“Every day tens of thousands of commuters hurry past a telling statue in Birmingham’s main square. Antony Gormley’s Iron: Man – a sort of wonky prototype for The Angel of The North – perfectly expresses the culture of Brum. The city, like its under-appreciated icon, is off-kilter. It was this intangible sense of the other, of being different despite being the bullseye of Britain, that meant Birmingham could give birth to strange new sounds and trends.”
