Created in Birmingham

Gigbeth looks to be coming together quite nicely.  There are some well recognised names signed up (Sugarhill Gang, Young Knives, Guillemots, Stanton Warriors, Kano, Fabio and so on) along with some good localness too (Einstellung, The Destroyers and a who’s who of local promoters organising their own nights).

Here are some links to things out there:

• Today (15 Oct) is the last day for buying cheaper earlybird tickets
• Here’s the Gigbeth schedule, although at the mo there are more bands listed on the Gigbeth MySpace
• For a second year, Jon at B:iNS has braved the Gigbeth MySpace Marathon, checking out each band that’s playing
• From watching the interview below, it seems that although the music part of the festival serves as the shop window, the Gigbeth Conference is a bigger thing than many of us will appreciate
• Incidentally, rather than churning out press releases, the Gigbeth blog is an engaging and lively thing written by a few people (I think – who writes each post is a bit of a mystery)

Last, and certainly not least, our Frankie sat down with Gigbeth’s organiser, Clare Edwards, for a natter about how the festival and conference started, what it’s all about and this year’s most exciting acts:

Interview with Clare Edwards, Gigbeth from Created in Birmingham on Vimeo.

The lastest Midlands tunage from Little Chris is out.  Cop Brumcast 108 here.

This is the tracklisting:

1. Old School Tie – Fireflies
2. The Me Band – If It Was Up To Me
3. The hungry i – Jaws of Love
4. The Fury – Ninja
5. Betty & The Id – Cellophane Man
6. Johnny Normal – Jake’s Ride
7. The Mallory Heart – Judas Revisited
8. Mayday – Barracudas
9. BSN420 – Student Life
10. Aaron.C – Fall For Anything
11. Porpoise – Big Cat Tag Team Take Down
12. Flesh Eating Foundation – 05 – The Dead
13. And She Said… – Me
14. Cueball 8 – Chocolate Blue Skies
15. Distinct Radi0 – these modern times
16. The Riptides – Soldier in your heart

• Cut-Out
  Not quite sure what the deal is with this one. They’ve got a DIY print studio and are looking for people to submit designs for them to use on T-shirts and so on. A physical shop is apparently coming in summer 09, in the meantime they’re up online with a website (coming soon) and this blog
• Birmingham Music
  “The Town Hall and Symphony Hall website have launched a new online booking system for their events… Also, as an introductory offer, you can take advantage of free postage on all bookings up to November 30th”
• Draft Vision for a Birmingham Photospace
  The next meeting about this is on Tues 14 October at 6.30pm in the Library cafe, Birmingham city centre. Seek out the Birmingham Flickr group for how the discussion about this is going; this is a link to the draft vision they’ve prepared
• Flip Blog – Grads On Walls Event
  The Flip Animation folk put out a reminder for the Animation Forum WM’s Grads on Walls event on Monday (good to see people talking up other people’s events – a very smart thing to do, I’d say)
• Birminghams Most Stylish – Style Birmingham
  “The 500 people who have made it through this year’s Style Search will be whittled down to just ten this weekend at a special party at Gatecrasher”. Why am I linking to this? Um… just spreading the joy I guess
• Script screenwriting course
  “Script, in association with Outside Centre, presents an in-depth Introduction to Screenwriting Course” at Wolverhampton’s Light House
• Plus+: Fazeley Studios 2008 Plus Venue
  Is it me or does the text in the link make no sense. Basically, Fazeley Studios has been chosen as the venue for the 2008 Plus Design Festival. Shame on me for not spotting that they had a blog though, and thanks to Nicky at Digbeth is Good for pointing it out
• Facebook group – mid*point
  “mid*point is the network for independent theatre companies in the West Midlands” There doesn’t seem to have been any activity on the website for over a year but they’ve just started a Facebook group so something must be going on under the hood

I popped in to Ltd Edition the other weekend and picked up flyers, leaflets and business cards for those that had them and seemed to be Birmingham-based.  Here’s what I found:

Designer Art

Sue Rowe and Tamsin Mae sell paintings as well as creating backdrops and vinyl signage/window graphics.  They’ve produced the latter for Three White Walls, the Custard Factory Gallery and the window of Creative Alliance, below.

Shy Mouse Design

The Shy Mouse (I think her real name’s Annie) describes herself as “a self taught graphic designer with no formal qualifications”.  There was a longer description on her table which went into more detail about just how shy she was and how the stall at Ltd Edition was a brave attempt to get herself ‘out there’.  She also has a Flickr account and a small online store.

Ruth Green Design

Ruth Green creates etchings, screen prints and paintings with a retro, stylised feel.  I liked her stuff a lot.  Here’s a picture of a tree:

ACE dance & music are currently touring around with their last ever performances of the much-acclaimed Skin and will be at the Solihull Arts Complex on Tues 14 October.

The show is split into two halves and it says here the artistic director has worked with:

Akiko Kitamura from the Leni-Basso Dance Company of Japan and Vincent Mantsoe from Soweto South Africa to create a show which explores what lies beneath the skin, where our skin begins and ends, the spirit of unity and all the things that we all share

Here’s the trailer for the show:

Halloween might not be my bag but at least it’s an excuse to put some interesting events on.

Aside from the Ikon Eastside closing party there are a fair number of Halloween-themed things going on.  These are they (all happening on Friday 31 October, except the last two):

• The National Trust are putting on events in the back to back buildings (50-54 Inge Street/55–63 Hurst Street, Birmingham).  From 11.30am – 4pm they’ve got some nice events for the kiddies, then from 7pm to 9.30pm they’re “offering visitors a unique opportunity to linger for a while in our shadow-laden rooms, and silently reflect on the atmosphere of the back houses lit by candles, fires and oil lamps”
• The Town Hall are showing Nosferatu with an organ accompaniment by Nigel Ogden
• The Light House are showing Dracula, the Hammer version with Christopher Lee
• The Local Shorts Film Club are running a Halloween special at the Library Theatre
• Vivid are showing a slowed-down version of Psycho that will last a full 24 hours.  It starts at 9pm on Friday 31st and ends at 9pm the next day.  Entry is free
• At the Old Joint Stock Theatre, “Gemini present an evening of ghostly tales around the history of the Old Joint Stock followed by readings from a Medium”.  The night’s called Ghostly Histories and perhaps the scariest part is that the blurb mentions “clairvoyants with solid reputations”
• And on 1 November the Outer Edge’s next event at The Edge features “some obscure 3D horror and live horror sound effects from DJ FreakBeat”. Email outersight@live.com or text 07887 956297 for info.
• Also on 1 November, Capsule/ATP are putting on a Halloween show.

Thanks to the West Mids Life blog for a leg up compiling this.  Is there anything good I’ve missed?

• stereographic – Scribble Diary
  Stereographic have posted up some new examples of their work on their blog (including their work for Birmingham Opera Company and New Art Gallery Walsall) but it’s things like Sam’s scribble diary here which I like seeing and gives more of an insight into what’s going on behind the scenes (monsters and beer, by the looks of it)
• Platform 01
  “PLATFORM 01 was a multi-media collection of work by predominantly local artists, and featured contributions from painters, photographers, sculptors, printmakers and digital media artists”. It was filmed in the Custard Factory Gallery
• Punch Winter 2008
  Punch Record’s winter schedule is out
• Athletico Tortured Artists FC
  This is brilliant (although apparently my hair is to tidy for me to ever get a call-up – fairy nuff)
• The Type Drawer
  “We are working on a scene whereby a magical Type drawer explains some of Baskerville’s and Birmingham’s industrial achievements” ‘We’ being Sarah Carter, Howie Barker, Tommy Morrison and Alex Bermingham – the people behind this blog and a creative team working on Baskerville The Movie

Wedding/rock photographer (as well as ex-international DJ, Birmingham Live! creator, etc…) Steve Gerrard has relaunched his website and, put together by Chris Garrett (who also did The Big Picture‘s website), very nice it is too.

Steve’s blogging is sometimes used as an example of how a creative type can use use regular updates to showcase their work effectively. But then why would anyone not want to read a blog that turns out images like this:

Way back when, I said that the London-based Volume Magazine was coming to Birmingham for it’s fourth issue and was looking for submissions.

It’s out now (thanks to Chris Keenan for pointing that out) and is really rather good.  It can be read online here.

To help you in your browsing:

• the first few pages are all Aston Villa-related
• interviews with local bands (Scarlot Harlots, Sunset Cinema Club, Gemma Quarterman, 360, Hero Machine and May Day) start on p24
• Fashion starts on p40
• Creative and writing starts on p60 and features the following good people:

Hello World is:

Birmingham’s international digital media conference, held at Millennium Point from October 23-24 as part of the Hello Digital festival

Tickets at the talks are free but, given the calibre of some of the speakers (impressive bods from Flickr, Pixar, Channel 4 and so on), really will need to be booked online pretty sharpish.

Here’s the line-up.

Thursday 23 Oct:

• 9.30am – Gaming Gets Serious
• 11.15am – Doing Business in a Digital World
• 2pm – Digital Content Creation and Distribution

Friday 24 Oct:

• 10am – 4iP Regional Launch
• 11.45am – Digital Debate: Do or Die? Coping With Convergence in the Digital Age
• 1pm – “Talent 2 Market”- Developing the Skills of the Creative and Media Sector
• 2.30pm – In Conversation with Heather Champ, Director of Community at Flickr
• 3.45pm – In Conversation with Michal Makarewicz, Pixar Animation Studios

Ah, the cockles of my heart – how they are warmed.

Created in Birmingham doesn’t tend to cover comedy very much although, as people have pointed out, there’s no lack of creativity going on with it.  The problem is that, although I come across plenty of listings, there’s been no-one (that I’ve found) writing passionately and consistently about the city’s comedy scene.

Until now – enter Who’s Laughing Now?:

With news, listings, features and a kind of curation area for YouTube vids, it’s been launched to coincide with the Birmingham Comedy Festival and is the brainchild of Rich Batsford and Simon Harper.

Rich explains on his own blog that:

The site has been created with the intent of developing the comedy scene in the area and is more or less an open forum – we are very happy for all local promoters to send in previews of their events.

We are also on the lookout for other writers or budding journalists who are interested in publishing reviews through the site. Whilst there’s no money on offer, its all good experience and we would expect to be able to get free show tickets for our contributors when they are reviewing a show. Are you interested? – please contact us

I’m really chuffed to see this and think there’s a whole heap of potential here, so good luck to them.

I’ve just booked my tickets for this and can’t wait.

Spoken word/hip hop lyricist Polarbear will be performing ‘If I Cover My Nose You Can’t See Me‘ will be at The Door from 14 to 16 October.  See the vid to see what Polarbear‘s about:

and here’s the flyer:

I’ve heard a rumour about some aftershow parties somewhere but I’ve not had anything confirmed, so let’s just keep that between us for now.

Fluid Design tend to fly a little under my radar most of the time.  Locally, they’ve done the branding for the Fierce and Plus Design Festivals as well as the upcoming Hello Digital.

Or maybe it’s that my radar doesn’t reach to where they work – their client list includes Sony Electronics, Capcom, UBI-SOFT, Electronic Arts, Coca Cola, Virgin, Parlophone, Chrysalis… the list goes on.

I can’t remember where it was, but someone (love that tenacious reporting instinct) recently made the point that creative agencies in Birmingham are often better at working with others outside the region rather than within it.  I wouldn’t know if that’s true or not – if it is then maybe Fluid would be the archetype for that.

Whatever, anyway, what set my off down this tracks was hearing that Jonny from Fluid is starting a new night at The Sanctuary called Bleep Bleep playing techno and such.  Here’s the (back of the) flyer:

and if that floats your boat then there’s a Bleep Bleep Facebook group with more info.

• Capsule Blog – Think Antiques roadshow for fans of Metal
  The next stops on the Home of Metal tour are Wolves Art Gallery (25 Oct), New Art Gallery Walsall (6 Nov with performance by Einstellung) and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (7 Feb)
• I Have Clones
  A musician who’s just moved back to Birmingham (to finish off a degree at Aston Uni). He gets the whole blogging thing by the looks of things
• Artist Curator Gavin Wade – NP Exclusive Video Interview
  “An exclusive video interview with artist curator Gavin Wade at the opening of the new gallery Eastside Projects in the heart of Digbeth the new cultural quarter of Birmingham UK”
• Kebablog – Balena Project_Birmingham. ‘08 – Ikon Gallery
  Mr Kebablog went to see (and take pictures of) the Balena Project which features a 25ft cashmere whale in the Mailbox. It’s there until 26 Oct and if you’re reading this and can’t be bothered going to see it then perhaps I should point something out – IT’S A 25FT CASHMERE WHALE!
• The Fine Art of Saying “Hello” – TAK! Design & Art Direction
  Pete linked to this over a year ago but I’ve just seen it again and think it deserves another outing. It’s a presentation that Tak did to some illustrators on the art of self-promotion. If anyone looks at this and thinks ‘I can’t do that’ then shout in the comments and set your face to ‘surprised’ as help/further reading/etc come rolling in.  Seriously, give it a go

The splendid 7 Inch Cinema folk have announced the return of the Flatpack Festival which took a year off this year.  The dates for Flatpack 3 will be 11-15 March 2009.

The website for 2007′s festival is still up including this description of what it’s all about:

The festival remains fiendishly difficult to summarise, but intrepid punters can expect to find shorts, animation, music documentaries, independent features, live soundtracks, discussion events, web oddities, installations, parties and plenty more besides – with a general focus on people using limited resources in imaginative ways

Details are still a little way off with venues just being booked up now.  Stay tuned though.

This bit of info came from 7 Inch’s latest newsletter/listings for October which is well worth a look.

Oh heck, and I’ve just noticed it also mentions this:

Tuesday 11 November at Warwick Arts Centre
NOSFERATU
More Murnau, this time with the Matthew Eaton/Grandmaster Gareth score performed at Supersonic in July. (Sunrise next please!)

I saw half of this at Supersonic and can’t recommend it enough.  Nor can Cat Bray for that matter.