Paperjam

The Aliens @ Birmingham Barfly

Gigs // Jim // 16th November 2006

Fucking hell, it’s gone a bit cold tonight. I meet Craig at the station and we head over to Brum, a happy journey involving easily the nicest ticket collector that either of us has ever encountered.

Fuck, it’s even colder in Birmingham. I slap my burglar hat on as we part company with a bloke who is carrying a Leica and seems to be off for a minor domestic.

Down to Digbeth and into The Kerry Man, home to a spectacular barmaid and some spectacularly fucked up old Irish blokes. Have a pint of Guiness and I very nearly manage to insult the pope by mistake. Hang on, one of the old boys is lurching over.
“Uurghh, Lads. (cough) Good lads, good fuckin’ lads. Not like all the others are ya? Uuurrgghhhhh (cough) Uurgghh. Cigarette. Good boys, not like all the other cunts. UUuurrrgghhh.(cough, gurgle) Good lads”.

Craig gives him a fag and he shuffles off, a testament to the preservative powers of alcohol. Hang about – The barmaid is strolling over, “Was he asking for money?” she enquires. “Nah, just wanted a fag”, I reply, displaying the sort of conversational verve and wit which has seen me attain a record that baseball pundits would describe as 0 for 183 with barmaids.

Next we have a quick pint in The Rainbow, where a band are setting up for what looks like it will be quite some gig. Craig goes for an extended laughing session with some bloke in the gents. Time to get to the gig.

Oh, now it’s just unbelievably cold as we get to the barfly. In and downstairs, there is hardly anyone here at all, we guess at about sixty/seventy at the most. “What would you like?”, says the bloke behind the bar. “What would you recommend?” I ask, attempting to inject some humour into proceedings. He shrugs, slightly amused and we get two pints of Carling.

Notice on the posters that Radio 4 are playing next week, clashing with Luke Haines at the Academy. Oh the agony of choice.
A bloke comes round to get us onto the mailing list in exchange for a badge. He is wearing a Pan-Am t-shirt like one that I’ve got – I compliment him on his style. He enthuses about how great The Aliens are going to be.

We’ve missed the support bands and The Aliens take to the stage much earlier than I was expecting, thankfully the place has filled up a touch but it is still fairly empty, which is both a shame and a bit of a surprise. Still, the small crowd that have made it are all grinning once The Aliens kick off. Jesus, this lot are really, really good. Don’t know what the first song is but it’s caused me to spill beer all down my t-shirt.

Now there’s a bit of debate going on as to whether they should bother doing the next song, because it is new and might not go that well. Fortunately this mini crisis of confidence is overcome and the track is ace.
I’ve been holding it for as long as I can but now I must go for a slash as Ionas (Look For Space) is being pounded out in a suitably space-rock manner. Meet the bloke in the Pan-Am t-shirt at the urinals. The album, he tells me, is going to be absolutely amazing. Get more beer and re-join Craig.

Cool, here goes Robot Man which gets better every time I hear it. It’s an exciting, disco affair, which fortunately doesn’t inspire the crowd to break out the Peter Crouch moves. However, the noise they make at the close of the song belies the meagre numbers in the Barfly. “They deserve so much better than this”, says Craig, at least the crowd are into it though and the band don’t seem too unhappy.

I’ve lost track of what’s being played, but as ver kids would no doubt say, it’s all good. The slightly barking Happy Song is belted out including whistling solo and we are all, well, happy.

Things draw to a close sooner than anyone would have liked and despite protestations there is no encore at all. Post gig analysis in a MOTD style reveals that:
- We can’t quite believe how good it was.
- There is a big streak of Beta Band running through things as you would expect especially in what my music teacher would have called the wyhthum thection.
- Not as much muso noodling as I was expecting.
- Not a single duff song in the whole set.

Afterwards the crowd are busy telling each other how great the whole thing was. Craig gets a vinyl copy of the Alienoid Starmonica EP and I buy a t-shirt that I already suspect isn’t going to fit my bulky frame.
Craig enquires about getting his record signed, the Pan-Am geezer says that the band aren’t coming out to talk to anyone, but he’ll see what he can sort out. Happily, front Alien, Gordon Anderson strolls out for a chat. He seems a bit hyper but definitely chuffed that everyone is telling him how great it was.

A couple offer him their children and some geezer complains that something should be released on twelve inch. Gordon is kind enough to listen while Craig and I gush about how great it was, he doesn’t even get annoyed when I tell him that he needs “to chill out a bit”. I can almost hear Craig’s eyes rolling behind me.

Gordon has a strap on his arm as he is carrying an injury. I say that I had something similar after a nasty masturbatory incident, oh dear, I’m more pissed than I thought, I’m probably about to say something really stupid. Lots of hand-shaking and then it is time to go.

Got a bit of time before the train so it’s back into The Kerry Man. On the way in there are a load of bouncers (some in nice tabards). The chief bouncer stops me to slag off my dodgy beard, which is fair enough I suppose. I retort by saying that he buys his ties in Primark, like me. He seems amused and doesn’t kill me or anything, which is handy.
Have a bit of a chat with the spectacular barmaid, who is most definitely not Irish. It’s all very nice, but she doesn’t want to go and see Radio 4 with me next week, “Thanks for asking though”.

Somewhere in the lower reaches of some huge cosmic scorebook of failure an entry magically changes to read:
Morton: Barmaids: 0 for 184.

At the station in plenty of time for the last train from Moor Street. We get on board, oh no – we are sat next to the two most annoying girls in the world – Time to move.

Bollocks, it is even more annoying here:
Him: “You know I deal with a two million pound budget”
Her: “I’ve got five men on the go, aren’t I amazing?”
And on and on and on and on and on.

Can we move again? No, the rest of the train smells of sick. Never has the phrase “From the sublime to the ridiculous” been more aptly applied to a night out.

HEADING

The Aliens Web Site

You can get to their MySpace page from here too, more tour dates this month.

Digbeth pubs

Some pictures of pubs in digbeth, including the Kerry Man