Created in Birmingham

Okay, here’s part one of my planned schedule for the Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham’s celebration of the slightly odd aspects of the moving image. This isn’t necessarily a recommendation as I’m going in blind to most of these. That’s they way I like festivals - they’re about discovery, not seeing the same old stuff. The programme is remarkably full for a four day event so you might find this filter useful. Or not.

Thursday is easy. There’s the opening film, The Seashell And The Clergyman with live musical accompaniment from Minima, at St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter at 7pm. I previewed it here and if you like the idea of watching a mildly disturbing 1920s silent surrealist film in a church then you’ll be there.

After the film is the Opening Do at the Actress and Bishop from 8pm to midnight with previews of the rest of the festival and music from the intriguing mr_hopkin’s computer and the Zoom Quartet who “create live improvised soundtracks which they perform to projected video”.

Friday is where it starts getting a little mad. First port of call at around 12pm will be 22 Green Street in Digbeth (map) for the Harrachov Exchange and Jinpow, um, exhibits, I guess. Lots of mixed-media sculpture type stuff that should be a bit odd. Both are free, and also on Sunday.

From 2pm you’ll find me in the back of St Martins Church by the Bullring for a showing of Carnivorous Syndrome in 3-D, a 22 minute short by Mike Wilder. It’s “a 20-minute piece which pays homage to old-school educational movies with a mixture of documentary, computer graphics and lo-fi ingenuity. The film features dazzling time-lapse footage of a range of weird and wonderful plants captured with an ordinary digital stills camera which Wilder mounted on a Lego rig named ‘Jasper’.” Best viewed with 3D glasses apparently. Again, this is free.

Then it’s up to the Island Bar on Suffolk Street at 3pm for some shorts, animation and music videos, not to mention a drink.

Then there’s an hour or so to grab some food before Underwater Music from 5-8pm with the films of Jean Painleve, a precursor to Jaques Cousteau who produced a gamut of films about the sea from the 1930s to 1950s. A selection will be shown along with musical interludes. This is also at the Island Bar where all events are free.

As we get into the evening the not-free events start to pile up. I’m going to have to be careful on the wallet but the no-brainer is Hocus Focus at The Electric (9pm, £10). Like all intriguing things it’s a little hard to describe before experiencing it so here’s the blurb:

Back in 1995 Andy Votel was knocked sideways by a latenight screening of obscure Czech fantasy Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, the tale of a girl whose first period heralds a sequence of strange and inexplicable goings-on. In the years since he has made his name as a label-boss, DJ, designer, musician and tireless vinyl archivist, and for most of that time he has been trying to track down the original masters of the Valerie soundtrack – a heady orchestral folk concoction by Lubos Fischer. Finally Andy released the full score on Finders Keepers late last year, and to mark this occasion he will be bringing a merry band of musical cohorts to the Electric for one night only…

Manchester’s Voice of the Seven Woods, aka Rick Tomlinson, spent 2006 hoovering up new fans all over the place with his beguiling use of guitar, sitar, oud and saz. Hocus Focus will see a rare outing for his rescore/re-edit of Armenian classic The Colour of Pomegranates. Broadcast’s latest album on Warp, Tender Buttons, got widespread thumbs-up as one of their best yet. The band have cited Valerie as a huge influence on their work (they even named a track after it), and tonight they’ll be wrestling over the decks with Messrs Votel and Thomas to play some appropriately otherworldly tunes. Then there’s the film itself, full of jaw-dropping imagery and weird erotic undercurrents.

Other feature length films that caught my eye on Friday are Ten Canoes - an intriguingly refreshing look at the Aboriginal traditions of Australia’s Northern Territories (6pm, MAC, £4.50), Shut Up and Sing - the documentary about the Dixie Chicks vs Bush’s America (6.30pm, Odeon, £5.40) and Rock The Bells - another doc about the audacious and potentially disastrous attempt to get the whole Wu Tang Clan on stage one last time. (10pm, Odeon, £5.40).

And there’s more. The Electric is pretty much running festival films all day and night with the Odeon and MAC pulling their weight. Check the full schedule to see what grabs your interest.

Tomorrow I’ll be covering what’s on Saturday and Sunday.

Gareth Courage is a Stirchley-based graphic artist who produces a downloadable PDF magazine of his work every few months entitled Viewer. The above is taken from issue 4, released today. Gareth works with found images and his own photographs and is a fan of expired film, usually loaded into the old and broken cameras. His Sprocket photos, taken by putting 35mm film in a modified medium format camera, are a particular delight.

Gareth’s photos can be found on Flickr, often with a share/remix Creative Commons license, and pages from Viewer are available to buy as high resolution prints.

Following on from the Venue Surveys, which prompted this thread on LiveJournal, I’ve been thinking more about the Carling Academy and what’s going to happen to it when the area around Dale End is redeveloped. Plans are still sketchy (the page on BCC’s site is somewhat old) but it’s going to happen, probably in the next couple of years.

What’s struck me is not that the Academy needs to be saved - it’s in dire need of a gutting at the very least - but that Birmingham needs a venue of that size in order to have a vibrant live music scene. It was pointed out in the comments that the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton fulfills this criteria and that Brummies are just being blinkered in not seeing it as part of the tapestry, but if we’re looking at the West Midlands Conurbation as a whole is one venue really enough?

More food for thought is this post on the Long Tail blog noting that as sales of recorded music fall, attendance at gigs is on the rise, at least in the States.

“the one thing that you can’t digitize and distribute with full fidelity is a live show. That’s scarcity economics. No wonder the average price for a ticket was $61 last year, up 8% — in an era when digital products are commodities, there’s a premium on experience. No surprise that bands are increasingly giving away their recorded music as marketing for their concerts, which offer something no MP3 can match.”

The live music scene does seem to be pretty healthy in Birmingham at the moment, at least from my perspective and certainly when compared to the late 1990s when the Academy wasn’t there. City planner-types often talk about landmark buildings and destinations having a knock-on effect on the surrounding area and the Academy is one of these. Would the Barfly have moved here if the Academy group hadn’t proved it worthwhile? Would seemingly every other pub in Digbeth be turning into a music venue without the corporate behemoth to kick against?

Live music is a growth area for Birmingham. While improving medium sized venues is to be applauded we really need some reassurance that a 2-3000 capacity venue is part of the big plan, whether or not it’s sponsored by lager.

More on this as it develops.

Birmingham author Catherine O’Flynn’s debut novel What Was Lost was released by local publishers Tindal Street Press this month.

“A lost little girl appears on CCTV screens at the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective Kate Meaney, missing for 20 years. Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder, and Lisa, a disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, follow her through the centre’s corridors: welcome relief from customers, colleagues and the Green Oaks mystery shopper. But, as this friendship intensifies, it brings new loss and longing to light.”

Adrian Goldberg of The Stirrer interviewed Catherine about her novel for his Stirrer TV department.

[Link to video]

What Was Lost (ISBN 0955138418) is available in bookshops priced £8.99, from Amazon.co.uk or direct from Tindal Street Press

Last year Digital Central undertook a survey of live music venues in the West Midlands to try and pinpoint where investment is needed. They questioned 184 people, 141 of whom were audience members with the rest being promoters or performers.

You can download a PDF of the report but here are the conclusions:

The most significant factor was that a high proportion of the respondents (82.3%) felt that the live music venue needed to have a good sound system. Acoustics were also mentioned in relation to
sound in the open question.

The other factors that people felt were most important to a great music venue were that the venue wasn’t too large and that they can see the stage clearly.

Audiences value hearing a wide range of genres from both local and established bands. Venue owners and promoters should play their part in getting the mix right.

Audience members had different views on where their favourite music venues were with over half of responses being unique.

These findings have informed their Music Venue Development Fund where small to medium sized venues can apply for up to £7,500 to make a capital investment in the premises to improve the user experience. There are two round of applications, the first one ending on Wednesday with another on June 29th.

For me the big elephant in the room is what’s going to happen to the Carling Academy when that area is demolished in a couple of years. While it’s not a pretty venue by any stretch (”… basically an empty shell; empty, that is, apart from sticky carpets, sticky handrails, and sticky ceilings.“) it does have an important role. If it’s not replaced or relocated effectively the halo effect on Birmingham’s music scene will be negative.

Serendipitously, Russ of The Communion, a community site with an emphasis on the rock/metal side of things, also did a gig venue survey last year with an emphasis on asking the bands that play in them. The results, in two parts, are here and here and the league table looks like this:

The Actress & Bishop, Birmingham – 80.2%
The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham – 79.8%
The Market Tavern, Digbeth, Birmingham – 74%
The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham – 69.8%
The Flapper & Firkin, Birmingham – 68.8%
Scruffy Murphy’s, Birmingham – 68.4%
The Jug Of Ale, Moseley, Birmingham – 66%
The Medicine Bar, Digbeth, Birmingham – 59.4%
Edwards No. 8, Birmingham – 56.8%
The Little Civic, Wolverhampton – 52.8%
The Barfly, Birmingham – 50%
Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton – 49%
The Bar Academy, Birmingham, – 47.8%
The Academy 2, Birmingham, – 43.4%
The Academy, Birmingham – 42%
Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – 41.6%

Digital Central have a weblog which is good to see.

Photo of The New York Howl at the Jug of Ale in Moseley taken by myself.

A weekly grab from the Birmingham Flickr community.

by Photo-Gedden

by nobody knows anything

by Tippeh

by ADAMSKI01

To suggest photos for this feature post them to this thread on Flickr or leave a link in the comments here.

Antonio Gould has started a series of podcasts, New Media 4casts, for the Channel 4 4talent site exploring how creatives can use new media techniques and technologies effectively. Two shows are online so far on selling online and building a website and he’ll be covering the music and film industries soon. Here’s the RSS feed or you can download direct.

See also the rest of 4talent West Midlands for more resources and advice in this area which I’ll no doubt be exploring over time.

Gigbeth, the three day free music festival in Digbeth (see what they did there?), takes place on 1-3 November this year based around the Sanctuary, Barfly, Custard Factory and Glee Club amongst other venues.

Bands and musicians from all genres are welcome to apply to play and will be paid at least Musicians’ Union rates. Applications must be in by 27th April though they will start looking at them in early March. Here are the details.

Gigbeth is also a music conference involving Digital Central. Hopefully some more information on what that comprises will emerge closer to the date but I’d imagine promoters, labels and other industry figures will be in attendance.

Naturally there’s also a MySpace presence.

I came across the Brumcast podcast around the time it started and my initial impressions were “meh…” so I filed it away under “Nice idea, shame about the execution.” That was a mistake and having dabbled in podcasting myself I should have known it takes a while to get into the swing of things.

Prompted by a few mentions about the place I checked out the latest show, number 35 which in itself is an achievement. Little Chris has certainly found his groove. The hour long show, featuring only Birmingham-based musicians with an emphasis on the unsigned, darts all over the genre map from jangly indie to death metal, ska to post-rock, acoustic singer-songwriter to the madness of the Modified Toy Orchestra. The quality is generally high and the presentation clear. There’s not much from the rap/r&b or bhangra aspects of the city (bearing in mind I’ve only listened to one show so far) but that’s more indicative of the way music tends to be segregated in Birmingham as a whole than a criticism. It’d be nice to see someone try to bridge those divides though.

To subscribe to Brumcast drag this link into iTunes (or similar). Alternatively mp3 downloads can be found here. More info can be found on MySpace.

A Flatpack Film Festival spotlight.

The opening film of the Flatpack Festival is The Seashell And The Clergyman. Made in 1927 by Germaine Dulac from a script by Antonin Artand it is widely considered the first surrealist film. If you fancy a bit of academia there’s a nice article on Dulac here and a couple of her films are on Google Video: La Souriante Madame Beudet (The Smiling Madame Beudet) and our feature La Coquille et le Clergyman (The Seashell And The Clergyman), though of course watching it on a monitor will not compare to the big screen at St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter.

Especially as the film will be accompanied live by Minima, a four piece band comprising bass, drums, guitar and cello. They’ve also uploaded clips of their performance to Google Video so you can get an idea of what it’s like. Tickets for the event are £7.00 and also give entry to the launch party at the Actress and Bishop.

A Reuters/Billboard report has declared Birmingham to be one of the music hot spots in 2007 along with Beijing, Berlin, Brisbane and, proving that they did work their way down the alphabet a bit, Marseille.

In a U.K. music scene perennially dominated by London and Manchester, England’s “second city” has struggled, musically, in recent years.

Yet Birmingham and the surrounding West Midlands region has produced acts ranging from rock monsters Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath to Duran Duran. Now, the city — long derided as an industrial wasteland — has undergone hefty redevelopment and its music scene seems similarly re-energized. Locals say the success of the Birmingham-based Editors, whose 2005 debut album “The Back Room” is BPI-certified platinum (300,000 units), helped shift labels’ talent-scouting focus to the city’s independent/alt-rock sector.

Birmingham alt-rock act The Twang just signed a label deal with B-Unique, the Polydor imprint that’s home to the Kaiser Chiefs. Unsigned acts that could be next in line include the Weezer-influenced Murdoch and punky trio the Untitled Musical Project, plus The Enemy (from nearby Coventry) and Ripchord (from Wolverhampton).

The smells somewhat of the NME effect. In fact it’s almost identical to that Best Midlands piece they ran last November. Still, rather nice to see bands I’ve watched at the Flapper mentioned in this kind of report. Who knows, maybe something will come of this?

Photo of The Twang by Andy Willsher taken from their MySpace page. Tip of the hat to Andrew Dubber for the link.

The third in my series of long interviews with notable people on the Birmingham creative scene is with Rich Batsford.

Rich is a pianist who’s lived in Moseley all his life. However, the main focus of the interview is Project X Presents, a collective of performers and technicians who put on the multi-genre Like Fxck gig last summer. Rich explains how it all came about, what’s next for the group and what it all means.

Read on…

The Decibel Performing Arts Showcase takes place in Birmingham from September 3rd to 7th this year.

“The showcase will be an unmissable opportunity to see the very best performing artists and companies of African, Asian* and Caribbean descent based in England. It will take place in Birmingham from Monday 3 to Friday 7 September and will include a 1 day International Symposium on Monday 3 September.”

“The showcase provides a performance platform and a range of complementary services that will assist artists and companies to sell their work, expand their touring potential and develop new projects.”

“We anticipate that around 400 promoters, producers and arts professionals from the UK, Europe and beyond will attend the showcase and international conference.”

The application deadline has passed and the shortlist will be announced in March.

More about decibel on the Arts Council website.

Focus on Imaging, a big trade show for cameras and related kit, runs from 25th - 28th February at the NEC.

“Over 200 exhibitors and product launches galore - including all the very latest digital cameras and processing equipment - will feature at Focus 2007″.

Entry is free for professionals (including full-time professional photographers) and £6.00 for “hobbyists”.

via Flickr

Now here’s an odd one, at least at first glance. You wouldn’t think Birmingham was a hot-bed of mountaineering enthusiasts but this Thursday sees the start of the Birmingham Mountain Film Festival at the Creation Climbing Centre in Moseley. Alongside a photography exhibition and short films shown in the cafe-bar the highlights include a screening of E11 with talk by Dave MacLeod and two sessions of the best of the Kendal Mountain Film Festival.

Here’s an excerpt from their press release:

The brainchild of Custard Factory-based film-makers and climbing enthusiasts, Blue Hippo Media’s Pip Piper and Weekday Productions’ Dominic Green, the new festival gives the fast-growing Midlands climbing-community a unique Winter event.

Festival director, Pip Piper, says: “Winter weather and limited daylight inhibit climbing at this time of year, so we wanted to hold a celebration of the sport for Midlands enthusiasts. We hope the BMFF becomes a regular feature in the climbing calendar - a place where experts and novices mix and all experience something to inspire them.”

Passes can be purchased to give visitors either one to three day access to BMFF’s full programme of both films and supporting events at the Creation Climbing Centre, based at the Epic Centre, Moseley. The BMFF organising group includes Creation Climbing Centre and Birmingham-based Gravity magazine - the UK’s only free national climbing publication.

The festival launches on the evening Thursday 25th January and runs to Saturday 27th.

Tip of the hat to D’log. Again.

A Flatpack Film Festival spotlight.

Mark Locke’s Saturday Night Takeaway, occurring at the MAC on Feb 3rd, is a retrospective of the film maker’s work from 90s comedy shorts to his current crop of music videos for the likes of Jeffrey Lewis, Ten Benson and local stars Misty’s Big Adventure.

The performance will be in a chat show format with Mark talking about his films with BBC presenter Adrian Goldberg while Misty’s perform live as the house band.

There will also be clips of Mark’s comedy feature film Crust descried by All Movie Guide thus:

“The phrase “jumbo shrimp” gains a whole new meaning in this broad comedy from the United Kingdom. Bill (Kevin McNally) is a former boxer who, now in middle age, owns and operates a run-down bar and spends a bit too much time sampling his wares. One day, Bill’s friend Hamid (Madhav Sharma), a self-styled entrepreneur with no shortage of get-rich-quick schemes, offers to cut him in on something remarkable — while the Mantis Shrimp of the Philippines, an unusual breed with club-like stumps instead of claws, rarely grows over six inches in length, he’s discovered a living specimen which is a whopping seven feet long. Hamid is certain there must be big money in exhibiting the massive crustacean, and Bill comes up with a remarkable plan — teach the critter to box, and then have it take on all comers on a TV show!”

and here’s a somewhat glowing review.

Mark’s site, Fort Mark Films, showcases his music videos. I’d particularly recommend Jeff Lewis’ Wiliamsburg Will Oldham Horror and Misty’s Fashion Parade though they’re all worth a look. The latter was something of an MTV / YouTube hit.

Tickets for the event are £4.50 and available from the MAC website. The show starts at 8.30 on Feb 3rd and runs for an hour and a half. Which should leave time to jet up to the Jug of Ale for the Known Unknowns live music and films and stuff event. That’s my plan anyway.

Lower Eastside Dialogues is a series of events aiming to set the agenda for the emerging learning and cultural quarter over the next three months.

The Design of Regeneration
January 25th, 7pm @ The Bond, Fazeley Street, Digbeth (map)

Speakers include:
* Amanda Levete from Future Systems, architects of the award winning Selfridges building
* Philip Singleton, City Design Advisor, Birmingham City Council Planning Policies and Development.
* Speaker from Urban Splash (developing both the Rotunda and Fort Dunlop)
* Chair - Julia Ellis, Director, MADE

Further dates include:
Digital Cities - 22nd February
Journeys and Arrivals - Heritage and Regeneration - 22nd March

Contact Roger Shannon for further information and to book places.

Info via Producers Forum

Interesting interview in the Birmingham Post with Jonathan Watkins, director of the Ikon gallery and architect Glenn Howells (Wikipedia) who has previously worked on the Custard Factory and is involved with a number of regeneration projects in Birmingham. While nothing has been confirmed the pair are very keen to see the Ikon expand into a new building housing a major contemporary art museum on a par with those in London, Liverpool and Manchester.

Here’s the meat:

Glenn Howells sees the project not as the luxury people might suppose but as a declaration of the city’s ambition.

“We used to need a cathedral to be a city. Today without certain cultural institutions it raises questions about a city’s status.

“One of the perceptions to tackle is that this is something that would be ‘nice to have’. The future can’t be about bashing metal and trying to sell it abroad. It’s being creative, not doing things other cities with lower rates of pay can do.

“If we’re moving into a knowledge-based economy we have to retain the people who are stimulated by this kind of facility. Nobody wonders if a university is good for the city. If you don’t have the right tools to develop stimulation, those people will go elsewhere.”

Jonathan Watkins adds: “This is the second largest city in the fifth largest economy in the world, and yet when you think about visual art it’s a really small proportion of what’s on offer here.

“The more institutions you have, the more artistic activity you can attract, the more artists decide to stay. Then an art market might start to happen. Commercial galleries might decide Birmingham is a good place to be.”

More…

I’ve heard from a number of people that the Ikon, as Birmingham’s premier contemporary art venue, doesn’t really do much for local artists, but that isn’t really its job. The problem is more that, outside the BM&AG, the Ikon is the only gallery with a high enough profile at the moment and it’s not really that big. This idea of a “halo effect” on the local arts community makes sense to me.

That said, it would be nice if the Ikon made some effort to connect with the rest of the community. They appear to have a policy of not publicizing other fine art venues and events in the city, at least judging by the paucity of flyers in their lobby and cafe. As the one gallery most Brummies can name this is a lost opportunity that really should be part of their remit.

In other news, the Ikon Bookshop is having a sale during january and February with 20% off full priced books and 50% off selected catalogues. If you didn’t already know it’s located at 1 Oozells Square in Brindley Place (map.

Link via D’log who has additional commentary. Photo by myself.

The Flatpack Festival programme is online and by the gods there’s a lot going on. I had no idea!

Over four days there’s an absurd amount of films being shown in the city from features to shorts to video installations at a wide range of venues. You could, if you wished, spend three whole days in The Electric, spend Saturday afternoon in the Modulate Sound Space having your brain twisted or experience the entire Jug of Ale being crammed full of bands, films, artists, DJs and stalls for seven hours of Known Unknowns.

The festival starts on February 1st. Over the next week I’ll be profiling some of the events in a bit more depth and then reporting on things as they happen.

Each year music promoters Capsule attend the Sonar Festival in Barcelona.

From their site:

“For the 4th time Capsule will be holding a stall at this years Sonar Festival in Barcelona, on previous visits we have been accompanied by labels/ arts organisations / Festivals organisers to take advantage of the opportunity to promote their wares/ meet like minded people and create new contacts and to get a first hand experience of Europe’s largest electronic/experimental sonic/arts festival.

“Capsule would like to invite applications from labels / artists / organisations / film makers from the West Midlands interested in attending Sonar Festival 2007. A total of 8 companies will be attending from the West Midlands, 3 of these places are open to selection.”

More details here. The deadline for applications is 28th Feb. Photo above presumably from last year.

(I’d go in a half second.)

While we’re on the subject, Capsule events in February are as follows:

3rd - Jug of Ale: Known/Unknowns Flatpack Film Festival related gig.

17th - Jug of Ale: Flower-Corsano Duo, Voice of the Seven Woods, Mills & Boon

18th - Jug of Ale: Young James Long, Copter, D. Louis Baker