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.
On Saturday Electric Carnival is taking over half of Digbeth – the HMV Institute, Custard Factory, Air, Heath Mill Lane car park and the Rainbow venues – and they’ve got space for 9,000 people (1,500 more than last year). That’s kinda big.
On 23 February, Mostly Jazz were set to launch their 2011 Festival at The Rainbow, with a performance from a trio of contemporary Jazz performers; local, world class drummer, Tony Levin (above), saxophonist Paul Dunmall and young bass player Nick Jurd.
Sadly, Tony Levin passed away earlier this month, and so the gig is now set to go ahead in tribute to him, featuring the musicians originally booked to play alongside the legendary drummer.
The first set at 9pm will feature the Nick Jurd Quartet with Rachel Cohen on saxophone, Sam Wooster on trumpet, Nick on bass and Jim Bashford on drums. The second set will feature Paul Dunmall on saxophone, Mark Sanders and Tony’s son, Miles Levin on drums and Nick Jurd who Tony had personally chosen for the original gig.
Tickets for this event are £5, for more information, visit Birmingham Jazz, where they’ve also posted a tribute piece.
The Eastern Electronic Festival is a new six day festival, taking place from 28 February – 5 March, featuring music, film screenings, art exhibitions, panel debates and world premieres of visual-artworks.
The festival will celebrate progressive Asian music and multimedia art, spreading itself across the city, with events taking place at venues including The Custard Factory, The Rainbow and The Hockley.
They’ll also be showcasing the work of four emerging South Asian artists in online exhibition “M-V Future”. From 28 Feb, the exhibition with feature work from film director Mandeep Singh Jutla, live-music photographer Gobinder Jhitta, VJ-visual artist Coco Edwards and contemporary conceptual artist Kulwinder Bajar, .
For a full line-up of performers, exhibitions and events, take a look at the online programme.
Events from 28 Feb – 3 Mar are free entry, but should be pre-booked, and tickets are £10 a day for Fri 4/ Sat 5, or £18 for both. Visit the website for information on how and where to book.
The generally stress free holiday of Halloween presents an excuse for some thrilling fun for all ages. Here’s a run down of a few things going on in Birmingham;
Invisible City‘s final event, Media Circus, takes place on 29 Oct at Fazeley Studios. With entertainment, music, drinks, performances and digital displays, along with the winners of the Invisible City categories to be announced. Fancy dress is along the lines of Victorian Circus.
Black Country Living Museum are holding Halloween at the Museum on 30 & 31 Oct from 6.30pm – 10pm, with opportunities for psychic reading and trick or treating along the cobbled streets.
Take a guided tour of Aston Hall, exploring the ghosts and legends on 31 Oct at 7.30pm. Full of spooky surprises, this is not suitable for children of a ‘nervous disposition’.
Halloween Night at the Museum Collections Centre invites you on a spine tingling trail for a chance to see some of the scariest objects not on general display, join the tour on 29 Oct from 6.30pm – 9pm.
Since Halloween falls on a weekend, it would be a crime to let an opportunity to get dressed up go unmentioned. Most weekend club nights will be welcoming heavy eyeliner and fake blood, on the only occasion where you can get away with wearing a bin liner, here’s a few that stand out;
Plus outfit inspiration is provided by this month’s issue of Area for how to pull off a creepy-but-cool costume, with just the right amount of effort to keep your street cred.
The Aston Triangle Cinema Club has been created in order to put on high quality and interesting films from around the world for the benefit of Aston staff, students and the public
Maybe you could feature the new website which has now gone live & ask your audience to dig out any memorabilia they might have – photos, videos or just stories.
Which sounds fair enough. We’ve mentioned this one a few times already, but it’s a good project so what the heck. Go here and get involved:
Some good copy from Kent Davis at The Rainbow on their upcoming plans:
May 2010 sees the start our most ambitious period of metamorphosis yet. How do you get more underground than The Rainbow? – only one way – turn the cellar into a venue. The Cellar Door (opening May 28 2010) – is under the very floorboards of the The Rainbow itself. The original Rainbow now consists of Bar, Courtyard and Cellar each delivering a specific flavour to the overall taste of this unique venue.
July2010 heralds the arrival of The Mezzanine.
The Rainbow Warehouse has hosted some legendary nights and provided the springboard for some maverick and massively successful brands. Anyone who promotes here has relished the sense of decadence that comes with partying under the arches or the frisson of danger provided by the imposing industrial ironwork throughout the interior. There is only one place left to go UP. Launching in July 2010 The Mezzanine will ensure Summer Daytime parties will be going to new levels as The Rainbow Warehouse installs an innovative take on The Zoo Project and DC10, and allows for open air partying on tiered levels.
The Arena (opening October 2010) is at the Opposite end of Adderley Street. Bringing massed ranks of more Victorian railway arches under the over-reaching curve of The Rainbow’s embrace – The Arena is set to witness musical mayhem and battles reminiscent of The Coliseum – whose amphitheatre architecture it mimics. This massive site alone can cater for a capacity of 5000.
The Rainbow Complex now contains 9 separate venues on the same street that can be utilised for events of 200-5000 in isolation, or combined via a road closures to create a unique self contained Urban complex for 10,000 – licensed until 6am. This is unprecedented anywhere else in the UK.
Any chance of a proper website or something so we can find out what events are happening down there?
Leon Sparkes is an artist, painter, illustrator, author, graphic designer and music composer who’s also done bits and pieces on interior design with The Rainbow pub and Saint Caffe in St Pauls Square. I’ll let Leon explain more:
I have merged various art forms creating my own distinctive art style, creating storytelling trends and concepts. I’m enthusiastic and hard working. I’m success driven and enjoy making a difference to my space and environment. My Incentive is driven on the basis of ergonomics, our enviroment and landscape.
You can check out more of his stuff on his portfolio site.
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
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
Nearly five years ago, a group of friends and I decided to take some initiative and create for ourselves the kind of organisation and event that we would most want to be a part of. The result is Project X Presents – a Birmingham based creative network producing events once or twice a year which aim to fuse many different strands of creative endeavour into one cohesive whole.
So what is a network anyway? In our case, a free association of individuals bonded by two essential qualities – an interest in creativity and a friendly, open minded attitude. We realised that between ourselves and our immediate friends we have between us a tremendous variety of interests and an urge to be together and be creative. Weekly meetings began and continue still, the network steadily grew. Our fifth event – Xhibition, comes up this Saturday in Moseley.
Worth reproducing this email from John Tighe of The Spotted Dog:
Kent Davis of The Rainbow has asked for help in support of two retrospective planning applications for the Rainbow Warehouse. These are for premises that are already up and running, licensed and to quote the local police “run in an exemplary mannerâ€.
Kent’s problem is that the Birmingham City Council’s Planning Department (presumably because he is not a major developer helping to enhance our City with unneeded Gerrybuilt flats) has taken issue with the fact that, although all other departments had been satisfied, he had not requested their permission for change of use from warehouse to whatever category it should be. Also, the bit under the arches is officially uncovered so requires some other hoops to be jumped through.
This was a complete oversight. These matters are normally paper-shifting and rubber-stamp jobs – fairly routine. However, considering the recent threats from Environmental Health about noise issues it might be necessary to demonstrate widespread approval from the unwashed majority. Please get involved and get your friends involved. Too much is happening in Digbeth behind our backs!
There are a few more workshops running too, and events over in Derby, Nottingham and Leicester to boot. See the what’s on page on the BASS Festival website for more.
