Sound Engineering Courses at Hare & Hounds
“For anyone who is interested in sound engineering, we are now running live sound courses in the main room of the Hare & Hounds”
My kind of town: Birmingham
“Who better than an underground club promoter to sniff out the best shopping, food, bars and parties in Birmingham?”
Photobook Month comes to Birmingham
“Respected photographer Steve Gerrard will head up The Birmingham leg at his studio in the Custard Factory on September 14, from 7pm.”
Young Rogues Auditions
“the Young Rogues are a group of young people from a variety of backgrounds, who perform on stage and in film and TV. Ages 8-18 years.”
Opportunity to write for Best Believe
Amy’s looking for contributors to help turn Best Believe into a group blog on art/style/culture/creativity and all that good stuff. Give her a shout if you’re interested
Joan shows love and affection for local singer-songwriters
“Joan Armatrading is offering local musicians the opportunity of a life-time to perform as the opening act for her Symphony Hall gig on October 26 2012″ Cool. Click for entry info
Second Light Producers Labs at First Light
“First Light and The Producers’ Forum, who provide tailored training for Film Producers at all levels, have teamed up to offer this free 4-day course.” For 16-25 year olds at the mac in Sept
Earlier in the day (in fact from 12pm to 7pm) head over to Lombard Street in Digbeth for PST’s street party. This here flyer says there’s going to be food, live art and heavy bass. And face painting.
Capsule have got an event at Kings Heath’s Hare and Hounds on Saturday night called Wedlock. Dunno what that’s a reference to but I like the pretty picture.
There’s loads of other stuff happening too. Have a look at Live Brum for listings.
Keeping it local: regional theatre needs new media | Stage | guardian.co.uk
“The challenge for arts organisations outside London is to embrace the blogosphere, and fast. I think we need to work hard to nurture the brave souls who are often spending their free time running what’s-on sites and blogs – invite them to our shows, treat them like proper journalists, buy them lunch, encourage our suppliers to buy advertising space on their websites, link to their sites from ours and so on. If we help listings sites and blogs to grow, we’re safeguarding the future of arts criticism.”
Fireworks, intrigue and change
A thoughtful piece from Friction Arts’ Sandra Hall. Turning Point West Midlands are apparently lining up some specially commissioned essays from a range of people – looking forward to the rest
Birmingham’s £25m academy
“The academy, which is adjacent to Millennium Point in central Birmingham, is being created in partnership with London’s Brit School and Maverick TV”
We Are « Nomad Projeckt
“The Nomad Projeckt is an artistic collective which specialise in the producing audio and visual work of all kinds inspired by old and new hip-hop movements, for details of our work have a look around the site.”
Bank your thoughts: artists access to technology?
“iShed (www.ished.net) is conducting a feasibility study, supported by Arts Council England, into the potential of a web-based ‘Technology Bank’, where tech and related software can be advertised and offered on loan to creative projects in return for accreditation and shared learning”. Looks like it could be a good thing
The Blue Orange Theatre – Birmingham
Funny – I was wondering about this place the other day. New theatre in Birmingham, due to open 13 April with ‘What The Butler Saw’ although I think there may have been a launch event last night
On 3 October, Oxjam will be taking over the 11 bus route. Starting outside the Hare and Hounds and proceeding to ride a full lap around Birmingham’s more interesting neighborhoods, stopping en-route at The Bear in Bearwood for a few drinks and live local music. After riding Europe’s longest urban bus route, complete with a mix of musical genres, passengers will be treated to a Sunday lunch at the Hare and Hounds.
The event is ahead of the main OxjamBrum Takeover, presenting 12 hours of live music for the best of Birmingham’s music scene. That takes place 16 October, and early bird wristbands are currently on sale for £4. Bargain!
Tickets for the 11 bus outing will be on sale from 9am on 17 September via www.oxjambrum.org.uk, and with a limited amount of 40, you’ll need to be quick.
There was a film crew at the bottom of my road the other morning. I’m not sure what they were filming (it was Doctors last time) but there are a few crews filming in the city at the moment. Hustle‘s back and Helena Bonham Carter Carter keeps being spotted in Kings Heath minding her own business/filming Toast.
However, it’s the no-budget Turbulence that’s swamped my Twitter stream over the past couple of weeks:
TURBULENCE is a Musical Romantic Comedy. The project is a collaboration between the actors David Alwyn, Adrian Banks, Emma Devereaux, Connor Mills, Shay O’Driscoll and Sophie Waller (all recent graduates of Birmingham School of Acting) and BAFTA award winning producer/director team Natasha Carlish and Michael B Clifford. Other exciting collaborators in the project are Adam Regan and the Hare & Hounds, The Scholars and Katy Pryce
There’s no particular budget for the film but it’s great to see how many people have pitched in to get the thing filmed.
Things are being documented diligently on their blog, so have a browse through. There’s likely to be scope for getting involved if you fancy it – a Twitter search for #turbulencefilm should keep you up to date on that.
Stitches & Hos, the little knitting hootenany organisers have got themselves a spangly new website. In case you’ve not come across them:
Stitches and Hos are a motley crew of enthusiasts for all things knitted, crocheted and stitched who run a monthly knitting night based at Hare and Hounds pub, Kings Heath, Birmingham
They’re there on the last Tuesday of every month, lost in a flurry of wool and needles. You don’t have to be a knitting wizz to go along, as I understand it, so don’t be put off going because you don’t know your [insert knitting jargon] from your [insert knitting jargon].
I’m continually impressed by the quality of the acts they get down at the Hare & Hounds, usually on the Leftfoot nights – they’re pulling out the stops for their 10th birthday:
Last night they had Greg Wilson (sorry I was slow on the uptake if you missed it). Coming up, they’ve got:
Heck, it’s Sunday morning. If you’ve not heard of her (which you will have, either via a sample or an advert) then I won’t labour the point, just treat yourself to 6 mins 53 secs of Yu-Ma/Go Away Little Boy. Then buy some tickets.
Created in Birmingham are going to be running the mulled wine stall at the Kings Heath Big Christmas Party on 5 December. Woo-hoo!
Stop. Flyer time:
If you’re about then please do come and say hi, this blogging stuff is lovely but real life’s great too. Also, the money you spend at our stall will go towards the Kings Heath Centre Partnership and the maintenance of this fair website. Oh yeah, but please drink moderately (we should have hot chocolate for sale too).
KateGoes Sock Crazy
KateGoes would like you to make sock puppet monkeys to star in the video to their first single. Film Ficciones seem to be involved in this too. 31 Jan 2010 is the deadline
something I said : Look Here!
Nice idea this – thinking about those huge banners used to cover up scaffolding – “So what happens a lot of times is that the banner is just a huge photo of the building – which is pretty cool. But what if the banner were more like experimental art? Or a photo of something else?”
Interview: David Massingham
DanceXchange’s artistic director talks about the International Dance Festival Birmingham
Anna Minton: ‘Ground Control’ Talk
“Acclaimed journalist Anna Minton presents her book Ground Control” at The Public on Wednesday 18 Nov. I mean to pick up a copy of this a while back but plain forgot. As The Guardian summarised it “This timely and powerful study argues that a flawed urban-planning strategy has turned our cities into unfriendly, suspicious places”
An Introduction to Creative Theatre Producing, Birmingham Rep
This course “will look at everything needed to put on a show or start a production or theatre company, from the local pub, to a national tour, to the West End of London. It will also touch on film and TV opportunities”
Analogue Out in the Open: Unguided Tours
“For the final part of the Analogue project you can book your place on an ‘unguided tour’ of Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution”
Unlimited – Invitation to Advice Session
Arts Council West Midlands will be holding an advice session for Unlimited, the UK’s largest ever disability arts programme, on Friday 20th November 2-4pm at their offices. Click the link for details
Lucy McLauchlan: Tacit
Your vote is required for a lovely and excellent thing – “A short film featuring Lucy McLauchlan’s improvised painting process and the harvesting of urban detritus”. Only takes a sec and can be done while you’re watching
New Textiles, Crochet & Paper Craft Workshops
“New Creative Workshops will be starting at the Creative Open Workshop’s base at Birmingham’s Custard Factory from 10 November 2009″. Added bonus – find out what the heck a Yo-Yo Fascinator is
War in a Rack Launch
Free gig by Soweto Kinch to highlight his troubles categorisation troubles and to launch Soweto Kinch Productions as an independent recording and production company
Birmingham Post – Creative industries’ major role in Birmingham economy
Anna Blackaby runs through the provisional findings of a new report commissioned by the Creative Birmingham Partnership Board. It’ll apparently conclude that “small firms operating in digital media, music and computer software and those in the design and architecture areas should be the focus of support”
Take it away from Arts Council England
“Take it away is an Arts Council initiative designed to help more people get involved in learning and playing music. The scheme allows individuals to apply for a loan of up to £2,000 for the purchase of any kind of musical instrument, and pay it back in nine monthly instalments, completely interest free”
Best Believe – Vintage Style
“a round up of all the places in Birmingham that you can get yourself fully hooked up on a purely vintage tip”
Built On Sand: A Birmingham Sampler ’78-’86
“The mix concerns itself with Birmingham’s vibrant but infamously fragmented and undervalued punk and post-punk scene of the late 70s and early 80s” Not sure who spotted this first, so apologies, but I’m seeing this everywhere at the moment
Yet another 10th birthday to add to the pile – Jibbering, the multi-faceted music/art promoters, are heading into double figures and will be celebrating that fact at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath on 14 November.
Over the years, as they say:
we have staged over 150 concerts and parties presenting the finest music Birmingham has to offer and hosting some of the most exciting live bands from further afield
Details of the night (who’s playing, etc) are on Jibbering‘s website and the Hare & Hounds‘ one too.
So big congrats to them. I’ll try and grab them for an interview at some point – if you’ve got any questions for them then please throw them in the comments below.
