Sad news reaches Purple Amp Towers – the Basement Bar is to close this month. Over to Basement supremo Aimee:

“It is with a heavy hearts filled to bursting with 12 whole months of fun that we must announce that The Basement will soon be shutting its doors for good. Sad faces all round, we know.

‘The Man’ has loved having us rent his unused, unwanted basement for ramshackle, packed out, rowdy, rowdy funtimes so much that when it came to renewing our lease he has more than tripled the yearly rent, to which we cannot rise. (Maybe they can turn it into another Subway?)”

This quite frankly sucks, but also fills me with a slight guilt of not having been down there in quite some time. The Basement was not only an Oxjam venue last year, it also served as the HQ for the day and Aimee and co were incredibly hospitable hosts all the way through – especially with the Sambucas. HONK!

Still, there’s plenty more chances to enjoy the place for the next week or so with what’s basically a party-a-night philosophy. Well, if you’re gonna out, go out in style!

Check out their Facebook group for the full line-up.

Right, back to Birmingham!

Plans for Oxjam Brum 2010 are well underway and the preview events have begun. Yesterday I stopped by the one and only Urban Coffee Company for an evening of music and arts, supported by Oxjam Brum, INKwell Print, GotSeeN and Mostly Jazz Festival.

Live acoustic sets in a coffee shop can work really well and Urban Coffee is an ideal location. Couple that with the perfect start time, 5pm on a Friday, and you have the ingredients for a great evening.

Unfortunately it was way too hot inside, even with Urban Coffee’s fabulous new coffee ice-cream, chilled Pimms and Cofftails on offer! There was also limited seating upstairs, so I only stuck around long enough to hear Alex Moir.

You don’t expect such powerful gravelly tones from one so young and the songwriting shows real potential too. It’s definitely worth your time checking out his MySpace.

Despite having to leave, it wasn’t the end of the evening for me. The Oxjam team covered the event online with live streaming, regular tweets and photos hitting the interwebs all evening. So the remaining acts Eliza Little, Marlem and Tom Peel weren’t complete strangers to me! Good job, folks.

I hope this is something both Oxjam and Urban Coffee look to continue, but perhaps ordering slightly cooler weather next time?

So tonight I went out for a few drinks and a good ole catch up with a couple of good friends from the Oxjam Brum crew. Hurrah! We took in Island Bar, a random Chinese restaurant and headed home via a quick stop-off at the Sunflower Lounge.

The theme for today has been memories, and the Sunflower always provides those. I walked in to Time for Heroes by the Libertines, and the tunes kept on coming. Then we bumped into Josh from Tantrums, which brought back lots of Oxjam Brum memories from October! For the uninitiated, I was part of the Oxjam Brum team last year at which Tantrums headlined along with Dinosaur Pile-Up.

Tantrums are supporting CasioKids on 27th May at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath – I suggest all those reading this should buy a ticket NOW as it’s just a fiver – an absolute steal for two awesome bands. See you there

Anyway here’s a kick-ass song from Tantrums (great song, not so sure about the fan video!):