A building
which hosted British music legends such as The Beatles and The Who in their
1960s heyday has partially collapsed after a fire.
Part of Kings Heath High Street in the Birmingham
suburb was closed for hours after the fire at the building, which is now a Cash
Converters store.
The building in York Road was formerly the Ritz
Ballroom, which also hosted The Rolling Stones in the 1960s.
Officers said they were treating the fire as
suspicious. No-one was hurt.
The road, one
of the main routes into Birmingham, was closed for several hours between
Popular Road and Silver Street, but has now reopened.
The blaze
started at about 05:00 GMT and, at its height, up to 40 firefighters were
called to tackle the flames. Fire officers remain at the site.
Structural
engineers will now examine the remains of the building to decide how stable it
is, but about 70% of it has collapsed.
Music historian
Jez Collins, who runs the online Birmingham Music Archive, said it was
"very sad" to lose the building.
Stones anniversary
"In
Birmingham we've lost so much of our musical history," he said.
"If you
compare it to other cities like Liverpool and Manchester, which have really
made something of their famous venues, we've lost a lot.
"It's the
memories that are attached them - people remember going to the Ritz to see The
Beatles, The Stones, The Animals, Pink Floyd and all the big names of the time.
"People
met their husbands and wives there and now that building's gone."
The venue shut
in the 1970s and the building has been occupied by various shops since.
Celebrations
had been planned for September in Kings Heath to mark the 50th anniversary in
September of the Rolling Stones playing at the venue.
A Kings Heath
Walk of Fame, honouring the area's musical and comedy heritage, had also been
planned to start outside the building with a star marking singer Toyah Wilcox.
Local 'landmark'
Dave Janes,
from the fire service, said the collapse of the building was likely to hamper
the investigation into how the fire started.
Businesses in York Road are shut but those on the
High Street were open as normal.
Kate Smart, Kings Heath town centre manager, said
some of the surrounding buildings had been damaged by smoke.
She added the area was a "close-knit
community" and that they were "devastated" to lose such a
"landmark property".
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The Waterboys (Sun) 
On the 35th anniversary of the original release of “Alternative
Chartbusters” these two classic albums have been given a special edition deluxe
release on both CD & vinyl by Fire Records. Both albums have been digitally
remastered to the highest quality (personally overseen by Dangerfield) and
feature sleeve notes by Dave Henderson of Mojo along with song listing notes by
Dangerfield. The albums also come with bonus CDs featuring previously
unreleased material including Dangerfield’s original home demo of “Brickfield
Nights” and Plain’s first vocal outing on “It Only Hurts When I Cry”.
A mere six months later on 17 March 1978 their second
album “Alternative Chartbusters” followed – once again produced by Dangerfield
& Steel. But, as the AllMusic site now recognizes, “Alternative Chartbusters”
was way ahead of its time, a buried treasure that only got dusted off much
later: “Condemned at the time for offering up little more than a straight
carbon copy of its predecessor, the second Boys’ album has since ascended to
the pantheon of power pop greats, a combination of the band's own inestimable
position at the forefront of what, by early 1978, was already a burgeoning
movement, and their seemingly effortless grasp of the rudiments of, indeed, a
great pop song.”
Phildel comments "Although I'm into my twenties - I've
always loved Easter Egg Hunts and every year, I organise one for my friends.
This year, I really wanted to be able to include my online friends and
supporters around the world. So this is what I've created. It's ambitious and
I'm slightly concerned about the costs - but the ticket price will help towards
the postage!"
