Created in Birmingham

Misty’s Big Adventure are going the crowdfunding route for producing their next album. It’s a simple deal – pay £8 now, get an album to download later.

There’s also a whole shopping list of extras that you can pick up in exchange for a little more investment, including advance copies of the album on CD, T-shirts, an exclusive performance by the band and Grandmaster Gareth’s soul.

Things seem to be going pretty well so far – they’re up to 53% of their total already.

Others

A quick trawl around a few crowdfunding sites - Pledgebank, Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, Sponsume and WeDidThis – reveals just one more project from around Birmingham that’s asking for your money. I thought there’d be more (tell me if I missed any).

It’s a collaborative project between Birmingham-based Lantern Music and New York-based Cassis who are looking to fund the second part of A Hawk In The Rain. There’s more info about that project on their blog.

On 1 May 2010, mac will open its doors again and there’s a bunch of stuff going on to mark the occasion.

There’s a celebratory gig featuring Misty’s Big Adventure, Vijay Kishore, and Kevin Dempsey and Joe Broughton, there’s Motionhouse’s outdoor dance spectacular Cascade, The City Sings, featuring the new anthem for the mac by Helen Ottaway, and a host of other things to take part in.

But the fun stuff doesn’t stop there. Once mac is open, there’ll be a steady stream of events and interesting goings on to keep you going back to Cannon Hill Park for more.

On the performance side of things, there’s Motionhouse’s multimedia dance Scattered, comedian Daniel Kitson’s 66a Church Road,  “return” by spoken-word artist Polarbear. In the visual arts and events spectrum there’s a discussion on the invention of the balti, an exhibition charting the history of sampad, and a debate on social media and globalisation.

And don’t forget there’s a programme of events for families, learning opportunities and the cinema.

For full listings and updates, be sure to check the mac website here.

• Knight of the Camera: The Photographs of Sir Benjamin Stone MP
  The photos on display in Centenary Square at the moment are by Sir Benjamin Stone MP, an enthusiastic amateur photographer. This is the first time in a century that his work has been shown in Birmingham, his home town
• The Shambala Art Exhibition – Birmingham – The Final Show! at Jibbering Art
  The exhibition moves to Birmingham from Friday 10th – Friday 17th October @ Wild Building, 104 – 108 Floodgate Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B5 5SJ, 10.30am – 6.30pm. The launch night is Thurs 9 October, 7pm – 11pm – expect live art, afrika jam dj’s and more
• Overcoming Dictatorships
  This is the blog for “a two-year exchange between artists, poets and authors from various European countries about their experiences of the change from dictatorship to democracy, in particular after the opening of former communist countries since the end of the 1980s”. There’s a round table discussion at the Ikon on 8 Oct and a conference at Birmingham Uni on 9 Oct (with an exhibition there going on until 9 Nov)
• The Traditional Arts Team are having a ceilidh on Sat 18 Oct
  Apparently this is “part of the Big National Ceilidh – a night when, in cities, towns and villages all over the country, thousands of people will simultaneously be dancing to the music of live bands”
• Local Radio – where is the good news?
  Robin Valk muses on the state of local radio, specifically wondering (with advertising cuts likely and the cost of ‘old school radio’) whether it has any future
• Television’s People Out Today! – Mistys Big Adventure
  Grandmaster Gareth has been suffering. The new Mistys album is out today though, so things should start looking up