Homegrown

As I am deep in polyfiller, paint and plaster, decorating the house, I present a Low Maintenance Edition of Homegrown. All of this weeks artists have featured in this years SXWS Festival in Austin Texas, which has been running from 9-18th March 2007 Music: Matt And Kim - Yeah Yeah Beruit - Elephant Gun Bret Dennon - Ain't No Reason The Mountain Goats - Onions Tokyo Police Club - Shoulders And Arms

Spoken Word: The Whitest Kid U Know perform the skit Russian Roulette

Music: Andy Stone - What You Believe Blabbermouth - Amnesia BluestoneJones - Cosmic Thought Lisa Redford - Universe MEG - Kelly, You're The Teacher

Poetry: Tony Morris - Health Warning, Slow Dancer, Road Rage

Homegrown may be a bit sporadic and Lo Maintenance over the next couple of weeks due to other commitments but will be putting out something, however small. Stay subscribed via ITUNES and keep sending your music and spoken word material.

This programme is a compilation of my audio blogs from 24th Feb till 5th March 2007 while I have been participating in the Slam Idol Open Writing Challenge. The premise of the competition is to get 6 poets to create an original poem over 10 days, while audio blogging their creative process and progress. You can find out more about the competition by following the link below to the Slam Idol website and listening to the other competitors. I had a great deal of fun and a little frustration in creating my poem, which took up quite a bit of time. Hence no typical Homegrown this week. But I hope you enjoy this all poetry programme and insight into my own creative process. There will soon be a voting process on Slam Idol to find listeners favourite poem.

Slam Idol Podcast, Association Of Poetry Podcasting

Music: Kemp Harris - Sweet Weeping Jesus Kelly Sweet - Raincoat Sektor - Blue Alex Quinn - Dreams Martyn Joseph - Love Is Ian Babington - Learning To Fly The Dreams - Lost In The Music Poetry: Helen Gregory - Touch Paper, Tea's Up, Treading Gingerly, S Love And Peace Innit Mentioned in the programme : Bum Rush The Charts , Slam Idol Open Writing Challenge, Podcast Peer Awards

Music: Shadow Machine - Save Me Mary Beth D'Amico - Jimmy Bad Astronaut - The F Word Seth Martin - Individuality Melinda Thorpe - The Memory Listen With Sarah - Tempus Trumpus Poetry: Adele Ward - La Casa Al Mare / Eclipse / The Last Time I Wore Fur / Silence

This week I hosted AMPed, the weekly podcast from the Association of Music Podcasting, which features some of the best independent music being played by podcasters both in the UK, the States and beyond.

I thought I'd present the podcast here for your consideration, slightly revised with a break for some spoken word material half way through. More information on AMP can be found at www.musicpodcasting.org

Music: Los Campesinos - You Me Dancing isHesafe - Starting Over Tony Kehoe - You've Got To Give It Back Andy McKee - The Friend I Never Met Peter Greenstone - Iridium Flare Melaney Maloney - Rompecabeza Ryan Affenberg - Under All The Bright Lights Spoken Word: Connections 1 - by Divergent Future

Music: Seagull Strange - Sullas Return Mark Wilson - Realise Sahib Radio - Jacks Home David Elias - River Of Dreams Barry Mcloughlin - Fifth Avenue Ryan Affenberg - Under All The Bright Lights Poetry: James Stewart - The Quiet , Letting Go. Check out James's podcast The Underground

Music: The Perfects - ShipwreckedFrankie Roe - Red RiversSyngularity feat Alexis Vaneeckhout - Ocean Chris Garneau - Babys Romance Lisa Redford - Dragon Fly Ergo Phizmiz - Pangolin Poetry: Richard Bruce Clay - The Buts, The View From Saturn, Venus Mentioned in the programme: Audio Blogging... My own Live From Storyville, Andy Taylor's Rantings Of A Northern Bloke ,Simon Toon, John Buckley's Distant Fox, Richard Vobes Naked Englishman

Music: The Yampy Werewolves -Big Spliff Cult Of Wedge - Louder Listen With Sarah - Ramblin' Andy David Minder - Step On The Wheel Tea For Two - Out In The Sun Poetry: Dominic O'Rourke - 56K and Danish Pornography (adult content) Plus I venture down to Digbeth in Birmingham to get a taste of The Go Club, a new venue for the cities bands and artists. Additional links: Cherryade Music

Special studio guest Giovanni Esposito aka Spoz the 11th Birmingham Poet Laureate 'Spoz' being the bit between the 'E' and the 'ito' (kind of). Spoz describes himself as a sort of poet. The sort, in fact, that has been published, recorded, been on the radio, won awards, is a member of the renowned 'New October Poets', taken part in so many festivals, he's lost count and even had a commission from the BBC. The sort of poet that isn't quite everybody's cup of tea, though, could be yours. He's a singer, songwriter, playwright and musical writer. He has produced and directed self penned musicals in Birmingham and Edinburgh. He's written and recorded albums with several bands as well as a solo artiste and appeared before the Queen mum (RIP). In this interview I talk to Spoz about his many achievements including the Birmingham Poet Laureateship, his work with bringing poetry to children, and his self written "karaoke" musicals. Spoz also performs the poems : Vodka Catalyst, Identity Poem, Dying For A Dump In The Car On The Way Back From Cheltenham, Disco Dad and I Met Jesus At St Andrews Football Stadium You can aslo check out Spoz's Myspace site which has examples of his work. If you are an artist who is local to Birmingham and would like to record a session or interview please contact me here.