Music

Barry has been singing most of his life, firstly in local community choirs from the age of twelve, then with local amateur dramatic groups from around the age of sixteen.

Following a stint in the RAF, Barry then started to sing solo in clubs and at private parties. Then, he took the plunge and went to Las Vegas, where he performed in a variety of top Vegas hotels including the Flamingo Hilton and the Sahara Hotel. During this time, he was based at the largest piano bar in Las Vegas.

It was that this point that he was then signed to one of the top agencies at the time. They arranged for him to go to Malta to sing solo in a main cabaret slot for weeks at a time, at the prestigious Corinthia Palace Hotel. He also performed routinely on the Miami Carnival Cruise Line.

Moselele is a ukulele group for people who live in (or can be bothered!) to travel to Moseley in Birmingham.

We meet on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month - you can find all the dates on our calendar. We meet at 8:00pm in the shed in the beer garden of The Prince of Wales on Alcester Road, we go on until well past 11 and it's usually down to when the pub decide to throw us out. If you're looking for a ukulele group where you get to play all of the ukulele classics like Rawhide or Bring Me Sunshine then we are not the group for you. We've got a vast collection of songs that we've largely worked out ourselves and we try to keep them as contemporary as possible. What's the point of playing songs you wouldn't listen to? So if you want to drink beer and loudly sing songs by Modest Mouse, Chic and The Flaming Lips then we are exactly the sort of group you've been looking for.

Joe Cook a.k.a Cookie is a spoken word artist, musician and activist from Birmingham UK. Originally a lyricist for Birmingham reggae punk band Lobster, Joe has exploded onto the spoken word scene. Joe's style has been described as 'The Streets meets Joe Strummer'. Joe delivers social commentary in lyrical rhythmic style. His two biggest influences are Bill Hicks and Immortal Technique merging these styles to deliver comical hard hitting rhymes. Joe produced and hosted season three of Level UP! a sell-out spoken word event at The REP Birmingham

Joe facilitates poetry/rap, music and drumming workshops across the midlands working in schools, youth clubs, community centres and hostels as well as volunteering at local youth centres. Most recently Joe has released a video for BBC Arts entitled 'How To Be A Poet With Dyslexia' which received great feedback online and was also shared by the BBC on National Poetry Day 2016 'Five Great Performances' alongside John Cooper Clarke, Kae Tempest, George The Poet and Rachel McCrum.