The keen-eyed amongst you will notice that the photograph above shows ‘the Dubliner’ however, in a past life this bar in Digbeth was known as The Barrel Organ and was a flourishing indie/alternative gig venue and drinking hole during the 1980s and early 1990s.

My introduction to the Barrel Organ came around 1986 when I’d just joined a local new wave band named Voice of Dissent and the other guys in the band took me to their favourite haunt for a drink. I was only 16 at the time and it was as much an eye-opener as a visit to Zig Zags some months previously! Upon entering through the door seen to the right of the above photograph, the room was L-shaped with the main drinking area immediately in front of you and to the left, a long ‘room’ with a stage at one end: the bar was also L-shaped and served both areas of the pub.

As a relatively inexperienced pub/club goer at the time I was rather overawed by the gothic and punk clientele drinking there and, silly as it sounds, a bit scared. Several months later I had joined another band called Lost Cause and my first gig with them was to be the Barrel Organ and I recall our rather jangly guitar indie didn’t go down that well with the Barrel Organ faithful but they applauded politely at appropriate pauses in the set!

It wasn’t really until I started working at Edwards Number 8 a year or so later that the Barrel Organ was added to my Brum drinking circuit. The licensee Steve Treanor and his oppo Cal (not sure of Cal’s title . . . if indeed he had one!) were frequent visitors to Eddie’s and I got to know them quite well and would pop in to the Barrel Organ from time to time and really tuned in to the place. At the time it was the epicentre of the gothic scene with a fair punk contingent who were, despite my initial juvenile misgivings, a fantastic crowd.

Regulars of the time may also remember the doormen who worked for Joe Estridge (such as Martin) and doorman come jack of all trades Fergie. The Barrel hosted many gigs too and most week nights a band could be caught there (Written in Yellow being on a lot as I recall) and had their resident sound engineer(s) Colin and Willie (Colin being a rather irascible character who wasn’t an ‘instant hit’ but rather grew on me over time as I got to know him and the desire to wrap everything I could lay my hands on around his head abated). As Steve’s long-left the pub it’s safe to say that the hours of the Barrel Organ were somewhat ‘flexible’ and I used to go there after finishing work at the Institute night club just over the road about 2.30 in the morning and drink there until 5 – 6am with Cal, Fergie and whoever else was around!

I’m not 100% certain as to when the Barrel Organ opened or closed: it seemed an ever-present on the Birmingham gig circuit and alternative scene and then one day I was driving past and it had become the Dubliner. I did bump into Steve Treanor mid-1990s who at that time had a backstreet pub in Newtown that was an absolute hoot and I seem to recall him running the Ship Ashore/Outrigger at some point too but don’t know his current whereabouts: I also ended up working with Cal’s mom and my mom worked with Steve’s sister for a while (funny old world!). If anyone wishes to share their memories of the Barrel please feel free to do so using the form below.

“That’s the place I wanna go” chirped the television advertising campaign in August 1990 for the grand opening of the Institute night club in Digbeth following a complete refurb of the Digbeth Institute building.

Originally built as an educational annexe to the nearby Carr’s Lane Congregational Church in 1908 the building had long-since passed its sell-by date as a religious institution by the time plans were mooted for its conversion into a night club. During the 1970s and 80s the Institute had seen use hosting wrestling matches and various other gatherings under the then-ownership of Birmingham City Council who saw it as a community resource and Civic Centre but under-investment had seen the building largely falling into disuse during the late 1980s.

My involvement with the club started around March 1990 following my departure from Edwards No8 night club when I spotted an ad looking for door staff at a new club opening later in the year. I attended an interview and had a tour of the work in progress refitting the interior of the vast building and was quite impressed – fortunately, so was the interviewer as they contacted me shortly afterwards to offer me a job!.

My memory serves me rather poorly regarding the opening of the club however I recall that prior to opening Richard Branson was touted as one of the business partners involved in the venture but as the opening night approached he’d dropped out and the club was to be operated under Chris Deith and a music publisher whose name escapes me. Chris Deith, the head doorman (another Chris), the manager Peter Marks and four door staff all arrived en masse from a club in which they worked in Wakefield with a firm idea of how to operate a club in Birmingham . . . an idea that was soon somewhat challenged.

The club itself was quite an achievement following a multi-million pound refit. It primarily consisted of two ‘clubs’: the Dance Factory at the ground floor, largely accessed from an entrance on Milk Street, and the main ‘venue’ on the first floor. The Dance Factory was fitted-out in an industrial style following the approach taken by the Hacienda in Manchester with metal catwalks surrounding the room and everything painted in grey with black and yellow hazard sriped painted everywhere. There was a small semi-circular bar at one end of the room and a restaurant at the other that originally had a Russian theme for some reason. The main venue room upstairs was a Mecca ballroom type of affair dominated by a dance floor with a stage at one end, A balcony around three sides of the room with two bars on the lower level and two bars on the upper level. The lighting rig in particular was outstanding and cost a fortune and featured lasers among its armoury and could be moved up and down and angled in many configurations from the lighting control desk that was positioned on the balcony. Such was the complexity of the rig that the club had its own lighting director, Kay Bottomley, who operated the huge system!

On the first floor too was a jazz bar called Take Five that featured live jazz from Andy Hamilton and also hosted karaoke nights. On the upper level of the club was also a private function room called the Celebration Suite and at the very top of the club was a small glass-fronted bar overlooking the main venue that functioned as a VIP bar. I’m not particularly easily impressed but having a tour of the club prior to opening was quite an exciting experience as it was vast and very expensively equipped.

Unfortunately, the club really failed to live up to expectations in a big way. The opening night was busy and various notaries of the Birmingham club scene, including my ‘old friends’ from Ansell’s Leisure, descended on the club along with a throng of punters to check out the new venue. However, my abiding memory was more of a gang of chaps trying to get into the club after being refused and forcing the front doors so hard that they caved in and we ended up with a line of Police on the door! This rather took the Wakefield contingent by surprise and they said they’d never seen anything like it. For those of us on the door from Brum, we knew they were in for many such occasions in Birmingham and this was certainly borne-out.

For a number of reasons, the club rather failed to hit the spot with Birmingham club goers – possibly its geographic locations away from the burgeoning night club and bar scene around John Bright Street and that emerging on Broad Street – and it really struggled to gain customers. In my opinion the management desperately tried to address the lack of customers by running lots of different ‘theme’ nights that drew-in totally the wrong kind of customers and in the process dragging the club down from its original concept as a ‘high class’ club to a rather violent gang-oriented club in a matter of months. During this process one night a huge gang fight broke out in the main venue room and such was the level of violence (and it was bad) the Wakefield contingent of the door staff refused to work there again!

This is not to say that we didn’t have some fun there and that there weren’t good nights. Many top acts played there (and always drew in a good crowd) and a good student night was run along with various other ‘indie’ nights organised by Brum promoter (and, a rarity in clubland, a top bloke) Dave Travis. Primal Scream, Paul Weller, Ride, the Soup Dragons etc all played there and big name bands playing at the NEC had their after show parties there too. I worked the door of the private function room for an INXS party and I recall some shenanigans during a Happy Mondays visit at the time too.

Sadly, with rapidly dwindling customers (and staff numbers) the club went into administration some 8-10 months after opening and new owners were being sought. By that time, I had refused to work all but the week day gig and indie nights and was working elsewhere on a weekend and felt my time to move-on had come. Shortly after I departed Andy Taylor of Duran Duran fame purchased the club and a new team of door staff came in along with new management and the club moved more into an all-night rave venue and, judging from some of the tales I heard from the door staff, I was lucky to escape when I did.

Since then the club has rather garnered a niche dance audience and gone through various ownerships and names (God’s Kitchen etc). In my opinion the lesson to be learnt from the period with which I was associated with the club is never assume that if you own a small, successful club in another town that you can come to Birmingham and repeat the process: it’s a whole different kettle of fish.

As I’m sure those who were there would recall, back in the mid-late 1980’s Birmingham had a burgeoning live music scene with many long-demised venues serving all manner of musical tastes with the plethora of live bands on the circuit at that time. Whilst the Railway in Curzon Street, the Barrel Organ in Digbeth and Edward’s Number 8 in John Bright Street are frequently cited and recalled as prime examples of the local gig ‘industry’ back in the day, one venue appears to have slipped from the radar; Mega’s Wine Bar on Old Square.

Whilst the name conjures-up images of trendy lounge lizards and laid-back jazz piano, Mega’s Wine Bar actually served-up a stream of local – and some not-so-local – indie, rock and alternative bands and was certainly a thriving gig venue on the circuit and was located above Mega-Active which, if memory serves me correctly, was a kind of indoor ’boutique’ market – that was located in the centre of the building seen above at the Junction with Corporation Street (to the right) and Old Square.

Gunlaw at Mega's Wine Bar (courtesy: Ken Worthing)

You entered Mega’s Wine Bar via a flight of stairs with the venue itself being a long narrow room. From the front of the room (imagine standing in it with your back to the windows fronting onto Old Square) there was a square-shaped seating area with tables occupying the front third of the venue and then the bar began on the left-hand side running parallel to a slightly raised seating area surrounded by a medium height wall/railing. As you walked along with the bar on your left the raised seating area ended just before a corridor at the end of the room to the toilets and in that little corner between the raised seating area and the walkway to the toilets was ‘the stage’. Not that it had a stage as such, just a corner clear of furniture!

The word ‘intimate’ is often overused when recounting gig venues of yesteryear but in the case of Mega’s Wine Bar it’s never been more apt! The place was small, very small, and an old friend (once of local bands Voice of Dissent and The Reason Is) contacted me recently who had played there, and who had seen some of my gigs there, and reminded me that at the end of the raised seating area – ie: immediately in front of the band onto the ’stage’ – was a gap in the walling through which audience members would walk to get to the toilets. Thus, numerous times throughout a gig the guitarist or frontman would have to stand aside (nearly always mid-tune) as someone squeezed past to get to the loo – or for their return journey: such was the unique nature of this arrangement that ironic applause for an inbound/outbound toilet seeker would often break out during their return and/or departure!

Unfortunately information is nigh-on impossible to come by as to when Mega’s Wine Bar was operational. I played there 1986/7 and am aware of bands playing there in 1988 but beyond that – and indeed before that – I would assume that it functioned merely as a wine bar: if anyone can tell me any different I’ll be pleased to revise this entry.

Some of the bands I recall from there were This Year, Sleepwalk, Mighty Mighty and the splendidly named Jesus Christ and the Six Disciples (of whom only one arrived for the gig with a drum machine that broke-down mid-way through the set!). Ken Worthing, guitarist with Gunlaw (www.kenworthing.co.uk) , kindly allowed me to use the poster above from a gig they played there back in the late 80’s which attests to the fact that I hadn’t dreamt the place up – so scant is the information attesting to its existence today I was beginning to wonder.

Mega’s Wine Bar was a great little venue with many peculiar quirks and it would be great to hear from anyone who played, or drank, there.

Edward Fewtrell

Opinions about Edward Fewtrell are rarely non-committal or ‘on the fence’: speak to one person and he’s Birmingham’s underworld godfather, speak to another he’s a charitable philanthropist, speak to another and he’s a top businessman, and another and he’s a family man etc etc . . . truth is, he’s probably a combination of all those elements. They’re in no way mutually exclusive character traits and most of the legendary tales about his past from which most people have formed their opinion are somewhat skewed, exaggerated or conversely, in some instances, economical with the truth! However, one fact that’s incontrovertible is that Eddie Fewtrell single-handedly, with a little help from his brothers, did more to nurture and develop Birmingham’s nightlife culture over three decades than anyone else and for that fact should be applauded.

It would be relatively easy here to provide an account of Eddie’s business career but, as with the majority of this website, merely recounting facts that can be found elsewhere on the Web is largely a pointless exercise so I thought a few anecdotes and observations of my dealings with Mr Fewtrell might provide more of an insight. However, a brief potted history for the uninitiated may provide a useful background so here goes . . .

One of a family of 10 born to a somewhat broken home in the relatively deprived Birmingham suburb of Aston, from an early age Eddie undertook the mantle of familial breadwinner and paternal figure to his younger siblings which I think largely laid the bedrock for his later empire building in the nightclub scene in Birmingham City Centre in years to come. Following various business ventures Edward opened the Bermuda Club in Navigation Street which was legendary for having both a front of house bar and ‘backstage’ gambling den which operated somewhat beyond the realms of legality at the time but was sufficiently frequented by Birmingham City Police notables and allied City dignitaries as to run fairly raid-free for the majority of its tenure.

Next-up, Eddie opened the Cedar Club (off Constitution Hill) and began to cultivate his ‘celebrity persona’ with emerging 60’s acts such as the Move playing at the club along with a string of top acts regularly gigging there, socialising at the club and in some instances working there during the embryonic phases of their careers. The Cedar Club stood Eddie in good stead for his next venture which was the much renowned Barbarella’s on Cumberland Street (off Broad Street) which launched a number of bands and hosted many top acts including The Ramones, AC/DC and many, many more huge and soon to be huge acts from the world of entertainment. During this period the nightlife scene was going through something of an evolutionary period with a shift from cabaret clubs to more disco-based nightclubs and Eddie rode this wave with the opening of Rebecca’s in John Bright Street and later Abigail’s and Edward’s – also on John Bright Street – with Paramount and Goldwyn’s on Lower Severn Street opening towards the close of the 1980s.

I think it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that the majority of Brummies who enjoyed the odd night out during the 1970s and 1980s would have visited at least one of Eddie Fewtrell’s establishments and for a time throughout the mid to late 1980s John Bright Street was the THE epicentre of club culture and the heart of the Fewtrell Empire. Following the sale of all his clubs to Ansell’s Leisure in 1989, Eddie was faced with a three-year golden handcuffs arrangement but on its expiry returned to night club ownership with XL’s night club at Five Ways and the XL’s Rock Cafe on Paradise Circus and Millennium Club at Merry hill.

I first became aware of Eddie Fewtrell when auditioning for a band in the mid-1980s who were managed by an associate of Eddie’s. Upon mentioning the band to a musician friend he advised me not to get mixed-up with ‘people like that’! I’d never heard of Eddie and asked a few people who was this person of whom my colleague had spoken in such a cautionary tone to find out that he was the owner of a nightclub empire and had a reputation akin to the Krays and was certainly not someone to mess with. I gleaned a number of ”horror stories’ from various hearsay sources about adversaries being dispatched under the concrete pillars of Spaghetti Junction during its construction, shootings, a legion of punch-happy brothers who were also legends around the Birmingham club scene etc and thought better of joining a band that was managed by one of his cohorts.

As fate would have it, a few short years later I found myself at 17 being instructed to go to Boogies Brasserie to ask Mr Fewtrell for a position on the door of Edward’s Number 8 night club! I didn’t really know what to expect – some Al Pacino-type figure I suppose – as I approached Nobby on the door and said I’d been sent to have a word with Eddie and was pointed in his direction. At the end of the bar was a circle of middle-aged men enjoying a drink – some of whom were what I’d term ‘brick outhouses’ – with a rather diminutive grey-haired chap in the middle holding court: that was Eddie Fewtrell. I took a deep breath, walked up to the group at which point they all stopped laughing and chatting and simultaneously turned to look at the spotty, overweight, long-haired 17 year old before them. I stuttered out that I’d been sent over from Edward’s Number 8 to ask about a job on the door to which Eddie just grunted “start Friday you c*nt”, and then turned back to his pals and they all started chatting where they’d left off! Not your standard job interview but in the circumstances it was as long as I wanted. And that was that really, I was working for Eddie at one of his showpiece clubs at 17!

Preconceptions are strange things and largely stand to be shattered and this was certainly true with Eddie Fewtrell. Everything I’ve said thus far turned out to be applicable to Eddie to some degree. I’d somehow sneaked into his organisation’s inner circle at a very young age and was working alongside his longstanding associates such as Ricky Rickabee, Gigi, Norman ‘Nobby’ Nobbs and whole host of characters of both savoury and unsavoury ends of the spectrum and loving every minute of it. The clubs themselves were great, and at that time all booming and vibrant, but equally as enjoyable was getting to chat to Eddie and his crew who were remarkably open about their histories and previous exploits and would quite happily sit, as would Eddie, over a few drinks and regale me and others with endless anecdotes and tales of past escapades.

I didn’t know it then as I was fairly inexperienced in the world of employment but Eddie was one of a kind. Whereas managers and owners of other clubs at which I would come to work were very distanced from their staff, Eddie would do the rounds of all his clubs at least a couple of times a night and stand and have a chat with the doormen and other staff and crack a few jokes and make sure everything was ok. On a Sunday night I’d work the door at Edward’s on my own for £15 (looking back I must have been mad) and Eddie would phone me at least a couple of times during the evening from his favourite haunt of Goldwyn’s around the corner to check that all was well. I can honestly say that I always found him a very avuncular chap who really cared about his staff and wasn’t afraid to muck-in when required (more about that later) and that he knew that staff would have a few free drinks etc but so long as they weren’t really taking the p*ss he was cool with that too.

On the flipside, several incidents spring to mind that give an insight into the power Eddie wielded in Birmingham that have stuck with me over the years. Some of which I won’t recount here but a couple of incidents below give some idea.

One night I was having a few drinks on a night-off on the top floor of Edward’s Number 8 when the girl I was with shouted ‘oh my God’ and pointed at the dance floor at which point the music cut off. I looked over as a line of about 20 blokes trouped across the dance floor and began seriously laying-in to another couple of chaps who were having a drink. The DJ had killed the music and called for the doormen but there were only two working that night and it later transpired that the ‘hit squad’ had just barged their way in on a mission to sort out the two chaps inside. I ran over as the two doorman arrived but it was way beyond our intervention. Then, out of the corner of my eye I noticed Eddie was at the other end of the bar having a drink with Ricky Rickabee. On spotting the melee Edie put down his drink and came straight over, pushing his way into the middle of the brawl at which point everything just stopped – Eddie just looked up at one of the chief protagonists and raised a finger: “you don’t fight in one of my f*cking clubs, now get out” was all he said in a rather hushed tone at which point the whole troupe turned and all walked out in single file in complete silence, heads bowed. Eddie then just looked at us and said something to the effect of “as you were” and returned to his drink and conversation with Ricky!

On another occasion we got the call at Edward’s Number 8 that all doormen were needed to deal with ‘a riot’ at Goldwyn’s. We all ran round the corner meeting up with the lads from Boogies club and Brasserie and piled into Goldwyn’s not really knowing what to expect. Now for those uninitiated with the club, it was split-level and you arrived into the main room on a raised level which housed the bar and half-way along the room the floor level dropped a couple of feet to the dance floor. As I got inside, the raised level gave a commanding view of proceedings on the dance floor which was, in short, carnage, with about 50 men knocking seven shades out of each other. For our purposes here, the image that’s stuck with me to this day however, was that in the middle of all the fighting was a clear circle at the centre of which was the diminutive figure of Eddie randomly throwing punches at whoever strayed within reach . . . none of whom even attempting to throw a punch back but rather trying to dodge out of the way somewhat apologetically. That was a really surreal sight and gave me a flavour of the extent of Eddie’s reputation beyond that of amiable raconteur!

As an aside, Eddie’s biography/autobiography came-out a few years ago (King of Clubs: The Eddie Fewtrell Story) and whilst charting Eddie’s career and charitable associations – of which he had many – I felt it wholly missed the good stuff and was put into such a scatological chronology that it was quite hard to follow: shame, as I’m sure there’s a much better book in Eddie than that!

However, from my perspective – and I hasten to add I only was around Eddie for a couple of years – I really liked Eddie and his ‘no-nonsense’ approach and his rags-to-riches determination has much to be admired. Furthermore, I always got the impression that he saw his clubs as extensions of his family – he really cared about them and the staff (in fact many of his brothers and family members worked in his various club over the years including his daughter Rebecca who worked on the reception at Edwards when I was there and his brother, the late Don Fewtrell, as manager of Goldwyn’s) and considered those causing trouble in one of his clubs in the same manner as you and I would if someone burst into your home and started fighting with each other!

Whatever is written and said about Eddie Fewtrell, and I appreciate that there are those with vastly differing opinions of the man, he’s definitely a larger than life character with a fascinating history. He breeds horses now too!

Futurist Cinema - John Bright Street

Work began in 1914 on the then to be named Majestic Theatre which opened some two years later in 1916 only to change its name to The Futurist Theatre some three years later in 1919. Always trying to be at the forefront of the cinematic medium, the Futurist was the first cinema in Birmingham to have curtains and to screen ‘talkies’ so always did its best to live up to its name.

In later years, being at the heart of the nightclub district of Birmingham and practically next door to the Alexandra Theatre meant a fair footfall of would be customers for the cinema.  However, during the 1990s the area began to go into decline and with the rise of multi-screen cinemas opening elsewhere – a trend to which the building could not bow – Cannon, who by this time operated the cinema, decided time was to be called during the mid-1990s and the building lay abandoned for several years.

The building itself – possibly the most aesthetically appealing left on John Bright Street in its original state – became the DNA dance club at the close of the 1990s which limped on into the early 2000s when the Spearmint Rhino chain took over the building as their ‘Club Rouge’ gentleman’s club.

Personally, I quite liked the cinema and saw Life of Brian shown with Airplane there many years ago and it’s a shame that it is now, well, what it is but at least it hasn’t been demolished . . . or caught fire – a fate that seems to have befallen many a building around that part of the City’s regeneration zone!

The Grapes - Hill Street

A pub with a fairly inauspicious history was to be found on the corner of Hill Street and Lower Severn Street – a stones throw from the once nightclub Mecca of John Bright Street.

Whilst now a Select & Save store as seen above – this pub, built in 1966, provided my first taste of a rock nightclub scene in the mid-1908s when the top floor of the otherwise reserved for the white ankle sock, slip-on shoe wearing trendy brigade bar was given over to a late-license rock disco on Friday nights.  The top-floor was an absolute tip with a disintegrating dance floor and warm, weak beer and the dj-ing was undertaken by gravel-voiced Costermonger legend Tony – “here’s Paranoid by Black Sabbath” – Craig.

The last time I was there would have been New Year’s Eve 1986/7 on a night out when I spent the princely sum of £50.00 – and was fairly sober, giving an indication of the strength of the beer!  Fortunately, in early 1987 Edward’s Number 8 opened as a rock venue and the Grapes was superfluous to requirements.

Actually, I tell a lie, I did go in there several years later when it was called Mr Q’s or Hill Street Q’s, or some such combination and it was still a dump but by then a dump dominated by pool tables!

Boogie's Brasserie - John Bright Street

Opened by Edward Fewtrell in 1966 as Rebecca’s – named after his eldest daughter – the premises operated along similar lines to later opened Edward’s Number 7 and Edward’s Number 8 bar and nightclub which were housed in an adjacent building in opening in 1979.  On the ground floor accessed from John Bright Street was Rebecca’s Brasserie, and to the rear, accessed from Lower Severn Street, was the nightclub part of the venue which occupied the upper floors (if my memory serves me correctly Edward Fewtrell’s office was on the very top floor) and was originally divided into the Cabasa, the Blue Soul and the Sin Bin.

The view above shows the ‘Geoffrey Buildings’ that housed the venue on the now pedestrianised John Bright Street – which was once a main thoroughfare with both the number 45 and 47 bus routes having their termini opposite the front of the club – with Lower Severn Street running off to the left of the shot.

In later years the club and bar ware renamed Boogies and Boogie’s Brasserie (the only bar where I’ve ever witenessed a mounted policeman entering a premises still on horseback during a particularly lively disagreement with ‘the Zulus’ during the mid 1980s!), respectively, and were – certainly during the early to mid-1980s – always packed and a popular haunt being as it was at the time, in the epicentre of club life in Birmingham.  I’m sure anyone who frequented Boogies will recall Norman ‘Nobby’ Nobbs lurking outside the entrance drumming up business in his inimitable ‘market trader’ style and harassing the queuing minions with his banter!

Sadly, as with the rest of Edward Fewtrell’s clubs, Ansell’s Leisure bought Boogies in 1989 and renamed it Orleans and the nightclub part befell a fire which gutted the premises leading to its partial demolition and rebuilding more in keeping with the Westside Development Scheme . . . which was a stroke of luck for the impending development!

The site of Goldwyn's Nightclub - Suffolk Place

Aimed at a slightly more upmarket crowd than Boogies and Edward’s nightclubs and bars just around the corner, with the opening of Goldwyn’s nightclub in  1989 – along with Paramount bar beneath it in 1988 – Edward Fewtrell aimed to tap-in to the theatre-going public (the Alexandra theatre being next door) and to present live cabaret-style acts and charity ‘dinners’ etc in a nicely decorated and furnished environment:  a cross between what had previously been attempted with Abigail’s and the more run of the mill nightclubs elsewhere in the City.

Whilst it did function for the above purpose on occasion, it largely became a conventional nightclub and became increasingly used for hosting the gigs of larger bands on behalf of Edward’s Number 8 – Nirvana, for example, played here!

When Ansell’s bought Mr Fewtrell’s chain of clubs and bars later in 1989 they moved into the offices above Goldwyn’s to preside over their new ‘empire’.

I can’t say for certain whether or not the above building actually part-comprises the original Goldwyn’s premises as I wasn’t around when the office block above was built but would be interested to hear from anyone with more information.  For orientation purposes, the entrance to the club was where the black roller shutter can be seen behind the road sign.

Following the ‘Goldwyn’s era, the premises became The Foundry and Mr Bill’s Bier Keller which had uprooted from Nedless Alley, off New Street before total closure as a licensed establishment.

My abiding memory is of Texas playing there and during the sound check a severe rainstorm led to a roof leak above the stage.  An irate PR person from the concert promoter stormed over to the sadly now late Don Fewtrell – manager and brother of owner Edward Fewtrell – to vent her spleen about the problem:  “the roof’s leaking onto the band . . . what are we going to do?” she ranted – “get f***ing wet” came Don’s reply . . . magic!

Paramount - Suffolk Place

Opened by Edward Fewtrell a year before selling-up to Ansell’s Leisure, Paramount was a single-room bar around the corner from Edward’s and Boogies in the heart of the John Bright Street nightclub and bar scene of the 1980s.

Subject to an intervention from Paramount Studios over the name, the bar proved quite a popular venue on a Friday and Satruday night and the empty warehouse above it was cleared and turned into Goldwyn’s nightclub a year after opening.

The photograph above shows the the building that housed both Goldwyn’s and Paramount:  the entrance to the former being where the black roller shutter us seen to the left and the Paramount entrance to the right of the building on the corner of Suffolk Place and Beak Street with the DJ console being immediately to the right as you entered – the bar being ahead down a short flight of stairs and along the left of the venue.

I never had much involvement with Paramount at all during my time working for Mr Fewtrell and Ansell’s Leisure so haven’t got anything of interest to add.  All I recall was that the manageress was called Vanessa during the late 1980s!

I will, as time goes on, add various articles on particular venues and nightlife notables I encountered over the years and also those that had long-since gone by the time I hit the City centre in 1983 but for now, I would just like to whet the appetite with an overview of the scene as I found it as a somewhat over enthusiastic, and somewhat under-aged, teen all those years ago.

My first experience of the Birmingham club scene (apart from seeing The Sweet at the Night Out sometime around 1980) revolved around waiting for the number 45 bus in the now-pedestrianised John Bright Street and seeing hordes of cavorting youth stumbling between Kaleidoscope, Sam Weller’s, The Grapes, Edward’s Number 7 and Boogies Brasserie.  Whilst the costs and benefits of alcohol consumption were yet to be known to me, seeing groups of people laughing and evidently having a good time – along with the merging of very loud music emanating from each venue into a cacophony of rhythm and mostly bass line (it’s to do with sine-waves but no need for that here) – made me instantly both curious and envious . . . I wanted to be among them.

To cut a long story short my first club experience came almost by accident after going to see a friend’s band play the The Railway in Curzon Street (also my first gig).  After the band’s equipment was packed away they decided to go clubbing and asked if I wanted to tag along, being considerably younger than the band I felt it both an exciting opportunity and felt secure in the knowledge that they’d look after me so why not?  We ended up somewhere I’d never heard of called ‘Zig Zags’ which, as I found sometime afterwards, was in essence a back room of the Hurst Street’s Powerhouse catering for the ‘Indie’ scene.

Going through the doors and down the stairs and into the club I was greeted with a completely life-changing and eye-opening experience.  At the time, the ‘Indie’ and ‘Goth’ scene were large – although unbeknown to me at that point – and the incredibly dark room was full of people in makeup, with spiked and dyed black hair and a multitude of fashions that were largely alien to me, mixed with the more traditional long-haired ‘heavy metal’ fans and punks.

My friends ushered me to the bar and offered me a drink – what would I have, I’d never had one before?  A pint of mild was ordered (for some reason) and we headed to the dance floor whereupon Bomber by Motorhead came on and the whole dance floor erupted into a rather furious bout of ‘wrecking’:  at one point, spat out of the melee came a short stocky chap who fell into me.  As he turned to apologise (they were a nice crowd) it turned out to be my history teacher who grumbled “alright Andrew, f*cking great song this” and threw himself back into the throng . . . what a fantastic experience I thought!

A week or so later my band friends invited me out again and introduced me to the delights of the Costermonger at the back of the Oasis Market and Mr Bill’s which at that time was on Needless Alley off New Street and was, once more, an incredibly eye-opening experience.

From then-on I really got the taste for exploring such places and, whilst most of my older-looking school mates were also getting to grips with the City’s nightlife, whereas they were largely caught-up in the New Romantic (aka ‘Trendies’) scene and frequenting such fine establishments as Le Pub, I was heavily into the rock and Indie scene (more the former but I did enjoy a bit of punk now and then) and so became a regular at Bill’s and the Costermonger as well as the Grapes (Hill Street) on a weekend – the latter two both DJ’d by gravel-voiced 70’s rock dinosaur Tony Craig – along with the odd trip to the Barrel Organ in Digbeth, the West End Bar, 49′ers on Smallbrook Queensway and the Outrigger at the top-end of Digbeth.

Club-wise, for a ‘rocker’ there wasn’t much to shout about until the re-launch of Edward’s No.8 as ‘Edward’s Rock Complex‘ in 1987.  Originally a ‘trendy’ club owned by club impresario Eddie Fewtrell (of whom more will be written elsewhere) this club became the focal point for my youthful nightlife experience and the hub of my social life for a number of years.  As I was now a bit older and seeking a bit of variety I also frequented the Powerhouse, the Dome (was the actual ‘Dome’ over the dance floor a bit naff , or is that just me?), the Matador, the Windsor, Peacocks, Tressines on Newhall Street and a few other odd pubs now and again.

I also ended up working at Edward’s No.8 – among others – and so spent a lot of time around Mr Fewtrell’s establishments (Goldwyn’s, Paramount, Boogies and Edward’s Nos. 7 and 8 ) and had a whale of a time and met many top bands and celebrities, along with many interesting people during my time there and it is a period I look back on with great fondness.

Anyway, above is a potted history of my halcyon pub and club period and I will be writing some articles on various venues as the site grows and would love to hear from anyone who wishes to contribute their memories and observations to the site.  There have been squillions of clubs and bars in the City over the years and I did my best to visit many of them during my youth – some were great, some not so (remember the Golden Eagle?) – but many had already gone by the wayside, were not within my particular ’scene’ or I just hadn’t come across them so i am relying on everyone to provide as much information and comment as possible!