Created in Birmingham

Hello, As Pete mentioned, I’m Danny and I will be your guest blogger for a while, I will be trying to give you all the Birmingham friendly creative news that I find, although my main priority will be not screwing up like deleting the internet, getting Pete sued into the ground, or accidentally starting a Civil War. If there is something that you feel should be covered and I have missed, drop me a line at artiseasy(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk.

I don’t feel so much that I have been given the keys to a brand new sports car, as much as that I’ve been given the keys to an 18 wheeler lorry and its my job not to plough that bugger into a bus queue full of nuns and orphans. So without further adoing

• “Australian lawyer, novelist and human rights campaigner Randa Abdel- Fattah will be at a special event on the eve of Birmingham’s second annual Writers Awards evening”.

• A nice interview with Catherine O’Flynn, winner of the Costa First Novel Award here.

• Audiances Central normally have some good opportunities, these caught my eye, or rather caught my girlfriends eye, she’s giving me a hand and lovely hands they are too.

Triffic two part interview with cartoonist James Nash

(Personally It’s a joy to see someone from the Gary Panter / Matt Brinkman school working in the region.)

Missed it at the time, but Envy and Other Sins won that Mobile Act Unsigned compo in December getting them a contract with A&M. Cat Bray at 4Talent did a nice big interview with them. Well done, chaps!

Nice interview with Joel Wilson aka rapper Joel the Custodian on the predominantly American Music Mamma’s blog.

Here’s the Brum-specific bit:

What is the current music scene like there in Birmingham?
Birmingham, the city that spawned Black Sabbath [and recently the Editors and the Streets] has over 1 million inhabitants. Despite the wealth of creativity and access to local government funding few local music scenes grow or have a national impact. The still too unfocused but flashy annual Artsfest has the potential to gain notoriety around across Europe. As far as I can tell Birmingham remains a city with fragmented, inward focused musical cliques, some of which could be doing some damage in the music business but instead are just quietly sauntering along. Some entrepreneurs are trying to change things.

He then goes on to list a bunch of bands he likes from the area including Distophia, Misty’s Big Adventure, Death Is Not Welcome Here, Highlighter Islanders, Jo Hamilton, Carina Round, Moneytree, Ross Spencer and Chrissy Van Dyke along with new-to-me hiphop label Zang.

And, as always, it gets more interesting after that as he talks about his actual work.

Photo nicked from interview. Found via Technorati.

Dave Hilliard interviews the writer and blogger Thomas Moronic. Here’s the obligatory Birmingham quote:

The Midlands has other influences as well. As you know, it can be difficult being an artist round here sometimes because it can be quite an isolated place, if you are of a certain creative mindset. The place can be very depressing, and at times stifling. But then again, in some ways I’d say that that can help a person’s art – you can use those things in work.

And, being me, I’m particularly interested in his thoughts about why he blogs.

The blog is the thing that helped kickstart me back into writing. I love my blog. I see it as an ongoing, constantly expanding body of work. I feel really pleased with the work ethic that I’ve managed to get together with it. I wouldn’t say that it’s hard, because I enjoy it so much. I love sitting down and putting stuff together for it. Keeping it going is a challenge that I relish.

Like anything in life, there are always distractions – socialising, work etc. But when I stopped writing a couple of years back, the idea of starting again was a really intimidating thing. It felt daunting, because I hadn’t written anything in so long – I didn’t know where to start. By being firm with myself and keeping a set writing routine, it means I’ll never have to worry about starting again, because I don’t give myself chance to stop.

Obviously, with a daily thing, I can’t guarantee that every single day will be amazing entry, and when I look back there are definitely some days that I think are better than others, but I think in order to get good work you do have to work through some not so good stuff. In that respect, the blog acts as a big notebook for me. It’s a good place to experiment with ideas.

But there’s much more interesting stuff in there too.

Grimley of The Post talks to Dr Ann Sumner, the new director of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, in this long and detailed interview.

The Whining Wench draws my attention to Dave Hilliard. He’s an artist and here he is with some of his art.

That photo was taken from a long-ish interview conducted by Thomas Moronic earlier in the year. Worth a read.

Digital Central has an interview with “band manager, label owner, promoter and magazine producer” Scott Roe of Solar Creations as part of their series of chats with music industry folks about what’s good and bad and needed in Birmingham. His summary is worth swiping I feel:

Strengths

* The region is extremely diverse in terms of musical output, creative business ideas and management styles.
* Good range of small music venues which have always been a good breeding ground for new talent.
* Spirit, determination and passion for succeeding within the music business.
* Experienced music industry players who have a wealth of experience working throughout the UK and abroad.
* The location should be a huge advantage for us.
* The perception of the region’s music scene has risen dramatically over the last five years or so.

Weaknesses

* Lack of skilled music managers, skilled business types involved with music business or vision to explore markets outside of the UK by many.
* Inappropriate use of funding on a yearly basis; too much discussion and talk about “The industry”
* Lack of medium-sized music venues (that old chestnut!)

Read on…

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…

Click here for a long interview with Mark Badger. A long time fixture on the Birmingham music scene Mark runs Iron Man Records and in 2000 founded the Birmingham Music Network.

My first meeting in this exploration of the Birmingham Creative Community was with Rob Youngson, a digital fine artist who is currently represented by the St Pauls Gallery in the Jewellery Quarter. His work is inspired by the geography of Birmingham to create landscapes reminiscent of Rembrandt and Turner. We were joined by Laurence Quant, a poet who’s working with Rob on a book and gallery show combining their works and who I intend to talk to more at a later date.

Read the full interview…