Created in Birmingham

• @kismetkotch
  “A new arts hub based in Eastside, at club PST”. Don’t know much else about this one just yet
• My kind of town: Birmingham | Travel | The Guardian
  “Who better than an underground club promoter to sniff out the best shopping, food, bars and parties in Birmingham?” Odd that the photo caption says ‘outside Rooty Frooty’
• TEDxBrum – The Next Revolution
  As we draw closer to the big day, this page will be where you can find information of the days schedule, where we’ll be and what to look forward to
• Gay Village Guide Birmingham
  There’s one of those little Area guide things for the Southside/Gay Village area
• Hello Culture 2011
  Pics, slides audio and video from last week’s event
• 166 photographic jobs go as Doubletake Studios in Birmingham city centre collapses
  The 166 workers, including make-up artists and photographers, were based at the studios in Mary Ann Street, off St Paul’s Square
• Identity Drama School Annual Showcase
  Identity Drama School Birmingham presents a powerful collection of hard-hitting, yet often humorous monologues, duologues and original plays drawing inspiration from a wide portfolio of contemporary playwrights, performed by Identity Drama School actors at The Drum Theatre in Birmingham
• Sculpture Commission opportunity
  We are seeking expressions of interest from artists or designers with experience of public art projects, ideally with experience of working in healthcare settings and with at least three years of graduate experience
• 5 Books for Birmingham history, heritage and architecture buffs « Birmingham Conservation Trust
  “Over the last couple of years some of our volunteers have highlighted and reviewed a range of books that might make great presents for heritage enthusiasts”
• Nude show where naked dancers sit in lap of audience to spearhead Birmingham International Dance Festival
  Fairly tragic piece by the Sunday Mercury but then this is the kind of publicity that means the show’ll sell out, so good on them (kinda). And anyway, they clearly haven’t heard the half of it
• 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

Big congrats to Kerry and Dave from Fused! Steve’s put some crackin photos on his blog.

Karen Kiely‘s been looking at Birmingham’s fashion blogging scene, which is something she’ll apparently be exploring as part of her Social Media as Culture module on her Masters. She’s picked out Style Birmingham, Uber Brum and The Doll on Fashion.

I thought I’d have a root around for a few others.

Rajmeena posts sketches, there are dribs and drabs on the Retail Birmingham blog, We Create have a blog that occasionally features ‘about young British fashion designers’ although not so much recently. LABB Magazine’s blog goes in for loads of pics. Fused cover fashion from time to time too.

Selina Jervis is from Birmingham but not around the city so much as far as I can tell. Her Flying Saucer blog has been popular for a while and it’s interesting to see they’ve recently snapped her up as a guest blogger on Browse Bullring.

Cheers to Jim for pointing me towards Vintage Reflection.

There must be more out there… (*hint*)

It’s actually a little tricky to find out about local music around the city, I find. This is the stuff I know about, feel free to add other stuff in the comments.

News

Brum Notes is the website for the free, monthly music and lifestyle magazine (Nov issue out now, Oct one online here).

The Birmingham Post have news and reviews here and the Birmingham Mail do rock/pop news.

Fused Magazine‘s site does the odd bit of music news, as does the website for sister magazine Area.

Surge Music takes a wider, Midlands-wide view of things, with articles and lists of gigs, bands and venues.

Cul-de-Sac turned out to be a false dawn for this sort of thing, but may come back one day.

@birminghamlive and @brumpunks are good sources for concert info too.

Reviews

Birmingham Live is the obvious choice here – someone from their ranks of volunteer reviewers and photographers will be at a gig in Birmingham pretty much every evening. Steve Gerrard organises this one (Lee Allen and I have also chipped in occasionally).

The Hearing Aid is a blog by someone called The Baron who goes to an impressive number of local gigs.

The Birmingham Mail do gig reviews too.

Get-togethers

The Birmingham Music Network meets monthly at the Department of Technology, Engineering and the Environment (T.E.E.) at Millennium Point. Their website has a good range of resources too.

Audio

I’m on shakier ground here – which radio shows promote local talent There’s Brumcast on Rhubarb Radio and Introducing on BBC WM. I don’t know enough about the shows on New Style Radio, Aston FM or any others.

Are there any Birmingham-based mp3 blogs worth talking about?

Anything else?

Let me know in the comments. Just to be clear, we’re not looking for bands/venues/promoters to plug themselves but if that’s you, where do you look to get featured?

Oh, and see also Birmingham listings.

(pic – The Editors by Steve Gerrard from the opening night of the new Academy)

A couple of music-related things came out over the weekend both adding up to paint a less than rosy picture of Birmingham’s current live music scene.

The Interactive Cultures team at BCU have launched MusicAsCulture.org – a place to discuss the idea that ‘music is not just commerce’. It’s not an exclusively local thing, but it launches with a Birmingham-focussed campaign dealing with the noise issues at The Rainbow in Digbeth. The campaign is being headed up by UB40 and is called Live, Loud and Local:

Here in Birmingham, as with many places elsewhere, heritage music venues are in danger of closure or losing their live music licence because of issues of noise. Areas that were once not residential now have tenants, and the clash between apartment dwellers and local music venues has demanded a response at a policy level

UB40 will be playing a one-off gig at The Rainbow on 3 November to raise money for a new roof on the building in an attempt to reduce outside noise. I don’t know where you can get tickets from yet, but then nor do the folks on the UB40 forum.

Meanwhile, Fused interviewed Johnny Foreigner who aren’t afraid of sticking the boot in. They’re working on a documentary about how Birmingham’s music scene “suffers as a result when compared to other major cities”, which they see as a result of neglect by the council. Their advice for the city:

Drop the ego like Liverpool or nurture the homegrown stuff like Leeds and see the results in five years time when there are famous and forward looking bands not ashamed to say where they’re from

(Pic – The Rainbow, Digbeth by ell_brown)

• Musicians Wanted
  Any musicians out there want to help with a 3-day project at the Shard End youth centre? It’s with Headliners who do journalism projects for young uns and they’re offering some free publicity
• Buy Art from the Underground – Fused Magazine
  Nice to have Fused back and blogging. They’ve spotted that Simon & Tom Bloor and Juneau Projects were commissioned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the roundel
• Second City Gallery looking for resident artists
  Mark Wilkinson and Sophie Handy weren’t impressed with a lack of collectively rentable, large studio/exhibition spaces so they’ve found their own. Give them a call if you’re interested in getting involved
• FREE training – Creative Launchpad
  Want to attend a course called “Business Planning for a Successful Creative Business”? You’re in luck…
• Job listing for Web Editor Internship, Flatpack Festival
  The Flatpack folk are looking for, essentially, a blogger with benefits. It’s unpaid but doing this sort of thing for Fierce is what started me on my journey to where I am now, and I’ve done ok
• Plus+ Touring the city with the Walking Tours
  I seem to remember the walking tours of Birmingham, with historian Ben Waddington as the guide, went down very well last year. Here are the plans for this year
• Clubbed nominated for the Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards
  Based in Cov, filmed in location in Birmingham and co-financed by Screen WM. Hurrah all round!

• The big Film Dash logo vote
  Film Dash – the 48-hour film challenge happening in Birmingham on 17-19 October is picking up pace. We need a logo though. A couple have been submitted; please have a look and vote for your fave
• Capsule Blog » The Joyful Bewilderment
  Capsule are involved in a group exhibition at Rough Trade East (in London 2-27 Oct) called The Joyful Bewilderment, along with other West Mids types including members of The Outcrowd Collective, Lucy McLauchlan, Rik Cooper, Stef Grindley, Lee Basford, Ben Javens, Chris Keenan and Lawrence Roper
• Fused – Student Issue
  Fused’s one-off student special has tips from Johnny Foreigner, The Twang, Poppy & The Jezebels, Bigger Than Barry, Bohemian Jukebox and The Editors. Read it online here
• Punch Update Sept 2008
  Lots of news of things and happenings from the Punch crew
• Hello Digital – Calling all artists
  “UKType is looking for typographers, lettering artists, calligraphers and other creatives who would like to participate in a day of filming” for production on Baskerville – The Animated Movie

Ltd Edition.  Sunday 27 July 2008 (tying in with the Sunday Flea).  Affordable art from contemporary artists.  Custard Factory.  Here’s a link to some info about the artists taking part.

• Modulate in Capsule
  Modulate, the West Mids AV and digital arts collective, have a new piece of work which will form part of an Optofonica exhibition in Amsterdam next month. It sounds incredible and they’re looking to bring it to Birmingham in 2009.
• Jerusalem: The East Side Story screening c/o B.I.F.S.
  “A documentary of the history of perhaps the most hotly contested city in the world”. At the Library Theatre on Thurs 26 June, 7.30 to 9.15pm
• D’log – Towards a history of the visual arts in Birmingham and the Black Country
  “A quick stab at a list of the most important published resources for a timeline history of visual arts production in Birmingham and the Black Country. In approximate chronological order. Additions are welcome…”
• 4Talent – DEMOCRATIC MOVIES?
  Dave Allen (of Animation Forum West Mids) speaks to Birmingham-based screenwriter Brendan O’Neill
• A preview of The Public by Fused Magazine
  Following their review of Ikon Eastside’s launch, Fused have now reported back from the press preview of The Public. Which is good, cos I couldn’t make it.

• First day nerves – My Fierce Placement…
  Gemma has just started a placement with Fierce and it looks like she’ll be blogging about it. This could be a good chance to see what Fierce do all year round, when not concentrating on their festival.
• AFWM – Local Animator Wins Watch Film Award
  More award-winning – “last week’s Shooting People Watch Film winner was none other than West Midlands-based animator Joe Butcher”.
• Fused Magazine – read Issue 35 online
  “It is the VERY first time Fused has been available to browse through in this way”.
• Clare Edwards wins UK Young Music Entrepreneur 2008
  “The board of Gigbeth would like to congratulate Clare on winning the UK Young Music Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2008″. As would I – congrats Clare!
• BIAD’s BA(Hons) Fine Art graduates
  BIAD’s gradutating students of 2008. Hopefully I’ll have a reason to bog about their creative exploits in the future. For now congrats to the lot of em.
• The Triangle Cinema – Gosta Green, Birmingham | Dave Harte
  Dave says “After much searching I have at last found the video I made in about 1988 about the Triangle Cinema in Gosta Green, Birmingham”.