Photographer Steve Gerrard is currently doing an offer for local bands who are in need of some decent shots.
An hour’s shoot and a minimum of 20 great images for just £60.
From the shoot I’d expect to get a varied selection of photos in different locations, giving the impression that the pictures were taken at different times and places rather than all in one session. I always ask bands to bring at least 3 changes of tops/jackets/shirts etc.
You’d get a selection of colour and black & white shots, plus we can do individual band member shots separately.
If you’re playing live anywhere soon, I’ll come and do some live shots for a bargain £30 extra.
A bunch of his photos are at that link and the above is of The Motive.
Friends of the Stars have been leaking out tracks of theirs for free download on their blog. The current one is from their remix CD which accompanies the Lighting and Electrical album. Have a listen to the L&R Woodcutter Fabulous Remix of Sharpening a Blade…
[audio:http://www.friendsofthestars.co.uk/audio/Sharp_remix.mp3]
… and then go read all about it and download a copy for yourself.
The second of Autumn Store Dunc’s guides to putting on a DIY gig or club night is up, this time on the art of flyering and it’s a damn good one.
The humble flyer is still the most important bit of paper in the independent promoters arsenal. Posters can be too easily ignored, but putting a flyer into someone’s hand actually makes people make a decision about a night and whether they want to go. Chances are it’ll be a probably not – but they’ve had to take in the information to make that decision. A flyer will also follow them home if they take it and maybe even adorn the fridge making it less likely they’ll forget that the event is on and why they would want to go.
He goes through decisions about format, paper quality (the balance between expensive or quantity), distributions strategies (with the promise of a list of suitable venues in Birmingham to target) and using them online.
Of particular note is something that hadn’t occurred to me. Birmingham City Council recently brought in a law where leafleting in public is illegal without a £250 permit. This is ostensibly to limit the amount of rubbish on the high street but it also applies to giving out flyers outside gigs, especially if you’re not involved with the gig in question, and you could be fined £2,500. Of course the likelihood of an inspector being outside the Barfly at midnight is slim but it’s something to be aware of.
Personally I like the idea that a flyer is a concentrated information burst. Everything you might want to know about the gig should be on there from web addresses to a mobile number for information, not to mention hooks for what the event might be like. Flyers are like business cards, only nicer and without the wanky connotations. And, of course, they can be lovely art objects.
Anyway, read and digest.
Mark Badger of Iron Man Records has uploaded loads of tracks to Last.FM from various artists on his label. Here’s the full list and, because I can, there’s the widget. Hit the big Play button.
What’s interesting about Last.FM is the music isn’t available to download, just to stream, but people can embed stuff like the widget above in their own blogs, myspaces, etc, and can use these tracks to create their own “radio stations”. There are also links to paid downloads, adding another revenue stream, this one connected to a service that tracks what people are actually listening to.
Anyone else doing this sort of thing?
(btw, Mark Badger comments here as Mikhail Alexandrovich. For some reason.)
Brumcast 76 is up
[audio:http://ipodnetworks.com/podcast/363/2009_hifi.mp3]
Cat Bray of 4Talent West Midlands sent through some links to new stuff on their site.
4Talent looks ahead to Reggae event BrumFest this Saturday with Moseley boys Jam Jah.
The first in a series of 4Talent inspiration sessions podcasts going out every Wednesday for six weeks is onsite. This week we’re hearing about animation from some experts.
4Talent interviews Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, at the Birmingham International Comics Show.
Remember how Glee Club auctioned off a stand-up comedy slot for charity? 4Talent talk to the man who won the slot, Bob May.
4Talent stalk John Simpson at the Birmingham Book Festival.
Also at the Birmingham Book Festival, 4Talent interview playwright Stephanie Dale about writing radio drama.
I’m going away over Xmas – spending a month with family in New Zealand – which means my bloggery will suffer but quite frankly I need a holiday. I’ll still be checking in but only once or twice a week at most. Since the arts / culture / etc world slacks off big time over Xmas I don’t expect to be missing too much but the blog will still be here and people will still be reading it.
So here’s an idea.
If you’re involved with CiB-type stuff you’re invited to write an article for the blog. It can be about anything you want, within reason, with the intention of starting a debate. Keep it succinct and to the point (500 words tops I reckon) and don’t be a dick for the sake of it, but other than that, the forum is yours.
Of course there are no guarantees of publication and the usual rules of libel and defamation apply.
Send your pieces to peteashton [at] gmail.com and I’ll set them up to be published from December 10th through to Christmas and then again from January 2nd.
(I may change these rules depending on the sort of stuff that comes in…)
Bearded Magazine is recruiting, specifically for an Advertising Manager and Marketing Manager. All interested should follow that link.
BiNS picks up on the news that The NME are launching a new club in Birmingham on February 7th in a new venue called “The Place I Love”. Specific details are sketchy but it seems to be connected with The Sunflower Lounge and to be located on Allison Street in Digbeth which I note is much closer to the city centre than most Digbeth venues.
[Please note: Now taking place at Vivid due to high demand]
After a short break the Pub Conversations at the Lamp Tavern return on Tuesday 4th December, 7.30pm. Nikki Pugh has the details.
In December, after a six month stay of execution, Birmingham Artists will lose the subsidy for their studios at Lee Bank. This space was the only Birmingham City Council subsidised artists’ workspace in the city. Meanwhile other studios (including those the majority of Self Service members inhabit) are in privately owned buildings that are often cold, damp, insecure and uninsurable.
Self Service feel this most recent withdrawal of support for artists’ practice, should act as a catalyst for a wider discussion about the lack of affordable, fit for purpose studio provision and production facilities in the city
- How should artists in Birmingham respond to the council’s action?
- Could artists be doing more to demonstrate the intrinsic value of arts practice to the city?
- Are successful models for studio provision just about providing artists with space to work?
- Is the Creative Industries agenda at odds with the realities of most artists’ practice?
With these, and many more, questions in mind we have have invited Lucy Byatt to host a pub(lic) conversation around this issue.
More info.
All are welcome though space is limited so please book a place by emailing selfservice [at] hotmail.co.uk.
Currently up on AWM’s internet television service Biztv is a short report from the Gigbeth Conference featuring vox-pops from organiser Clare Edwards, Paul Birch of Revolver Records and Dutch Van Spell of Big Help Management.
The above screen grab is of the panel of six teenagers hosted by Andrew Dubber where they laughed in the face of the music industry. He writes about it here.
Interesting thing in the current Capsule newsletter which I’ll reprint here.
Budding music critics – please get in touch. We’ve been talking to Plan B Magazine and we’d like to encourage more coverage of West Midlands activity, if you’d like us to put you forward please get in touch and we’ll send your details on – it means you’ll be able to blag your way into shows for free :)
This again echoes the chat I had with Matt Price (written up on the Custard Factory blog) and it’s nice to see Capsule have recognised the importance of this. While having local blogs and magazines talking up the city’s music scene is great there are also national and international publications and sites which can have a role to play – they just need people to write for them. The reason London-based bands get coverage in the press is because that’s where the critics are. Capsule have access to these platforms.
If you are interested in this but haven’t written much I’d advise you to start now. Don’t wait for the first commission – set up a blog (it’ll take five minutes, if that, using Blogger or WordPress.com) and write about the last gig you went to. Then do it again. You’ll get better with practice. And if you think you’re ready give Capsule a shout.
Meet The Authors is a nice looking local lit event tomorrow at the MAC with Brummie of the Year contender Catherine O’Flynn and Nicola Monaghan talking about their work.
Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents’ sweet shop before embarking on a career of curious jobs. Her first novel, What Was Lost, has bounded into the literary scene getting a nod from the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and, at the time of writing is 8/1 odds on to scoop The Man Booker Prize. Celebrating Catherine’s insight into the absurdity of consumerism and urban dissatisfaction, the Literary Review observes, ‘O’Flynn is just the colleague you’d want to be stuck with in a dead-end job.’)
Nicola Monaghan has worked as a teacher, a financial analyst and a software guru. She now works part-time as Fellow of the National Academy of Writing, based at the University of Central England. Boyd Tonkin included Nicola in the Independent’s New Years Eve list of rising talent for 2006. Her first novel, The Killing Jar, was published in March 2006 to critical acclaim. It won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and a Betty Trask Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Goss First Novel Prize and the Waverton Good Read.
Tickets are £5 and it starts at 7.30. Details.
Creative Wolverhampton have posted the press release from Screen West Midlands about their securing “£4 million of additional production funds to invest in film and digital media production over the next four years.”
The new Media Production Fund is open to film and digital media projects from across the UK and productions will be green-lit on a commercial basis. However, an emphasis will be given to projects which film, post produce or draw creative talent from the West Midlands.
