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.

The Old Railway - Curzon Street

Sadly I haven’t really been able to find any information on this gem of a now demolished pub, other than to state the obvious that it was named in recognition of Curzon Street station which stood opposite the site until 1966 (and if recently unveiled high speed rail plans are forged ahead, may well again!).

My first recollection of the Old Railway was in 1985 when a teacher at my school – who knew I was learning to play drums and was into rock music – told me his son’s band Hostage were gigging at the pub and that he’d put me on the guest list! At 15 it was the first gig I’d ever been to and I’d never heard of Curzon Street but found my way there and it certainly confirmed my conviction that playing in bands was what I wanted to do. Several months later I found myself there once more to watch the first gig of a local band called Fayre Warning after bumping in to their bass player on a number 27 bus in West Heath.

The pub itself was quite run-down and consisted of a small bar connected by a short corridor, which could also be entered directly from the Curzon Street side of the building, to the room that used to house gigs. The venue part was small – I would estimate it held a couple of hundred standing people at the most – with a stage at one end, alcove for mixing desk the other, and bar the length of one side with a small ‘dressing room’ for bands accessed from behind the bar via a hatch at the stage end of the room.

Legend has it that Robert Plant and John Bonham from Led Zeppelin – and a whole host of other Brum-based musical notaries – frequented the place back in the 70s but during my time there I recall mostly local rock/metal acts, such as Shy, Briar and Tobruk, regularly gigging there and/or propping up the bar. I also attended an all-day rock festival there sometime around 1986/7 which was fun as I was working at Musical Exchanges then and so knew a lot of the musicians who were playing during the day.

Also in 1986/7 I played a gig there myself with my band Lost Cause (prophetically named) and I seem to recall that the landlady was called Gail and whose partner was a very amiable Rasta whose name escapes me!

Some time in the late 1980s I recall the Old Railway closing as a pub/gig venue and being turned into a Mexican Restaurant and by then Edwards Number 7 & 8 was in full swing as a rock gig venue and that was the end of my association with the place. I do, however, understand it reopened once more as the Old Railway towards the end of the 1990s but, as can be seen from the above photograph, is once again no more. Subject of a compulsory purchase order as part of the City’s Eastside redevelopment the pub, along with its surrounding area, lay derelict for a time until demolition began in late 2007.

If anyone reading this used to frequent the Old Railway, played there in bands, or has any information that would add to this article, please get in touch.