Alison Jones talks to the team behind a new film chronicling the unique music of Birmingham.

Forty years ago there was a club that was the epicentre of all that was cool in music. John Peel was the DJ, Pink Floyd played there, as did The Who, Black Sabbath, Traffic, Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac.

The American music press voted it the number one rock venue in the world. But it wasn’t in America. It wasn’t even in London.

It was above a furniture shop in Erdington and it was called Mothers.

“There is no recognition, no plaque but people still come from America to look at the shop,” says Jez Collins, of the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research.

“This city has a rich musical heritage but we don’t use that history as Liverpool and Manchester do in the UK, or New Orleans, Nashville and Memphis do in the US.

“There’s a shop on the Coventry Road which sells 90 per cent of the bhangra music in the world.

“We should be celebrating those individuals, we should be shouting about it saying ‘Look, this is from Birmingham’.”

Jez and director Deborah Aston have been tackling this oversight head-on in a new documentary Made In Birmingham: Reggae Punk Bhangra, which “charts the cultural, social and political background to three music genres that have strong associations with the city”.

Funded by Screen WM through its Digital Archive Fund and produced by Swish Films, the Birmingham-based company run by Roger Shannon, professor of film and television at Edgehill University, it is a blast from the past via archive footage of news stories and band rehearsals and performances intercut with reflections from the musicians themselves.

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UB40’s Brian Travers, Dennis Seaton from Musical Youth, Amlak Tafari of Steel Pulse, Viv from Fuzzbox, Paul Foad and Peter Hammond from the Au Pairs, Paul Florence, aka Paul Panic, of the Accused, Pete Byrchemore of The Nightingales, Andy Sargent of the Denizens, Alan Apperley from The Prefects, photographer and DJ Boy Chana and S-Endz from Swami were all interviewed at patisserie and coffee shop Maison Mayci in Kings Heath. Even Janice Connolly, aka Mrs Barbara Nice, looks back at her time as a singer with The Surprises and The Ever Readies, who were regulars at the Fighting Cocks in Moseley.

“The film is about voices being heard,” says Deborah Aston. “We are often overlooked as a region because we are too close to London and too close to Manchester.

“This (documentary) doesn’t only give the big names but also some of the unsung heroes an opportunity to be heard and to recognise their work as influential and important.”

The three genres were chosen because of how much they were tied up with a sense of community and of identity and because of how they would bleed over into other musical styles. Reggae and bhangra had direct links to the city’s large immigrant population while punk was another form of cultural self expression, a rebellion against authority and the system.

“We could see the overlap between all three,” says Jez. “Reggae was very strong in the city in the early 70s because it was the way black people expressed themselves, through music, through blues parties.

“There was an overlap through Handsworth and Moseley with punks, who had the same idea about how they wanted to express themselves, how they wanted to change society. This in turn fed into bhangra, where you would have second and third generation Asians taking traditional folk music then hearing reggae through their neighbours walls and employing those sensibilities in their music.”

They deliberately avoided metal, the other sound the region is most famous for.

Jez says: “There was never really a crossover between metal and reggae, bhangra or punk.

“There was Rock against Racism that Steel Pulse and the Au Pairs were involved in. UB40 grew up among black friends and that influenced their music.

“There were these really interesting stories to be teased out. We have found footage that hasn’t been seen for years. We have managed to tell this story about how Birmingham is, culturally, quite an accepting city.”

The film also acknowledges some of the more iconic hotspots in the city’s musical history like Barbarella’s, The Nightingale, Odeon, The Locarno, Rebecca’s, International, The Hummingbird, The Rum Runner, The Powerhouse, Pagoda Park and Romulus, as well as The Fighting Cocks, which still thrives as a pub.

There are scenes of youngsters being coached into the city from Nottingham to be part of the musical zeitgeist.

A prim sounding presenter from local news, probably dressed from head to toe in Richard Shops’ finest, speaks to Maggie and Jane, the owners of what was then Birmingham’s only punk clothes shop.

“That shop is where Boy George used to hang out and where Duran Duran would have been influenced,” says Jez

The documentary also gives Deborah and Jez a platform to show news reports that might have been gathering dust since they were originally aired on local television. They offer a fascinating glimpse into a not so distant past that, given the massive advances in modern technology, seem oddly archaic – like the scenes in Rising Star Records where assistants carefully slide singles and LPs into their paper and cardboard sleeves.

“There’s a real upsurge of interest in the music documentary at the moment. Martin Scorsese made the Bob Dylan film and is now making one about George Harrison,” says Deborah.

“The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street – it seems there is a real theme of looking back and educating people today.

“There is a wealth of material that is perhaps unseen by generations. For me as a film maker, being able to repurpose those archive materials and bring them to a new generation, that’s where my interests lie.

“If you don’t know your past how can you move forward?”

Clips were sourced from regional, national and international film archives, including the Media Archive for Central England/MACE, ITV, Oom Gallery, and Artclips/Paris.

However, Jez reveals they were limited in what they could use because of finances and copyright laws. It is a real bug bear of mine,” he explains. “The BBC have tons of material sitting on their shelves that are bound up by copyright.

“We found six or seven regional programmes made in the city that would have been absolutely perfect for us, really early stuff with Steel Pulse, Dexys and UB40. We couldn’t use it because the clearance rights were too expensive. Then when we had paid the BBC we would have had to track down everybody in shot to get their acceptance.

“So copyright in that respect was a real barrier. There needs to be a sea change. What is the point of having all that material if it just sits there decaying?”

One thing that was also very evident was the influence of John Peel on all groups through his championing of new bands. His passing left a void that hasn’t been filled.

“I don’t think DJs are mixing and matching as much these days,” says Jez. “If you like one genre you can’t like another genre, so audiences don’t get exposed to different music.

“There is no local programming of local music apart from BBC WM which has ‘Introducing’, a showcase of new talent on Thursday nights. I think that is a real shame. It is left for individuals like Rhubarb Radio to do it. There is a guy called Brumcast (a podcast produced and presented by Chris Downing) who only plays unsigned music from the region. He gets people from Argentina, Brazil and America listening, so there is obviously an audience for it. By programming local music on radio again you start influencing the sounds coming out of a city.”

The documentary also celebrates the spontaneity of the music scene back in the 70s and 80s, where young musicians didn’t rely on gladiatorial find-a-star shows and being moulded for mass appeal by the likes of Simon Cowell.

“There was real ‘can do’ attitude that has been lost,” says Deborah. “Rankin’ Roger referred to just jumping up on stage and grabbing the mic.

“I think people want to be more polished now rather than have that ambition just to get up and if it sounds dirty then so be it.”

Interestingly Deborah credits growing up as a fan of punk as being good preparation her career as a director.

“I used to go to The Mermaid and see bands like GBH, Napalm Death, Anthrax. I didn’t care that they weren’t on a big stage, for me it was just about being there and having an amazing night.

“There was a great atmosphere in the venues, you could go in there by yourself and feel comfortable.

“I wouldn’t dream of that today but back then I loved it. As I moved into working in the media, which is a very male dominated environment, particularly in the technical crews, that kind of attitude I developed through punk music helped me.”

Deborah and Jez are hoping to show the documentary at film and documentary festivals and a 20 minute version was given to the mac for their opening exhibition.

“We are aiming high at the festivals then bring it back to Birmingham for some public screenings,” says Jez.

“This is not about us making money. We hope we have captured a period of time, not to romanticize it, but so younger generations can see it, learn from it and go off and do the same sort of thing.”

*Brumcast podcasts can be heard at Rhubarb Radio www.rhubarbradio.com and on the Birmingham Post Lifestyle Blog