A nice vid from Junction 15 featuring extended bits of Badly Drawn Boy, Billy Bragg, lots of smiley people and some earnestly hippyish goings-on at last year’s Moseley Folk Festival.
Moseley Folk Festival from junction15 on Vimeo.
Author Archive
I’d come across Advice To Sink In Slowly once or twice:
an ongoing series of posters designed by graduates for the purpose of passing on advice and inspiration to first year students
but I’m not sure I’d twigged that there are a few contributors from around Birmingham, including Ben Javens, Jonny Costello (whose poster is below), Lee Basford and Luke Tonge.
Simon Peplow and Yee Ting Kuit both studied in Birmingham too. Let me know if I’ve missed anyone.
(Spotted by Helga Henry)
Fast Food Dreams is an exhibition by Kristian Jones. You can see it at 6/8 Kafe today.
His work has also recently been featured all over Common, my favourite Mancunian bar.
UPDATE: Fused Magazine points out that the exhibition is on for the next six weeks.
Birmingham made it to number 19 in The New York Times’ list of 45 Places to Go in 2012. Here’s the entry:
Olive, the BBC’s food magazine, recently startled British gourmands when it declared Birmingham, England’s second largest city, the United Kingdom’s “foodiest town,” ahead of London and Edinburgh. The award came last October, just as Birmingham was hosting an annual festival, the 10-day Birmingham Food Fest, which featured such local talents as Aktar Islam of Lasan Restaurant; up-and-comers like David Colcombe of Opus, Andy Waters of Edmunds Restaurant and Steve Love of Loves Restaurant; and a troika of Michelin-starred chefs: Glynn Purnell of Purnell’s; Andreas Antona, Luke Tipping and Adam Bennett of Simpsons Restaurant; and Richard Turner of Turners of Harborne.
The chefs are building on an already rich dining scene. Birmingham is famous in Britain for its Balti Triangle, an area of town that is home to a beloved Pakistani-Kashmiri curry dish invented here; it is also birthplace to such classically British food items as Typhoo Tea, Bird’s Custard and HP Sauce. ALEXANDER LOBRANO
That’s pretty good as it is, but the destination beaten into 20th place was none other than… SPACE. Ha! In your face, final frontier!
Thanks to Charlotte Cooper (and then pretty much everyone in Birmingham who’s on Twitter) for spotting that one.
Come to think of it, one of the most successful chefs in New York at the moment is April Bloomfield, originally from around these parts.
- Eastside Projects Hosting: What is Art? Charity event at St Basils 13/01/12
Organised by ESP member Kartal Uppal, this evening will look at and debate the question; What makes something Art? With contributions from Gavin Wade (Director, Eastside Projects), Tyler Cann (Curator, Ikon Gallery) and Cathy Wade (Artist and Lecturer) - Things Team Fierce looks forward to in 2012. . . | Fierce Festival
Lots of good stuff, with plenty happening around Birmingham - Sarah Ray illustration: Screenprinting workshops
Learn to make your own cards, posters or whatever. Silkscreen printing always looks to me like being a very satisfying process - Flatpack Festival founder: Ian Francis
A decent little interview - Follow the Dancing for the Games projects online
Loads of links to the projects that are part of the Dancing for the Games programme - Aga | Luthien Photography
Kamila’s been shooting around Digbeth (via Digbeth is Good) - Birmingham NYE 2012 fireworks
Sounds like things went a little wrong. If you’d read our New Year events round-up you’d have known to expect ‘low level pyrotechnics’
The Eastern Electronic Festival is back in either May or October this year (this says both). To pass the time before then, Shaanti (who produce the festival) have put out their first in a new podcast series.
SHAANTI PRESENTS PODCAST SERIES 001 – BY SHARNITA K ATHWAL (DEC 2011) by Shaanti
First Light, based in Digbeth, commissioned Nice Monster to produce a series of ‘How To’ short films.
Each 90 second film will provide top tips for budding filmmakers looking at areas such as film structure, storyboarding, direction, camera techniques, editing and sound and lighting.
Stephen Spencer runs the Nice Monster studio and, although he’s moved down to London now, he roped in Louis Hudson, Ian Ravenscroft, Marc Silk, The Audio Suite and possibly others from around here.
Only the first one is up so far. To make sure you don’t miss the rest, subscribe to First Light’s YouTube channel.
Creative Times have published some predictions and resolutions for 2012 featuring contributions from Noel Dunne, Katie Day and James Yarker among others.
Their hopes and aspirations cover better collaboration, apps for artists and a look at what to expect from Birmingham’s theatre scene over the coming months.
Have you got any predictions you’d like to make?
- Bread&Circus
“Bread & Circus is a distraction of two Birmingham based designers. Posting travel, design, fashion, music and food.” Claire Hartley (who helped make CiB look like it does) and Gavin Auty got a blog - Meet DANANANANAYKROYD | THE FLAPPER | BIRMINGHAM, UK
I missed this back in July, but Vice recorded some live footage at The Flapper and some interviews at Star City - Fish Fight Included in App Store Rewind 2011 – ‘The Best of the Year’ | Clusta
Good stuff from Clusta
This’ll be the last post of 2011. See you in the new year for more fun and japes.
- Tributes to former Birmingham Repertory Theatre chairman Andy Allan
A former chairman of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre who guided the venue through the controversial staging of a play which led to riots in 2004, has died at the age of 68. - Briefing Document « Stan’s Cafe Theatre Company
From: ACE Dance and Music, Big Brum, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Birmingham Arts Partnership , Birmingham Jazz, Punch, Sound It Out, Stan’s Cafe, Women and Theatre. To: Birmingham City Council - Gil Heron
Gil Scott Heron’s dad played for Kidderminster Harriers. That nugget from John Mostyn, via Sam Slater - Introducing this year’s patron saint : Flatpack Festival
“he appeared in more Laurel and Hardy films than anyone else, as well as writing gags, building sets and working with the likes of Abbot and Costello, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. He grew up in Ward End, Birmingham” - Straina – 21st Century Fox
This video was filmed around Birmingham and the German markets at the beginning of December - Poorly Collected Works 2010-11 eBook: Jon Bounds: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
A collection of writing by Jon Bounds from various sources - Opportunity for new studio members at The Lombard Method
“We have 3 studio spaces available to rent at The Lombard Method” Only £80/month
Photo: Hotdogs by Matt Cattell
A few festive bits and bobs happening around Birmingham…
The Frankfurt Christmas Market closes on Friday 23 December, as does the Festive Pop Up Bazaar on New Street.
It’s the BrumNotes/This Is Tmrw Christmas Party at The Victoria tonight. Click the link or ogle the poster below (sidenote: are Lewes Herriot‘s gig posters the best around town at the moment? Answers on a postcard).
Birmingham Hippodrome have Cinderella on until the end of January and has already picked up some really good reviews from the Birmingham Mail and The Stage. I went along to the press night last night (disclosure: that means they gave me free tickets) and liked the lovely horsey best.
In other theatre-based offerings:
- The Rep have The Snowman at the ICC and Sleeping Beauty at the Crescent Theatre.
- Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter are doing A Christmas Carol
- The MAC have The Lost Happy Endings
In fact, Area Guide’s December issue has a Christmas theatre round-up from page 26 onwards. Ah, and Visit Birmingham have a Christmas round-up too.
Film-wise, Kino 10 are showing The Nightmare Before Christmas plus some short films at St Columba Church on Friday 23 Dec and The Electric have a smattering of festive films too.
Town Hall & Symphony Hall have a bundle of events going on:
- Polar (this afternoon)
- The CBSO’s Great Big Choral Christmas
- Christmas Eve Classics
- Boxing Day Gala
Meanwhile, down in that London, Birmingham Royal Ballet are seeing out the year performing The Nutcracker at the O2, which sounds like a pretty big deal to me.
There’s loads of other stuff too, obviously. If you’ve got any other good suggestions then bung them in the comments.
From now until February 2012, Birmingham Libraries are setting free 1,000 copies of Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson for people to read, review and pass on to a friend in the Birmingham Big City Read.
For more info, follow the link to Birmingham’s Big City Read and grab a book while they’re still available (if they’ve not all gone yet). The folks behind this are Transworld Publishers, in partnership with The Reading Agency. The plan is to build up a discussion about the book over here.
In 2010, Birmingham was due to become a leading digital city. I’ve no reason to assume that didn’t happen on schedule, although I’ve been flicking through The Drum’s list of Top 100 Digital Agencies (by fee income) and they don’t seem to have got the memo.
The Midlands (east and west) only have three agencies listed. Those are:
- Freestyle in Warwick (59th)
- Big Picture in Leamington Spa (92nd).
- WAA, who are identified as Sutton Coldfield rather than Birmingham but we know the truth (90th)
The good news is we beat Wales (one agency listed) and the North East (also one agency, although their fee income easily outstrips the combined Midlands ones). Hurrah, I suppose.
Well done to 383 Project for their mention in the ones to watch for 2012 list.
It’s been more than a year since I last mentioned RoxXxan. In the time since she’s been signed by Polydor and keeps cropping up in interviews all over the place. There’s been talk of a mixtape called Prepare 4When I Land but it looks like that’s going to be out in the new year now.
In the meantime, she’s made this of Hudson Mohawke‘s Thunder Bay.
Mind out for the strong language if you don’t like that sort of thing.
Untold Stories is a documentary covering the Birmingham music scene from 1965 to 1985. It’s been produced by Birmingham Music Heritage.
A full DVD’s due at some point, but it’s all up on YouTube in 7 parts. Here’s part one:
