Groomed by the local authority and a small elite of ‘tastemakers’, half-a-dozen ‘flagship’ venues and ventures in the city centre now hoover up most of the taxpayer and corporate cash. Just like the banks, they’ve become ‘too big to fail’.
More and more their programming reflects the tastes – and train timetables – of an alien clique.
last time I did the sums it appeared 50% of the City’s revenue funded portfolio was being cut by 100% to save 2.6% of the Arts Revenue budget. I can’t conceive how the city missed out on its last two bids to be crowned a Capital/City of Culture.
7inch October listings
“a list of interesting things happening around Birmingham over the next 31 days or so”. You should definitely sign up to their newsletter
Radio Birmingham audio slideshow
This audio slideshow was produced by Pete Simpkin, and used when he gave talks about the work of Radio Birmingham in the 1970s
Dear Mr Whitby – Raw Data Now : daveharte.com
“What really got me irritated today is Councillor Mike Whitby, leader of Birmingham City Council, bleating on about Birmingham getting marginalised when he could actually do something to help Birmingham become a thriving centre of digital creativity.” Everyone loves a rant
Bank of England to launch new £50 note
“Inventor James Watt and his financial backer Matthew Boulton to feature on new £50 note, to be issued on 2 November”
Our creative and cultural industries – media, arts, online, music – are collectively bigger than construction in this city (that’s a great fact we used in the bid team and final pitch).
Incredibly, there is no-one to speak for us on the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) – almost as incredible as the lack of female members but we warned you about this male, pale and stale phase creeping up on ya me old hearties.
A lucrative and dynamic sector that is developing in markets across the world will remain uncharted waters as far as local strategic development is concerned.
Ammo from Punch Records has been using his Birmingham Post blog to good effect – today he’s announcing a new project called Counter / Culture:
Starting today we’re setting up a project @ Punch HQ called “Counter / Culture” studying those who’ve begun changing the nation from our city’s streets; radicals, chartists, abolitionists, suffragettes, artists, rockers, bhangramuffins, rastas and punks.
If this inspires you, get in touch. Consider this a manifesto
The inspiration for this is the Urban Curators from Providence, Rhodes Island. The aim of their project is to:
engage the public in the celebration of the decaying urban environment, recognizing its inherent aesthetic qualities as well as the important role that it plays within our cultural habitat
Which they do by:
literally hanging gold, gallery-style frames in derelict spaces within the city, framing objects and views that are of aesthetic or cultural value
Their full mission statement is on the very fantastic Wooster Collective blog. As Ammo said, if this inspires you, get in touch.
A couple of things with a national scope, born out of Birmingham have been launched recently.
First up, Theatricalia is the work of the ever-impressive Matthew Somerville. It’s ‘a database of past and future theatre productions’ which makes it no less than IMDB for theatre.
Already it contains archives of plays and performers from the RSC, Bristol University Archive, the Royal National Theatre and Birmingham Rep (1913-1971). You can search by play, person or place and edit entries yourself to help the archive grow.
The potential for Theatricalia is a little mind-boggling.
Black Routes is a new UK wide touring network for African and Caribbean music, with Punch Records as one of the founding partners and chair.
Punch’s Ammo Talwar wrote an article in the Birmingham Post explaining the context for the project, particularly how it fits in with what’s happening in Birmingham at the moment.
When do we start pleasing the really big crowds – the ones who aren’t there, the ones who want to see something different? Do we have to get a metal detector down to Handsworth to unearth Apache Indian’s first gold tooth, or lock on to Steel Pulse’s forgotten cymbal set?
It’s Black History Month and there should be real effort and real funding to promote the treasures left to us by Birmingham’s black achievers.
In the Birmingham Post piece Ammo mentions a showing of the controversial documentary, Deen Tight:
Filmed on location with Muslim rappers, DJs, slam poets, breakdancers and a graffiti artist in concerts, recording studios, at homes and in the streets. Our story focuses on the perceived conflict between traditional religious ideals and modernity, as well as both the positives and negatives of Western Pop culture on todays’ Muslim youth
4Talent Central Film Weekender
As part of the Hello Digital festival the local 4Talent folk have put together some film events at the Electric Cinema. On Friday there are 5 films from the annual Horrorfest competition. Saturday sees Pixar’s Michal Makarewicz introducing WALL-E (in high def). Sunday returns to horror with 28 Days Later, followed by a debate on the future of digital film
Punch – News – MOBO 2008 nomination for Punch!!!
Ammo from Punch was nominated for a BeMOBO award which honours an individual or organisation making a difference in the community. He was pipped to the post by Ricky McCalla in the end but a round of applause is due nonetheless
Animation Forum WM – Eight Eyed Sea Bass in Profile
Interesting interview with Paul and Dom from Eight Eyed Sea Bass. Covering topics like the London/regions divide, funding/support for animators and current/future projects. Having seen it, I can also confirm that they have a “bloody nice studio”
Digbeth Is Good – Digbeth Flickrmeet This Sunday
“‘There’s no restrictions, just bring a camera… new people are always welcome!’ You don’t need any more invitation than that. People are meeting in The Coffee Lounge, Navigation Street at 2pm this Sunday.”
Get the hottest news from The REP direct to your desktop
The REP explains RSS feeds. Like they say, they’re very straightforward. If you use the internet but you don’t use RSS yet then you’re probably wasting a whole heap of time and effort
The Birmingham Post Power 50 (tremble at their might!) has just been announced. With last year’s list having an impressive showing from the arts world, interest at CiB could almost have been described as ‘mild’.
Ok, so it’s easy to be cynical about these things (and it’s open season on the Birmingham Post site – all the winners’ profiles are commentable), but there’s little sense in detracting from the recognition given to the following folks who work hard on the city’s arts & culture scene.
So, from CiB (hating the game, not the playa since 2007) hearty congrats go to:
The big list of movers and shakers is on the Birmingham Post website which, like I say, they’ve made an effort to do all nice so you can comment on how brilliant and deserving everyone is.
But feel free to vent your spleen in the comments here if you feel the need.
I went over to the BASS Festival launch last night over at the Woom Gallery (an excellent little place, incidentally).
I had a quick chat with Ammo, the guy behind Punch Records, who was enthusiastic about the programme of events they’ve got coming up but most excited about the the competition they ran to design a logo for the festival. The winner was Pretesh Mistry and, as well as being used on the festival’s branding, his design can now be seen on a city centre billboard – just near the Arcadian Centre.
What excited Ammo was the idea that, thanks to the festival, an unknown, aspiring designer could showcase their work in such a big and unorthodox way (and with his contact details at the bottom – mistry_pretesh[at]hotmail.com). So there you go, not just another advertising hoarding.
As I was leaving the Electric yesterday having seen the excellent Planet B-Boy I was handed a brochure for this year’s BASS Festival, happening across the East Midlands over June.
BASS stands for British Art and Street Sounds and the festival is a Punch Records production in partnership with 2Funky Arts, Hella Music and Baby J Studios. This year the festival revolves around the theme of ‘The Elements of Hip Hop’, usually broken down into MCing, DJing, graffiti, breakdancing and beat-boxing.
Go to BASS Festival for the full line-up, but here’s a few of the events in Birmingham:
Hedz Interative Aerosol Mural, 31 May to 1 June – creating a 50ft bespoke aerosol mural in the city centre
Urban Disturbance v MyBass ft Mary Anne Hobbs, 31 May at The Rainbow – drum n bass and dubstep heaviness
Faith 47 – The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty, 3 to 10 June at Womb Gallery – this looks very good
BASS West Mids Launch – 3 June
The New Mastersounds, 14 June at The Yardbird – a band at the forefront of the retro-funk sound
My Love for Hip Hop, 19 June at The Drum – powerful spoken word with 3 poets, 3 hip hop artists and a turntablist
Actually, this is daft, there’s loads of good stuff so please go and have a look at the listings and maybe flag up anything you think looks really interesting in the comments.
Punch’s director, Ammo Talwar, was at Buckingham Palace the other week to pick up his MBE for “outstanding achievement and service right across the industry”. He’s emailed to say that his dad was annoyed at not having tea with the Queen! Ammo’s sent over a pic of his dad with some beefeaters though – nice shoes.
