Created in Birmingham

• Yam Big Richard
  Richard’s DJing, hacks, collages and write-ups from events
• Warwick Bar
  A website for Minerva Works, the small industrial estate in Digbeth currently home to Grand Union Studios, Fazeley Park, Street Print and Clifton Steel
• Fast Forward – 6.8 million items in our collections! Phew « Museum Network Warwickshire
  Fast Forward 2010, the 6th bi-annual survey of West Midlands museums. In all, 170 of you participated, 79% of all our museums! Covering organisational health, collections, and users, it is a wide-ranging and detailed picture of museum provision throughout the West Midlands in 2010
• The Event, Various venues, Birmingham – Reviews
  A review of The Event in the Independent
• BASS FESTIVAL 2012- Commissions NOW OPEN!
  To mark the 50th anniversary of Jamaican Independence and to welcome the Jamaican Olympic team to Birmingham BASS will have JAMAICA as its theme in 2012
• Dancing for the Games | Blog | Moving Earth open workshops
  sampad‘s Dancing for the Games project Moving Earth is holding open workshops in Birmingham on Saturday 26 November.
• Michael’s Animation blog
  Michael Price is studying animation at BCU
• BBC Performing Arts Funds announce fellowships
  The BBC Performing Arts Fund announced recently that 13 dance organisations across the UK had been awarded a grant as part of its Dance Fellowships scheme, including ACE Dance and Music and Warwick Arts Centre’s Boys Dancing
• “Long-Eared Furry Things” – blog – frilly
  Bunnies, generally
• Eastside Projects Public Evaluation Event
  “From 27 to 29 October, Eastside Projects in Birmingham, UK held a three day symposium to analyse and evaluate three years of an artist run space as public gallery”. The videos are online, I just wish they had titles
• Open File
  Open File is a curatorial conversation between artist Jack Brindley and curator Tim Dixon. The project began as a blog in February 2011. Launching at Grand Union this November 18th, the project will exist as an on-going series of live events, an open and expanding cumulative publication, and a new web-based archive and resource

(Photo is Endeavour Space Shuttle Blastoff by jurvetson)

Thankfully Heath Mill Studios have written up 3/4 of it already, so here’s a digest:

Digbeth triple launch

At 5pm, Heath Mill Studios are opening their doors for the first time and Bay Leaf, a new Bangladeshi restaurant in the Custard Factory, are providing the food – I think this counts as their launch too.

At 8pm everyone’s going to leg it over to The Rainbow for the BASS Festival launch. Ghostpoet‘s performing and he’s meant to be good.

BE at the mac**

If theatre’s your thing then the BE Festival is launching at the MAC tonight with various things and stuff happening there. The festival itself doesn’t start for a good few weeks, but you can’t knock the enthusiasm to get started.

On top of all of that

They’re not launching anything, but Yo La Tengo, Welsh National Opera and Doc Brown are all in town (not all on the same bill, more’s the pity). Aren’t we lucky to live somewhere with so much stuff going on? Yes, we are.

(* not everything)
(** see what I did there?)

The theme for this year’s BASS Festival (9-25 June, all over Birmingham) is revolution:

Through music, dance, spoken word and theatre REVOLUTION will be explored in terms of physical movement, music as a weapon of change and celebrating the creators of radical new music and styles.

There’s a press release here which has more info about who’s performing where.

The theme for this years BASS Festival is Revolution, exploring physical movement, music as a weapon of change and celebrating the creators of radical new music and styles.

Punch are offering between £500 – £3000 through their BASS Commissions fund for artists to create new work in music, dance, spoken word and theatre.

Here’s the themes that they’re wanting commissioned pieces to explore;

Musical Revolutionaries: – artists who have changed the face of Black music

Promoting the next generation – what is the next big thing?

Showcases for heroes in the emergence of Dubstep, Hip Hop, Afrobeat Jazz.

May the Circle be Unbroken: Sounds that have made the soundtrack to changes in society such as Steel Pulse or Gospel singers

Spins and Flips: revolutions on the dance floor

Transformations: can you through words imagine new ways to present work or new stages to present it

There’s also a BASS Talent Award to be claimed, in association with Aspire 4u. Young people aged between 16-24 will have the opportunity to produce a specially commissioned performance, with an award of up to £1000.

For more information and how to apply, visit the Punch website. Deadline for applications is 12 noon on 14 February 2011.

Summer brought with it degree show time of year and also the first Birmingham European Theatre Festival (which I’m pleased to see will be back again this year). Listings started coming out for the HMV Institute too.

The days were getting longer, which was probably just as well for Rhubarb Rhubarb, who seemed to doing loads. Birmingham presented its final bid for the City of Culture and we crossed our fingers. Temper filled the streets with fashion icons. We looked at the trailer for Soulboy and discovered the blog for Reuben Colley Fine Arts.

The Arts Council announced a 0.5% cut in funding to RFO’s. Boo. We found some familiar faces in Synth Eastwood’s video tomfoolery from the Flatpack Festival. Treasured at the MAC looked good.

Bright Space started looking for people to get involved in Platform and I asked ‘Does Birmingham Future interest you?‘ and got a fairly resounding ‘Um, who?’. Theatre folk came together and spoke easy, the newly opened Zellig hosted the Bass Festival’s Fight The Power exhibition and there was talk of verbalising and visualisation.

Creative Republic launched Invisible City and Marketing Birmingham released a new promotional video for the city that featured a host of creative talent.

The CiB Shop wound up after three hectic months, with Pete announcing the impending announcing the impending closure. Before that, INKwell popped into the shop for some screen printing, the City of Culture bid got it’s send-off and The Story Exchange popped in.

The Created in Birmingham closed its shutters for the last time at the end of the month. Someone kissed the feedback book:

International Dance Festival Birmingham came to an end too, while Ian looked forward to what was in store at the 2010 BASS Festival and I had a peek at the Lichfield Festival’s line-up.

RoguePlay left the Custard Factory, I noticed Writing West Midlands for the first time, Ikon announced their series of ‘Favourite Things’ talks, the Daze-Ray exhibition occupied a corner of the Jewellery Quarter and IPEX took over the NEC.

hobbypopMUSEUM spent some time at Eastside Projects, the annual Cure Leukemia Art Auction took place, Ben Javens made a tea towel, end-of-year-show season started up and there was a photography exhibition at the Custard Factory.

I went to visit the flashy gizmos at University of Birmingham’s Heritage and Culture Learning Hub too.

That title should perhaps be capitalised, but I’m not sure whether it’s a Proper Thing or just a loose kinda ‘it’s complicated‘ thing*.

Anyway, I’ve had an invite to the launch of a publication celebrating the ‘vitality, innovation and diversity’ of this group that comprises:

• Bass Festival
• Birmingham Book Festival
• Birmingham International Jazz and Blues Festival
• Fierce Festival
• Flatpack Festival
• Rhubarb Rhubarb
• Supersonic Festival

[* not sure what I'm implying here]

**UPDATE**

Ah, it is a Proper Thing, I’ve found a blog post about it and a picture too:

We’ve never had a caption competition on CiB as far as I can remember. Just a thought…

**Another UPDATE**

Ask and you shall receive – this was submitted to the CiB email address:

Splendid.

Digbeth is Good, We Are Eastside and Creative Boom have already mentioned the Fight The Power exhibition that opened the BASS Festival the other day.

Here’s a link to the opening speech and here’s a video of Ammo Talwar walking round and explaining the exhibition:

It’s at the Zellig Gallery (Custard Factory) until 26 June.

Also, Andrew Dubber (he who filmed those two videos) has been doing some work with Punch Records and explains what all that’s about in this post.

There are two parts to this one:

• A debate on Thurs 3 June
• An installation by Raycho Stanev from 3-19 June

Both at Friction Arts’ The Edge. Having seen mentions of this all over the place I’m guessing it’s going to be reasonably popular, which is good.

Nicky Digbeth gives the info:

The Great Excursion will be in Friction Arts’ home The Edge, Cheapside 3rd-19th June, and will kick off with a Critical Debate from 6pm this Thurs 3rd June, with a panel that includes Ammo Talwar (Punch), Paul Murphy (The Destroyers), Mukhtar Dar (The Drum) and Paradox (Munchbreak)

The debate is also part of the BASS Festival, which kicks off today.

BASS Festival is the UK’s only month-long celebration of Black Music and Art. The festival is now in its fifth year and this year’s line up of events, produced by Punch Records, includes new commissions, gigs, exhibitions, master classes, showcases, club nights, theatre, conferences and film.

Handily, you can check out the brochure and browse what’s on right here:

There’s also a theme for this year’s festival, which is explained here:

The theme for BASS 2010 is DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) forms the building blocks of life and controls the development and functioning of all known living organisms. But what does DNA mean to us individually in the 21st century? Identity, test tubes, control, heritage, science, ID cards, family, databases, samples, genomes, protest? The fifth BASS festival will explore how DNA varies and develops, whether caused by external forces, or by personal development, enabling us to rethink our evolving identities.

If all that hasn’t satisfied your needs, you can get more details on the BASS Festival website here.

• We Are Eastside brochure « We Are Eastside | Birmingham
  “For your viewing pleasure, a guide to Eastside”
• Young People and Arts Boards Training Programme – Audiences Central
  “Arts organisations across the city have said that they would like young people aged 18–25 to become members of their management boards”. If you are a young person and fancy sitting in an arts org’s board then read on…
• Birmingham community museums reopen this week – BiNS
  “Aston Hall, Blakesley Hall, Sarehole Mill and Soho House open their doors again from April 2″
• An Endless Supply | Issue Eleven up and out
  “Copies are already at International Project Space and Eastside Projects, Birmingham. During the week they’ll be available from VIVID, Ikon Eastside and all across Bristol”
• BASS Festival Returns to Birmingham This June
  Here’s a sneaky peek (although I’m maybe over-egging it with ‘sneaky’ – it’s posted on a PR agency’s website) at what’s coming up at this year’s BASS Festival
• Behind the Screens « D’log
  “PACT and Adobe are teaming up for a “Behind the Screens” Digital Showcasing event in Birmingham, on the 13th May 2010″
• Call for young filmmakers from the West Midlands to show their work at Glastonbury Festival 2010
  “The West Midlands Culture Programme for London 2012 is looking for films in two categories which reflect both the spirit of Glastonbury and the Olympic movement”

• MySpace – ::The Other Woman’s Club
  “The Other Woman’s Club are a creative women’s collective of talented DJs, Photographers, Musicians, Jewelery Designers, Clothes Designers, Journalists, Promoters…and one man”
• FREESTYLE Exhibition | Hare and Hounds
  I missed this – a showcase of twelve different photographers and illustrators from around Birmingham. I’m going to do some short posts on them instead (if I can find em online, and I think I’ve found most)
• MAKE YOUR CITY: JANUARY 2010: GO TO THESE SHOWS
  January gig recommendations for those who like their music loud and slightly awkward
• D’log :: blogging since 2000 » Terry Grimley profiles Peter James
  As well as linking to the interview, D’log rounds up a collection of books on the pre-1945 history of phootgraphy in the West Mids
• BASS 2010 commissions « Punch Records
  “For BASS 2010 Punch are opening up the commissioning scheme and we are offering awards of between £500 – £3000 to support new work developed for the festival. We are looking for innovative and creative projects that explore the theme of DNA”
• Mostly Jazz line-up
  I don’t think I’ve linked to this yet. Anyway, the acts performing at the two-day jazz fest in Moseley have been announced. It’s being organised by the folks behind Moseley Folk and Birmingham Jazz and The Yardbird are pitching in too
• One More Take
  Tommy Pearson does the CBSO’s podcasts. This is his blog
• Tom Binned over Queen’s speech gag
  Mixed fortunes for (ex-)BRMB DJ Tom Binns – he got engaged on Christmas morning then went to work and got himself sacked

The line-up for this year’s Glastonbury Festival was announced today, and what a mediocre one it is. Like a lot of huge festivals it relies on the expected roll out of faded heroes and next week’s hipsters. If you are looking for a more, dare I say, ’boutique’ experience there are plenty of music festivals around the UK such as The Green Man Festival, End of the Road and All Tomorrow’s Parties.

Moseley Folk Festival by H4NUM4N

But thousands upon thousands of music lovers, from metal heads to twee folksters head to the Midlands every year to experience our independently run festivals, well crafted events that are deeply rooted in the community they came from.

So, forget V, Leeds and Glasto, get yourself along to one of these West Mids fests:

BASS Festival (British Arts and Street Sounds) is the UK’s only month long celebration of Black Music and Art. Every June, the UK comes alive with a phenomenal line up of events, new commissions, gigs, exhibitions, master classes, showcases, club nights, theatre, conferences and film. This year’s theme is ‘Inspired by Africa and Africans’, celebrating and exploring Africa’s influence on the UK arts scene.

When: June. Cost: Free – £10

Moseley Folk Festival has been running for 4 years now, programming  a healthy mix of traditional, contemporary and downright experimental folk and acoustic music. The festival is held in what feels like a world away from Brum’s City Centre within the gorgeous woodlands of Moseley Park. This year’s line up includes: Beth Orton, Saint Etienne, Jethro Tull and Kris Drever, John McCusker & Roddy Woomble.

When: 5th, 6th and 7 th September. Cost: £10 – £65.

Supersonic Festival is definitely one for those who don’t like the mud, but do like loud and experimental music. If you think you don’t, go along to this Custard Factory festival anyway and you may just have an audio visual experience to remember, which has to beat standing the rain listening to Kasabian, right? See the Capsule website for the full line-up.

When: 24th – 25th July. Cost: £15 – £75

Indie Tracks Festival is all a twee navelgazer could ever need in a festival; indiepop bands, a museum, churches, farms and most importantly stream trains. Set further afield in Derby, this fairly new and unspoilt festival is certainly worth the journey from Brum, and is steeped in rural Midlandsness.

When: 24th – 25th July. Cost: £30 – £55

Other more than worthy regional mentions to go Gigbeth, Birmingham International Jazz Festival, CoCoMad, Wolvestock and  Summer Sundae. This isn’t a definitive list, so feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.

• Fused Magazine – final call for delegates
  If you are a manager of a band, promoter, record label owner, music journalist, A&R, Label, DJ – anything related to music in the region and are interested in attending the SXSW festival at a subsidised rate contact Kerry Thomas on 0121 246 1946 / kerry@fusedmagazine.com.
• Burn fm’s Battle of the Bands
  Burn fm is holding a BOTB with a few other societies (Rock Society, Band Society) and Vale Fest, a charity festival entirely run by students. Any profits from the £5 ticket price will go towards the Vale Festival charities.
• Punch Records are looking for an intern
  The successful applicant will be working with the Bass Festival’s marketing team. Interested? Call Sophie in the Punch office on 0121 224 7444 or email sophie@punch-records.co.uk
• Joanna Geary on Social Media
  Insightful presentation from Development Editor Jo Geary on some of the lessons she’s learned while building the Birmingham Post’s presence in social media.
• Art Connect
  Created in Birmingham has been profiled and reviewed on the website Art Connect. The site looks at the importance of arts blogs, and said some very nice things about this one!

• trying to arrange a british tumblr meetup
  Substrakt’s Tom Martin would like to organise a British tumblr meet-up. If you work for any sort of digital agency in the city/region then it’d be worth getting in touch and lending him a hand
• Screen WM Acronym Glossary (SAG)
  Might be of use to someone (this is Google’s HTML version – a PDF is available). I found this while searching for info about the AWM SIS COG, in case you were wondering
• Nu Wave Interactive
  Nu Wave Interactive is animator, illustrator and graphic designer Matthew Field
• magicmedia
  magicmedia is the blog and website for Steve Chapman, a Birmingham UK-based creative media consultant
• BASS Festival 2008 on Vimeo
  Footage from the BASS Festival 2008
• Audio: Darcy Lange Round Table
  “On Tuesday 2 December Ikon hosted a round table discussion which considered Darcy Lange’s work both in isolation and in wider socio-geographical contexts; his fractious relationship with the art world and the influence upon his life and work of the Flamenco tradition of the Andalusian gypsies”. More good multimedia stuff from the Ikon Gallery. (Ikon peeps – any chance of whacking these into iTunes as an Ikon podcast?)
• CMYKern » Fluid
  Quick profile of some of Fluid’s lovely work
• Sarah Loves…
  Sarah Allen (who works with the likes of the Fierce Festival, British Glass Biennale, Events With Sparkle and others) has started a blog covering her design, architectural and cultural loves. And shoes. There will be shoes.
• YouTube – PsychedelicPsynema’s Channel
  Speakeasy cinema people Outer Sight have a YouTube channel for collecting together event promos, trailers, previously screened shorts and other stuff. Their next event is on 6 Dec
• transitions – artist action research
  Alicja Rogalska ran the art/public transport survey a mentioned a few weeks back. She’s emailed to say “I have set up a project blog to share information, data, images, etc. collected during my research”