The Black Seeds are on the road promoting their new album Solid Ground, and they’re playing the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath tomorrow night (1st November). Unfortunately I’m out of town for the weekend…

Pianist and producer Mark de Clive-Lowe has been London-based for a while now but he’s soon to be setting up in LA. One of his last UK engagements is as musical director for 8sixteen32, a show put on at the Birmingham Rep by the Decypher Collective, a bunch of local grime MCs who come together to perform ‘grime theatre’… it sounds pretty unique.

A week later, Whakatane‘s most famous sons Kora are play Barfly in Digbeth on the 13th of November. Apparently they were awesome when they played Brum last year, so this is the gig I’m hoping to get along to.

And if all that weren’t enough, Fat Freddys Drop arrive in town the following night to play the Academy. I saw them in London back in April in front of a 95% kiwi crowd, they were awesome as usual. It was almost like being at the Grey Lynn Festival, except it was indoors, at night, and you could only get Carlsberg at the bar.

(The video above is a Fat Freddy’s performance in France on Canal+, at the start it’s funny to hear the crowd clapping on the 1 and 3 rather than the 2 and 4.)