Fresh Mud album of old school soul, gospel, hip hop and swampy R&B. One of the year’s best releases, with numbers like Boy From Baltimore, Come Together Now and Pray notable stand-outs, the opportunity to catch him in more upclose and personal surroundings just pay extra dividends.

8pm. £6. Barfly

Wednesday December 6

Lost prophets

Barely twelve months ago, they seemed to have slipped off the radar, founder member drummer Tom Chiplin having departed and fans still not quite sure how they felt about the switch from the nu metal of the debut to the more pop inclined emo of Start Something. However, along came Liberation Transmission (Visible Noise) and, lo and behold, they’re back on all conquering form with an air punching collection of driving radio friendly emo rock surges out of the starting gate with Everyday Combat and doesn’t let up on the mix of punchy adrenaline rush and soaring balladry until its drained of every drop of sweat and emotion.

With Rooftops demonstrating how well they know their way around a stadium anthem, Always All Ways proving themselves masters of the swelling big ballad, and A Town Called Hypocrisy (a dig at Pontypridd detractors perhaps?), Can’t Catch Tomorrow, the Green Day-ish Everybody’s Screaming all brakes off surgers, they clearly have the future sewn up. And if, at some point, they ever feel like mutating into a new Def Leppard, then the massive, sky shaking double punch of teen romance sobber Broken Hearts, Torn-up Letters And the Story Of A Lonely Girl and For All These Times, For All These Times are the sort of calling cards that are impossible to ignore. Next year sees them back in the arenas where they belong, so enjoy this smaller scale setting while you can.

7.30pm. £16.50. Whampton Civic Hall

Thursday December 7

Morrissey

Young Stephen has clearly developed a new taste for touring, this his second major outing of the year in support of current album Ringleader of the Tormentors. Maybe he needs to work off all that sexual energy that bubbles up on tracks like Dear God Please Help Me and You Have Killed Me! Whatever, he should be in fiery mood ramping his way through a set mixing up past miserablism nuggets with the more jubilant notes of I Just Want To See The Boy Happy, the T-Rex glammed In The Future When All’s Well, a clattering The Father Who Must Be Killed and At Last I Am Born.

7.30pm. £32.50. NIA

Thursday December 7

The Wonder Stuff

Miles Hunt and Malc Treece return for their Christmas offering, plucking greatest hits out of the sack alongside numbers from their rather fine recent stadium rock inclined album Suspended By Stars where Tricks of the Trade nudges in a U2 and anthems come fast and furious in the shape of Last Second of the Minute, We Hold Each Other Up, and Someone Tell Me What To Think.

With violinist Erika Nockalls in tow, there’ll be healthy dose of their fiddly folk too, and while the more mellow notes of The Sun Goes Down On Manor Road will probably get left on the bench in favour of good time vibes and widescreen drama like Angelica Maybe. Party hats please.

Support is Dublin’s Damien Dempsey whose two fisted songs about working class struggle, Ireland’s troubled history and life’s losers have earned him a sizeable native following over the course of three albums. But he’s not the subtlest of writers or performers, with even the romantic ballads being delivered like a blunt hammer, a tendency all too readily apparent from his Live At The Olympia (Clear) album where numbers like Sing All Our Cares Away, Colony, Factories and Apple of My Eye alike all leave you feeling like you’ve been walloped around the ears.

 7.30pm. £15. Carling Academy

Friday December 8

Last Town Chorus

Recently seen supporting the Guillemots, whose Fyfe Dangerfield has been eloquently singing their praises, the mournful Brooklynites return for their own headline date. Fronted by crystalline voiced singer and lap steel player Megan Hickey who’s been variously compared to Beth Orton, Elizabeth Fraser and Hope Sandoval, they’re busy spreading the word on their glowing reviewed new album Wire Waltz (Loose), a wintry Americana collection of late night broken heart love songs and (on Huntsville, 1989) wistful recollections of awkward teenage days.

The spare arrangements and minimal melodies aren’t immediately accessible, but they creep over you like late frost, songs such as Foreign Land, It’s Not Over, Wintering In Brooklyn and the title track slowly seeping beneath the skin as Hickey deals with self-doubt courses with the dark stuff: songs such as Foreign Land, Boat and You are expositions of souls racked by self-doubt and self-questioning. Already picking up air play and likely to prove the evening’s hushed highlight is their deconstruction of Bowie’s Modern Love, reinvented here as a melancholic, yearning funereal heartbreak ballad that’s likely to leave more than a few audience members dabbing the tears from their eyes. For those who reckon Mazzy Star and the Cowboy Junkies are just too rock n roll.

8pm. £5. Glee Club

Friday December 8

Michael Weston King

Here in support of headliner and frequent collaborator Jackie Leven, this also affords the Birmingham based country folk rock singer-songwriter an opportunity to showcase his new album of cover versions, Love’s a Cover (Glitterhouse). Part trawled from assorted tribute albums (some of which remain unreleased) and contributions to music mag giveaways, part harking back to sessions with The Good Sons and a few put together for this album, it is, as such things tend to be, a bit of a mixed bag of styles and genres. Townes Van Zandt’s A Song For is slow, dark woods folk, disco chestnut Young Hearts Run Free gets a rootsy make over while he strips Gilbert O’Sullivan’s chirpy Alone Again Naturally down to a funeral dirge complete with harmonium and turns on the dreamy orchestral silk for Scott Walker’s Big Louise.

It doesn’t all work, the alt-country, guitar growling You Are Everything feels like it’s trying too hard and John Fogerty’s Someday Never Comes is a bit limp country-pop. But, when it sparks, as on a reflectively wistful version of For No One, a simple strummed Simple Twist of Fate, a soulful reading of Marvin Etzioni’s Can’t Cry Hard Enough and the lovely Phil Ochs ballad No More Songs, with Lou Dalgleish on piano, then it’s very good indeed.

Naturally, he won’t be single-mindedly focusing on the non originals in tonight’s set, but a few sprinkled among his own masterpieces wouldn’t go amiss.

7.30pm. £7. Bulls Head, St Marys Row, Moseley.

Saturday December 9

Status Quo

Last year’s Christmas bash was cancelled because of Rick Parfitt’s illness scare, but since he’s had the all clear the tinsel and crackers are being rolled out again for the annual blue jeans knees up to mark their 40th anniversary. Tagged the Just Doin’ It Tour, the set list’s highly likely to mirror that on the accompanying DVD, recorded here earlier in the year. So that’ll be a career ranging boogie through the greatest hits (some rolled into medleys) and a couple of cuts from the current, rather good as it happens, album, The Party Ain’t Over Yet, Belavista Man especially serving reminder of the days when they were a real blues band.
 

7.30pm. £18. NEC

Saturday December 9

Paulo Nutini

One of the breakthrough names of 2006, the Italian-Glaswegian gave up working in his parents chippy when debut single Last Request bulldozed into the charts, to be followed by the These Streets (Atlantic) album.

Slotting comfortably into the current vogue for bruised heart singer-songwriters with a touch of old soul to their voice (James Morrison, Hunter and Blunt for example), he doesn’t take too many risks with the songs or the music, tending to stick to gently meandering, folksy ballads and acoustic pop rock with lyrics about romantic mishaps and feeling a bit of an outsider. That and one about New Shoes that sounds a bit like Graham Parker.

In the cold light of day, the effusive praise may have been a bit of an over-reaction, but the lad does have a well seasoned, dusty voice that at times hints at Mick Hucknall with a Scottish burr and, as demonstrated by Rewind, White Lies and Autumn he knows how to deliver heartfelt ballads and blue eyed soul. Less convincing on the somewhat shapeless rockier tunes, it’s going to take a second album to determine whether he’s going to move up to the arenas or back to crooning to customers over the deep fat fryer.

Support’s provided by quirky voiced Icelander Hafdis Huld, bewitching ears with the pastoral pop and English 60s folk colours of her Dirty Paper Cup album’s spooked and skewed nuggets.

7.30pm. £13.50. Carling Academy

Sunday December 10

The Beautiful South

Having done the mid-level venues earlier this year, Paul Heaton and co are back for the arena part of the tour equation on behalf of current album Superbi, a considerably more country flavoured collection sporting banjo, dobro and pedal steel on the likes of the Lucinda-ish twangy The Rose of My Cologne, Never Lost A Chicken To A Fox, and the plangent There Is Song. Mixing in some rolling folk-pop, a pinch of brass band and their trademark perky British pop to go with their familiar sweet and sour songs of disappointment and cynicism, they may not be at quite the same giddy heights as when they were one of the 90s most successful British bands, but clearly still on form there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be compiling another solid greatest hits collection in a few years time.

7.30pm. £15. NEC

Sunday December 10

Beverley Craven

Off the radar for some years, not least because of a breast cancer scare, this marks a tentative but welcome return to the spotlight for the Sri Lankan born British singer-songwriter with the sophisticated cool Chardonnay vocals. It’s 16 years since the release of her self-titled debut, an album that delivered Top 3 hit Promise Me and went on to shift over a million copies. Although 1993 follow up Love Scenes proved another top 5 album, Craven never managed to repeat her success on the singles chart, even Woman to Woman and Holding On barely managing to struggle into the 40.

Taking time out to raise a family, it would be another six years before her third album, Mixed Emotions, surfaced, by which time she’d lost the impetus and despite the patent maturity in her songwriting craft, it failed to register.

However, the issue of a 3 CD box set gathering together her back catalogue along with a few live tracks, has reawakened attention, and with word that she’s currently working on a new album, this water testing appearance will hopefully be just the start of her renaissance.

 8pm. £18.50. Glee Club

Tuesday December 12

Iron Maiden

You may not realise from his novels, but Bruce Dickinson is one of the more intelligent and eloquent men in heavy metal. A pity then he doesn’t apply that more often to the band’s music instead of just churning out the usual diet of lyrics involving death, demons, God, Hell and so forth. He’s actually only co-written four of the 10 tracks on A Matter of Life And Death (EMI) but the rest of the guys have all pitched in to ensure the quota’s filled. Themed around conflict, it’s basically about how war isn’t a good thing, that people die in nasty ways, that it messes up your mind and soul and isn’t it a shame we can’t all just get along.

Since the songs are all pretty much going on about the same thing, the music falls into line too, everything sounding pretty much the same so that the whole album feels like one lengthy metal assault with different chapter headings. Only the last track, The Legacy, breaks the heads down pattern, although its acoustic medieval sounding ballad is no less a cliche of the genre.

By now, of course, Maiden do all this with professional slickness, even looking like they actually believe what they’re playing is somehow elevated and meaningful. They know the game and they give good show, but you can’t help feeling that, if they took the risk and threw off the formula and expectations, they might come up with something really worth the time.

Support comes from young whippersnappers Trivium, applying their piston driving metal, body-pummelling guitars, machine gun drumming, flesh tearing beats and throat lacerating cocktail of hardcore, thrash and prog metal to new album The Crusade, follow up to last year’s bludgeoning Ascendancy. Not likely to be the subtlest gig you’ve moshed at, but certainly one of the most intense.

7.30pm. £27.50. NEC

Tuesday December 12

Cancer Bats

Hailing from Canada, these boys play a high octane fusion of skull crushing hardcore metal and piledriving Black Flag style punk, driven by blistering bass and coruscating guitar riffs guaranteed to have the mosh pit seething. They’re over here in the service of their Birthing The Giants (Distort) album, a ferocious thunder through rage, death, disgust and defiance that throws any hint of subtlety out of the window from the opening notes. Maybe it’s because of the title, but Shillelagh has a hint of Thin Lizzy about it, otherwise the likes of Grenades, Pneumonia Hawk, Diamond Mine and Golden Tanks come at you full throttle, a force apparently magnified further in their live sets.

 8pm. £6. Barfly

Wednesday December 13

The Pogues

The annual reunion wagon rolls round again as, Fairy Tale Of New York paying its staple visit back to the charts for the festive season, Shane and his old muckers crack open a few more bottles to lead the crowds through a boozed up party night of the band’s finest moments. So, that’ll be a rattle and roll with the Irish Rover, Dirty Old Town, Streams of Whisky, A Pair of Brown Eyes, Sally Maclennane and A Rainy Night In Soho. Book tomorrow off with a hangover now.

Suitably Gaelic support comes from fellow hooley stompers The Sawdoctors and their trademark punky Irish folk clatter involving much bouncing around the floor on the part of the audience.

7.30pm. £27.50. NIA

Wednesday December 13


Billy Bragg

Four years since England, Half English, he’s well overdue for some new material (previews of which should crop up tonight), but at present it’s reissues that seem to be occupying the Bragg release schedule, most recently a second box set collection that includes that alongside Workers Playtime, Don't Try This at Home and William Bloke Vol.1. Quite what sort of composition the set list will take for the second leg of the trade unions sponsored Hope Not Hate tour is anyone’s guess, but he’ll doubtless be flitting far and wide across his extensive career, drawing out the mix of raw nerve love songs to balance the political invectives. Either way, it’s good to still have him around.

Opening up will be Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, Southend multi-instrumentalist Sam Duckworth with the pick of numbers from debut album The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager’s critical and at times jaundiced view of contemporary Britain as seen through the eyes of a confused kid dealing with mixed feelings for a dead end home town, racism, getting drunk, dealing with relationships and looking for their place in the world. An apt pairing.

7.30pm. £15. Carling Academy

Thursday December 14

Kasabian

The Leicester lads have had quite a time of it, erupting back into action in the latter part of the year with Empire (Columbia), a much anticipated third album that saw them taking their swirly psychedelic baggy mash up of Hawkwind, Stone Roses, Primal Scream and Happy Mondays and adding a hefty dose of glam with the heavily Bolanesque title track and Shoot The Runner’s nods to Glitter Band stomp.

Elsewhere Last Trip suggests a trace of Plastic Bertrand while, with swaggering confidence, they’ve taken their Krautrock/Hawkwind spacerock to arena proportions on the likes of Sun/Rise/Light/Flies, a tribal feeling By My Side, techno triumph Stuntman and the marvellous brass excesses of The Doberman.

There’s still the feeling that they may be hanging on to the roof of heaven by the tips of their fingers, and it’ll only take one wrong choice single to seem them go crashing back to earth, but for now the sun shows no sign of setting on their empire.
 

Support’s provided by the pub floor laddy rock pop of The Fratellis, having a laff and a giggle with Costello Music’s songs about sex and getting off your face. However, while the likes of Chelsea Dagger, Flathead, Creepin Up The Backstairs, and Everybody Knows You Cried Last Night have seen them take the country by storm, once the frenzy dies down and the hordes get to realise there’s a certain sameness about everything, that’s when they’re going to have to prove they’ve got the breadth of material to stay the course.

 7.30pm. £21. NEC

Friday December 15

Tenacious D

With the movie currently breathing its last gasps round the local multiplexes, Jack Black and Kyle Gass now do it in the flesh, bringing their parody acoustic hard rock band (er, duo?) to some rather over-ambitiously large venues for a live version, mixing up material from the mock rock opera soundtrack with numbers (Tribute, Wonderboy, and a few unprintable nuggets) from their (amazingly) platinum shifting self-titled debut of five years back.

With the self proclaimed Greatest Band in The World promising a bit of a visual spectacular to rival, oh say the Stonehenge spoof in Spinal Tap, you know you’re going to have to either be seriously into the pair’s sense of humour or think the whole thing’s deadly serious to make it worth the while.

They will, presumably, be wading through the bulk of the songs from the film (the non-clean versions), though unfortunately neither Meat Loaf nor Ronnie James Dio will be on hand to add their bits to the gloriously obscene Kickapoo, nor will Dave Grohl be reprising his devilish turn for Beelzeboss.

However, Black really can belt them out and Gass is a genuinely gifted guitarist, so for all the crudity and arsing about behind such things as Master Exploder, History, Pod and their swearily catchy Classico which reworks Bach with added expletives, there’s real rock talent in action here.

Their, er, sensitive side will doubtless get an airing too on Baby, a song that almost plays it straight, and the folk rock meets doo wop of Papagenu while there’s also the chance that they’ll drop in The Government Totally Sucks, the only song on the album that didn’t make it into the film. If twice the number of people who saw the movie turn up, it’ll probably still be half empty, but those that make the effort to be in on the joke should enjoy a dose of suitably silly fun from the Rutles of mock metal.

 7.30pm. £25. NEC

Friday December 15

Ezio

There was a point around the release of their 1995 debut album that Ezio Lunedei and guitar partner Booga were going to be the next big acoustic scene thing. It never happened, even with Tony Blair naming them one of his favourite acts at a time when it was cool to be among the PM's musical listening circle.

Since when, they've continued to release albums on smaller labels and sustain a solid gigging career among a loyal fan base. Currently on Tapete, they now release what is, arguably, the best of their career with Ten Thousand Bars, a title referring to the gigs they’ve played over the years.

Homespun, warm and reflective, it’s a beautifully crafted set of songs that range from the energetically uptempo Hotel Motel,strut n swagger Woo Hoo Hoo and Dylan romping Circus Revisited to the bluesy Thin Line and the gentle romantic balladry of All I Really Want, the waltz n whistle Mandolin Song, the world weary title track and the equally countrified Holding You Now.

If you need reference points then Van Morrison, Marc Cohn, Gerry Rafferty or David Gray might serve, but really what you need to do is pour a red, close your eyes and listen to them weave their way through your heart.

7.30pm. £10. Little Civic

Saturday December 16

Spider Simpson

Taking their name from the orchestra fronted by Johnny Favourite in Angel Heart, this Birmingham five piece have been together for three years, supporting Stereophonics and singer Adam Zindani getting six of his songs on the soundtrack of Global Heresy, a straight to DVD movie about a rock band directed by Ipcress File’s Sydney Furie and starring Peter O’Toole and Alicia Silvestone. They went on to grab the ears of both Kerrang Radio and Dave Grohl who invited them to record the album in his LA studio with his own producer.

That’s due out sometime next year, meanwhile they make their single bow with Heavy Metal Machine/I’m So Tired (Rampant), two samples of riff driving high energy infectious rock n roll that sound, not too surprisingly, a bit like Foo Fighters. We’ll be hearing from them in 2007, mark my words.

7.30pm. £5. Little Civic

Saturday December 16

Madeleine Peyroux

Pronounced Peru, born in Athens, Georgia, and variously raised in Brooklyn, Southern California and Paris, she first started performing back in 1989 with a bunch of buskers before hooking up with the Lost Wandering Blues & Jazz Band. 1996 saw her solo debut album, Dreamland, greeted with rave reviews and comparisons to Billie Holiday. A fast rising star she then, naturally, dropped out of the spotlight, returning to busking and small club dates. Eight years later, she resurfaced with Careless Love and covers of songs by artists ranging from Bessie Smith and Hank Williams to Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen.

She’s back now with the follow-up, Half The Perfect World (Rounder), another classy, mellow jazz collection for people who reckon Norah Jones is a bit too rock n roll, that sees her smoky tones drifting through evergreens The Summer Wind, Everybody’s Talkin’ and Smile, a couple more Cohens (Blue Alert, the title track), Joni Mitchell’s River (here she duets with kd lang), Serge Gainsbourg’s La Javanaise and four co-penned numbers, of which the lazy 40s summer grooves of I’m All Right and California Rain are real gems. The diamond though must be her gorgeous, lazily dappled interpretation of Tom Waits’s Heart Of Saturday Night where she turns the old growler into a gentle caress.

Don’t look for any sweat or swing, but the night should waft over you like a balmy evening breeze.

8pm. £20.50. Warwick Arts Centre

Sunday December 17

Fyfe Dangerfield

After a pretty phenomenal year with the Guillemots, climaxing in a Mercury Music Prize nomination for the debut album and sell out headlining tour, Dangerfield takes time out to unwind with this one man and a piano show before things kick off again in 2007.

With no fixed set list, he’ll doubtless be offering up stripped down versions of songs off the album as well as tasters from Of The Night, their own label EP featuring She's Evil, The Rising Tide, Bad Boyfriend and By The Water, all recorded at the BBC’s Electric Proms, plus Delusia, a blue glitter vinyl solo single he shares with The Kittens’ Happy Christmas. And who knows, maybe some unrecorded material and a few covers into the bargain. Pretty much guaranteed to be sold out, you’ll be kicking yourself you weren’t there.

7.30pm. £7.50. Glee Club

Sunday December 17

Ocean Colour Scene

Following the recent acoustic dates and Live At The Jam House album, their hometown Christmas visit sees OCS back in electric force form. With a new major label deal with Universal about to be signed, a new studio album, On The Leyline, is due next March and they’ll be previewing five of the tracks in the set as well as reviving old favourites like Oh Collector, July, and Get Away as well as plenty of the hits, welcome proof that they’re far from the spent force their detractors would like to think them.

 7.30pm. £22.50. Carling Academy

Wednesday December 20

Shady Bard

A relatively new name around Birmingham, recently signed to hometown label Static Caravan, the five piece - Lawrence Becko, Jasmin Hollingum, Alex Housden, Aidan Murphy and James Dey - have already garnered a sheaf of plaudits for their debut Treeology EP and, more recently, the sold out Penguins/Dust single.

Variously likened to Red House Painters, Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Sparklehorse, they also conjure thoughts of a folk veined formative Radiohead, iLikeTrains, or on the glacial environmental/broken relationship themed Penguin (which wincingly rhymes ‘nature’ and ‘hate ya’) even Sigur Ros.

That leafy mood is even more in evidence on the melancholic Dust, its wearied vocals sounding like a strung out chorister set against a spare euphonium bellows like drone, yet further evidence of a deep well of talent within their ranks. An album is in the works, to be preceded by a split EP on Earworm with Tunng, Woodcraft Folk and Eighteenth Day of May, in the meantime make every effort to catch this Christmas special because this time next year they are going to be massive.

 8.30pm. £4. Jug of Ale

Wednesday December 20

Waterson Carthy

More folk moods, this time of a strictly traditional and festive nature, as the family (Norman, Martin, Eliza and Tim) hit the festive trail to spread seasonal cheer with songs from their Holy Heathens And The Old Green Man (Topic) album.

As you might surmise, save for the inclusion of May Day, it’s a collection of old English carols and Christmas (ok, winter solstice) songs gathered from around the British Isles, assorted Wassails included.

With the exception of the John Kirkpatrick penned squeeze box swayer St George and Mike Waterson’s Jack Frost, they’re all traditional fare, including such tunes as The Cherry Tree Carol, The Falling Tear, Christ Made A Trance, Awake, Awake, On Christmas Day It Happened So, the triumphal Diadem and, by way of a more familiar title, a four part a capella harmony While Shepherds Watched that positively smells of holly, mistletoe and fresh fallen snow. Mince pies for the soul.

7.30pm. £16. Wulfrun Hall

Wednesday December 20

Murdoch

An adoptive Birmingham outfit (they’re from Telford so you can understand why they’d move) bidding to make a name for themselves, they’re named after Iris Murdoch, look like a boy band with aspirations to Green Day chic and are apparently ‘set to raise the pulse-rates of dance floors across the land with their delicious blend of raucous punk with itching pop
sensibilities.’

Well, that’s what they say, but truth is their mini album debut, Factory 13, never convinces as more than capable dance inclined swaggering indie pop with Bowie, Ash and Supergrass undertones and a couple of decent songs. There is though enough about the title track’s small town frustrations, blokes on the pull Last Song At The Disco and the Ash meets Ramones fuzzed pop of Janey Say No to suggest they might yet knock themselves into better shape.

Something of a local pre-Christmas bash, they’re joined by Deluka, a Birmingham four piece clearly in love with 80s electronica and casio bleeps, a fascination they then smear with scuzzy guitars and juddering beats. The result, enhanced by the delivery and phrasings of singer Ellie who calls to mind a less Teutonic Siouxie and a less gymnastic Toyah, an impression augmented by the melodics and rhythms of Flashbacks and I’ll Wait, although debut single plug track Stop Stop (Kill Sound) is surely the illegitimate offspring of early Depeche Mode, Flying Lizards and The Normal.
 

Hailing from Stafford via Birmingham, Untitled Musical Project are a punky trio spitting out vitriol and contempt at the usual complacent targets, believing you can change the world with a snarling guitar, throbbing bass and gobbed vocals. They make their debut with a bare boned three tracker (White Heat) that clocks in at just under seven minutes, spraying out untrammelled energy and noise with the juddery Pistols inflected Beards & Drugs and a furious metal boogie driven Facsimile while their bluesier Jack White inclinations surface on the shouty Why Isn't Paul McCartney Dead Already?, a track that could well become the anthem of the Heather Mills fan club.

8pm. £5. Carling Academy 2

Saturday December 23

Jools Holland

Winding up his annual Autumn jaunt, Jools and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra should be in a party mood. However, this year the set’s likely to introduce some variations on the familiar boogie woogie and r&b in keeping with the current album Moving Out To The Country (Radar). Taking a swig of cactus juice, Holland’s put together a collection of country covers with an army of special guests (among them Tom Jones, KT Tunstall, Marc Almond and Mark Knopfler) taking care of the vocals.

Now, nice guy he may be, but really Bob Geldof’s semi-spoken attempts at Kris Kristofferson’s For The Good Times and The Pilgrim are probably best overlooked. Fortunately, most everything else on the album works, with particular eye-openers and highlights including Richard Hawley’s slow waltzing I’m So Lonely I Could Cry, India Arie’s jazzed swing Georgia On My Mind, Paul Carrack doing Ray Charles justice with Take These Chains From My Heart, David McAlmont’s fabulous Misty Blue and, by way of an unexpected pleasure, Brian Eno giving a Christmas carol feel to Dreaming My Dreams With You.

It goes without saying that Ruby Turner, who’s along for the tour, will be doing the live favour with her knock dead sensation soulfully belting out It Ain’t Gonna Worry My Mind while, along with a spicing of her own hits, special guest Lulu will doubtless be prevailed upon to reprise her sassy country soul cover of I Can’t Stop Loving You and a beefed up version of Jim Reeves hit He’ll Have To Go.

 And, of course, Mr H himself will be tinkling the ivories on the very Jerry Lee sounding Boogie Woogie Country Girl. If only he could sing as well as he plays. Even so, pedal steel at full swing, this is going to be a fine knees up night.

Providing the folk to go with the country, support comes from Devonian fiddler/guitarist Seth Lakeman with tracks from his Freedom Fields album and its West Country tales of war, conflict and a bit of banjo dappled romance on the sexually themed The White Hare.

7.30pm. £28. NIA.