The Church Street Emporium Blog

From our Church Street Emporium

On Friday 3rd February we have ‘Red Bird Sky’ performing live for your little ears!  They will be performing a selection of their music acoustically from 7-9pm.  Below is a little bit of information to help you get to know the delightful duo!

Why do you think our lovely coffee shop will be a good venue for your gig?

Urban Coffee Co will be perfect for our gig with its relaxed, friendly, sophisticated ambience, plus the acoustics are really good!

Who would be the worst famous person to be stuck in a lift with?

The famous person we would least like to get stuck in a lift with would be Mr Motormouth himself – Jeremy Clarkson!

What is your favourite muffin flavour in the whole world?

Bernie’s favourite Muffin would be a traditional yummy Blueberry – while Mike goes for chocolate, double choc, triple choc or any higher multiplication of choc that you can cram into a single Muffin!

If you could only listen to one artist’s music for the rest of eternity who would it be?

Only one artist for the rest of a lifetime! Bernie would opt for the majesty of Nina Simone – whereas Mike’s caught up in the intimate, human portraits woven by the Americana singer-songwriter, Mary Gauthier.

What can our coffee fanatics expect from your gig?

Red Bird Sky will be bringing their own unique sound to the Urban Coffee Co on 3rd of February – a wonderful melding of words and music with Bernie’s gorgeous vocals, Mike’s sublime guitar playing and songs of real depth, substance and beauty!

Find out more at www.redbirdskymusic.com

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From our Church Street Emporium

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From our Church Street Emporium

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From our Church Street Emporium

We are almost ready for the the monthly treat that is Live Music Friday at Church St. And, so we decided to get to know Emily the very talented person who will be playing on Friday, a bit better.

So Emily:

Why do you think our lovely coffee  shop will be a good venue for your gig? It has a great vibe and initmate atmosphere. Really chilled out. 

Who would be the worst famous person to get stuck in a lift with? Jedward!!! Imagine it! 

What is your favourite flavour muffin in the whole wide world? You know what, the good ol’Blueberry Muffin :oD

Q: If you could only listen to one artist for the rest of your life who would it be? It has to be Queen because their music is timeless.

Q: What can our coffee fanatics expect  from your performance this evening? Just a girl and her keyboard playing original pop music written from the heart with of course a few covers thrown in, we all enjoy a cover or two.  

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From our Church Street Emporium

Guess what! It is only five days now until LiveMusicFriday. And, as we skip our way in to winter we have chosen one cool and sultry artist this month. November’s performer is sure to send chills down your spine.

Emily, an aspiring songwriter, has been writing her own songs for 5 years. She knows -and we are inclined to agree – that one day with a lot of hard work and determination she will get that publishing deal.  She writes her songs on keyboard, which she loves to do and can be found doing most of the time.

The press  has been enthusiastic too:

“Emily [is]…a very talented… melodic guitar riffs and mellow vocals, work really well together” says  Jason Haughton from The JamCow Music Magazine  and
“Wow just wow it literally stopped me in my tracks, genuine emotion in the lyrics and the acoustic sends shivers up my spine! – Jeremy Szygowska (KIC FM Radio)

So our little LiveMusicFriday lovers we really are in for a treat this month aren’t we.

Fore more info on Emily check out her website or listen to more of her music from her youtube page.

What’s more check out the blog later in the week for our Q&A with Emily about why she is looking forward to playing at Urban Coffee.

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From our Church Street Emporium

October’s book was the delightfully fantastical Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, a perfect choice considering how close the meeting was to Halloween!  Underneath the city of London is a whole new world, London Below.  When an act of kindness plunges the unsuspecting Richard Mayhew into London Below he is plunged into a new world and a new role – companion to Lady Door who is on a mission to find out what happened to her family.  Along the way Door, Richard and their fellow travellers visit the Old Bailey, the Earl of Earls Court and the Angel Islington in search of answers.  London tubes stations will never look the same again!

Most of the group aren’t keen on fantasy books and having read one earlier in the year many of us expected to dislike the book, but were pleasantly surprised!  Everyone found the book easy to read but at times its lightheartedness was a little disappointing and everyone felt the ending could’ve been stronger, but felt like it was being set up for a sequel.  The character relationships were strong, really holding the adventure tale together and the book had a strong feeling of being made for TV (which is was originally).  But even with the flaws everyone finished the book (surely a first) and most thoroughly enjoyed it.

November’s book will be the dystopian novel Delirium by Lauren Oliver (which is available from all good bookshops and at the library).  We are meeting to discuss it at the Church St branch on Thursday 24th November at 6pm.  Please join us – even if you don’t manage to finish the book!

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From our Church Street Emporium

Sixteen year old musician Bradley Simpson is kicking off the long awaited return of Urban Coffee Company’s Live Fridays tonight and its set to be a cracking evening of soulful sounds, coffee cocktails and maybe even a little drunken dancing. The local singer/songwriter, who will be strutting his stuff at our flagship emporium on Church Street, popped in to Urban for a natter this morning ahead of his stripped down acoustic set this evening.

Q: Why do you think our lovely coffee shop will be a good venue for your gig?

A: It’s a wicked location and a really cool vibe! I’ve been wanting to play their for a while and I’m proper looking forward to tonight, should be a really stripped down, acoustic gig!

Q: Who would be the worst famous person to get stuck in a lift with?

A: It’d have to be David Cameron as I would rather shoot myself than be stuck with him in a lift! (Controversial!)

Q: What is your favourite flavour muffin in the whole wide world?

A: Without a doubt it has to be the classic Blueberry, its just so great!

Q: If you could only listen to one artist for the rest of your life who would it be?

A: I’m really into a guy called Benjamin Francis Leftwich at the moment, but if it was for the rest of my life hmm, it’s tough but maybe Arctic Monkeys or The Kooks, it’d have to be between those two.

Q: What can our coffee fanatics expect from your performance this evening?

A: A load of covers and a load of my own stuff! Hopefully a performance that will be a crowd pleaser and make them want to check out my stuff online.

Sounds interesting? Head down to Church Street at 7pm this Friday to get your rocks on with the Urban gang.

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From our Church Street Emporium

This Sunday we are very pleased to present the first Jazz @ Church Street event, and are very fortunate to be able to showcase the trombone player Tom Dunnett and his trio.

Jazz is a musical tradition that developed in America & soon spread to the rest of the world through the 20^th Century. It is the opinion of many academics and practitioners that it is the only musical form that can be attributed to the USA alone.

Some truly luminary artists and thinkers have risen to prominence through the jazz movement and over the coming months we plan to not only showcase the work of local musicians, but to also point you in the direction of landmark works that will guide our way through the journey that jazz has taken in the past century or so.

Tom Dunnett:

Tom is now in his 3rd year on the jazz course, studying trombone at the Birmingham Conservatoire. He’s had some great opportunities to make music since his move to Birmingham and has played in all sorts of groups from big band to quartet. This latest creation, a drum-less trio, features two friends from college. Doug Mcmillan is also in his 3rd year, studying jazz guitar and is a member of the latest winning band at the Cork “Jazz Futures” competition. Hamish Livingstone completed his bass studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire last year and now plays with a many ensembles around Birmingham. He was also a member of the winning band at Cork.

Further Gigs: 

Hamish can be seen on the 25th at the Spotted Dog Pub in Digbeth with the Jim Wynn nonet playing the music of Miles Davis.
He can also be seen at the Old Joint Stock Pub on the 26th with the Gareth Fowler trio.

Tom can be seen on the 10th October at the Edgbaston Tap Pub with his quintet.

Cheers,

Si. (Flat White no Sugar) 

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From our Church Street Emporium

After a break of a month,Live music Fridays are back starting next week on Friday the 7^th.

And we couldn’t be more excited. What better way to start off the weekend than with a Purity beer or one of our fantastic Cofftails listening to great local music in the glimmer of candle light.

Playing for us in October we will have two very special sets. Starting with Bradley Will Simpson, an up and coming 16 year old singer/songwriter. His influences range from The Kooks to Paulo Nutini and Jamiroquai to Foo Fighters, his set is an ear pleasing variety of his own material mixed with crowd pleasing covers. He has played many great venues around Birmingham including HMV Institute, 02 Academy and The Rainbow and supported a number of acts such as Kate McGill, Cosmo Jarvis and Mike Dignam.

Bradley will be followed by Birmingham based Avalande; the collaborative project of lyricist Rosie Wilkes and guitarist Anthony Williams who began writing together about a year ago. Creating imaginative songs with close harmonies and hazy lyrics, determined very much by their surroundings and encounters. Avalande’s songs lie somewhere between acoustic folk, rock and pop, inspired by names such as; Belle and Sebastian, Nick Drake, Massive Attack, PJ Harvey, Ryan Adams, The Smiths, and Tori Amos.

So hope to see you here on the 7th!

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From our Church Street Emporium

If you’ve seen Fox Elipsus’ tour dates you’ll know what we mean when we say he is a busy man and somewhat of an institution in coffee shops and bars around the world.

Fox, who now lives in New York, was born in Oxford, is partly Persian, mostly English, and a little Irish too. He speaks a few languages and has been to a lot, and we mean a lot, of countries, with his aim to play a gig in every country in the world playing the music he makes.

Fox has just finished a huge tour of the USA and is starting a mammoth tour of Europe. He will be playing live at our Church St Emporium on Sunday the 25 of September (that’s right, this Sunday!) Like all his shows it’s FREE and all shows are family friendly, but also extremely comical and entertaining. Please invite all of your friends, and please don’t be shy because as he says “My only impression of your city is the reception you give me when I come and sing for you, so if you enjoy the show, please be loud and supportive! “I play every single show FOR FREE and all petrol money, food, and shelter is provided by my fans, through generosity, donations, and CD sales. I often go hungry and sometimes sleep in my car”.

Now we can’t have that can we Birmingham?! So come down to Church St on Sunday and let’s do our city proud.

Check out his website  or watch the documentary below for more infomation.

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