Welcome to our new Venue Report, which we are hoping to post each week.

Well, what a fantastic array of talented bands and artists there is out in the Midlands!

The Shoe String Venue has had the pleasure of introducing many varied acts for a very appreciative audience, over the past 3 months.

Bobby the bear and the team have worked hard, and its paying off!!! With the support team in place (more news on this soon) the venue has been a real success, with many bands saying its one of the best venues in the Midlands.

Last night we had the pleasure of a return visit from "Caroline 7", a truly superb solo performer (check out our pics). Not only is she visually stunning, she has what can only be described as a voice of an angel!! Bringing her own compositions to the fore, with excellent delivery, she also does some interesting covers. She is an accomplished guitar player as well as a beautiful singer.

One cover to specifically draw attention to (my personal favourite cover of Carolines) is an innovative offering of the classic Slade number, "Mamma were all crazee now".

We are looking forward to booking Caroline again in the future, as she is without a doubt one of the best solo female singer/songwriter artists we have seen for a long time.

We hope to offer a track from Caroline in the future, here on the site.

You can check her out on her Myspace site:

 http://www.myspace.com/caroline7music

Headline band last night, "Dirty Laws". Well, what CAN I say??? This band was absolutley SUPERB! Again, they offered a set list of their own unique material, which I would describe as Blues/metal fusion. That MIGHT sound an unlikely mix, but I can assure you it was a great blend of traditional blues style, with the raw edge and power of metal.

This band were loud, but not TOO loud, which meant those of us who DO actually LIKE to hear the voclalist, could do so (young metal bands PLEASE take note, we DO like to be able to have our hearing in tact after a gig). By keeping the volume just right  the quality of the music came to the forefront (Bobby does a great job with the sound mix).

My personal favourite was the bands closing number, "scorpion dance" (hear it on their Myspace site - live recording)

We will be playing one of Dirty Laws tracks on this site soon.

Check out their Myspace site :

 http://www.myspace.com/dirtylaws 

Until the next report........................ Ju

KEEP MUSIC LIVE!!................ Be there or BE square......;-)