We were delighted to have hosted the Birmingham leg of Eventbrite’s Generation DIY earlier this week, where they unveiled a mini-documentary about the city and held a panel talk.

In a new, five-part series of short films, Eventbrite travelled up and down the UK in search of the disruptors, pioneers and creators putting on extraordinary events in Birmingham, London, Bristol, Glasgow and Manchester.

Generation DIY is a celebration of the young event creators that are tearing up the rulebook. It’s a celebration of the pervasive DIY spirit amongst today’s promoters.

Watch the full documentary below…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brgnteWKneI

We’re delighted to announce that we will be welcoming Philadelphian rock band NOTHING to Hare & Hounds on Monday 10th of December!

NOTHING return with their third installment, Dance On The Blacktop. The next chapter of NOTHING’s story pulls from all corners of life in its contents. Stories of self loathing, self destruction, and a general disdain for humanity and its, “insignificant” role in Domenic Palermo’s vision of the universe are met with his poised amusement and tranquil hysteria being one himself. All of this told through the eyes of a recently diagnosed Palermo suggesting he is dealing with the early stages of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), a neurodegenerative disease found in people with serious head injuries. And as they packed themselves in a coffin-sized NYC apartment for 23 days to demo songs it became clear that the ripple effect left upon his psyche from dealing with these newfound symptoms would leave its mark on the material.

NOTHING sought out celebrated producer John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr, Breeders, Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile) to help accentuate the band’s love for all sounds 90s, from rock to shoegaze to pop realms and on both sides of the pond. The next month was spent tracking at the historical Dreamland Studios in Woodstock, NY with newly appointed bassist Aaron Heard. As days moved by, Palermo spewed songs of heightened confusion, anxiety, paranoia, depression, and chronic battles with physical pain- a result of his unstable past and more recent illness. These themes, spoken in a lush angelic language are juxtaposed against the band’s now signature apocalyptic, reverberating wall of shimmering sound, all captured beautifully by Agnello and the open room.

“Zero Day”, the album’s lead single, debuted today via Stereogum who caught up with the band to discuss the making of the album, its themes, concepts and more for their most recent Cover Story. Palermo further explains “Zero Day refers to the amount of difficulty a person faces when attempting to close the door on all sense, meaning, or value when thinking on our existence is hard to put in words, but to me it has always been the latter. I’ve laid awake countless nights contemplating human life, its hostile uselessness, and why I’m one of the few who choose to see it that way yet manage to move onward. So I suppose in that sense Zero Day is a song of paradoxical enlightenment”.

Palermo first discovered Dance On The Blacktop’s title, taken from ancient prison slang meaning a fight or hit during outside recreation, in the works of urban fiction writers Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim. Known for their popularity throughout the prison system, Palermo became acquainted while he was incarcerated, later finding it to be a symbolic interpretation of the album’s philosophy. “I’ve learned to bask in the absurdity of it all- in the chaos,” preaches Palermo. “There’s beauty in the confusion if you can learn to hold its hand.”

The story of NOTHING began in 2010 with a simple demo tape in a Philadelphia apartment. The project, which started as a therapeutic outlet solely for Palermo, snowballed into a polished machine with a chance meeting with guitarist/singer Brandon Setta and the eventual addition of Kyle Kimball on drums. Sharing a musical bond, the trio weaved melancholic tales of imprisonment, broken bonds and lost youth as the centerpiece for their 2014 debut, Guilty Of Everything. The world post Guilty served as the focus for the entirety of 2016’s Tired Of Tomorrow – painting a Schopenhauerian tragedy in vivid color and sound.

While sticking to the sound that has now become their own, you can still hear the band testing their boundaries and creating a plethora of genre-bending, yet widely accessible songs. As a band, NOTHING manage to muster a smile in the face of the illogical, and there is no denying that Dance On The Blacktop is a brave walk into the absurdity.

Dance On The Blacktop will be released on Relapse Records August 24th. There will be a limited run of a 2xLP, deluxe version. The core album will be on LP1, pressed on tri-colored vinyl with an exclusive second 12″ picture disc featuring 4 bonus tracks. The album includes artwork directed by Mark Mccoy (Youth Attack Records, Charles Bronson), Domenic Palermo and shot by Ryan Lowry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJhkZo5OCHE

Tickets are on sale now and can be picked up here.

We’re delighted to announce that we will be welcoming one of house music’s most important founding fathers, Marshall Jefferson, on Friday 31st August!

A key player in the Chicago house scene from the start, Jefferson’s releases like ‘Open Our Eyes’, ‘7 Ways to Jack’ and the immortal ‘Move Your Body’ had an undeniable impact on the development of house music as we know it today. Jefferson’s releases on the iconic TRAX Records helped establish the label as one of Chicago’s best, and he has continued to put out some of the most widely-acclaimed music in house music history.

Over the years, Marshall has had a hand in house music’s evolution, spearheading the acid house movement with his work on the seminal ‘Acid Trax’ with DJ Pierre in 1987. He also turned his hand to deep house, most notably on ‘Open Our Eyes’, released in 1988 on Big Beat, which connected emotionally and physically with listeners.

As well as growing the genre in his hometown, Marshall Jefferson was integral to house music’s growth worldwide. The DJ headline the first House Music Tour of Europe in 1987. After a brief hiatus in the early 1990s, Marshall began his legendary five-year residency with the Tribal Gathering and Big Love Events in London, during which time he released his 1997 studio album Day Of The Onion, which is considered one of the best house full-lengths of all time.

Today, Marshall Jefferson continues to release original productions and extended mixes, alongside his standout DJ shows around the globe. House music truly wouldn’t be the same without him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cuTVGoi9ec&t=136s

Tickets are on sale now from just £12.50, grab yours here.

We can’t wait for Kings Heath Dining Club to return to Highbury Hall this Sunday!

We’ll be bringing a wide range of food traders, including local favourites Original Patty Men, Low N Slow, Buddha Belly, Homeboys, Chef Shack and many more.

Furthermore, live music from The Original Players, The Equators, Aprhodite Strings as well as award-winning comedy, Digbeth Arts Markets, retro gaming and wellness therapies means that the day is more than just food, and will create a unique festival feel in a location of unparalleled beauty.

With temperatures set to be in the high 20s, you definitely don’t want to miss out on this day of amazing food, drinks and entertainment!

We’re pleased to announce that This Is Tmrw will welcome indie band Mutual Benefit back to Birmingham on Thursday 1st of November 2018.

The project of singer/multi-instrumentalist Jordan Lee, Mutual Benefit blends folk, psychedelic pop, and experimental recording techniques into fragile, hopeful songs that evoke the work of Sufjan Stevens, Animal Collective, and the Microphones. Lee grew up in Columbus, Ohio and began writing songs inspired by the likes of Elliott Smith while still in high school. After graduation, Lee moved to Texas and took his music in a more experimental direction, incorporating field recordings and found sounds into his songs. While in Texas, he began writing and recording as Mutual Benefit, but began working on the project in earnest once he moved to Boston to play with an old friend who had attended the Berklee School of Music. Mutual Benefit’s first release, 2009’s Figure in Black, was originally issued on cassette before Lee put it up on Bandcamp. Lee issued two Mutual Benefit EPs in 2010: Drifting, which was one of the first releases on Lee’s own Kassette Klub label, and Spider Heaven. Lee had a busy 2011, collaborating with Holy Spirits on the Mutual Spirits split single and delivering two more EPs, I Saw the Sea and The Cowboy’s Prayer.

Love’s Crushing Diamond Late that year, he began putting together years’ worth of audio he recorded in Austin, Boston, and St. Louis, Missouri into what would become Mutual Benefit’s debut album, Love’s Crushing Diamond. A set of songs responding to the hard times many of his friends were experiencing, the album was originally released in October 2013 by Soft Eyes, a Brooklyn-based micro-label that issued the album as a limited-edition LP. A wider release came at the end of the year courtesy of Other Music Recording Company, and in 2014 a remastered, physical version of The Cowboy’s Prayer was scheduled to arrive. While touring behind his debut album, Lee began to write his follow-up effort, eventually completing the process and the recording after settling in New York City. He released Skip a Sinking Stone with Mom + Pop Music in the spring of 2016, and is currently putting the finishing touches to a new Mutual Benefit album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlQlokP7IjQ

Tickets go on sale Friday 29th June and can be picked up here.

We’re pleased to announce that The MJR Group will be welcoming Swiss folk-metal three piece Cellar Darling to Hare & Hounds on Sunday 24th March 2019!

Cellar Darling formed in the summer of 2016 out of the split of Switzerland’s most successful metal act to date, the chart-topping Eluveitie. The trio consisting of Anna Murphy (vocals, hurdy-gurdy), Merlin Sutter (drums) and Ivo Henzi (guitars & bass) therefore already looks back on a decade of touring the world, in 45+ countries on 6 continents. The winners of the 2014 Swiss Music Award as ‘best live act’ have experienced much together, forming a bond that can overcome any adversity.

After the split with their former band in June 2016, Anna, Ivo and Merlin quickly realised their musical journey was far from over and instantly began working on their own songs. What quickly developed was a unique and fresh combination of grand and heavy riffs, powerful drumming and a unique voice, with the signature folky, earthy tones of the hurdy gurdy, confidently fusing heavy alternative rock with strong fokly influences and poetic lyrical tales, creating what you may very well call a New Wave Of Folk Rock.

After a summer of intense songwriting sessions, Cellar Darling self-released their first single, ‘Challenge’ along with a bonus track ‘Fire, Wind & Earth’, in September 2016, to overwhelmingly positive reactions from around the world. Signing to Nuclear Blast Records in January 2017 was swiftly followed by 3 subsequent single releases, all met with a staggering support from the ever growing fanbase. Cellar Darling’s debut album ‘This Is The Sound’ was released on June 30th 2017.

Lyrically, Cellar Darling are storytellers. They want to carry you away into their world of music, awaking the spirit of the stories our parents told us before going to sleep, painting pictures with melodies, metaphors and poetry. Melodize the adventures of the human spirit, with all its mysteries and emotions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWMiBj0yDJg

Tickets go on sale Friday 29th July at 10AM and can be picked up here.

We’re pleased to announce that This Is Tmrw & Leftfoot will be welcoming cosmic space funk band Mildlife to Hare & Hounds on Wednesday 12th of September!

Mildlife take the musical canvas, rip the lids off the paint tins, and throw vibrant slashes of colour into kaleidoscopic jams. Old friends, the four-piece bonded over the desire to push musical boundaries, developing tight live shows bolstered by wild improvisation and a debut record that mines jazz, psych and disco for its irresistible groove.

Taking cues from pioneers Can and Herbie Hancock, creating a Mildlife song is a constant process of teasing and tugging, expanding and refining. Occasionally, they start with an individual idea, but most often, they come from moments of spontaneity, jamming together in the studio to find the seed of a strong notion, plucking it out of the session, and nurturing it to see where it grows. Some of those seeds were planted as far back as the beginning of the band, forgotten and rediscovered in the process of defining this album.

But Mildlife are adamantly not a studio band. Between 2014 and 2015 they took a year off playing shows to figure out how they could produce as much of their music live as they possibly could without losing its complexity. “It makes the performance, the composition, more malleable,” says guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Adam Halliwell. Bassist Tom Shanahan adds “It feels more authentic. The energy can be in the song rather than sitting on top of it. We wanted to leave a lot of room for improvisation.”

It’s that energy and excitement for the live show that drives the band. With their background in improvisation, those stories change in the retelling. Bringing the songs alive on stage is a process of transformation, the audience moulding the songs, the songs moulding the audience. Sharing bills with the likes of Krakatau and Harvey Sutherland,these beguiling sets have developed a reputation for drawing crowds through an epic journey. But this isn’t just music for the head -their emphasis on rhythm, led by Shanahan and drummer James Donaldworks its way into the bones, Mildlife casting themselves as the cosmic funk house band for a party at the edge of the universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB5FS6c7218

Tickets are on sale now for just £8 and can be picked up here.

Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) and Hare & Hounds presents SOMEWHERE OVER THE GALAXY by Grandmaster Gareth with Robin Hood Academy, All Saints Youth Group, The Springfield Project and The Ashiana Community Project.

Grandmaster Gareth and his sound explorers have sampled sounds from all corners of the Hall Green District. This performance features members of Misty’s Big Adventure and includes sounds featuring strange strings, homemade instruments, field recordings, local butchers and Pakistani Fairy Tales.

Click here to book tickets.

We’re pleased to announce that This Is Tmrw will be welcoming Art School Girlfriend to Hare & Hounds on Sunday the 7th of October!

Earning sonic comparisons to the ethereal, reverb-laden style of acts such as Daughter and the xx, Art School Girlfriend is an atmospheric electronic project from musician and singer/songwriter Polly Mackey. Hailing from Wrexham, North Wales, Mackey developed a taste for the work of artists like PJ Harvey and the Jesus & Mary Chain, as well as various new wave and shoegaze acts. After dabbling in a number of bands, she relocated to London where she lived for five years before settling in Margate, Kent. There she began writing her own songs — inspired by her own experiences as well as the written works of Virginia Woolf and Milan Kundera — and began listening to more electronic music from artists like John Maus and Caribou. Opting for the moniker “Art School Girlfriend,” her songs caught the attention of Grammy Award-winning producer Paul Epworth (Florence + the Machine, Adele) and she signed with his label, Wolf Tone Records, in 2017. Her debut EP, Measures, followed later that year and Mackey promoted the release with live performances around the U.K. in 2018.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnPG2uqljPs

Tickets go on sale this Wednesday at 10AM and can be picked up here.

Next Saturday night, This Is Tmrw welcome the legendary Mancunian band A Certain Ratio to Hare & Hounds.

A Certain Ratio are an English post-punk band formed in 1977 in Wythenshawe, Manchester. While originally part of the punk rock movement, they soon added funk and dance elements to their sound. Their name is taken from the lyrics of Brian Eno’s song ‘The True Wheel’ from the 1974 album ‘Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)’. The group’s longest-serving original members are Martin Moscrop (born 24 September 1960) (guitar, trumpet) and Jez Kerr (bass, vocals). Another current member, Donald Johnson (drums, vocals, bass), joined after the first drummerless single.

A Certain Ratio’s first recording contract was with Factory Records in 1979. They released ‘The Graveyard and the Ballroom’ only on cassette in 1980. Another experimental album, ‘To Each…’, released in 1981, was the band’s official debut LP. With growing popularity and success, the band signed with A&M Records in 1987, and ‘Good Together’ was released in 1989. The album failed to produce a hit, leading to the band’s departure from the label. In the early 1990s, they signed with Rob’s Records, owned by New Order manager Rob Gretton.

A Certain Ratio were managed by Tony Wilson. They are featured in the film ’24 Hour Party People’ where Wilson (played by Steve Coogan) describes them as “having all the energy of Joy Division but better clothes.” Martin Moscrop was Musical Supervisor of ’24 Hour Party People’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsJ_54WyZ48

You can pick up one of the last 10 tickets here now.