rock club

The Mermaid

publicUK location_onBirmingham

Heavy metal itself comes from Birmingham, England. Actual metal-making plants and foundries dominated the city for decades, and they seemed to exert a (super)natural influence on the Birmingham residents that invented heavy metal music. These pioneers include Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and both Robert Plant and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

A decade-and-a-half after heavy metal’s initial forging, then, Birmingham begat a new, more extreme, and somehow even more terrifying version of the form. Grindcore, a singularly savage synthesis of thrash, death metal, and hardcore punk, exploded up from the city’s molten soul, with a dynamic scene lashing out all over the planet from the upstairs room of the otherwise nondescript Mermaid pub.

Led by Napalm Death, the Mermaid hosted heavy metal’s most extreme boundary-blasters, where UK locals such as Amebix, Extreme Noise Terror, and Heresy attracted touring marauders, particularly American hardcore battalions on the hugely influential order or DRI and MDC.

Location The Mermaid
Country UK
Address Stratford Road, Sparkbrook
City Birmingham
Phone (251) 546-9442
Email request@heavymetalclub.com

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