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.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

Tomorrow I’ll be offering some tickets for the next resonance events shindig at the Town Hall.  There might be a question from the interview, so take notes.

Coming up from Birmingham Jazz:

• Wednesday 24th September
  Jazz Club with Maylight at The Rainbow, Digbeth (£3)
• Thursday 25th September
  Sara Colman Album Launch at The Glee Club (£8/£6)
• Tuesday 30th September
  James Bashford Quintet at The Jam House (free)
• Friday 3rd October
  resonance events presents The Heritage Orchestra (playing the music of Amon Tobin) the Lizzy Parks Band, DJ Cro plus guests
  The Town Hall at 7.30pm, live music starts at 9pm (£15.00)
• Friday 3rd October
  Rush Hour Blues – Mike Hatton’s MHJQ in the Symphony Hall Foyer (Free)

If you’ve not come across them before, there are other CiB interviews on Vimeo with the likes of Capsule, 7 Inch Cinema and Ditto Music with more to come.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

Frankie sat down with Jenny and Lisa to discuss DIY ethics, council funding, the city’s lack of suitable venues and this year’s Supersonic festival.

Capsule Interview from Created in Birmingham on Vimeo.

If you’re going then you might want to check the timetable for each day and see what talks and presentations have been announced.

If you’re not already going there might be a few e-tickets left, so if you want to see why people are flying in from around the world to visit this then get in quick.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 3 comments |

When Frankie Met Poet/MC PolarBear… or didn’t! Due to being immensely popular an arranged meeting never materialized and instead the two conversed via email:

Frankie: So firstly, the new show “If I cover my nose you can’t see me” is described as a story about what happens to what we used to want.  So what does that mean and what should audiences expect?

PolarBear: The story is about the idea that what we plan as kids often gets completely lost. Some part of us is always a kid and that somewhere those plans stay with us, it’s just that grown up stuff covers over them.

Audiences can expect a story about a 10 year-old boy and a man of 28 as their lives intertwine and they both make decisions that will completely change their lives.

You’re starting off in London too. When and where will Birmingham audiences get to see the show?

Yeah gonna do a couple nights at Purcell Room, Southbank centre which is exciting with Goonism doing live art work and a music event after. Will be doing some one offs here and there and come to Birmingham REP in October this year, I think around the 17th/18th. Goonism will be there too so be good to show the finished article to brummies.

On your Myspace page you call it ‘The best thing I’ve ever performed’ and praise the team who you worked with, including director Yael Shavit. A lot of people who write and perform their own pieces also choose to direct it. What made you get a separate director involved and how was the experience of working with her?

I honestly believe that you can’t direct yourself. Not properly. Just like you can’t edit yourself. Not properly. It’s important to get someone else’s eyes involved. With Yael (Shavit) it was a matter of me liking her work and her appreciation of a story and realistic characters and trusting that she could get the best out of me.

Working with her has honestly been the best thing ever for my performance. We understand each other and trust each other, which feels like it is the basis for a good creative relationship.

The production also features music by Foy Vance. I’ve always had him down as the acoustic/folk type. How did that collaboration come about?

I met Foy a couple of years ago on a TV thing and we became friends. I like what he does and he likes what I do and we started working together when we got chance and I asked him to create some sounds very early on in the process.

Moving onto Afrobear… is that a musical partnership? Is the recorded music on your myspace page part of Afrobear or is that part of an individual project?

Afrobear is a long-standing relationship between myself and my friend Len who produces under the moniker Afrosaxon. Basically he is my favourite beat maker ever and I get to write rhymes and make tunes with him as AFROBEAR. It’s our version of what hip-hop should be today.

There is, at any one time, maybe one or a couple AFROBEAR tracks on my myspace and these will be credited clearly. Other stuff is work with other producers or just me on my own.

Why have you called the album ‘Not Shit’? Are you expecting backlash!? What can we expect from it?

Not too fussed about backlash to tell you the truth. ‘Not Shit’ is a term we use to describe stuff we like, a lot. It’s a Brummie trait of not being that impressed by much so the norm is ‘shit’ and good stuff is ‘Not Shit’.

You’ve called Brighton your favourite place to perform. Why?

I’ve been lucky enough to perform in lots of places in the last three years and had some great experiences and to date, no terrible ones. Some ones I’ve not particularly enjoyed but none that have gone really badly. With Brighton, I performed at a place called the Komedia and the crowd were the warmest most respectful audience to every single performer. It was pretty inspiring and I’m quite a cynical person really. Amazing.

Good people down there.

Do you think it is important to remain in Birmingham or are you planning to move to London? Is Brum part of your ‘creative process.’

I’m actually based in London now due to my family. My girlfriend works in theatre and her work meant she couldn’t leave London and we had a little boy and being free-lance I could be based anywhere so I went down. I’m up in Brum at least two days a week for workshop work and so it feels like I live in two places, but it’s working. It’s important to me to be from Birmingham.

It will always be home. The people I grew up with here and know now are the inspiration for everything I have written so far.

And finally… after Colin Murray played ‘Jessica’ on his show you must have got a lot more interest. What was the inspiration for ‘Jessica’ and is Jessica real?

Nice one Colin Murray. I mean it’s nice to reach more people’s ears I guess and I didn’t even know it was gonna happen. He’s played it a few times now which is nuts but good exposure.

Jessica is based on reality and was inspired by a few experiences in my life as well as things that haven’t happened yet.

Jessica is very real. But maybe I changed her name.

PolarBear will be appearing at the Garrick Theatre at 10pm on Wed 9 July.  Tickets are only £6.50 – which is an absolute bargain.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

Frankie sat down for tea and biscuits with Pip and Ian and discussed Ian’s Favourite Things and the upcoming Flummoxed (3 July) and Knitflicks (19 & 20 July) as well as their plans for the future.

7″ Cinema from Created in Birmingham on Vimeo.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

The driving force behind The Flyover Show – taking place under the Hockley Flyover on Saturday 31 May with big-name guests from the worlds of hip hop and jazz – Soweto Kinch is an award-winning jazz saxophonist, MC, producer, poet and writer.

He talks to Frankie Ward about the background to the project, the problems with his genre classifications (dubbed the War In A Rack), his forthcoming album and the Live Box sessions at The Drum.

компютри

Btw, you may notice stereo issues – I’ll re-up a more balanced file when I get a chance.

Admission to The Flyover Show is free; attendance should be considered essential.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

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.

© dannysmith for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 14 comments |

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.)

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

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!

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

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.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | Add a comment |

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.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | Add a comment |

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | Add a comment |

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

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | 4 comments |

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…

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | 6 comments |

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…

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | Add a comment |

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.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2006. | Add a comment |

Read the full interview…

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2006. | 3 comments |