With the post-Supersonic comedown I can hopefully be forgiven for forgetting about the Surface Unsigned Final that took place on Sunday at the Custard Factory. But take place it did with twelve bands in the running and the results are as follows:
Best Band of the Festival: The Brascoes
2nd Place Band: Regis
3rd Place Band: Clout
4th Place Band: Jazz Thrash Assassin
You’ll remember this all started in March with 29 gigs at the Actress, followed by some more gigs, and possible some more on top of that, I forget, before ending up here. Was it worth it? Well, if nothing else the bands have gotten some practice, exposure and networking opportunities on the way and they do push the “industry relevance” of the competition. I guess the proof will be whether those names up there seem familiar in a year or so.
But whatever the results it’s always good to see a mad idea well executed, so congrats to all involved and best of luck in 2008 when the thing goes national. “300 nights of live music involving over 5,000 musicians from across the UK” apparently. Eek!
Photo of The Brascoes snarfed from the Surface website.
30-something ex-ravers are getting very excited over on Facebook over the news that the Que Club is re-opening with the first event being the next Drop Beats Not Bombs on September 14th. Here’s the reminiscences Facebook group but this other one links to centralhallbirmingham.co.uk, though it’s just a holding page right now, and states:
ITS BACK – under new ownership and Management – expect to see the biggest names in the business back at the newly refurbished Que Club in Central Hall.
So I guess plans to convert it into flats / offices fell through. It’ll be interesting to know who’s now running it and what they have planned. Is it just a club venue or will there be gigs and concerts too? A competitor to the Academy would be a good thing I feel, especially give they’ll be closing (and hopefully relocating) in a few years.
Compared to the (justified) pomp and fanfare of the Town Hall refurb this seems to be having a very quiet launch. Any light that can be shed would be welcome.
Photo by Richard R
A bright spot on the seemingly terminal “entertainment” schedule on the Bullring Beach (no, not the one by the library. The other one) is a special Gigbeth event this lunchtime. Nizlopi, Vijay Kishore, The Priory and The JD will be playing from 11.15am ’til about three on the sand outside St Martin’s Church. If you’re suffering the city centre this should be a beautiful respite.
Gigbeth itself runs from Thursday 1st to Saturday 3rd November in most of the music venues in Digbeth (naturally) with one ticket getting you into all of them. And did you know that to launch it they’re planning to shut down High St Deritend and whack a huge stage in the middle of the road? You do now. More plans for 2007 are sketched out here along with the innovative idea of coinciding with Music Live at the NEC, bringing 25,000 people from outside the region into Digbeth. Hope they like it.
More on this as we get closer.
- If you’ve not checked it, the Supersonic Collective Memory post is growing at an astounding rate. So many videos!
- More Macbeth at the MAC from 1st August. I think from now on the MAC should only show productions of Macbeth. More seriously I’m told this production “is completely financed, organised, directed, edited, designed and acted by a handful of A-level students from Stratford-upon-Avon college” who go by the name Neighbourhood Theatre so if you like your Shakespeare go give them some support. via damfino
- Rich Batsford writes about the music he’s had played on the current Radio To Go podcast.
- Also from Rich is news of some pre-Edinburgh comedy gigs he’s running at the lovely Old Joint Stock theatre. Oops, the first was yesterday but there’s another tonight with Andy White and Ivan Brackenbury, followed by two more on the 24th and 25th. Should we cover comedy on this blog? I think so.
- Dave Harte turns Creating Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurship education for the creative industries into a short play on his Strategy Digested blog – reading impenetrable government reports so you don’t have to. Kinda makes sense now.
- News is starting to trickle in on the Plus Design Expo blog, most recently that Jasper Goodall, Si Scott and Zip Design have been confirmed as attendees.
- Candice Smith informs on her blog that there’s an exhibition of fashion photography by Eleanor Gibbons and Laura Jackman on Level 3 of the Central Library at the moment.
- The long awaited Friends of the Stars CD isn’t out yet. But it will be soon. And then there’ll be blizzards in Hades.
- D’log sez: “If you’re a small creative firm in the West Midlands and you want £24,500 to help you to protect your intellectual property (copyright, licences, etc) then you have until 31st July 07 to apply for the grant” (The irony of my copying his post verbatim is not lost on me.)
- Creative Wolverhampton has details of the next Creative Networks meeting at Millennium Point titled “Music, Broadcast and Profit” with a keynote from George Webley. These are free events – more details here.
- Laura Gigslut’s listings are up.
(That’s the RSS feeds cleared. The sifting of 49 flagged emails will follow soon…)
From nobody knows anything
Photos are posted here from the Birmingham Flickr community. Click on the image for more details.
The Big Bang launch their debut album Shoot The Freak at the Sunflower Lounge this Friday 20th. From their blog:
We’ve written, played, completed and worked on over 100 songs over recent years. Some never making past infancy, some achieving ‘Oh god I wish they’d give this song a rest!’ status. But we’ve now completed our DEBUT album. (Any of those D.I.Y CDs you bought still contain different versions to all the tracks on the album. Lucky you.).
To some the album may seem like a ‘best of’ or ‘greatest hits that never were’. But these songs required a home, else they ran the risk of wandering around getting lost in the ether when we make new toys to play with.
So here we are. Shoot the Freak, for your listening pleasure. We are grateful to anyone who’s helped us over the years leading up to our first ‘proper’ record and cannot wait to meet new fans out there.
They’ll be playing the entire album live at the launch gig along with DJ support from the Coldrice kids. (The album might actually be put out by Coldrice but the edges between them and the band are kinda blurry so I can’t be sure.)
news via Birminghamusic
From suselstahl
Photos are posted here from the Birmingham Flickr community. Click on the image for more details.
Casually mentioned in the Supersonic booklet is the news that Capsule are to launch Capsule Records in conjunction with Southern Records. Bee Stung Lips will be the first artists released with their ep Songs To And From An Iron Gut.
The remarkable BSL have a gig at the Hare and Hounds on Thursday 19th. Worth bunking off the Creative City Awards for I’d wager.
An ongoing collation of mentions of Supersonic 2007 across teh internets.
[I'm going to stop actively searching for stuff now but will update this list with anything you send me or leave in the comments.]
Last odds and sods
to be updated indefinitely…
Found on Saturday
Found on Friday
Found on Thursday
Found on Wednesday
Found on Tuesday
Found on Monday
Found on Sunday
** There’s a new Supersonic group on Flickr **
Meta
Google News Alert (tracking news outlets for Supersonic + Birmingham)
Google Blog Search (same but for blogs with feeds)
Technorati (more random but picks up the fringes)
Flickr photos tagged with “supersonic”
YouTube videos tagged “supersonic”
More to come. Feel free to send me links or leave them in the comments.
The audience somewhat mesmerized by Mogwai.
The usual links roundup to follow once everyone’s recovered.
Otto Von Schirach close the Friday segment of Supersonic. There are no superlatives sufficient and there’s still Saturday to go.
Thank you Lisa and Jenny. Thank you.
A photographer name of Garazi Gardner popped into my field of vision the other day on Flickr. She’s 23, lives in Birmingham and does very sexy things with her camera.
She also appears to be connected to the band Templeton Pek, or at least has done a photoshoot for them.
More on her Flickr stream and MySpace page.
There’s a new New Media 4cast online from Antonio Gould, this time looking at Online Music. As with his previous podcasts he offers a clear overview of what’s going on rather than trying to dazzle you with jargon. To do this starts off with our friend Andrew Dubber to explain what’s changed, what hasn’t changed and what it means, and goes on to talk to the bands to find out how they’re using all this stuff. Quite possibly essential listening if you’re in a band.
To subscribe to the podcasts drag this link into iTunes (or similar), or if you’re just curious you can play the episode right here:
[audio:http://www.channel4.com/4talent/media/midlands/new_media/audio/4CastEpisode4.mp3]
It could be argued that what Artsfest needs is a big feck-off thing to draw the crowds in rather than just the vibrant but low-impact spread of little things. It looks like we might have just that because Architects of Air are bringing their big colourful tent to Birmingham over that same weekend – September 14th – 16th.
Surprisingly for such a visually arresting piece the photos on their site are pretty shit, but there’s a a good 700 or so on Flickr which really give a sense of what this is all about. Here’s a nice one from Valencia:
Can’t wait!
(Surprised not to see this mentioned on the Artsfest site. It’s only a couple of months away after all. Fingers out chaps.)
via Flickr Bham
