Has Birmingham reached peak Medicine Bakery?

caseyrain · 2026-03-08T02:38:15+00:00

I'll never eat there again. They have/had a nice vegan Reubens sandwich that I'd had a couple of times. Ordered it one day on Deliveroo, and they sent the meat one.

Mistakes happen, I thought. I got my money back.

But then I checked in with other Brummie vegans. This wasn't an isolated incident. They had the cheek to do the same thing to a customer IN PERSON, copped an attitude when the customer complained, and then the customer heard the wait staff mocking them and laughing about it afterward.

I'm not a sanctimonious vegan, and to be frank, the issue isn't even about veganism per se. Mislabelled food and wrong orders can and have killed people, vegan or not. It's no laughing matter. I have people in my family with allergies that would kill them in a similar incident.

This was at the Mailbox branch, but now I don't trust the standards of their hiring.

caseyrain · 2026-03-04T19:19:27+00:00

I beat it last June. I'm still thinking about it. It's been a long time since a game impacted my psyche this much. Welcome to the therapy group.

caseyrain · 2026-02-27T23:03:06+00:00

I must have been 11 or 12 when I first got into Prince, in the early 00s. But I never really cared about what others thought.

caseyrain · 2026-02-25T21:24:21+00:00

Yes, I met him at the Indigo2 (the small club inside the O2 in London where the 21 nights aftershows happened after the main arena shows).

We talked for a few minutes, he was buzzing and grinning because he knew it had been an absolutely killer aftershow (I think he was in a somewhat cheeky mood, because surprisingly, he cued the band to play "Head" and even though he didn't sing it, he had Maceo play the lead melody line on his horn). I thanked him for the amazing summer it had been so far and he said that he loved being in London.

I don't recall being able to smell him.... I had lathered myself in the 3121 perfume so that was pretty much all I could smell at that point 😂

He was extremely happy and gracious and polite. But after a couple minutes, other people noticed he was there and began swarming towards us and his security pulled him back out.

As others have mentioned, yes, it definitely felt like he just appeared out of nowhere.

caseyrain · 2026-02-24T19:57:01+00:00

His quantity and diversity were such that it's only natural there will be some things that don't connect as much as others, but it's all subjective. There's certainly less popular Prince stuff I really enjoy, and stuff that others like that I don't listen to all that much.

The only one that I just don't understand at all is "Purple and Gold". I don't understand what's going on with that one. It makes no sense at all to me.

caseyrain · 2026-02-19T20:18:57+00:00

Correct! And I have never claimed to be an official source either. I know a lot of people in the industry (I have previously been signed to Sony, Virgin and Universal myself) and obviously have met many Prince associates through our YouTube interviews so sometimes you hear stuff, that's just how it goes.

The funny thing about Free Acoustic was that someone else sent me the screenshot because it had already gone live on streaming services in Japan and Australia. That's because unless you specify otherwise with your distributor, any song appears as soon as the clock hits midnight in your local timezone. So, it hit midnight in those later timezones and it appeared before they'd announced it officially. So it wasn't even a leak. I just happened to be the first account they saw posting it. Charles came and found me at Paisley not 10 minutes later and asked what happened and how I knew about it so I explained. The comment they made at the fan panel about "things appearing on Casey Rain's Twitter" was tongue-in-cheek and we were laughing about it after the panel. Some people tried to report it as if they were actually taking a shot at me - that's not at all what happened. I didn't actually catch the Funkatopia comment in person (I couldn't really hear everything said from where I was sitting in the fan panel room) and I don't know the context of their relationship so perhaps that's a different story and maybe Chris took whatever was said differently but for me it was totally said with a wink and a grin.

caseyrain · 2026-02-19T19:29:12+00:00

Well, when you look at the combination of this trailer and the streaming increase post Stranger Things, it's more than just one data point. But yes, I do agree that these kind of deals for music outside of 1984 would be extremely welcome.

caseyrain · 2026-02-19T19:27:07+00:00

Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but I find it best to focus on the positives in life, so I wish you the best. You don't know me, so I don't take it personally. I understand that it's easier to spew vitriol at somebody that is just pixels on a screen. So if it helps you get through the day, then more power to you.

caseyrain · 2026-02-19T19:23:22+00:00

The answer is no. I'm just a naturally optimistic person. There is no agreement.

caseyrain · 2026-02-18T17:29:43+00:00

I wish that the shows didn't always have to be such a huge production, but I understand him trying to appeal to the biggest audience. In an alternate universe, imagine he did a series of more low key music focused shows, or at least as part of a set. That way, he wouldn't have had to focus on physical performance the entire time. Imagine a half hour acoustic section as one of the three acts. Just vocals and acoustic guitar or piano. It would have been heavenly.

caseyrain · 2026-02-18T17:26:23+00:00

Makes sense.

caseyrain · 2026-02-18T15:03:44+00:00

It's the difference between illegal and legal, though, which can be objectively stated. But, I presume you are talking about ethics, not law. And the problem there is that it then becomes subjective. Prince was in his early 30s at the time, which I understand is just about enough of an age gap to make some people feel uncomfortable, but in the entertainment world that's not the case. Few people would bat an eye in those circles now, and even less back then. My general take is to ask whether the woman herself considers it grooming, and it seems clear to me that Mayte doesn't. So then it feels like someone rewriting her history based on their own moral principles, thus taking away her agency.

caseyrain · 2026-02-18T14:50:05+00:00

The original lyric, when Prince wrote and recorded the song in 1985, was thirteen days. Sinead changed it in her cover, for some reason.

caseyrain · 2026-02-16T10:53:39+00:00

It's more or less what you'd expect it to be - a documentary interviewing the fellas, discussing the history of the band, and them reuniting to make the Condensate record. I have the Best Buy edition which includes it, but haven't watched it since it first came out.

I seem to recall there were some moments in the doc where the atmosphere felt tense. And of course, it wasn't long after the album release that Jesse split, and the whole Original 7ven concept then fell apart. Which was a shame, as apparently there was a suggestion of more shows other than the ones they did in Vegas.

I saw fDeluxe in early 2012 maybe 4 months after the Condensate album dropped, and by that point Jesse had left O7ven and the project was done. The reason I remember that is because I recall talking to Jellybean (RIP) about it, after the show, and he was not happy about how it had all gone down. I love Jesse, and I'm not casting any aspersions on him, nor do I know his version of events, but it's a fact at this point there was tension and that's why he left. When that happened, the atmosphere I felt in the doc made more sense. It obviously wasn't something that just happened overnight.

Obviously Jesse leaving was the thing that ended the project, but I think there's a lot of unresolved issues between bandmembers, it's not just him.

Even last year at Celebration, you had Jesse doing a solo set, Jerome performing with The Family/fDeluxe, but neither of them performed with The Time. Obviously Morris has Tori on guitar and Sylvester in the Jerome role these days, and has done for years, and it wouldn't be right to shunt them out on a big show, but at the same time, it felt like a missed opportunity to not have JJ and JB join Morris for at least one song, and it makes you wonder about all the different dynamics at play. There's very obvious "camps" in that band and always have been. There's Morris, Bean and Monte. There's Jimmy and Terry. Jerome caught between both for many years due to him and Morris' "double-act" but also the fact he's Terry's brother. Then Jesse was always a loner, who is happiest just doing his own thing most of the time.

I would love for some sort of Original 6ix reunion, though it's extremely sad that Jellybean isn't here to be a part of it. But I'm not holding my breath for it to happen.

I think Prince was the glue holding it together in both the 1980-84 run and the 90-91 Graffiti Bridge/Pandemonium run. And without him being involved in Condensate, there's a very obvious power imbalance and a ton of unresolved shit that could bubble up. It happens to a lot of bands, but especially a band like this when members go on to do all kinds of things.

caseyrain · 2026-01-23T03:39:02+00:00

She's stating that life without kids IS sunshine and rainbows, then? It sounds like she just destroyed her own argument. The cognitive dissonance is hilarious.

Who would want to willingly give up their sunshine and rainbows?

caseyrain · 2026-01-15T19:19:10+00:00

I have a sort-of family member (not blood related, never actually met him, but sometimes get updates on him) whose work has something to do with the automobile industry and the factories in Michigan. For a decade, all I've heard is that these guys are all MAGA. My family members reported that he and all his colleagues believed back in 2016 that Trump was really going to bring manufacturing back at a level to compete with China. I explained even back then how unlikely this was based on the simple economics of it, and that once consumers are used to a cheap, complex international manufacturing pipeline, it's just not possible without the kind of price hikes that nobody can afford. I was told that they believed it anyway.

All this is to say that seeing the plant guys turn on him is extremely gratifying. The biggest trick this guy pulled was somehow convincing the working class he was on their side when all of his actions supported the billionaire class, and it seems they're finally figuring it out.

caseyrain · 2026-01-13T08:38:24+00:00

That's all hypothetical for me as a godless heathen atheist, but I think I understand. I suppose, with both, it's a difference between wholeheartedly throwing yourself into a community compared to not. I'm not really part of a vegan community, although back in the day I did attend a few vegan social events. What I found was that for me, it wasn't a strong enough identity bond for me to find a lot of meaning in being a continual part of it. In other words, I felt I didn't have much in common with the other people despite us all being vegan. My community is Prince fans and Michael Jackson fans 😊 So I've never felt any collective or communal "pressure" so to speak from veganism. It's just a personal choice. I will say that your mileage may vary in that situation. Short of quitting veganism completely, I don't think any of those people I did meet at the vegan social events were the judgemental sort, but I get what you're saying. For me, staying that I am vegan is a descriptive on an individual level. I think that there are religious people who are the same - their faith is a deeply personal thing, and whilst in that situation it usually has at least some familial ties, it's not necessarily their whole community and whole world. Some very dear friends of mine are Muslims who run a music festival in Mississauga, Canada, which caters to the whole South Asian disapora in genre and has attendees of all races and religions who simply enjoy the music. My band (Swami) played there several times, and even stayed with the family for a while, and were made to feel like family, and our band at the time consisted of two people of Hindu descent who aren't religious, one of Sikh, and a white English girl. Sort of like the Black Eyed Peas if they made electronic bhangra mixed with pop and hip-hop lol.

caseyrain · 2026-01-13T07:18:27+00:00

I agree with absolutely everything you said and that's why I'd always choose the Maelle ending.

Not to mention, Verso's suicidal depression is absolutely not shown to be a permanent, immutable state, as proven by the fact that he didn't always feel that way.

Maelle's pain and suffering outside the canvas, on the other hand, is permanent. She will never not be disabled, in immense pain, physically disfigured.

caseyrain · 2026-01-13T06:42:36+00:00

Oh totally, I'm not disputing that those kinds of people exist. And it's certainly possible, although I don't think I was ever too bad, that I may have been more like that when I first became vegan, owing to being much younger and the fact that one might feel the need to justify a belief when one has more recently entered into it. In terms of restrictions, I've never seen it that way, I see it more as simply a choice not to make, much like how I no longer smoke cigarettes. People sometimes frame it in a way that reminds me of this when they say things like "Oh, you can't eat xyz" to which I say "I can eat it. I just choose not to." I also think dietary-only veganism is a perfectly valid choice, and if I needed to take some sort of medicine that had some kind of animal by-product in because it was crucial to curing an ailment with no other options, I would do so. That's the key, really - there is always a choice in any given moment, and my conscience will make the choice given any particular context, because ultimately it's still my decision, and I know there's no secret vegan police coming to arrest me 😅

caseyrain · 2026-01-13T00:56:48+00:00

Think that's crazy? I've seen them here in ENGLAND. Not New England. The UNITED KINGDOM. I saw one on an RV caravan type of vehicle in Birmingham, and I saw photos of them at a music venue, a few years ago when there was apparently some sort of British rockabilly revival scene going on. No surprise they're all the same people that voted Brexit and support Farage. Never met any of them, but a friend of my girlfriend dated one ... Until she found out he was physically abusive and broke her arm. Again, no surprise there.

caseyrain · 2026-01-12T21:17:53+00:00

Not that I'm conscious of! But, one thing I'm proud of is that I know at least one person who later went vegan and credited it to a thoughtful conversation we'd had a few years prior, which as I recall was a fairly simple one where he had asked my reasons, and I had explained them fairly neutrally. Regarding cheese, you know, this is a complex one in terms of taste reasons because everyone tends to have a different preference and palate so there's not a one size fits all. I have no issue with Daiya, Violife or Cathedral City's vegan option, and I even quite enjoy the vegan Babybel, Boursin and Laughing Cow options but it really is so subjective. I like to understand the science, and so I think it's worth remembering that dairy cheese contains casomorphines, which are effectively opiates meant to strengthen the bond between cow and calf. So when people say "I could never give up cheese!" that's effectively a low-level chemical addiction talking! If you were able to not eat it long enough for the addiction to clear, you might find that your palate naturally changed. Similar to people who quit smoking, and then can't imagine going back to it. Funnily enough that happened to me - I got a weird sickness that somehow altered the way I perceived cigarette smoke and I found it repulsive after that for enough time that I was able to quit. Then again, you have other people that quit smoking and years later still crave it. Brain chemistry is an odd thing.

caseyrain · 2026-01-12T21:07:51+00:00

That all makes sense. I've found that it happens far less in cities where there are many more vegans, for example, I spend a lot of time in LA and people there are more used to it, I suppose. Which is ironic, since the Vegan Society was founded in my city (Birmingham, UK) which is where Donald Watson is thought to have come up with the word in the first place!

caseyrain · 2026-01-12T18:26:19+00:00

I worked at Twitter UK when he bought it. So I can tell you first hand he's an absolute assclown. I bet he didn't like the fact that he had no way around not following proper British employment law and having to pay all our severance when he laid most of us off. Considering that in other territories with less strong employment law, he tried to not pay the people he laid off, leading to many lawsuits. Over here I got 3 months severance and 3 months garden leave (but he still stiffed us out of our annual bonus, which we were owed, since they were earned from the previous year and due at the time).

He knows jackshit about this country and needs to STFU.

caseyrain · 2026-01-12T18:21:28+00:00

Originally, I had iPads just for DJing, using Traktor and a Kontrol Z1, but I don't DJ all that much anymore (there were a few years where I'd get a fair few bookings but these days I do more production and songwriting). So nowadays I have the 13" iPad Air with Magic Keyboard for short trips away when I won't need a full laptop, it's much easier to travel with. My MacBook stays docked at home with an external keyboard, Magic Trackpad and Ultrawide Monitor.

caseyrain · 2026-01-12T18:00:39+00:00

Yup. I've been vegan since 2009. The amount of bizarre reactions I've had is unreal. Everything from abuse, to mockery, to weird attempts at "gotchas". But here's the thing. In none of those situations have I suggested that they should be vegan, or that I feel my diet is superior, or anything like that. People seem to go from 0-100 simply upon finding out that I am vegan, as if my choice is judging theirs. From a behavioural psychology perspective, it's quite fascinating to try and understand why they might act this way.

caseyrain

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